Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 30 Hurt the current situation, angry and helpless

"Shangzhou Chronicle" records: "Yiyou year is the first year of Hongguang, the battle of Tongguan, self-contained, led the crowd to flee eastward."

"Dengzhou Chronicle" records: "In the first year of Hongguang, in the second month of spring, the Qing soldiers entered Tongguan, and went to Dengzhou from success or failure, spreading thousands of miles."

After Li Zicheng withdrew from Shaanxi, he was overtaken by Azig in Dengzhou, Henan. He failed in the battle, and the army retreated to Xiangyang, Hubei in March.

At this time, although Li Zicheng was defeated again and again, he still had 13 people in his hands. In addition, the 20 elite Baiwang tribe originally deployed in the four prefectures of Xiangyang, Chengtian, De'an, and Jingzhou during the Dashun Dynasty made a total of [-] people. .

Since the defeat of a piece of stone, Dashun fought against the Qing court, losing again and again, and lost half of the northern country.

Li Zicheng deeply understood that the soft persimmon should be picked, and Hong Guangchao, who was shrunk in the south of the Yangtze River, naturally became the soft persimmon in his eyes.

Although Li Zicheng had 20 soldiers, he did not dare to face the Qing army directly, so he decided to advance both land and water to take Nanjing directly, and to fight Zuo Liangyu in Wuchang.

At this time, the Xiang and Jing Si prefectures were the only areas controlled by the Dashun army. Bai Wang, who was guarding the area, told Li Zicheng that the four prefectures had been in operation for more than a year and had a solid foundation and could be defended. Soldiers and horses, ready to go east.

At the beginning of March, Li Zicheng led 20 people to advance from Xiangyang to Hanchuan and Mianyang, and approached Zuo Liangyu in Wuchang. However, as the main force of the Dashun Army moved eastward, the four prefectures of Xiang and Jing became empty.

Li Zicheng's troops marched eastward, followed by the Qing soldiers. The important towns of Xiangyang and De'an in Hubei fell to the Qing army one after another. Jingzhou City was also surrounded by the Qing soldiers. Zheng Siwei, the guard of Dashun, saw that the isolated city could not be defended, so he killed Dashun. Jingzhou defense envoy Meng Changgeng, Kaesong surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

The land of the four prefectures easily fell into the hands of the Qing court, and it failed to stop the speed of the Qing army's pursuit. The defense of the Dashun army should also be widened.

So far, since the 15th year of Chongzhen (1642), all the local governments at all levels established by Li Zicheng have disintegrated, and the Dashun Army has returned to the original state of mobile warfare. Flow thief.

Since the Jiashen year, the situation has changed so quickly that it is surprising.

First, Li Zicheng swept across the north and seemed to have the potential to dominate the world, then Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu Eight Banners entered the customs, and then the newly established Dashun Dynasty was completely defeated.

One month ago, Li Zicheng was inextricably fighting with the Qing soldiers in Tongguan, and in the next month Shaanxi was completely in the hands of the Qing court, and now Wang Yan heard that the Dashun army was going east along the river, and he felt nervous for a while.

Misfortunes never come singly. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a leak in the house and it rained overnight. The Jiangbei issue had not yet been resolved, and Dashun attacked again. It really made things worse.

"Ningnan Marquis Zuo Gong has 80 soldiers, and he is known as a million." Chen Zilong frowned slightly, "Li Chuang has lost several battles with the Qing army, and his morale must be low. Zuo Gong's army is spending millions of dollars, so he should be able to defeat him."

Zuo Liangyu fought Dashun's army many times, although he lost more than he won, but this time he was facing Li Chuang's defeated army, so everyone still had some confidence in him.

"Brother Da Zun's words are reasonable." Seeing Wang Yan's worried face, Zuo Maodi nodded and comforted him, "Shi Heng doesn't have to worry too much, you can first speak about what's on your mind."

What Wang Yan was worried about was not Li Zicheng's army, but the Qing army that followed the Shun army. But it was useless for him to worry. He had only 2000 troops under his command, and it was impossible to affect the current situation in Huguang.

At this time, Wang Yan could only put this aside in advance and talk about Jiangbei first. On the front line, however, the Shige Department supervises Jiangbei, but there is no way to deal with it, and Wansheng is anxious, so he wants to ask Lord Zuo to contact the courtiers, and report to His Majesty to rectify Jiangbei's defenses, so that he can start a war as soon as possible."

Hearing Wang Yan's words, Zuo Maodi couldn't help feeling helpless, "Alas, Shi Heng doesn't know something. Since I returned to the court, I have written a book every day, all talking about the strategy of strengthening the army to resist the Qing Dynasty, but it has not been taken seriously so far."

Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong is the son of the old Fu Wang Zhu Changxun. In the struggle for the foundation of the country, the Donglin Party fought against Emperor Shenzong for more than ten years in the name of "establishing the elders but not establishing the virtuous" and finally forced the Emperor Shenzong Put the beloved old Fu Wang in Luoyang to become a vassal, and make Zhu Changluo, the eldest son he dislikes, the prince.

The Donglin Party forced Lao Fuwang to Luoyang, where he was finally killed by Li Zicheng. He cooked it with the venison and called it Fu Lu Geng, sharing it with others and eating it.

After Luoyang was captured by Li Chuang, Xiaofu Wang Zhu Yousong and his aunt Zou Shi fled out of the chaos, living outside, begging for mercy everywhere.

After the first emperor died, according to the order of the blood source, Zhu Yousong, the king of Xiaofu, should be established as the emperor. However, the people of Donglin are worried that after Zhu Yousong ascended the throne, he will liquidate the Donglin party members and force his father Zhu Changxun to become a vassal during the Shenzong Dynasty. Luoyang matter.

The Donglin party members were worried that Fufan's accession to the throne would harm their interests, so they ignored their insistence in the Shenzong Dynasty of "establishing the elders but not the virtuous", and changed it to "establishing the virtuous but not establishing the elders", intending to use Lufan to prevent King Fu from ascending the throne.

At this time, Shi Kefa, the highest official in the south of the Yangtze River, should have made a decisive decision and embraced Zhu Yousong as emperor according to the order of blood, but he was indecisive, hesitating between Fu and Lu.

Under the influence of Donglin, Shi Kefa still favored Lilu in the end, but after all, the blood of Lufan was too far behind that of Fufan. In order to be able to fight against Fufan, he dragged Guiwang, who was far away in Guangxi, into the battle for the throne. In the middle, he wrote "seven can't stand", trying to completely kick Fufan out of the battle for the throne.

King Fu was forced to turn to the warlords for help. As a result, the four towns in the north of the Yangtze River took advantage of the strategy and became domineering and arrogant, ignoring the orders of the court.

Hongguang's ascension to the throne was regarded by the Donglin party members as the biggest defeat in the party struggle since the Shenzong dynasty.

Some Donglin party members went to extremes because of this, and they wanted to push Fufan to establish a new monarch before they were willing to give up. Then the great tragedy case, the case of the concubine, and the case of the false prince broke out successively in the court, and there were many Donglin party members.

The three major cases are linked together. It is not difficult to see that Dong Lin wants to use the case of the concubine Tong as a breakthrough to completely deny the legal status of Emperor Hongguang, and then use the case of the fake prince to overthrow Hongguang and achieve their goal of establishing a new emperor.

The conflict between Donglin and the emperor was almost irreconcilable. In order to fight against Donglin, Hongguang had to rely on Ma Shiying, so the party struggle became more intense.The emperor and Donglin were in the same situation, and the court was not peaceful, which led to the neglect of government affairs, the failure of government orders, and the frustration of all officials who wanted to do things.

The situation in the DPRK and China was like this, otherwise Chen Zilong would not have resigned, and Zuo Maodi, as Xia Wanchun said, was unable to support himself, only full of helplessness.

Wang Yan was not in the court, so he didn't know how dirty it was, and he didn't know that the party struggle had developed to such an extent. Now facing Zuo Maodi's helplessness, Wang Yan was at a loss. A countermeasure was made earlier, but now it seems that whether he comes or not, the result is the same.

Such a corrupt court situation made Wang Yan feel powerless for a while, but he still did not give up, "The country and the country, the foundation of the ancestors, the courtiers don't care, don't your majesty care?"

"Your Majesty also invited people to discuss the strategy of defending against the Qing court, but they didn't get any results. In the end, they had to let it go." Zuo Maodi said in a deep voice.

"Why is that?" Wang Yan asked.

"The annual revenue of the imperial court is 500 million taels, 300 million taels are given to Jiangbei, and more than 100 million taels are given to Wuchang. The treasury has already been empty. The four towns in Jiangbei are domineering. They can't move without money and food. How can we make a strategy?" Zuo Maodi sighed.

The mountains and rivers are broken, half of the wall is ruined, the imperial court is newly established, and supplies, money and food are very scarce, but after all, with the fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River, Wang Yan did not expect that the treasury would be bankrupt.

"Shi Gong supervised Jiangbei for nearly a year, and spent countless manpower, material resources, and financial resources. Is there really no countermeasure?" Chen Zilong resigned because he had seen through the situation in the court. Now, listening to Zuo Maodi's words, he knows It was very difficult to start from the court, so I turned to ask Wang Yandao.

"Shi Gong is not the minister who saved the time!" Wang Yan said helplessly when he thought of the scene in Xuzhou, and his subsequent counting of Shi Kefa, who refused to listen to Shi Kefa.

After Chen Zilong heard this, he didn't ask any more questions.

Regarding Wang Yan's evaluation of Shi Kefa, neither Zuo Maodi nor Chen Zilong showed any displeasure. On the contrary, they, like Wang Yan, had a lot of resentment towards Shi Kefa.

Speaking of this time, Wang Yan also knew that the trip to Nanjing might be in vain, so he couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable.

The three discussed for a while, but there was still no good solution, so Wang Yan and Chen Zilong had no choice but to leave. Before leaving, Zuo Maodi said that he was willing to try again, and according to Wang Yan's words, contact the ministers to write a letter to the emperor.

Regardless of whether things are successful or not, as a minister of the country, he must try his best to do it.

After leaving Zuofu, Chen Zilong went to connect with the courtiers he was acquainted with.

Wang Yan walked alone in the bustling streets of Nanjing City, but his mind was blank. His aptitude was only mediocre, otherwise he would not have been admitted to the student body from time to time. The reason why he behaves quite differently now is mostly due to the strange dream. .

He got instructions in the dream, so he could see the general trend of the world faster than ordinary people, but the instructions in the dream were limited after all, they were just some scattered pictures, and they didn't help much to save the situation.

He knew that the Qing army was going south to the south of the Yangtze River, but how to stop the Qing army and how to change the situation required him to think about strategies, influence, and change.

Walking out of Zuo Maodi's mansion, he found that there was nothing he could do to change the current situation, and he couldn't help feeling discouraged.

Wang Yan walked aimlessly, and before he knew it, he arrived outside the Meixiang Building. He and Xu Yanyan had an appointment to meet at night, but since they came, Wang Yan decided to go in ahead of time.

Xu Yanyan was practicing the piece that Wang Yan composed last night, when she heard the little servant girl report that Prince Wang came over, she immediately welcomed him in joyfully.

Seeing this, Wang Yan had to temporarily put aside the important national affairs in his mind and focus on Xu Yanyan, but the careful Xu Yanyan still found the melancholy in his heart.

Under Xu Yanyan's questioning, Wang Yan expressed his distress one by one, and Xu Yanyan liked Wang Yan even more after listening to Wang Yan's words of worrying about the country and the people.

Her sweetheart is not only a great talent with excellent poetry, but also a national scholar who cares about the country and the people and wants to frame the world.

(End of this chapter)