By dawn, the situation had basically stabilized completely.

Emperor Chongzhen ordered the eunuch to ring the Wenzhong and summon all the ministers to come to court. This time was an hour later than usual. After he waited for another hour, countless ministers were absent. After asking, he found out that except for some ministers who died in the riot, most of them actually escaped from the city last night.

Emperor Chongzhen was angry and felt a little sad. These people usually ate desolate, but they abandoned their duties and fled out of the city when they heard some rumors. When the thieves really entered the capital, how could they expect them to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty? Emperor Chongzhen was furious and ordered the investigation of all those who were absent. The worst was to be imprisoned, and the minor ones were removed from office, and countless people were punished.

In the court, officials and officials have long formed a tradition of protecting each other, and officials of all sizes have more or less relationships with each other. They dare not question Emperor Chongzhen's decision, but they can point their finger at Zhou Xian who opened the city gate and released them out of the city.

Zhou Xian let everyone leave in order to reduce the pressure in the city so that the soldiers could quell the riots as soon as possible. However, in the eyes of some ministers, this became evidence of the crime of misconduct. When they learned that the beginning of this riot began with Zhou Xian shooting and killing Xue Lian, some ministers who died and injured their families or were looted in the riot were even more angry. They wrote letters asking Emperor Chongzhen to punish Zhou Xian more seriously.

In such a crowd of anger, Zhou Xian's little mistakes were infinitely amplified. At first, the ministers only discussed how to punish Zhou Xian slightly, but in the end they could not calm the public's anger if Zhou Xian was not killed.

Gao Qiqian, another planner of the riot, was not much better than Zhou Xian. He hid in the imperial city before the riot, thinking that he could get rid of suspicion. But what he didn't expect was that Zhou Xian directly ordered his house to be confiscated and found nearly one million taels of silver from it. The Donglin Party members, who were already dissatisfied with the eunuch group, wrote letters to criticize Gao Qiqian for being greedy and asked him to explain his millions of property.

Emperor Chongzhen was unable to bear the pressure and finally ordered people to imprison Zhou Xian. Gao Qiqian was forgiven by Emperor Chongzhen because he admitted that he was greedy for Mo and said that he was willing to give up all his family property. However, he was exactly the same as Zhou Xian for things other than greedy for Mo and did not admit it.

Emperor Chongzhen did not trust the ministers of the court, and the eunuchs who were released were all his eyes and ears. Gao Qiqian was the only one who was familiar with military affairs and was the most capable of them. He was unwilling to give up Gao Qiqian from the bottom of his heart. After seeing Gao Qiqian admit his guilt, he was willing to give him a chance.

During the Battle of Songshan, Ming Fang Hong Chengchou was captured, Lu Xiangsheng was seriously injured and died. However, Qing Fang, Ajige was killed by Lu Xiangsheng's formation, and Jiergalang was seriously injured by Cao Bianjiao. Because both sides lost huge losses, during this period, except for some small conflicts, there was no large-scale war in Liaodong.

However, General Li Fuming reported that the Qing army had been mobilized frequently recently and seemed to launch an attack again. Emperor Chongzhen had long wanted to install another military supervisor in Liaodong, but there was no suitable candidate. Demoting Gao Qiqian to serve as military supervisor in Liaodong, on the one hand, it could calm everyone's anger, and on the other hand, it could also help Emperor Chongzhen take a little control of the army in Liaodong.

Zhou Xian's situation is obviously more difficult than Gao Qiqian. After all, the latter only has one charge of greed. Although Emperor Chongzhen knew in his heart that Zhou Xian was not guilty, even the reason why this riot could be stopped so quickly was his decisive action. However, shooting Xue Lian on the spot and issuing an order to kill the rioters during the rebellion, such as the acts of "no matter who kills the rioters" during the rebellion, are quite controversial.

So many people were killed, so many houses were burned, and so many Dukes, Marquis and Bo Mansions were looted. In the end, all the anger was concentrated on Zhou Xian in the end.

Emperor Chongzhen wanted to release Zhou Xian, but among the letters from the ministers, he could not issue such an edict. In the end, he had to temporarily lock Zhou Xian up, hoping to wait for the matter to calm down before ordering him to be released from prison. However, because Zhou Xian's previous light was too strong, countless people were jealous of him and hated him. These people kept writing letters, and Li Banghua, Fang Yizhi and others supported Zhou Xian's words sank into the vast mess of noises.

Zhou Xian had some psychological expectations about this matter, but he did not expect that such accusation would last for more than a month without any weakening trend. The prison life of more than a month not only weakened Zhou Xian's trust in Emperor Chongzhen, but also made him completely disgusted with the bloated bureaucratic system of the Ming Dynasty.

Sin means guilt, and sin means guilt. What's the point of dragging on this?

But today, things suddenly turned around. What surprised Zhou Xian was that the reason for letting him go out of prison was not because Emperor Chongzhen finally made up his mind, but Liu Zeqing, who was far away in Shandong, forced him to let Zhou Xian go out of prison.

Zhou Xian washed his face with clean water, stretched out his hands, and let a little eunuch put on his official uniform for him. A month of prison life made him look a lot thinner, but his eyes were bright and his brilliance remained unabashed.

Wang Chengen said from the side: "I should have asked Zhou Xuanwu to go home and change his clothes first, but the emperor summoned him urgently, so please don't care."

Zhou Xian nodded, and did not say much, but just listened quietly to Wang Chengen's latest situation outside.

The news in prison was blocked. Although Li Banghua, Fang Yizhi, and even Hou Fangyu had visited him after he was imprisoned, the information they received was incomplete. Wang Chengen was the closest inner trust of Emperor Chongzhen, and could contact the latest and most realistic situations across the country. The news was revealed by him and could basically be confirmed as true.

Finally put on his clothes, Zhou Xian sighed gently. He didn't expect that so many things could happen in more than a month.

After Li Zicheng captured Kaifeng City, he established the Dashun Dynasty. Later, with the assistance of the ministers, he appeased the people and trained his soldiers, and his strength increased greatly. They successively seized Guide, Runing and other prefectures. Except for Zhangde Mansion on the north bank of the Yellow River and half of Huaiqing Mansion, which was still under the control of the official army, all the prefectures in Henan were earned by the rebel army.

Henan has severe drought. Although there is river water to irrigate crops in a large area near the Yellow River, and there is also a fertile Nanyang Basin in western Henan that can provide food for it. However, because the rebel army has a huge scale of nearly 400,000 people, the supply of grain and grass is still in short supply overall.
Chapter completed!