The news of Emperor Chongzhen's determination to personally conquer the palace has been spread all over the palace and the capital since it was arbitrarily decided at the Jianji Palace court meeting.

The public opinion of Jingshi is also impressively divided into two distinct categories.

The common people of the Beijing division and the officers and men of the Beijing camp were all cheering and excited.

Because the last time the people of Beijing witnessed the grand occasion of the Ming Emperor's personal expedition, it was more than a hundred years ago when Emperor Zhengde was in power.

Emperor Zhengde personally conquered Saibei twice in his life, and his opponents were the legendary Tatar prince Boyan Mengke, that is, Dayan Khan, who later unified Mongolia, and now the grandfather of Lin Dan Khan's grandfather.

The first time was the twelfth year of Zhengde, that is, in 1517 AD, Boyan Mengke led an army of 50,000 to storm Datong, after the Zhengde Emperor heard the news, he soon called himself "the mighty general Zhu Shou", completely ignoring the opposition of the cabinet and the Manchu ministers, and personally led the army to the west out of Juyong Pass.

And the most rare thing is that Emperor Zhengde's personal expedition actually won a battle.

Boyan Mengke, who led the army to storm Datong, did not know the reality of Emperor Zhengde at all, but heard that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty personally led the army, so he withdrew and left Datong, and then under the pursuit of Emperor Zhengde's army, he escaped all the way out of the pass and fled to the north.

And the army of Emperor Zhengde also made some gains in the pursuit.

Of course, the biggest result was to scare away the little Tatar prince Boyan Mengke and relieve the siege of Datong.

At the end of this four-month-long pro-conquest and the return of Emperor Zhengde to Beijing, the cabinet ministers and Manchu officials were angry with the emperor, and no one went out of the city to greet him, as if there was no such thing.

But despite this, Emperor Zhengde didn't care.

Especially after the victory of this personal expedition, Emperor Zhengde seemed to have tasted the sweetness, and in the autumn of the thirteenth year of Zhengde, he once again led the army to conquer the north in the name of the mighty general Zhu Shou.

This time, he even went out of the Great Wall and ran farther.

And the time is longer than the first time, Zhengde left Beijing in the autumn of the thirteenth year, and returned in the early summer of the fourteenth year of Zhengde, which lasted for more than nine months.

However, this time Emperor Zhengde drove his own expedition, and the little Tatar prince fled when he heard the wind and always avoided direct contact with the Ming army.

Emperor Zhengde led the Ming army to search for half a year on the desert in northern Saibei, but did not find any trace of Boyan Mengke, so he had to return in vain.

It was on the way back from this class that Emperor Zhengde was proud of his heroic feats, and he decreed that the mighty general Zhu Shou was named "the mighty general of Taishi Zhenguogong".

Emperor Zhengde's freewheeling and wanton behavior gave his cabinet and ministers a headache but there was nothing he could do.

This also illustrates a problem, within the ruling system of the Ming Dynasty, the ultimate source of the power of all officials is imperial power.

Whether it is a eunuch, a nobleman, or a civil official, after the emperor completely does not follow the routine and does not abide by the so-called rules, they have no way to restrain the imperial power at all.

Even those civil bureaucratic groups, which have always competed with the imperial power because of institutional arrangements, are not monolithic at all, and it is difficult to form a monolith.

There will always be some intelligent civil officials who can see the essence of the power in their hands, so as to compromise and retreat to the imperial power and get their own benefits from it.

This is also the reason why Emperor Zhengde was so arbitrary and reckless in history, and the courtiers had no other way but to protest and protest.

However, after Emperor Zhengde, the Ming Dynasty has never had such an interesting emperor as Emperor Zhengde.

The emperors after Zhengde, whether it was Emperor Jiajing or Emperor Wanli, in their hundreds of years of rule, although they also did a lot of big things, and even there were all kinds of "ridiculous things", but they never left Jingshi again, let alone conquered outside the country like Emperor Zhengde.

Because of this, the power of the civilian clique continues to expand, and outside the Forbidden City, it can only rely on the civilian clique to rule.

The less the emperor was in charge and the less he was involved in affairs, the more power the civil bureaucracy wilted.

It's almost a certainty.

The current Emperor Chongzhen does not want to become an emperor who sits in the Forbidden City all day long, otherwise how can his ideals, his ambitions, and his various plans to transform and recast this empire be implemented?

After the end of the great court meeting of the Jiji Palace, the news of the emperor's personal expedition came out, and the military and civilian people inside and outside the capital were jubilant.

For more than 100 years, there has been no more royal driving and personal expedition, and it has quickly become a topic of conversation among the people on the streets and alleys.

However, unlike the jubilation outside the palace walls of the Forbidden City, in the Kunning Palace, the concubines of Emperor Chongzhen gathered together rarely, but everyone was sad and worried about the safety of the emperor's trip.

After the court meeting was dispersed, Emperor Chongzhen once again brought the cabinet ministers and the relevant personnel of the Household Department and the Military Aircraft Department to the Wuying Hall to discuss various matters related to the personal conquest and defense of the enemy, and it was not until dinner that all the major matters that should be decided by the emperor were decided.

When the meeting in the Wuying Palace ended, Emperor Chongzhen took his ministers to Kunning Palace, and saw that the queen and the concubines of each palace were there, so he had to eat dinner while spending some more words, and painstakingly explained to them in detail why there must be no surprise or danger when going to Juyong Pass this time.

In the end, Emperor Chongzhen put down the dishes and chopsticks and said to Empress Zhou: "I will go to Juyongguan to sit in charge, and the affairs of the palace will leave Wang Chengen and others to assist you."

"As for the affairs outside the palace, I have also made proper arrangements, Gong Yonggu, the commander of the Horse Commander, and Liu Wenbing, the commander of the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses, are credible, and in addition, the first assistant of the cabinet, Li Guowei, and the Minister of Military Aircraft, Zhang Weixian, the British Gong, will also stay in Beijing.

"With these few people assisting the queen in charge, Jingshi will definitely be fine. Even if there is something, I am in Juyong Pass, only a hundred miles away from the Beijing Division, and the army is just around the corner, the queen and the concubines don't have to worry about anything, you can rest assured that I will return! ”

That night, Emperor Chongzhen stayed in Kunning Palace, and with another relief, the queen no longer objected.

However, the next day, Emperor Chongzhen had just sent someone out of the palace to summon a few important ministers into the palace to discuss matters, and he saw Wang Chengen, the chief eunuch of the Qianqing Palace, hurriedly taking Li Ruolian, the commander of Yu Linwei, to meet him.

It turned out that early in the morning, from three o'clock in the morning, the Yulin guards on duty at Duanmen found that some officials were assembled in the square outside Duanmen.

Around the end of the hour, the officials in the square outside the end gate came one after another, gathering more and more, and the officials of the Ministry and the Taoist Temple in Beijing were among them.

Li Ruolian, who had never experienced such a thing, originally thought that these people were just waiting for the emperor who was about to drive the emperor to summon him or inspect the emperor's guard of honor, and he didn't take it too seriously.

After all, the place of Duanmen is the place where the emperor's full-width chariot guard supplies are stored.

Whenever the emperor leaves the palace, goes out on patrol, returns to Luan, or holds a ceremony, he must come out of Duanmen after leaving the palace, and he must have a ceremony at Duanmen.

This is a rule set by Ming Chengzu after he moved the capital to Beijing.

Ming Chengzu's five personal expeditions to Mobei were all like this.

However, as more and more courtiers and Beijing officials gathered outside Duanmen, Li Ruolian, who had never experienced such strong winds and waves, quickly realized that something was going to happen, and then immediately rushed to the Qianqing Palace.

Wang Chengen had just sent someone to deliver the decree and came back, and as soon as the two said to each other, Wang Chengen immediately led Li Ruolian to meet Emperor Chongzhen.

After listening to Li Ruolian's slightly nervous and flustered report, Emperor Chongzhen was expressionless, and just sighed long.

Is this the so-called "forced palace" in the legend?