Ming Empire

Chapter 221 Dorgon's Restlessness
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News of the imperial court of Remnant Ming, who was in peace in Nanjing, launching a large army to the north, quickly spread to Beijing.

In the Forbidden City, the Hall of Martial Heroes, Dorgon, the uncle of the Qing emperor and the regent, was pacing with his brows tightly locked.After the Jiannu army defeated Li Zicheng's peasant army, the whole of Beijing fell into the hands of Jiannu. Originally, the palaces where the princes and nobles of the Ming Dynasty lived were mostly occupied by the Jiannu nobles.The Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty, naturally became the booty of Jiannu. Dorgon took a fancy to the Hall of Martial Arts and regarded it as his bedroom.

At this time, Dorgon was mostly focused on destroying Li Zicheng's peasant army. He and his counselors believed that there was no need to consider the threat of the remnant Ming court in Nanjing for the time being.Although Cao Yue rescued the body of Emperor Chongzhen and several princes from Beijing, and supported Zhu Cijiong on the throne, Dorgon rescued Zhu Cijiong and others from Beijing according to Cao Yue's army. According to a little judgment, Remnant Ming's strength is still very weak, and Cao Yue doesn't have many soldiers and horses in his hands. Otherwise, this guy would not be able to let Li Zicheng's peasant army break through Beijing.

Cao Yue was unable to prevent the peasant army from occupying Beijing. Dorgon and his advisers believed that Canming's military power was not enough to fear. The biggest threat to them now was Li Zicheng's peasant army. Before the imperial court regained its vitality, it wiped out the peasant army led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and occupied the places they controlled.After stabilizing the north, they will move south to confront the remnant army.

Therefore, Dorgon devoted most of his strength to attack Li Zicheng's tribe who had retreated to Shaanxi.

Needless to say, his strategy worked quite well. Li Zicheng suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Piece of Stone, and after he withdrew from Beijing, he almost lost every battle. After being defeated by Jiannu and Wu Sangui's Guanning Army, he had to Retiring to Shaanxi, a state of lingering survival.

Dorgon planned to deal with Li Zicheng's troops within half a year. After finishing Li Zicheng's troops, he decided based on the situation whether to crusade against the imperial court of the Remnant Ming Dynasty first, or Sichuan occupied by Zhang Xianzhong, or take care of both fronts.

At this time, Dorgon was full of ambition. What he thought about now was not just defeating the bandits and the Ming army, but occupying the world.When Wu Sangui asked for his order to surrender and the Qing army officially entered the customs, Fan Wencheng, Dorgon's first adviser and a scholar of the inner courtyard, wrote a letter. Fan Wencheng said in the memorial: "If Qin loses its deer, Chu and Han chase each other. In other words, I am not fighting with the Ming Dynasty, but fighting with bandits.” He advocated sending troops to the Central Plains immediately to conquer the world.

Fan Wencheng was afraid that Jiannu would adopt the previous strategy. He used a lot of space to persuade Dorgon to change his strategy against the Han. To recruit people, I am not as good as a thief." Therefore, it is necessary to change the previous policy of slaughter and looting, "Soldiers are strictly prohibited, and the people in the land they occupy will not be violated." Attract people's hearts.If the previous policy of burning, killing and looting is still adopted, it is impossible to get the support of the Han people.

Now the Qing army entered the customs at the request of Wu Sangui, the guard of the Daming Shanhaiguan, and the Qing army entered the customs under the slogan of avenging Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty.The Qing army can use this as an excuse to win the support of the Han people by changing their tactics.

Dorgon accepted Fan Wencheng's suggestion and prepared to compete with the Peasant Army and Remnant Ming for the world.

In order to appease the hearts of the people, after the Qing army occupied Beijing, Dorgon issued a strict order prohibiting the Qing army from burning, killing and looting after entering the city, and stopped shaving and changing clothes. its revenge.The policy set by Dorgon was strictly implemented, which won the goodwill of the Han gentry. When Jiannu entered Beijing, many gentry lined up to welcome them, and spontaneously offered money and goods to reward the Jiannu army.

Relying on Fan Wencheng's proposal to establish slaves, Dorgon quickly stabilized the situation in Beijing, and then other occupied places, such as Taiyuan, Shunde, Jinan and other prefectures, a large number of officials and gentry surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

After harvesting these, Dorgon discussed with the kings and ministers Baylor and decided to move the capital to Beijing.The faction in power headed by Dorgon believes that in order to make progress and win the world, the capital must be moved to Beijing. Only by occupying this place can the whole country be unified and an immortal career be built for thousands of years.

After making the decision to move the capital to Beijing, the nobles of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties also set off from Shengjing to Beijing.Accompanied by his mother Bumbutai and Empress Dowager Zhezhe, Emperor Shunzhi also arrived in Beijing from Shengjing and lived in the Forbidden City.

After Shunzhi arrived in Beijing, he promulgated an enthronement edict to the whole country at Huangji Gate, and at the same time named Dorgon as the emperor's uncle and regent, and bestowed him with a sable mang court robe.Ordered the Ministry of Rites to build a monument for Dorgon to record his achievements, and bestowed Dorgon with a book of treasures.

Whether it is Dorgon or other nobles who built slaves, they believed that the Ming Dynasty had been maimed by Li Zicheng and had to settle down in Nanjing. Now that Li Zicheng had suffered a disastrous defeat, he had no power to pose a threat to the Qing Dynasty.But Dorgon did not expect that less than a month after the Qing Dynasty officially moved its capital to Beijing, the imperial court of the Canming Dynasty launched the Northern Expedition. There were more than [-] troops in the Northern Expedition. The leader of the Northern Expedition was Cao Yue, who made many Qing soldiers fear .

Although Dorgon knew that Cao Yue’s 10,000+ troops were new recruits who had just been recruited, the Datong Army that Cao Yue once led was also newly recruited. The children died in a foreign land.

Dorgon will never underestimate Cao Yue.Sun Chuanting, another heavyweight in the Ming Dynasty Hall, Dorgon will not despise either.It was precisely because he was worried that Remnant Ming would recover quickly under the governance of Cao Yue and Sun Chuanting, so Dorgon was determined to devote all his strength to eliminate the rogues.

Do not put Remnant Ming's small* court at the top of the list, apart from thinking that the current Li Zicheng is more threatening than Remnant Ming, there is also the need to cross the two natural dangers of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River in order to fight against Remnant, and go south to attack Remnant Ming paid a higher price.

Dorgon even thought about temporarily negotiating peace with Remnant Ming, and the two sides lived in peace for a period of time and even joined forces to eliminate the bandits.The suggestion made by Fan Wencheng will allow the Qing Dynasty to win more support from the Han people and the officials and gentry. As long as the Qing army eliminates the bandits first, under the banner of avenging the Chongzhen Emperor, the support of the officials and the people in the pass will be sustainable of.In time, maybe without a fight, the soldiers of the imperial court could be subdued. No matter how capable Cao Yue and Sun Chuanting were, they would not be able to compete with the officials and gentry.Both Dorgon and Fan Wencheng are aware of the influence of the gentry class in the Ming Dynasty Hall, as long as they win their support, things will be easy to handle.

Now Dorgon is gathering the remnants of the original Shandong Liu Zeqing to fight against the Ming army.At the same time, he also sent people to contact Zuo Liangyu in Hubei, encouraging Zuo Liangyu to disobey the small imperial court of the remnant Ming Dynasty, and even cause chaos.Dorgon clearly told Zuo Liangyu that as long as he raises troops, the Qing army will definitely go south to support him.

But now, Cao Yue unexpectedly led the army to the Northern Expedition, preparing to take back Beijing, disrupting all his plans.He had no choice but to quickly call Fan Wencheng to discuss countermeasures. Before Fan Wencheng arrived, Dorgon seemed very restless.

(End of this chapter)