"Because Wu Sangui has had some activities recently, he still has some private correspondence with me." Deng Ming explained that two letters from Wu Sangui were transferred from Myanmar recently, and Yang told Deng Ming that Wu Sangui secretly sent an envoy to Burma to contact him, saying that as long as the Yongli court could control Li Dingguo and not attack his Guizhou, then he was also willing to coexist peacefully with the Ming army.

Kunming also encountered a similar thing, although Li Dingguo did not inform Deng Ming of the details, but it seems that Wu Sangui also had a secret letter exchange with him. And this time Wu Sangui finally came to the west of Sichuan, and the Guiyang envoy who came to see Deng Ming not long ago claimed to be Xia Guoxiang's henchman, and also held a charcoal sketch as a token - after Deng Ming recognized his work, he also believed in the identity of the person who came.

"Wu thief ......" Gong Yan is not young, and he gave Deng Ming the impression that he has an open-minded personality and can see most of the world's conditions, but when Wu Sangui is mentioned, Gong Yan's face shows a deep hatred - Liu Tichun also has a similar reaction, Yuan Zongdi is not as strong as Liu Tichun and Gong Yan, but there are some. Those two were military generals, Deng Ming felt that their city government was relatively shallow, and he might still be haunted by the defeat of the camp more than ten years ago, but he didn't expect Gong Yan to still have such a strong dislike for Wu Sangui, and it seemed to be ten times better than Yuan Zongdi.

"Let the old man guess." Gong Yan didn't immediately explain the reason, but quickly asked: "Does Guogong think that he already knows the bottom line of the Wu thief, or does he think that he has figured out something—it may be a woman, a treasure, or a title—is the most important thing for the Wu thief?" And the old man estimates that now Guogong has a feeling of 'Wu thief is nothing more than this', feeling that he is small, greedy and stingy, the old man is not wrong, right? ”

Deng Ming was stunned when he heard this, and now he does feel a little like this.

In the letter forwarded by Yang from Burma, Wu Sangui mentioned his vassal fiefdom, implying that the Qing Dynasty could recognize his Ping Xibo, who was the orthodox son of heaven, recognized his current throne and valued the rights and interests of his vassal state as a matter of course; Although Kunming did not explain in detail, the King of Jin also mentioned that if Wu Sangui repented and was willing to change his past wrongs, the necessary compensation should be given, and Deng Ming probably referred to the problem of the vassal state; And this time, the secret envoy of the Xia State Minister came to Chengdu, and the letter to Deng Ming once again mentioned Guizhou, and the Xia State said that if the emperor returned to Shenjing after expelling the Tartars—this is of course certain, then Guizhou should be left to Wu Sangui, and Yunnan should be rewarded—at that time, the King of Jin would definitely not look down on this pimple territory.

Seeing that Wu Sangui was obsessed with Yungui, Deng Ming felt angry and funny, and the king of Pingxi was also a person who enjoyed a great name in his previous life, who would have thought that he was so much like a rich man, biting a fief was like holding meat, and he refused to say anything when he died.

"That's right," Deng Ming nodded, and told Gong Yan all the content of King Pingxi and his correspondence, and faintly, Deng Ming had a bad premonition.

"This old thief!" Gong Yan scolded hatefully again, but there was no trace of surprise on his face, or the slightest disdain for a small family like Wu Sangui, only a deep hatred, as if he had expected such a situation to occur: "It's exactly the same as twenty years ago." ”

"Twenty years ago?" Deng Ming immediately realized that it was the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and it also had two names, namely the first year of Yongchang and the first year of Shunzhi. In just a few dozen days after Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he suffered a fiasco and retreated to Shaanxi. In the past, Deng Ming once asked Liu Tichun, an eyewitness, about this big war that determined the situation in the world, and the answer he got was only a simple sentence: "We were attacked by Tartars and Wu thieves", in addition to this sentence, Liu Tichun did not have a second sentence, Deng Ming saw that the other party could not let go at all, and naturally he would not continue to ask, although he was very interested in the history of this war.

Seeing that Gong Yan might talk about the battle of a stone, Deng Ming waited patiently and did not make any urging. In Deng Ming's previous life, most historical researchers believe that this shows Dolgon's eloquence, as early as when Li Zicheng arrived in Shanxi, Dolgon announced to the Eight Banners that it was Li Zicheng's group that was now competing with the Manchu Qing for the world. But in order to paralyze Li Zicheng, Dolgon also wrote a letter to Li Zicheng, claiming that he was willing to join forces with the rebels to defeat Chongzhen. And Li Zicheng, who was not far-sighted enough, was really scheming and defenseless against the Manchu Qing, so there was a sudden attack by the Qing army at Shanhaiguan and the sudden collapse of the Shun army. Events that do not conform to this narrative have been ignored by Manchu historians, either intentionally or unintentionally, such as Dorgon's reaction to the letter from the Shun army's side, and the Shun army's reply to it.

Deng Ming naturally didn't know anything about this, and after a while, Gong Yan didn't immediately explain the battle of Shanhaiguan, but asked Deng Ming's impression, and Deng Ming immediately honestly said his true thoughts: "King Chuang should have been a little careless at that time." ”

"It turns out that Guogong also sees it this way, but it's no wonder." Gong Yan nodded: "Is the prince really nothing to do with the emperor?" ”

Deng Ming knew that when Gong Yan was talking in private, the word "emperor" could only refer to Li Zicheng, and when he heard Gong Yan ask this question again, Deng Ming smiled bitterly: "How many times has Mr. Gong asked about this matter?" I really have no relationship with King Chuang. ”

"On March 19 of the first year of Yongchang, King Chuang entered Beijing, and three days later, that is, on the 22nd," Gong Yan finally began to tell the story of that year: "Wu Sangui wrote the first letter to his Lao Tzu, the content of which was probably to ask us if we had broken through Beijing, whether his family had left the city, and instructed him not to bring more silver, and it ......was best to bury it all in the ground."

"At this juncture, we are still discussing whether to bring silver," Deng Mingshu said with a smile: "Is Mr. Gong joking?" ”

As a marshal and a prince, at this critical juncture, he did not carefully inquire about the political situation in Beijing, but instead told his father not to flee with too much silver, or to bury it...... If it weren't for the fact that he already knew a little about Gong Yan in the past two days, Deng Ming would almost think that this was spreading rumors to bury Wu Sangui.

"At that time, when I saw Wu Sangui's letter, the emperor couldn't help but laugh, Pingzhang shook his head and cried and laughed, and there were many people who laughed, thinking that Wu thief was simple-minded and easy to deal with." Gong Yan didn't have the slightest smile on his face, and continued: "The most ridiculous thing is that at the end of Wu Sangui's letter, it is, 'Pray to Zhu and Concubine Chen, the son is very strong, ask Yi to be patient. That's the last sentence. ”

Deng Ming thought in his heart, "Concubine Chen" must be the beauty Chen Yuanyuan who will be passed down to future generations, I don't know who Concubine Zhu is, but Wu Sangui didn't forget to tell the beauties in the family to pet the concubine when the family and the future were at stake, where is this still like a hero? It's obviously just a gentleman.

Immediately followed by a letter sent back at the same time, which said that after the previous letter was sealed, he learned that the emperor had 400,000 soldiers and horses, and told him Lao Tzu that such a powerful force was not something he could resist, so he planned to surrender, and asked him what Lao Tzu thought. And the last sentence of this letter is the same as the one just now. Gong Yan once again quoted the original text of Wu Sangui's letter, instead of explaining it in his own words, after so many years, Gong Yan still remembered these two sentences in Wu Sangui's letter, which shows how deep the impression was on him at that time: "Is Concubine Chen An?" I miss it very much! ”

If the owner of this anecdote was someone else, Deng Ming would have laughed out loud at this moment, and in just two sentences, a vulgar and dumb image was about to come out.

"And then?" Deng Ming remembered that in the history books he had read, there were many people who thought that Li Zicheng robbed Chen Yuanyuan, and some people said that it was Liu Zongmin, and some people even made round songs in order to ridicule Wu Sangui, calling him "a red face when he is angry at the crown". Deng Ming couldn't tell what was going on with this matter, so he asked Gong Yan: "What happened to Concubine Chen?" ”

"Wu Thief had 30,000 Liao soldiers at that time, and his strength was still above Jiang Ping, Tang Tong and others who had surrendered to the emperor, what did Guogong think the emperor would do? Long before entering Beijing, we knew about this concubine Chen, and the emperor explained before entering Beijing that this is a character who must not have an accident. Gong Yan told Deng Ming that after Li Zicheng entered the city on the 19th, he immediately ordered sixteen women to be sent to the palace - Li Zicheng did not live in the palace at this time, he left before dark, and these sixteen women were handed over to the care of the eunuchs in the heavily guarded palace to avoid accidents: "If the old man is not mistaken, Wu Chen handed over to Wang Yongzhang, the eunuch of Chongzhen, to be responsible, and the idle people did not want to get closer." ”

On the 25th, Wu Sangui surrendered, presented a letter of surrender, and handed over Shanhaiguan to the men and horses sent by the emperor to march to Beijing; On the 27th, Wu Sangui returned to his division at night, attacked the emperor's officials and recaptured Shanhaiguan, and then wrote a letter to his father: 'The day before yesterday, Liu Zongmin plundered Concubine Chen...... Woohoo lament, I can't see you again in this life, so I have raised troops to kill all the thieves, and I have borrowed troops from the Qing State to ......" When Gong Yan recited Wu Sangui's letter here, after hearing the word Qing Guo, Deng Ming's face changed, but Gong Yan continued to recite: "I was going to drive straight in, I was afraid that Concubine Chen might have gone home, or Liu Zongmin knew that it was a concubine, and she did not rape and kill, so she surrendered to recruit her son. ”

After listening to this letter, Deng Ming couldn't help but sigh, probably this is the origin of "Chong Guan is angry and red-faced", but listening to Gong Yan say this, it seems to be just a misunderstanding, Li Zicheng obviously protected Chen Yuanyuan very well: "Why don't you send someone to tell Wu Sangui the truth immediately?" ”

"What does the Duke mean?" Gong Yan's face showed a look of confusion.

"Why didn't King Chuang immediately send someone to see Wu Sangui and let him know that his concubine Chen was safe and sound?" If it weren't for the fear that Gong Yan would not be able to come to the stage, Deng Mingdu wanted to ask if Li Zicheng really included Chen Yuanyuan in his harem, otherwise how could such a simple thing not be done.

"Of course I informed ......" Gong Yan blurted out, and then realized what the problem was: "Guogong thinks that Wu Sangui has defected to the Tartars?" ”

"yes, he's surrendered, then rebelled, and so on." Deng Ming also realized what the problem was, and he had the impression that Wu Sangui surrendered and rebelled once: "Could it be that Wu Sangui surrendered to King Chuang again?" ”

"Of course," Gong Yan replied loudly, asking rhetorically: "Does Guogong think that Wu Sangui only repeated it once?" ”

"King Chuang has been in Beijing for more than forty days," Deng Ming asked in surprise, "How many times has Wu Sangui repeated?" ”

Gong Yan stretched out three fingers and shook them in front of Deng Ming's eyes: "Three times!" This was after the first surrender! And after this rebellion, the emperor, Pingzhang, and all the generals, including me, all thought that Wu Sangui's matter was too easy to do, and just return the concubine Chen to him. I don't know if Guogong feels very familiar, I don't know if Guogong thought before that he had figured out the details of Wu Sangui, Yungui was his lifeline, as long as Yungui was given to him, he could be subdued. ”

"And then he surrendered and rebelled again?" Deng Ming was dumbfounded.

"Yes, this is the second time, on April 1, Wu Sangui received the letter and cheered the envoy sent by the emperor, handed over Shanhaiguan to the emperor's officials again, and led the army to Beijing to see the emperor again. On April 3, after the envoy parted with him one step ahead of him, he returned to Beijing to report that the emperor had finished his work. As a result, on April 4, the envoy had just left Wu Thief...... "Gong Yan's next words brought out a stone completely different from Deng Ming's impression, a fierce game and contest between Li Zicheng, Dolgon, and Wu Sangui that he had never heard of.