Chapter eight hundred and sixty second everything is not going well
But after hearing that the Shun Army promulgated the "Edict of the First Year of Yongchang", Emperor Chongzhen and the Ming Dynasty also needed to take some action.
But the move to the south was not possible, and Wu Sangui's Guan Ning cavalry could not be mobilized. So the only way left was to send ministers to fight against the enemy. At this time, Li Jiantai, the cabinet scholar, volunteered. He said that he would use his family
He used his property to recruit troops to resist Li Zicheng's Dashun army. When Emperor Chongzhen heard that Li Jiantai did not need the court to allocate military pay, he was overjoyed and immediately appointed him to the old governor of Ge and allowed him to go on an expedition.
In fact, Li Jiantai's hometown is in Quwo County, Shanxi Province. Since the Dashun Army has long conquered the northwest provinces, information there has been completely blocked. The imperial court has no idea about the situation in Li Jiantai's hometown. It also does not know that Li Jiantai's private wealth has long been lost.
It came to nothing. The reason why I still believe Li Jiantai’s statement may be that Emperor Chongzhen still had a lucky mentality!
Li Jiantai himself had never thought of fighting against the Dashun Army. The reason why he volunteered was because he wanted to leave the capital city as soon as possible and did not want to be buried with Emperor Chongzhen and the Ming Dynasty.
But no matter what, some superficial work still had to be done. After several days of planning, Li Jiantai reluctantly cobbled together an army of 500 people. Because he had agreed in advance that he would not need rations from the Ministry of Household Affairs, he did not bring military rations and equipment and was ready to go.
Then, Emperor Chongzhen formally appointed Li Jiantai to assist his ministers and supervise the divisions, with the title of Shangshu of the Ministry of War, to "conquer on my behalf". He also appointed Wei Zhengu, the former censor recommended by Li Jiantai, and others as military supervisors of the ministry, deputy generals of the Chinese army and other positions. But for this
The imperial court was at a loss as to how this ridiculous army should move, how to meet the enemy, and how to coordinate other armies to organize battles, etc. It only roughly determined that Li Jiantai's troops would move south after leaving the capital, because at that time it was estimated that
The main force of Li Zicheng's Dashun Army may be attacking northward from Zhending and Baoding in southern Beijing.
Emperor Chongzhen had high hopes for this army that looked like a joke. He held the most solemn "sending ceremony" for Li Jiantai's expedition. In the early morning of this day, he first sent his consort Wan Wei to the Ancestral Temple.
After paying homage to the ancestors, he saluted in person at the Zhengyang Gate (commonly known as the Qianmen). From the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City to the east and west sides of the Zhengyang Gate, there were guards and flags and ceremonial guards. The scene was magnificent and solemn.
Civil and military ministers from the Cabinet, Six Ministries, Five Prefectures, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and other yamen stood on both sides. Emperor Chongzhen sat in the center and said many words of condolences and commendations to Li Jiantai. Afterwards, a banquet was held. Emperor Chongzhen personally drank three glasses of wine for Li Jiantai and presented the
A golden cup for holding wine was given to him. After drinking, Emperor Chongzhen personally wrote the "Edict to the Governor and Assistant Hand" at the banquet, printed it and solemnly handed it to Li Jiantai.
In the imperial edict, Li Jiantai was granted great power to punish civil and military officials at all levels, and to arrange rewards and punishments by himself. He also said: "I hope you will be in a demon atmosphere soon, your troops will be victorious, and you will be honored with honors and honors. I will still welcome you personally."
Enjoy the feast and share the peace.”
After the banquet, the internal officials draped red hairpin flowers on Li Jiantai amidst the sound of drums and welcomed out Shang Fang's sword. Li Jiantai kowtowed and bowed again. He got off the city tower and took a group of people with him to set off. Emperor Chongzhen watched Li Jiantai's team go away from the city tower.
, then drove back to the palace.
The grand ceremony of Li Jiantai's expedition was unprecedented in the Chongzhen Dynasty. But with Li Jiantai's mediocrity, leading 500 scattered troops, trying to turn the tide from collapse is really nothing more than idiotic talk. A serious and solemn ceremony is nothing more than a dream.
It is just deceiving oneself and others to embolden oneself.
A group of remnant soldiers led by Li Jiantai did nothing. They were threatened by food shortages as soon as they left the city. Later, they had to "raise food on the spot" everywhere. In fact, they were plundering. Without defeating the "thieves", they had to succeed first.
A thief.
Until finally, he heard that Liu Fangliang's troops had occupied Guangping, which was only a stone's throw away from him. Li Jiantai quickly led his troops to flee north. He retreated to Baoding and did not dare to come forward, and finally surrendered to the Dashun Army. But these are all
That’s another story.
Today, the Dashun Army arrived in Pingyang one after another, and the news from Taiyuan reached the capital. Emperor Chongzhen suddenly became restless, as if the sky was about to fall, and he was even more panicked. So he specially summoned Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang and Hu Bu
, the official of the Ministry of War once again discussed the issue of abandoning Ningyuan and transferring troops to the defense.
While the dignitaries and ministers were waiting outside the Forbidden City, Emperor Chongzhen, who was sitting on the dragon throne, was on pins and needles, but he still had to endure Wu Xiang's foaming at the mouth. Wu Xiang was talking nonsense in confusion, surrounding
The central meaning is nothing more than "the size of the ancestral land cannot be abandoned."
Wu Xiang is a veteran who has commanded troops outside the Pass for many years. All his family property and property are outside the Pass, so of course he is unwilling to give up Liaodong, nor is he willing to transfer the Guanning Cavalry to the Pass. In addition, Wu Sangui's Guanning Cavalry is now a rare commodity, and it is the only one who can live in it.
An official army that could be transferred to the capital very quickly. Therefore, the old and cunning Wu Xiang must have wanted to get more benefits from Emperor Chongzhen.
Finally, Emperor Chongzhen became impatient. He waved his hand to interrupt Wu Xiang's words, and asked: "The thieves are very urgent. Is your son's strategy enough to defeat them?" The current Emperor Chongzhen only cares about Wu Sangui.
There is no question of whether Guan Ning's cavalry is effective or not.
When he heard Emperor Chongzhen's question, Wu Xiang opened his mouth and said: "I speculate that the thieves occupy Shaanxi and Shanxi, and they may not come to attack the capital. Even if they come, they will have to send one to give it a try. If they invade by themselves,
If you come to die, I will be able to capture you alive and offer you to Your Majesty."
Who says that only civil servants can talk nonsense? Military attachés like Wu Xiang, who have been involved in Ming Dynasty official circles for a long time, are still good at cajoling. They are all skilled at this. They first used big words to deceive Emperor Chongzhen and the court, and then defrauded the food and salary from the court.
After making peace with each other, will they succeed or not? That will be discussed later. Anyway, they have soldiers in their hands and don’t panic. The court can’t do anything to them.
But the current Emperor Chongzhen is no longer stupid or naive. Anyone with a normal IQ can understand: Li Zicheng has millions of people and has swept through several provinces in the northwest? It is already very good to be able to stop the Dashun army from attacking the capital. Where did it come from?
What was the possibility of capturing Li Zicheng alive? So Emperor Chongzhen automatically ignored Wu Xiang's bullshit and only asked: "How many troops does Wu Changbo have?"
In this regard, Wu Xiang did not deceive Emperor Chongzhen. He answered honestly: "According to the military roll, there should be 80,000 people, but in fact there are only more than 30,000 people."
After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen was a little surprised. Are Guan Ning's cavalry so powerful? Thirty thousand people can withstand one million. So he then asked: "Are these thirty thousand people brave enough to fight?"
Unexpectedly, Wu Xiang's answer made Emperor Chongzhen want to vomit blood. He replied: "If 30,000 people were warriors, the thieves would have been defeated long ago. Only 3,000 people can really fight."
So Emperor Chongzhen was disappointed and said: "How can three thousand people be considered as thieves and millions of people?"
Wu Xiang immediately explained: "These three thousand men are not ordinary soldiers, but the sons of Chen Xiang and the brothers of the ministers. Since I received the favor of the state, I have eaten rough food myself, while the three thousand soldiers have eaten fine wine and fat sheep;
I am dressed in coarse cloth, but the three thousand warriors are all dressed in silk and satin, so they can die for me."
In fact, what Wu Xiang was talking about was the unique retainer system of the Ming Dynasty. Of course, the three thousand retainers he mentioned was a bit exaggerated. During the period when the Liaodong cavalry was most prosperous, Li Chengliang only had 8,000 retainers. But now, with the
Due to the repeated defeats of the Ming army in Liaodong, and the fact that most of the land outside the customs fell into the hands of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Sangui would never be able to afford so much food and salary to maintain servants as his own private soldiers.
But Wu Xiang didn't lie. Compared with the general Ming army, the combat effectiveness of the servants at that time was simply worlds apart. For example: Li Zicheng's Dashun army had millions of people, and among them, only his old man could be used as the core.
The team, that is, the old camp's 40,000 to 50,000 troops.
Relatively speaking, the difference in strength between the various lines of the Qing Army and the Runing Army is very small. Like the Qing Army, its core are white-armored soldiers and red-armored soldiers, with a total strength of more than 3,000. However, the Qing Army’s Eight Banners Six
The strength of more than 10,000 troops is not bad, and the combat effectiveness of the other Mongolian Eight Banners and Han Banners is also unsatisfactory. Compared with the Ming army, they are also strong armies.
As for the Runing Army, its core is of course the training of nearly 10,000 Concord Guards. However, the strength of the six major towns and the Marine Corps, which are the main forces of the Runing Army, is not bad. The remaining three towns and three independent Concord Trading Companies
The escort and other troops are the second-line troops, but they are also much stronger than the general Ming army.
However, when Wu Xiang said this mixed truth and falsehood, Emperor Chongzhen was very tempted. He really hoped that Wu Sangui could be a living god who could bring the Ming Dynasty back to life.
So Emperor Chongzhen then asked: "How much food and salary does Wu Changbo need to enter the customs?"
Unexpectedly, Wu Xiang replied: "The troops' farmland outside the Pass must be compensated, the arrears of wages for ten months must be made up, and the six million people outside the Pass (actually only about 100,000) must be resettled. In total, it will take at least one hundred
Ten thousand taels of silver."
Wu Xiang's vision was quite vicious. He had already seen that Emperor Chongzhen was in urgent need of medical treatment, so he took the opportunity to start extorting money.
But this answer surprised Emperor Chongzhen. Then he slumped on the dragon chair as if his backbone had been ripped out. Currently, the amount of silver in the Treasury of the Ministry of Revenue is less than 400,000 taels. Emperor Chongzhen's inner treasury (the emperor's private house)
Money, of course, there was a lot of money in the palace for the concubines and eunuchs, but it was impossible for Emperor Chongzhen to ask for it. It was also empty. Where did Emperor Chongzhen get this money from?
After being paralyzed for a while, Emperor Chongzhen finally recovered somewhat. He weakly waved his hand and asked Wu Xiang to retreat first. The long conversation made Emperor Chongzhen exhausted physically and mentally. He was not in the mood to summon those who had just been summoned.
The nobles and ministers were waiting. So they simply issued an imperial edict, asking the nobles and ministers waiting outside the Forbidden City to donate money and salaries, and forcibly stipulated the amount each family should donate, and then sent them home.