Chongzhen sat on the dragon chair and thought carefully. There was a very practical question before him: how to get out of the city?
An army of 100,000 thieves surrounded the nine gates of the inner city, making it impossible to force their way out of the city.
He is well aware that there are many different ideas in the palace at present, and many people have evil intentions. He must not put all his wealth and life into one place. Who should be used and how to use it will affect the final result.
Fortunately, the royal family no longer has too many constraints. The three princes have already entrusted palace officials to send them out of the palace secretly, so their lives should be safe. As for the harem, alas...
When Chongzhen was melancholy, Wang Chengen led a person in quickly. Apparently, he had just followed Chongzhen's order to find him.
"Your Majesty, Lord Luo, the Left Governor of the Rear Army Governor's Mansion, has arrived."
"I don't dare. The guilty minister has betrayed the emperor's favor. Jin Yiwei and Luo Yangxing pay homage to His Majesty."
Chongzhen looked at Luo Yangxing, who was wearing a unicorn suit in front of him, calmed down his emotions, and said: "Yangxing, there is no need to be polite. Get up and talk to me standing up." After hearing this, Luo Yangxing stood up and stood still. Chongzhen asked him questions. Answer.
"How many guards are there in the palace? Where are they?"
"Your Majesty, there are more than a thousand people available, of whom 800 are unevenly distributed. I have divided them into four teams to guard the four gates of Tian'an, Di'an, Xi'an and Dong'an. The rest are all good soldiers from the Jinyi Guards, and I have brought them with me. , I am now outside Qianqing Palace, ready to listen to His Majesty’s orders at any time.”
"Oh? The Jin Yiwei are all good soldiers, and they are all loyal and loyal soldiers, right?"
After hearing this, Luo Yangxing immediately knelt down. This time, Chongzhen did not call him again.
"I am willing to die for Your Majesty!"
"Luo Aiqing, don't be afraid. I have no intention of testing you. Three generations of officials from the Luo family to the commander of the Imperial Guard have been working for the Zhu family for hundreds of years. I am trustworthy. I just heard rumors that today is the time when the world changes hands. , as a two-pronged plan, it’s me who should be afraid.”
"Who dares to say such treacherous and unjust words? Wei Chen immediately took people to investigate, goug out his eyes, remove his tongue, peel off his skin and remove his bones, to appease the emperor!"
Chongzhen was already standing next to Luo Yangxing.
"Haha, it doesn't matter. Compared with the thieves outside the city, this is a trivial matter. I have an urgent matter to entrust to you. You don't need to die, but you need to live."
Luo Yangxing was puzzled and looked up at Chongzhen, "What does your Majesty mean?"
Chongzhen answered the question, "What does Luo Aiqing value more, his past life or his reputation behind him?"
"I only care about sharing your worries and solving problems for Your Majesty."
"Okay!" Chongzhen patted Luo Yangxing's shoulder heavily and said, "I want you to surrender to the intruder after he attacks. I don't want you to die. You want to live a good life and live a long life. "
"I want you to open your eyes wide and see who is loyal and who is traitor. I hope you can try your best to save a loyal minister when he is in trouble. Remember the traitor, whether alive or dead, keep it in my mind. This matter is important. Do you hear me clearly? !”
Chongzhen roared, causing the somewhat confused Luo Yangxing to break out in a cold sweat. No wonder, before coming, he had thought about many dialogue scenarios, but he never expected that Chongzhen would take the initiative to ask him to surrender to the bandits. This incident had a great impact on him , I didn’t think about it for a while.
But how could Luo Yangxing, who had been in charge of Jinyiwei for many years, be a stupid person? After a moment, he understood the meaning.
"I accept the order and am willing to live for Your Majesty."
"Go and defend the city. I will personally vindicate you in the future and tell the world. But for now, you know this and I know it, and no third person can know about it."
After saying this, Chongzhen pointed at Wang Chengen. This gentleman-like figure jumped up.
"This slave deserves to die. He fell asleep just now. Please punish me, Your Majesty."
Luo Yangxing nodded solemnly, stopped saying anything, and was about to get up and walk out of the hall. At this time, he felt that he was carrying an extremely heavy burden.
"Call all the royal guards outside the palace to come in. I have other important matters to give you. Cheng'en, come here and change my clothes."
Luo Yangxing made a promise, then went out and disappeared.
Wang Chengen quickly picked up a set of flying fish suits from beside him and stepped forward to change Chongzhen's clothes. Guards in flying fish suits and embroidered spring knives poured into the hall one after another. However, there was not enough space in the hall, so the rest stood outside the door in order. Wait for all to stand.
After a while, the two leaders immediately knelt down.
"My lord, Commander of the Imperial Guards, the kingdom is prosperous and I would like to pay my respects to Your Majesty."
"My lord, Commander of the Imperial Guards, Li Ruolian, pays homage to Your Majesty."
Chongzhen put on a black flying fish suit, looking like a royal guard. He tightened the double-buckle ring belt around his waist to make the clothes fit better.
"Without courtesy, get on your feet." As he said this, he took the sword from Wang Chengen and held it in his hand.
"I will take you to death immediately. Those who are willing can stay, and those who are unwilling can leave the palace on their own or stay in the palace to surrender to the intruders. I will not pursue any of them. The emperor of tomorrow will never break his promise.
.”
No one in the palace moved, and no one answered. Chongzhen knew in his heart that these good men were the last few loyal to the royal family, and one of them died. He couldn't bear it, but there was nothing he could do about it. What does it mean to be alone? That's it.
At this point, Wang Cheng'en saw this, held a set of Ming Huang emperor's dragon robes and stood in front of Li Ruolian. The figure of Li Ruolian in front of him seemed to be similar to that of Chongzhen.
Li Ruolian understood immediately, put on the dragon robe without any delay, and held the emperor's crown around his waist.
Chongzhen raised his saber in front of him and said loudly: "You are divided into two. Commander Li will dress like me and lead a team out of the palace. They will try to leave the city through the three gates of Qihua, Chongwen and Zhengyang. If you can't get out, we will
Going up Meishan, I want you to make noise along the way, the bigger the better."
"The king commanded the envoy to lead a team and follow me!"
"Promise!" Including Li Ruolian and Wang Guoxing, there were more than 200 Jinyi guards present, and they all agreed with their voices.
At this scene, Chongzhen was extremely moved with tears in his eyes. As early as the early years of the Chongzhen Dynasty, due to Wei Zhongxian's eunuchship and the eunuchs' power, he drastically abolished the Jinyiwei and withdrew the rewards of many hereditary Jinyiwei's children.
It has been like this for ten years, and the Jinyiwei is weak and no longer has the style it once had.
But today, if he says a word, there are still people who are willing to die for him.
Chongzhen felt this and pulled out his embroidered spring knife. Pointing the shining tip straight to the sky, he shouted: "The brocade clothes will not die! They will just wither!"
"The brocade clothes never die! They just wither!" Everyone drew their knives and shouted this new slogan, looking at Chongzhen firmly.
-
Although Li Zicheng claimed to have 100,000 troops when he came to Beijing this time, the actual number was only 80,000. Each battalion of the Shun Army was divided into good and bad. The strongest one was the old battalion, which wore red clothes, mostly cavalry and had first-class shooting skills.
, but the number was the smallest, only bringing more than 20,000 people.
The majority of the people are refugees, and they are the weakest. They are all brought here along the way. Most of them are unarmed and unprotected, and can be used as cannon fodder in wartime.
The ones in the middle of the pack are the well-known bandits from all over Jiangbei. Although they are in the middle, they are just a little better than the barely clothed refugees.
During this siege, all nine gates of the capital were deployed with troops to attack the city.
The military strategist had a cloud to surround the three towers. Li Zicheng had fought many battles and had mastered this skill, so he focused on the south, north, and east. On the west side, he only arranged some refugee bandits to watch, and a few old battalions to supervise the battle and chase.
escape.
Xizhimen, after the Shun army entered Gaobeidian, Li Zicheng ordered his men to bombard this gate.
At this time, the gates of Xizhimen were closed, and there were still palace guards guarding the city. The archery tower on the urn city was missing a corner due to shelling, and the city wall was covered with black gun marks, forming depressions of various sizes.
On the western outskirts five miles away from the city gate, several battalions of Shun Army troops were stationed here. Dozens of old bandits in red robes rode back and forth to patrol the middle part of the battalion. From time to time, they also went to the direction of Xizhimen to observe the situation of the city tower.
There were three to two thousand people in the whole camp, standing or sitting around. Most of them were half-clothed and had all kinds of strange weapons. Some held knives, sticks, and even hoes.
In a corner of the camp, three people were sitting around, eating dry food.
One of them was young, about fifteen or sixteen years old. He was a little kid. He looked at the man eating wheat cakes next to him and drooled, and asked: "Brother Deng, tell me, can King Chuang conquer this capital?"
"That's King Chuang's business, but it's not my turn to worry about it." The man who replied lowered his head and ate the fragrant wheat cake and wiped his mouth.
"Then when we enter the capital, we can follow King Chuang to find the prince's consort, that's fine."
When the cake-eating man heard this, he slapped the little kid on the forehead and said, "You're a bitch, how about you?"
"Brother Deng, come on, can you please stop hitting me in the head? My mother said she knows how to hit stupid people!"
The other person looked at Zhile and handed the wheat cake to the little boy, "Gouwa, take it and eat it. I said you too, why are you beating Gouwa all the time?" Gouwa grabbed the wheat cake in his hand and said,
He ate it wholeheartedly and turned his body sideways, looking at Deng San defensively.
Deng San was furious when he saw Gou Wa's cowardly look, and tried to hit him again, but the other person held his hand down.
"Okay, okay, little dog, eat more. Later, when the soles of your feet feel strong, dry food will suddenly be given to you when you break into the camp. Most likely, we will attack the city."
After hearing this, Deng San looked around furtively, and after confirming that there was no figure in red clothes from Laoying nearby, he asked: "Brother You, are we going to talk about it later or something?"
"The old camp is watching us. We can't run away. When we attack the city, you two should stay closer to me and be smarter."
After that, the three of them were speechless. After eating, they quickly took a full rest in order to conserve more energy.
About half an hour passed, and the frequency of the sentinels coming and going between each battalion became more and more frequent, and one could vaguely hear the other battalions gradually becoming noisy.
"Everyone wake up." The man surnamed You kicked Gou Wa and Deng San, who were sleeping soundly. The two of them rubbed their sleepy eyes and didn't know why.
A rapid whistle sounded suddenly, and a small school rider in red stood in the camp, his horse's mouth opening and closing, white steam coming out.
"Get out of here and line up, you bunch of losers!"
After that, the schoolmaster rode up on his horse and held a riding crop to beat anyone he saw. Deng San stood up a little slower and received a whip on his face. The skin of his cheek was ripped open and blood flowed. He covered his face and screamed.
"Damn it! I'm so tender to you!" Deng San cursed angrily, ignoring the burning pain on his face, and stepped forward to fight with him. The principal smiled contemptuously, and whipped Deng San again with his backhand.
The whip was extremely harsh, hitting the vital point on the top of the head.
The man surnamed You rushed in front of Deng San and raised his hand to block the fatal whip. His arm was immediately dripping with blood. The man was in pain but said nothing.
The primary school officer got interested and was about to draw his sword when he heard a burst of "boom, boom, boom" from the cannons. It was the other battalions starting to attack the city, so he had to give up and pointed at the two of them and said: "Run fast when we attack the city."
Be careful, grandpa will pay attention to you two, haha."
After saying this, he turned his horse around and ordered everyone in the camp to leave the camp immediately and storm Xizhimen. This chapter has been completed!