On the night of the "Candle Shadow and Ax Sound" in the first year of Jianlong, the soul of Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin was suddenly torn apart by time and space, and four hundred years later he fell into the Forbidden City in the 17th year of Chongzhen - he became the last emperor Zhu Youjian who hanged himself on Meishan Mountain in history!
At this time, the Ming Dynasty was rotten to the core: the Qing troops outside the pass knocked down the pass, Li Zicheng's rebel army swept through the pass, the court parties fought for blood, the national treasury was empty, and the people exchanged their children for food. But the Manchu Dynasty soon realized that "Chongzhen" had changed: the former suspicious tyrant actually used the Northern Song Dynasty's strategy of "strengthening the trunk and weakening the branches" to rectify the imperial court, followed the "cup of wine to release military power" to subdue Guan Ning's cavalry, and even dared to pull out the tiger's teeth - seize the land from the vassal king to provide disaster relief!
How can change be smooth? The Donglin Party secretly obstructed the New Deal, the vassal princes colluded to cause chaos, Li Zicheng forced his troops to force Beijing, and the Qing army took advantage of the opportunity to enter the pass. Although Zhao Kuangyin was a founding talent, he lacked the elite imperial guards of the Northern Song Dynasty and Zhao Pu's advisors. Even the "more garrison law" was difficult to implement due to lack of pay. He could only bear it hard: during the day, he stabilized the court as Chongzhen, and at night, he secretly trained the Beijing camp, promoted poor generals, and paved the way in a desperate situation.
When Li Zicheng's army besieged Beijing, "Chongzhen" actually ascended the Desheng Gate, inspired the soldiers with the courage to conquer the Northern Han Dynasty himself, used a divisive plan to defeat the rebel army, mobilized Sun Chuanting's Qin army to return reinforcements, and staged a reversal in the defense of Beijing! After that, the Yi army was suppressed and the Qing army was rejected, hoping to save the Ming Dynasty with "civilian rule and military defense".
But the inertia of history is hard to defeat: centuries-old evils cannot be eliminated, the system of the Northern Song Dynasty is not adapted to the climate, and the nightmare of "the shadow of the candle and the sound of the ax" still haunts him. Is it Song Zu who saved the Ming Dynasty, or Chongzhen who was held hostage? The imperial souls of these two dynasties are trying to carve their way to Zhongxing in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty!
