national surname chiming

Chapter 338

The historical stone war turned into a Huluhe war because of the butterfly effect.

Li Zicheng brought [-] to [-] more soldiers and horses than in the same period in history. In the end, he was defeated, and those who escaped back were not much more than in the same period in history. This is equivalent to an additional net loss of at least [-] soldiers.

Of course, the losses of the enemy on the opposite side have also increased a little, and the composition ratio has also changed considerably.After all, Dorgon finally had a bloody fight with Li Zicheng's last-ditch troops when he tried to attack Li Zicheng on the side of the Calabash River.

Even though the morale of the Chuang army was already low at that time, a considerable number of people only wanted to escape across the river and had no intention of fighting.But the rest of the people who dared to fight to the death still caused a lot of damage to Dorgon.

Especially during the final battle, the two sides had already set up positions on both sides of the Hulu River to fight steadily. The red barbarian cannons that were difficult to use in mobile warfare were able to fully confront each other in positional warfare in the end.In addition, Dorgon lost the advantage of a sneak attack, and the opponent was sure that Dorgon would end, so he was mentally prepared.

Under the blessing of various factors, Wu Sangui lost about [-] Guanning Army and Hebei Frontier Army, and Dorgon also lost more than [-] elite cavalry of the eighth stage, and there were more Mongolian cavalry, and almost the same number of Han army standard infantry artillery.

Wu Sangui and Dorgon suffered a total of 3 casualties before and after, and abruptly gnawed away Li Zicheng's 14 main force.Among them, about 12 were annihilated, scattered, hunted down, and surrounded by captives. Only 2 people broke through and returned to Beijing.

After this battle, Li Zicheng also completely lost the possibility of gaining a foothold in Hebei.With the loss of the Shanhaiguan and Yanshan lines of defense, the terrain of the Hebei Plain is doomed to be defenseless.

Li Zicheng wanted to reorganize his defense, at least he had to retreat westward across the Taihang Mountains, and then rely on the danger of the Taihang to defend Shanxi, or retreat southward across the old course of the Yellow River, relying on Jishui and other main rivers of the original Yellow River to defend across the river.

However, Li Zicheng, who was broken and broken, obviously had the same temper as Yuan Shu, and wanted to have a good time reaching the top before perishing.

I've been to Beijing all the time, and at least I've reached the pinnacle of my life. If I don't go through with it thoroughly, and I've had enough of the addiction I've thought about, it's not too bad for me to just lose my life?

Therefore, knowing that the city of Beijing would definitely be lost, Li Zicheng still chose to "proclaim himself emperor while he was defeated" just like historical inertia.

After the decisive battle on February [-]th, he fled back to Beijing in three days at high speed, and then found Niu Jinxing, saying that he would be made prime minister and let him immediately prepare for the grand ceremony of the founding of the country.

But at this moment, the [-] defeated soldiers he had fled from the Huluhe battlefield hadn't all arrived in Beijing yet.The local defenders of the Dashun regime in Tianjinwei, Xianghe County, Dagukou and other places have not had time to shrink, and everything is very chaotic.

But Li Zicheng couldn't care less, and Niu Jinxing was also in a state of desperation. It only took three days to prepare.

During these three days, the defeated troops on the front line and the troops stationed in Tianjinwei, Dagukou and other places gradually retreated to Beijing, forming a wonderful scene of "while preparing to found the country and ascend the throne, at the same time, the defeated frontline troops with broken arms and legs mourned and entered the city one after another". People panic.

On February [-]th, the enthronement ceremony, which was still very sloppy in preparation, couldn't wait to hold it, and it was too late to pick an auspicious day.

And even at this moment of embarrassment, Li Zicheng's inferiority complex and revenge against the society still did not restrain, but became more exposed.

He disliked that the wife he continued to find during the rebellion was not decent enough to be a mother to the world, so he found a female official in the palace who was not bad but was not favored by Chongzhen, named Dou Meiyi. Chuang Wangfei.In this way, at the enthronement ceremony, there will be a woman who can be canonized as a queen.

It can only be said that Li Zicheng's low self-esteem has been carved into his bones, and he must choose a woman who Chongzhen will favor but not favor, so that he can put gold on his face, and the quality he brings is not good.

After the enthronement ceremony, Li Zicheng only had a banquet for his officials in Beijing for one day, and slept in the Forbidden City that night as the emperor to live the emperor's addiction.

After getting up the next day, he set fire to the Forbidden City, and finally slaughtered and looted, and then retreated to Baoding and Zhending directions, and then from Zhending to go back to Shanxi through Heishanxing in the Eight Xings of Taihang.

The Forbidden City burned for several days. Two days after Li Zicheng withdrew, Dorgon's pursuers finally defeated the peripheral blocking forces of the Dashun regime that had been abandoned along the way, and entered Beijing.

Although Dorgon was a barbarian Tartar, he had to say that he was still a little less beastly than Li Zicheng in protecting the city of Beijing—he immediately organized manpower to put out fires in the Forbidden City that had not yet been burned.After that, manpower was arranged to repair it, and it was intended to be the future imperial palace of the Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, there is one thing to say, and many fans of later generations said that "the Tartars were kicked out of the Forbidden City because of karma, and it was not built by their family, but by Zhu Di at first."But in fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, at least half of the Forbidden City built by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was burned down by Li Zicheng's fire. (This is a historical fact)

Only the four main palaces of Wuying Hall, Jianji Hall, Yinghua Hall, and Nanxun Hall were taken over by Dorgon intact, and the rest were burned by Li Zicheng and rebuilt later according to the original ritual system. (The walls, towers, and turrets outside the Forbidden City were not burned, but this was because these defensive buildings and walls were made of stone, which were different from the residential palaces with wooden structures, so they could not be burned.)
Li Zicheng's doomsday madness can be said to have brought the essence of "If you can't get it, you'll be destroyed" to the extreme.

In addition, there is another thing that must be mentioned, that is, before Li Zicheng finally fled Beijing, the last wave of torture and looting was affected. Chongzhen's father-in-law and Zhou Kui, the father of Queen Zhou, did not escape in the end.

Like countless other important officials in the court, such as Wei Zaode, the chief assistant, he was directly tortured to death by Li Zicheng.Wei Zaode was beaten until his brains were blown out, while Zhou Kui was slightly better. When he was beaten to the point of dying, he confessed the hidden silver in his secret cellar and the outer house, and died of his injuries.

But with Zhou Kui's soft bones, before being forced to hand over his family property, of course he handed over the two sons entrusted to him by Chongzhen one step earlier, so Zhu Cijiong, the king of Ding, and Zhu Cizheng, the king of Yong, were also arrested.

When Li Zicheng was arrested by the second king, he did not kill the killer, because he was still thinking of making an emergency landing on Wu Sangui, and he also hoped to use these signs to deal with other vacillating old generals of the Ming Dynasty.

But now even the city of Beijing is about to give up, and he is destined to fail to defeat Dorgon, so Li Zicheng is too lazy to act again. Before leaving Beijing, the last order he gave was to secretly kill King Ding and King Yong.

So far, Chongzhen has completely cut off his sons and grandchildren, and it has become impossible for the Ming court to hope to support a descendant of the late emperor to inherit the great line——

Although those bold and ambitious people may still take advantage of the fact that the second king was not publicly executed and his life and death are unknown, they may try to fish in troubled waters under the banner of the third prince Zhu.But after all, it is impossible for someone to come up with the real third prince Zhu.

And in this life, the Ming court in the south has another advantage in the future, that is, Princess Kunxing has been rescued by Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Mingzhen.In history, Princess Kunxing died of a sudden illness in 1646.

Therefore, as long as Princess Kunxing is still alive, the southern court will have an extra bargaining chip in the future. She can identify whether the counterfeit brought by the other party is her second or third brother.

Even if the other party will question whether Princess Kunxing has been threatened, or because when the princess and her two princes and brothers separated, the two princes were only 13 and 12 years old respectively, and their appearance will change when they grow up in the future. Might be wrong.

But no matter what, one more bargaining chip identified by the princess will definitely increase the credibility of denying the third prince Zhu by a very significant amount.

……

The story was divided into two parts, and Li Zicheng, Dorgon, and Wu Sangui in the north finally decided the winner, and Li Zicheng fled to Shanxi during the period.

The imperial court in the south, however, was temporarily unable to determine how to support the new emperor because it was temporarily unable to confirm the life and death of the former emperor's heirs and whether they might escape.

Although it is said that a country cannot live without a king, it will take time to investigate and confirm such a major event.

In the original history, it was more than a month after the death of his cousin Chongzhen that Xiaofu Wang Zhu Yousong was roughly established as the object of support by the officials in Nanjing, and it was more than half a month before he officially ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor.

But now in this life, because of the butterfly effect, Queen Yi'an Zhang Yan and Princess Kunxing Zhu Xi were rescued. The two of them were rescued on the [-]th day of the first lunar month and were found by Zheng Chenggong on the [-]th day of the first month. Zhang Mingzhen sent a boat to escort them southward urgently. of.

Twelve days later, they arrived at Liujiagang in Taicang, Suzhou, at the mouth of the Yangtze River by sea, and brought the emperor's specific cause of death to the southern officials, and the news that the prince also vowed to die unyielding, and also brought "Your Majesty Before he died for the country, he entrusted Prince Ding Yongwang to his relatives to hide."

Considering that there were relatives of the emperor from the north, and it was clearly stated that Chongzhen still had two sons who were still alive and dead and had the opportunity to flee, the officials in the south were more timid than in the same period in history, and did not dare to discuss the issue of support too quickly.

Otherwise, if Chongzhen's youngest son really ran out, how would they, the ministers who are now eager to support the vassal king, be in the future?If they are finally overthrown by those young sons of Chongzhen, they will probably die a hundred times worse than Yu Qian, who supported the Ming Dynasty Zong!

Therefore, the discussion on supporting the new monarch was dragged on for more than half a month.It was not until halfway through February of the 17th year of Chongzhen that no one began to mention this matter in private.

Prior to this, during the 20 days between late January and early February, the officials of the six ministries in Nanjing were only busy reorganizing the cabinet and issuing documents to the provinces to let the powerful officials and generals in various places accept the leadership of the new Nanjing cabinet.

This kind of official document exchange to confirm the mind is also very important. It takes a month to get the notification back and forth in remote areas, so it is not idle.

On the other hand, Zhu Shuren, who was rescued by King Qin at the junction of Shandong and Hebei, only officially confirmed the death of the emperor on the [-]th day of the first lunar month, the fourth day after Chongzhen's death, and the prince was also taken hostage. There was no need for rescue in Beijing.

It took Zhu Shuren three days to repair and gather his troops, and to meet the cavalry troops who had crossed the Yellow River north before recrossing the Yellow River. On the 15th of the first lunar month, Zhu Shuren assembled all [-] King Qin's army and returned south from Linqing, Shandong.

It is said that all Zhu Shuren's troops should return to the Huguang defense area, and some troops should even return to Sichuan.But considering that he came here in a hurry, and crossed Tongbai Mountain from Xinyang Valley Road to the north, the road was more difficult.

On the return trip, there was no need to rush for time, and he could of course choose a better path.

In addition, most areas of Henan to the west of Shangqiu were still occupied by Li Zicheng. At the same time, they were robbed for thousands of miles and could not supply food to the enemy. In order to facilitate supplies, Zhu Shuren had to choose to retreat southward along the Grand Canal ,
Only a part of the troops stationed in Xinyang Mansion were handed over to Huang Degong to go directly to Xinyang by land.The rest of the troops, after taking the canal to Yangzhou, transferred to An, Lu, Jiujiang, and Wuchang, and were stationed respectively——

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement, because before Zhu Shuren was appointed as the "Governor of Huguang", his jurisdiction included Anlu in Nanzhili, Jiujiang in Jiangxi, and Xinyang Prefecture in Henan, not just Huguang. .

On this return trip, some troops were left in Hefei and Jiujiang, which belonged to Zhu Shuren's own defense zone, and they never crossed the line.

Unless he wanted to directly march into Nanjing, he would not be called to Beijing. Of course, Zhu Shuren would not make such a low-level mistake and risk the disapproval of the world.

His father-in-law, Lu Wang Zhu Changping also lived temporarily in Hefei, and Zhu Shuren went to Hefei to visit his father-in-law.

Then let someone from Chongqing, which was the governor's temporary shogunate before, go to reunite with his wife and little princess Zhu Yuchan, who had been separated for several months, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Because of the slowness of the land march, only 10,000 to 10 of the [-]+ army were sent to Huang Degong's road, and another [-] people had to pass through Hefei and Jiujiang.
Therefore, the journey back from Linqing, Shandong Province to the south, according to the accelerated march of seventy or eighty miles a day, took a full twelve days before the vanguard returned to Hefei, and the rear army had to add another three to five days.

So around the second to sixth day of February, Zhu Shuren's troops arrived at the new garrison one after another.The Sixth Division of Nanjing did not discuss the matter of supporting the new emperor in late January and mid-February, which made Zhu Shuren return to the south before discussing supporting the new emperor.

……

After arriving in Hefei, there are still nearly ten days before the new Nanjing cabinet inquires about information and discusses support.

Of course, Zhu Shuren, as a feudal town stationed abroad, shouldn't be too active in this kind of matter.So he didn't show too many abnormalities except that he occasionally communicated secret letters with the father of Hubu Shangshu in Nanjing to understand the latest developments.

Taking advantage of the time difference these few days, Zhu Shuren also had other matters to deal with quickly. Before that, he passed Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong, and pulled about [-] Hebei Frontier Army and a part of Guanning Army, and chose Nandu to retreat.

And as Zhu Shuren himself arrived in Hefei, the [-] soldiers and horses who retreated southward by the sea basically went ashore in Suzhou and Zhoushan after nearly half a month of sailing.

(End of this chapter)