The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 283 Depends on the message
Sun Chengzong, the former governor of Ji and Liao, was thrown into exile in the capital for treason and collaborating with the enemy, and Li Ti'ran, the special envoy of Ping Liao Hou, was also executed by slow slicing.

When the news reached western Liaoning, the military and civilians were outraged.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month in the second year of Chongzhen's reign, Liu Zhaosun issued a proclamation to quell the rebellion. On the same day, 37 members of Wu Xiang's family were killed as a sacrifice, leaving only Wu Xiang's youngest son alive.

This child was Wu Sangui, who had just turned ten years old.

On February 9, 120,000 soldiers and civilians from Kaiyuan were divided into two groups and advanced by land and sea to attack the rebels.

Led by Liu Zhaosun and Deng Changxiong, an army of 80,000 took the Shanhaiguan route and attacked the capital along Yongping and Zunhua, confronting the frontal defense of the Jizhen border army.

Led by Qiao Yiqi and Yuan Chonghuan, after landing in Weihaiwei, they continued to advance northwest, passing through Laizhou and Qingzhou Prefectures, cutting off the canal in Shandong, entering Zhending Prefecture from Shandong, and detouring to the south of the capital to block the royal support troops coming from the south.

This is the Little Ice River harvesting operation that Ping Liaohou has been dreaming of.

Attacking from the north and south, advancing from the east and west, they harvested the capital with lightning speed.

Upon learning that Wang Zai Jin had rebelled and Shanhaiguan had fallen, the Ministry of War urgently mobilized troops from all over the country to enter the capital to defend the king.

The Ming court gave up suppressing the chieftains and refugees in Shaanxi, Chengdu, Henan and other places, and mobilized the entire country to fight a decisive battle with the Kaiyuan army.

However, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. Except for Jizhen, Tongzhou, Changping and other places where the Ming army could still gather for battle, the rest of the troops to support the king would arrive in the capital at the earliest half a month later.

By then, Emperor Chongzhen would have been hanged from the crooked tree on Coal Hill - if he was as "benevolent and loving to the people" as his brother Zhu Youjian.

After experiencing the recent disastrous defeat in Ningyuan, the various Ming armies had a new understanding of the strength of Ping Liaohou.

Unless they are determined to be buried with the Ming Dynasty, no one is willing to become a direct enemy of the Liao Hou.

You Shiwei died in battle and Zu Dashou was defeated. The military leaders were not fools. Liu Zhaosun often led hundreds of thousands of troops to attack the city. No one could withstand such a tactic.

The troops from all over northern Zhili who came to support the emperor hesitated to advance, and the generals deliberately slowed down their march.

The troops from Henan and Hebei who were trying to support the king were blocked in Shandong.

Yuan Chonghuan concentrated his red cannons to bombard the key towns along the canal.

In addition, he ordered his soldiers to burn grain ships and block the canal.

In mid-April, the Shandong section of the Beiyun River was completely cut off.

Under the propaganda and agitation of the training officers and combat representatives of various camps in Kaiyuan, tens of thousands of boatmen from Linqing, Jining and other places joined the rebel ranks.

Yuan Chonghuan led an army of 100,000 and swept across Shandong.

A fierce battle broke out in Bengbu between the troops from Fengyang and Nanzhili who were sent to support the king and the Kaiyuan army.

The Southern Royalist Army had not seen war for a long time and was defeated in one battle under Yuan Chonghuan's sharp offensive.

The remaining troops who came to support the king hesitated to move forward and watched the Kaiyuan army continue to move north.

In addition, the closure of the canal also caused a series of chain reactions.

Prices in Nanjing, Guazhou, Linqing and other places skyrocketed, and the people complained bitterly. The price of rice in the capital rose to five taels of silver per stone, a tenfold increase. People starved to death in the capital every day.

The Intelligence Bureau spread the news that the Donglin rebels were colluding with grain merchants to hoard rice, causing the price of rice to soar and arousing public resentment.

In fact, this is the truth.

On the ninth day, Wang Zai Jin, the governor of Liaodong, led his troops to surrender in front of Shanhaiguan. Liu Zhaosun appointed Wang Zai Jin as the commander-in-chief of the expedition.

On the 12th, Marquis Ping Liao led the surrendered troops from Shanhaiguan as the vanguard, and the Kaiyuan army as the rear guard. The two armies joined forces, totaling 100,000 soldiers and civilians, and marched quickly towards Yongping Prefecture.

On the 15th, the army arrived at Yongping, and the Yongping defender Chai Guozhu opened the gate and surrendered.

On the 18th, the Kaiyuan army launched a fierce attack on Qian'an. The Qian'an defenders killed the prefect and surrendered the city.

On the 22nd, the Kaiyuan army arrived in Zunhua.

The battle was less than 400 miles away from the capital.

The beacon fires on the border wall of Jizhen continued, and the capital was shaken.

Chongzhen urgently summoned Man Gui, the commander-in-chief of Jizhen, to Beijing, promoted him to the commander-in-chief of Ji-Liao, and conferred on him the title of Prince Grand Tutor, and granted him the hereditary title of Jinyi Assistant.

Man Gui was stationed in Wengcheng. He refused the imperial court's offer of a higher title on the grounds that he was "lacking qualifications and not fit for important tasks" and led his troops back to Jizhou overnight.

On the 22nd, an army of 100,000 besieged Zunhua. Kang Yingqian sent people into the city to negotiate peace. The defending general Yang Weiyue killed the envoy and led his troops to attack the Kaiyuan army at night.

Liu Zhaosun ordered heavy artillery to surround and attack the city walls, and the artillery fire continued day and night.

On the 25th, the city gate was breached and all the remaining Ming troops in the city were executed.

On the 27th, the great banner of Ping Liaohou arrived in Jizhou.

Man Gui, the general of Jizhen, turned against his allies on the battlefield, killed the eunuchs sent from the capital to supervise the army, and led the Kaiyuan army into Jizhou.

On the 30th, the army arrived at Tongzhou, the gateway to the capital.

Ping Liaohou surrendered to the Ming army and served as the vanguard, with a total of 130,000 troops, and fought with the Tongzhou defenders in the east of Tongzhou city.

The artillery pieces of the Tongzhou defenders exploded one after another, and they collapsed without a fight.

The Kaiyuan cavalry attacked and the Tongzhou army was defeated. The general Wang Shuquan fled to the capital under the protection of his servants.

The Ming army surrendered.

The army under Ping Liaohou's command had a total of 150,000 people.

On May 3rd, the army arrived at Beijing. Ping Liaohou decided to first capture Shunyi and Changping to eliminate the flank threat.

The defenders of Shunyi and Changping collapsed without a fight.

Chongzhen sent the eunuch Du Xun, who was in charge of the military, to lead the surrender and welcomed Ping Liaohou with grand ceremony.

According to later historical records:
On that day, (Eunuch Du) wore a dragon robe and rode a horse, welcoming him from thirty miles away.

On the same day, Yu Chonghua, the military governor of Changping, followed suit.

"Ten miles out of the city, we went to meet the Marquis of Ping Liao. The people and the people blocked the road with cattle and wine."

On May 5, Ping Liaohou arrived in the capital. The eunuch Du Zhizhi, the supervisor of the army, and Song Tong, the general who came to defend the king, surrendered without a fight. The governor He Qian and the general Ma Dai escaped during the battle.

On the same day, Emperor Chongzhen summoned the newly appointed Ziyang County Magistrate and 33 others to the Zhongzuo Gate to discuss the strategy of "suppressing bandits and making money."

Huang Guoqi said: "The most urgent thing to do now is to win over the people's hearts, and the second is to use people well."

Zhu Youxiao asked: "How can we reassure people's hearts?"

Huang Guoqi replied: "It is not difficult to appease the people. As long as the emperor is in the southwest, the people will be at peace."

Chongzhen was about to ask more questions when his personal eunuch Cao Huachun suddenly handed him a newspaper.

The emperor opened the letter and his face changed suddenly. He left a group of bewildered county magistrates and stood up and went inside alone.

From then on, everything is over.

The situation in which the capital was left with no alternative but to rely on it was irreversible.

On the sixth day, Ping Liaohou commanded his army to advance from Shahe and directly attack Pingze Gate, with flames shooting into the sky.

The Kaiyuan army was at the gates of the city. The Donglin gentlemen in the capital, who had vowed to fight to the death, immediately fell apart when they saw this situation, like a building about to collapse, and fled for their lives.

Ye Xianggao, the Minister of Rites and Grand Secretary of the Dongke Academy, joined forces with Zhao Nanxing, the Minister of Revenue, Gao Panlong, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, and more than 20 other Donglin leaders to secretly plan a response and agree to open the door to respond to Ping Liaohou's request to enter the capital, vying to become his loyal ministers.

At noon, the Kaiyuan army attacked Pingze Gate, Zhangyi Gate, and Xizhi Gate, and the soldiers of the three major camps guarding the city (Wujun Camp, Shenshu Camp, and Shenji Camp) collapsed at the first blow.

In the 47th year of Wanli's reign, when the Kaiyuan Army presented prisoners to the capital, the three major camps had contact with the Kaiyuan Army.

After three years, the Beijing camp became increasingly weak, with food and wages in arrears and insufficient weapons. Now, only the old, weak and disabled soldiers and the eunuch camp are left to defend the city.

In contrast, the capital city was surrounded by dark clouds, and the army of more than 80,000 soldiers was well-armored and armed with swords and spears like a forest.

Tens of thousands of refugees surrounded the city of Beijing, making it impossible to escape.

Marquis Ping Liao, surrounded by the central army guards, arrived in front of Zuo'an Gate.

Looking at the turbid moat.

He thought of the disabled beggar he met in the 47th year of the Wanli reign.

Thinking of Jin Yuji, whose life and death are unknown.

The scenes of surrendering prisoners to the capital that year came to my mind one after another.

Finally, he thought of Xiong Tingbi and his adoptive father.

"Foster father, I have come to this point today because I was forced into this situation!"

For a moment, he was overwhelmed with emotions. He rode his horse to the city wall, and under the protection of guards, he drew his bow and shot an arrow at the Zuoanmen plaque.

With a buzzing sound, the arrow hit the center of the bull's eye.

Thunderous cheers of victory rang out from all directions.

"Long live the Marquis of Ping Liao!"

"Long live Kaiyuan!"

He reined in his horse and looked around, and saw soldiers and armor like clouds.

Looking back at the Zuoanmen city wall, the top of the city wall was littered with abandoned Portuguese cannons, caltrops, and deer horns. The armor, weapons, and flags of the Beijing camp soldiers were scattered everywhere. Some emaciated eunuchs lay on the top of the city wall, begging for their lives.

Smoke rose from the walls of the capital on all four sides, and the shouts of soldiers and horses were endless.

There were about several thousand soldiers defending the city. They were hungry, cold, worried and frightened, so they did not dare to fight back against the Kaiyuan army, but only fired blanks at the city.

Marquis Ping Liao called the messenger and ordered the Kaiyuan artillery not to fire live ammunition to avoid injuring innocent people in the capital.

Kang Yingqian called the surrendered eunuch Du Xun and asked him to tell the defenders on the city:

"If the artillery fire from the city kills a Kaiyuan soldier, the army will immediately massacre the entire city!"

The defenders were frightened by this and dared not load iron balls or lead bullets into the gun barrels, but only used gunpowder and smoke.

In this way, firing blanks became a tacit agreement reached by both parties.

Half an hour after the bombardment, Kaiyuan instructor Sen Ti shouted at Zhangyi Gate, saying that Ping Liaohou would only kill the Donglin rebels and would not harm innocent people.

Li Shouqi, the Marquis of Fancheng, shouted back from the top of the city wall:
"I will be held hostage in the Kaiyuan military camp. Marquis Ping Liao can send an envoy to speak to His Majesty."

Sen Ti held up a loud speaker and shouted angrily:

"The Korean envoy, Li Tiran, has been tortured to death by you. Ping Liaohou has issued a warning: if you dare to break the alliance again and injure our envoys, our army will storm the city and leave no one alive!"

(End of this chapter)