Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 517 Lingchi
The result was pretty much what Emperor Chongzhen had expected. Although Emperor Chongzhen did not have great wisdom, he was always smart. This move of his did break up the Guanning Army, causing the command of the Guanning Army to shift from Zu Dashou alone to Zu Dashou and Wu Xiang.

And more importantly, the most powerful Guanning Iron Cavalry in the Guanning Army fell into Wu Xiang's hands. Wu Xiang directly appointed his son Wu Sangui as the actual commander of the Guanning Iron Cavalry and gave him the duty of garrison.

Speaking of Wu Sangui, Wu Sangui was in the Guanning Army during the Jisi Rebellion. Zu Dashou's sister was Wu Xiang's second wife, so it was absolutely okay for Wu Sangui to call Zu Dashou his uncle. Although he was not his nephew, Zu Dashou treated Wu Sangui very well. He not only took the young Wu Sangui to the battlefield and let him follow him, but also let him serve as a vanguard in the Guanning Iron Cavalry and entrusted him with important tasks.

Wu Sangui lived up to his reputation as a young hero. He was quite famous among the generals in Liaodong and was regarded by many as the most outstanding young general of the younger generation.

So when Wu Xiang became the general of Liaodong and appointed his son as the actual commander of the Guanning Iron Cavalry, Zu Dashou did not object at all. Instead, he helped him gain a foothold in the Guanning Iron Cavalry and provided a lot of help.

After dealing with Zu Dashou and the Guanning Army, Emperor Chongzhen could not wait to take action against Yuan Chonghuan.

Now that Huang Taiji's Eight Banners Army had returned to Liaodong, the problems of Zu Dashou and the Guanning Army had been resolved, and the war in the capital area had subsided, Emperor Chongzhen could unscrupulously do what he had wanted to do long ago and take action against Yuan Chonghuan.

Emperor Chongzhen was extremely cruel to Yuan Chonghuan. If he did not kill Yuan Chonghuan, he would lose all his prestige as an emperor and would be ridiculed by people all over the world.

Moreover, because Huang Taiji led his troops to attack, the entire northern Zhili was in flames for several months, and the capital suffered heavy losses. Many places near the capital were looted and burned by the Eight Banners soldiers. The people hated the Jian Nu to the core, so everyone thought that the culprit for all this was Yuan Chonghuan, the former governor of Ji and Liao. Yuan Chonghuan was not only incompetent, but also a traitor to the country. If it weren't for him, how could the Jian Nu have fought to the heartland of the Ming Dynasty? How could the people of the Ming Dynasty end up with their families broken up and their lives destroyed?
Faced with this series of accusations, Yuan Chonghuan had no way to explain many of the questions, especially when someone in the court once again brought up the incident of him killing Mao Wenlong without authorization, which left Yuan Chonghuan with no way to defend himself.

Yuan Chonghuan knew that he had done a lot of wrong things, and for various reasons, he had caused some irreversible consequences. But Yuan Chonghuan also felt wronged, because he had never thought of betraying the Ming Dynasty, and what he did was only for the overall situation of the Liaodong war. He was just too impatient and incompetent, so he didn't do it well.

As for the charge of inciting the Jiannu to invade the Ming Dynasty, Yuan Chonghuan flatly denied it. He stated on the spot that he had pointed out the problem of the Jizhou to Zunhua line to the court long before Huang Taiji invaded the Ming Dynasty, and warned the court that the Jiannu might attack the Ming Dynasty through this weak area. He also suggested that the court add a militia general in Zunhua to prevent the Jiannu from moving south from Mongolia.

The result was similar to what Yuan Chonghuan expected. It was from this place that Huang Taiji opened a gap and attacked the Ming Dynasty. If the court had taken Yuan Chonghuan's reminder seriously and made arrangements in advance, what happened later would not have happened. As for the fact that he brought the Guanning Army to the capital before Jiannu, it had nothing to do with the guide, because he learned that Huang Taiji's Eight Banners soldiers were advancing very fast and had already rushed to the capital. In order to rescue the capital, he rushed to arrive first. The purpose was to stop the opponent before Huang Taiji arrived in the capital and make good defense for the capital. If this was wrong, Yuan Chonghuan would never accept it. The situation in the war was ever-changing. As the commander-in-chief, he had to ensure the safety of the capital first. Was it a crime to arrive in the capital before the enemy?
Although Yuan Chonghuan's rebuttal had some truth, it was useless at this time. The most fundamental reason was that Emperor Chongzhen wanted to kill Yuan Chonghuan. It was not important whether Yuan Chonghuan was really wronged or falsely wronged. The cause of the Ji Si Rebellion was that Yuan Chonghuan, as the commander-in-chief of Ji Liao, failed to defend against the Jiannu, giving the Jiannu an opportunity to take advantage of it. For this reason alone, Yuan Chonghuan was not wronged.

The trial by the three judicial departments ended quickly as a normal procedure, and the court finally sentenced Yuan Chonghuan to death for conspiracy.

However, Emperor Chongzhen was not satisfied with this result and directly rejected it.

The officials of the Three Judicial Departments immediately understood Emperor Chongzhen's idea and changed Yuan Chonghuan's sentence to lingchi for treason. This time, Emperor Chongzhen was still not satisfied and continued to reject the ruling.

This put the three judicial officials in a difficult position. Everyone knew that Emperor Chongzhen was determined to kill Yuan Chonghuan, but now the sentence had been changed from beheading to lingchi. Why was Emperor Chongzhen still not satisfied? Lingchi was the most severe punishment for crimes, and the court had no more severe punishment than lingchi. What should they do?

At this time, an official suggested that the emperor was not satisfied with the charges. As soon as this sentence came out, everyone's eyes lit up, and they suddenly understood.

A few days later, the three judicial officials made another verdict. In addition to the previous charges, there were also crimes such as "buying rice to support theft", "scheming to kill the general for money", "allowing slaves to invade", "stopping the troops without fighting", "dispersing reinforcements", "secretly bringing in lamas", "insisting on entering the city", and the sentence of death by slicing was submitted to Emperor Chongzhen.

Seeing this result, Emperor Chongzhen expressed satisfaction. At the morning court on the next day, he took out the verdict of the three courts and announced it to all the officials. After hearing it, all the officials expressed their agreement with the punishment of Yuan Chonghuan. Emperor Chongzhen specifically ordered Tu Guoding, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Justice, to go out of the palace to supervise the execution. At the same time, he ordered Yuan Chonghuan's brothers and wives to be exiled 2,000 miles away.

That afternoon, the execution was carried out in Xishi. Yuan Chonghuan, who was tied up with a fishing net, was subjected to the Lingchi punishment by the executioner. This punishment was extremely cruel. Yuan Chonghuan was cut 3543 times, but this number of cuts was the number of Lingchi. In fact, Yuan Chonghuan only had half a day from the execution to his death, and he was cut by only a few hundred cuts. As for the more than cuts at the end, they were just to make up the number. Because the people of the capital hated Yuan Chonghuan, countless people voluntarily spent money to buy Yuan Chonghuan's flesh and blood. The price of his meat was actually one penny of silver. After getting it, they put it in their mouths and chewed it, cursing while chewing. It was a pity that Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of Ji and Liao, who was so proud and powerful in the past, was almost cut into a skeleton. All his flesh and blood were snatched away by the people, and he ended up in such a tragic end.

If Yuan Chonghuan knew that this was his fate, would he regret killing Mao Wenlong before he died? Or would he regret not listening to Sun Yuanhua's advice and not leading troops to rescue the capital, but taking advantage of Huang Taiji's entry into the Great Wall to go the other way and attack Liaodong directly?

But all these are already in the past. Maybe he regretted it before his death, or maybe it was too late to regret it. With the death of Yuan Chonghuan, the Ji Si Rebellion was completely settled, and the Ming Dynasty seemed to gradually return to its previous tranquility.

After Yuan Chonghuan's death, his concubine Ruan, two young daughters, nephew Yuan Zhaoxi and fifteen servants in Ningyuan were exiled. His mother in his hometown was spared because of her old age, his wife committed suicide by drowning, and other relatives were exiled to Shaowu, Fujian, and their whereabouts are unknown.

However, there was one exception, and that was Yuan Chonghuan’s younger brother Yuan Chongyu.

When Yuan Chongyu heard the news that his brother was imprisoned in Liaodong, he felt something was wrong. Not long after, he made a decision to run away.

Although Yuan Chongyu had feelings for his brother, no matter how deep the feelings were, they could not defeat his own life. As Yuan Chonghuan's white glove and agent, Yuan Chongyu knew too well what his brother Yuan Chonghuan had done over the years with his background. Let alone other things, just secretly selling military rations to the Jian Nu was enough to cost him his life.

As long as Yuan Chonghuan was in power, everything would be fine, and Yuan Chonghuan could naturally protect him. But now Yuan Chonghuan himself was imprisoned by the emperor, and once these dirty deeds were found out, he would have ten heads to chop off.

As the saying goes, husband and wife are birds of a feather, but they fly away separately when disaster strikes, let alone brothers. Yuan Chongyu, realizing that the situation was not good, took advantage of no one's attention and directly attacked Yuan Chonghuan, taking away most of Yuan Chonghuan's property, and went out to sea with the money he had earned over the years, and he has never been seen since then.

Some people say that Yuan Chongyu went to Liaodong and joined Huang Taiji. Others say that Yuan Chongyu turned south after going out to sea and found a place to hide in his hometown in Guangdong. Others say that Yuan Chongyu went overseas, changed his surname and name and went to Luzon. There are even rumors that the ship Yuan Chongyu was on encountered a storm and sank to the bottom of the sea with both the ship and the people on it...

No one knows which one is true and which one is false. After Yuan Chongyu disappeared, no one has seen him again, let alone where he went.

After Yuan Chonghuan's death, Sun Chengzong, as the new commander-in-chief of Ji-Liao, reorganized the Liaodong defense line, intending to restore the previous Liaodong defense according to his strategic deployment and prevent the Jiannu from attacking the Ming Dynasty again.

However, although Sun Chengzong had prestige and ability, it was a pity that the current emperor was not his former disciple Tianqi, but Chongzhen.

Compared with Emperor Tianqi, Emperor Chongzhen was far inferior in both ability and courage. More importantly, when Emperor Tianqi was in power, he had a powerful weapon in his hand, namely Wei Zhongxian. Relying on Wei Zhongxian, Emperor Tianqi could not only control the power of the court and the country, but also get enough military funds. However, after killing Wei Zhongxian, Emperor Chongzhen no longer trusted anyone. He personally took charge of everything, but he was unable to manage anything well and was often fooled by the civil service group. As for military funds, let alone the financial situation, the Ming Dynasty was on the verge of collapse. Emperor Chongzhen could not get any money at all, and naturally could not give enough military funds to Sun Chengzong.

In this situation, Sun Chengzong was useless no matter how capable he was. A good cook cannot cook without rice. What could he do without money? After Huang Taiji withdrew his troops, Sun Chengzong adjusted the various units of the Guanning Army on the one hand, and personally inspected the defense of Liaodong on the other hand. This inspection found many problems. In order to solve these urgent problems, Sun Chengzong submitted a memorial to Emperor Chongzhen, put forward eight proposals, and hoped that the court would allocate 600,000 taels of silver to him as soon as possible to reorganize the Liaodong military.

However, after reading these proposals, Emperor Chongzhen merely made ordinary instructions and appeased Sun Chengzong to do his job with all his heart. As for silver, he did not give a single ounce. Such a stingy attitude made Sun Chengzong speechless.

(End of this chapter)