Chongzhen's request for help to Zhu Shuren was sent from Beijing on October 15th.

Li Zicheng's army reached the territory of Shuntian Prefecture on December 11th, and reached the city of Beijing on December 15th.

In other words, just two months after Chongzhen gave Zhu Shuren the imperial edict, Li Zicheng was killed. At this time, it would be really difficult for Zhu Shuren to react.

Of course, Beijing City is still strong. Li Zicheng was able to fight outside Beijing City and was still a necessary time between the last attack on Beijing City.

Historically, after Li Zicheng made preparations in the early stage and officially entered the full-scale general offensive, it took him four days to take over Beijing.

(Note: There are many statements in historical materials. Although some of them are described in a shorter time, they have obvious unreliable descriptions such as "Cao Huachun opens the door to welcome the thieves", and they are inconsistent with each other. There are battles after opening the door, so I don't accept it. But in general, there are statements about breaking the city in three to five days, and I take four days, which is not important.)

Now, because Li Zicheng came earlier and the plague in Beijing has not yet reached its peak, the guard power in the city is also stronger than in the same period in history.

Moreover, Li Zicheng launched an attack in the cold winter, and the weather was more unfavorable to the siege than in March, and the troops and equipment that fought along the way were also damaged.

As one goes up and down, it is not surprising that Chongzhen even relies on the lonely city of Beijing to guard for ten days and half a month.

More importantly, Chongzhen also had an additional reason to boost morale that did not exist in history:

After being besieged in Beijing, Chongzhen summoned important officials and military generals several times in a day, and told them with great sincerity, saying, "The situation in the Ming Dynasty is not desperate now. Zhang Xianzhong in the south is dead, and Sun Kewang is dead (Chongzhen temporarily increased his efforts to cheat his subordinates). However, Zhu Shuren did not make any moves at the beginning, and he did not expect that the thieves would come to the capital and cause disaster so soon, so he did not have time to reinforce.

And it was Li Zicheng, the imperial court's official report clearly stated that four months ago, Cao Bianjiao, a mere partial army under Zhu Shuren was defeated and lost tens of thousands of soldiers! So as long as you defend the capital, Zhu Shuren will be dispatched to dispatch the Sichuan Army and Huguang Army to serve the king! The world will definitely be pacified! Before that, Wu Sangui of Shanhaiguan can also help me with a few months, and Zhu Shuren will come!"

Not to mention, although all the ministers were disloyal, especially Chongzhen was still rushing to break into the thief's siege for more than half a month before the siege, he was still liquidating internal responsibilities, and sentenced Zhou Yanru, the chief minister of the cabinet, Xu Shiqi, the Minister of Justice, and demoted Zhang Guowei, which made the court officials several times more depressed than when Chen Xinjia was killed.

But Chongzhen's words still make sense. If you know the sincere ministers and have strong support, you may come to serve the king at any time. If you grit your teeth and survive this period, will you be famous in history?

Once this idea comes to mind, many people are willing to stick to it—

After all, even if Chen Peisi is "a gangster who has been around for thousands of years", if he reads the script first and knows that "if I grit my teeth and survive, I will become a positive person", he will probably have the motivation to grit my teeth and stand up.

In the first ten days after Li Zicheng siege, the defenders and generals of Beijing were really blinded by this inspirational speech. They didn't think too much about it for the time being, just work with the siege troops of the siege of the rebel army.

The city in Beijing is still very solid. Although the firearms are old and unreliable, they are sufficient in quantity and low-quality gunpowder. They smashed down regardless of cost, and they really killed and injured Li Zicheng's troops, even worse than when they were in Ningwu Pass.

But Li Zichengdu steamed buns were eaten by bean paste, and he was only one last breath, but he still bet on his family's life. How could he easily give up at this critical moment?

Especially Li Zicheng in this life, the threat behind him is more serious than in the same period of history. He knows very well that once Zhu Shuren frees up his hands and attacks behind him, he may not be able to get benefits.

Nowadays, several northern provinces are so broken. If the two sides continue to fight for a long time and cannot rob the south of the country and recover blood, the north will definitely not be able to defeat it - unless they directly surrender to the Tartars and join forces with the Tartars.

With the strength of the Tartars, they can suppress the Han people in the south. If the Tartars do not interfere, they only rely on the civil war of the Han people, and the degree to which several northern provinces are now harmed by disasters, they don’t have to think about it at all.

Li Zicheng must fight and decide quickly. It would be best if he could catch Chongzhen. If he was not good, he would force Chongzhen to establish a city alliance and legalize his Dashun regime.

So he had no choice, but continued to try his best to fill in the lives. He used all the siege methods he used when facing the strong city, regardless of whether they were effective or not, and he piled up all the costs regardless of the cost, and tried and misled them completely.

Ten days later, after the initial courage of the Ming army passed, the decline began to appear again. The main reason was that the soldiers guarding the city found that the court was too stingy to reward, and that they were fighting so fiercely at the critical moment. In theory, they should have paid a lot of money every day to stabilize the hearts of the people.

The big cake that was painted at the beginning, "General Wu and Governor Zhu will come to rescue" is indeed beautiful, but what does it have to do with ordinary soldiers?

Ordinary soldiers have fought for the Ming Dynasty for so many years, but they have never seen many benefits gained by winning?

Things like commendation and promotion can only motivate officials and are useless to the grassroots.

Just like a company, you can use your mission, vision and values ​​to draw a cake for middle-level management and backbone teams, but you can only talk directly about money with grassroots employees. A worker tells you a nonsense vision.

After the morale of the army was unstable, the new Minister of War Zhang Jinyan was still afraid of taking on the responsibility and did not pass it on. In the end, he almost caused a small mutiny, and was reported to Chongzhen by Luo Yangling of the Jinyiwei, so Chongzhen asked someone to raise funds and reward the army again.

As for the consequences of all this, there is nothing to describe. It is still the same as in the same period of history. Even Queen Zhou’s father was reluctant to take out the money, and even narrowed a portion of the money that Queen Zhou took through his pretending storefront.

Because of his willingness to contribute money to Chongzhen, this matter has nothing to do with "whether there is hope to defend Beijing and whether he has hope to become a hero of ZTE."

The key to whether all officials are willing to pay is not whether they are willing to, but whether they dare to do so.

Chongzhen's stubbornness and lack of flexibility mean that all officials dare not dare - Chongzhen will kill ministers once he overcomes the difficulties. Who knows that if he survives this time, will he settle the excessively corrupt ministers in the future and find some other excuses to kill them? Now that he can give up a large sum of money, wouldn't he confirm his guilt?

Therefore, to save the current city of Beijing and drag reinforcements to arrive, it was originally hopeless, but as long as Chongzhen was alive, the court officials could not be gambled.

Beijing City and Chongzhen must be defeated, and it is impossible to coexist at the same time.

If Chongzhen could open his eyes, he would commit suicide immediately, pass the throne to the crown prince, and let the crown prince show his weakness, pretend to be a coward who would not settle the guilty minister. Maybe there would be a glimmer of hope in Beijing to save him, but he could not open his eyes and could only leave it to fate.

...

The war in Northern Zhili was in full swing, and the envoys sent by Chongzhen also left for nearly twenty days after leaving the capital. Finally, on the third day of November, Zhu Shuren, who was personally deploying to fight the plague in Hanzhong, and conveyed his will.

Because the eunuchs could not bear the bumps and had no martial arts skills, they could not travel more than three or four hundred miles a day, the envoys sent this time were not the prince who had always dealt with Zhu Shuren, but the people sent by the Ministry of War.

The envoy was sent by Zhang Guowei, a military general named Jiang Ruolai. Nine years ago, the year when Zhang Xianzhong dug the Fengyang Imperial Tomb, Zhang Guowei was still the governor of Anlu. Jiang Ruolai was a local garrison, helping Zhang Guowei and the military supervisor Shi Kefa fight several battles in the Qianshan area and repel the bandits.

(Note: When Zhang Guowei was the governor of Anlu, Shi Kefa was the local military chief, so he was supervising the army. After Zhang Guowei was transferred, Shi Kefa was promoted to governor of Anlu, which was equivalent to being the deputy position and being promoted to the chief executive)

This Jiang Ruolai was also considered Zhang Guowei's confidant general. Later, Zhang Guowei went to the Beijing Ministry of War and took him to Beijing. In history, Zhang Guowei was demoted from the capital by Chongzhen and became the governor of Zhejiang, and brought this Jiang Ruolai to become the general of Zhejiang, so he was the most direct-minded iron.

Because when the imperial edict was released from the capital, Zhang Guowei was still the Minister of War. Even if the imperial edict was delivered, there would be twenty days left before Zhang Guowei was demoted.

Zhu Shuren was loyal and righteous. After receiving the order brought by Jiang Ruolai, he immediately expressed his respectful statement, saying that he would definitely send troops to rescue His Majesty as soon as possible.

But he also had a few difficulties and had to immediately come to clarify with the Ministry of War:

"It is urgent to rescue the enemy, but there are still some soldiers in the Hanzhong garrison who are still infected with plague, and there are still those who are lurking and have not yet developed the disease. I followed the medical officer's instructions and isolated the suspected infections and stationed a battalion. If the entire army suddenly set off, it will inevitably spread. I am afraid that most of the troops have lost their combat power before they reach Northern Zhili.

Please also ask the envoy to understand and allow our army to spend several days to identify and move forward first, and the later army will continue to advance slowly. In addition, if we need to speed up the march in order to save the enemy, the most convenient way is to use the Hanzhong army to go through the Han River route through Yunyang to Xiangyang first.

The remaining armies of Chongqing and other places first followed the Yangtze River to Jiangling, and then went north to Xiangyang to seize Qi, which could save the Hanzhong troops from going south and then going north. However, to march like this, the Yunyang road must be opened. Now there are still scattered remnants of bandits in various parts of Yunyang, which is inevitable to harassment.

Even if our army can defeat it, the search and pursuit will waste more time. In order to save the emperor, I pray that the court can order the supervisor to be allowed to follow the power urgently. On the condition of completely pardoning the previous crimes, we will persuade the remaining scattered thieves in Yunyang to surrender.

Similarly, our governor has now pursued Sun Kewang and almost forced him into a desperate situation, but if it is completely wiped out, it will still take more than two months. If the court can approve the pardon of Sun Kewang, our governor is sure to force him to surrender. In this way, the Sichuan army can also draw all its strength as soon as possible without leaving too many troops to guard against Sun Kewang. I wonder if these points, the court may approve it?"

Jiang Ruo came here just to pass the imperial edict, so how could he have authorized to agree to so many big things? But considering that his grace prime minister Zhang Butang was urging by His Majesty, he was also loyal. He knelt down and begged Zhu Shuren to be a little responsible:

"The king of the country! I will not accept the orders of the king outside! Now it is to save the Lord faster. Even if you are in a hurry, you will make your own decision to pardon some thieves in order to avoid being harassed by the army. Your Majesty will only praise your loyalty and courage in the future! What's the difference?

It’s better to send troops as soon as possible! Your Majesty is already very dissatisfied with Zhang Butang. If you ask for reinforcements, you may be punished by Zhang Butang!”

Of course, Zhu Shuren had to act absolutely loyal and righteous, and acted until the last moment. He hesitated for a while, and then said, "Well, there will be future generations who comment on merits and demerits. I will not go to the capital to ask for an order first.

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The scattered thieves in Yunyang, I took some responsibility for it. While the time when the army was being consolidated here, I asked someone to go to the imperial examination and pardon, so that they would not obstruct our army's passage and told them that the opportunity should not be missed. If it were not for the sake of rescue, there would be no such good imperial examination and security conditions in the future!

Sun Kewang will give me a half month to deal with it! I will make a decision with the Sichuan Governor and make a decision to do this together! It would have taken at least half a month to rectify the Sichuan soldiers leaving Sichuan, and this would not be a mistake!

After leading the front to Xiangyang, we will take a short rest and wait for the rear troops from Chongqing, Jiangling and other places to take over. During this period, we will send 600-mile fast horses to Beijing to report to Your Majesty about my urgent measures and obtain your Majesty's understanding.

It is much faster to get from Xiangyang to Beijing. Even if Henan falls, you have to take a detour from Xuzhou. It takes 600 miles to reach for five days and ten days to travel. I will stay in Xiangyang for ten days and wait for the rear army. Isn’t that too much? There is no faster marching in the world!"

Jiang Ruo came to know the military. After so many years of war, he could certainly judge that the army had only been waiting for ten days to gather, which was already very fast.

With hundreds of thousands of troops on Li Zicheng's side, it is impossible for Zhu Shuren to only bring the few troops currently in Hanzhong to reinforce. He always needs to assemble troops, otherwise it would be useless if there are fewer people.

In contrast, just compare Wu Sangui at Shanhaiguan to know that Zhu Shuren is already very fast and sincere in saving him.

...

After everything was implemented as planned, Zhu Shuren spent more than ten days in Hanzhong to prepare supplies, deploy logistics, and identify plague soldiers. Other work was quite fast, and the time for identifying plague could be long or short. If it was really urgent, you could not wash the mud if the carrots were fast. However, in actual implementation, the slowest preparation work was found that the ships were not enough.

Before this, the Hanzhong garrison had never thought of marching from Yunyang to Xiangyang. There were very few ships in the area and they were not prepared. Of course, they could not transport the 30,000 troops at one time.

This section of the Han River in the Qinling Mountains is famous for its rapid flow and dangerous shoals. It is easy to walk from Hanzhong to Xiangyang, but it is difficult to walk from Xiangyang to Hanzhong.

Otherwise, when Zhuge Liang died, Jiang Wan proposed to Liu Chan that "you can take the three counties of Shangyong from Hanzhong" and that Jiang Wei would not be persuaded to accept Liu Chan because "The Han River is easy to advance but hard to retreat. Even if he succeeds in a sneak attack, he will only gain the consequences of Wei, but our army is difficult to support for a long time."

After the ship arrived in Xiangyang downstream, it was too difficult to pull the fiber back to Hanzhong upstream for a second trip.

The geographical environment is so harsh that you can't blame Zhu Shuren if you walk slowly.

In order to show his sincerity, Zhu Shuren even made other attempts when he found that there were not enough Hanshui ships, such as asking the vanguard troops from the north to try to leave Qinling Mountains, Baoji, and attack Guanzhong controlled by the thieves to see if they could rush out of Guanzhong and then walk through the Yellow River.

This road must be very dangerous, and it has to break through the occupied areas of the Chuangjun. After a while, Zhu Shuren quickly obtained several important information: Li Zicheng cleared the fields in Guanzhong! Not only did the counties have no food, but the population was withdrawn and concentrated in a limited number of strongholds!

Today, Shaanxi is simply a thousand miles away and cannot raise food on the spot! The Sichuan army must bring its own food and grass throughout the journey when it goes out of the northern expedition!

This logistical pressure is undoubtedly unbearable. The consequence of changing this path will only lead to the entire army starving to death.

Therefore, in the past few days of raising ships in Hanzhong, Zhu Shuren has not been waiting.

He showed his greatest sincerity and proved that nothing else could work. During the attempt, he made some military achievements and defeated some of Yuan Zong's peripheral troops.

He even wrote a letter to Chongzhen again, wanting to ask Chongzhen to give him a chance to pardon Yuan Zongdi and give him an imperial edict. As for whether this letter can be delivered, I don’t know.

After such delay, Zhu Shuren's army finally ordered the scattered bandits in Yunyang on November 16th and set off for Xiangyang in batches.
Chapter completed!