On March 13, the floating bridge on the Yellow River was finally built. The artillery soldiers crossed the river with the newly trained thousand cavalry and came to Puzhou.

Two days later, after the troops were rested, they drove to Jinan under the leadership of Li Yan. Wang Renfu stayed here to be responsible for the garrison.

Li Zicheng's troops only occupied Zhending Prefecture, and Li Yan did not continue to attack north, so Guangping Prefecture became a buffer zone for both sides, and the officials there lived in fear every day. The worst thing was that whether they surrendered to Li Yan or Li Zicheng, both sides refused at the same time. This made them feel even more scared and did not know what both sides would deal with them in the future.

Li Yan brought his troops into Shandong. Along the way, he went to the city to take a look while resting around the county town, and saw the original imperial officers and gentry who maintained order in the city. Although there were officials and village chiefs drawn from all over Henan in the county town, there were only one or two, which played a role in surveillance. Most people still registered their household registration, measured the land, and prepared for future conscription and distribution of land and tax collection.

Li Yan couldn't trust the fish scale book and household registration book retained in each county. The wealthy households hide the land, the people hide the population, and the officials accept bribes. In short, everyone is cheating in order to pay less taxes and bear less service. Moreover, after the robbery of the Qing soldiers, the population also suffered great losses, so naturally some fields became homeless, so they had to grasp the latest data.

The gentry and wealthy gentry have also been asking about Li Yan's policies these days, knowing that Li Yan would charge them full taxes and re-determine their land, based on the red deeds issued by the government. Which of them did not occupy the land and contribute? If they followed Li Yan's rules, their land would be reduced by most, so they were quite dissatisfied. However, given Li Yan's military power, the incompetence of the government, and the enthusiasm of the people, they could only surrender temporarily.

Li Yan didn't care about the feelings of these gentry, and he didn't have time to pay attention to these things. Even if they rebel, they could take the opportunity to eliminate some.

However, this idea is also difficult. The people are all preparing to send their children to Li Yan to serve as soldiers to own their own land. Can those gentry gather people to rebel? Even if the bandits are not found, they will not find many bandits. When Li Mou led the team over, they would suppress the large number of bandits, and Huang Desheng continued to encircle them. Do those gentry take their weapons? They don’t have the courage. Those who have the courage became heroes as early as last year when they fought against the Qing army.

Li Yan and Li Mou met in Jinan, leaving a thousand people here to serve as material transfer stations. After understanding the specific situation in Shandong, Li Yan asked Li Mou to lead the troops south to take over the prefectures and counties in the south, while he led the team north. Liu Fangliang went directly to the capital from Baoding and did not distribute troops to take over the place, so he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to develop north as much as possible.

This is not to simply occupy the territory, but to leave a safe space. Even if you want to fight with Li Zicheng, you have to fight outside the area he controls. It takes a long time to restore order and consume a lot of food and food, but to destroy order, it only takes a big war.

Li Yan and his troops marched, and then all the counties surrendered. Now Beijing is in danger, and Liu Zeqing has fled again. The officials guarding the city also knew that the Ming Dynasty was about to collapse, so it was natural to surrender. However, some officials wanted to be loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty, either commit suicide, or were caught or killed by the people and soldiers.

In fact, those officers and officials wanted to surrender to Li Zicheng's Dashun Army. Now Dashun is unstoppable and it is very likely that the new dynasty will be established. Surrender will have a better future. However, Li Yan came first, and they could not defeat him either, so they surrendered first to save their lives and wait until they had the opportunity to join the new dynasty.

However, they may not have this opportunity. The soldiers under their command were waiting to share the land for their families. Few people were willing to rebel against Li Yan with them. As for Li Zicheng, at most they would not help each other. They all knew that Li Zicheng could not beat Li Yan in the past, but now it depends on the situation.

On March 15, Tang Tong from Juyong Pass surrendered to Li Zicheng, and the last barrier in northern Beijing disappeared. Baoding Prefecture in the south was also surrounded by thieves, and the fall was still a matter of time. Beijing was already in danger.

As early as the end of February, the dignitaries and nobles in the capital had already left the city in groups. Not only because Li Zicheng was coming soon, but because Emperor Chongzhen began to ask the officials and gentry to donate again.

At the beginning, he asked Xunqin, eunuchs and officials to donate 30,000 taels as the best, and used it to recruit the people to assist the capital to defend the city. However, only Taikangbo Zhang Guoji donated 20,000 taels, and the eunuch king's heart was forced to take out 10,000 taels, and the others were just a few dozen taels or a hundred taels.

Needless to mention other officials, even Chongzhen's father-in-law Zhou Kui, Jiading's uncle, only donated 3,000 taels. Originally, Chongzhen asked him to pay 120,000 taels as an example for all officials. However, Zhou Kui was unwilling to pay, so he only agreed to give 10,000 taels. Chongzhen gave concessions and asked him to donate 20,000 taels. Zhou Kui sent a letter to Queen Zhou, hoping that his daughter would persuade the emperor.

Empress Zhou did not persuade Chongzhen, but took out five thousand taels of silver to Zhou Kui. However, Zhou Kui was amazing. She detained two thousand taels of them and paid only three thousand taels to the emperor. Not only did he not pay one tael of silver, he also earned two thousand taels from his daughter.

When Chongzhen saw that he had confiscated a few dollars, he simply gave up the money. Based on the hometown of officials who retired in Beijing, the donation of 8,000 taels from Jiangnan, 6,000 taels from Zhejiang, 5,000 taels from Huguang, 4,000 taels from Jiangbei, Shaanxi, and Shandong. However, no officials were fools, and they all found reasons not to pay.

Chongzhen made a cruel decision and ordered the officials to recommend who had money and the yamen to force him. He understood that it was time for life and death. Since the officials were waiting for the Ming Dynasty to fall, he no longer had to give them a good face. The main reason was that there were less than 40,000 people in the Beijing camp. For Beijing City, these soldiers and generals were not satisfied with the battlement, so how could they defend the city?

So the officials and gentry were scared. Even if they knew that Shandong was not safe, they had to leave Beijing first. At worst, they could go south to Tianjin by boat. Anyway, they could not stay in the capital. Who knows if the emperor would come up with a new way to continue asking them for money in two days?

In addition, there was another plague in Beijing, and more officials and gentry escaped from Beijing. Anyway, they didn't care whether the Ming Dynasty was destroyed or not. They felt that the emperor was reluctant to take silver from the treasury, but instead, they were the ministers who were the ones who were disappointed, which made them feel heartbroken.
Chapter completed!