After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, he raised the status of his hometown Fengyang and became the central capital of the Ming Dynasty.

The capital of the Ming Dynasty was built in the second year of Hongwu, and was built in the eighth year of Hongwu, and it was built for six years.

It covers an area of more than 50 square kilometers, with three cities, the inner city (Imperial City) is 120,000 square meters larger than the Forbidden City in Beijing.

After that, from the eighth year of Hongwu in October to rebuild the annex building of the capital and build the imperial tomb, Hongwu twenty-six years to build the outer city gate of the capital, to the thirty years of the construction of the capital construction work completed.

It can be said that the construction of Fengyang, the central capital, ran through almost the entire Hongwu era.

However, after Zhu Di moved the capital of the Ming Dynasty to Beijing, it was relatively far away from Fengyang, and it gradually became a place to punish the clan and the eunuchs who lost power.

Before Wei Zhongxian's death, he was assigned to Fengyang to guard the imperial mausoleum.

Despite this, Fengyang's status is still much higher than that of other cities, and it is the land of Longxing in the Ming Dynasty.

Fengyang Mansion has a heavy army, set up a central capital to stay behind the division, control eight guards and a thousand households, and there are also governor's yamen and town guard eunuchs in the city.

The governor of Fengyang is stationed in Huai'an, Jiangsu, to supervise the canal transportation, and his rights are still very large.

In fact, when Gao Yingxiang and other righteous troops had just entered Henan and besieged Luoyang, Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, played Chongzhen and asked the imperial court to take precautions as soon as possible.

Chongzhen didn't realize the seriousness of the matter at all, and just issued an edict, ordering Yang Yipeng, the governor of Fengyang, to garrison troops at various key points to defend.

Yang Yipeng, who was old and sick and lacked energy, saw that the righteous army was far away in Henan, so he took it lightly and did not take any practical and effective defensive measures.

Originally, Zhang Xianzhong was going to go directly to Huguang from the Xinyang area.

However, the rebels found that the Ming army around Fengyang was very slack, so Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng and others together decided to directly occupy Fengyang.

The rebels have actually been chased and beaten by Cao Wenzhao, and their morale is not too high.

That is, by attacking the city and plundering the land all the way, distributing the food in the hands of the gentry and tyrants to the people, and using the money as military expenses to win the support of the people.

A large number of gentry and landlords were slaughtered where the rebels passed, and the rebels naturally won the support of the local people, in addition to being able to replenish the army in a steady stream.

The common people also acted as the eyes of the rebels, and Cao Wenzhao's several raids were all because the local people reported to the rebels in advance and did not do their best.

They also often tricked the officials and soldiers and showed the way indiscriminately, so that Cao Wenzhao simply did not ask the local people about the situation of the rebels.

This is also what Li Xianzhong wants to see, he had better all kinds of righteous armies cross the border like locusts and ravage the gentry and landlords of the entire Ming Dynasty.

In this way, the gentry who were lucky enough not to die would not have much resistance to the "gentry paying grain in one piece" implemented in Liaodong.

After all, Li Xianzhong just asked them to pay for food, and the rebels not only asked them to pay for food, but also for their lives, wives, and daughters.

And he didn't let the scholars directly serve together like Yongzheng in later generations, so he really didn't treat them as human beings.

Although Li Xianzhong took out the silver from their pockets, he still retained their dignity to some extent.

Zhang Xianzhong said: "This Cao Wenzhao is really troublesome, it is simply a ghost, and he has followed him all the way from Shanxi to the present. Many of the rebel brothers died tragically at his hands, and they had to find a way to get rid of him. ”

At the beginning, the 36th battalion of the rebel army in the Jinnan Alliance was only 14 when the "Xingyang Conference" was held.

They are the old Huihui, Cao Cao, Ge Li Yan, Zuo Jin King, Reincarnated King, Shooting Collapse Sky, Hengtian King, Mixed 100,000, Guotianxing, Nine Dragons, Shuntian King and Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng.

However, the rebel army still has a scale of more than 100,000!

The leaders of the rebel army present were naturally eager to give Cao Wen Zhao eight pieces to vent the resentment in their hearts!

Although "Lao Huihui" led the Fifth Battalion of Zuo Ge back to Shanxi, he took away half of Cao Wenzhao's men.

"Cao Cao" Luo Rucai successfully lured Cao Wenzhao to the west of Henan, but it only took three or four days for the cavalry under his command to catch up with the main force of Gao Yingxiang's righteous army.

They still haven't completely gotten rid of Cao Wenzhao's entanglement.

Chong Guangdao said: "It is unlikely that we will eliminate Cao Wenzhao on the battlefield, but we can use the hand of Emperor Chongzhen to get rid of him." ”

Everyone was puzzled, and King Gao Yingxiang said: "Even if the little emperor Chongzhen doesn't know how to fight, he won't 'self-destroy the Great Wall', right?" ”

Chong Guangdao smiled and said: "Don't forget, Fengyang, the central capital of the Ming Dynasty, not only has the imperial palace, but also the imperial mausoleum repaired by Zhu Yuanzhang and the Longxing Temple where he was a monk. ”

"If we even destroy this place, do you think Chongzhen will be angry with Cao Wenzhao, who is ineffective in suppressing bandits?"

I have to say that the trick of "borrowing a knife to kill" can indeed be vicious.

So the main force of the righteous army hurriedly marched from Henan to Nanzhili in the southeast.

The rebel army broke the momentum of the bamboo, Liankemi County, Shangcai, Runing and other places.

After the army left Runing, the soldiers were divided into two routes, preparing to attack the land of Longxing of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, and Fengyang, the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Chuang Wang Gao Yingxiang led an army from Xincai and Shouzhou (now Shou County, Anhui) to Fengyang;

On the other hand, led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the eight kings nicknamed "Yellow Tiger", they waved their troops east to Yingzhou (now Fuyang, Anhui), and then attacked Fengyang from Yingzhou to the east.

On the eleventh day of the first month of the third year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong led the army to surround Yingzhou.

Zhizhou Yin Mengao and Zhao Shikuan, the general judge, led the defenders to strictly defend the army, and Zhang Heming, the former secretary of the military department who was registered in Zhishi, also took the initiative to assist in the defense.

When conquering Runing and other places before, the rebels captured a lot of artillery.

They set up artillery bombardment outside the city, and the defenders on the city wall were already small, and because they could not resist the fierce artillery fire, the city was quickly broken by the rebels.

After the city of Yingzhou was broken, the Ming officials who defended the city behaved quite dignified.

After the rebels entered the city, they still led the crowd to engage in a brutal and bloody street battle with them, either dying in battle or committing suicide by throwing themselves into the water after being seriously wounded, and no one surrendered.

Yin Mengao's family of seven in Yingzhou Zhizhou was killed, and only one infant son survived.

After the fall of the city, Zhao Shikuan refused to flee, he used the gold and silver jewelry of his family to recruit warriors, swore to fight to the death, and finally was seriously injured and threw himself into the river and died, his wife hanged herself, and his two daughters also committed suicide with their mother.

The rebels were also enraged by the resistance of the official army, especially Zhang Xianzhong's subordinates, who were extremely murderous!

After the 78-year-old Zhang Heming, the former secretary of the military department, was caught by the rebels, he was hung from a tree, and then he was shot into a "hedgehog" by a bow and arrow, and his death was extremely miserable.

His eldest son, Zhang Datong, was stabbed to death by Zhang Xianzhong's subordinates, and his younger brother Zhang Hesheng, 75, was also killed for scolding the rebels.

Almost all the officials and gentry in Yingzhou City were beheaded by the rebels, and 77 people were killed alone.

Li Zicheng's men and horses are still very strict in military discipline, and they will not kill people at will even when they go to collect supplies.

Even if you want to kill some people who "sacrifice their lives and not give up their money", they will not be tortured and killed.

Zhang Xianzhong was extremely indulgent to his subordinates, but fortunately, they only targeted some gentry officials and their families, and did not attack ordinary people.

After opening the warehouse and releasing grain, the rebels still received the support of the common people, and there were even young people who had little to eat and took the initiative to join the rebels.

These people not only helped the rebels capture the gentry in the city and confiscate their property, but also only helped the rebels to infiltrate Fengyang City.

You must know that Yingzhou is within the scope of Fengyang Mansion, and it can be seen that the people of Fengyang at this time are already disappointed in the Ming Dynasty!

At this time, Fengyang City, which is not far from Yingzhou, is still in a mess!

On the fifteenth Lantern Festival of the first lunar month, the officials and people in the city were busy celebrating the festival, and a large peasant army suddenly came quietly from all directions, and surrounded the city unconsciously.

In the early morning of the next day, heavy fog fell from the sky, and the generals defending the city were still asleep, and some people reported that there were "thieves" outside the city, and they were even beaten up by the defenders on the grounds of lying about the military situation.

Suddenly, there was a cannon outside the city, and there was a shout of surprise and noise on the city, and the order was chaotic, and some people shouted "The thieves are attacking the city", and the officials reacted.

The central capital Fengyang has a lot of troops, more than 8,000 people.

As long as you hold out for a few days, reinforcements from Nanjing will arrive.

However, it is obvious that these old soldiers have a fight with the three major battalions of the Beijing Division, and it is estimated that they never thought that there was an idea of the righteous army in the territory of Daming to dare to hit the capital Fengyang.

At this time, hundreds of thieves had already successfully infiltrated Fengyang City under the cover of the local people.

As the cannon fire of the rebels outside the city rang out, they knew it was time for them to act.

Soon they took out the weapons they had smuggled into the city and rushed to the gates.

Fengyang's defenders didn't have much will to fight, and when they found out that the thieves had entered the city, they immediately panicked.

The rebels outside the city took advantage of the situation to attack the city and soon killed the city.

Most of the defenders of Fengyang, the central capital, were guards, and they were not the opponents of these northern Shaanxi rogues at all, and the outer city of Fengyang was soon lost.

Fengyang stayed behind Zhu Guoxiang is a relative of the Zhu family, and he led thousands of generals such as Chen Hongzu to meet the battle in a panic, and the righteous army in the city for a short encounter.

However, the Ming army was inferior to the righteous army in terms of number and combat power, and only an hour later, one of the three capitals of the Ming Dynasty, Fengyang, the central capital, was conquered by the righteous army.

In the end, Fengyang stayed behind and died in battle, and most of the soldiers under his command surrendered to the rebels.

Fengyang City also became the first major city conquered by the Northern Shaanxi Rebel Army in the past two years.

Its influence is far from comparable to that of ordinary provincial capitals.

Fengyang was originally built according to the standards of the Jingshi, and in the face of the prosperity of the palace, the righteous army lost itself a little.

Zhang Xianzhong first plundered the gentry in the city.

Then they heard that this was where the dragon vein of the Ming Dynasty was located, so they began a series of sabotage activities in order to cut off the dragon vein of the Ming Dynasty.

The rebels first set fire to the Imperial Mausoleum Hall, and then set fire to the Longxing Temple.

Longxing Temple is the Huangjue Temple where Zhu Yuanzhang became a monk.

They felt that burning this place would definitely damage the national fortunes of the Ming Dynasty.

Not only Zhang Xianzhong, but even Li Zicheng, who was originally relatively strict in military discipline, began to wreak havoc on the imperial tomb.

Because according to the news brought by the villagers in northern Shaanxi, after learning of their rebellion, the Ming court directly sent people to dig up the ancestral graves of Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang.

How can they not retaliate at this time?

Soon, Gao Yingxiang made people dig up the Ming Emperor's Mausoleum and obtained a large number of funeral treasures. The remains of the ancestors of the Zhu family in the tomb were also discarded on the side of the road at will, and trampled into powder.

And he also felt puzzled, so he ordered people to burn all the more than 300,000 200-year-old pine trees planted in the mausoleum area, and the fire burned for several days.

For the members of the Ming clan, it was not to be killed, and almost all the relatives of the Zhu family who stayed in Fengyang's original hometown were killed.

Zhang Xianzhong grabbed more than a dozen little eunuchs and forced them to play music for themselves, excitedly drifting and getting carried away.

The large amount of grain, grass and silver hoarded in Fengyang City made the rebel army suddenly become an outburst.

They started a new round of recruitment, whether it was Zhang Xianzhong or Li Zicheng and others, they had a soft spot for cavalry.

The biggest difference between the Northern Shaanxi Rebels and the Central Plains and Jiangnan Rebels is that they were born in the northwest and have been riding and raising horses since they were young.

And many people are from the official army, and some are still from the border army, and Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, was born in the border army.

For them, as long as they have good horses, it is quick to pull up a cavalry team.

And with the cavalry team, your efficiency will be greatly improved whether you attack or escape.

When the news that Fengyang Mansion was captured by the "thieves" reached Jingshi, Emperor Chongzhen was very shocked, and immediately dismissed the banquet and the female music silk bamboo, and avoided the temple in a vegetarian body, and sent officials to pay tribute to the heaven and earth Sheji.

He himself went to the temple to cry and worship his ancestors, prostrate on the ground, howling and crying, and said in pain: "I have no way to live in the throne, and the heavens have descended to be fierce, so that the ancestors below the spring have been ravaged by thieves." After my death, I have no shame to face Emperor Taizu Gao, and even more shame to face the sages and sages."

The more Chongzhen cried, the more sad he became, and he had the potential to die for the country and follow his ancestors, and the ministers who accompanied him, such as Sun Chengzong, Han Yi, Zhou Yanru and Wang Chengen, and other henchmen and eunuchs were infected by it, and they were all sad and wept bitterly.

Just when Emperor Chongzhen was crying in the temple to worship the ancestors and ancestors, a gust of wind suddenly blew outside the hall, blowing out all the red candles used for sacrifice, and the statues of the emperors of the past dynasties displayed on the case were also swept to the ground by the wind, and the ministers were shocked.

Seeing this, Chongzhen lamented: "The sky has repeatedly fallen, thieves and thieves are everywhere, and the country is afraid that it will not be a country!" When the wind blows and the candle goes out, it is clearly a bad omen."

After that, wipe your tears and brush your sleeves back to the palace.

The peasant army broke through the central capital and destroyed the ancestral tomb of Zhu Ming, which was like cutting off the dragon vein of the Ming Dynasty, which was a fatal spiritual blow to the strong Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen.

Soon Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict against himself.

Zhongdu fell, the imperial tomb was destroyed, and almost all the Zhu clansmen who remained in Fengyang were killed.

The angry Emperor Chongzhen is about to start killing.

Otherwise, he would not be able to explain to the ancestors of the Ming Dynasty, nor would he be able to calm the anger in his heart.

The Son of Heaven is angry, and the corpses are floating for thousands of miles!

Although this is an exaggeration, this time Fengyang has to find someone to take the blame.

If you don't characterize things as a disaster, is it still the Ming Dynasty's "exhaustion"?

He had already issued an edict asking Yang Yipeng, the governor of Fengyang, to take strict precautions, but Fengyang was still unprepared, and the city was broken by thieves in less than 1 hour.

He promoted Yang Yipeng to the height of Caoyun, the governor of the household department and the governor of the imperial history of the right capital, and the governor of the four prefectures in Jiangbei, which can be said to be trusting, and he actually repaid himself like this?

Except for Yang Yipeng, the hundreds of soldiers who escaped from Fengyang were all beheaded along with the eunuchs.

The reason is very simple, they don't use Fengyang, the capital of China, to live and die together!

Cao Wenzhao, the commander in chief, fell for the thieves' plan to attack the west and the east, causing the thieves to escape repeatedly, so that it caused the tragedy of the loss of Fengyang.

Cao Wenzhao cut his post for the people, and he will never be hired!

In fact, Chongzhen was originally preparing to exile Cao Wenzhao for 3,000 miles, but under the protection of Sun Chengzong, Cao Wenzhao was only cut to the people in the end.

Of course, in such a big matter as the loss of Fengyang, the military department and the cabinet must also be held responsible.

Sun Chengzong, as the first assistant of the cabinet and the secretary of the military department, was naturally duty-bound, and finally he submitted his resignation to Chongzhen.

After Chongzhen rejected it twice, he agreed the third time.

After all, Sun Chengzong is Zhu Youxiao's favorite minister, and Chongzhen always feels that it is not so easy to use.

In the end, he decided to promote new people in the cabinet.

Zhou Yanru has been smart since childhood, and in the forty-first year of Wanli, he has served as the editor of the Hanlin Academy, the right Zhongyun, the left concubine, the young Zhan Shi, the Zheng Zhan, and the right waiter of the Ministry of Rites.

He was good at catering to the will of Emperor Chongzhen, and in December of the second year of Chongzhen, he entered the cabinet as a scholar of the Ministry of Rites and a scholar of Dongge University.

Chongzhen felt that Zhou Yanru had a great appetite for himself, so in February of the third year of Chongzhen, Zhou Yanru, who had only been in the cabinet for 3 months, was appointed by Chongzhen as a scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion and the first assistant of the cabinet.

Although it is only 3 years of Chongzhen, the employment of this Chongzhen Emperor is unacceptable to many old ministers.

This majesty held you in the palm of his hand when he used you, and promoted him desperately, just like Yang He at the beginning and Zhou Yanru now.

But if you don't need you, or if you can't satisfy your majesty, then he will abandon you like a mustard!

Just look at the endings of Yang He, Yang Yipeng, Cao Wenzhao, Sun Chengzong and others!

As a result, the disheartened cabinet deputy assistant, university scholar Han Yi, also submitted his resignation.

So Zhou Yanru took the opportunity to recommend Feng Quan, a former official who was idle at home, and a cabinet scholar.

Feng Quan and Zhou Yanru have already booked their sons and daughters.

This time, Zhou Yanru was able to enter the cabinet because of Feng Quan's funding and mobilizing connections to build momentum for Zhou Yanru!

So Zhou Yanru can be regarded as repaying the favor.

However, Chongzhen clearly remembered that Feng Quan was a member of the eunuch party.

Zhou Yanru hurriedly explained: "Feng Quan was only because Wei rebelled for his father's grievances, and out of gratitude he defected to the eunuch party. ”

"It was precisely because of Feng Quan's various behaviors of asking for the people's life that he aroused the dissatisfaction of the eunuchs, so he was driven out of the cabinet by Wei Zhongxian, and in the end he could only be the secretary of the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing."

"To say that he is a eunuch is really a big wrong!"

"The reason why Weichen recommended Feng Quan is because he has a complete strategy for suppressing bandits, and the minister believes that it will definitely be useful to His Majesty."

Chongzhen pondered for a moment and said: "Then I will give Feng Quan a chance, you let him bring his bandit strategy to see me, whether he can use it again depends on whether he has real skills!" ”

Feng Quan heard that Chongzhen promised to see him, and he also had to listen to his statement on the strategy of suppressing bandits, so he knew that this matter was basically not a big problem.

A few days later, Feng Quan met Emperor Chongzhen under Zhou Yanru's arrangement.

Feng Quan's military level is much worse than Zhao Kuo's, and he failed to attack Chongming at the beginning, so of course he can't offer any strategy to suppress bandits.

All this he had prepared was thought out for him by the Intelligence Division.

In fact, to be precise, this is Li Xianzhong's strategy of plagiarizing Yang Sichang, and it was with this strategic idea that Yang Sichang won the trust of Emperor Chongzhen in the original historical trajectory.

Since Yang Sichang can use it, then Feng Quan can naturally use it too.

After Feng Quan saluted Chongzhen, he said: "The reason why 'Liukou' is difficult to exterminate is mainly because of the word 'Liu'. ”

"They fled everywhere, and the armies of the provinces of the imperial court were often independent, and it was difficult to effectively crack down on the rogues, so that now the scope of the rogue's activities is getting bigger and bigger, and it has developed from the original northern Shaanxi and Shanxi to various places."

In view of this characteristic of the rogue, Xiaomin summed up his strategy of suppressing bandits as: "Four positives, six corners and ten nets!" ”

Chongzhen was also very curious when he heard this, and he said: "Feng Qing means to let the imperial court lay a net of heaven and earth, so that the rogues have nowhere to escape?" ”

Now that His Majesty has even changed his name, it seems that this strategy is really very much to His Majesty's appetite.

He said: "The so-called four positive battlefields are the four frontal battlefields of Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Fengyang, and the governors of these four places are mainly encircled and suppressed, supplemented by defense. ”

"The so-called six corners are the six flank battlefields of Yansui, Shanxi, Shandong, Yingtian, Jiangxi, and Sichuan, and the governors of these six places focus on defense and supplemented by encirclement and suppression."

"Add up the four squares and the six corners, ten nets, so it's called a ten-sided net."

In addition, there should be two special posts, "prime minister" and "governor", the prime minister is responsible for the customs outside the customs and the governor is responsible for the customs area, and the two of them are mobile at any time to suppress the enemy. There will be nowhere to run for thieves, no way to escape! ”

"If the Liukou are in Shaanxi, then the governors of Shaanxi, Sichuan, Huguang, Henan, Yansui, and Shanxi must jointly open a net and encircle it on all sides, and the prime minister and the governor will jointly encircle and suppress it."

"If the Liukou is in Henan, then the governors of Huguang, Fengyang, Yingtian, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan must jointly open a net and encircle it on all sides, and the governor will go out of the customs and the prime minister will jointly encircle and suppress."

"If the Liukou is in Huguang, then the governors of Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yingtian, Fengyang, and Jiangxi must jointly spread their nets and encircle them on all sides, and the governors and prime ministers will go to Huguang to jointly encircle and suppress."

"In short, the governor and the prime minister are to be killed by the enemy, and the governors of all places are surrounded on all sides, no matter where the main battlefield is, they must be surrounded into a net, and this is the intention of the ten-sided net."

After hearing this, Chongzhen said: "This method is very second, I hate to see Feng Qing late!" ”

Feng Quan said: "If the governors and governors of all provinces can work together, I believe that they will be able to destroy the thieves in a short period of time and eliminate hidden dangers for the imperial court!" ”

Now among the six departments, only the military department is vacant, Feng Quan has both strategy, and has led troops in Jiangnan to suppress the rebellion. Chongzhen appointed Feng Quan on the spot as the secretary of the military department and a scholar of Dongge University.

Then he appointed Chen Qiyu as the "premier of the five provinces", and the prime ministers were Yansui, Xuanda, Yingtian, Sichuan, and Jiangxi towns.

Hong Chengchou was the "governor of the five provinces", supervising the five provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, and Huguang.

In addition, the governors of various places must fully cooperate with the actions of the two to completely exterminate the rogues.

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(End of chapter)