The Shandong Righteous Army was in full swing in attacking the city, and new county towns were captured every day. After doing such a big thing privately, I don't know what kind of impact it will have on Chen Yue, the Duke of Qi, while capturing Dengzhou, Wu Ping sent a sea ship to report to Nagasaki, the Japanese state, to report his actions to Chen Yue, and ask for instructions on the next step.

The monsoon comes from the southeast, but it is due east and it is not a complete headwind, the Damingfu ships are equipped with longitudinal sails, as long as it is not completely upwind, there is no problem, but the speed will be very slow, from Dengzhou to Nagasaki for half a month, I am afraid that it will not be able to arrive, and I am afraid that it will be winter when Chen Yue's order comes back.

However, after doing such a big thing, Wu Ping did not dare to conceal Chen Yue, regardless of the wrong wind direction and current, he still sent a sea ship to report to the Wa State.

Wu Ping also did not know about the impending civil strife in the Manchu court, and considering the ensuing suppression of the Manchu Eight Banners, it would be very difficult for these untrained troops to hold Shandong. Wu Ping then sent a letter to the Nanjing court, asking the court to send troops to aid Shandong.

Wu Ping didn't know that at this time, the Nanjing court was falling into violent fluctuations. Lu Zhenfei's troops defeated Xingyang, and more than half of the 200,000 troops were lost. You must know that these 200,000 troops are the only elite of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and among them, there are tens of thousands of Pingnan troops trained hard by Chen Yue, the Duke of Qi, and now more than half of them have been lost in the first battle! Not only did they not have the ability to continue the Northern Expedition to recover the northern territories, but now the Ming Dynasty was worried that the Qing army would go south again.

And having lost so many troops, now it is impossible to even deter the remnants of the thieves in the Kuizhou area.

It is reported that after the thief Li Guogao's troops arrived at the Yangtze River from Sichuan, Li Zicheng's empress Gao, Yuan Zongdi, Tian Jianxiu, and other remnants had arrived in Kuizhou to join Li Guo, supporting Li Zicheng's younger brother and trying to rebuild Dashun, with the intention of waving his army to attack Jingzhou. For this reason, the imperial court had to borrow the Hao Shaoqi Department that returned to the Ming Dynasty, but Hao Shaoqi's Department was inextricably linked with the thieves, and he might betray the Ming Dynasty at any time. At that time, I am afraid that the entire Huguang will no longer be owned by the Ming Dynasty.

More than 100,000 remnants of the Shun army were ready to move, cutting off the river from Huguang to Sichuan, so that the Ming court and Sichuan had lost contact, and most of the entire Sichuan fell into the hands of Zhang Xianzhong, but fortunately, it was reported that Zhang Xianzhong did not plan to go out of Sichuan to attack Huguang in Guizhou, but had plans to attack Hanzhong Guanzhong in the north.

The situation in the Ming Dynasty is so critical, compared to the fall of Beijing when Chongzhen was in a hurry, and the culprit Lu Zhenfei, who caused all this, was criticized by the entire court officials, intending to put all the blame on Lu Zhenfei.

Of course, everyone knows that the defeat of this battle is responsible from Emperor Chongzhen to the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty.

It was they who looked at the good form and thought that the defeat of the Qing army was in sight, and they shouted one by one to send troops to the Northern Expedition. And Chongzhen is an anxious person, and he also wants to be able to restore the old land and the shame of the snow country as soon as possible. Completely ignoring the fact that the Ming army's combat strength was weak, it was not clear at all that the reason why the Qing army was able to defeat the two routes not long ago was not because of how strong the Ming army was, but because of the geographical advantage of occupying the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River.

Originally, the best candidate for the commander of the Northern Expedition was Chen Yue, the Duke of Qi, but out of various psychology, from the emperor to the ministers, they all advocated letting Chen Yue be filial piety to his father, and no one was willing to speak out to let Chen Yue regain his love. Perhaps in everyone's opinion, after the defeat of the Manchu Qing army, the general trend has gone, and there is no problem at all for the Ming army's northern expedition to recover the old land, with or without Chen Yue.

However, the truth slapped them in the face, and in the face of the defeat, everyone panicked and hurriedly shirked their responsibilities.

Naturally, someone has to bear the responsibility for the defeat, but at this moment, all the courtiers did not mention that they had rushed to shout about the Northern Expedition regardless of the situation, and they all put the responsibility on poor Lu Zhenfei.

As for Lu Zhenfei, he can't shirk the responsibility, after all, it was under his command that caused the defeat of the Ming army, and he needs to bear the responsibility for the unfavorable command anyway.

In the past, most of the defeated Inspectors did not end well. Yang Hao, Liu Ce, Yuan Chonghuan, Sun Yuanhua, Xiong Wencan, which of these governors and supervisors who were defeated in the past had a good end?

But in the face of Lu Zhenfei, Chongzhen was unbearable, because the reason why he was able to ascend the throne in Nanjing again, Lu Zhenfei actually made a great contribution, without the help of the Huai'an regiment training camp trained by Lu Zhenfei, only with the two or three thousand Pingnan army under Chen Yue at that time, it would definitely not be able to defeat the warlords who supported King Fu.

And there are not too many ministers in the court who can lead troops, don't look at the many Donglin Party civil officials jumping up and down and shouting, but in fact, they can't do things at all, Chongzhen knows this.

However, the responsibility for the defeat of the army still has to be borne, Chongzhen issued an order, dismissed Lu Zhenfei from all official positions, wore brocade clothes and Weisuo into Beijing, and was convicted by the Criminal Department, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and the three halls of Dali Temple.

Lu Zhenfei was dealt with, but Chongzhen did not dare to deal with Jin Shenghuan, Yu Feng, Li Chengdong and other generals easily, because he was afraid that these generals would use their troops to make chaos and cause the situation to be out of control. Instead, it was just an order to reprimand, demote and make meritorious contributions, punish you to see the after-effects, and punish small punishments and admonishment things.

In order to prevent the Qing troops from going south, Chongzhen promoted Zheng Sen, the prefect of Jiujiang, to be the governor of Xiangyang, the capital of the Imperial Palace, and ordered him to lead the headquarters to be stationed in Xiangyang and embankment the Qing army to the south. At the same time, He Tengjiao, the governor of Huguang, was appointed as the superintendent, in charge of the military affairs of Huguang, Jiangxi, Sichuan, and Henan provinces, and fully presided over the remaining bandits in Kuizhou.

At the same time, Hao Shaoqi was crowned as the Marquis of Nan'an, and he was given the name of allegiance, hoping that he could be loyal to the Ming Dynasty and not have two hearts. Ordered Hao Shaoqi to lead his headquarters out of Wuchang to Jingzhou to block the eastward route of the remaining thieves.

At this moment, a messenger sent by Wu Ping arrived in Nanjing, bringing the news that half of Shandong had been captured and asked the imperial court to send reinforcements.

But at this time, where is there still troops to be sent in the imperial court, and the defeat not long ago has already made the courtiers feel cold, and no one at this time has taken the initiative to ask Ying to lead the troops north. And many feared that continuing to go north would anger the Manchus and prompt them to send troops south again.

As a result, the court was caught in a debate over whether to send troops, and the officials were divided into several factions, arguing endlessly.

Even Chongzhen couldn't make a decision, so he could only send Wang Yongji as the governor of Shandong first, and ordered him to go to Shandong first to lead the rebel army.

Chen Jianghe's death and Chen Yue's southward movement dealt a big blow to Jinyiwei's intelligence work, coupled with Han Zanzhou's Dongchang struggle for power and profit, Jinyiwei couldn't care about sending spies to the north to investigate the situation of the Manchus, and he didn't know anything about the civil strife in the Manchu Dynasty, so the Ming court didn't know that now was a good time to send troops to recover the north. As long as one army is sent, it will be easy to recover the whole of Shandong.

So, the great opportunity was wasted......