"this……"

Niu Jinxing's proposal could be said to have pushed open another window. The civil and military officials of Shunjun looked at each other, and Li Zicheng also stroked his beard and pondered.

"Your Majesty, Cao Huachun is asking for a meeting!"

At this time, a personal soldier from outside came to report.

"oh?"

Everyone looked at each other and looked surprised.

Sure enough, Niu Jinxing was called out.

"Let him in!"

Li Zicheng also said.

"Abide by the order!"

The personal soldiers bowed and left.

Cao Huachun once surrendered to Li Zicheng, but after thinking about it over and over again, he felt that Li Zicheng was a thief and was unreliable. He was most likely not Li Xin's opponent. So he returned to Chongzhen. When he saw Li Zicheng again, he felt very relieved. He knelt down and kowtowed, "I kowtow to the emperor, long live the emperor!"

"Cao Huachun, do you still have the courage to come to see me?"

Li Zicheng said in a deep voice.

"Your Majesty is spared. Because you believe that the thief has entered the city, you are blocked and cannot come to pay homage to the emperor. You have to go back to the palace for the time being and ask the emperor to spare your life!"

Cao Huachun cried and kowtowed.

Li Zicheng said again: "Why did Chongzhen ask you to come?"

"this……"

Cao Huachun hesitated and took out an imperial edict and said, "Chongzhen sent me a letter to the emperor."

“Hahahaha~~”

The civil and military officials in the hall laughed loudly, it was clearly an imperial edict!

Cao Huachun moved his knees and approached Li Zicheng regardless of the harsh sneer.

Li Zicheng was very satisfied and waved. A eunuch around him took the imperial edict and spread it on the desk. Li Zicheng looked at it and laughed: "Chongzhen was named King Tang and Minister of War. Everyone said, do you want to agree?"

Everyone looked at Niu Jinxing one after another.

Niu Jinxing pondered and said, "It's okay to be the one who deserves the emperor, and the Ming Dynasty has not yet fallen, so it is not an exaggeration to temporarily claim to Chongzhen."

There was once a car carriage sacrificial retreat. Li Zicheng had already played well, not to mention that the people's hearts were lost, the situation was extremely unfavorable, and he was trapped in Beijing and could not move. It was a critical moment of life and death. He didn't care about any reputation and face. As long as he could defeat Li Xin, he would pay any price.

"Yeah~~"

Li Zicheng nodded slowly.

Cao Huachun gritted his teeth and said, "Emperor, please write a letter of surrender... and let me take it back."

"It's okay!"

Li Zicheng waved his generous hand and asked Niu Jinxing to write it. In a moment, he finished writing a letter of surrender and stamped it with a seal, and handed it to Cao Huachun to take it back.

Chongzhen looked at the surrender written by Li Zicheng and sneered repeatedly.

Now Chongzhen is surrounded by eunuchs and is like a waste of noble relatives. No one can help him. In this crisis, he also let go of the constraints of not being allowed to interfere in politics in the harem and discusses everything with Empress Zhang.

Although Queen Zhang is a female, she is still insightful. When Tianqi was still alive, she asked Queen Zhang what book was reading. Queen Zhang replied: Zhao Gaochuan, Tianqi was thinking, smiled and left.

At this time, Empress Zhang also looked at Li Zicheng's surrender and said worriedly: "Li Zicheng is a thief and is unruly and unruly. If the emperor invites him to help him, wouldn't he beg for the tiger?"

Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "If there is a slight possibility, how could I allow him to live for a long time? But I am really helpless. Only by taking the strategy of driving away the wolf and swallowing the tiger can there be a glimmer of hope. The thieves lose the people's hearts and are weaker than trusting the thieves. If what I expected is not bad, the thieves will definitely connect with Wu Sangui in my name. As long as Wu Sangui comes, I can issue a secret order to meet him. When the two thieves fight, the camera will attack and defeat the thieves in one fell swoop!"

“Oh ~~”

Looking at Chongzhen's confident look, Empress Zhang didn't know what to say, and sighed. Although she understood Chongzhen, it did not mean recognition. She only hoped that Chongzhen would not make any complaints and lose the last line of people's hearts.

...

Wu Sangui arrived at Shanhaiguan on the 16th and arrived at Yongping Prefecture (now Lulong County, Hebei) on the 19th. He walked 200 miles in three days, and was still more than 400 miles away from Beijing. The march was extremely slow.

From Shanhaiguan to Yongping, according to the speed of the marching, the light cavalry can arrive day and night, but he is not clear about the situation in Beijing. He is worried that Li Zicheng's men will fight in Beijing, and at the same time he is unwilling to be too far away from Shanhaiguan to avoid failure and a dilemma. Therefore, he marched towards Yongping, while constantly sending horses to inquire about Beijing.

In fact, Wu Sangui was not willing to fight to the death with Li Zicheng. The Guanning Army's war-capable soldiers were about 35,000, and they might not be able to defeat Li Zicheng. However, Chongzhen issued an order to him, and he could only enter the pass to serve the king. As for how to be diligent, he had the final say.

By the way, Wu Sangui was a military general and naturally rejected the unification of imperial power. The low status of the military general in the Ming Dynasty made him deeply understand. He liked troubled times even more. The 35,000 Guanning Iron Cavalry was his foundation.

Sure enough, with the change of the situation, his relationship with the Guan of the Ji Liao Governor Wang Yongji also changed. In the past, Wang Yongji asked him to go east, but he did not dare to go west, but now, Wang Yongji is more like his aide, and he is exhausted to raise all the food and money for the Guanning army.

The key is that Wang Yongji's power comes from imperial power, and he has no strength. As Chongzhen entered the dead end, his power also shrank sharply, while Wu Sangui had soldiers.

Because Dorgon held great power, he was eager to prove himself. Since last autumn, Dorgon sent troops to capture several important military castles near Ningyuan, making Ningyuan an isolated city. The situation was unprecedentedly dangerous. Wu Sangui was ordered to serve the king and abandon Ningyuan, and he might not have no intention of finding another way out.

When he led Ningyuan soldiers and the people to retreat to Shanhaiguan, the Qing army did not chase him. It was obvious that he intended to withdraw from Ningyuan safely and enter the pass smoothly. Then he received a report that the Qing army took Ningyuan without taking a single shot and a knife. The people in the city entered the Qing Dynasty and shaved their hair according to Manchu customs.

At this point, Wu Sangui had no way out, and the 35,000 Guanning Iron Cavalry became his only reliance. Although Wang Yongji repeatedly urged him to march quickly, Wu Sangui took advantage of his subordinates' fear of war and anti-war sentiment to blame him. On the 20th, he arrived in Yutian County, 300 miles away from Beijing, and stopped.

At this time, news came from Beijing that the two thieves Chuangxin entered Beijing one after another, occupying the north and south. The imperial city was temporarily safe, but the thieves had a warship located in the Tongzhou Canal, which happened to block Wu Sangui's way westward. Wang Yongji could no longer urge Wu Sangui to march.

Wu Sangui summoned all the generals to discuss, some advocated retreating to Yongping, some advocated retreating to Shanhaiguan, and some suggested borrowing troops from the Qing Dynasty to eliminate the two thieves, but no one was willing to enter Beijing directly.

Later, we received news from Beijing one after another. The two thieves were busy torture and Beijing was in chaos. In the meantime, they received letters from Gaoyou Wu family sent by Trustee Li, but they didn't say anything. The meaning was clearly stated. They just sent the letter and did not mean to persuade Wu Sangui to surrender.

Wu Sangui also smiled coldly and thought to himself that the thief really couldn't accomplish anything.

Until today, an edict was delivered, which immediately disrupted Wu Sangui's position. Chongzhen appointed Li Zi as the King of Tang and the Minister of War, and asked Wu Sangui to cooperate with Li Zicheng to suppress the trusted thieves.

The generals were also in a bad mood!

"It must be because the emperor was controlled by the thief, so he had to come up with this bad plan. Otherwise, with the emperor's strong character, how could he be the king of the thief?"

"Yes, if we join forces with the thieves to suppress the trusted thieves, the thieves turn around and attack me suddenly, what should we do? Junzuo, the last general is not afraid of death, but the emperor is the only one of us left. If we are defeated, who will save the emperor? Please be cautious!"

"It's better to go back to Shanhaiguan first and wait and see the situation change!"

The generals were talking nonsense, and almost no one was willing to join forces with Li Zicheng. The reason was naturally high-sounding, but Wu Sangui could see that everyone had the idea of ​​preserving their strength.

The current situation is the same as the Hebei vassal states in the late Tang Dynasty. Although the Jiedushi commanded the entire army, there were still military leaders under him. Even if the Jiedushi held great power, he could not force the military leaders to do things he did not want to do, otherwise a mutiny would immediately give you a taste of it.

Wu Sangui glanced coldly and said, "This town has its own good strategy. When fighting, we will win. The bandits will be defeated. Once the bandits are defeated, they will be out of control. Then Beijing will be able to recover."

Some people seemed to understand what Wu Sangui meant, while others didn't understand it, so they exchanged glances.

Wu Sangui explained: "I have sent people to find out that the Northern Dynasties are concentrating their troops. I think I have learned that Beijing has fallen, so I will be dispatched in full force. Even if the two thieves have a thousand plans, they just need to borrow the Northern Dynasties' troops and they will be crushed one by one.

Moreover, it is not uncommon to borrow soldiers from outsiders in history. For example, Shen Baoxu, after Wu destroyed Chu, he borrowed soldiers from Qin, defeated Wu and restored Chu. Can't I, Wu Sangui, be able to do Shen Baoxu?

What's more, I have tens of thousands of elite soldiers in my hands, a hundred times stronger than Shen Baoxu. As long as the Northern Dynasties send troops, we will definitely expel the bandits and restore the Ming Dynasty. Afterwards, we will only repay the Northern Dynasties with gold and silver. So no matter what, we can be invincible."
Chapter completed!