-- The book continues --

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, on the first day of the first lunar month, when Zhu Youzhen went to the Huangji Palace to accept the court, he found that only Luo Yangxing, the commander of the Jinyi Guard, was present. Zhu Youzhen ordered the bell to ring the door to open the door, no one came for a long time, Zhu Youzhen was ready to worship the temple first and then accept the congratulations, and found that the horses were not ready, so they were still waiting to receive the congratulations, and then the civil and military officials came one after another, and they entered each other when they stood on the court, and they were very embarrassed.

On the same day, a sandstorm occurred in Beiping.

And Li Zicheng, who was located in Xi'an, also founded the country on this day, called Dashun, and the year name Yongchang, and then waved his army to the east to conquer Shanxi and smashed Beiping.

Under the precarious situation, the proposal to move the capital to the south of Beijing surfaced. It is said that when the Qing army entered the fortress for the sixth time last year, Zhu Youzhen discussed with Zhou Yanru to move south, but was stopped by the imperial sister-in-law, Empress Dowager Yi'an (Empress Zhang).

On the third day of the first lunar month, when Zuo Zhongyun Li Mingrui was summoned by Zhu Youzhen in the Dezheng Palace, he strongly persuaded him to move south, and Zhu Youzhen also expressed his approval. He wanted the ministers to take the lead, but none of the ministers proposed it.

On the ninth day of the first lunar month, the military department received a war letter from Li Zicheng, agreeing that the decisive battle would be fought under the city of Beijing on the 10th day of the first month of March. Zhu Youzhen summoned the ministers and said with tears: "I am not the king of the dead country, everything is the image of the dead country." The ancestors were in the wind and rain in the world, once lost, what face can be seen underground? I wish to oversee the master, in order to fight a battle, that is, I will die on the battlefield, and I will not care, but I will not be blind to death. Chen Yan, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Wei Zaode, the second assistant, asked the emperor to go on the expedition, but Zhu Youzhen did not agree, and finally agreed to be supervised by Li Jiantai, a cabinet minister from Shanxi.

Li Zicheng promulgated a document on the Ming Dynasty, which stated that "the monarch is not very dark, isolated and obscured; The ministers do their best for personal gain, and they are less loyal to the party than the party", and asked Zhu Youzhen and his ministers to surrender immediately, so as to protect the glory and wealth.

On February 21, Li Zicheng encountered stubborn resistance from Zhou Yuji in Ningwu, but finally defeated him, and the road to Beijing was unimpeded from then on.

During this period, Zhu Youzhen wanted to transfer Wu Sangui, the general army of Liaodong, to lead the Guanning strong army to Jingqinwang, but he gave up because he was unwilling to give up Ningyuan and the lack of salary.

Zhu Youjian saw that the southward move was very controversial, so on February 28 he expressed his refusal to move south, declaring: "The monarch is dead, and righteousness is righteous." I'm determined! ”

Zhu Youzhen summoned the ministers to discuss, there were still great differences, Guang Shiheng even said that the prince first imitated the story of Tang Suzong's ascension to the throne Lingwu, but when it came to the strategy of war and defense, the ministers were collectively silent.

On the fourth day of the first month of March, Zhu Youzhen named Wu Sangui, the general of Liaodong, as Ping Xibo, Zuo Liangyu, the general of Pingjiao, as Ning Nanbo, Tang Tong, the general soldier of Jizhen, as Dingxibo, and Huang Degong, the general soldier of Fenglu, as Jingnanbo, and the rest of the general soldiers were also promoted. At the same time, Zhu Youzhen decided to abandon Ningyuan, and recruited Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Liaodong, and Wang Yongji, the governor of Jiliao, to lead troops into the guard, and then recruited Tang Tong and Liu Zeqing to lead troops into the guard. Although Wu Sangui had 5,000 elite soldiers under his command, he slowed down the speed because he had to migrate soldiers and civilians inside and outside the customs; Only Tang Tong's 2,000 (one says 8,000) Qin Wang army arrived in time and was sent to guard Juyong Pass.

On March 15, Juyong Pass was broken and Tang Tong surrendered.

At noon the next day, Li Zicheng's vanguard arrived at the outskirts of Beijing, trapped Changping, and burned the emperor's mausoleum.

Zhu Youzhen's emotions were out of control, he "looked up to the trombone, walked around the hall, rubbed his chest, sighed all night", and shouted: "The civil and military ministers inside and outside the country misunderstood me!" Mistake me! ”

On the morning of March 18, he summoned his ministers for the last time and said, "It is better for everyone to finish their work (commit suicide) in the Fengxian Palace."

On the same day, Li Zicheng sent the eunuchs Du Xun and Shen Zhixiu, who had surrendered, to Beiping City to negotiate with Zhu Youzhen, and the conditions offered were "to cut the land and make peace", so that Li Zicheng would cut off the alleged king in the northwest and pay one million taels of silver, which could help pacify other rebel armies and the Qing army in Liaodong, but not the Hajj; The other is to ask Zhu Youzhen to "abdicate his position". In short, Zhu Youzhen did not agree.

The wind and rain were mixed in the morning, and the rain stopped at noon, and Li Zicheng ordered to continue the siege. Before then, a group of Hui people (one said to be the eunuch Cao Huachun) opened the Guangning Gate (Changyi Gate, now Guang'an Gate), and the outer city fell.

After Zhu Youzhen learned the news of the fall of the outer city, he wanted to summon Li Guozhen, the governor of Xiangcheng, to lead three battalions to escort him, but the eunuch reported that these soldiers had broken up and advised him to flee quickly.

Zhu Youzhen took the eunuchs to climb the coal mountain behind the Forbidden City (also known as Long Live Mountain, Wanshou Mountain, now Jingshan) to look, and it was difficult to get out, so he went down the mountain and returned to the Qianqing Palace, held a final banquet with Queen Zhou and other concubines, and asked them to commit suicide.

Swinging his sword and slashing at Princess Changping and Princess Zhaoren, the former was cut off and fainted, the latter died on the spot, and sent people to the palaces to urge the Empress Dowager Yi'an and Xi Li to commit suicide.

In the end, he and Wang Chengen climbed the coal mountain and hanged themselves on a tree, and Wang Chengen also hanged himself relatively by himself. It is said that Zhu Youzhen lingered for a long time before his death, lamenting that there was no one among the ministers to accompany him, and comforted himself that the ministers did not know his whereabouts, and then hanged himself.

On the morning of Zhu Youzhen's hanging, the whole city surrendered, Li Zicheng entered the imperial city, found the remains of Empress Zhou and other female dependents, and the three princes were also betrayed by the eunuchs Li Zong Zhou and Wang Zhijun and became prisoners, but Zhu Youzhen's whereabouts were not found.

It was not until March 20 that Zhu Youzhen's body was found. He was wearing a blue robe, his hair was scattered, covering his face, his right foot was wearing socks and a red square, his left foot was barefoot, and there was a bloody edict on his chest: "Let the thief divide the corpse, and do not hurt a single person."

Zhu Youzhen called himself "the king of the country who died of the country", and blamed the death of the country on "the mistakes of the ministers", and later generations also sympathized and affirmed him. However, there are also opinions that Zhu Youzhen is talented and sparse, has character defects such as rigidity and self-use, impatience and suspicion, and bears unshirkable responsibility for the death of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youzhen's body was transported outside the Donghua Gate and placed together with the body of Empress Zhou, "30 ministers cried and worshipped, 60 worshippers did not cry, and the rest were ignored."

Subsequently, at the request of the Ming Dynasty eunuch Wang Dehua and others, Li Zicheng used a better coffin to re-bury the remains of Zhu Youzhen and his wife, and buried them in the tomb of Tian Guifei on the third day of the first month of April, and only the eunuchs and the people sent Zhu Youzhen for the funeral.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, in May, the Qing army entered the customs, and the regent Dolgon announced that Zhu Youzhen would be mourned for three days, so it was necessary to draw up the temple number and the name of the temple. This task was given to Li Mingrui, who proposed the temple name "Huaizong", the nickname "Qintianshou Dao Minyi Dunjian Hongwen Xiangwu Tiren Zhi Xiao Zhuang Lieduan Emperor", and the mausoleum name "Siling".

At the same time, the Hongguang regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty also gave Zhu Youzhen the temple number of "Sizong" and the nickname of "Shao Tian Yi Dao Gangming Gong Wen Fen Wu Dun Ren Mao Xiaolie Emperor" in June.

Li Zicheng fought with Wu Sangui and Dolgon at Shanhaiguan, unfortunately defeated, and was killed in the Tongshan area in the second year of Jin Shunzhi at the age of 40.

Wu Sangui knew it in his heart. From then on, he never mentioned anything "revenge on his father", but turned his rudder, called Emperor Chongzhen "the old master", and repeatedly confessed that he was "loyal to the new dynasty". During this period, Wu Sangui asked for a large number of rewards for himself and his subordinates, and the Qing court did not refuse to accept them.

Due to Wu Sangui's autocratic rule in central Yunnan for 14 years, Wu Sangui proclaimed himself the first year of the "King of Zhou". He trapped Wu Yingqi in Yuezhou, and the Battle of Yuezhou broke out.

In the seventeenth year of Kangxi, the heat in Hengzhou was scorching, and Wu Sangui was in an uncomfortable mood, too anxious, and too much liver fire, so he suddenly got the disease of "stroke and hiccups", and then added the disease of "diarrhea". Wu Sangui instructed his confidant ministers to welcome the emperor's grandson Wu Shifan to Hengzhou to succeed to the throne and entrust the future. Late at night on August 18, Wu Sangui died of illness in the capital Hengzhou, and he only served as emperor for more than five months.

After that, the Qing Dynasty brought the great Hua-Xia into a humiliation for nearly 300 years.

——To be continued——