On the first day of the first lunar month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the courtiers congratulated Emperor Zhu Youjian on the New Year, and looking at the courtiers who were still respectful, Zhu Youjian had long lost the happiness of the king's landing and the joy of the new year and new atmosphere. Not long ago, it was reported that Li Zicheng had established the Dashun regime in Xi'an, and changed the seventeenth year of Chongzhen to the first year of Dashun Yongchang, and at the same time issued an edict for the first year of Yongchang, saying that he would begin the Eastern Expedition to conquer the Ming Dynasty. At this time, Chongzhen only wanted to shout at these respectful courtiers, "It has been seventeen years since he ascended the throne, and in the seventeen years he has been silent, worried, exhorted, and governed with heart." Why is this world going to die at the hands of the fallen? Why...'. But anger returns to anger and resentment, and Daming has never had a tradition of bowing to danger since its establishment. Although the situation is critical, there must be a way, there must be a way ...
Inspector Lee Kin-tai's farce
Faced with the crisis, Chongzhen and most of his ministers were thinking about the same question: how to keep their families, family property, and status. It's just that although it comes to mind, it is completely opposite to the implementation:
Chongzhen believed that only by keeping Daming could everything be saved, but since Sun Chuanting's entire army was destroyed, there were no soldiers to dispatch, salaries to be paid, and generals to be used. After thinking about Chongzhen's gaze fell on Li Jiantai, why Li Jiantai? Chongzhen considered it this way: "Li Jiantai's family is rich and prosperous in Shanxi, and he hopes that when this country is in trouble, he will be able to destroy the family'. Therefore, Chongzhen Dayi said to the group of ministers in awe, "I am willing to personally supervise the teacher and fight with the thief to the death, although I died in the battlefield, I have no hatred, but the world died at the hands of the thief, and the death is not blind'. The ministers present heard that one by one they would express their intention to march on behalf of the emperor, and from the first assistant Chen Yan to come forward one by one, the Chongzhen Emperor did not agree, but only when Li Jiantai was able to accept it gladly.
Li Jiantai naturally also understood Chongzhen's intentions, and he wanted to not agree to anger the emperor, and it would not be good to be treated as a scapegoat, and Wu Yong's previous lessons should be learned. In such a situation, it is better to first take the forbidden army sent by the emperor to Qu wo's hometown to protect the family wealth, and then see the situation. So with the same idea and different purpose, Li Jiantai embarked on the road of supervising the emperor's personal conquest.
Although Li Jiantai's expedition ceremony was extremely solemn, several grades higher than the expedition ceremony of Inspector Yang Sichang in that year, it can be said that Chongzhen's highest general ceremony since he ascended the throne, but it was of no use!
The biggest problem that Li Jiantai faced after he left the division was not Li Zicheng's Dashun army, but Daming's prefecture and county and the forbidden army that was constantly fleeing. When Li Jiantai arrived in Dingxing County, Hebei Province, which was only two hundred miles away from the Beijing Division, he actually ate a closed door soup, which gave Li Jiantai, a scholar of the Superintendent University, "Jiantai attacked and flogged his chief officials", which can be regarded as letting people see that his troops still have combat effectiveness. Later, they arrived at Guangzong County, where ZhiXian actually led the county people to the city to defend it, and Jiantai attacked it again. After successively attacking two county towns, Li Jiantai received news that his hometown of Quwo had long been lost, and that both of Dashun's men and horses were close to Hebei, so Li Jiantai fled into Baoding with only a few hundred people left, and Li Jiantai immediately surrendered when the Forward of the Shun Army arrived in Bao! At this point, Inspector Li Jiantai's farce has finally come to an end!
Proposal to move south
As the situation became more and more critical, Chongzhen also became more and more aware of the difficulty of defending the capital division, so he deliberately followed Tang Xuanzong's example to avoid chaos in Shuzhong and then regrouped and returned to the division to recover the lost land. However, if you think about it, it is always inappropriate for the emperor to take the initiative to escape, which requires a minister to come out and say the emperor's heart, and also to ask for a few refusals. Only then could the emperor reluctantly (impatiently) grant the ministers' requests.
However, this matter became a big trouble for Chongzhen, although Li Mingrui spoke the emperor's heart, but there were very few people who responded. Not only that, li banghua and Guang Shiheng stood up in great righteousness and awe-inspiring, and mainly insisted on sticking to the Beijing Division and waiting for the qin wang army in the world. When Chongzhen saw that this was the case, he had no choice but to state that he had no intention of moving south at all, and asked the ministers to work hard to prepare for the defense of the Beijing Division. Later, what Li Jiantai saw and heard after supervising the division made him deeply understand that the people's hearts had dispersed and it was impossible for the Beijing Division to hold on, so he urgently wrote to Chongzhen hoping to move south quickly while the Shun army had not yet arrived. However, the court had been arguing for a long time, and the desperate Chongzhen had no choice but to insist on sticking to it and no longer mentioning moving south. A few months was enough for Chongzhen to calmly go to Nanzhili, and once Chongzhen vacated the Jing division, then the next urgent thing was qing and shun. There will definitely be a vicious fight between the Shun army, which is in full swing, and the Qing army with strong combat strength, so Chongzhen will have plenty of time to stabilize the situation and reorganize the armament war after moving south! Unfortunately, the deadlock that could have been solved became daming's real death in chongzhen's lack of determination and the unnecessary quarrels of the ministers.
A last resort effort
After making up his mind to stick to the capital division, Chongzhen and his ministers still took some measures:
First of all, Chongzhen ordered the king of Qin to send the world to the specific dispatch of troops: to transfer the general tang tongbu and the general liu zeqing to the Beijing division and the Beijing camp to garrison and prepare for a field battle with the enemy, but Liu Zeqing lied that he fell on his horse and was injured, and Chongzhen was helpless; after receiving the edict, Tang Tong said that I was going to defend the beijing division barrier Juyongguan, Juyongguan would be safe without losing the beijing division, and Chongzhen had no choice but to revise the order to Tang Tong. Then there was Wu Sangui, which was the last capital in Chongzhen's hands, originally Chongzhen wanted to transfer Wu Sangui to the Beijing Division to preside over defense at the beginning of the year, but Chongzhen and his ministers did not want to bear the responsibility of losing land, plus Li Zicheng was still in Xi'an at that time, and this matter was dragged down. By this time, Chongzhen finally made up his mind to force Wu Sangui to give up the land outside Guanwai and enter the Weijing Division. It can be seen from this that it is not at all what determines when Wu Sangui enters the Beijing Division and the ultimate fate of Daming, but Chongzhen's determination.
Then Chongzhen issued the second edict of his life, to the effect that the world was rotten to this point that I was responsible, but I hoped that the empire could work together to ensure that the Ming Dynasty would not perish. After the edict was issued, in order to win the hearts and minds of the people, Chongzhen issued an edict exempting Henan, Shaanxi and other places from the three salaries, the three salaries, the five-year tax. This is a bit confusing, the exempted areas are all areas that have been occupied by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, what use do you have?
In the end, Chongzhen, because he was not comfortable with the local governors and the generals of the towns, sent his most trusted ministers Du Xun and Gao Qiqian to go out to supervise the troops in various towns. Only in the end, chongzhen's most trusted courtiers almost all surrendered to Li Zicheng together with the generals of various towns, but most of the governors held their loyalty to the last moment of their lives.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the year of Jiashen, on the nineteenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar, Chongzhen climbed coal mountain for the last time to overlook his palace, and now we can no longer know what he was thinking at that time. With only a sigh, this great dynasty has finished its fate!