The Forbidden City.
Inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity, Zhu Lian stared blankly at his reflection in the mirror.
It seemed he had transmigrated here, bringing a rope along with him. From the moment the memories flooded into his mind, he felt an intense sense of unease. Looking at the dragon robes on his body and the wing-shaped crown upon his head, he felt a sorrow that had no source, his eyes filled with nothing but despair.
"Heaven is mocking me. After finally transmigrating, I end up as Emperor Chongzhen!"
Who was Chongzhen?
The final monarch of the Great Ming Dynasty!
He was the quintessential example of an emperor who worked harder only to hasten his own downfall. His character flaws—stubbornness, vanity, volatility, and suspicion—combined with a complete ignorance of statecraft, had personally sent the Great Ming Dynasty to the crematorium.
Even more tragic, today was the tenth day of the third month of the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign.
Nine days from now, Li Zicheng would breach the inner city of Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen would hang himself on Coal Hill...
Following that, Wu Sangui would surrender, the Jiannu would pass through the Great Wall, and Li Zicheng would be defeated.
The three hundred years of history that followed were not only a disgrace to the Zhu family, but a catastrophe for all of China.
Once the Jiannu established a firm foothold in Beijing, they would sweep south—the Three Massacres of Jiading, the Ten Days of Yangzhou...
Millions of corpses, rivers of blood flowing for thousands of miles...
This wasn't a transmigration; it was a disaster experience voucher!
Zhu Lian looked at the rope in his hand. "Should I... just hang myself now?"
No, no. A miserable life is better than a quick death.
But...
If he didn't kill himself, what could he do?
The Great Ming was already a dying tree. The imperial court was riddled with corruption, the military had lost all fighting spirit, and the country was besieged by rebel bandits within and the Jiannu without. Natural disasters occurred constantly, and man-made catastrophes never ceased.
If Chongzhen couldn't change the fate of the Ming in seventeen years, what could he hope to change?
With this question in mind, Zhu Lian closed his eyes and sank into deep thought.
After an unknown amount of time, a eunuch wearing red python robes trotted in from outside the grand hall and knelt with a thud. "Your Majesty, something terrible has happened."
Chongzhen opened his eyes slowly.
The middle-aged eunuch before him was Wang Chengen. He was a ceremonial attendant in the Directorate of Ceremonial and one of the people Chongzhen trusted most.
In history, after Chongzhen hanged himself, it was Wang Chengen who took his body down from the tree, arranged his robes, and then took his own life.
His loyalty was beyond doubt!
"Do not panic. Speak," Chongzhen said, hiding the rope he had brought with him behind his back.
That rope could serve as a constant reminder; he couldn't just throw it away.
Wang Chengen’s face was pale, his voice trembling as he spoke: "Yes, Your Majesty."
"There are three... three things."
"The Xuanfu garrison sent an urgent dispatch—a six-hundred-mile express. The rebel bandits broke through Xuanfu late last night and are heading straight for the Capital. Regional Commander Wang Chengyin has defected to the enemy; Provincial Governor Zhu Zhifeng and Military Supervisor Du Xun have committed suicide to preserve their integrity."
Wang Chengen paused for a moment. Seeing that the Emperor remained expressionless, he continued: "Earl of Dingxi, Tang Tong, has arrived to reinforce the Capital under imperial order and is waiting for instructions outside the hall with Military Supervisor Du Zhizhi."
"Tianjin Governor Feng Yuanyang has sent a secret letter."
Having said this, Wang Chengen knelt on the ground and held the letter above his head with both hands.
Chongzhen did not immediately pick up the letter. Instead, he frowned in thought.
Of these three events, there was one piece of bad news, one piece of good news, and one that was neither.
The bad news was that with the fall of Xuanfu, the only remaining obstacle between Li Zicheng and Beijing was Juyong Pass.
With fewer than two thousand defenders at Juyong Pass, it would certainly not hold.
The good news was the secret letter from the Tianjin Governor. Having been well-versed in Ming history, he already knew the contents of the letter, but he opened the envelope and scanned it anyway.
The content was exactly as it appeared in history: *[Your Majesty, the rebel bandits are invading, and the Capital's forces are dangerously thin; neither defense nor resistance can be relied upon. Your servant has prepared one hundred sea vessels and leads one thousand elite soldiers. I have arrived at Tongzhou to await Your Majesty's flight to the south.]*
Feng Yuanyang, fearing the Capital would fall, had prepared over a hundred ships and requested that Chongzhen flee to Yingtian Prefecture.
As for Tang Tong arriving to reinforce the capital, that was neither good nor bad.
As early as the beginning of the third month, Chongzhen had urgently summoned Regional Commander Wu Sangui from Liaodong, Governor-General Wang Yongji, Regional Commander Tang Tong from Changping, and Regional Commander Liu Zeqing from Shandong to guard the Capital, while also calling on the nobility and officials to donate silver for military pay.
Of those summoned, Wu Sangui and Wang Yongji were one group; they were marching back from Liaodong with three hundred thousand soldiers and civilians, but they would not reach the Yutian area, one hundred kilometers from Beijing, until the twenty-second day of the third month—far too late to save the throne.
Tang Tong arrived quickly, and surrendered just as quickly. The moment Li Zicheng reached Juyong Pass, the Military Supervisor Du Zhizhi had ordered the gates opened. Seeing that all was lost, Tang Tong stopped resisting, and his eight thousand men all surrendered.
Liu Zeqing was even more ruthless; he simply refused to obey the summons!
Chongzhen tossed the secret letter to Wang Chengen and looked at his most trusted eunuch, asking slowly: "Feng Yuanyang suggests I relocate to Yingtian Prefecture. What do you think?"
"This servant does not dare to say."
"I grant you amnesty!"
"Yes!" Wang Chengen gulped. "In this servant's opinion, this is the superior strategy!"
"Your reasons?"
"I hold the position of Commander of the Nine Gates. After meeting with Governor Li Guozhen this morning, I learned that the Three Great Camps are listed as having eighty thousand men, but some were sent to fight the rebels, and others were 'empty payroll' entries. There are fewer than thirty thousand actually available, and they are all the old, weak, sick, or disabled."
"The Capital... is likely beyond saving," Wang Chengen ventured, plucking up the courage to state the truth.
"Instead of holding Beijing, it would be better to move to Yingtian Prefecture. As long as Your Majesty is alive, the Great Ming is still the Great Ming."
Cold sweat beaded on Wang Chengen's forehead.
Under normal circumstances, he would never dare say such things, but the situation was different now. The rebels would arrive within days, and if they didn't leave now, it would be too late.
He knelt on the ground, bowing repeatedly. "This servant, Wang Chengen, daringly requests that Your Majesty follow the strategy of Feng Yuanyang and move south!"
Chongzhen shook his head slightly. "I cannot leave."
"Your Majesty!" Wang Chengen was on the verge of tears.
Chongzhen did not doubt Wang Chengen's loyalty. He shook his head and said, "The Capital is crawling with Li Zicheng’s spies. Once news of a southern relocation leaks, it will fall into chaos without a single battle. He only needs to send a force of elite cavalry to race toward Shandong; they could block me by land or reach the sea to cut off my escape route. Then, I would have nowhere to flee and nowhere to stand."
Wang Chengen’s brow began to glisten with sweat. Only then did he realize how ignorant and reckless his previous suggestion had been.
"Even if I could successfully reach Yingtian Prefecture, it would mean handing Beijing over to the rebels on a silver platter. Wu Sangui faces the Jiannu in the north and the rebels in the south—could he... avoid surrendering?"
"The Guanning Army is the Great Ming’s last elite force. I... do not want to lose them."
Chongzhen hadn't intended to explain so much, but Wang Chengen lacked a sense of the big picture; he needed guidance to become a capable right hand.
Wang Chengen wiped the sweat from his forehead and hesitated. "But..."
He did not dare finish the sentence.
He dared not, and could not say it: that as the Son of Heaven, nothing could happen to the Emperor.
Chongzhen closed his eyes and pondered for a while longer.
The waters of the late Ming were too deep.
The Jiannu in the northeast, the Tatars in the north, Zhang Xianzhong stirring up chaos in the southwest, and the peasant armies of Li Zicheng turning the western and central regions upside down. Land annexation was rampant, the national treasury was empty, the civil official factions were locked in infighting, and corruption in military pay was endless.
Add to this the crop failures caused by the extreme cold of the Little Ice Age, droughts in every region, and rampant plagues.
What to do?
After a long time, he slowly opened his eyes.
Since he had transmigrated into this world, there must be a way to change history.
No, history had already changed.
In history, the original Chongzhen never received this secret memorial because, due to his fickle and suspicious nature, none of the civil or military officials were willing to pass it on to him. After all, if they were discovered by Li Zicheng's men while fleeing, Feng Yuanyang and the person who delivered the letter would be executed for treason.
One week!
On the seventeenth day of the third month, Li Zicheng would capture the Guangning Gate. When that time came, not even the gods could reverse the situation.
Heaven had given him one week to change the fate of Chongzhen and the Great Ming.
He stood up and commanded, "Wang Chengen, I speak, you write."