On March 1, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Datong fell.
On the 6th, Xuanfu fell and eunuch Du Xun surrendered.
It was only half a month before Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself and died in history.
At this moment, the city of Beijing is covered with dark clouds and dust. The city, which is close to hundreds of square kilometers, is like a ruined wall. The city has already been filled with countless wailing and crying sounds.
It is spring in Beijing, and the cold is rising. Perhaps it is God's injustice and "favor". The spring buds have not yet appeared, frost and cold occur from time to time, and the successive turbulence has made the entire city a mess.
Even when they saw the menacing Jin Yiwei patrolling the streets in the past, the people seemed to turn a blind eye, fighting for food, saying goodbye to their friends, and each packing their family's baggage. If those rebels invaded the city one day, they would be quick to do so.
So as to stay alive.
On March 15, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the great scholar Li Jiantai surrendered privately. On this day, the leader of the rebel army, Li Zicheng, led an army of 200,000 to surround the city of Beijing.
The city of Beijing is now an isolated city and is in danger.
Seventeenth day.
In the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the constant sound of bombardment in the ears challenged the adults' heart endurance from time to time. The ministers did not dare to speak. Now that we have reached this time, no amount of words will help.
In the main hall, there was no sound, the ministers were waiting, waiting to speak to the ruler of the entire Ming Dynasty.
And above the ministers, on the dragon chair, a man who looked a little pale and weak was leaning weakly on the dragon chair. The black gauze winged crown on his head was a bit worn, and the dragon had been scrubbed countless times.
The robe also brought out an indescribable level of exertion at this moment.
Once upon a time, a generation of emperors with handsome looks, smooth skin, and eyes as bright as stars were now so thin, with a little black and blue oozing out around the eye sockets, and countless red blood threads inside.
"Everyone, can you hear the sound of cannon outside the imperial city?"
After a long time, the emperor, who looked like he had died at an early age, spoke, and the words he uttered were such sarcastic words.
As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, I have never seen him even once in more than two hundred years!
For hundreds of years, not once did any foreign enemy or civil strife attack the imperial city.
However, at this moment, he could even hear the gate of the imperial city being violently hit by the opponent's siege vehicles. The squeaking sound of the wood was like the lingering Ming Dynasty, which was still in the final process.
The struggle.
From the chief minister of the cabinet to the fifth-rank officials, no one dared to answer aloud. They all knew about the earth-shaking changes outside and the unconscious trembling in their bodies.
Looking coldly at the officials below who were standing with their heads down, not even daring to breathe, the eyes of Chongzhen sitting leaning on him had already become different from before.
That’s right!
At this moment, the soul of Mr. Zhu Youjian, the Chongzhen Emperor, has long been a different person, but he is a somewhat pitiful science student Zhu Ling hundreds of years later.
It was just an ordinary day when he was playing on the lake in the school. He slipped and sank in. He was not used to water. When he came to his senses, he became Emperor Chongzhen. It really made him addicted to the emperor.
Being an emperor for only thirty years, Zhu Ling might have been able to enjoy happiness that ordinary people could not experience under normal circumstances, but now, the trick of fate has made him a little crazy.
Emperor Chongzhen was an emperor, but also a king who subjugated his country.
With Li Zicheng in the south and Huang Taiji in the north, Shaanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, and Hubei were almost completely destroyed. As for the Ming Dynasty, it was almost a small boat floating in the water in the wind and rain.
Perhaps a larger drop of water could sink the already fragile boat into the bottom of an abyss.
Tragically, it wasn't water droplets, but a torrential downpour. Maybe it would be better if it was really torrential rain, adding some doomsday feeling. He also wanted to go out and take a shower, and then follow the example of his ancestors who had some connections hundreds of years ago.
Hang.
But which boy doesn’t have a dream of being an emperor?
Zhu Ling also has it, but...
The deafening sound of killing outside had already extinguished the pitiful burning heart in his heart.
The Ming Dynasty had a history of more than two hundred years and had more than a dozen emperors. Why wasn't it any emperor? Why was it the king who had subjugated his country? Zhu Ling couldn't understand it, and he didn't want to understand it, because nowadays, there is no such time.
Relying on the only remaining memory in his brain of accidentally reading the book of his father, who was a history teacher, Zhu Ling happened to read this period of history. Whether it was luck or accident, these memories made him very lucky.
Today is the 17th, and in three more days, it will be the date of Chongzhen’s death in history.
When Chongzhen took over, the Ming Dynasty was already sailing into a stormy sea, swaying unsteadily. Coupled with his suspicious and self-willed nature, it was not easy for the Ming Dynasty to persist for more than ten years.
Because his ancestors had a slight relationship with the Zhu royal family, even though Zhu Ling was a science student, he still had some feelings for this dynasty.
He once thought that as the emperor, the power of life and death was in my hands. But now, with dozens of lifeless and silent ministers below and the rebel army less than two kilometers away from him, he truly experienced the sadness of an emperor.
and pain.
He once didn't understand why Chongzhen Di didn't kill all these people, but now he understands that these ministers are not slaves, but more like your father!
No matter what, he couldn't bear it anymore. Three days, from birth to death, Zhu Ling didn't want to experience, it all meant that it was a dead end and his strength was exhausted. He wanted to see if this dead end was really arranged by God.
?
Ming Dynasty wants to continue, and there is another chance today!
No matter how these ministers objected, he would seize it!
"The year before last, Chen Xinjia wanted to negotiate peace with Jiannu, but you didn't! Saying that negotiating a peace would be detrimental to the prestige of the Ming Dynasty, the people, and the army! But later, the army's successive defeats made each of you uneasy, and the entire court was panicked.
, you don’t want to die and you don’t want to negotiate for peace! Are you at odds with me?"
Although Zhu Ling's roar frightened some officials, the adults standing in front did not show too much panic, and their calm expressions proved that they had experienced such scenes many times.
Negotiations for peace were mentioned more than a few times, but all ended in shelving.
Sometimes, it's not that these cabinets don't want to agree, but they can't agree. Although they have only been with His Majesty for a few years, they know the thoughts of the superiors clearly.
Capricious! Suspicious by nature!
If peace is agreed to today and the Ming Dynasty returns to peace in the future, then they will definitely be charged with abandoning the country hundreds of miles outside the pass. At that time, they will all be sentenced to death!
Therefore, no matter what, never agree!
"Your Majesty, I have something to say..." Chief Assistant Chen Yan was about to speak, but was interrupted by Zhu Ling flicking his sleeves.
He rebuked Chen Yan unceremoniously: "Do you know who opened the city gate and surrendered a few days ago?"
As soon as Chen Yan and the ministers heard this, their hearts tightened, their brows furrowed, and they swallowed the words that came to their lips. They shouldn't have said this, because it was someone else who said it.
After noticing the small changes on Chen Yan's face, Zhu Ling regained his energy, leaned forward, and his eyes became sharp: "Then let me tell you!"
"It's your former colleague, Grand Scholar Li Jiantai!"
"A great scholar in the minds of countless scholars! He is also the object of admiration of many literati. Someone who is so familiar with Confucius' classics would do such a rebellious thing! Ridiculous! Shameless!"
"Believe it or not, there will be people who want to surrender in Kaesong today!"
The next second, two guards in apricot-yellow brocade clothes grabbed a man in eunuch uniform and entered the hall. At Zhu Ling's signal, they threw the man heavily to the ground, and then stood aside with their swords straddled.
The ministers were curious about who this person was, and they lowered their heads and looked sideways at the middle aisle. However, they never thought that this person made them stunned.
Cao Huachun, Eunuch Cao!
For a moment, the ministers looked at me and I looked at you, their eyes filled with disbelief.
This is His Majesty's personal eunuch! He even plans to open the door and surrender? Was the Ming Dynasty abandoned in this way?
But his luck was obviously not as good as that of Li Jiantai, and he was directly captured by His Majesty's men. Perhaps his life was in danger this time.
"Eunuch Cao, tell everyone what you plan to do?"
Zhu Ling looked sharply at Cao Huachun who was lying on the ground. At this moment, he also stood up with his hands behind his back.
"His Majesty!"
Cao Huachun was also a smart man. Knowing that his life was in danger, he quickly stood up, staggered forward a few steps, knelt down and cried: "Your Majesty! We didn't do anything we shouldn't have done. We just wanted to see what the rebellious officials and traitors were doing outside.
, so that I can investigate the situation for Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
Zhu Ling ignored him and sat back on the dragon chair. He waved his hand and asked the Jinyi guards to take him away. He told the two of them to just chop him up outside the palace without saying anything.
Eunuch Cao, who had just said something, was even more frightened when he heard this treatment, and desperately begged Zhu Ling to let him go.
After a few people left, they soon heard the words of a Jinyi guard coming to report: "Your Majesty, Cao Huachun is dead!"
"Find a place to burn the body."
The casual words made the ministers shudder instantly. The celebrities who were once close to His Majesty were killed at will without any heed. The relationship that lasted for many years was still not worth mentioning in the eyes of the emperor.
The ruthlessness of emperors has remained unchanged from ancient times to now.
Chen Yan raised his head several times to speak, but was silenced by Zhu Ling's eyes.
Hundreds of years ago, Chongzhen paid too much attention to the ideas of these literati, which led to many missed opportunities. This time Zhu Ling was not going to tolerate it anymore. The mistakes made hundreds of years ago should be solved.
But at this moment, a guard in royal robes came into the palace in a panic and shouted: "Report! There is a man outside the imperial city who claims to have the will of an intruder and wants to talk to His Majesty."
The eyes of the ministers also moved. The intruder had already arrived outside the imperial city, and he still wanted to negotiate? It must be because of the unreasonable and harsh demands.
As the backbone of the Ming Dynasty, they will definitely oppose it with all their strength.
But Zhu Ling's eyes lit up and he stood up immediately. This was the moment he had been waiting for!
This is the only chance to continue the Ming Dynasty.
"Xuan!"
"The messenger enters the palace!"
[Author's digression]: In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng invaded Yanjing from Juyongguan. At three o'clock in the afternoon on March 18, Cao Huachun opened Changyi Gate (Guang'an Gate) and surrendered, and the peasant army immediately occupied the outer city.
That night Emperor Chongzhen climbed Meishan Mountain and hanged himself at the foot of the mountainside. Others say that in the third month of Jiashen, Cao Huachun was not in the capital at all.
The novel adopts the first approach;
In addition, I have returned to writing historical articles, and I really plan to write them well this time. Thank you to my editor Tianwen for your support. I will definitely finish this book well, and I hope readers can support it!