When Chongzhen was sacrificing the dead soldiers in Liaodong, the soldiers defending the city on the arrow tower of Desheng Gate and Xizhi Gate suddenly saw a large group of people rushing towards the capital. They immediately reported to the city gate lang and the internal officials who guarded the two gates.

However, these soldiers who came to call the police found that the city gate lang and internal officials who were supposed to be on duty in the city tower were gone, and they immediately panicked.

Each gate of Beijing City is a comprehensive defensive complex composed of city towers, arrow towers, gate towers and urn cities, etc., and then cooperate with the moat and city wall outside the city to form a solid defense line.

The height of the walls of Beijing is not uniform, but the northeast corner is more than 7 meters high on the outside and more than 5 meters high on the inside.

The arrow towers protruding from the outer side to protect the city gate are nearly 20 meters above the city walls on both sides, and sit on a large city platform covered with bricks.

In order to facilitate defense, the city platform is 5 or 6 meters higher than the city walls of the urn city on both sides, and from the outside of the city, from the ground to the top of the arrow tower, it is at least 5 times the height of the city wall.

The plane of the arrow tower is like a trapezoid, the long side faces the outside of the city wall for more than 30 meters, the short side faces the inner side of the urn city for about 20 meters, and the depth is nearly 20 meters.

The arrow tower is divided into 4 floors, and there are 82 arrow windows on the other three sides, except for the open entrance on the side facing the urn city.

The distance between the arrow tower and the city gate tower is about 110 meters, and two city walls are built in the shape of an arc on both sides of the arrow tower to protect the city gate in the urn city. Two small gates were opened on each side of the urn city, and there was a gate tower on it, and the two walls were about 70 meters apart.

The width of the top of the wall is basically the same, about 10 meters. In addition to the majestic fortifications of the city gates, there are enemy platforms built at intervals, and corner towers at the corners of the city walls.

Generally speaking, even if any enemy army runs to the city of Beijing and sees the true face of the city, they will dispel the idea of storming.

Whether it was first or not, Altan Khan, they had attacked this place before, but under the protection of this wall, the two monarchs of the steppe finally gave up the attack and returned with their subordinates.

But in the end, it was people who needed to defend the city, not a wall. Jingshi has nine gates of the inner city, seven gates of the outer city, and four gates of the imperial city, a total of 20 gates.

During the Taizu period, the four gates of the imperial city were set up as the main gate and the deputy gate, and the internal officials served as the imperial officials. After Yongle, the power of the eunuchs rose sharply, and the imperial officials began to meddle in the affairs of the outer city.

In the Chenghua period, Chen Liang, the eunuch of the internal official, served as the commander of the nine gates of the capital and the four gates of the imperial city for the first time, and since then, most of the prevention and prohibition of the gates of the capital have fallen into the hands of the inner supervisor.

The nine gates of the inner city are rated at 3,759 soldiers, the seven gates of the outer city are rated at 3,104 soldiers, and the four gates of the imperial city are rated at more than 8,000 soldiers.

However, the politics of the late Ming Dynasty also did not make the guards of the various gates of the capital a pure land, according to the fixation, the internal officials of the Admiral Nine Gates and the internal officials of the guards of each gate have a little military power, that is, they legally select a part of the soldiers as their military companions, which can be used as personal soldiers or as free servants.

In the last years of Emperor Wanli, Xue Sancai, the secretary of the military department, pointed out that 4,332 of the 6,800 sergeants in 16 gates inside and outside the capital were occupied by internal officials for private service.

Although the internal officials of the Admiral Nine Gates were deposed afterwards, the situation did not change in practice.

Originally, there were 16 gates inside and outside, each with more than 200 guards guarding the door, but now there are only 5 or 60 old and weak soldiers left.

Although the person in charge of the access control is the minister who guards the door, it is the Governor's Office of the Chinese Army who is in charge of the bronze medal of the lock key of the nine gates, and according to the Ming Dynasty's system of size and size, the principle of governing the upper and lower phases, there is also a military director who is responsible for the inspection twice a month.

It can be said that the management of the nine gates inside and outside Beijing is not a unified power, and the result of the decentralization of power is that when the city gate lang and internal officials of Desheng Gate and Xizhi Gate disappeared, these soldiers who defended the city suddenly lost their ideas.

If there are enemy troops outside, they can naturally close the door and warn. But outside are all Beijing soldiers from the northern suburbs, if they rashly issue an alarm, but it is only a false alarm, I am afraid that the first person to cut off his head afterwards is the person who called the police.

The guards of the two city gates coincidentally chose the same way and sent someone to ask Xu Yingyuan, the commander of the Nine Gates in the imperial city, for instructions.

When Zhu Youzhen's sacrifice was about to be completed, an attendant hurriedly ran into the square in front of the altar.

After a while, Wang Chengen ran to Chongzhen's side in small steps and told Chongzhen a bad news, some soldiers in the Beijing camp were dissatisfied with their dismissal, and they were pouring into the capital to intercede with the emperor and abolish the new policy and restore the old system.

"Did the battalion officer of the battalion in the northern suburbs and the chief officer of the Rong government send any news? How many people are making trouble? Where did they enter the capital, and where are they going? Did they bring weapons? ”

Zhu Youzhen's series of questions suddenly made Wang Chengen stammer, and he paused for a while before saying: "It was the news sent by Xu Yingyuan, and it only said that there were many people, at least tens of thousands." They came in from Desheng Gate and Xizhi Gate, and it was not said whether they had weapons or not, and there was no news from other places. ”

Zhu Youzhen said calmly: "Send someone to find out, and order Xu Yingyuan to guard the four gates of the imperial city, don't act rashly, if you let the rebels rush into the imperial city, he will wipe his neck." Then send people to patrol the police station and the fire station, and let them guard the arsenal and weapons workshops in the capital, so that people don't take advantage of the chaos to grab weapons and armor. ”

Almost when Chongzhen received the news, Huang Liji, Shi Fenglai, and Zhang Ruitu, who were on duty in the cabinet, also received the news of the chaos in Beijing.

Huang Liji ordered the subordinate officials of the Rong government to persuade these troublesome soldiers to return to the camp, and on the other hand, he ordered Yu Shigao to gather the soldiers in the city to prepare for quelling the rebellion.

Then Huang Liji asked Shi Fenglai to go to the outer city immediately, take Chongzhen back to the imperial city, and let the military department Shangshu Wang Zaijin lead the officers of the Beijing battalion who were sacrificing to pacify the rebellious soldiers who entered the capital.

Although the Jingying Mutiny was instigated by the Marquis of Funing and other nobles, because Chongzhen cleaned up the establishment of the Beijing camp, the occupation of the tuntian of the Gyeonggi Guard, and the restructuring of the Changlu Salt Farm, the financial resources of these nobles were cut off one by one.

But behind this mutiny, the internal officials in the palace who lost their power because of the reform of the yamen also silently contributed to the trouble, and the supervising ministers in the capital camp and at the city gate were transferred, giving the nobles the convenience of inciting the mutiny.

As for Yuan Chonghuan and other Donglin party members, they thought of simply taking the opportunity of the mutiny in Beijing to attract the Guanning army outside the Guanxi to come to Beijing to purge the remnants of the eunuch party in the DPRK and China, and completely control the government in their own hands.

Under these intricate entanglements of interests, the soldiers of the Beijing camp, who had lost their control, were finally instigated by the hundred households and the general banner attached to the noble sect, and they clamored to go to the emperor to reason.

Except for those officers who participated in the sacrifice, the other high-ranking officers who were supposed to be guarding the camp in the northern suburbs suddenly disappeared.

Nearly 30,000 soldiers of the Beijing battalion came to the capital. In order to prevent being locked out of the capital, the soldiers were divided into three routes, rushing towards Andingmen, Deshengmen, and Xizhimen.

In addition to the city gate Lang of Xizhi Gate, after receiving the report from the soldiers, he closed the city gate as soon as possible, and the other two city gates were pushed away by the soldiers of the Beijing camp because no one was in charge, and rushed into the city.

If the Marquis of Funing and other nobles wanted to launch a real coup d'état and carry out a change of throne, they had already succeeded for the most part. Because as long as you enter the inner city, basically it is just a psychological problem to capture the imperial city, after all, the * factory and the ordnance bureau are in the inner city.

However, today, after nearly a hundred years of civilian suppression, most nobles have long lost the idea of making a difference in politics.

They took such a risk to incite the soldiers of the Beijing camp to make trouble, and all they wanted was to get Chongzhen to agree to restore the old system.

In order to prevent these troublemakers from losing control and sacking the inner city and threatening their lives and property, they even asked the troublemakers not to carry any weapons.

So when this mutiny first began, it looked more like a parade. Some people on Xizhimen Street and Deshengmen Street were still curiously standing on the side of the road and watching, wanting to see what these soldiers wanted to do.

Beijing has not been at war for decades, and the people have lost their vigilance against danger.

No one knows how this soldiers' march, which seemed harmonious at first, turned into a riot that followed.

Afterwards, the investigation report submitted by Jinyiwei and Dongchang said: A soldier in front of Chongxuanguan stole a pair of shoes, which attracted the reluctance of the shop guys, and finally there was a fight, and the soldiers robbed the store that made shoes, and the riot began.

The other said: A newlywed couple who were offering incense at the Huguo Temple were reprimanded by their husband, who was a scholar, because several soldiers looked at their wives rudely, and ordered the servants to seize several soldiers and send them to the camp for severe punishment, which angered the soldiers.

All in all, when the riots broke out, the officers, who had no binding force on the soldiers, quickly lost control of the situation.

The procession that had been marching towards Chang'an Avenue also stopped, and groups of soldiers began to disperse and rush into the markets on both sides to rob.

The mutinous soldiers of the Beijing camp, who were originally gathered together, were soon scattered in the square area north of Fuchengmen Street and west of Jishuitan.

After all, these soldiers in Beijing are just a group of ruffians who have never been on the battlefield, and they still have a fear of law and power in their hearts. They did not dare to kill or set fires, but only relied on the large number of people to rob the residents and shops, and they also timidly avoided the mansions of the high-ranking families.

Soon, however, some of the green-skinned thugs on the streets took advantage of the chaos to join in the looting of civilians. These people have always done some unsightly things for the powerful and powerful, and their reverence for the laws of the Ming Dynasty and the imperial court in their hearts is much less than that of the soldiers in the Beijing camp.

With their joining, there was finally bloodshed and arson in the northwestern squares of the capital. At this time, Zhu Youzhen finally understood the current situation in the inner city.