In the blink of an eye, it was the first month of the first year again, and it was the eighth day of the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen.

At this time, Liu Yan was discussing the latest structure of the shogunate with Zhao Min, Tian Huixu, Miao Shao, Yue Ming and others, although several sets of plans had been sorted out, but Liu Yan was still not satisfied, thinking that these sets of plans were still too conservative, and they were completely copied according to the structure of the imperial court at this time, and were not suitable for the needs of the high-speed development of Qinglai Town.

So Liu Yan put forward several requirements, that is, to incorporate the chamber of commerce and various industries into the structure of the shogunate, and other things such as the medical hall, the firearms supervision office, the armor supervision office, the military town government affairs, the city management, etc., must be included in the structure of the shogunate.

Zhao Min, Tian Huixu, Miao Shao, Yue Ming and others were the representatives of their subordinates, and after listening to Liu Yan's request, they all frowned, and discussed a few times in a whisper from time to time.

Liu Yan also had some ideas at this time, and as a whole, he still adopted the structure of the six departments at this time, and then added a few new departments, and the rest would have some adjustments.

However, Liu Yan did not say these thoughts, but let Zhao Min, Tian Huixu, Miao Shao, Yue Ming and others think about it themselves. Now that Qinglai Town is developing rapidly and the scale is getting bigger and bigger, you can't do everything yourself, you still have to let your subordinates grow up as soon as possible, and it's best for all of them to be on their own.

"Don't worry, I'll discuss it after I go back, and come up with the latest strategy as soon as possible."

At the same time, Li Zicheng stationed troops in Henan and began to organize the army of thieves.

After Li Zicheng led the army into Henan, it was in the stage of defeat and recovery, and the troops were insufficient, so he went north along the Funiu Mountain from Xichuan and Neixiang, where the mountains are undulating, the roads are dangerous, the residents are sparse, and there are many unemployed people living in it.

Subsequently, Li Zicheng's soldiers and horses continued to grow, and when they arrived in Yiyang, they received tens of thousands of remnants of Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, and Ainengqi's troops, and the momentum was greatly boosted.

At this time, Li Zicheng had 480,000 soldiers and horses, and more than 300,000 displaced people such as military families, totaling more than 800,000, known as one million people.

After rectification, Li Zicheng redivided the front, rear, left, right, and middle battalions of soldiers and horses, and the tens of thousands of soldiers and horses of Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, and Ai Nengqi were reduced to less than 30,000 men, equipped with firearms and artillery, and used as a firearms battalion.

The specific groups are as follows:

In the middle camp, the flag is cyan; General Liu Zongmin, General Tian Jianxiu, General He Jin, and former General Guoyi Ren Jirong; Consequence Yi General Wu Ruyi, Zheng Mighty General Zhang Nai, Deputy Mighty General Dang Shousu, Left Mighty General Xin Sizhong, Right Mighty General Li You.

Left battalion, the flag is white; General Liu Fangliang, Deputy General Liu Xiyao, General Ma Shiyao of Zuo Guoyi, and Liu Rukui, General of Right Might.

The right battalion, the flag is red; General Yuan Zongdi, General Bai Minghe of the Left Guoyi, and General Liu Tichun of the Right Guoyi.

In the front camp, the flag is black; General Li Laiheng, General Gu Kecheng and Xie Junyou on the left, and Tian Hu, General Tian Hu on the right.

After the camp, the flag is yellow; General Li Guo, General Zhang Neng of Zuo Guoyi, General Ma Chongxi, Helan, Lu Yingbiao, and Gao Yigong of General Guoyi of the right.

firearms battalion, the flag is red; General Li Dingguo, General Sun Kewang of the Left Guoyi, and General Ai Nengqi of the Right Guoyi.

The rest of Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Gu Junen and others were named the front, rear, left and right four major military divisions.

In addition, Li Zicheng incorporated more than 300,000 family members of the army into the old battalion, and the elite cavalry and other elites of the old battalion into the middle battalion, and the rest of the troops and horses were also divided into various battalions.

After some rectification, the strength of the middle battalion was the strongest, with 20,000 horsemen and 120,000 foot soldiers; The front, rear, left, and right battalions each had 80,000 soldiers and horses, and the firearms battalion had nearly 30,000 soldiers and horses.

After reorganizing the group, Li Zicheng spent more than ten days conducting simple drills for each battalion, and Li Yan also selected some guns from the captured officers and soldiers of various units, and even more than 20 Franc machine guns, as well as some captured officers and gunners.

However, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, and Ai Nengqi had great opinions on this reorganization, and the three of them brought 60,000 or 70,000 soldiers and horses, and after some reorganization, there were less than 30,000 people left, and the strength of the army was obviously weakened.

As the saying goes, the situation is stronger than people, and the three of them still endured it in the face of the intruding army in full swing, and concentrated on training the firearms battalion.

Yiyang County is 70 miles away from Luoyang in the east, located in the Luohe River, bordering the Luohe River in the north, and close to Jinping Mountain in the south, forming a fan-shaped natural barrier.

Li Zicheng was complacent at this time, and continued to garrison Yiyang County with the middle battalion and the old battalion, and ordered the firearms battalion to stay behind and conduct strict drills. In less than a month, the army of thieves swept away the periphery of Luoyang with Keyanshi, Lingbao, Xin'an, Baofeng and other counties, and the world shook for a while.

The news that the army of thieves was about to attack Luoyang City spread far and wide, and fast horses from all over the country quickly reported to Jingshi.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard that Luoyang City was in danger, Long Yan was furious, and immediately sent Jinyi Wei to Huguang to investigate Yang Sichang's condition, and prepared to urge Yang Sichang to gather troops and horses north to Henan as soon as possible, and block Li Zicheng's troops on the coast of Luoshui.

Luoyang, the ancient capital, is an important town in western Henan and the seat of the feudal mansion of Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu. Fuwang Zhu Changxun is the third son of Mingshenzong, and his biological mother is Zheng Guifei, the most favored concubine of Mingshenzong. As the saying goes, the son is more precious than the mother, and Zhu Changxun has been particularly favored by the Mingshen Sect since he was a child.

Originally, according to the intention of Mingshenzong, Zhu Changxun was to be appointed as the crown prince, but it led to the protest of the ministers of the court, and finally under the pressure of public opinion from the courtiers, Mingshenzong reluctantly agreed to make Zhu Changluo, the eldest son of the emperor, the crown prince.

So in order to take revenge on the strength of the civil officials, the Mingshenzong Assault Case, the Palace Removal Case and the Red Pill Case followed one after another, so that the courtiers were involved in the whirlpool of endless palace disputes.

At the same time, because Zhu Changxun's dream of becoming a prince could not come true, Shenzong compensated Chang Xun financially, not only making an exception and rewarding him, but also agreeing to the requirements of Fuwang Zhuangtian, salt, commercial taxes, etc., and all of them were reciprocated.

In the twenty-ninth year of Wanli, Mingshenzong named Zhu Changxun as the blessed king, and the wedding cost for him was as high as 300,000 gold, and the magnificent palace was built for him in Luoyang, which exceeded the cost of the general royal system ten times. Hundreds of millions of dollars and wealth were all besieged by King Fu, and King Fu asked for 40,000 hectares of land, but because there was not so much land to give, he had to halve. After King Fu came to Luoyang to take up the domain, he sent officials in the palace to occupy land everywhere, did everything possible to loot the people's fat and ointment, and wantonly gathered wealth, known as King Fu's gold and silver wealth in the world!

As a result, Zhu Changxun, the blessed king, lived a life of drunkenness and luxury, preferring to let the grain rot in the granary, and would rather watch thousands of hungry people starve to death than take out a grain to help the poor people. As a result, it aroused strong indignation among the people.

It can be said that the people around Luoyang City are very resentful of Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu, especially those who have been robbed of land by the Fuwang Mansion, and they are even more eager to skin Zhu Changxun alive.

Therefore, after Li Zicheng commanded the battalions to remove the obstacles on the periphery of Luoyang, he made the decision to attack Luoyang under the advice of Li Yan and Gu Junen.

Then the bandit scouts of the brigade began to advance in the direction of Luoyang, from the beginning of careful exploration, to the later extreme arrogance, and even three or five thief scouts dared to swagger through the suburbs of Luoyang City, not taking the defenders in the city in their eyes at all.

But even so, Fu Wang Zhu Changxun still turns a blind eye to such a crisis, drinks and has fun every day, and has sex with beautiful women~ for fun, which is completely a posture of preparing to get drunk and die in the gentle township.

At this time, the situation in Luoyang was already in danger, and many people saw it in their eyes, except for Zhu Changxun, the blessed king.

At that time, Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, who was on business in Luoyang City, was one of them, and Lu Weiqi felt the severity of the situation, so he wrote a handwritten letter and sent it to the Fuwang Mansion when he visited the door several times, but could not see Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu.

In the letter, Lu Weiqi wrote: "Three years of strange famine, unheard of. Villages and towns starved to death, and cities were killed and eaten. Bandits were entrenched everywhere, combined with hundreds of thousands of thieves, and even broke the three counties of Lushan, Jiaxian, and Yiyang, and within six days, they broke the two counties of Yiyang and Yongning. The thieves are surging, and the peeping is very urgent. Nothing is unbreakable, nothing is overcome. And the thoughts of the hungry people are in turmoil, and the disintegration of people's hearts is worrying. None of the soldiers in Futai came, although there were two soldiers of Cao and Yi, there was no food, and the battlemen at the head of the city were all ghost-shaped dove-faced and dying. There is nothing to worry about in the city, and there is a danger of tired eggs and morning dew! ”

Lu Weiqi hoped that Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu, could urge Li Xianfeng, the governor of Henan, and ordered him to urgently send troops and horses to Luoyang to strengthen the city defense; and suggested that Zhu Changxun, the king of fortune, think about his own net worth and life, and take out money and grain to solve the food and salary of the defenders in the city.

Lu Weiqi took the fall of Yiyang and Yongning as a reference, and said that the clan officials and gentry in the two cities were leisurely and flickering, relying on the sky to live, not making a profit, not giving up a penny, and not listening to a word. I hope that Zhu Changxun will not act as a short-sighted miser, and finally fall to the point of being out of reach.

However, Zhu Changxun, who wanted money and didn't want to die, couldn't listen to it at all, and after reading Lu Weiqi's handwritten letter, he tore it up directly, and scolded Lu Weiqi for being alarmist and sensationalist in front of all his subordinates.

"What kind of place is Luoyang City? It's the capital of the ancient gods! Li Zicheng may be able to lay down some county seats, but if he wants to conquer Luoyang City, he is still far away! ”

Zhu Changxun was obese, and after roaring loudly for a while, he felt that he was not breathing, and sat down with a sigh of relief, and the beauties on both sides hurriedly came over, and they were smooth and sweaty, and Zhu Changxun calmed down.

"Send someone to tell that Lu Weiqi, let him finish his work, go back to Nanjing as soon as possible, and don't get in the way of the king's eyes in Luoyang!"

"Yes."

Lu Weiqi was also dumbfounded after receiving the reply from the blessed king Zhu Changxun, he was obviously loyal, but in the end he was scolded.

In the end, Lu Weiqi left Luoyang City with tears, and on the way back to Nanjing, he encountered a thief scout, Lu Weiqi and more than a dozen servants were all killed, and the corpse was dragged by the thief scout with a rope, all the way down for several miles, all of them were dragged out of shape, and the white bones were not human.

At this time, Li Zicheng led hundreds of thousands of thieves to gather in Luoyang, and for a time the whole Henan was in turmoil, and the people around Luoyang City fled one after another, and many people were stopped by the thieves and horses who surrounded them from all directions, and they were immediately coerced as homeless people, and all of them were sent to the old camp.

A few days later, Wang Shaoyu, the commander-in-chief of Henan Prefecture, led Liu Jianyi and Luo Tai to help, and the three of them led 8,000 Ming troops to arrive outside Luoyang City day and night.

Subsequently, Wang Shaoyu, the chief military officer, sent someone to send an official document, asking to lead his troops into the city to assist in defending the palace, but Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu, heard the news and sent someone to inform the prefect of Luoyang that reinforcements were not allowed to enter the city, on the grounds that there was insufficient money and food in the city and could not supply the 8,000 reinforcements.

Wang Shaoyu, the chief military officer, was furious when he received the reply, and then led his troops to force his way into the city, but was reprimanded in public by the eunuchs guarding the Fuwang Mansion.

As a last resort, Wang Shaoyu, the chief military officer, had no choice but to retreat, and after bribing the eunuchs guarding the prison, he only led 3,000 soldiers and horses from his headquarters into the city, while Liu Jianyi and Luo Tai's second deputy generals were left outside Luoyang City and led 5,000 soldiers and horses to be stationed in Dongguan.

Two days later, Li Zicheng led the main force of thieves to kill, and hundreds of thousands of thieves surrounded Luoyang City, and the huge Luoyang City was immediately cut off from the outside world.

Some people died, but not completely......