At first, they couldn't figure out what was going on!
What made them even more stunned was that their general started to make random arrangements and even held a collective wedding.
The excitement of thousands of people worshiping heaven and earth together made them forget that the war in Shu was still going on.
Many people were very happy that Li Zicheng thought of them so much.
However, even with Li Zicheng's gag order, he couldn't hide it for long.
First, the cavalrymen who escaped would tell their families; then, the imperial army's advance to the east made what had been secretly speculated become public.
Suddenly, Li Zicheng's headquarters was full of discussions.
"Sure enough, it was Duke Xingguo who led the troops to kill him. It was like a magical force descended from the sky. The whole army in Chengdu was wiped out!"
"I really didn't expect that Duke Xing Guo would dare to lead his troops across the Shu Road before spring begins!"
"Actually, all of these can be thought of, but do you know who knows the generals of the imperial army who have been killed now? Three of the four adopted sons of the Eight Great Kings are here! Can you think of it?"
"Actually, you still don't know that the commander of the other imperial army is Tian Jianxiu, do you know?"
"..."
It can be said that each of these news shocked them more than the last.
In particular, Li Dingguo and others have now become imperial generals, especially Tian Jianxiu, which stimulates them even more.
At the same time, they immediately understood why the general encouraged them to get married during this period, and then gathered the children together. Wasn't this just to prevent them from defecting to the court?
While they were shocked by this incident, suddenly something happened that surprised them.
When Li Zicheng was inspecting the Gezuo Fifth Battalion camp outside the city, he suddenly killed He Yilong and Lin Chengcheng. The crime was that they conspired to betray and wanted to defect to the imperial court.
This time, Li Zicheng really did not accuse anyone unjustly.
In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, in fact, the fifth battalion of Gezuo still had the idea of accepting the imperial court's recruitment.
After Yang Zhuoran, the supervisor of the Ming Dynasty, learned that Lin Chengcheng, Ma Shouying and others in the fifth battalion of Gezuo wanted to be recruited, he personally went to Qianshan and Taihu Mountains to meet with the leaders of the fifth battalion, Lin Chengcheng, Ma Shouying and others. He persuaded the fifth battalion of Gezuo in person to accept the imperial court's recruitment.
Lin Chengcheng's reply at that time was this: "We all have peerless talents, but the imperial court has no use for them. The rest are due to famine and robbery. If the country is handled properly, how can we not be loyal and righteous people? And I heard More than ten battalions of Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing returned to their loyalty and died for the country. They worked hard in the line of duty, but I couldn't do anything. But we have more than 100,000 people, where can we put them? And who is the master? Where does the salary come from? And how much? Will I be treated like an official or a noble?"
In the final analysis, his words are that they can indeed accept the imperial court's recruitment, and they can serve the imperial court, no worse than Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing. However, they need to know for sure whether the court is sincere in recruiting them. If they are sincere, then there must be a plan to arrange them, what positions they will be given, who will lead them, where the military pay will come from, etc.
It has to be said that these demands they made are indeed reasonable. If you are serious about recruiting, there must be answers to these questions.
But at that time, how could the imperial court have the money to recruit him? Yang Zhuoran ran to see them without consulting the court first. Therefore, these questions cannot be answered at all.
However, since he went to see Gezuo Fifth Camp in person, he was naturally prepared. Then he designated the mountainous area of Huangzhou Prefecture as the place where the Ge and Zuo fifth camps would be deployed, and gave them new pay from Qishui, Guangji, and Qizhou.
After hearing this, the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo agreed and even began to think about how to serve the imperial court to prove their worth.
As a result, when Yang Zhuoran went back to report the situation, the ministers in the DPRK and the Central Government objected one after another. Of course, the most important thing was that they had no money. Those places are not willing to pay this money. The final result was that Yang Zhuoran lost his official position and resigned.
After the fifth battalion of Gezuo learned about this, they were so disappointed that they finally gave up the idea of being recruited.
However, Zhang Mingwei came, especially when he launched a public opinion offensive in the Battle of Kaifeng. In the end, Li Zicheng was defeated and fled, and Luo Rucai's entire army was annihilated.
Subsequently, Zhang Mingwei led his troops to the south and began to fight against Zhang Xianzhong and the fifth battalion of Gezuo.
But before the 5th Gezuo Battalion had any idea, Zhang Xianzhong, in response to Zhang Mingwei's public opinion offensive, proclaimed himself King of the West at the suggestion of military counselor Xu Yixian, and established six ministries and a military governor's office. This first put the 5th Gezuo Battalion on alert. stand up.
Although the Gezuo Fifth Battalion cooperated with Zhang Xianzhong and fought together, this did not mean that they were willing to be under Zhang Xianzhong. You must know that the five people in the fifth battalion of Gezuo are also the most senior people. Why should Zhang Xianzhong ride on them?
So, under He Jin's instigation, they ran to Li Zicheng.
Now, they know that there are actually more people under Xing Guo Gong than Li Dingguo and the others, and they have also heard to some extent that Xing Guo Gong's way of doing things is truly planned and not just a perfunctory recruitment.
The first one was Xiao Yuanying, followed by Luo Rucai's men, and then Zhang Xianzhong's men. If there is a problem with recruitment, it will never happen that recruitment continues.
They waited until they heard that even Li Laiheng, who had escaped from Li Zicheng's side to accept recruitment, a man with much lower qualifications than them, was named Liaodong Bo after his meritorious service in Liaodong. They were really moved, and began to plan, thinking about contacting Duke Xingguo. If possible, they would not mind offering Chongqing as a gift to accept the recruitment.
However, Li Zicheng had noticed the two of them long ago and was monitoring them secretly. As a result, Lin Chengcheng and others were immediately caught by Li Zicheng as soon as they were interested.
He killed people to establish his authority. In addition to He Yilong and Lin Chengcheng, including their close men, they killed more than a thousand people in total.
The corpses were pushed into the Yangtze River, and the heads were hung on the city walls of Chongqing. They were so densely packed with familiar faces that it was really shocking. It can be said that on that day, the Yangtze River outside Chongqing was dyed red.
Li Zicheng's previous messy matters about Yuanyangpu immediately lost his joy.
Those who originally looked down on each other and wanted to find a better wife immediately changed their minds, and even the dominatrix recognized them. Because they were afraid that if they refused, Li Zicheng would suspect that he wanted to seek peace from the court.
The remaining three leaders of the fifth battalion of Ge Zuo, with the intervention of He Jin, appeased the ordinary soldiers and persuaded Ma Shouying and Liu Xiyao to be loyal to Li Zicheng and become Li Zicheng's real subordinates.
Li Guo, who was imprisoned, naturally knew about everything that happened in Chongqing. In response, he just sighed and became even more taciturn. Even if Li Zicheng went to see him, he basically stopped talking.
Later, Li Zicheng personally joined the army and went to fight the imperial officers and soldiers coming east. He even used heavy troops to deal with Tian Jianxiu. He must catch this thick-browed and big-eyed traitor who had once trusted him so much.
However, what he didn't expect was that these imperial officers and soldiers did not fight with him. After the fight, they retreated. If they stopped fighting, they would move east again. I wanted to ambush them, but found that they were extremely cautious, not seeking merit, but seeking ineffectiveness.
This style of play made it impossible for Li Zicheng to do anything to them for a while. In the end, the war situation in Shu came to a stalemate.
Li Zicheng himself left the front line to Liu Zongmin and Song Xiance, returned to Chongqing, and began to rectify the rear with the help of Niu Jinxing.
As for Zhang Mingwei, he was naturally based in Chengdu, and he dealt unceremoniously with those who wanted to take advantage of the imperial court and confiscated all the taxable grain fields and shops entrusted to the name of the King of Shu. According to previous experience, reorganizing prisoners and so on is quite busy.
………………
Time soon came to mid-March of the 17th year of Chongzhen. Huang Taiji, who was far away in Liaodong, left Shengjing and personally led some senior leaders of the Jianlu to travel to Jinzhou on the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.
It can be seen that he is still in a good mood. It seems that the wounds from the Ming army's invasion of Liaodong have become scarred and have been forgotten without pain.
But it’s true, because there is good news after all.
Ying Erdai lived up to his expectations. Under Hong Chengchou's advice, he was able to bring back the shortage of grain and grass needed for Liaodong's winter from North Korea, preventing a major famine in Liaodong.
However, the people below also knew very well that this was still "due to" the Ming army's raging in the hinterland of Liaodong, which caused the Qing Dynasty to seriously reduce its personnel and lose many mouths to consume food. Otherwise, even if Ying Erdai brought back enough food from North Korea, it would not be enough to support the entire Liaodong.
Because although North Korea is mainly farming, it is actually very poor. How much oil and water can it have? Far from being comparable to the richness in Guan Nei!
In addition, during the winter, Jierhalang, the commander of the Ningjin front line, took advantage of the fact that many parts of the Bohai Sea were frozen and sent troops to attack Juehua Island.
Although the Ming army on the island had already withdrawn to Shanhaiguan before winter came, the capture of Juehua Island by the Qing Dynasty meant that the Ming navy had one less place to rest and rest, which was good news.
Of course, the biggest good news is that Ying Erdai really brought back the Navy from North Korea. There are 300 large warships, small warships and transport ships, etc., a total of about 600 ships. Including the warships that Kong Youde, Shang Kexi and others brought back from the Denglai Navy, the total number of warships is over a thousand.
Today, all these warships are gathered in Jinzhou Bay. Huang Taiji left Shengjing to come to Jinzhou to review this great navy!
From then on, there was another branch of the Qing army. Suddenly there were thousands of warship-sized naval forces, how could Huang Taiji be in a bad mood!
With this navy, it can not only defend and patrol the Liaodong coast, but also prevent the previous raids by the Ming army from happening. Moreover, it can also pose a threat to the Ming Dynasty through sea routes.
In short, today's Huang Taiji is full of expectations for the future.