Ming Empire

Chapter 194

After the rogues captured Beijing, most officials in the DPRK and Central China surrendered and rebelled.
After fully grasping the situation in Beijing, Li Zicheng came to Desheng Gate surrounded by dozens of trusted generals.Inside Desheng Gate, the former chief minister of the Ming cabinet Liu Zongzhou, second assistant Zhang Jinyan, Wei Zhaocheng, Cheng Guogong Zhu Chunchen and other high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty who surrendered without a fight knelt tremblingly on both sides of the official road, shouting shamelessly. Long live the emperor, but Li Zicheng didn't even look at them.

People who have no integrity will always be despised.Li Zicheng is a generation of heroes, he admires the heroes who stand up to the sky, not these humble soft bones.In the end, Li Zicheng didn't give these people a good look, and ordered them all to be thrown into prison and strictly guarded.

However, there are also many honest officials who are unwilling to be the subjugated slaves of the Ming Dynasty. After the city was destroyed, they chose to commit suicide and die for the country.

Household Minister Ni Yuanlu, Zuodu Censor Li Banghua, Zuofu Censor Shi Bangyao, Dali Temple Minister Ling Yiqu, Taichang Temple Minister Wu Linzheng, Zuo Zhongyun Liu Lishun, Minister of Criminal Justice Meng Zhaoxiang, Prince Consort Gong Yonggu and other officials are all family members. suicide.

Hundreds of eunuchs in the palace committed suicide, more than 700 court ladies committed suicide, and more than [-] family members including gentry and students committed suicide.

There is a bit of irony, the eunuchs in the palace died more than a thousand people in battle.Compared with these rootless men, those high-ranking and well-paid officials are really shameless.Even the eunuch knew how to fight for the country. He had been talking in the court hall earlier, and regarded himself as a pillar official of the Ming Dynasty. It was the tragedy of Ming Dynasty to finally meet the siege of the rogues in such a shameless way.

After Li Zicheng captured Beijing, he immediately seized all the warehouses of the imperial palace and the six departments, but to his disappointment, no money was found from these places, and the treasury of Ming Dynasty was already empty.But soon Li Zicheng was pleasantly surprised again. He found a large amount of money and silver from the palaces of the nobles in the court, roughly estimated to be at least tens of millions of taels.

With so much silver taels, Li Zicheng's mouth almost cracked to the back of his head.

In order to seize more silver taels, he ordered that all the dignitaries who had been captured and surrendered be thrown into prison, and their families could only be released with enough silver taels.After Li Zicheng's order was issued, the city of Beijing was in a state of chaos. Those powerful and powerful who originally hoped to join the bandits and gain a new life and live a comfortable life again found sadly that they were in dire straits.

However, Li Zicheng and those high-level rogues were very happy, and a steady stream of silver was delivered to them. It was all sent by these powerful families to redeem their headed family members, and the amount was much more than they estimated.It was only then that Li Zicheng believed that all the rich and powerful in Beijing were rich. He decided to continue to use this method to collect more money.
But Li Zicheng and his advisers, including Liu Zongmin, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance and others, did not know that their act of killing the rich and helping the poor brought disaster to themselves.

The current admiral of the Beijing camp is Wu Xiang, who was urgently appointed as the admiral of the Beijing camp by Emperor Chongzhen after the bandits attacked near Taiyuan.Emperor Chongzhen made a meaningful appointment in this way, because Wu Xiang has a son who has a heavy army in his hands, and he is an elite Guanning Army.

Wu Xiang's son is Wu Sangui, General Soldier of Shanhaiguan.

When Beijing was in crisis, Emperor Chongzhen ordered Wu Sangui to abandon Ningyuan and lead Guan Ning cavalry into King Jingqin.After Wu Sangui received the imperial decree, he hesitated for several days. After receiving news from his father, he decided to lead the army to serve the king. However, he had just led the army to leave Shanhaiguan, but there was news that Beijing was captured by rogues.Wu Sangui, who received the news, immediately led his troops back to Shanhaiguan.

At this time, Wu Sangui had to consider a very important issue, how should he and the tens of thousands of Guanning cavalry under his command go.Wu Sangui knew very well that he only had less than 5 troops in his hands, and now he was only occupying a corner of Guanning and Shanhaiguan.

Moreover, Guan Ning and Shanhaiguan were sandwiched between the rogues and Jiannu, and he couldn't deal with any force.

Wu Sangui knew that there were only two paths before him, one was to surrender to the bandits and submit to the so-called Dashun Dynasty.Jiang Rang, Jiang Xiang brothers, Tang Tong and other former commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty had already surrendered to the rogues, and they still held the post of commander-in-chief. It can be said that nothing has changed, except that the master they are loyal to has changed.

The second is to cooperate with Jiannu, like his uncle Zu Dashou, to be Jiannu's eagle dog.After Zu Dashou was defeated and returned to Jiannu, he wrote a letter to persuade Wu Sangui to surrender. If Wu Sangui was willing to surrender, he would definitely be able to obtain a high position in Jiannu and continue to lead the Guanning Army.This road is also very attractive to Wu Sangui, because his uncle Zu Dashou has already passed away and received extremely high treatment.

But now Wu Sangui is not optimistic about Jiannu. In the past few years, Jiannu has lost more than he won in the fight against the Datong army led by Cao Yue. He has suffered heavy losses and has not even recovered his vitality.In Wu Sangui's mind, the rogues with millions of troops are much stronger than Jiannu.Moreover, according to reports from the people from the capital, most of the civil and military ministers of the Ming Dynasty in Beijing have already surrendered to the bandits. It seems that his father Wu Xiang also surrendered to Li Zicheng.It should be a certainty that Dashun will replace Daming.

After several days of thinking and weighing, Wu Sangui finally decided to surrender to Li Zicheng.

But just when Wu Sangui wrote the letter of loyalty and sent it to Li Zicheng in Beijing, and Li Zizhong sent his general Li Guo to Shanhaiguan to discuss the matter of surrender, Wu Sangui received a piece of news that made him very angry. His old father Wu Xiang He was thrown into prison by bandits, tortured and tortured, and finally handed over nearly 10 taels of silver before being released.The old father who was released was dying, half his life was gone.

Moreover, Wu Sangui also immediately learned that all the dignitaries of the Ming Dynasty and the ministers of the court who surrendered were all arrested by the rogues, and their families had to pay a certain amount of silver before they could be released.And these dignitaries who originally expected to be treated favorably after returning to Dashun almost only had half their lives after being redeemed, and they were subjected to horrific abuse in prison.

In addition, Liu Zongzhou, the chief assistant of the cabinet, Wei Zhaocheng and Zhang Jinyan, the second assistants of the cabinet, Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Cheng, and Zhou Kui, the head of the state, returned to the rogues, not to mention not being treated favorably, they even lost their lives.They were all tortured to death by the bandits, and their deaths were extremely tragic.

After hearing the news, Wu Sangui immediately changed his mind and would never surrender to the tyrannical bandits. He immediately sent someone to Jinzhou to contact Zu Dashou, and asked his uncle to tell Dorgon that Guan Ning's iron cavalry was willing to join hands with Jiannu for a total Resist bandits.At this time, Wu Sangui did not intend to return to the Manchu Qing, he was still thinking about it.

Because of the tyranny of Wu Zicheng and his subordinates, Wu Sangui changed his decision in a short period of time and joined forces with Jiannu to deal with the rogues, and the fate of the rogues changed.

(End of this chapter)