*****

The political storm caused by the defeat of Azig continued to expand in Yanjing.

Although Dorgon had dismissed Azig from his post and tried to calm the situation;

But the gravity of the situation exceeded Dorgon's predictions, and the political storm did not ease, but intensified.

Since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, it has never experienced such a heavy defeat.

Not counting the more than 40,000 people that Wang Guangen and Wang Guangtai brothers had just attached, the Manchu and Mongolian banner army led by Azig and Shang Kexi this time plus Wu Sangui's Guanning army totaled more than 60,000 people, and as a result, Zuihou only fled back 14,000 people.

It is almost the total annihilation of the army, and in the face of such heavy casualties, is it enough to hold Azig alone responsible?

Who developed the strategy in the first place? Isn't there a little responsibility?

The Manchus were not monolithic, on the contrary, the power struggle within them was extremely fierce and brutal.

Two years ago, Huang Taiji died suddenly, and eight ministers, including Sony, Aobai, Tulai, Turge, Tan Tai, Baiyintu, He Luohui, and Tazhan, swore in front of the Taizong Temple of the Qing Dynasty that they would do their best to support Baohaoge to come to power.

Sonny, Ao Bai and others also called on the most elite troops of the Zhenghuang Banner, the Bayala soldiers (guards) to guard the palace, shouting: "I know the descendants of the first emperor, I don't know anything else!" "Defend Hauge to the death.

Duoduo and Azig also did not show weakness, and prepared to mobilize the elite of the white flag to attack. The two sides are tense and on the verge of a breakout.

Later, Dolgon retreated and proposed to support the six-year-old Fulin, avoiding a crisis of great schism, and after the regency, the two yellow flags were divided, and Tan Tai, Bai Yintu, and He Luohui defected to Dolgon;

But the problem is far from being completely solved, and the four of Sonny, Aobai, Turai, and Turg have not yet yielded, because they are employing people at the time of entering the customs, and these four ministers are all extremely capable of fighting generals, and Dolgon can't do it for a while. so as not to affect the overall situation;

Now Chebai, Turai, Turg and others are leading large armies to fight abroad, not without the power of a little counterattack.

Prince Zheng Jierharang and Prince Li Daishan, who each held a banner, were also dissatisfied with Dolgon's arbitrariness and arbitrariness, but Dolgon was powerful and never dared to show it.

On the other hand, when Holo rebelled, he falsely accused Haug of "rebellion", and Dorgon, Dord, and Azig all stated that they would put Hauge to death, and Zuihou, because the young Fulin wept and did not eat, Hauge was able to avoid death.

When entering the customs and becoming emperor again. It was the little emperor who proposed to restore Hauge's title.

What does the six- or seven-year-old kid know, Dolgon guessed that someone must have been behind the scenes to encourage the little emperor to keep Haorge in order to make himself scruples;

And this person who instigated behind his back is most likely the Queen Mother Borzigit.

The Borzigit clan seems to be weak and deceitful, but don't forget that she is the daughter of Bel Zhaisang of the Korqin tribe of Mongolia, and she has the support of the Korqin tribe behind her.

If it was really Da Yu'er who instigated the little emperor behind his back, the problem would be even more complicated.

Although the military and political power is now in the hands of Dolgon, the little emperor is after all recognized by everyone and holds the name of righteousness.

If someone gathers the shili who are dissatisfied with Dorgon in the name of the little emperor. With the support of Daishan and Zilharang, the situation will be extremely bad.

The ministers in the court are fighting a war of words every day, and no one dares to point the finger at Dolgon for the time being, but they are not so polite to Fan Wencheng and Ning Wan;

It was they who instigated the entry in the first place. After entering the customs, the strategy was also planned by them with the help of Dolgon, and now that the army has suffered a crushing defeat, the call for punishing these initiators is getting louder and louder, and Fan Wencheng and Ning Wan and I and others do not dare to go to court at all now. Because the words of the previous dynasty were often beaten by the Manchu ministers.

Of course, Dolgon understood that attacking Fan Wencheng and the others was attacking himself, so he tried his best to protect Fan, Ning and the others.

However, now even Duoduo is far away in the south of the Yangtze River. also came to a private message asking Dolgon to exchange Fan Wencheng for the prisoners of the Banner Army.

Dolgon replied to the letter and scolded Duoduo for being a bloody dog, and earnestly advised him to let go of his personal enmity with Fan Wencheng and focus on the overall situation.

The disputes in the court soon spread to the people, and the families of the captured flag soldiers, as many as 20,000 or 30,000 people, went to the palace to ask the court to exchange their families, crying and crying, noisy, and the front of the palace was even more lively than the vegetable market.

And when I woke up in the morning, there were often some leaflets on the streets, including Qin Mu's edict for the founding of the country, a vivid description of Dorgon's adultery with the empress dowager, an accusation about the atrocities of the Yangzhou Massacre, and a discourse on the defeat of the Azig, as well as a discussion of the inevitable defeat of the Manchu Dynasty;

Dolgon ordered a large-scale manhunt for spies, confiscated leaflets, and even ordered martial law in the capital at night, but such leaflets were still banned.

The people were talking in private, the hearts of the people were fluctuating, and the revolt caused by the shaving order had just been suppressed by the bloody massacre, and it was stirred up again;

The number of Manchus assassinated outside the city suddenly increased, and the subsequent retaliatory killings by the Tatars further exacerbated the antagonism between the Manchus and the Hans.

The air outside the city has become very tense, and the inner city has also led Han people to go in and sell some things, but now it is also banned, and the inner city has become a city that is difficult for Han people to set foot in.

In the face of diplomatic difficulties, Dolgon lifted Gannan out of the prison of the Criminal Department, where Gannan suffered a lot of torture, but he was not afraid;

He was ordered to come this time, in exchange for the family members of the Guanning army, the main purpose was to carry out political blackmail, and this purpose has been achieved.

Gan Nan straightened his robe and said calmly, "Has the regent decided to kill the envoy?" ”

There was no emotional fluctuation on Dorgon's face, and a man in his early thirties, who looked more calm than a man in his fifties and sixties, asked coldly, "Do you think this king really dares not kill you?" ”

"If the regent decides to kill me, it just means that the regent has a weak heart."

"This king has killed as many people as a cow, not one of you, you don't have to talk nonsense, let's talk about quid pro quo."

Gan Nan smiled indifferently, found a chair to sit down, and then replied in a good time: "It is difficult for the regent to worry a lot, and his memory has deteriorated, and the conditions of the exchange have been made early in the morning, and now what the envoy wants to tell the regent is that the regent can not agree to my king's conditions, but bargaining is never allowed." ”

"In that case, what's the use of keeping you in this book, come, push it out and cut it off."

"The regent doesn't have to scare the envoy, and the envoy isn't scared. In this private room, I am not afraid to tell the regent that in fact, my king does not care too much about whether he can exchange the family of the Guanning army, because my king has completed the reorganization of the Guanning army and firmly controls this army; Whether the regent is changed or not, it will not have much impact. As for Fan Wencheng, Ning Wan me, and Hong Chengchou, my king is still very sincere in exchanging them for them, exchanging a thousand for one, and the price is heavy enough, so the regent will be content. ”

"You're just scaring and scaring you? Come on. Drag it out, slash! ”

"The regent never thought about what kind of impact it would have if nearly 20,000 people were castrated first, and then their eyes were gouged out, their noses were cut off, their teeth were removed, their ears were cut off, and their ten fingers were chopped off, and then they died in a catastrophe, and what kind of impact would it have if they were put back?"

Powerful as Dolgon, he couldn't help but secretly feel cold after hearing this, if Qin Mu killed the captives directly, out of sight, things would be easier to do; If it's true as Gannan said. If so many captives are mutilated and then released, the impact will be fatal, and the twenty or thirty thousand family members outside the palace still don't know what will happen.

Of course. Dolgon can also take revenge, but on the 10th of Yangzhou, what the Qing army did was not brutal enough?

There are thousands of Han people, and if you kill hundreds of thousands, it will not necessarily have a fatal impact on the Han people.

But the Manchurian banner army was only 100,000 people. Suddenly, 20,000 people were tortured, and if they were released, they were all watched. I was afraid that the impact would be too much for Dorgon to bear.

"If this king doesn't kill you, won't you do this?"

"It's hard to say, it depends on the sincerity of the regent, I only know that once the regent kills the envoy, the 20,000 captives will definitely end up like that, and my king will send them to Haug, Chebai, Turai and others."

Gannan zuihou's sentence is equivalent to hitting Dolgon's soft underbelly hard, these tortured captives are in the hands of Hauge and others, and it is difficult for Dolgon to kill people even if he wants to. These men will be a powerful weapon to be used by Hauge, Cheba, and others against his Dolgon.

***

Wuyang Pass, with the Dabie Mountains in the east and the Tongbai Mountains in the west, is the watershed between the north and south of China, and is the strategic point for the Central Plains to enter Jinghu Lake.

The 30,000 former army led by Tian Jianxiu and more than 10 cannons have stormed Wuyang Pass for five days, and the 15,000 reinforcements led by Liu Tichun arrived with grain and grass and joined the fierce battle of tackling key problems.

On the side of the Qing army, as soon as Hauge came to take over the army, Lekedehun was ordered to divide the army of 10,000, and gather the nearby 20,000 or 30,000 green battalion troops to march west to attack Luoyang.

Hauge is known as the commander of the army, but in fact he only has 5,000 banner soldiers left in his hands, and another 8,000 green battalion soldiers are available. The most important thing was that the 60,000 stone grain and grass in the mountain were burned, so that the Hauge army ran out of food;

At the same time as Haoge guarded the pass, he had to send troops to loot, but the Xinyang area has been war-torn for many years, sparsely populated, barren, Haoge can grab extremely limited grain and grass, and more than 10,000 Qing troops defending Wuyang Pass are hungry and starving, and some green battalion soldiers began to defect.

Hauge was ruthless enough to order the captured Green Battalion soldiers to be thrown into a catastrophe to cook, and every day the smell of meat overflowed, and the hungry Tartars ate with relish.

However, the number of Green Battalion soldiers captured was limited after all, and it was difficult for everyone to fill their stomachs, so Hauge ordered the corpses of those Green Battalion soldiers who had just died in battle to be cooked together.

In fact, during the war, eating human flesh was nothing new, Li Zicheng's army also ate human flesh at the beginning, and Zhu Changxun, the king of fortune, who weighed more than 300 catties, was made into a "Fulu banquet" by Li Zicheng.

But Hauge forgot one thing, he was not eating the enemy, but his comrades-in-arms who were still fighting side by side just now, and the other green battalion soldiers saw it in their eyes, and it was inevitable that they would have a sad heart.

The battle under the city was extremely tragic, the red lady took the lead every day, and twice killed the city, vowing to avenge the tragic death of more than 20,000 old and weak women and children under the Wuyang Pass.

Considering the special relationship between her and Qin Mu, Tian Jianxiu forcibly removed her from her military position, which temporarily stopped her crazy behavior.

Hauge relied on eating corpses and held on for three days, but he still didn't wait for food and grass support from the rear.

Thousands of Green Battalion soldiers could no longer hold on, and scattered in a bang on the night of the third day.

Haoge didn't even have a corpse to eat, so he had to order to abandon Wuyang Pass and retreat to Xinyang to get food, and Wuyang Pass fell into the hands of the Qin army.

(To be continued......)