At this point in time, the courtiers who can still survive in Beijing are of course better at avoiding things and avoiding responsibility.
Otherwise, anyone who shows any sense of responsibility will be pushed out by Chongzhen to behead and take the blame just like Chen Xinjia.
So Chongzhen asked them to make up their minds to fight against the plague, but these people would only use the methods of their ancestors to deal with it.
Fortunately, people in the Ming Dynasty also had some simple medical knowledge, and they were more or less aware of the help of burning corpses in blocking the plague. In the end, after weighing the three aspects of "ancestral system", "filial piety" and anti-drug, they came up with
Come up with a smooth solution:
The government can burn all the corpses that no one has collected. Even ordinary people who clearly died of the plague and have no reputation can turn a blind eye to the execution.
But for the officials and gentry, the Wucheng Military and Horse Division or other yamen can't do that much. Without the energy, they can only turn a blind eye.
There are hidden dragons and crouching tigers in the city of Beijing, and there are also a lot of dignitaries, emperors, relatives and relatives. Who dares to really enforce the law seriously? It's just about bullying those who have no background.
Finally, when it came to the specific implementation stage, not all the plague victims in merchant homes were cremated.
Even at this moment, the soldiers and officers who dealt with the matter did not forget to use the power in their hands to be more greedy: if there are deceased from wealthy families with no background, it is highly suspected of plague, but as long as enough money is given, they are allowed to be buried directly. According to this, it is not plague.
And report the death.
For those families with no background who obviously did not die from the plague, relevant law enforcement officers will come to blackmail them and ask for some money before they can be buried normally as if they were not plagued by the plague. Otherwise, they will be burned as long as there is no money. This fully confuses ordinary ignorant people because of feudal superstition.
Yuxiao wanted to squeeze out the last remaining value of the burial.
Chongzhen wanted to fight the plague, but the end result was that the city of Beijing became increasingly chaotic, and the people were devastated by complaints.
It can only be said that the Ming Dynasty's high-level ruling model has been rotten to the core, and the unspoken rules have been rampant for hundreds of years. Any power released, no matter which direction it is changed, will be used as a money-making tool by Yousi, which will further expand man-made disasters.
The chaos in Beijing continued for more than ten days, and the plague became worse and worse. High-ranking officials were also frequently infected, and the soldiers who defended the city also lost their combat effectiveness in batches.
And at this juncture, as time came to the end of early October, the imperial court in the capital was once again shocked by a series of news of military defeats, and was shocked overnight - the news that Taiyuan and Shangqiu had been lost, and that bandits broke out of Henan and entered Shandong.
, finally spread to the capital.
When Chongzhen heard about it at first, he was shocked and angry: "Liu Zeqing is a loser! Isn't he the commander-in-chief of Shandong? When the bandits arrived in Shandong, he did not go to Yanzhou to fight the enemy, but hunkered down in Jining. He actually had the nerve to report the emergency to the court.
!
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Look what Zhou Yuji did! After all, he vowed not to retreat and defended Ningwuguan to the death! Who recommended Liu Zeqing to stay in office in the first place!"
It turned out that the reason why Chongzhen was so angry was because at the end of the 14th year of Chongzhen, when Chen Xinjia took over the Ministry of War, he selected a group of local generals and wanted to eliminate some incompetent generals.
This Shandong Liu Zeqing was questioned by Chen Xinjia at the time.
But within a few months, Zhou Yanru was recalled from his hometown in Changzhou and once again served as the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and the chief minister of the cabinet.
Zhou Yanru collected money along the Grand Canal. When he passed through Linqing, Shandong, he accepted 40,000 taels of gold from Liu Zeqing to ensure that he would stay in Shandong so that he could continue to be stuck in the Grand Canal and eat the food from the passing businessmen along the way.
Filial piety.
In peacetime, it was okay for Liu Zeqing, a commander-in-chief in non-frontline defense areas, to neglect his duties. Zhou Yanru could accept his golden filial piety with peace of mind. Unexpectedly, now for the first time, Liu Zeqing finally had to fight a large-scale head-on battle with the main force of thieves, but he simply gave up.
A thief passed through the border and made the basket bigger.
One of Zhou Yanru's closest aides, Dr. Wu Changshi of the Literary Selection Department, had been imprisoned for embezzlement, but the crime had not been clarified and the case had not been dealt with.
This time Liu Zeqing allowed the thieves to allow Chongzhen to seek medical treatment for his illness. Finally, Zhou Yanru's political enemies came forward and said that they had heard that Liu Zeqing had given Zhou Yanru tens of thousands of taels of gold in order to keep his position. Chongzhen was furious and finally lost his love for Zhou Yanru.
gained trust.
Zhou Yanru tried his best to defend himself in order to save his life, but Chongzhen did not attack him immediately. He only said that he would give him a chance to atone for his sins, and asked Zhou Yanru and Zhang Guowei to immediately discuss a strategy on how to retreat from the enemy.
Zhang Guowei did not commit a crime. He was just serving as Minister of War. This was his duty and he did his duty. After being pressed by the emperor, Zhang Guowei could only recruit people in a business-like manner:
"Your Majesty, why don't you let Xiong Tong, who is stationed in Changshan, immediately reinforce Zhou Yuji from the southern front, and let Bai Guangen, who is stationed in Daidi, lead his subordinate Gao Jie to go south together with him, and reinforce Zhou Yuji from the northern front to divide the intruder forces.
Although Bai Guangen was demoted for being guilty in the Songjin War, he had to work hard fighting with thieves in northern Shanxi. Although Gao Jie, his subordinate, surrendered under the bandits, he had a grudge against the thieves for stealing his wife, so he could not
If you dare to surrender the bandits again and let them make a detour from behind enemy lines on the north side, you don't have to worry about being annexed by the bandits.
As for the direction of Liu Zeqing in Shandong, Liu Liang can be transferred from Bozhou and Fengyang to the north and join forces with Liu Zeqing to resist the war. Finally, considering that the intruders may pass through Shandong and threaten the capital, Jimen, Miyun, etc. can be transferred
Tang Tong and Ma Ke from the local area will return to support. If the thieves become more rampant, Wu Sangui and Li Fuming of Shanhaiguan can be summoned to return support!"
Zhang Guowei knew all his family treasures and quickly reported the numbers of at least six generals and two deputy generals. It can be seen that even at this moment in the Ming Dynasty, there were at least seven generals in several prefectures directly adjacent to Beizhili and even around Beizhili.
The number and combat strength of the soldier.
This does not include the three major battalions of the capital and other local garrisons in Beijing. If these troops can be fully equipped and their morale is high, even if Li Zicheng brings more than 400,000 rabble to kill, the Ming Dynasty will not be unable to resist.
It is a pity that the numbers of these seven general soldiers, how many soldiers and horses are actually left, and how many of them will die for the Ming Dynasty are already very pessimistic.
Chongzhen anxiously went through what Zhang Guowei said in his mind, and finally got his thoughts straight, and then asked: "Where is Zhu Shuren! Why didn't the Huguang Army see Zhang Qing's transfer?!"
Zhang Guowei was startled: "Your Majesty, water far away cannot quench the thirst of the people nearby! Of course, the armies of Huguang and Sichuan must be mobilized, but the most urgent troops to block the blockade at the moment are the armies surrounding Beizhili. Your Majesty agreed to the above arrangements.
I will naturally plan the deployment of troops further away."
After Zhang Guowei finished speaking, Zhou Yanru also quickly wanted to find an opportunity to make up for his lost trust and quickly helped Chongzhen with advice:
"Your Majesty, the matter of mobilizing troops and horses from Huguang and Sichuan does need to be done urgently, but Your Majesty cannot expect Zhu Shuren to come quickly - the road from Yunyang to Hanzhong has not been completely opened yet. If the angels count on this road
If you go against the Han River to send an edict, you may be harmed by scattered thieves and miss important events.
And if we go to Jiangling and Chongqing to convey the order, even if we rush it again, it will take at least more than half a month to arrive. Now all the troops are not moving quickly. When Huang Taiji invaded the army, His Majesty recruited Bai Guangen, Tang Tong, and Wu Sangui to guard the capital, but that time
How long did it take for them to arrive?
Zhu Shuren had just reported ten days ago that his troops had been infected with the plague by Cao Bianjiao's Shanxi Army. If the troops had to be screened, treated, and reorganized before setting off, it would probably be even more protracted.
Therefore, the order to recruit Zhu Shuren can be issued as soon as possible, but the court cannot only rely on him, but must rely on other soldiers and horses to delay it for at least several months!"
Chongzhen was stunned, and then he remembered that Zhu Shuren had indeed sent a memorial just ten days ago, saying that the Hanzhong garrison had an outbreak of plague brought by the Shanxi Army.
When Zhu Shuren wrote this memorial, Li Zicheng had not yet left Henan. Of course, he could not have ulterior motives, so it means that the Sichuan army happened to encounter trouble at this juncture.
The national destiny of the Ming Dynasty is really remarkable!
But things had already happened, what else could Chongzhen do? He could only seek medical treatment due to his illness. He listened to the arrangements of Zhang Guowei and Zhou Yanru and asked them to dispatch various ministries to resist. Arrange the troops in front of him first, and then find a way to mobilize them.
The orders of the Huguang and Sichuan armies were issued.
…
Chongzhen's order to mobilize surrounding towns was issued within two or three days after the tenth day of October, while the order to Zhu Shuren was issued on October 15th.
The decree still takes time on the road, and once you arrive at the place, you must also allow time for the troops to schedule, prepare, and depart.
Among all the armies, the one with the fastest response was Xiong Tong of Changshan. He set off in late October and arrived at Zhou Yuji's defense area within seven or eight days.
(Note: Historically, on the battlefield in Shanxi, the Ming army fought the Chuang army for a while in Pingyang Mansion before the fall of Taiyuan. Now, due to the butterfly effect, there is no need to fight in Pingyang. The Chuang army quickly arrived in Taiyuan as soon as they launched an attack.
Therefore, Xiong Tong, Bai Guangen, and Gao Jie did not participate in the Battle of Pingyang, and are only going to reinforce now. The specific butterfly effect will not be expanded on, after all, it has nothing to do with the protagonist)
However, just as Xiong Tong was unreliable on the Pingyang Mansion battlefield in history, now that he has changed places, his unreliability has not changed. After fighting side by side with Zhou Yuji, but seven or eight days later, as news came from all sides,
The morale of the military is becoming increasingly unstable,
Many soldiers in Xiong Tong's department have heard that Liu Fangliang's Shun army behind him has also crossed Shandong and entered Beizhili. Therefore, even if they defend Ningwuguan, there is not much hope. Instead, they may be invaded by another group of troops.
Outflanking blocked the way back.
As for Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo, they did not do anything to stop Liu Fangliang at all. The two prefectures in Shandong were basically passed by the Shun army!
Under such a bad situation, coupled with the support of more stupid teammates, Xiong Tong's defense area was finally broken through by Li Zicheng at all costs. The military attache Ning Ming's army totaled more than 10,000 people, and most of Zhou Yuji's direct troops were annihilated.
Xiong Tongbu surrenders——
This cannot be blamed on Zhou Yuji for not being able to fight, because originally the Battle of Ningwuguan only lasted about ten days at most in history. Now Xiong Tong's reinforcements only lasted three to five days longer than the same period in history.
However, the losses suffered by Li Zicheng's army at Ningwuguan were also very considerable. The number of people who were killed directly in battle or who died of serious injuries actually reached more than 20,000, which was more than the same period in history. Unfortunately, the lives of Li Zicheng's men were not worth much.
It's all about stacking lives to fill the top, digging walls and blowing them up, stepping on corpses to attack the city, all operations are done together, and finally stacking lives down.
On the sixth day of November, Li Zicheng finally entered the Hebei Plain.
On November 12, the Eastern and Western armies of the Shun Army met at Zhending Prefecture. When the troops were dispatched, the total force was less than 400,000. In the past few months, the number of war dead exceeded at least 50,000 or 60,000, but the total force was actually greater, because
Along the way, there were more hungry refugees and strong men.
Zhou Yuji died in battle, Xiong Tong surrendered, Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo only shouted and shouted but actually did not dare to stop the attacking bandits. Several bad news came to Beijing in succession. Chongzhen was also shocked and couldn't understand why it took only more than 20 days for the situation to change.
It can get worse so quickly.
He quickly summoned Zhang Guowei and Zhou Yanru to hold him accountable, and they cursed him fiercely. He also beheaded Zhou Yanru's protégé Wu Changshi, who was suspected of corruption, and killed a group of other responsible officials. He also ordered the Ministry of Punishment to take action.
Check the problems of Zhou Yanru and Zhang Guowei.
Just because the war was fierce and dangerous, these two people could only be suspected of being investigated. They were working and handling military affairs while being investigated at the same time. It was a strange sight when the situation was extremely embarrassing.
However, the investigation work did not last even half a month.
As the time entered late November, the Shun army moved further from Zhending Prefecture to Baoding Prefecture, leaving only the last prefecture away from the capital. Bai Guangen and Gao Jie on the north road failed to contain Li Zicheng, and Bai Guangen lost thousands of his direct descendants.
After the troops, he actually surrendered directly——
Zhang Guowei had previously thought that Bai Guangen was one of the eight generals in the Songjin War. He had followed Hong Chengchou, but Hong Chengchou didn't vote for him, so he should be reliable enough. However, Gao Jie and Li Zicheng hated to steal their wives, and they must have dared not vote for fear of being killed.
In the end, it was Bai Guangen who surrendered. Gao Jie really didn't dare to surrender, so a lieutenant alone pulled out his troops and fled away.
This misunderstanding was the last straw for Chongzhen to distrust Zhou Yanru and Zhang Guowei: after all, the generals you recommended to stop the enemy have all surrendered to the enemy. This clearly shows that you, the elders, are ignorant of people!
Zhou Yanru had previously received 40,000 taels of gold from Liu Zeqing. Although no real evidence had been found, at this moment, the ironclad evidence was no longer important, and the new and old accounts were simply settled together.
Chongzhen directly determined that these people had received money from military generals and deceived the emperor, so he chose these people to fight against the enemy.
Chongzhen sent his thoughts to Xu Shiqi, the Minister of Punishment. Xu Shiqi thought that the reasons for the conviction were too unbelievable, so he wrote a letter to defend himself. In the end, Chongzhen, as if he was mad before his death, delayed for more than ten days, and finally the three ministers were arrested.
All dealt with:
Xu Shiqi, the Secretary of the Ministry of Punishment, was not guilty himself, but because he was "unfavorable in doing things", he refused to help the emperor convict other cabinet ministers and ministers. He was dismissed from office and ordered to return to his hometown to live leisurely.
Zhang Guowei, the Secretary of the Ministry of War, was charged with "negligence of inspection". He deployed troops and generals using non-human resources. He was indeed guilty, but he was not found to be corrupt and accepted benefits from generals, so it was just that he was not accurate.
Taking into account his previous achievements in controlling floods in Wuzhong (this is a historical fact), and the years when he was the Minister of Household Affairs in Nanjing, he promoted the Lijin policy, which will have a certain effect on promoting the southern provinces to raise their own funds to suppress bandits and pacify the south.
Credit (this is the additional credit brought by the butterfly effect)
Chongzhen finally decided to deprive Zhang Guowei of the post of Shangshu of the Ministry of War and demoted him to the position of censor of Youqiandu, where he patrolled Zhejiang and supervised the military training and payment collection in Jiangnan.
The reason why Chongzhen made this decision was because Zhang Guowei had been the transfer minister in Nanjing for many years. He was afraid that the situation was now so critical that the south would not obey orders. If Zhang Guowei were killed, perhaps the three families in Nanjing and Zhejiang would be killed.
It’s even harder to collect wages, and no one would be willing to transport it to Beijing even if it was collected.
So I gave him a chance to make meritorious deeds and let him collect money by becoming the governor of Zhejiang Province - although even if he went, I don't know if Chongzhen would have time to spend the money.
The last chief minister of the cabinet, Zhou Yanru, the Minister of Civil Affairs, was found to have received tens of thousands of taels of gold from Liu Zeqing (actually the evidence is not sufficient, but this is what Chongzhen believed), so his problem must be much more serious than Zhang Guowei, and he was granted
He committed suicide in prison.
Zhou Yanru was forced to have no choice but to delay. Finally, Luo Yangxing, the commander of the Jinyiwei sent by Chongzhen to supervise, asked his subordinates to "help" Zhou Yanru hang himself. In fact, he was hanged directly and lied to the outside world that he hanged himself.
Of the three ministers, one hanged himself, one was demoted and the other was dismissed.
After doing all this, Chongzhen replaced the number one scholar in the same term as Zhu Shuren three and a half years ago, Wei Zaode, to replace the deceased Zhou Yanru as the chief minister of the cabinet and the official secretary.
A newcomer who had only been in office for three and a half years could become the first assistant, and he was promoted the fastest in the Ming Dynasty.
Although Wei Zaode knew clearly that he was taking the blame, he was not nervous at all. He was even a little happy: Although Chongzhen's chief minister was no longer valuable. But when he surrendered to Li Zicheng, he could be regarded as "the chief minister of the former cabinet"
"You can surrender as a person, and you can lead all the ministers to surrender, so the value is different!"
Li Zicheng will definitely pay more attention to his literary star several times because of this! After all, he still made a profit!
In addition to Wei Zaode, because the position of Minister of War also needed to be replaced, Chongzhen replaced Zhang Guowei with a man named Zhang Jinyan.
Zhang Jinyan's attitude was similar to that of Wei Zaode. They both made up their minds to do nothing and make no decisions as soon as they took office, so that they would not be killed and could survive until Chongzhen's death.
And when all this personnel transfer work was completed, it was only mid-December of the 16th year of Chongzhen.
On the fourth day of December, Xu Shiqi was dismissed from his post and returned to his hometown. On the sixth day of December, Zhou Yanru committed suicide. On the eighth day of December, Zhang Guowei was demoted and went south to become the governor of Zhejiang.
Only three days after Zhang Guowei left the capital, on December 11, the Dashun Army had penetrated the entire Baoding Prefecture. Four days later, it passed through Zhuoxian and Fangshan in Shuntian Prefecture, and arrived outside Beijing on the 15th.
Zhang Guowei was lucky. On the day the Dashun Army reached Fangshan County, he had already arrived at Tianjin Wei. When the Dashun Army arrived at the gates of Beijing, he had just boarded a boat at Dagukou and boarded a Shen family's daily cargo business between the north and the south.
Yellow Sea Sand Ship.
The ship was originally going to Suzhou to sell goods, but after hearing Zhang Guowei's self-reported identity, the captain and shopkeepers of the Shen family also knew about the old minister's friendship with their master, so they changed the route to Hangzhou and sent Zhang Guowei directly.
Appointed as governor of Zhejiang.
The captain and shopkeeper were not very knowledgeable. They heard from Zhang Budang and now Governor Zhang that all the intruders had arrived in Beijing. As they sailed the boat, they couldn't help but ask:
"Master Futai, since the intruder is so arrogant and you can run out, why doesn't Your Majesty take shelter for a while?"
Zhang Guowei was also speechless for a while. Yes, why did Chongzhen try to defend the city of Beijing? Maybe the city of Beijing is strong and can really be defended for a few months?
But he could only answer in a matter-of-fact manner: "How can we touch the foundation of our country! What do you know! I am not running away! I was demoted by His Majesty to become the governor of Zhejiang! This is the emperor's order!"
Beijing is strong, and Your Majesty will surely be able to boost morale and hold on until General Wu of Shanhaiguan or Governor Zhu of Sichuan arrives with reinforcements!"
——
(PS: Historically, Zhang Guowei was considered lucky. After he was demoted by Chongzhen to be the governor of Zhejiang, Beijing was captured by the invaders just ten days after leaving Beijing)