Just when Beijing fell into despair due to the defeat of Sun Chuanting's death and the defeat of the Qin army, Xi'an, more than 2,000 miles away, was thriving, and all the soldiers of the army rejoiced, seeing the hope of overthrowing the Ming Dynasty and replacing it!

At the beginning of October of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the army captured Tongguan and beheaded Sun Chuanting, the governor of the Ming Dynasty. On November 11, Li Zicheng led a large army to occupy Xi'an, Zhu Cunshu, the king of Ming and Qin, was captured alive, Feng Shikong, the governor of Shaanxi, and Huang Jiong, the envoy of the inspection department, were killed, and Lu Zhiqi, the political envoy, surrendered.

After the occupation of Xi'an, the army did not stop marching, Li Zicheng personally led a tiger Li through the rear camp of the department and the left battalion of Liu Fangliang's army, pursued the Ming general soldier Gao Jie to the north, and vowed to catch the thief who kidnapped his wife and gave him a green hat. In the face of the fierce invasion army, Gao Jie did not dare to resist at all, and fled all the way north, taking advantage of the freezing of the Yellow River from Shaanxi to Shanxi, but still did not dare to stay, and fled all the way to the southeast to Jiangsu.

At the same time that he led his troops to the north to attack the border army of the Ming Dynasty in Yulin and other places, Li Zicheng ordered Tian Jianxiu to go south to Hanzhong, attack the Ming general army Gao Ruli, and open up the passage to Sichuan in the south, and at the same time ordered the generals Liu Zongmin, He Jin, Yuan Zongdi and others to lead troops to the west to attack the fleeing Bai Guangen department, attack Ningxia, Gansu Xining and other places, and completely occupy the entire northwest.

By the end of December, Yulin was captured by Li Guo and his troops, and the castles on the border walls of northern Shaanxi were controlled by the breaking army. At the same time, Tian Jianxiu captured Hanzhong, and Gao Ruli, the general of the Ming Dynasty, was forced to surrender. Liu Zongmin led the troops to Guyuan, Bai Guangen surrendered, the general soldier Chen Yongfu once shot Li Zicheng in one eye when he was in Kaifeng, and he did not dare to surrender for fear of retaliation, Li Zicheng swore an oath to ensure that he did not count the old accounts, so Liu Yongfu and other northwest departments surrendered one after another, and Ningxia, Gansu, and Xining were occupied by the invasion army one after another.

At this point, the Chuang army has occupied the entire northwest, most of Henan and the western part of Hubei, and has an overwhelming advantage in the face of the Ming Dynasty.

On the first day of the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng founded the country in Xi'an, with the country name Dashun and changed to Yongchang. Xi'an was changed to Chang'an, called Xijing. With the palace of the Qin Dynasty, the great-grandfather was posthumously crowned as the emperor, his wife Gao was canonized as the queen, and the concubine Chen was the concubine.

Great feudal heroes, generals Liu Zongmin, Tian Jianxiu, Gu Ying, Li Guo, Liu Fangliang, Zhang Nai, Yuan Zongdi and other feudal marquis, Liu Tichun, Wu Ruyi, Ma Shiyao, Li You, Bai Guangen, Chen Yongfu and other earls.

The official system was changed, the cabinet was changed to the Tianyou Palace, and the university scholar Pingzhang State Affairs was set up, with Niu Jinxing as the prime minister and Song Xiance as the military. The central organs were changed from six ministries to six governments, with Gu Junen and Yang Yongyu as the scholars.

The Hanlin Academy was changed to the Hongwen Museum, the six departments were advised, and the imperial history was directly directed, but all the imitation lighting systems were slightly different in name.

Now that the country has been established, the Ming Dynasty has been eliminated, and it is the proper meaning to dominate the world. In fact, at the end of December, after leveling the entire northwest, Li Zicheng had already sent Li You, Bai Jiuhe and others to lead the leading troops to cross the Yellow River on December 18 and occupy Ronghe and other counties in Shanxi, preparing for the eastward expedition of the army.

In late December, the Dashun Army passed on the cards to the counties and counties of Shanxi, and the text is as follows:

"The general at the head of the battalion was ordered to solicit things: since ancient times, the emperor has risen and fallen, and it is a sign of the people's hearts. In the Ming Dynasty, most of the numbers have ended, the punishment is severe, and the people are unbearable. Birth of my holy lord, benevolence and good life, the banner of righteousness is raised, and Haiyu returns to his heart. Crossing the south of the river and leveling Yu Chu, entering the west of the Guanxi and sweeping the three Qin. To pacify the officials and pacify the people, and to set up generals to defend the border, the great cause has been decided. There is Jin Yan, and he has been trapped in the soup for a long time. I couldn't bear to sit idly by, so on the 20th of this month, the head of the task force led 500,000 soldiers from Chang'an, and marched into the vanguard by different routes; My lord himself raised a million troops. There is no offense in the slightest. For the first card to the civil and military attachés, etc., the time is measured, the city is sealed, and the early picture is juelu; If obsessed with refusal, Xu Er's gentry and people are bound to offer, not only double the reward, but also protect the lives everywhere, such as the officers and soldiers resist together, the soldiers are broken to the city, and the jade is not divided, what is the regret? ”

Preparations have been made for the attack on Beijing.

On the eighth day of the first month of the first year of Chongzhen, leaving the general Tian Jianxiu and the empress Gao to stay in Xi'an, Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin, as well as Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance, led the main force of the Dashun army from Xi'an and began to attack Beijing.

After the main force of the Dashun army crossed the Yellow River, it arrived in Pingyang on the 23rd day of the first month, and the prefect Zhang Lin surrendered, and after a short rest, he marched to Taiyuan.

At the same time, Li Guo, the general guarding Yulin in northern Shaanxi, also led his subordinates to cross the Yellow River and march in the direction of Datong to contain the defenders of the border town of Datong in order to respond to Li Zicheng's attack on Taiyuan.

At the same time, Li Zicheng ordered the general Liu Fangliang to lead the left battalion, cross the Yellow River into Shanxi, march along the north bank of the Yellow River, pass through Huaiqing Mansion and Lu'an Mansion, march to Weihui and Zhangde, and then go north to the Daimyo, capture the prefectures and counties of Hebei, and then join forces with Li Zicheng under the city of Beijing.

The march of the Dashun army was like boiling soup and melting snow, and the soldiers and civilians in Shanxi surrendered one after another. Over the years, the Shanxi region has been repeatedly affected by natural disasters, the harvest of the fields has been reduced, and the people have no livelihood, and the policy of the Shun army for three years has made hundreds of people yearn for it. The folk song of "killing cattle and sheep, preparing wine syrup, opening the city gate to welcome the king, and not paying grain when the king comes" is spread in various places, and the people eat pot pulp and welcome the arrival of the army.

And Li Zicheng also changed his old style of being a rogue, and put forward the clear slogan of "killing one person is like killing my father, and lewd one person like adultering my mother", no longer harassing the common people, and the military discipline is solemn. As for the food and salary required by the Dashun army, all of them came from the large gentry families who occupied the land. Therefore, wherever the Shun army went, the common people rejoiced, and the powerful gentry were like mourners!

The news of the Dashun army's founding of the state in Xi'an, the reform of the Yuan Dynasty and the crossing of the river to the east, reached Beijing, and Chongzhen was so shocked that he was restless. He himself knew that even the elite of the Qin army under the command of Sun Chuanting had been defeated, and now the defenders of Shanxi would definitely not be able to stop the pace of the thieves.

It is necessary to dispatch troops to Shanxi for reinforcements. However, although there were several armies near Gyeonggi, and there were tens of thousands of soldiers in the Beijing camp, the transfer of troops always required food and salary, and even if he was the emperor without food, those Qiu Ba would definitely not obey orders. But where should the silver come from, now the treasury is empty, and even tens of thousands of taels of silver cannot be taken out.

In desperation, Chongzhen could only raise the idea of the court officials, hoping that they could give part of their silver to the court to help tide over the difficulties. But in the face of his hints, whether civil officials or nobles, they all pretended to be deaf and dumb, pretending not to understand the emperor's meaning. In desperation, Chongzhen could only find Zhou Kui, the national abbot, through the queen, hoping that his father-in-law could take the lead in offering silver.

Zhou Kui complained to his daughter, and Queen Zhou, who was helpless, could only give Zhou Kui the five thousand taels of silver she had saved by selling her jewelry and let him dedicate it to Chongzhen. However, Zhou Kui privately withheld two thousand taels and only dedicated the remaining three thousand taels to the imperial court. The other noble officials were also willing to donate only a little bit of silver, and in the end the silver raised was only tens of thousands of taels, which was still far from what was needed.

Faced with such a situation, Chongzhen knew that Da Ming's qi had been exhausted! Once again, he made up the idea of retreating to Nanjing!