From the first year of Chongzhen to the present, the peasant uprising has lasted for fifteen years.
During these fifteen years, although the peasant army rose and fell, with uncertain rise and fall, even to the point of starting a prairie fire, it never captured any provincial capital.
What does provincial government mean?
The only thing more important than the provincial capital is the capital.
If even the provincial capital is captured, will the capital be far behind?
From this perspective, once the provincial capital is breached, it almost heralds the end of a dynasty.
Especially Kaifeng.
It is not only the provincial capital, but also the essence of the Central Plains.
Since ancient times, the fight for the world has been called the fight for the Central Plains. If all the essence of the Central Plains falls into the hands of the enemy, the country will come to an end.
Therefore, when Li Zicheng's troops came to Kaifeng for the third time, and the military strength was far greater than before, Chongzhen went crazy.
He quickly gave an order to Governor Ding Qirui that no mistakes in opening the seal would be allowed.
Alas, despite being incompetent and immoral, the only person Chongzhen could put his hope in was Lao Ding.
There was nothing we could do, Fu Zonglong and Wang Qiaonian ran away, and Yang Wenyue died.
Looking around the court, Chongzhen suddenly realized that he had no one available to him.
Even if Lao Ding is really not trustworthy, he can only catch the duck and put it on the shelf.
This is the predicament of the Ming Dynasty today, and it cannot be changed.
It’s not like Chongzhen didn’t take the medicine of regret.
He released Sun Chuanting, who had been thrown into prison for two years, and asked Sun Chuanting to resume his duties as governor of Shaanxi and train the army again in an attempt to save the situation.
Capital, at the entrance of the prison of the Ministry of Punishment.
Sun Chuanting walked out unsteadily.
Looking up at the sky, the stinging pain caused by the hot sun finally made his feelings come alive.
He returned to the human world and could do something useful again.
An old servant of the family had been waiting here for a long time, and he hurriedly came over with tears in his eyes.
"It's great that the master is out of prison. My mistress has been waiting for a long time and is looking forward to the day of reunion."
Sun Chuanting regained consciousness and allowed his servants to help him take off his prison uniform and put on a comfortable Taoist robe.
"Stop chatting, pack your bags quickly, and follow me to Shaanxi to take up the post."
The old servant's movements were stagnant, his expression full of dissatisfaction.
"Sir, can this Ming Dynasty be saved? All the capable people have run away, so why should I sacrifice my life?"
Sun Chuanting was as cold as ice and scolded him on the spot.
"You bastard! I have inherited Tiande for more than two hundred years in the Ming Dynasty, and all the people in the world have returned. Li Zicheng is just a defeated general under me, why should I be afraid?"
The old servant was scolded so badly that he didn't dare to say anything anymore and had no choice but to do what he was told.
Although Sun Chuanting was unjustly accused and imprisoned for a long time for nothing, he still thought about the Ming Dynasty. After he came out of prison, he went straight to Shaanxi without delay.
But when they arrived at the place, Lao Sun was dumbfounded.
The vast Shaanxi Province is empty. Looking around, there is nothing you want.
people?
Either they all ran away or they all died.
After leaving the city of Xi'an and going all the way to Tongguan, apart from the white bones, there was not a single person in sight.
money?
Only rats were running wildly in the treasury of Shaanxi, and their shrill cries seemed to mock his wishful thinking.
Faced with Chongzhen's strict order to send troops, Sun Chuanting finally felt powerless.
In view of the cruel reality, Sun Chuanting submitted a memorial to Chongzhen, hoping to recruit Shaanxi locals to join the army, and use the heroic and fighting characteristics of the Qin people to use Qin to control Qin and deal with Li Zicheng.
However, in order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to train 20,000 elite soldiers, which requires a military salary of one million.
When Chongzhen saw the request for money, he became very unhappy on the spot.
But now that the matter was over, he only wanted the siege of Kaifeng to be lifted, so he verbally agreed.
But Chongzhen's agreement was conditional.
He demanded that Sun Chuanting must send troops to rescue Kaifeng within one month after receiving his military pay.
Sun Chuanting had just come out of prison, trying to revive his ambitions, but by this time, all his ambitions had disappeared.
It is really difficult to be a subordinate when you meet such a master!
Under the supervision of the supervisor Su Jing, Sun Chuanting had no choice but to send troops to Tongguan and march into the Central Plains.
Even so, his action was too late.
At this time in the Central Plains, the war situation has been decided.
Return to Kaifeng.
Ding Qirui took office again, fearing that Chongzhen would behead him if he delayed any further, so he quickly sent orders to various Ming armies and rushed to Kaifeng.
But at this time, the essence of the Ming army had long been exhausted. Although it was said to be 180,000 strong, and there were generals such as Zuo Liangyu, Hu Dawei, Yang Dezheng, Fang Guoan, etc., they were far behind in terms of quantity and quality.
Li Zicheng.
On May 13th, all Ming armies arrived at Zhuxian Town and refused to take a step forward.
All the generals made good plans.
If you rush to Kaifeng City to fight Li Zicheng, you have absolutely no chance of winning.
They had no choice but to station themselves in Zhuxian Town to threaten Li Zicheng's flanks.
If we can scare Li Zicheng and force him to withdraw his troops, then everything will be fine.
If Li Zicheng is determined and turns around to attack, it will be easier for everyone to run.
Sure enough, Li Zicheng had a very strong head.
Since ancient times, there has been no belligerence in sieges of cities.
The first two times he opened the seal, Li Zicheng paid a heavy price and still failed to defeat it.
This has already created a psychological shadow on Li Zicheng.
If possible, try not to attack the city.
As long as he tries to eliminate the effective strength of the Ming army in the wild, is Henan not his?
Heroes throughout the ages have understood this principle: save people and lose land, both people and land will survive; save land and lose people, both people and land will be lost.
Only the idiot, Principal Jiang, doesn't understand.
So Li Zicheng turned around, leaving only a small number of troops to monitor Kaifeng, and hundreds of thousands of troops rushed towards Zhuxian Town.
Back then, Yue Fei defeated Jin Wushu here and preserved the vitality of the turbulent Song Dynasty. Now here, another decisive battle to determine the fate of the Central Plains is about to come.
Zuo Mengeng, who was far away in Jinan, had all the intelligence on the battlefield.
At this time, his brows were furrowed, and he was obviously in a difficult situation.
And he couldn't tell the trouble, otherwise there would be endless trouble.
But this problem must be solved, otherwise, there will be big trouble on the road to unification of Xia Kingdom in the future.
After thinking about it, at this time, there was only one person he could trust.
"Third brother, you are personally responsible for this matter. You must be careful and there must be no mistakes."
Zuo Fu was sitting in the shadows, making it difficult to see his expression.
But for the first time in his life, he hesitated about Zuo Mengeng's order.
"Master, is there really no room for change?"
Zuo Mengeng let out a long sigh and raised his hand to rub his forehead.
"What will happen to him if he continues to live?"
Zuo Fu paused, obviously thinking of something.
He quickly firmed up his attitude.
"I'll do it, there won't be any flaws."
Zuo Mengeng held his hand.
"I've made you feel wronged."
Zuo Fu just shook his head.
"The young master once said that the world is the largest. No one can stop me from rejuvenating China. If that's the case, what's there to fear?"