Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 153 Zhang Xianzhong Must Die
After several days of journey in Henan, Chongzhen fell into complete self-doubt.

He stepped on the dry bones on the ground, his eyes dull.

"Sir, the bandits are here again."

Following the order from the captain of the Imperial Guard, several Imperial Guards grabbed Prince Xiang and Chongzhen and prepared to escape again. This was not the first time they had encountered such a situation.

Sometimes they mixed in with the refugees, sometimes they were kidnapped by bandits, and sometimes they were chased by government troops... They had almost no time to rest.

I was in such a situation even though I was under the protection of the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot, so I couldn't imagine what the situation would be like for those refugees.

Just when they were about to break away from this group of refugees, they suddenly discovered that more refugees were gathering towards them in the distance.

King Xiang lowered his head and said in a low voice, "This time the situation seems to be a little different from the past. There are so many refugees here, why are they still increasing?"

"I'm afraid it's going to be bad..." The captain of the Imperial Guard looked at the situation around him with a gloomy face and found that things were developing in a direction that he could not control.

Before they had a chance to be shocked, something unexpected happened again. A group of bandits came rushing over from a distance. The leader had a black and purple knife in his hand, and it was obvious that he had killed many people.

"Hurry, follow us. The county town is ahead. We will have food and drink once we get into the county town." The leader shouted at the refugees.

It was not until this time that Chongzhen realized that the bandits were trying to attack the county town.

Thousands of ragged people, mostly the elderly, children and women, were whipped and driven by the bandits, like a flock of sheep, moving in a fixed direction.

"This way!" Upon seeing this, the captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard hurriedly ordered his subordinates to take Prince Xiang and Chongzhen to another direction. However, after taking a few steps, they were swept back again by the refugees in front of them.

The captain of the Imperial Guard swallowed his saliva and stopped everyone, "No, there are too many people. If we go out, we will be bandits. These people kill without blinking an eye. Once they find out that we want to escape, they will attack us immediately."

"Now what?"

"We can only follow them to attack the county town first, and then look for an opportunity during the chaos." The captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and a eunuch from the Eastern Depot discussed it with each other and decisively gave up trying to escape and instead went into the crowd.

……

Not long after, the shouting and screaming suddenly increased, and Chongzhen saw a county town appearing in the distance.

On the top of the city wall, flags were flying, officers and soldiers were fighting bravely, ladders and trestles were across the moat, and people like ants were climbing up the city wall densely.

As we got closer, we realized that those people climbing up were not rebels, but were being desperately driven away by the rebels.

They drove the refugees up to consume the arrows, stones, kerosene and other supplies of the county town's defense, and also consumed the physical strength and patience of the soldiers defending the city.

The rocks and rubble and the grass and trees below the city had turned black, all covered with dried blood.

A mixture of the sounds of metal clashing, shouts of killing, screams of women and children, cries of children, and curses of the elderly...these refugees were pushed to the foot of the city.

The dull sound of stones thrown from the city wall hitting the crowd pierced Chongzhen's eardrums.

When tens of thousands of refugees saw this, they dared not move forward, but the bandits started killing them from behind, forcing them to move forward.

There is killing in front and behind.

Ever since he came down from Siwang Mountain, all he had seen on the Central Plains was killing, and repeated inhumane killings.

The officers and soldiers killed innocent people in order to gain credit and seize their heads.

The rebels killed people in order to turn this area into a barren land, force everyone to join the rebel army, and force them to attack the county town.

To do this, they started killing from one side of the "pond" like fishing, and kept killing until there was nothing left. Then they threw silver and food on the ground. If these things were gone, they would continue searching, and would not start to close the net until there was nothing left on the road.

This has a scientific name among bandits.

"Clear the countryside!"

Taking Guangzhou as an example, Li Zicheng and the rebel army in the late Ming Dynasty had "killed Henan three times, executed Guangzhou nine times", "flooded Kaifeng" and so on since the eighth year of Chongzhen.

In the 15th year of Chongzhen alone, Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng and ordered his men to dig up the dike of the Yellow River, flooding Kaifeng. More than 300,000 lives were lost in the whole process, and only 20,000 people escaped.

Chongzhen looked at the people who died like grass with red eyes, "Human life is cheaper than paper, human life is cheaper than paper..."

His whole body was shaking. Heads fell to the ground, blood flowed like a river, corpses were scattered everywhere, and the scene was devastated.

He remembered that Zhu Changgan had told him that the population loss rate in Henan and Shaanxi was over 70%, and the area of ​​cultivated land was estimated to be less than one-tenth of that during the Wanli period. He thought it was just alarmist talk, but now, looking at this scene, he no longer had any doubts.

What's funny is that he actually agreed to Yang Sichang's request to increase the "suppression pay"? !

In addition to the Liao salary, 6 he of grain was added per mu, and 8 cents of silver per dan. The total tax increase for the country was 192 million, not to mention the so-called "surplus land".

It was to re-check the taxable land and increase the tax by nearly 3 million taels...

"Stupid, so stupid!" Chongzhen clenched his fingers. Who forced these people to rebel, who else but himself?

"Heavy levies, heavy levies... no wonder..."

Others may not know, but Chongzhen understood that the country is just a name, not a real country.

The mountains and rivers are the people, not the streams; the population, not the grass. The so-called Son of Heaven’s tour of inspection is about the people, not the mountains and rivers.

The emperor and the scholar-officials jointly rule the world, which is a means rather than an end.

Without the people, it would be a real disaster for the Ming Dynasty, and it would be a disaster that could not be recovered from in a short period of time.

During this moment of distraction, Chongzhen realized that he was actually a little closer to the city wall. Only then could he see the rebels' flags clearly.

open!
They were the subordinates of the rebel Zhang Xianzhong.

……

"Send another hundred people up the East Gate to replace the original people and let them rest."

"it is good!"

The county magistrate of Guangzhou City had his hair and beard standing on end. He deployed all the personnel and resources in the city. He divided the personnel into two shifts, day and night, to ensure that everyone had time to rest.

The rest camp was also located in the center of the city to cope with the battles at the four city gates.

Even from such a distance, the sounds of fighting from the four city walls were still clear.

Sometimes it was like muffled thunder in the sky, sometimes like a sudden thunderstorm. The sounds of heavy fighting and shouting merged and collided with each other... and were blown far and near by the thick wind.

"Hold on, we'll be there soon." Wounded soldiers were constantly carried down from the city wall, and then their replacements were returned.

The shouts of fighting intensified again...

In Gwangju City, due to the Ming court's victory over the Qing Dynasty and the emperor's establishment of militia, the enthusiasm of the officers, soldiers and civilians in Gwangju City to resist was extremely high.

In addition, it was also related to the massacre of Guangzhou City by Li Zicheng in the eighth year of Chongzhen, which was two years ago. As for the situation, both the officers and soldiers and the people knew that if the city was captured, the bandits would massacre the city, so no one spared their efforts, and even the bureaucrats and gentry no longer spared their food and food at home.

At this moment, the only way for the family of dozens of people to survive is to resist the offensive of the rebels and wait for support from the government troops.

Since everyone was prepared for the city to be broken, there was no need for people to panic.

Of course, it is not ruled out that some wealthy families and gentry in the city may have sent their family offerings out of the city before the war, but the degree of effort and leadership of those who stayed behind are unquestionable.

Everyone who stayed, even the youngsters who were going to the battlefield for the first time and had never seen blood, gritted their teeth, grabbed their swords and guns, and went up to fight the enemy.

The men were given swords and guns, while the women and children took sticks and rods to stab and smash those who rushed up from the city.

"Come on, we will kill as many people as you bring in."

"I don't believe it."

The ferocious faces, the bright red swords and guns, and such momentum forced back the refugees who rushed up and the direct relatives of the rebels who mingled among them time and time again.

The potholes on the ground could not accommodate more scarlet, so they could only allow them to flow into the moat not far away, but the water in the moat had already been dyed the same color.

It is impossible to tell clearly which is blood and which is river.

A refugee stepped on empty air and fell into the moat. There was a sudden "bang" and blood burst out. He struggled to get up, but was hit by another person and fell into the water.

……

"Damn it! Didn't they say that Gwangju was easy to attack? How come we've been fighting for five days and still can't get through? Drive all these sheep over and see how many they can kill..."

In the distance, a man in his thirties with a scarf wrapped around his head, a full beard, and a whip in his hand cursed angrily with gritted teeth.

The Fujin is a black silk scarf wrapped around the hair. It was very popular in the Ming Dynasty, and eight out of ten scholars and officials dressed in this way.

Zhang Xianzhong read a few days of books, and after the rebellion he also tied his head with a scarf to pretend to be elegant.

Before Liu Guoneng, the leader of the Chuangtatian army, surrendered to the Ming court, he sent people to persuade Zhang Xianzhong many times. However, Zhang Xianzhong was very cunning. On the one hand, he gave gifts to Xiong Wencan, and on the other hand, he led his people to escape and fled to Henan again, hoping to increase his momentum by massacring the city again.

It’s not that Zhang Xianzhong had never fought for Guangzhou before. In the past, he could have captured it in half a day.

This time it was beyond his expectation. The number of his direct subordinates and the refugees they had brought with them had exceeded 100,000 people. They had been attacking for two days but were unable to take the city.

"Report!" A scout rode his horse and approached from afar. He suddenly jumped down and knelt on the ground to report: "Marshal, the Ming court's troops have arrived!"

"Whose troops?"

"Reporting to the Marshal, it should be Zuo Liangyu's troops."

"It's him again?" Zhang Xianzhong was furious. "Why is this old donkey so haunting?"

In the first month of the year, half a year ago, Zhang Xianzhong led his men to attack Huanggang and was defeated by Zuo Liangyu's Ming army.

The original nine camps were divided into four, one went to Luotian, one passed through Tuanfeng, one went out of the Qishui River, and one went to Qiting. Later, he finally went downstream to the east.

Later, he integrated his troops and joined forces with He Yilong and He Jin in Jiangbei, planning to attack Anqing. However, he unexpectedly encountered Zuo Liangyu and was defeated.

I didn't expect that just after I got rid of Xiong Wencan, I would meet this evil star again.

"How many miles to go?"

"Reporting to the Marshal, there are still thirty miles to go."

Zhang Xianzhong took a deep breath and looked at the refugees who had been mostly wiped out. "Pick out the young and strong ones and take them away. Kill the rest."

"Yes!"

……

"Your Majesty, everything has been arranged. The scholars are very enthusiastic about studying the "Excerpts from the Ming Emperor"."

"Today, the Jinyiwei and Wucheng Bingmasi led them to start a week of military training..."

In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Changgan was reading memorials from various places while listening to Ma Shiwei, deputy commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, reporting on the situation of the scholars in Beijing.

After Ma Shiwei left, Zhu Changgan put down the memorial in his hand.

A week is still a bit short after all, but the arrow has been put on the string and has to be shot. The armies of Sun Chuanting and Sun Yingyuan have already started to drive out the bandits from Henan.

It is expected that before long, refugees and rebels will enter Southern Zhili, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

There is not much time left for these scholars.

As for these rebels, it was impossible for him to drive all of them into Nanzhili and Huguang. He drove some of them away and resolutely attacked the rest.

If he wanted to recruit more rebels, he had to show his tremendous power. After choosing and selecting, he chose a person.

Zhang Xianzhong.

Before the four camps set out to attack the Mongolian desert, he had already given a secret order to Zuo Liangyu, Sun Yingyuan, Sun Chuanting and others, "If you encounter Zhang Xianzhong's troops, kill them all."

Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng were both from Yan'an and were the same age.

For example, in the Gwangju Massacre, the harm caused by these rebels in disturbing and harming the people far outweighed their impact of "shaking the ruling foundation of the feudal dynasty."

They carried out nine inhumane bloodbaths in Gwangju (Xinyang area)!
In the whole of Henan Province, the total number of people killed exceeded 200 million, and nine out of ten houses were left empty.

Among them, Zhang Xianzhong was the worst. In the eighth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to massacre people in Fengyang, Anhui, and then fled to Luzhou.

He besieged Luzhou City and stripped thousands of women of their husbands and placed them outside the city. Anyone who disobeyed or felt ashamed was killed... In addition, there were many cases in Zhang Xianzhong's military camp where girls were humiliated in front of their fathers, husbands were tied up to humiliate their wives, and children were thrown into oil pans and watched as they jumped and cried inside.

Both official and unofficial history may have some suspicion of exaggeration, but the mass graves unearthed in later generations prove that this is not groundless.

Regardless of Zhu Changgan's current position or the general situation, he has reasons to take action against Zhang Xianzhong.

However, Zhu Changgan's order to Xiong Wencan was to use all his strength to persuade Zhang Xianzhong to surrender as soon as possible.

It is best to suppress it forcefully.

If, by some accidental coincidence, Zuo Liangyu, Sun Chuanting, Sun Yingyuan and others were unable to wipe him out and were persuaded to surrender by Xiong Wencan, they would have fallen into their own trap.

Double insurance, more appropriate——

……

(End of this chapter)