After Liu Zongmin finished speaking, Li Zicheng's face was blue and extremely ugly.

In fact, Li Zicheng had already thought that Li Xiao's gang now only had cavalry, and there was no longer the infantry behind them, so they fled all the way to the east, and the speed must have increased a lot. And Liu Zongmin hurriedly led the 3,000 old battalion cavalry to chase after some repeated tossing, and it must have been too late. It's lucky to be able to catch up, but it's a very normal thing to not be able to catch up.

Li Xiao finally left smoothly with the corpse of Emperor Chongzhen and several princes. When they go, it is like a tiger entering a mountain, a dragon entering the water, and they cannot be found again, and they will never return.

In the future, how much risk and trouble will Li Xiao bring to himself and the Great Shun Dynasty, even if he is the most afraid of it, it is not too much.

"King Chuang, what should we do now?"

Seeing that Li Zicheng kept his face stiff and didn't reply, Liu Zongmin on the ground asked cautiously.

Li Zicheng looked angry, he stared at Liu Zongmin's uneasy face, and for a while, he didn't know how to answer.

What else can be said?

After all, now that Li Xiao's people have run away, what remedy can they have?

For a while, the entire hall was silent.

In the entire hall, no one noticed that at this time, Chen Yan, the last first assistant of the former Ming Dynasty who was lying on the ground, was tortured with blood and broken bones, and only half a long and crippled life was left, and a glimmer of light flashed in his originally dying eyes, and a trace of shame jumped with it.

I didn't expect it! Li Xiao's guy was so affectionate and righteous, he didn't care about his own safety, and with only a few hundred people of his own guard, he sneaked into the capital alone to rescue the emperor. This heart of loyalty, visible in fists, is really impressive!

Thinking of it, this person was a thief in the imperial court, openly fighting against the imperial court, and although he was re-recruited by Chongzhen and further recruited as a concubine, this person has always been at odds with the imperial court, and is free from the jurisdiction of the imperial court, but he is already an independent kingdom-like existence.

It stands to reason that in the current situation, Li Xiao can be like those foreign soldiers and horses who have not come to help for a long time, indifferently sit back and watch the demise of the Ming court, and stand by and ignore it at all, but he did not expect that he would disregard life and death, and return from Liaodong thousands of miles to rescue a nominal emperor, no matter what his true thoughts are, but this loyalty, the entire Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that no one can match.

On the contrary, he is such a Ming chief, full of favor from the Ming court, but he is bent on betraying the emperor and betraying the court, so as to survive, live a shy life, and use dignity and conscience to exchange fame and fortune for himself, this comparison is really shameful!

Chen Yan suddenly laughed miserably, and he struggled to get up from the ground. The bright red blood bubbles in his mouth gurgled as if he wanted to say something.

Seeing Chen Yan's disgusting behavior, Li Zicheng, who was originally upset, suddenly became even more resentful and ashamed, he stood up from the chair, brushed it, pulled out his waist knife, and walked towards Chen Yan quickly.

With a soft sound, the sharp waist knife, the tip of the cold light, pointed directly at Chen Yan's throat.

"You bastard, what are you laughing at? Do you want to die! “

Li Zicheng shouted and asked, but Chen Yan just raised his head and looked at him stunned.

His eyes were empty, like two bottomless black holes. He just like that, silently, looked at Li Zicheng in a daze, as if he was looking at a stranger he never knew, and Li Zicheng felt furious in his heart.

This Chen Yan, shouldn't he suddenly go crazy now?

"You old thing, are you getting impatient?! Huh? What the fuck are you doing watching me like this? “

Li Zicheng gritted his teeth and pressed the tip of the knife further closer to Chen Yan's surging throat. The sharp tip of the knife quickly pierced the skin of Chen Yan's neck, and the blood overflowed and oozed, mixing with the dark red blood on his neck, which made it more terrifying and disgusting.

And at this moment, the entire hall heard a scream that was almost human.

"Your Majesty! Wechen is ashamed! Wechen is sorry for you! Weichen pigs and dogs are not as good! Weichen will come to accompany you under Jiuquan now, and apologize to the emperor for your sins! “

Chen Yan shouted loudly, tears welled up, and before Li Zicheng and the others could react, he gritted his teeth, tried his whole strength, and used his throat to hit the tip of the knife!

There was a soft pop, and the sharp tip of the knife pierced deeply into Chen Yan's neck! Red blood spurted out like a fountain.

This sudden change surprised both Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin.

They originally thought that Chen Yan, although he was tortured so painfully, such a villain who was greedy for life and afraid of death would definitely continue to live, but they didn't expect that he deliberately provoked Li Zicheng in order to make a decision.

From this point of view, this cowardly and mediocre former Ming Shoufu who betrayed his master to seek glory really suddenly discovered his conscience and knew that his betrayal of glory was extremely evil, so he took the opportunity to commit suicide.

In the eyes of the whole hall, Chen Yan was like a long worm that had been pierced by a knife, subconsciously convulsed and struggled, and gradually, he stopped moving.

He's dead.

Li Zicheng withdrew his waist knife with a brush, and Chen Yan's corpse lost its support point, threw itself on the ground, and fell to the ground softly.

Li Zicheng suddenly found that Chen Yan's face, which was already dead, seemed to have an inexplicable look of relief at this moment.

The whole hall was as silent as death.

"Pass on my order, bury this guy well." Li Zicheng turned around and no longer looked at Chen Yan's corpse, his face was solemn, and he ordered coldly.

"King Chuang, then Li Xiao ......" Liu Zongmin asked again.

Li Zicheng waved his hand, signaling that he didn't need to say any more.

Then, with great difficulty, he sat back in his chair, stunned for a moment, and waved his hand again, motioning for him to stand down.

Liu Zongmin saw that Li Zicheng was at a loss for the six gods, so he sighed, stomped his foot hard, turned around and strode away.

Li Zicheng sat in a daze, his blank gaze looked straight into the depths of the dark hall, no one knew what the Emperor Dashun, who had reached the peak of his power, was thinking at this moment.

The next day, Li Zicheng officially ascended the throne as emperor, rewarded his subordinates lavishly, and changed the official system on a large scale.

Among them, the six ministries were changed to six governments, the officials were changed to engage, the six departments were changed to discussions, the thirteen provinces were changed to direct commanders, the Hanlin Academy was changed to the Hongwen Museum, the Taifu Temple was changed to the Horse Inspection Temple, the governor was changed to the Jiedu Envoy, the military garrison was changed to the defense envoy, and the prefect, the prefecture, and the county were changed to Yin, Mu, and Ling.

Next, Li Zicheng's Dashun army began to chase stolen goods and help the whole city, wantonly burning, killing and looting, and the city of Beijing became a hell on earth, and the situation in the capital at this time was almost the same as in real history.

"Whoever tortures hundreds of officials, who is worth 10,000 dollars, is forced to 20,000 or 30,000, and the number is slightly dissatisfied, and then the strict comparison is carried out, and the cannon is branded, and the preparation is extremely miserable and poisonous, and it will never die."

"Eight hundred people, including Wei Zaode, Fang Yuegong, Qiu Yu, Li Yuzhi, etc., Xun Qi Ran Xingrang, Zhang Guoji, Xu Yunzhen, Zhang Shize, etc., recovered stolen goods and helped them, tortured them, and wailed all day long, and the audience was all shock......ed."

"Li Zicheng's subordinates are greedy, the generals are arrogant, there is no day to kill, and when there is no end to robbing money, most of the soldiers and minions, killing people, plundering people's property, raping ** people, almost no end ......."

And the reason why Li Zicheng wanted to cross the river and demolish the bridge like this, and in turn took these Ming Dynasty officials who surrendered to him, in fact, there is also a reason.

In the final analysis, the policy of recovering stolen goods and subsidizing salaries of the Dashun Army is still a continuation of the policy of not levying taxes in the previous three years, which is the well-known slogan: "Kill cattle and sheep, prepare wine and pulp, open the city gate to welcome the king, and the king will not pay food when the king comes." ”

This sentence is a slogan that extremely unites the hearts of the people, and it is also an important reason why Dashun can be supported by the people at the bottom. This policy continued from the late period of Li Zicheng's rebellion, and did not change immediately because of the establishment of the state in Xi'an or even the capture of Beijing.

That is to say, in order to win people's hearts and create their own image of saviors, the people under the rule of Dashun do not need to pay any taxes, but if the people do not pay taxes, where will the huge army and government expenses come from? You can't fall out of the sky.

Therefore, it is natural that it will be scraped from the rich and officials, so wherever the Dashun army passed, the officials and gentry and rich families were unlucky, not to mention that they were executed, the family property was often plundered, and the fields were also distributed to the poor.

At present, the scale of the Dashun army, all kinds of people combined, has grown to nearly one million people, and the troops that captured the capital alone are nearly 500,000, and the amount of food and salary required for such a huge army is really an astonishing astronomical amount.

After the Dashun army entered Beijing, there were very few silver coins confiscated from the inner treasury of the emperor of the treasury, which made Li Zicheng constantly lament Chongzhen's difficulties. Therefore, how to support the huge expenses of the army naturally depends on the rich landlords and officials in Beijing.

In the city of Beijing, there are hundreds of nobles, thousands of officials, and tens of thousands of others, such as eunuchs and factory guards. Dashun now, has established its own administrative organs, the number of officials is also sufficient, naturally do not need the former Ming noble officials to come to the loyal contribution, so after the capture of the capital, Dashun such a former Ming widow, naturally immediately turned his face into hatred, against each other.

In the eyes of Li Zicheng and other Dashun leaders, as well as their personal experience, there are no officials in the Ming Dynasty who are not greedy from top to bottom. Other eunuchs, brocade guards, etc., are also the targets of vigorous cleaning.

And as long as enough wealth is scavenged from these people, even if no taxes are levied for the time being, it will be enough to supply the expenses of the Dashun army and the imperial court for several years, and after a few years, the foundation of Dashun will be stable, and the places will tend to be stable, and then taxes will be levied on the people.

Therefore, after capturing the capital, Li Zicheng's group immediately began to impatiently recover stolen goods. Under the personal example of Li Zicheng forcing Chen Yan, the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, the Dashun army unceremoniously raised the butcher's knife to the noble ministers in Beijing.

In the capital, countless Dashun soldiers, under the leadership of various generals, rushed into the homes of nobles and officials, whether they were the princes in power, or the idle earls, or the eunuchs, etc., all of them were locked on the spot, and the big torturers waited to recover the property, and the leather whips and splints were put together, and these former people and masters were beaten one by one, and the bones and tendons were broken, and they had to spit out the silver coins hidden in the ground one by one.

That abbot Zhou Kui, when Chongzhen ordered the ministers to give silver to help him, became a ridiculous and lamentable. And now, under the whip of the vicious soldiers of the Dashun Army, Zhou Kui of the former Ming Dynasty honestly handed over 300,000 taels of silver at once, in order to get the forgiveness of the Dashun Army.

However, even if he vomited so much, Liu Zongmin and the others still thought that he had vomited far from enough, and made up their minds until they had to squeeze all his silver out.

As a result, the soldiers of the Dashun army tortured Zhou Kui and even his family, Zhou Kui's wife and daughter-in-law could not bear the humiliation and hanged themselves, Zhou Kui's eldest son was killed on the spot, he and his second son were also beaten all over the body, and finally had to hand over all the wealth, only one silver, as much as one million taels.

After being squeezed and spit out all their wealth, Zhou Kui's family was still secretly executed in the end, and none of the family survived.

However, in this atmosphere of wailing among officials, nobles, and wealthy gentry and landlords, there are also a very small number of people who have succeeded in political speculation and flattery, and have won the trust of Li Zicheng.

The former commander of Jinyiwei, Luo Yangxing, was originally dismissed by Chongzhen at home at the beginning of this year because of his ineffective work, and has been in a state of leisure. After the rogues began to chase the stolen goods, Luo Yangxing keenly felt that an opportunity for him to soar again had finally arrived.

After taking the initiative to hand over 40,000 taels of silver, Luo Yangxing was announced to be released by the Dashun Army, however, Luo Yangxing took the initiative to propose to Liu Zongmin that he was willing to use the information and intelligence he had previously held as the commander of the Jinyi Guard to help Liu Zongmin better complete the recovery of stolen goods.

When Liu Zongmin heard this, he was overjoyed.

You must know that Jin Yiwei's duty is to supervise hundreds of officials, Luo Yangxing, as a former commander, is naturally very familiar with the situation of officials in Beijing, who is rich and rich, and who is in average situation, all know everything well.

After all, with such a professional by his side, it will greatly improve the efficiency of recovering stolen goods and subsidies, and greatly save time and energy. Therefore, without thinking about it, he immediately agreed to it and appointed Luo Yang as the head of the department.

Seeing that Liu Zongmin decided to use himself, Luo Yangxing was very grateful. So he served the Dashun Army wholeheartedly. And with Luo Yangxing's help, the efficiency of recovering stolen goods and helping to pay has been greatly improved, and in just a few days, the wealth recovered is equivalent to as much as 70 million taels of silver!

At this moment, the Great Shun Army has reached the pinnacle of wealth and glory that it can have since the rebellion!

Liu Zongmin was very happy and gave Luo Yangxing 3,000 taels of silver as a reward in recognition of his hard work.

At this time, the favored Luo Yangxing, in order to better flatter his master, he decided to present a woman who was as beautiful and famous as the ancient Xi Shi Diao Chan to Liu Zongmin, the general of Quan, in order to invite his heart and consolidate his favor.

This woman is Chen Yuanyuan.