This is a Guandi Temple.

The temple has long been dilapidated, and the main structure is only the Yimen and the main hall.

Some of the walls of the main hall have also collapsed, but it is always a place to stay in this warm and cold March night.

A young man in a lake blue Confucian shirt in the hall was leaning against a cluster of fires to keep warm. The fire was clattering and the firelight made his face clearly visible.

Although his face was a little pale and had a bit of disdain, it could not hide the perseverance in his eyes.

"My master, it's already the third day. You should take a break soon. You will have to hurry up tomorrow morning..."

A sharp voice sounded, and the tone was filled with sorrow.

"Liu Banban, how far is it from Huai'an Prefecture City now?"

"If you want to go back to me, I guess there will be about 200 miles and it will take at least three days to get there."

The young man closed his eyes and began to think about his next plan.

Now Jiangbei is under the control of the Ming army. As long as you arrive at Huai'an Prefecture, you can ask the official army to escort to Yangzhou. When you arrive at Yangzhou, you can reach Yingtian Prefecture, Nanjing in a day or two.

He calmed down a little, opened his eyes and said in a harmonious voice: "Parent Liu, go and tell Guard Han that he will set out tomorrow morning at the Instant Day."

"So early?"

The Liu family member was startled and opened his lips to say something, but when he saw the young man's eyes firm, he swallowed the words he said to him again.

"Sister obeys the order."

Seeing that Liu's partner had gotten up, the young man breathed a sigh of relief.

These days he has been hiding his identity, and he feels exhausted when sleeping in the open. If it weren't for the glimmer of hope in the south, he would be afraid he wouldn't be able to hold on.

His identity is indescribable, even the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Cilang. To be precise, it is not entirely true, because his soul comes from later generations, and he only took over the body and possessed the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty at the end of February of the 17th year of Chongzhen. He was a university history professor in his previous life, and the ones responsible for teaching were the late Ming Dynasty and the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty.

Although he was wearing a prince, the time to travel through time was not very good.

It is March 17, the thief Li Zicheng is at the capital of Shenjing. In the original history, on March 19, Li Zicheng conquered the capital, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself in Coal Mountain. Now it is March 29, and Li Zicheng guessed that he had broken the city.

Of course, Zhu Cixuan could not find out the accurate news. Now that the news is blocked by the chaos, the ministers of Nanjing in the original history only learned that the fall of Shenjing was in mid-April.

It seems that the trend of history has not changed significantly due to his arrival. The only change is that he was ordered by Emperor Chongzhen to go to Nanjing to supervise the country and escaped before the outer city of the capital was captured.

Zhu Cilang escaped from the capital on March 16th, and only one eunuch and more than a dozen guards were with him.

The eunuch was named Liu Chuanzong, who was Zhu Cixuan's personal eunuch, very loyal and reliable. The chief guard was named Zhao Xin, and he was also an old man among the guards of the East Palace.

I still believed in them.

Zhu Cixuan and his party first rode a fast riding from the capital to Tianjin Wei, and then took a boat from Tianjin to sea and went south to Haizhou. It took three days to go from the capital to Tianjin, and nine days to go from Tianjin to Haizhou. After arriving in Haizhou, Zhu Cixuan and his party abandoned their boat and rode their horses, and ran towards Huai'an Prefecture.

They rode fast horses and could run seventy or eighty miles a day. They thought they would arrive at Huai'an Prefecture City in three days. As long as they arrived at Huai'an City, the actual controlled area of ​​the Ming army, Zhu Cixuan's safety would be basically guaranteed. He knew that the ministers in Nanjing supported King Fu as the governor of the country on the third day of the fifth month, and King Fu Zhu Yousong officially proclaimed himself emperor on May 15th.

It is only March 29th now. If it goes well, it will be in Nanjing within ten days, and Zhu Cilang will not be trapped in the whirlpool of the throne.

Zhu Cixuan was a professor of history in his previous life. Of course, he knew that a large part of the chaos in the Southern Ming Dynasty was that civil officials and military generals competed for the decision-making, which led to the expansion of military generals and becoming a powerful vassal state.

If Zhu Cilang, the prince of the main palace, could come to Nanjing to inherit the imperial throne, the situation would be much better.

Of course, having soldiers in your hands is the most important thing. Zhu Ciyang naturally would not expect Gao Jie, and Liu Zeqing and others could not rely on the Nanjing Jingying. The three major camps of Shenjing were all corrupt, let alone the Nanjing Jingying?

What Zhu Cixuan wanted to do was to train a new army and firmly control military power in his own hands. However, these were all things he needed to do after he arrived in Nanjing and inherited the imperial throne. What he needed to consider now was naturally how to arrive in Nanjing safely.

Zhu Cixuan inherited all the memories of this body and could not have no feelings for his father in this life. In fact, in Zhu Cixuan's memory, Emperor Chongzhen was a very emotional person, and he could even be called a kind father.

He said that the treacherous siege to the capital this time, Emperor Chongzhen called Zhu Cilang to his side and asked him to take more than a dozen confidants to break out of the city and go to Nanjing to supervise the country.

Emperor Chongzhen himself, the queen, King Yong and King Ding, stayed in the capital to create conditions for Zhu Cilang to break through.

After all, the capital was already in danger at that time, and the more people broke through, the less likely they would succeed. If the emperor wanted to leave, there were hundreds of people with the drivers, and the goal was so great that the possibility of being caught and blocked would increase greatly.

From that moment on, Zhu Cilang made up his mind to avenge Emperor Chongzhen. Even if the burden of restoring the Ming Dynasty was so heavy, he would have to carry it alone.

Zhu Cilang sighed and closed his eyes again.

He is so tired, I'm afraid he can sleep for another two hours tonight, right?

No words all night.

The next day at Yin, Zhu Cilang was awakened by the eunuch Liu Chuanzong.

It was still a little dark, and Zhu Cilang was also tired. But he knew he had to rush to Huaian Prefecture within three days, he had to ride a horse for seventy or eighty miles every day, which was a big challenge for Zhu Cilang's pampered body.

There was not even a well in the Guandi Temple. Zhu Cilang didn't care about many things and wiped his face. He turned over under the service of Zhao Xin and Liu Chuanzong.

The two served Zhu Cilang and then climbed onto the horse. A group of more than ten people rode the horse all the way south.

The road from Haizhou to Huai'an is quite easy to walk, but because there have been countless thieves and tyrants in this area in recent years, most of the merchants have not come here.

Without the caravan, the official road seemed much deserted.

The sky gradually became brighter, and Zhu Cixuan found that more and more refugee teams gathered on the official road, mostly fleeing to Huai'an from Haizhou.

Most of these refugee teams were dozens of people walking in a sparse manner, each of whom was ragged and had a garbled face. Their eyes were empty, and some even had red faces and swollen cheeks.

Zhu Cixuan knew that this was a sign of eating people, so he did not dare to be careless and told everyone not to delay and to hurry on his way.

In the late Ming Dynasty, eating people was nothing. The refugees were extremely hungry and not only ate dead bodies but also living people. The first ones were women and children. After the women and children finished eating, they ate weak people.

Zhu Cilang and his group were riding horses, and they carried dry food on their backs. In the eyes of refugees, they were a pot of braised pork.

If you are targeted by these refugees, it will never be a good thing.

......
Chapter completed!