Almost no minister in the court wanted Chongzhen to hunt south, because for the gentry in the north, once Chongzhen hunted south, he would sell all the gentry in the north to thieves; for the gentry in the south, they originally lived in the wealthy Jiangnan, with the sky high and the emperor far away, enjoyed whatever he wanted, and reduced taxes as much as he wanted, and how could he be willing to bring the emperor to his side?

A group of officials led by Wei Zaode, Chen Yan and Zhang Jinyan not only firmly opposed Chongzhen's southern hunt, but also insisted on executing Zhang Shuheng. Fortunately, Li Banghua and others stood up and said that Zhang Shuheng was a meritorious and was a good warrior. Now that the thief army is coming to the capital, he should be allowed to climb the city to resist the enemy. If he was killed, wouldn't he be missing a warrior in the city? Moreover, Emperor Chongzhen did not want to kill Zhang Shuheng. After all, Zhang Shuheng expressed his thoughts, but Emperor Chongzhen wanted to save face. So when Li Banghua said that, Chongzhen went with the flow and said that he would spare Zhang Shuheng's life and make him commit crimes.

He said that he had made meritorious service, but Chongzhen promoted Zhang Shuheng to a hundred households of Jinyiwei and also gave him a set of flying fish suits.

After Chongzhen announced his resignation from the court, Zhang Shuheng walked on the way out of the palace. He said in his heart: Lord, when will you arrive? You are the only person who can save the Ming Dynasty.

Although Zhang Shuheng had no feelings for the Ming Dynasty, he had been educated by Li Guodong and Wang Quan for a long time and knew that the Ming Dynasty could not fall at this time. If the Ming Dynasty fell at this time, the only one who benefited was Jiannu outside the pass.

Next, Zhang Shuheng went to meet Wu Mengming. Wu Mengming gave him a hundred-household office and asked him to build the hundred-household office.

After returning to his 1000 Household Office, Zhang Shuheng immediately gathered his people and quickly summoned 320 people. After his screening, the fifty-nine Jinyiwei in the 100 Household Office drove out some people he thought were impossible to be loyal, leaving 37 people.

The Jinyang Army (now it should be changed to Huai Army) had a total of 1,216 special agents from the personal guards, of which 56 were currently incorporated under Zhang Shuheng's Jinyiwei's small banner and acted as lieutenants, and more than 100 other people were incorporated into his small banner and acted as strong men. After Zhang Shuheng was promoted to the Jinyiwei's Hundred Houses, he expanded his 50 special agents to be appointed as the Jinyiwei's lieutenants, and another 100 were added to the Jinyiwei's lieutenants.

Now he has 320 personal guards who are active in the capital as Jinyiwei, and there are nearly 900 secretly active agents.

"We are just this little man now. The thief army is about to come to the city. I don't know when my uncle will arrive in the capital." Wang Fuchen, who was temporarily incorporated into the Jinyiwei, said.

Zhang Shuheng said: "The most urgent task now is to find ways to alleviate the plague in the capital, organize people, and pull all the dead who are infected and die out of the city for cremation. The people in the city must boil the water before drinking, hunting and killing mice, and make people publicize in the city. All clothes must be boiled in boiling water before they can be worn. People who are infected will immediately send them out of the city to isolate."

Not only did he take measures in the capital, Zhang Shuheng also informed the agents of the personal guards who were involved in the trespassing army, asking them to find ways to remind Li Zicheng of the plague. The plague in the capital not only made the capital fall, but also seriously weakened the combat effectiveness of the trespassing army, and indirectly led to the failure of the trespassing battle, which eventually made the Qing Dynasty cheaper.

The agents of the personal guards began to arrange the list of personnel to rescue the capital according to the given by Li Guodong.

On the list, in addition to Chongzhen's family, Empress Zhang Yan, Wang Chengen, Palace Maid Fei Zhen'e and others, there is also Wu Xiang's family, and the others are not taken care of. Although Li Guodong knew that the thief army had captured the capital and a group of loyal and righteous people died for the country, he could not save too many people.

In order to thank Li Banghua for helping him in the court, Zhang Shuheng also added Li Banghua's name.

On March 14th, the 11,000 cavalry led by Li Guodong himself had already passed Cangzhou. However, due to the lack of war horses, his 11,000 cavalry could not guarantee that one person and two horses could be guaranteed. He had to leave nearly half of them in Shandong, waiting to pick him up to the south, and allocate their horses to the soldiers who continued to go north. Then Li Guodong only brought one thousand horse-sling heavy cavalry, two thousand light cavalry, two thousand five hundred dragon cavalry and five hundred nights to go north. The 5,000 remaining people settled in the castles of various military households in Shandong, waiting for Li Guodong to return south, and then joined the team and returned to the south together.

After nightfall, six thousand cavalrymen who had just passed Cangzhou set up camp.

"Report!" Xu Liang walked into Li Guodong's central army tent and reported to him the military information he had just obtained. "Your Majesty, the army of treacherous troops has broken through Juyong Pass, and the Ming general Tang Tong surrendered to the enemy."

"At the speed of the thief army, we can arrive in the capital on the 17th. We must arrive in the capital on the 18th. Our number of soldiers is too small to enter the capital. So I find a way to contact Zhang Shuheng and the others, and we will pick them up outside the city." Li Guodong said.

"No!" Xu Liang retreated.

With Li Guodong's current marching speed, he could actually enter the capital before the 17th day, but there were only 6,000 people, who traveled 200 miles a day to enter the capital, and the capital was too big, and only 6,000 people could not play much role in defending the city. It would be better to pick up Zhang Shuheng and others outside the city to save people from the city. What's more, according to Li Guodong's original plan, he deliberately let the rebel army break through the capital and use Li Zicheng's hand to kill a group of gentry and civil servants, so that the north would be much cleaner.

Through Fei Ge's letter, Zhang Shuheng received a password letter sent by Xu Liang.

The flying pigeon sent a letter and released dozens of pigeons at the same time. Each pigeon carried a letter, which was a password letter. Even if the pigeon was shot and killed and the letter fell into the hands of the enemy, they could not decipher the content of the letter. This kind of password was set according to the telegram password of later generations. When others got the letter, they could only see a series of numbers and could not understand what it meant.

Even ordinary guards can't understand the password letter. Only special communication agents, or senior agents like Zhang Shuheng and Xu Liang, can understand the password letter.

Zhang Shuheng received the password letter, and he translated the above content. The content of the letter was: You are the best to save the Lord Xiao Zhang. With this skill, you can at least be promoted to the commander of the Jinyiwei Commander. After going south to Nanjing, try to organize our personal guards as much as possible into the Jinyiwei. I will persuade Your Majesty to revive the factory guards. In front of outsiders, we do not know you. You are Your Majesty's Jinyiwei, and I am the general who leads troops to fight. Before the thief army breaks through the city, you will find a way to enter the palace and must rescue Your Majesty's family. No omissions must be made, and the princess must be injured.

On March 17, 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng's army came to the city and began to siege the capital.

As a family of Jinyiwei, Zhang Shuheng also brought his brothers to the city to assist in the defense. Zhang Shuheng climbed to Xizhimen and defended at the top of the city. After a day of attack, more than 300 Jinyiweis under Zhang Shuheng killed countless enemies, and the corpses of the thief army under the city were piled up like mountains.

That night, a quiet sound of piano came from Wu Xiang’s mansion.

A black shadow flashed out from the street, threw the claw hook in his hand and flew up to the wall. The black shadow grabbed the rope and climbed up the wall, lay on the wall and observed it inward for a while, and issued a secret code. Then dozens of figures emerged from the darkness, rushed to the wall, grabbed the rope and climbed up to the wall. The group of men in black quickly disappeared in Wu Xiang Mansion.

It was not too late, and the lights in Wuxiang Mansion were brilliantly lit.

A peerless beauty was playing the piano lightly. Suddenly a man in black appeared in front of her. The beauty opened her mouth in fear and screamed. Her mouth was covered by a pair of big hands. A sharp short knife was placed on her white porcelain-like neck. Only a stern and low voice was heard: "Don't scream, we won't hurt you."
Chapter completed!