The Chongzhen Dynasty was beset with internal and external difficulties. It was constantly fighting against the Jiannu. Its power had extended to Mongolia, and the Jiannu even broke into the country many times.

Internally, there were constant peasant uprisings, especially Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong.

The wars during the Chongzhen period mainly revolved around the slave-building and peasant armies.

After Huang Taiji succeeded to the throne, Jiannu began to expand into Mongolia, and finally captured Guihua City in the fifth year of Chongzhen.

Lin Dan Khan was forced to flee to Dacaotan, and his son Ezhe surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the eighth year of Chongzhen. Monan fell into the hands of the Qing army.

Huang Taiji began to pose a comprehensive threat to the Ming Dynasty's border gates from the northeast to the true north.

In October of the second year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji led an army of 100,000 men, avoiding Ningyuan and Jinzhou. The troops were divided into three groups and broke into the pass from Longjing Pass, Hongshan Pass and Da'an Pass respectively, captured Zunhua, and approached the capital.

The Ming court was in a hurry and ordered all the soldiers and horses to serve the king. Yuan Chonghuan led all the reinforcements to stop the slaves from being built outside Guangqu, Desheng and other gates.

Ke Jiannu was so fierce that he killed about 7,000 people under Shen Fu, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming army, and then defeated 40,000 Ming reinforcements outside Yongding Gate.

At the beginning of the third year of Chongzhen's reign, Huang Taiji attacked eastward, conquered several cities, and divided his troops to garrison Zunhua, Luanzhou, Yongping, and Qian'an. He himself led the main force back to Shenyang.

In July of the seventh year of Chongzhen, when Huang Taiji was on his way back from his second western expedition to Chahar, he entered Fangfang Fort and besieged Xuanfu in the name of the Ming border generals harassing his territory, killing his people and hiding.

The Xuanfu garrison launched an artillery attack, then retreated to Yingzhou, plundered Datong, and captured the Victory Fort. The capital was shaken, and the commander-in-chief Chen Hongfan was ordered to guard Juyong, while the governor Ding Kuichu and others guarded Zijing and Yanmen.

Cao Wenzhao, who had surrounded Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others in Henan, was also transferred to Datong, and the rogue bandits took the opportunity to break out.

In the eighth year of Chongzhen, Dorgon, Saharin, Hauge and others led the Jiannu to invade the Hetao area where Lin Dan Khan was located, forcing Lin Dan Khan's son Ezhe to surrender to the Qing Dynasty. At the same time, they invaded Xinzhou, Dingxiang, Wutai and other states under Taiyuan Prefecture.

Massive looting.

In May of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji sent Prince Azige of Duoluowuying County and others to unite 100,000 soldiers of the Eight Banners. The soldiers were divided into three groups and entered the pass through the air suction port and the Dushi Pass.

Wang Zhaokun, the censor who patrolled the customs, refused to fight and was defeated and died. The Ming army withdrew to Changping, and the Qing army invaded Juyong again, along Changping North Road.

In July, Qing troops entered the capital and captured Changping, then successively captured Liangxiang and besieged Shunyi.

In the Ming Dynasty, Shangguan Xin, the magistrate of Shunyi County, and the guerrilla rulers all commanded Su Shiyu and others to resist the defense of the city. After the city fell, all three of them died. The Qing army took advantage of the situation and captured Baodi, Dingxing, Ansu, Dacheng, Xiongxian, and Anzhou.

Waiting for Kinkishu Prefecture.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the Qing army, with Dorgon and Yue Tuo as its generals, detoured through Mongolia and broke through the Great Wall Fortress from Qiangzi Ridge east of Miyun and Qingshan Pass east of Xifengkou.

They went south along the canal to Jinan and captured 460,000 people and animals. The Ming court urgently dispatched Zu Dashou, the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong forward army, to come in for reinforcements. Lu Xiangsheng fought desperately, ran out of ammunition and food, and finally died in battle. This is known as the "Wuyin Rebellion" in history.

At that time, Gao Qi lurked at the pass, and Ning's troops were close to Jize, fifty miles away, but did not go to help. When he heard that Lu Xiangsheng was defeated and died, he led his army to flee east for twenty miles. When the enemy's ambush was encountered, he was defeated and fled alone.

Liu Yuliang, the counselor who asked himself to supervise the military situation, went to Baoding and heard about the defeat on the front line, and retreated hastily into Jinzhou. The Qing army took advantage of the victory and marched straight in. They fell into Changping, Baodi, Pinggu and other places, and the capital was shocked.

On the 20th, Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict and ordered Governor Hong Chengchou and Shaanxi Governor Sun Chuanting to lead their troops into the defense.

In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji adopted the strategy of encirclement and reinforcements, and the siege of Jinzhou was blocked. Zu Dashou quickly reported to the court, and the court ordered Hong Chengchou to lead 180,000 infantry and cavalry to rescue Jinzhou. The army gathered in Ningyuan to relieve the siege of Jinzhou. .

However, due to the imperial court's blind urging of the war, the indiscriminate intervention of the supervisory army, strategic command errors, and the fear of death among the generals, the Ming army was ultimately defeated.

Songshan City finally fell on February 18, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, and Jinzhou was captured on March 8.

In this battle, Qiu Minyang, Wang Tingchen, and Cao Bianjiao were killed. Hong Chengchou and Zu Dalue were defeated and captured. Lieutenant General Lu Pinqi led his troops to surrender without a fight.

In April of the 15th year of Chongzhen, the Qing army, with Abatai as the general, attacked from Huangya Pass and entered Jizhou. The commander-in-chief Bai Guangen led the troops to resist the enemy and killed the Qing army's third-class light chariot captain Zhai Samu.

He led Wudana, assisted Chuoktuo, Ebei, and protected the military academy Hundachan. The cavalry captain Erjihe came to help, but Guangen was defeated. The Qing army drove south to Yanzhou, Shandong.

Killed thousands of people including King Zhu Yipai of Lu and the princes and officials of Leling, Yangxin, Dongyuan, Anqiu, and Ziyang counties, and successively conquered three prefectures, eighteen prefectures, and sixty-seven counties.

They captured 2,250 taels of gold, 2,255,270 taels of platinum, and captured 369,000 people, cattle, horses, clothing, and other items.

From the above results, it is easy to see that although Shanhaiguan has not been lost, since the Jiannu had already occupied Monan, they could bypass Mongolia and enter the customs at any time, and the Ming court was unable to guard against it.

Before the 17th year of Chongzhen, the Ming army still had a certain advantage in facing the rogue bandits, and even forced the rebels to death many times.

However, due to the continuous entry of slaves into the country, the uprising was never completely extinguished. In addition, the people's lives were difficult, and the rogue bandits could always reappear.

It can be said that the Chongzhen Dynasty was completely on the defensive against Jiannu, and there was no possibility of fighting out.

Jiannu repeatedly invaded and looted the border areas, and the Ming army had no choice but to follow behind and watch!

But all this changed after the crown prince took over the country. In the eighth year of Chongzhen's reign, Azige led the Jiannu invasion, and the crown prince led the East Palace Guards to kill Yang Guli, the emperor's consort.

Later, he led many troops of King Qin to kill all the Jiannu in the pass. Huang Degong even killed Azige, the leader of the Jiannu, in Qian'an.

This time without any warning, they ran to the rear of Jian Nu and plundered them again, giving Jian Nu a taste of retaliation.

This was the first time after the rise of the Jiannu that the regular army of the Ming Dynasty set foot on the rear of the Jiannu, allowing fifty thousand Jiannu to be exterminated. Mao Wenlong almost all harassed and robbed the Jiannu at that time, and the number of Jiannu killed was completely incomparable to this time.

How could the civil and military officials in the court not be excited? They knelt down in front of Zhu Cihong and shouted in unison:

"Congratulations to Your Highness, Congratulations to Your Highness, Your Highness is wise and mighty, the Ming Dynasty is expected to revive..."

Zhu Cixiang waved his hands and said with a smile:

"My dear friends, you can live without courtesy. Whether the Ming Dynasty can be revived depends entirely on whether your dear friends can be honest and conscientious in their duties. It all depends on this palace."

The ministers hurriedly bowed and saluted:

"I am willing to devote my whole life to ZTE and Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Cixi laughed loudly:

"Haha, my dear friends, you are very interested. I will let you watch another good show today."

"A good show? What a good show?"

All civil and military officials in the dynasty were confused by the Crown Prince. Even Huang Degong and Sun Yingyuan did not know what the Crown Prince was playing.

Jian Qun's ministers stretched their necks, waiting for him to say something good, but Zhu Cihong took advantage of it and rewarded the meritorious soldiers first.

Huang Degong was granted the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Left with a grant of fifty acres of land, Viscount Sun Yingyuan with a grant of fifty acres of land, Viscount Zhu Chenggong and Baron Cao Bianjiao as Commander-in-Chief of the Left, and all other meritorious officers and soldiers were promoted to two ranks, and were also rewarded with silver.

The degree of sealing this time is not large, and there are still many battles to be fought in the future, otherwise the leveling bandits and the Jiannu will not be able to seal it.

Despite this, Huang Degong, Sun Yingyuan, Cao Bianjiao and others were still happy from ear to ear. They were already very satisfied with their official positions. They had all been knighted in less than a year. What more could they ask for!

The generals hurriedly came forward and knelt down to thank them:

"Thank you, Your Highness, for your grace!"

Zhu Cixi waved his hand:

"Without ceremony, I will execute the two traitors Shang Kexi and Ning Wanwu Lingchi in the Zhonghun Temple in the afternoon, so that the people of the Ming Dynasty and all civil and military officials can see the consequences of betraying the Ming Dynasty.

"ah……"

The ministers were shocked again. They all knew that Shang Kexi, Kong Youde and others had turned Shandong upside down, and finally surrendered to Jiannu to carry the banner of attacking the Ming Dynasty.

I even heard that Ning Wanwo was already a high-ranking official in Jiannu and made suggestions for Jiannu to invade the Ming Dynasty. However, I didn't know that Ning Wanwo, monk Kexi, had been captured.

In fact, Ning Wanwo went to the capital to plan the assassination of Zhu Cihong. He had been arrested for several months and had been detained in Zhao Prison and tortured. Zhu Cihong had not killed him yet.

It's a good thing that we captured another prisoner during the trip to Pidao. We just happened to deal with them together so that the ministers and people could see the consequences of betraying the Ming Dynasty.

Just as the civil and military officials wanted to express their hatred for the traitors, Li Ruolian walked into the Huangji Palace with more than a dozen royal guards in the prince's box.

"Your Majesty, the evidence of Shen Weiping's corruption and buying and selling of officials is conclusive. These are the rich clothes and silk items that I copied from his house, which are worth three hundred thousand taels of silver!"

After Li Ruolian said this, he handed over a small box with both hands:

"This is evidence of Shen Weibing's crime. Please take a look at it, Your Highness!"

Cao An hurriedly stepped forward to take the small box from Li Ruolian and sent it to Zhu Cixiang. Zhu Cixiang opened the small box and found that it was filled with account books.

He randomly picked up a few books and looked through them, then angrily threw the account books down the imperial steps:

"Are the officials of the Ming Dynasty so worthless? A seventh-grade official only costs fifty thousand taels of silver. It is really unreasonable. Li Ruolian must bring these dog officials to justice as soon as possible, otherwise they will still be stealing from the people!"

Li Ruolian hurriedly followed the order and left, and the civil and military officials in the court began to tremble!

It was normal for the Ming Dynasty to buy and sell officials. All civil and military officials could be bought with money. Wang Pu, the general of the Datong army, was made of money, not to mention the civilian officials.

Once the Crown Prince becomes serious, there will definitely be more heads to kill. All the ministers are eager to tear Shen Weijing apart. If he hadn't insisted on speaking for Lingbi Hou, how could he have caused such a big commotion.

Zhu Cixiang glanced across the court and said coldly:

"I have already increased the salary and silver for officials, so you still have reason to be greedy. From today on, officials above the seventh rank will receive an additional 800 taels of silver per year to support themselves. In the future, if any officials are found to have bought or sold their official positions, I will exterminate three of their clans! "

It cannot be said that official corruption is caused by buying and selling officials, but the officials who buy and sell them are definitely corrupt officials.

Officials bought with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands taels will definitely think about how to recoup the cost after taking office. Not many people spend huge sums of money to buy officials to serve the people.

Didn't the Ministry of Punishments say that the crown prince always kills people directly without trial? Zhu Cixiang is going to hand over Shen Wei's handle to Feng Ying this time:

"Lord Feng, I handed over Shen Weibing to the Ministry of Punishment. After the review, he was stripped of his skin. You talk about the ancestral system every day. This criminal law has not been used for a long time. Let Shen Weibing become the first to be skinned in the Chongzhen Dynasty. Real grass official!"

"According to the order!"

Feng Ying hurriedly left work and bowed to salute. At the same time, she felt a little confused. She didn't know if anyone else could do this kind of craft work!

At this time, Li Ruolian quickly entered the Huangji Palace:

"Your Highness, there is an urgent report from Jiangnan. Zhang Xianzhong has appeared again and is attacking Anqing recently!"

Cao An hurriedly stepped forward to take the battle report from Li Ruolian's hand, quickly walked up the imperial steps and handed it to Zhu Cihong.

Zhu Cixiang slowly opened the battle report. It turned out that it was Zhang Guowei, the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, who had sent an urgent report.

Zhang Xianzhong hid in the mountains for a long time after Gao Yingxiang was captured. He suddenly appeared in Anqing a few days ago and asked the imperial court to send troops to annihilate him.
To be continued...