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

Chapter 644 Open the door

After a while, Sun Tingxun had the rewards distributed, and took Xie Chengchang and several officers guarding the city to drink.

After a few days of hard work, everyone was craving for wine, not to mention there were delicious foods like chicken, duck, fish and meat. For a while, everyone was happily clinking glasses, drinking and chatting, and the atmosphere was harmonious.

After a while, whether it was because of the alcohol or the fatigue of the past few days, Xie Chengchang felt a little dizzy. He reluctantly told Sun Tingxun that he couldn't drink anymore. But as soon as he stood up, his body swayed and he fell to the ground.

"Captain Xie! Captain Xie!" Sun Tingxun called out with concern and reached out to push him, but saw that Xie Chengchang had his eyes closed and did not respond at all.

Looking around, he saw the same thing happening to the other officers, all of them drunk and unconscious. Sun Tingxun couldn't help but smile.

"Someone, Captain Xie is drunk, help him and the other brothers go downstairs to rest..." Sun Tingxun said.

As soon as he finished speaking, several personal soldiers stepped forward and took those people away. Then Sun Tingxun winked at the two people beside him. The two people who had been prepared nodded immediately and headed towards the city gate with their personal guards.

A quarter of an hour later, news came from the city gate that Sun Tingxun's men had taken over the city gate, and Xie Chengchang's men were either drunk or controlled. After confirming that everything was correct, Sun Tingxun looked up at the night, took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and gave the order to open the city gate.

After the order was given, the heavy city gate was opened. As the city gate slowly opened, Li You, who had been waiting outside the city and hiding in the night, stared ahead intently. His breathing was a little heavy and his expression was extremely nervous.

"It's open! The city gate is open!"

"Silence!"

After cursing under his breath, Li You continued to stare at the city gate. When he saw a light lit up at the opening of the city gate, and the light was held up by someone and drew three circles, a smile appeared on Li You's face, and he looked extremely excited.

"It's done!" Li You immediately ordered: "Team three first, be careful, if there is no problem, control the city gate first, and wait for the team behind to enter!"

"Yes!"

The subordinates took the order and left. Soon, in the dark, three teams of new troops formed a battle formation and quickly advanced towards the city gate. In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the city gate. Then, the three teams of new troops took over the city gate smoothly without any fighting. After seeing the signal sent by his own people, Li You could no longer hold back and directly issued an order to enter the city. The new troops, who had been waiting for a long time, headed towards the city gate and entered the city smoothly in a moment.

Li You was the second group to enter the city. When he entered the city, the new army not only completely controlled the city gate, but also controlled the defense around the city gate. Except for the soldiers from the Beijing camp who were controlled by Sun Tingxun, the rest were his men. In order to avoid misunderstanding, they dared not do anything and stayed where they were and let Li You's men take over the defense.

"Where is the commander here?" After entering the city, Li You looked around in the dark and asked.

"I am Sun Tingxun, the Earl of Yingcheng. Nice to meet you, general. May I ask your name?" Sun Tingxun stepped forward and bowed.

After taking a look at him, seeing that Sun Tingxun was smiling and trying to please him, Li You did not take it seriously and returned the greeting, "It turns out to be Lord, I have heard of your great name for a long time. Lord, you are very righteous. It is really a great kindness to take the initiative to open the city today to avoid the danger of war in the capital. For such a contribution, my lord will definitely reward you generously. I am Li You, nice to meet you, Lord."

"I dare not, I dare not. I have only turned from evil to good and restored order for our Ming Dynasty. General Li, now that the city gates are open, I wonder what else I can do for you. Please give me your orders." Sun Tingxun was very happy to hear Li You say this. Although he took the risk of betraying his own people by opening the city gates to let the troops outside the city in, it was impossible for Sun Tingxun not to feel uneasy. He was afraid that the other party would not keep their promise after he did this, and he would regret it if they turned against him.

But now it seems that this move was right. Li You's attitude was kind and he was not arrogant. Moreover, the troops he brought into the city were the elite of the elite. They were strong and well-equipped, and they were disciplined and well-trained. Such an army was not comparable to the elite troops of the Beijing Camp, let alone the elite troops of the Nine Frontiers. In addition, by the moonlight, Sun Tingxun also saw that these new troops also brought a lot of firearms, especially the strange-shaped muskets in their hands, which were completely different from ordinary muskets. These muskets could actually fire continuously, and they shot quickly and accurately, which made the brothers of the Beijing Camp suffer a lot in the past few days.

Seeing that Sun Tingxun was so understanding, Li You was naturally very satisfied. He immediately asked Sun Tingxun how many troops there were in the Beijing camp, how many of them were under his control, what was the situation of other troops guarding the city, and what was the current situation in the capital.

Sun Tingxun answered all the questions without hiding anything. After listening to Sun Tingxun's answer, Li You expressed his satisfaction. Looking back, the follow-up troops had arrived with more than 2,000 people. The strength in their hands was not weak. Li You asked some people to wait for the main force behind to enter the city. He decided to take this opportunity to directly attack the city when the troops in the capital had not reacted. The inner city was especially important. According to the plan given to him by Zhu Shenzhu, he wanted to quickly enter the Forbidden City after entering the city, not giving the Ming army in the city time to react. As long as he took the palace and captured Emperor Chongzhen, everything would be settled.

After learning of Li You's goal, Sun Tingxun offered to be the guide without hesitation, saying that he was familiar with the capital and the palace, and that the troops guarding outside the palace were his subordinates, and they would definitely come over as long as he gave them a call.

Li You was overjoyed and had someone bring a horse and invited Sun Tingxun to go with him. Sun Tingxun got on the horse and led the way. The group hurried under the cover of night and headed straight for Shenwu Gate.

The four gates of the palace are Wumen, Shenwumen, Xihuamen and Donghuamen. These four gates are located in the four directions of the palace. Wumen is the largest and is located in the south, followed by Shenwumen in the north.

Li You and his party entered from Xizhimen, which is located in the northwest corner of the capital. It is the closest to the Shenwu Gate of the palace. And just as Sun Tingxun said, the guards outside the Shenwu Gate are his subordinates. With Sun Tingxun, it is not difficult to take down the outer perimeter of the Shenwu Gate. The difficult part is to take down the Shenwu Gate and enter the palace. I am afraid there will be a fierce battle.

At first, it was smooth, but as it moved forward, it inevitably alerted other troops in the city. As the battle in the city started, the originally peaceful capital suddenly became boiling like boiling water.

The Ming army never expected that the Jingnan Army outside the city would suddenly appear in the city, and so many people suddenly appeared. In the emergency, there was no time to react. Some troops, led by their commanders, tried to stop them, but they were facing Zhu Shenzhui's most elite new army.

Zhu Shenzui's new army was created based on the model of Qi's army, and it had extremely rich experience in conquering the east and the west over the years. In addition, its tactics were suitable for street fighting in complex terrain. Moreover, the new army was equipped with a large number of elite firearms, especially the muskets, Portuguese guns and tiger squat cannons, which were extremely powerful. Just one fight caused heavy casualties to the intercepting defenders, but the new army did not stop and continued to move forward to kill, and its sharp edge was unstoppable.

Seeing this scene, Sun Tingxun, who was leading the way, was dumbfounded. He had never seen such an elite army, and he could not imagine that no matter how hard the defenders tried, they would not be able to block the enemy's way.

To put it bluntly, the combat effectiveness and lethality of the new army have exceeded his imagination. Not to mention the Beijing camp, even the most powerful border troops of the Ming Dynasty could not stop this army. In just half an hour, the new army defeated five Ming troops that organized defenses and were almost less than a mile away from Shenwu Gate.

Sun Tingxun was shocked but also secretly thankful that he listened to Zhang Xijun's advice and decided to open the city and lead the way. Otherwise, the capital would be broken sooner or later, and as one of the main generals of the Beijing camp, he might lose his life if he was not careful.

Li You led more than a thousand people and rushed towards Shenwu Gate. He was unstoppable and unstoppable all the way. Behind him, more and more troops entered the city. After most of the new army entered the city first, the cavalry of Wang Jinwu and Wang Hai also entered the city. Seeing that battles had taken place everywhere in the city, Wang Jinwu was so excited that his face turned red. He laughed and didn't bother to wait for Wang Hai. He took his subordinates and galloped in the direction where Li You went.

"This bastard! Can your horse jump into the palace gate?" Wang Hai shook his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He was not worried about what would happen to Wang Jinwu. After all, he knew Wang Jinwu's ability very well. Since Wang Jinwu went to Li You's side, Wang Hai was not idle. He commanded the remaining cavalry and another new army to attack several other city gates from Xizhimen all the way south, dispersing the guards of each city gate to control the defense zone, making it impossible to prevent an effective counterattack and causing great chaos in the capital.

At four o'clock in the morning, Emperor Chongzhen had already gone to bed in the Qianqing Palace. In the past few days, Zhu Shenzhui's uprising and siege of the capital made Emperor Chongzhen, who was already busy with state affairs, even more worried. Now the capital was in great danger. The main force of the Beijing Camp was annihilated outside the city, the reinforcements from Changping were defeated, and the troops from various places to support the king disappeared at all. Only the remnants of the Beijing Camp and the soldiers, yamen runners and even civilians from various government offices in the city were left to defend the city. The entire capital was crumbling.

Faced with such a situation, Emperor Chongzhen had not slept for three days. He was angry and worried, fearing that the situation would suddenly deteriorate. He prayed to God for love for the Ming Dynasty and to his ancestors for blessings so that the troops could arrive quickly to repel the rebels outside the city.

But the situation never improved. As time went on, Emperor Chongzhen's temper became worse and worse, and he became more and more impatient with the officials in the court. Especially when he saw that neither the cabinet nor the various ministries could come up with a solution and they could only wait for a turnaround, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to kill all these people. What's the point of keeping these incompetent people who can only talk big?

Yesterday was another day of anxiety, with bad news coming one after another, making Emperor Chongzhen very anxious. It was not until the night fell and the sound of artillery outside the city gradually stopped that Emperor Chongzhen finally breathed a sigh of relief. This day was finally over. He almost counted the days until the King's Army could arrive, and he didn't know how many more days like this would last.

(End of this chapter)