On the sixth day of the second month, Beijing, the Forbidden City, the East Warm Pavilion of the Ganqing Palace.

The 33-year-old Emperor Chongzhen welcomed his birthday, but there was no joy in the palace. Instead, there was a scene of withering and slaughtering. The scent of corpses was even filled with the imperial city, so that the palace concubines had to hide in the house, relying on the incense to suppress the vomiting sensation from their stomachs.

The plague that began last winter had already killed the capital of the Ming Empire. According to a report by Shuntian Prefecture, "The sick vomited blood like watermelon water and died immediately. Nine out of ten households were empty, and all households were gone. More than 200,000 residents in the capital were infected and died."

At first, Shuntian Prefecture and the Wucheng Military and Masi Department also organized people to collect the bodies, and the Jingying was also involved for a while. However, when it was discovered that the soldiers carrying the bodies were soon infected with the epidemic, no one dared to collect the bodies anymore, and the relatives of the deceased could only drag them out of the city to bury them.

Those who died of the whole family were closed and the government could do was sprinkle lime near the deceased's house.

The unrestrained corpses were so cold in the cold, frozen in the house stiffly. After spring, these corpses became nightmares for everyone in Beijing.

Rotten, rotten everywhere.

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Fortunately, a Fujian Juren who was in Beijing proposed the "blood-stinging method" to effectively alleviate the plague. Otherwise, I still don't know how many people would die in this epidemic.

In front of Chongzhen's case, a report from Zhu Guochun, Duke Cheng of the Jingying, was placed. Duke Chengguo claimed that after this major epidemic, the original number of troops of the Jingying was reduced by half, and the remaining 50,000 was mostly insufficient. If the rebel army attacked Shanxi and rushed towards the capital, the capital would face a situation where there was no soldiers to defend. Therefore, Duke Cheng begged the emperor to quickly transfer the Liao army from Shanhaiguan into the capital to deploy defense, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable.

Grand Secretary Chen Yan, Wei Zaode, Wang Yongji, Wu Linzheng and others also submitted memorials, demanding that all Ningyuan troops be withdrawn into the capital of the capital. As for what to do if the Liao army closed after entering the capital of the capital, everyone kept silent tacitly.

After several hesitations, Chongzhen finally sent envoys to Shanhaiguan. Ningyuan announced an edict to Liaodong Governor Li Yutian, Shanhaiguan General Gao Di, and Ningyuan General Wu Sangui.

The eunuch Wang Chengen of Si Libing's pen requested the eunuchs in the palace to come to the wall to help guard the guard. This would allow four or five thousand internal supervisors to be used. Although it was a drop in the bucket, Chongzhen was still in charge. He really had no soldiers available now.

The soldiers who could fight in the capital were only thousands of soldiers under the Imperial Horse Prison, but they were all led by General Zhou Yujiti to Shanxi to resist the rebels. Even so, Shanxi Governor Cai Maode asked the capital for help 800 miles a day.

Chongzhen had no choice but to send out the last army that he thought was still useful, which was the 2,000 soldiers led by Xiong Tong, deputy general of the Beijing Camp.

However, what Chongzhen never expected was that Xiong Tong surrendered to the thief as soon as he arrived in Shanxi, and shamelessly ran to persuade Zhou Yuji to surrender. Fortunately, Zhou Yuji was really loyal to the Ming Dynasty and angrily killed Xiong Tong and sent his head to the capital.

However, the next day, Chongzhen received the bad news that Taiyuan was conquered by the rebel army. The guard generals Niu Yong, Wang Yongkui and others were all in battle and died. Governor Cai Maode hanged himself.

The rebels who conquered Taiyuan marched towards Xinzhou after a short rest. The officials and civilians in the city surrendered, and Zhou Yuji, who was stationed in Daizhou, defended the city.

If Daizhou is lost again, Shanxi will be defeated by the entire territory of thieves. By then, Li Zicheng's hundreds of thousands of troops will enter the capital without any obstacles, and no one can stop him.

Chongzhen's heart was really painful. In the 17 years since he ascended the throne, he didn't know what he had done wrong to make God punish him, the emperor.

He blamed himself, he was in pain, but he had no choice.

He could only constantly motivate himself to work diligently and never delay national affairs. He tried to turn the tide with his diligence and revitalize the Ming Dynasty.

But the situation became even worse. With his diligence, the Ming Dynasty was about to collapse.

His thirty-three birthday was also filled with the sad scenes of the king who had lost his country.

What kind of evil did I commit in my previous life? God wants to torture me like this!

With a "bang", the crisp sound of a crack in the warm pavilion alarmed the inner prison guards outside. They came in in panic and stood there in fear.

Chongzhen did not go to see these loyal inner prisoners, but looked at the broken bowls on the ground and was a little lost. After a long time, he stood up impatiently. He was too lazy to go to the pond to report the memorials. If those memorials were all useless, none of them could really come up with a solution for him, the emperor. After all, they either asked for money or soldiers.

God knows, if I have money and soldiers, can I not give it to the lower level?

Can you watch the situation get worse day by day?

Could it be that I am really a stingy and greedy slave who is rich, watching his country collapse day by day, but he is counting a lot of silver!

"Xuan Li Mingrui!"

Chongzhen did not want to wait for death in the capital. He did not want to be the king of the country to be destroyed. As early as last year, he intended to imitate the Jin Yuan Dynasty and Song Gao moved south.

On the seventh day of the first lunar month, Chongzhen secretly summoned Zuo Zhongyun, Li Mingrui, who advocated "to move south to survive", and when there were only confidant officials and Li Mingrui, Chongzhen personally walked down the stairs and said with great sincerity, "I have long been ambitious to move south to survive, but no one in the court praised him. All the ministers refused to obey, so this has been delayed until now. Now I asked you to come and ask you to come out the rules."

Li Mingrui had already written a memorial on the migration route south, as well as the accompanying guards, the money and the remaining guards, and handed them to Chongzhen now.

After seeing this, Chongzhen felt it was very appropriate, but he, the emperor, took the initiative to propose it because of the inconvenience of this matter. After all, he lost face.

At this time, the Grand Secretary Li Jiantai, who led his troops to attack his own city, sent someone in Baoding to report that the thieves had already proclaimed emperor and that the thieves' army was invincible at all, so Li Jiantai was willing to go south by the crown prince.

Therefore, whether to move south to Liudu was made public to the court by private discussion. Chongzhen was overjoyed and asked Li Mingrui to write a letter to move south, hoping to use this public agreement to move south to move south.

In Li Mingrui's memorial, moving south is not fleeing south, but an imperial commander in person, which left enough face for the emperor.

Chongzhen thought the court officials would definitely praise him, after all, these court officials would not want to stay in the capital and wait for death, but what disappointed him was that the court officials were timid and did not comment.

The Grand Secretary of the Cabinet was even more afraid that the emperor would move south and leave them to assist the prince in the capital to become scapegoats, so he incited the people below to write a letter to oppose the migration south.

What made Chongzhen even more angry was that the left censor Li Banghua wrote a letter to claim that "Your Majesty should defend the country." If you really want to move south to survive, you should also have the crown prince go to the Nandu to supervise the country, and the emperor stays in the army, instead of the emperor personally expeditioning and the crown prince stays behind.

"Does these people have to die?"

Chongzhen tore Li Banghua's letter in anger. After his anger was gone, he sighed to the eunuch Wang Chengen and said, "It's like the blessing of heaven. The king's soldiers arrived in time to defend the capital. If a brother supervised Nanjing, he would be afraid that the old drama of Lingwu in the Tang Dynasty would be repeated. This is not a blessing for the country."

Wang Chengen dared not speak.

After Li Mingrui entered the palace, Chongzhen stepped forward and grabbed his hand as if he saw a savior and said, "I don't want my brothers to go to Nandu. It's because I have been managing the world for more than ten years but still can't help. What are the things my brothers and children do?"

Li Mingrui shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Your Majesty doesn't know, now everyone outside says that my words are evil."

"You don't have to pay attention. I can only know you. Come and put a stool on the teacher. I want to decide the big thing with him."

Li Mingrui hesitated for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, I'm sorry, I'll be able to do it even if your Majesty is in person."

"how?"

Chongzhen was stunned.

"I just received the news that there was a civil unrest in Huaiyang, and the rebels in Henan took advantage of the situation and went south. Your Majesty's personal expedition was no longer possible."

After saying that, Li Mingrui sighed, his eyes filled with tears.

Chongzhen was also shocked and murmured for a while: "I can't defend the country, but I can die for the country."
Chapter completed!