Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 341
Although most of the official documents did not doubt the authenticity of the crown prince, Yang Chao still did his job well and asked several eunuchs and civil officials to confirm it. Liu Zhengzong, Li Jinglian and others immediately cried bitterly when they saw the prince, and recognized them, and the prince also identified these people one by one.

Yang Chao took out the secret decree written by Chongzhen himself, not to mention that it was stamped with Chongzhen's jade seal, even Chongzhen's handwriting could not be faked. Many civil officials in Nanjing have been approved by Emperor Chongzhen, and the emperor's handwriting is not unrecognizable. They all believed that the secret decree was true.

At the same time, they marveled at Yang Chao's achievements.

Picking up the princes from the fallen capital and escorting them for thousands of miles in the chaos, this kind of feat is much more terrifying than beheading [-] in Haizhou.

Therefore, Yang Chao was undoubtedly the crown prince's first contribution to going south.

After identifying the authenticity of the prince and confirming his identity, he immediately announced it to the world in the name of the prince, and sent a fast horse to announce it all the way.

Then there was another set of complicated procedures, such as offering sacrifices to the Taimiao, paying homage to the Xiaoling Mausoleum, and then bringing filial piety for Chongzhen.

After a set of procedures is completed, it will be June.

At this time, it was suddenly confirmed that Li Zicheng withdrew from Beijing and the Eight Banners Army occupied Beijing.

Yang Chao lamented that history is still history, and the general situation has not changed at all. Li Ziguo can't stop the Eight Banners soldiers.

Previously, Yang Chao wondered whether without Chen Yuanyuan, Wu Sangui would become a concubine in anger, whether he would directly surrender to Li Zicheng, then the Manchu Qing would not enter the customs, but the results showed that the weight of a woman is not enough to drive away Wu Sangui Such a heroic change, compared to women, politics and power are the most attractive to men.

One of the big reasons why the later generations of the Chinese imperial court tolerated some more harmful violations of discipline by officials, but resolutely forbid officials to make mistakes with women is that these officials who started to indulge in sex have actually lost their aggressiveness and have no interest in politics. Without desire, there will be no struggle at all, so it should be eliminated.

Yang Chao sighed, but what surprised Yang Chao was that the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty were almost universally celebrating the Manchu Qing's entry into the customs. They cheered for the Manchu Qing's defeat of Li Zicheng, and even congratulated the crown prince for this, singing praises, Nasty to say that it was precisely because the crown prince won the hearts of the people and responded to God's will that Thief Li suffered such a defeat.

Taking the opportunity, someone came forward to invite the crown prince to ascend the throne immediately, and all the officials agreed.

Then there were two pretentious refusals, and it was not until the third time when the officials persuaded him to come in that the Crown Prince reluctantly agreed.

Then came the enthronement ceremony, and it was already mid-June after finishing these.

This grand ceremony is still very tiring. As a newly promoted minister, Yang Chao naturally has to accompany him all the way. He feels more tired than fighting himself, but the civil servants who are not young don't feel bitter or tired at all, and they are all in high spirits. .

In addition to dealing with the affairs of the DPRK and China, Yang Chao is more concerned about the situation in the north.

The news was already very accurate. The refugees who escaped from Beijing passed the news to Jiangnan one by one.

After Li Zicheng captured Beijing, he really wanted to clean up military discipline and appease the people, and planned to become emperor.

From Zhang Jinyan, the Minister of the First Auxiliary, to the six minor officials, except for Li Banghua, Fan Jingwen and other [-] officials who committed suicide and died abroad, they all fell into Li Zicheng's arms, congratulated the new lord, and persuaded Li Zicheng to become emperor.

Li Zicheng also wanted to be emperor, but he soon discovered that he was unable to support a huge army of millions, and his subordinates, whether they were the direct peasant army or the surrendered Ming army, had poor military discipline. At that time, looting happened naturally.

A person's behavior when they have no money is often consistent with their identity. Chongzhen has no money and chooses to increase taxes. Li Zicheng's actions are also in line with his identity.
Immediately pull out those civil and military officials who just took refuge in him and want to become officials again, and let them ask for money. When Chongzhen asked these people for money, these people cried poorly. Chongzhen is the emperor, and there is no way to save face. Li Zicheng didn't care about these things, he beat him if he asked for money, and as a result, 7000 million taels of silver were seized, and at the same time he offended all the officials, big and small. It is worth mentioning that the first person to be beaten to death was the first to surrender Li Zicheng's great Ming Xungui Xiangcheng uncle Li Guozhen.

This kind of violence is easy to get out of control. At the beginning, it was only among civil and military officials, royal relatives and nobles. It soon developed to civilians, and began to target those rich people. Li Zicheng persuaded Liu Zongmin, but Liu Zongmin was still not satisfied. Contradictory: The power of the emperor belongs to you, and the power of torture belongs to me, so don't mind your own business.Li Zicheng is the leader of the peasant army, he is more like a leading brother, and each of his subordinates is more like Liangshan heroes. In addition, Liu Zongmin has a heavy army in his hands, and he treats Li Zicheng more like a boss than an emperor, and his words are very rude.

Moreover, Liu Zongmin was in charge of plundering, made a fortune, and made other forces jealous. They also learned to start plundering, and even worse, they developed to robbing desperately, robbing money, food, and women. Not long ago, they were looking forward to the arrival of King Chuang Beijingers who did not pay their food fell into hell in a blink of an eye.

So far, Li Zicheng has offended not only the officials, but also the common people, landlords and gentry, rich merchants and rich merchants.

Li Zicheng was busy plundering the city of Beijing, and he didn't pay attention to the Man Qing who was staring at the outside of the pass. To the northeast, he just sent people to persuade Wu Sangui to surrender, and asked Wu Sangui to come to Beijing to face the saint.

When Wu Sangui was asked by Chongzhen to serve as king, he dragged his way to Shanhaiguan with the army, but he didn't make it there for a month. If he had the speed of Yuan Chonghuan back then, he could really rush to the city of Beijing, and he might not be able to prevent Li Zicheng from entering Beijing.

But he dawdled and waited until Beijing fell, and he continued to dawdle until Li Zicheng surrendered.

Wu Sangui may not have the intention to surrender, but his servant came to tell him that his father was arrested in the city and his property was confiscated.

Wu Sangui told the servant that when he returned to Beijing, his father would be released and his family property would be returned. He continued to dawdle, but there was no news of Li Zicheng releasing his father and returning his family property along the way. , but Li Zicheng kept urging him, hoping that he would go to Beijing immediately. What would he do in Beijing?Got caught?
Wu Sangui finally gave up on Li Zicheng, turned around and returned to Shanhaiguan, and then met Dorgon's people who came to win him over.

Li Zicheng's poor political wisdom made him lose the opportunity to stabilize the overall situation as soon as possible and establish a new dynasty. His short-sighted strategic vision made him ignore the most dangerous enemy. As a result, Wu Sangui was forced to the side of the Qing Dynasty. Wu Sangui let the Qing army enter the pass. The United Eight Banners defeated Li Zicheng elite in a stone.

After Li Zicheng returned to Beijing, he hurriedly held an enthronement ceremony. Then he took the 7000 million taels of silver he had looted, and with the idea of ​​returning to his hometown in Shaanxi to enjoy the blessings, he gave up the city of Beijing and set fire to it before leaving.

As a result, the Qing army failed to take down the city of Beijing five times in a row, but this time it failed to attack, and entered this dreamed place under the warm welcome of the Beijingers who survived the catastrophe.

Although he has always been regarded as a barbarian, Dorgon's political wisdom is more than a step higher than that of Li Zicheng.

Unlike Li Zicheng, who regarded torture as the top priority, Manchu officials believed that "recruitment should be urgently recruited, and people should be popular first", and "this is the top priority for the prosperity of the dynasty."

So after Dorgon entered Beijing, he immediately began to buy people's hearts. He first ordered "the officials and the people to mourn for Emperor Chongzhen for three days to show public opinion. The Ministry of Rites and the Taichang Temple prepared the emperor's ritual funeral." under the guise of

Then he "made a big announcement to clean up the former filth with the gentry of the courts" "ordered the cabinet, six ministries, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate and other yamen officials in Beijing to handle affairs as the original officials and Manchu officials." "All civil and military officials, soldiers and civilians, regardless of origin Rogues, or those who are forced to surrender by rogues, if they can submit to our court, they are still allowed to be employed."

Directly recruit officials, whether they are civil officials of the Chongzhen court, civil officials who surrendered to Li Zicheng, or even civil officials of the Dashun Dynasty directly appointed by Li Zicheng, all are recruited and the officials are reinstated.

A series of actions immediately won the hearts of all civil and military officials in Beijing, singing their praises endlessly.

It was also announced to the common people that all the wealth stolen by Li Zicheng would be "returned to the original owner" immediately, "the land and property given by the ex-dynasty's relatives, all of which will remain as usual", and "the price of the Beijing class in Zhangqiu and Jiyang counties, Shandong Province will be exempted. Get rid of the craftsman's identity for the people."

Even the common people bought it.

But what did Man Qing pay?
Nothing was paid, all the officials were reinstated, and the so-called return of the stolen property of the people was nothing more than some houses and fields. In fact, they were not in their hands at all. .

The method is better than Li Zicheng's!
Not only did it win the hearts of the people in Gyeonggi, but even the small imperial court of the Southern Ming Dynasty was paralyzed. The civil officials changed the old language of referring to the Manchus as Donglu and Tartars, and officially began to call them the Qing Dynasty.

Some officials even began to suggest that troops should be sent north to join forces with the Manchu Qing to exterminate Li Zicheng.

Moreover, it was the well-known Shi Kefa who put forward this opinion, euphemistically called Lianlu Pingkou.

A large group of civil servants complied, and they were well-founded, supported by a large amount of evidence from history books.

For example, take out the Dashi cavalry borrowed by the Tang Dynasty to suppress the Huangchao Rebellion with the help of Shatuo soldiers and suppress the Anshi Rebellion, etc.

They expressed that they would use the troops of the Manchu Qing Dynasty to assess Li Zicheng.

Of course, the pedantic civil servants may not be able to come up with such an absurd but imaginative method. In fact, Wu Sangui was the first to make a show of it.

Wu Sangui sent the Eight Banners into the customs under the banner of "Borrowing the soldiers of the Qing Dynasty to avenge the late emperor", with the purpose of persuading his own troops, but unexpectedly, he was seen by the civil officials of Nanming, and each of them took it as a clever plan.

Then Wu Sangui really joined the Eight Banners to defeat Li Zicheng and regained the city of Beijing. Everyone immediately believed that Wu Sangui's contribution was in Sheji, and praised Wu Sangui as a famous general with both wisdom and bravery, which is rare in the sky and hard to find on earth.

And immediately began to ask for credit for Wu Sangui, and in the name of "recovering Shenjing", he suggested that he be made the Duke of Ji Guo.

Asking Wu Sangui to confer titles has triggered the new imperial court's practice of conferring meritorious officials. Many people immediately become high-ranking officials, but there are two difficult issues. One is how to confer rewards on Yang Chao. One should also be granted the title of Duke, and the other is the question of who should be the chief assistant.

(End of this chapter)