Chapter 86: Emperor Chongzhen in despair Facing the defeat reports from all directions, Emperor Chongzhen felt very tired, very tired, really exhausted.
You know, although Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian has been on the throne for five years, even this year, he has just turned twenty-two years old.
In future generations, he will be at the age of just graduating from college at most.
But Zhu Youjian had to sit in the high position of the Ninth Five-Year Plan from the age of high school students, scheming with a group of old foxes, big foxes and little foxes in the court, while steering the Ming Empire, a broken ship full of holes, in Struggling in the stormy waves.
To be honest, Comrade Zhu Youjian did a very poor job as the supreme leader of the Ming Dynasty.
First, too many people were implicated when purging the eunuch party, which not only led to the vicious expansion of the power of the Donglin Party, but also seriously paralyzed the government's functions.
Then he made a series of fatal mistakes in the internal and external wars.
He gave too much trust to people who shouldn't be trusted, and was too harsh on loyal ministers who deserved trust.
In addition to being unclear about people, he also had a poor understanding of strategy.
The chaos in the world eventually ruined this huge empire.
But if you take his age into account, I'm afraid it's hard to blame Zhu Youjian for being too stupid.
When we were seventeen-year-old high school students, there were no one who could be qualified for the county or city level, from the emperor, cents, literary youth, chuunibyou to otaku.
The position of leader is not to mention the leader of a country, and he is also the leader of a country in a war-torn era.
Compared with the general secretary who ruined the Soviet Union in five or six years, Emperor Chongzhen's level of governance was already acceptable.
Unfortunately, what the Ming Empire needs at this moment is not a passable emperor, but a genius who can turn the tide.
Frequent famines that never end, uprisings and mutinies blooming on all sides, a state machine that is so decayed and dilapidated that it is difficult to operate, powerful foreign enemies that are eyeing the enemy, and scholar-bureaucrats with ulterior motives and greed.
The entire country is on the road to death in a state of madness.
Already done.
Such a situation can no longer be maintained by a moderate emperor.
It requires great courage, great wisdom, great perseverance, and a super strong man who can cut off his arms and survive in death, such as Napoleon and Hitler.
There is only a glimmer of hope to save the country's fortunes.
Unfortunately, Emperor Chongzhen did not have such super powers, and this mess was too heavy for him.
He has no cure for the country's ills.
He only treats the headache and the foot.
He deploys troops to suppress wherever there is trouble.
The result is that the more he suppresses, the more chaos he becomes.
In order to be in line with the ancient Mingjuns, Emperor Chongzhen lived a very frugal life.
His clothes and socks were patched, the gold and silver ornaments in the palace were melted down for military pay, and the ostentation of his meals was also reduced.
He worked very hard.
He went to court every day during the day and worked overtime at night to approve memorials.
According to historical records, he worked roughly seven or eight hours, 14 to 16 hours, and was almost exhausted.
And no matter how tired you were the day before, after sleeping for four or five hours, you have to continue working the next day, rain or shine, all year round, and you don't even have time to pamper your concubine.
Alas, after Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, he had such a job.
There was no scope of work or boundaries.
He had to take care of everything in the huge Ming Empire.
When he went to work every day, he either quarreled with others or looked down on others.
There are quarrels and party disputes, but it is difficult to hear a word of truth.
He was dressed in ordinary clothes, didn't eat well, and didn't get enough sleep.
Every once in a while, bad news came.
There was an invasion from the north, there was a rebellion in the west, the city was destroyed, and a relative of the feudal lord was killed.
Things were robbed and so on.
The good news is that there is almost zero.
No matter who does such a job, I am afraid that they will be exhausted both physically and mentally, and may even lose their life.
However, he still tried his best, worked hard day and night, worked diligently and without complaint, and would not give up until he reached the Great Wall.
He would not look back until he hit the southern wall.
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No matter how many setbacks he encounters, he grits his teeth and refuses to give up.
The problem is that he is faced with a mess that is difficult to clean up.
Although he is very diligent and supervises everything personally, no matter how busy a person is, he can't do much.
If a person's ability and knowledge are not enough, or there is a problem with his position and he is not qualified for his position, then no matter how hard he works, it will be useless, and the more he does, the more serious his mistakes will be.
All in all, after losing his temper, Emperor Chongzhen finally rubbed his forehead and thought about strategies to deal with the current crisis.
Although when he first came to the throne, he was as naive as an ordinary high school student.
He even thought that as long as he left the world to the management of the gentlemen of the Donglin Party, he would be able to sit back and relax.
But after suffering so many painful lessons in the past few years, Emperor Chongzhen still gained some experience and skills: First, the imperial court had no other options for the time being to deal with the Jurchen Donglu's defense lines in Liaoxi and Jizhen.
If you want to increase the number of troops for defense, the capital already has no troops available; if you want to abandon Ningyuan and Jinzhou and shrink back to Shanhaiguan, you are afraid that Guan Ning's army will mutiny immediately.
The only way at the moment, apart from trying to appease the morale of the army, is to calm it down and maintain the status quo.
After all, after the battle of Daling River, the Ming Dynasty suffered a huge defeat, and the Jiannu side must also have suffered a big loss.
Before regaining his strength, Jiannu probably won't attack again for a while.
So Emperor Chongzhen gritted his teeth, squeezed out another twenty thousand taels of money, and sent it to the Western Liaoning Army as a reward to prevent the sergeants from mutinying.
Second, on the Shandong battlefield, the imperial officers and soldiers needed to deal with both the Dengzhou rebels in the east and the Wenxiang Sect demons entrenched in Jining in the south.
However, neither side was a fuel-efficient lamp.
The Dengzhou rebels in the east had been struggling since they rebelled.
After a rapid advance, they have now broken through Laizhou and entered Pingdu Prefecture.
Using the strategy of siege and reinforcements, they defeated two imperial reinforcements in Pingdu Prefecture.
In places such as Jiaozhou and Weifang, small groups of bandits also took advantage of the situation and rose up, making the situation even more chaotic.
The Dengzhou Navy launched a massive attack, defeating the Tianjin Navy in one battle and completely cutting off shipping.
As for the Wenxiang Cult demon men who raised troops in Lunan, they were even more arrogant.
They fought all the way to the Huaihe River in the south, and they were evenly matched with the blocking troops put together by Fengyang, the central capital, and Nanjing, the remaining capital.
In the west, they entered Guide Prefecture and Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan.
In an instant, they captured hundreds of thousands of hungry people.
It is said that they have joined forces with the Shaanxi bandits.
In Shandong, the Wenxiang Sect not only captured the canal hub of Jining, but also conquered Zouxian County, massacred all the descendants of Mencius in the Yasheng Mansion, seized the Yasheng Mansion's savings and opened warehouses to release grain, and at one time attracted more than a million hungry people. .
At present, demons, thieves and bandits have blossomed and spread wantonly in southern Shandong.
The officers and soldiers can only barely hold on to the two cities of Ziyang where Prince Lu's Mansion is located and Qufu where Duke Yansheng's Mansion is located.
Therefore, after Zhu Dadian went to Shandong alone to serve as governor, although he tried to cheer up, he unfortunately lacked major generals.
Moreover, the armies in Shandong had been at peace for a long time.
Not to mention dealing with the Dengzhou rebels who were able to defeat Jiannu, even the Wenxiangjiaoyaoren They are often defeated.
What's even more terrible is that Shandong is currently suffering from droughts for many years, and hungry people are everywhere.
The Wenxiang Sect's bandits are really pervasive.
It is not only the Jining area that is revolting, but there are few completely safe places in the province from south to north.
Even in the city of Jinan, Wenxiang believers secretly revolted, burning official warehouses and assassinating officials, causing panic among people.
If it weren't for the Wenxiang Sect's thieves who sent their main force south along the canal in an attempt to sweep across the wealthy areas of the Yangtze River, Huaihe River, and Jiangnan, and also sent partial troops into Henan to kidnap the hungry people, and cooperated with the Shaanxi bandits, even the leader of the sect would have moved south to Xuzhou. , there is not much strength left in Shandong, otherwise the governor of Shandong, Zhu Dadian, would no longer be thinking about how to go south to open the canal, but how to strengthen the city defense of Jinan to ensure that the provincial capital is not lost.
But even so, the troops to quell the two rebellions were still not available.
As a result, the Ministry of War in Beijing sent official documents one after another, urging Zhu Dadian to open the canal as soon as possible and destroy the religious bandits.
Zhu Dadian, on the other hand, sent one urgent report after another, almost begging for reinforcements in vain.
But how could the capital now find any reinforcements for him?
Thinking of this, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help but smile sadly again.
Theoretically, there is a "Beijing Camp" in Beijing, which is equivalent to the Forbidden Army of the Northern Song Dynasty and the modern Capital Army.
During the era of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, the total strength of the Beijing camp was once as high as 400,000.
At that time, the capital was still in Nanjing.
After Emperor Yongle, Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, moved the capital to Beijing, there were about 200,000 people in the capital camp.
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Later, due to the long period of peace in the capital, the number of troops in the Beijing camp was reduced to more than 100,000 during the Zhengde period.
However, due to reasons such as empty pay, the actual number of troops was far less than this number.
By the Chongzhen period, the actual number of troops in the Beijing camp was the largest.
There were only 20,000 to 30,000 people left.
Moreover, just like the local guardsmen, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, they had been reduced to serfs who could not fight at all.
The last 20,000 to 30,000 so-called "soldiers" in the Beijing camp are actually the same ones who have not been drilled for a long time and have not been paid.
Most of them are old, weak, sick and disabled.
Basically, they have to make a living by working in the capital, or in various military attaché offices.
Being a slave, even the legendary Shenji Battalion equipped with a large number of "advanced firearms" is the same.
As for how many truly capable soldiers were left in the Beijing camp at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there are different opinions.
According to the most optimistic view, the entire Beijing camp can probably still collect three to four thousand strong men who can fight; according to the most pessimistic view, At that time, there were only two to three hundred combatable soldiers in the Beijing camp, which was only enough to cope with the military parade at the emperor's whim.
Of course, the private servants maintained by military attaches at all levels relying on embezzled military salaries are not included.
In any case, such an army that only exists on paper is obviously unable to reinforce the Shandong battlefield to quell the rebellion.
In addition to the Beijing camp, the only remaining troops in Beijing are the Jin Yiwei as the "Emperor's personal army", the internal prison soldiers under the Royal Horse Supervisor, the soldiers who patrol the city on a daily basis, and various miscellaneous troops such as the guards of various government offices.
In total, there are more than 20,000 people.
But this is the minimum force to suppress order in the capital and ensure the safety of the royal family.
Once they are transferred out, there will probably be chaos in the Beijing market, so they cannot be moved lightly at all.
Moreover, Beijing is the largest city in the world.
The city wall is dozens of miles in circumference.
With this small number of troops, it is difficult for only one person to stand ten steps on the city wall to defend the city.
If we want to reduce the garrison, the invading enemy will not be able to defend it as long as they build siege equipment and surround it on all sides: no matter how strong the city is, it must be defended by troops.
Therefore, the few defenders in the capital city wall are really It's really impossible to mobilize any more.
Outside the city of Beijing, there are still some reinforcements from other provinces that arrived in Beijing this spring but have not yet returned.
However, because the Ministry of War and Household Affairs have been arguing with each other and refused to provide food and wages to King Qin's army for a long time, most of these chilled reinforcements have long since dispersed.
He became a bandit and a horse thief, burning, killing and looting all over the capital.
The remaining officers and soldiers from other provinces are also full of resentment and do not obey orders at all.
It is difficult to expect them to fight well, and they even have to beware of rebellion.
At present, around the capital, or in the entire Northern Zhili, the imperial court only has two mobile troops left, but they also have important responsibilities: one is the 9,000 Sichuan Army commanded by Qiu Jiahe, the governor of Liaodong, and stationed in Shanhaiguan, responsible for monitoring the surrounding areas.
Guan Ning's army tends to be unstable, and the Tatars attack The last line of defense at that time; the other is the Tianxiong Army compiled and trained by right-wing political advisor Lu Xiangsheng in the south of Beizhili.
It is stationed in Daming, Guangping and Shunde.
It is currently fighting repeatedly with the Shaanxi bandits who have crossed the Taihang Mountains, and is also fighting.
To suppress the uprising of Wenxiang believers in the territory, it is also inseparable.
However, given the rapidly collapsing situation in Shandong and Beijing's eagerness to open up water transportation, it was obviously impossible not to send reinforcements there.
Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen had no choice but to bite the bullet and ordered the nine thousand Sichuan troops stationed in Shanhaiguan to withdraw from the front line.
The younger brother of Qin Liangyu, the leader of the Baigan soldiers, Qin Yiming, walked overland to Tongzhou and took a canoe to go south to reinforce Jinan.
As for the safety of the Liaodong front line, we can only rely on the loyalty of Guan Ning's army and the generals of western Liaoning.
At the same time, he ordered Qin Yiming to summon the Qinwang army from other provinces stranded on the outskirts of the capital, and pack up these troublemakers and put them together.
There are twenty thousand people.
How to control these rabble from all over the world will give Zhu Dadian a headache.
At the same time, he issued an edict to urge Hong Chengchou, the governor-general of the three sides who had arrived in Taiyuan, to lead the Qin army across the Taihang Mountains as quickly as possible and continue eastward to the capital.
Then he would cooperate with Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong army to wipe out the rogue bandits and civil unrest in northern Zhili as quickly as possible.
Return the capital to a bright and prosperous world.
In addition, in order to relieve the pressure of Zhu Dadian being attacked from both sides in Jinan, Emperor Chongzhen hesitated for a long time, but finally put aside his face and sent his veteran Xu Guangqi to Jinan to try to negotiate and appease Dengzhou Town.
Even if it failed, he would delay the rebel offensive.
This allowed Zhu Dadian to free up his hands to deal with the Wenxiang Cult demon.
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Or persuade the rebel Chen Xin to stop blocking the Tianjin port and allow the southern grain fleet to transport grain to Beijing by sea.
Third, regarding the resistance from the southern front to the demons of the Wenxiang Cult and the suppression of the Shaanxi bandits who fled into the Central Plains, as well as the war in Fujian after Huang Shi led the Funing Army to raise the flag and cause rebellion, due to the long distance and poor news, Beijing's side That At this time, the Dengzhou rebels blocked the sea route, and the Wenxiang Cult demons blocked the canal.
As for the land route, the imperial court had abolished the Tianxia Station two years ago, and the country's official document transmission system had long been paralyzed.
Nowadays, a large number of Shaanxi bandits have crossed the Taihang Mountains and invaded various prefectures and counties in Northern Zhili and Henan Province.
As a result, it is very unsafe for couriers coming to Beijing from the south to go northward by land.
Therefore, the news received from all parties in the capital is now intermittent, and errors and omissions often appear.
Under such circumstances, no matter how strong the desire for control the Emperor Chongzhen in Beijing had, he could only delegate power to his subordinates and pin his hopes on Lu Weiqi, the Minister of War in Nanjing, and Han Zanzhou, the eunuch of the Nanjing garrison, hoping that they could Well done, good news will come as soon as possible.
Finally, we must try to stabilize the price of food in the capital and stabilize the people.
Thinking of this, Emperor Chongzhen suddenly felt helpless again: the capital's current shortage of food is not 10,000 shi or 20,000 shi of food, but millions of shi of food.
The imperial court was responsible for solving the problems in Xuanhua, Jibei, and Liaodong.
The problem of stipend and food supply for more than 100,000 frontier troops, more than 100,000 officials in Beijing, tens of thousands of eunuchs and maidens in the palace, and at least 30,000 to 40,000 army horses is just to support such a large non-agricultural population.
The loss of land transportation after the capital would require more than three million stones, grains and rice.
Originally, the Yanji Plain surrounding the capital was also a very important grain-producing area in the north.
This was also the basis for Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty to move the capital to Beijing.
Although as the years went by, land annexation increased, and the better farms in the Gyeonggi area were all in the hands of relatives of the emperor and wealthy dignitaries.
The court could not collect much taxes, but at least a lot of surplus grain would be trafficked to the capital, which could Solve the food ration problem of a considerable number of people in Beijing.
However, in the past two years, northern Shaanxi and Henan have been devastated.
Northern Zhili has also suffered from constant droughts and floods.
Jian slave bandits have come one after another.
Not to mention the rural areas of the capital, not to mention supplying surplus grain to the capital, there are even Millions of refugees are waiting for help from the government.
Such a combination of addition and subtraction has made Gyeonggi's food shortage crisis worse and added fuel to the fire.
Unfortunately, all sea and water transportation are now cut off.
Even if there is food in the south of the Yangtze River, there is no way to transport it northward.
Although in theory, it is possible to transport food from the Huguang grain-producing area across the entire Henan Province, and then through Damingfu, to the capital by land, but it is in In the years when grain transportation was at its lowest, the capital had to transfer about three million shi of grain from the south.
Based on a carriage carrying ten stones, three million grains require 300,000 carts, 600,000 mules and horses, and 300,000 drivers to transport.
Such huge carriages lined up in a long line, walking on the post road, There will be a long queue of about five to six thousand miles, and this does not take into account the rations consumed by the mules, horses and drivers along the way.
Not to mention the dilapidated and chaotic times of the Chongzhen period, even the Yongle period when the national power was at its peak, the Ming Empire could not afford such exaggerated and absurd expenses.
Therefore, when sea routes and canals have not been opened, Emperor Chongzhen, who cannot produce food, has no way to stabilize food prices.
He cannot even establish a food rationing system.
Nowadays, the salaries of officials in Beijing All can only be distributed in silver at the usual grain prices, of course, with a discount.
The rations of the Xuanhua, Datong, Jibei, and Liaodong armies have been suspended or reduced for several months.
At this time, the wealthy and powerful people in the capital still wanted to hoard and drive up food prices, but they had no way to punish them, which made Emperor Chongzhen extremely depressed.
In short, Emperor Chongzhen soon discovered that before sea and water transportation were opened up, the capital's food crisis could only be overcome by the people tightening their belts.
This helpless feeling of powerlessness made the emperor feel very depressed, but there were so many such things in recent years that he was not surprised. oshow7: