Chapter 210 Wu Sangui borrowed Qing soldiers

The two factions were in stalemate, and the opinions of the Minister of War Shi Kefa became a decisive element, but the performance of this first important official of the remnant Ming Dynasty was very puzzling. At this moment of storm, it was his role and the final decision, but he actually looked at him and did not express any opinions.

This matter took more than ten days until the Governor of Fengyang, Ma Shiying, led his troops to Nanjing.

Although Fengyang is just a prefecture in Nanzhili, its status is quite impressive. Because Fengyang is the Zhongdu of the Ming Dynasty and the ancestral tomb of Zhu Ming, in terms of rank, Fengyang Governor Ma Shiying is no lower than Zhejiang Governor Sun Chuanting. Both of them were estranged officials of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, Ma Shiying held heavy troops like Sun Chuanting. Sun Chuanting had a strong general, Wang Pu, Ma Shiying also had two strong generals, Gao Jie and Liu Liangzuo. These two strong generals were originally thieves, but they joined the official army because they were not tolerated by the thieves and first served under Yang Sichang. After Yang Sichang committed suicide for fear of crime, he became Ma Shiying's subordinates.

Moreover, Ma Shiying has secretly reached an agreement with Shandong General Liu Zeqing to form a Jiangbei Military Group specifically targeting Sun Sunting and Wang Pu Military Group!

Before Ma Shiying led his troops to Beijing, Liu Zeqing had already led his troops south to occupy Huai'an Prefecture. Liu Zeqing, a beast, was actually afraid of the bandits' troops, so he voluntarily gave up the entire province of Shandong. When he led his troops south, he also robbed and killed troops in Shandong, which was worse than beasts.

In addition, Ma Shiying also ordered Liu Liangzuo to stay in Fengyang, allowing Gao Jie to occupy Yangzhou, and formed a military situation of confrontation with the Sun and Wang groups in Jiangnan.

When the country was peaceful and the people were at peace, the generals of the Ming Dynasty were wolf dogs raised by the court. Even a seventh-rank magistrate could insult the generals of each town. However, in the face of national crisis, the military generals immediately jumped above Yundian, and became civil servants and wanted to rest assured.

As soon as Ma Shiying arrived in Nanjing, Shi Kefa immediately made an appointment with him secretly.

Shi Kefa actually praised the establishment and immediately supported the new king, but there was a reason why he did not express his opinion until today, because Sun Chuanting, the governor of Zhejiang, who held heavy troops, supported Gao Hongtu, the Minister of Revenue, and firmly advocated the welcome of the prince to Nanjing to succeed the throne. Shi Kefa was worried that if he expressed his attitude, it would trigger military advice from Gao Hongtu and Sun Chuanting!

Now that Ma Shiying has arrived in Nanjing, Shi Kefa is eager to explore his words. If Ma Shiying supports the establishment of the new king, Shi Kefa will express his support for Lu Daqi. If Ma Shiying's position is the same as Sun Chuanting, Shi Kefa has to support Gao Hongtu in order to maintain the stability of Nanjing.

The dispute between Gao Hongtu and Lu Daqi seems to be high-sounding on the surface, but the political views are different. In fact, it is not the case at all. This is the continuation of the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty. Gao Hongtu is a party member of Qi, while Lu Daqi is a member of Donglin. Although Shi Kefa is not a member of Donglin, he is inclined to the party member of Donglin.

The grudge between the Qi Party and the Donglin Party can be traced back to the Wanli period.

In the 41st year of Wanli, the leader of the Zhejiang Party, Fang Congzhe, entered the cabinet to become the prime minister. Qi Shijiao, the leader of the Qi Party, was a disciple of Fang Congzhe. From then on, the teachers and students became popular figures in the court and the public. Until the 48th year of Wanli, the Qi Party and the Zhejiang Party always controlled the government.

After Emperor Wanli's death, three major cases occurred in the Ming Palace. The Qi Party and the Donglin Party, which had been suppressed by the Zhejiang Party for many years, took the opportunity to fight back and finally defeated the opponent and became the "ruling party" with a powerful government and opposition.

However, the Donglin Party did not have a long time. With the support of Emperor Tianqi, the powerful eunuch Wei Zhongxian quickly rose.

In the fourth year of Tianqi, Wei Zhongxian pushed Fang Congzhe's fellow villager Feng Qi to the prime minister. In the fifth year of Tianqi, Feng Qi recalled Qi Shijiao back to the court and served as the left assistant censor of the Censorate. With the support of the eunuch party, Qi Party successfully restored the throne, while the Donglin Party members were tragically persecuted by the eunuch party. A large number of Donglin Party members, including Gao Panlong, Zuo Guangdou, Yang Lian, and other groups suffered misfortunes one after another.

Objectively speaking, the Donglin Party members at that time had a strong character. They fought with the Qi Party and the eunuch Party. Although they had political purposes, they dared to sacrifice their lives. In order to fight with the eunuch Party, Gao Panlong and others were willing to pay their lives. They had a very "revolutionary spirit" of "sacrificing their heads and sprinkling their blood", which is worthy of admiration for future generations.

Unfortunately, the Donglin Party members were worse than each other after that.

Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, the eunuch party was destroyed, the Qi party became a remnant of the eunuch party and was tragically suppressed. The Donglin party members turned over again and became the ruling party again. After that, Emperor Chongzhen showed hatred for the party struggles and no longer obeyed and believed in any party. The Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, and Donglin parties took turns to rule, and the open and secret struggles in the court never stopped.

The party struggles in the court eventually brought a catastrophe to the Ming Dynasty.

It should be mentioned in particular that the reason why the Ming army was defeated in Sarhu was entirely caused by party struggles, because the chief minister of the cabinet at that time was the leader of the Zhejiang Party, Fang Congzhe. In order to safeguard the interests of the Zhejiang Party, Fang Congzhe appointed Zhejiang Party general Yang Hao! Yang Hao had long proved that he was a "escape general" on the previous Korean battlefield, but the result was that Sarhu was defeated and Jiannu became a climax.

If Fang Congzhe had not been in power at the beginning, and Xiong Tingbi or Sun Chengzong could have been replaced by the commander of the troops, history would probably have been rewritten.

Therefore, the political struggle between Gao Hongtu and Lu Daqi is not as simple as it seems.

Moreover, with the involvement of Zhejiang Direct Governor Sun Chuanting and Fengyang Governor Ma Shiying, this political struggle will become more complicated, because compared with the previous party struggles, this party struggle may lead to a large-scale merger of two major military groups in Jiangnan and Jiangbei at any time. This will undoubtedly add to the insult to Can Ming, who had already suffered a great loss of strength.

What’s even more terrible is that it’s at this critical moment, and there is no news about Wang Pu!

The prince and the two princes are still alive and their lives are uncertain. Sun Chuanting is so anxious that his hair is almost gone!

If Wang Pu could escort the prince to Nanjing at this time, everything would be natural. But if Wang Pu could not escort the prince to Nanjing in time, once the new emperor took office, the future will be difficult to say. Political struggles have always been dirty. Who knows what will happen then?

The Nanjing officialdom is in a turbulent situation and is turbulent against the current. The situation in Beijing is also complicated and Park Shuo is confused.

Because of the vigorous "chasing the dirt and helping the salary" movement, everyone in Beijing was already in danger. The camp where the bandits were located inside and outside the city was already overcrowded. Almost all the honorary and nobles and officials above the sixth rank were thrown into prison, and the Beijing camp general Wu Xiang was not spared.

This makes things complicated because Wu Xiang's son is General Wu Sangui of Ningyuan.

Long before the bandits entered the capital, Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict to promote Wu Sangui to Pingxibo. At the same time, he strictly ordered Wu Sangui to abandon Ningyuan and lead the Guanning cavalry to Beijing to serve the king. After Wu Sangui received the imperial edict, he began to organize the Liaoxi military and civilians outside the pass to retreat to the pass. However, Wu Sangui had just walked to Shanhaiguan and Beijing fell, and the news that Emperor Chongzhen had hanged himself to death came.

Another probe sent back the news that the treacherous thief Li Zicheng had sent condemnation general Li Guo and Li Yan led 30,000 troops to Shanhaiguan.

Immediately afterwards, the thief's surrender envoy also arrived and brought 40,000 taels of silver and a handwritten letter from Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang. Wu Sangui carefully identified the letter, which was surely Wu Xiang's work. At this time, Wu Sangui was facing the most difficult choice in his life, because the Jiannunu chief Dorgon also sent people to Shanhaiguan!

There are three roads in front of Wu Sangui.

The first route is to lead the army to continue advancing westward, drive the bandits out of Beijing, and then find the prince from the riots and support the prince to the throne. In this way, Wu Sangui will become a minister of the revival of the Ming Dynasty and will be famous in history. This route is what Wu Sangui most hopes to take, but it is also the most unlikely.

Because the current situation is very clear, it is impossible to last a corner of Shanhaiguan, and a mere 50,000 Guanning Army cannot compete with nearly one million thieves.

The second path is to cooperate with Jiannu and lead Jiannu's Eight Banners army into the pass. With Jiannu's army, he defeated the bandits and drove the bandits out of Beijing. This path is the least willing to go by Wu Sangui. Although his brother Wu Sanfeng, uncle Zu Dashou, and mentor Hong Chengchou have surrendered to Jiannu, Wu Sangui never thought of following in their footsteps.

Moreover, Wu Sangui has another layer of concern. As the saying goes, it is easy to invite gods and it is difficult to send gods. It is easy to lead Jiannu's army into the pass, but it is not so easy to invite them out of the pass. If Jiannu stays in Beijing after entering the pass, Wu Sangui will be infamous for thousands of years and become a traitor who has been infamous for thousands of years!

The third article is to surrender to the bandits and continue to be the general of Shanhaiguan in the Dashun Dynasty. Long before the bandits entered the capital, Jiang Xiang and Tang Tong had already surrendered to the bandits. Jiang Xiang transformed from the general of Datong in the Ming Dynasty to the general of Dashun Dynasty, and Tang Tong also transformed from the general of Miyun in the Ming Dynasty to the general of Miyun in the Dashun Dynasty.

Therefore, Wu Sangui had no concerns about surrendering to the thieves, and most of the civil servants and generals in the capital had surrendered to Dashun. It seemed that it was foregone conclusion that Dashun was replaced by Dashun. If Wu Sangui died in battle for the sake of Ming Dynasty, he would certainly be known as a loyal minister, but even if he surrendered to Dashun, he would not be a traitor.

After weighing the pros and cons, Wu Sangui finally decided to surrender to Dashun.

Five days later, Li Guo and Li Yan led an army of 30,000 to Shanhaiguan. Wu Sangui handed over the defenses of Shanhaiguan to Li Guo and Li Yan, and then led a army of 50,000 Guanning to march towards Beijing.

However, as soon as the army arrived at Yuguan, an uninvited guest came to Wu Sangui's army, and history was reversed!

This uninvited guest was either someone else, or the hometown of Wu Xiang’s mansion. This hometown of Wu Xiang brought very bad news to Wu Sangui. His old father Wu Xiang had been arrested by the thief, and all the honors and nobles in the capital and officials of the sixth rank and above were arrested by the thief. Each person varies according to the grade level. Only after paying the full amount of gold and silver can he be regained freedom, and he also called chasing the dirt and helping the salary.

What made Wu Sangui even more frightened was that the chief assistant of the cabinet, the second assistant of the cabinet, Chen Yan, Wei Zhaocheng, Duke Cheng Guo Zhu Chunchen, Zhou Kui and others had all been persecuted to death by the thieves. Zhu Chunchen, the first surrender to the door, was even more broken by the thieves' sticks, and his head was scattered all over the ground, and his death was very miserable.

Wu Xiang was tortured by the thief and was dying. He even asked his servants to pass on the message to Wu Sangui in person, asking Wu Sangui to avenge him!

Wu Sangui is a very cunning person. He can ignore the advice of his brother, uncle, and mentor. Of course, he would not be passionate about his old father's words and raise troops to avenge him. He summoned his brother Wang Tingchen and Ma Ke overnight to discuss countermeasures. The three of them discussed and thought that they would definitely die when they went to Beijing.

Since the thief has dealt with Wu Xiang, it is impossible for him to leave Wu Sangui behind!

This forced Wu Sangui to a dead end. He had no choice but to cooperate with Jiannu. However, at this time, Wu Sangui did not think about becoming a lackey of Jiannu. He just wanted to use Jiannu's soldiers to drive away the bandits and restore the Ming Dynasty. However, Wu Sangui did not expect that once Jiannu entered the pass, he would not have decided what happened in the future.

Wu Sangui killed Li Guo, who had not yet established a stable foothold, was caught off guard and defeated and fled.

After recapturing Shanhaiguan, Wu Sangui immediately sent someone to Jinzhou to contact Zu Dashou. After receiving Wu Sangui's letter, Zu Dashou did not dare to neglect it, so he sent someone to transfer Wu Sangui's letter to Shengjing overnight.

The next morning, Wu Sangui's letter was submitted to the case of Dorgon, the regent of Jiannu.

At this time, Dorgon not only defeated Jirgalang, but also demoted Yue Tuo, and had become the regent of his uncle who monopolized his power.

Dorgon made a quick decision and urgently summoned all the Eight Banners troops in Shengjing, together with the Eight Banners of the Han army, the Eight Banners of the Korean army, and the Eight Banners of the Mongolians, and marched towards Shanhaiguan. Dorgon had been waiting for this day for a long time. Now the opportunity fell from the sky. How could he let it go easily?

Beijing, Wuying Palace.

Li Zicheng was summoning Niu Jinxing, Li Shuangxi, Tian Jianxiu, Liu Zongmin and other civil and military ministers to discuss matters. In the past ten days, the "chasing dirty and assisting salary" movement under Liu Zongmin has achieved remarkable results, and has knocked out nearly ten million taels of silver from the nobles and nobles of the sixth rank and above in Beijing!

Liu Zongmin, who tasted the sweetness, privately expanded the scale of "chasing dirty and assisting salary", and included both merchants and wealthy households in Beijing as the target of the "chasing dirty and assisting salary" movement. According to Liu Zongmin's conservative estimate, at least tens of millions of taels of silver can be knocked out from these merchants in Beijing and wealthy households.

The thief is always a thief and will never become an official army.

It would be fine to knock on the nobles and nobles in Beijing and suck the marrow, but it would be inappropriate to point the finger at ordinary people. In this way, the thieves offended everyone. Not only nobles and nobles in Beijing and the officials in Beijing hated the thieves to the core, but even the people in Beijing were so angry that they gritted their teeth for the thieves.

The thief's rebellious actions finally resulted in bad consequences!

A thief leader stumbled into Wuying Hall and gasped, "Big... King, no...is not good."

"What's wrong?" Li Zicheng frowned, "What's wrong?"

The thief leader said: "Justice Li Guo sent a quick horse to report, and Wu Sangui surrendered and rebelled again. Li Guo and Li Yan were caught off guard and were defeated. More than half of the 30,000 troops were lost and had retreated to Changping! General Li Yan said that Wu Sangui would likely surrender to Jiannu, and ask the king to send a large army to conquer!"

"What!?" Li Zicheng slapped the table and said furiously, "Wu Sangui, a villain who repeated the rebellion, is it so disagreeable, come!"

A close friend came forward and replied, "Here."

Li Zicheng said furiously: "Immediately raise the old man Wu Xiang from the prison and take him to the camp to sacrifice the flag!"

"yes!"

Two confidants took the order and left.

Li Zicheng said again: "Xizi, Tian Jianxiu!"

Li Shuangxi, Tian Jianxiu took a step forward, clasped his fists and replied, "Here."

Li Zicheng shouted: "Call 100,000 troops immediately and follow me to attack Shanhaiguan!"

"yes."

Li Shuangxiu responded with a loud promise.

At this time, the total force under Li Zicheng's command had reached nearly one million, but nearly half of them were the Ming official army that had just surrendered. Most of them, such as Jiang Xiang's Datong Army and Tang Tong's Miyun soldiers, were left in place by Li Zicheng. After capturing Beijing, Li Zicheng divided his troops to attack Baoding prefectures and sent another partial division to attack Shandong. At this time, there were only 200,000 troops left in Beijing.

However, 100,000 of these 200,000 people are Li Zicheng's direct descendants and the elite among the thieves.

Chaoyangmen Pass, the thieves camp.

For the past ten days, Wang Pu and the others have been locked in a large cell. Although the thief is not very strict in custody, it is not so easy to escape. However, the thief seems to have forgotten them. He has never even asked again for more than ten days.

In fact, the thieves have been busy questioning the officials of the honorary officials in Beijing for more than ten days. How can they care about Wang Pu and others' "small families" who don't seem to have much money?

That morning, Wang Pu was lying on the haystack and was dozing off. From the corner of his eyes, he suddenly saw a familiar figure walking slowly past the cell. Wang Pu turned his head and saw that it was Huang Degong!

When he met Wang Pu's surprised eyes, Huang Degong squeezed his eyes. Taking advantage of the opportunity to pass by Wang Pu, he bounced a small piece of paper in front of Wang Pu. Wang Pu saw that the brothers on both sides were still sleeping, and there were no other thieves outside the cell, so he quickly picked up the small piece of paper.

Since Huang Degong and Shi Lang and others have been arresting and interrogating people every day, they have never had the chance to see Wang Pu. It was a coincidence today, because Wu Sangui surrendered and rebelled, Li Zicheng was furious and pointed out the 100,000 thieves' direct descendants to attack Shanhaiguan. In this way, the 100,000 official troops who had just surrendered were used.

Huang Degong, Shi Lang and others were in charge of the surrendered army, which was in charge of taking over the Chaoyangmen Pass. After waiting for more than ten days, Huang Degong finally met Wang Pu in prison.

Wang Pu turned around and faced the wall arms, and quietly unfolded the small piece of paper in his palm under the cover of his body. There were only a few words written on the paper, which meant that Huang Degong and the others had already sneaked into the middle of the thief and were trying to save Wang Pu and the others, so that Wang Pu would wait with peace of mind and not worry.

However, before Huang Degong and the others could take action, another small accident occurred.

In the afternoon of the same day, a group of Beijing officials under the sixth rank were transferred to the Chaoyangmen camp and locked up in Wang Pu and others' cells. There were about twenty Beijing officials, either the censors of the Censorate or the editors and reviews of the Hanlin Academy. The Censorate and the Hanlin Academy were both clear water yamen, and they couldn't squeeze out much oil and water from them, so they were sent to the Chaoyangmen Pass.

Among them, there was a Hanlin Academy's prosecutor who recognized the prince Zhu Cilang from the crowd as soon as he entered the cell. He instinctively wanted to kowtow to greet him. But just halfway down, he suddenly thought of something again. He quickly stood up again, looked at the thief outside the cell vigilantly, and then sat on the haystack as if nothing had happened.

Wang Pu was secretly frightened, thinking that this guy was a corrupt, and it would be a big trouble to leak the news of the prince being imprisoned to the thief. He called Monk Zhang to his eyes and whispered a few words. Monk Zhang understood and immediately put on a fierce and evil face, and strode to the group of censors and Hanlin.

"You guys are all here for me." Monk Zhang reached out and stroked the middle of the cell and shouted, "This place is the boundary, no one is allowed to cross the boundary, otherwise I will break your neck!"

The twenty or so little Jing officials looked at Monk Zhang's burly body, and then looked at his fierce and evil expression. They were all silent. If they were to change their usual days, how could they take Monk Zhang seriously? But now they became prisoners of thieves. As the saying goes, a phoenix with hair faded is not as good as a chicken, so they had to swallow their anger.

Only the Hanlin Academy's review just now glared at Monk Zhang with disdain and groaned from his nostrils.
Chapter completed!