Chapter 23 Situation

The vegetable porridge last night really didn't taste good, but Li Zijing and the others sat around and drank several bowls in succession without caring about the taste.

After traveling for more than two months, this is the best thing I have ever eaten.

Since the defeat of Shanhaiguan, Dashun's army has been wandering all the way, and the Qing army is hotly pursuing it. They have no time to make good food.

Sesame seed cakes are easy to make, as long as you have flour and water, and dry firewood to bake them, and they can be stored for a long time.

In their spare time, the cooks in each battalion of Dashun Army can prepare several days' worth of sesame cakes at a time and distribute them to ordinary soldiers in case of emergencies.

In the past two months, Li Zijing has been eating this kind of sesame seed cake, which shows how difficult it is to have a meal of vegetable porridge in this era.

After eating the porridge, he went back to his tent to sleep, but Li Zijing did not take off his armor.

In today's troubled times, especially in wartime, both the ordinary people who are coerced by the camp and the soldiers of Dashun are in danger.

No one knows when the next battle will come.

To put it more bluntly, Shi Kefa wanted to use the Qing army to defeat Dashun and Daxi first, and then negotiate terms with the Qing army.

In May of this year, the gentry and bureaucrats in the south of the Yangtze River proclaimed King Fu Zhu Yousong as emperor in Nanjing, with the reign name of Hongguang, which became the famous Nanming regime in history.

The so-called uniting with the Qing invaders means uniting with the Qing invaders, and those with the alliance with the Shun invaders.

"If the Qinglu hadn't been so eager to pursue them, what would have happened to them?"

Only the thick and warm armor on his body and the wild goose feather knife standing beside the straw mat could bring Li Zijing some comfort.

They either had money to offer, or people to send people, or they surrendered to the Qing army, or they raised the banner of Hongguang of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and almost completely destroyed the officials and garrison stationed by the Dashun army.

"They think that if they establish another emperor, it will be considered a court again?"

Nanming, who had benefited from this, not only did nothing at this time, but today news came that made all Dashun civil and military officials angry.

The naive Shi Kefa actually thought that the Qing troops who entered the Pass under the pretext of avenging Chongzhen would, after annihilating the Dashun army, withdraw from the Pass and return the capital to them.

Shi Kefa, a famous contemporary official with a great reputation, was appointed as a bachelor of Dongge University. He also managed the military affairs of the Ministry of War and controlled the Ming army in Jiangbei.

In the Shandong area, officials and gentry from Wenshang, Yutai, Juye, Zouxian, Laiwu and other prefectures and counties jointly captured and executed Dashun officials stationed in Shandong.

Dong Xueli, the former deputy general of Ninghua of the Ming Dynasty, once surrendered to Dashun, and last month he also surrendered to Duduo in the Huaiqing area, offering the distribution of troops in Dashun in Henan Province for his meritorious service.

As the Dashun Army formed a brief stalemate with the main forces of the two Qing armies in Tongguan and Yan'an, various tricks of the Southern Ming Dynasty came about as planned.

In November and December, urgent documents were sent one after another from Shandong, Henan, and Hanzhong.

Liu Zongmin stood up and slapped the case, spitting everywhere.

But in the front camp, the well-fed and drunk Shun soldiers had already gotten up and were busy going back and forth.

When Li Zijing followed Liu Fangliang to the General Military Mansion, the lights inside the General Military Mansion were brightly lit, and veteran soldiers of the Chinese Army in green arrow uniforms stood guard.

Dashun's old army under He Zhen only had more than 10,000 troops, and they could not withstand Zhang Xianzhong's army of hundreds of thousands anyway.

After returning to the northwest, the situation in Dashun was still not optimistic.

Dorgon therefore realized that the Dashun army still had enough strength to threaten the rule of the Qing Dynasty, so he transferred Duduo, who was originally scheduled to attack Nanjing, all the way to Huaiqing, and then attacked Tongguan.

Of course, it was not just the Hongguang court who stabbed people in the back.

But it's not over yet.

However, the situation is still not optimistic. The first attack was thwarted, and Zhang Xianzhong was furious. Now he has assembled heavy troops in Chengdu and is about to attack Hanzhong again.

Stepping into the lobby, many Dashun generals were filled with righteous indignation.

Looking into the distance, there was a hazy darkness between heaven and earth.

Li Zijing originally thought of getting up and going directly to Li Zicheng to discuss the strategic issues, but unexpectedly, before he woke up, Liu Fangliang, who looked anxious, came over.

The Qing army, former Ming officials and gentry, local landlords, and the Southern Ming army all attacked Dashun in unison, and even Daxi, who was a peasant power, acted behind the scenes, making it difficult to guard against.

Not long ago, the Dashun Army launched a counterattack in the Huaiqing Campaign. Although the partial results were remarkable, looking at the overall situation, it was a bit like poking a hornet's nest.

What Li Zicheng has to deal with now is not one person or one force, but a group of people.

Each of these pieces of news made Li Zicheng exhausted physically and mentally.

"Your Majesty has raised a military meeting, and news has reached Tongguan!"

The officials, gentry and landlords of the former Ming Dynasty, who were still filled with resentment, saw the defeat of Dashun Shanhaiguan and immediately revealed their true colors and began to communicate with each other secretly.

Yin Shi is around three to five o'clock in later generations. At the turn of night and day, there is still silence in the mountains.

The entire territory of Henan has fallen, and Li Zicheng is now completely unable to contact some of the Dashun troops who have retreated to Shandong.

The good news is that He Zhen, who was stationed in Hanzhong, defended the city and defeated Zhang Xianzhong's 30,000-strong army.

When Li Zicheng led Dashun's main force from Shanxi back to Guanzhong, the situation in Shandong, Henan and other places was also changing.

Now the main force of the Dashun Army is delayed in Yan'an and Tongguan, and its military strength is simply stretched.

After the Battle of Huaiqing, the main force of the Qing army led by Duduo defeated Yuan Zongdi, the general of Dashun Henan, in Huaiqing. Part of the Dashun army moved to Shandong, and almost all parts of Henan were defeated.

Li Zicheng had already put on a light blue arrow suit, and his felt hat was placed on a shelf not far away. He turned his back to the front door and stared at the map in front of him.

It was this Shi Kefa who became the target of the Dashun Army who wanted to rush to Nanjing immediately and kill him with a thousand swords.

Seeing Dashun's successive defeats, Zhang Xianzhong wanted to invade Hanzhong and sent 30,000 Western troops to attack Hanzhong Prefecture under Dashun's jurisdiction.

Da Xi, who was under the same peasant military regime as Da Shun, actually touched Li Zicheng's butt at this time.

"If I, Dashun, can overthrow Chongzhen, I can also destroy this small Hongguang court!"

Li Zijing had long known about this ridiculous policy of Nan Ming in history, so he did not react as strongly as other Dashun generals.

At the beginning of November, the news came from Hanzhong.

Li Zijing came to his seat and sat down, looking quietly at Li Zicheng who was at the top.

Due to the surrender and rebellion of former Ming officials and gentry in various places, the Dashun garrison and officials stationed in the local areas suffered extremely serious losses every day.

What was different from last night was that there was now a solemn atmosphere in the camp. Many veterans of the camp were sitting outside their tents, wiping their swords in the moonlight.

News reached Tongguan tonight that the emperor and ministers of the Southern Ming Dynasty, headed by Shi Kefa, were taking it as a national policy to unite the captives and suppress the invaders, and actively begged for peace with the Qing captives.

Sang Kaidi, the former prefect of Guide in the Chongzhen Dynasty, joined forces with other officials and gentry to trap Dashun officials stationed in Shangqiu, Luyi, Kaocheng and Xiayi counties and sent them to Beijing to report their merits.

Li Zicheng was chased by two groups of Qing troops and had no time to take into account changes in other places.

Some Dashun officials were even on their way to taking office, but the officials and gentry in the place where they took office were already impatient to surrender to the Qing army, so they were captured and killed as soon as they took office.

The ferocious knife marks on Liu Zongmin's face kept trembling, and his words were filled with hatred for what the Hongguang court of the Southern Ming Dynasty had done.

"I was so desperate that I led a partial army across the Yangtze River and went south. I first destroyed Zuo Liangyu in Wuchang, and then attacked Nanjing to completely overthrow the small imperial court!"

Hanzhong Mansion is the gateway to Sichuan and Shu. Once it is captured by Zhang Xianzhong, the Daxi Army can march straight in and wreak havoc in Shaanxi and Huguang.

However, in November, Li Zicheng was constantly moving Dashun troops northward in order to fight Duduo, and was unable to take care of Hanzhong at all.

Li Zicheng stared at the turbulent situation in various places on the map, trying to find a glimmer of hope from the dead end.

I haven't been able to sleep well these past few days, my head has been dizzy, and my quality has declined. I will adjust the situation as soon as possible. Please forgive me.
Chapter completed!