Today is the eighth day of April, and there is only one day left until the day that Song Xiance counted on his fingers for the second ascension ceremony of Emperor Dashun. According to the original schedule, he should have happily performed the coronation ceremony, that is, rehearsed.
However, yesterday morning, after the memorial of apology from the Houying general Bohou Li Guo was delivered to the Wuying Hall where Emperor Dashun was stationed, the enthronement ceremony on April 9th was cancelled, and Emperor Dashun's good mood disappeared.
Because Li Guo reported shocking bad news in his apology memorial—the attack on Tianjin Wei ended in a disastrous defeat!
After four consecutive days of bloody battles, and at one point they invaded Tianjin's Nancheng, the sudden arrival of thousands of cavalry led by Wu Sangui caused the originally favorable battle situation to take a turn for the worse. Li Guo, Li Yan, and Chen Yongfu's troops fled in panic and suffered heavy losses. ! Tang Tong's entire army was wiped out!
In addition, Li Yan's wife, the female general Hong Niangzi, was destroyed by the Zheng family navy during the Weihe River water battle, and her whereabouts are unknown.
At present, Li Guo, Li Yan, and Chen Yongfu have packed up the remaining troops and retreated to Wuqing County. They have requested Li Zicheng to send reinforcements to fight Tianjin Guard again!
Later, Tian Jianxiu, who went to the Yutian front line to supervise the army, sent a report, saying that the envoy sent to Wu Sangui's army reported that the morale of Guan Ning's army was low, and that he had not heard of the news that the auxiliary king of Donglu wanted to marry a daughter and a Ming prince. In addition, Tian Jianxiu's envoy also found out that the daughter of Dorgon, the auxiliary king of Donglu, was only 6 years old and it was impossible to get married.
Tian Jianxiu also reported that there were rumors that Wu Sangui wanted to abandon Shanhaiguan and go south to join Zhu Cixang, and that the Donglu were concentrating their forces and wanted to take advantage of Shanhaiguan to seize Shanhaiguan.
After all this information was put together, Li Zicheng felt like he had a headache. Because Wu Sangui is still his double N! I don’t know if it’s true over there? But no matter what is true, it is not a good thing. If Wu Sangui has arrived in Tianjin, then the Shanhaiguan area must be empty and may be occupied by Donglu at any time!
If Wu Sangui still stayed in Yongping, then who defeated Li Guo and the others? Li Guo and others' soldiers totaled twenty-two thousand. The opponent who could beat them to a miserable defeat would not be too weak just thinking about it.
Where did Zhu Cixi find such elite reinforcements? If Zhu Cixi really has enough soldiers to defeat Li Guo, then Dashun will be attacked from both sides once the east and west invaders!
Under such circumstances, how could Li Zicheng have any intention of ascending the throne for the second time? It’s too late to prepare for war, so why take the throne?
But when he thought about preparing for war, Li Zicheng's head got big. The brothers from the old camp below are all clamoring for money!
These guys all thought they were Li Zicheng's creditors. They all felt that they had made great contributions and must be rewarded heavily. But there was nothing in the treasury left by the poor man Chongzhen, so empty that he could run a horse. What can Li Zicheng give as a reward?
In addition to being unable to issue satisfactory rewards, the Dashun court now does not even have enough food.
Looking into this matter in detail, it is Zhu Cixiang’s fault! Didn’t he issue a lot of decrees after the Huangjimen incident? One of them was to distribute the grain stored in Taichou to the people in the inner city of Beijing... Although this order was implemented in a hurry, the grain warehouse of the Ministry of Revenue was basically emptied.
In addition, after Zhu Cihong followed Chongzhen south to Tianjin, a large amount of seaborne grain accumulated at Dagukou could not be transported to Beijing.
As a result, Li Zicheng not only had no money to pay rewards, but also had difficulties in supplying the troops. Those old soldiers who followed him all the way to fight and finally broke into Beijing not only did not get the wealth they wanted, but they could not even eat rice and white noodles, let alone meat.
This kind of treatment is completely inconsistent with the founding heroes!
Under such circumstances, it became increasingly difficult to maintain discipline and morale in the old camp. Military discipline in many troops was ruined. Incidents of rape and robbery by officers and soldiers in the old camp occurred from time to time. Li Zicheng unleashed his thunderous wrath several times and killed many people, but nothing happened. Ways to prevent it. As for the daily drills of various departments in Beijing, they have basically stopped since April. You have no food, no drink, no money, and you are still training? Fuck him, it’s almost the same!
If there is no longer enough money to pay out rewards, the old soldiers who were relied on by Li Zicheng to support the Great Wall may be scattered...
How many days have you been sitting on the Dragon Throne in the Forbidden City in Beijing? Why do you feel like you are in an abyss? It’s not easy for that foolish emperor Chongzhen to actually sit in this position for 17 years!
Just when Li Zicheng was sitting in the Wuying Hall worrying, Liu Tichun and Wu Ruyi, who had taken over Tian Jianxiu and Li Yan's duties in charge of military affairs, walked in in a hurry. After seeing the ceremony, Li Zicheng found that both of them looked happy, so he Question: "Is there any good news?"
"Reporting to the emperor," Liu Tichun said with a smile, "Bohou's military report revealed that the northern and southern cities of Tianjin were captured yesterday."
"What?" Li Zicheng was stunned, "I just received the memorial of apology yesterday, why did I win another victory today? What kind of battle is this tiger fighting?"
Wu Ruyi said: "It was not Bohou who captured the Tianjin Guard, but the Red Lady who had been missing for many days and her brothers sneaked into the Tianjin Guard. They took advantage of the opportunity when the main force of the red thieves moved towards Dagokou and drove away the red thieves who were left behind. Soldiers and horses, we captured the three guards of Tianjin in one fell swoop!"
"Then the red thieves are still going to move south..." Li Zicheng breathed a sigh of relief, with a long-lost smile on his face, "The red thieves are still one step behind in the game! If they guard Tianjin, will they?" If we leave, I will be attacked from both sides. If the Manchus really borrow troops to fight with them, I am afraid that I will give up the city of Beijing."
Liu Tichun smiled: "Beijing is not the capital of Dashun, so it doesn't matter if we give it up temporarily, as long as all the gold and silver in the city are emptied."
Li Zicheng nodded without comment. He did not regard Beijing as the capital. After he invaded Beijing, he made it clear that Beijing was only a capital city and would be changed to Youzhou Prefecture in the future. It would be an important barrier town in the north and would no longer be a capital. And the capital of Dashun has always been Chang'an, the imperial capital of Guanzhong!
Therefore, for Li Zicheng and the Dashun Army, Beijing's gains and losses are not the most important. The most important thing is the ill-gotten gains of those corrupt officials in Beijing!
Thinking of this, Li Zicheng said to himself: "We have to ask Huang Hu to work harder and get more military pay! With the military pay, we can fight to the death with the remnants of the Zhu bandits and the Manchus!"
...
"Master Marquis, this is the account that has just been prepared. Please take a look at it..."
"What kind of account did you pass? Please report the number!" Huang Hu and Liu Zongmin waved their hands and asked Luo Xiushen to take away the account book sent to him.
Once he turned into a robber and turned into a rebel, how could he read the account book? Why rebel if you have that ability?
"In total, I got more than 22,853,000 taels of silver, and more than 564,000 taels of gold... Lord Marquis, this is really a huge fortune!"
"What a huge fart!" Liu Zongmin waved his hand, "Well, Dashun has a big business now, with more than a million people... Each person is given 10 taels of silver, and 10 million taels is the best for him. Gone!"
"Master Hou..." Luo Xiushen looked at the expressionless faces of Huang Hu and Liu Zongmin, and his heart was in his throat.
He is now with the tiger! If he had known earlier that these thieves were so vicious in their methods of torture and extortion, he would not have stayed as Zhu Cihong's spy - he thought it was easy, but in fact he was reluctant to part with his family business in Beijing!
The Luo family has been in charge of Jinyiwei for decades, and the profits are almost overflowing. It's impossible to pack it up and take it away... But I never expected that the bandit would be so cruel and ruthless! In order to torture and force people to pay, they really put people to death!
And even if you pay money, you may not be able to survive, so you should be polite to middle- and low-level civil servants. For civil servants above the rank of minister, nobles from aristocratic families, military attachés, royal relatives, and powerful eunuchs, they would do anything they could! There are many people who have lost both their lives and their wealth!
As for Luo Xiu's family, they can be considered a member of the noble family. Although their ancestors did not pass down a title, they did have a hereditary military position that they could inherit. He is also famously wealthy...
Liu Zongmin frowned, and his face suddenly showed ferocity. He said to Luo Xiushen: "Go and have a good talk with them. No matter how hard it is, forty to fifty million will be copied!"
