Forbidden City.
In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Lian looked at the figure in the mirror in a daze.
He probably traveled through time with a rope, and felt uncomfortable all over from the moment memories came flooding in. Looking at the dragon robe on his body and the Yishan crown on his head, his sadness had no source and his eyes were full of despair.
"God is playing tricks on me. I finally traveled through time and became Chongzhen!"
Who is Chongzhen?
The subjugated king of the Ming Dynasty!
He is also a representative figure among the kings of the past dynasties, the harder they work, the more their country will perish.
Due to his headstrong, fickle and suspicious character flaws, coupled with his ignorance of the art of emperors, he personally sent Daming to the crematorium.
What is even more tragic is that today is March 10, the 17th year of Chongzhen.
Seven days later, Li Zicheng entered the outer city.
Nine days later, Li Zicheng invaded the inner city of Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself on Meishan...
Wu Sangui then surrendered, Jiannu entered the pass, and Li Zicheng was defeated.
The history of the next three hundred years will not only be a shame for Lao Zhu's family, but also a disaster for the entire China.
Jiannu, who had established a foothold in Beijing, went all the way south, to Jiading for three massacres, to Yangzhou for ten days...
Thousands of corpses lay buried, and blood flowed for thousands of miles...
This is not time travel, it is clearly a disaster experience ticket!
Zhu Lian looked at the rope in his hand: "How about... can you hang yourself now?"
No, no, no, it's better to die than live.
But.
What could he have done without committing suicide?
At this time, the Ming Dynasty was on its deathbed. The court was corrupt, the army had no fighting spirit, there were bandits inside and slaves outside, and there were constant natural disasters and man-made disasters.
Chongzhen spent seventeen years failing to change the fate of the Ming Dynasty. What could he change?
With this question, Zhu Lian closed his eyes and fell into deep thought.
After an unknown amount of time, a eunuch wearing a red python robe trotted in from outside the hall and fell to his knees with a plop: "Your Majesty, something serious has happened."
Chongzhen slowly opened his eyes.
The middle-aged eunuch in front of me is called Wang Chengen, and there is only one word difference between him and Wu Chengen, who wrote Journey to the West. He was Eunuch Bingbi, the Superintendent of Ceremonies, one of Chongzhen's most trusted people.
Historically, after Chongzhen hanged himself, he lowered Chongzhen's body from the tree, tidied his clothes and committed suicide.
Loyalty is a lesson!
"Don't panic, tell me." Chongzhen hid the rope he brought when crossing behind his back and asked calmly.
That rope can always remind him not to throw it away.
Wang Chengen's face turned pale and his voice trembled as he said, "Yes, Your Majesty."
"There are three...three things."
"The Xuanfu sent an urgent report of six hundred miles away. The bandits broke through the Xuanfu late at night and came straight to the capital. The commander-in-chief Wang Chengyin surrendered to the enemy; the governor Zhu Zhifeng and the supervisor Du Xun committed suicide by hanging themselves."
Wang Chengen paused for a moment, then saw that the emperor had no expression and continued: "Dingxibo Tangtong is serving the king according to the order, and he is waiting for the order outside the palace with the eunuch Du Zhizhi."
"Tianjin Governor Feng Yuanyang sent a secret letter."
After saying that, Wang Chengen knelt on the ground and raised the letter above his head with both hands.
Chongzhen did not pick up the secret letter immediately, but frowned in thought.
Of these three things, one is bad, one is good, and one is neither good nor bad.
The bad thing is that after the fall of Xuanfu (Xuanhua), the only obstacle left for Li Zicheng to enter Beijing was Juyongguan.
The garrison at Juyong Pass is less than 2,000, so they will definitely not be able to hold it.
The good thing was that it was a secret letter from the governor of Tianjin. He was well versed in Ming history and already knew the contents of the secret letter, so he opened the envelope and glanced at it.
The content is indeed no different from history.
[Your Majesty, the traitors are invading the country now, the capital's military strength is weak, and there is no one to rely on in the battle and defense. I am ready to prepare hundreds of sea ships and lead thousands of soldiers to arrive in Tongzhou, waiting for the Holy Spirit to arrive southward in the evening. 】
Feng Yuanyang was afraid that the capital would not be able to hold on, so he prepared more than a hundred ships and asked Chongzhen to go to Yingtian Mansion.
As for Tang Tong's obedience to the king's orders, it was neither a good thing nor a bad thing.
As early as early March, Chongzhen urgently dispatched Wu Sangui, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, Wang Yongji, the governor-general of Jiliao, Tang Tong, the commander-in-chief of Changping, and Liu Zeqing, the commander-in-chief of Shandong, to guard the capital, and called on officials and officials in the capital to donate money.
Among Chongzhen Yao's people, Wu Sangui and Wang Yongji were part of the group. They drove back from Liaodong with 300,000 soldiers and civilians, and only arrived in the Yutian area, one hundred kilometers away from Beijing, on March 22. There was no time to save him.
Tang Tong came quickly and surrendered quickly. As soon as Li Zicheng arrived at Juyong Pass, Du Zhizhi, the eunuch in charge of the army, asked people to open the city gate. Seeing that the situation was over, Tang Tong stopped resisting and all 8,000 of his men surrendered.
Liu Zeqing was even more ruthless and refused to obey the edict!
Chongzhen threw the secret letter to Wang Chengen, looked at the most trusted eunuch in front of him, and asked slowly: "Feng Yuanyang asked me to move to Yingtian Mansion, what do you think?"
"This slave dare not say anything."
"I forgive you!"
"Yes!" Wang Chengen swallowed, "I think this is the best policy!"
"What's the reason?"
"This servant is now taking the post of Admiral of the Nine Gates. After meeting with Governor Li Guozhen this morning, he learned that there are 80,000 people in the three major battalions in the capital. Some of them have been transferred to fight against the bandits, and some have been given free pay. There are currently less than 30,000 people available. Thousands of people, and they are all old, weak, sick and disabled.”
"The capital can probably no longer be defended!" Wang Chengen bravely told the truth.
"Instead of sticking to Beijing, it is better to move to Yingtian Mansion. As long as you are here, our Ming Dynasty will still be the same Ming Dynasty."
Wang Chengen broke out in cold sweat on his forehead.
Normally, he wouldn't dare to say that he would be beaten to death, but the situation is different now. The bandits are coming soon, and if he doesn't leave, it will be too late.
He knelt on the ground and kept kowtowing, "Slave, please dare to ask the emperor to follow Feng Yuanyang's plan to move south!"
Chongzhen shook his head gently, "I can't leave."
"Your Majesty!" Wang Chengen was so anxious that he almost cried.
Chongzhen did not doubt Wang Chengen's loyalty. He shook his head and said: "The capital is full of Li Zicheng's fine work. Once the news of the southward move comes out, there will be chaos without a fight. At that time, he only needs to send an elite cavalry to march towards Shandong Starry Night, but it can be intercepted by land. , or you can go out to sea and cut off my way south. By then I will have no way to escape and no way to defend."
Wang Chengen began to sweat on his forehead, and then he realized how ignorant and reckless his behavior had been.
"Even if I can successfully reach Yingtian Mansion, it will be like handing over Beijing to the bandits. Wu Sangui has slaves in the north and bandits in the south. Can he...not surrender?"
"Guan Ning's army is the last elite force of our Ming Dynasty. I... don't want to give it up to others."
Chongzhen didn't want to explain too much, but Wang Chengen didn't have a clear view of the overall situation and needed training to become his arm.
Wang Chengen wiped the sweat from his forehead and said hesitantly: "But..."
I didn't dare to say the second half of the sentence.
He didn't dare to say it and couldn't say it. The emperor was the emperor and nothing would happen to him.
Chongzhen closed his eyes and thought for a while.
The water was too deep in the late Ming Dynasty.
There were slaves in the northeast, Mongols in the north, Zhang Xianzhong in the southwest, and the west and the Central Plains were turned upside down by Li Zicheng's peasant army. Land annexation is serious, the treasury is empty, civil servant groups are fighting among themselves, and corruption in military pay is endless.
Coupled with the reduction in food production caused by the severe cold of the Little Ice Age, droughts and plagues prevailed in various places.
what to do?
After a long time, he slowly opened his eyes.
Now that we have traveled to this world, there must be a way to change history.
No, history has changed.
Chongzhen in history did not receive this secret letter. Due to his capricious and suspicious character, no one in the civil and military officials was willing to convey this secret letter to Chongzhen. After all, if they were discovered by Li Zicheng's people during their escape, Feng Yuanyang and the people who conveyed the secret would be executed for collaborating with the enemy.
One week!
On March 17, Li Zicheng captured Guangningmen. Even the King of Heaven, I, could not reverse the situation.
God gave a week to change the fate of Chongzhen and Ming Dynasty.
He stood up and ordered: "Wang Cheng'en, I said, you remember!"
