At this moment, the capital was in chaos.
People in the city want to flee, and people outside the city want to go into the city to escape. However, the capital has been under martial law not long after the war started last month. Except for government and military personnel, ordinary people cannot enter or leave the city at this time.
Few people could have expected that just three years later, Haihan would launch another war against the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the scale of the troops deployed to attack the Ming Dynasty this time seemed to be greater than the previous one.
In less than a month, Haihan's army had advanced outside the capital and seemed to be preparing for the next siege.
As for whether the Ming army can hold the capital and repel Haihan's offensive, the general view is not optimistic.
This is because they have learned from the past. Three years ago, it was precisely because they could not defeat Haihan on the battlefield that Ming humiliatedly chose to surrender and cease the war. The strength gap between the two armies made it difficult for the Ming Dynasty to catch up in such a short few years.
Secondly, the number of wounded soldiers sent to the capital has been increasing day by day. Almost all large and small hospitals and drugstores in the city are now filled with wounded soldiers, and the few coffin shops have long been out of stock.
The prices of food and other daily necessities on the market have increased several times compared with before the war. This does not look like a victory in any case.
However, the battle report released by the government adhered to the long-standing tradition of reporting good news but not bad news. Every three days, messengers rode into the city on fast horses and paraded through the city proclaiming "a great victory on the front line."
Yesterday the formation killed nearly a thousand people, and today we killed hundreds of enemies. It sounds like we are winning battles every day, but battle reports can be deceiving, but the battle lines are not.
The Haihan Army was still on the coast of Tianjin last month. According to the battle report, it was beaten by the Ming Army every day. Logically speaking, it should have been defeated long ago, but this month it has been pushed all the way outside the capital. As long as you are not a fool, you will naturally think that there are too many elements of fraud in the battle report, and it is not surprising to know what the battle situation is on the front line.
However, the imperial court issued decrees every day to commend the Ming generals who had made meritorious service on the battlefield. It seemed that the party with the advantage was not Haihan, but the Ming Dynasty, which had been reporting frequent successes but retreated all the way to the capital.
In such an information environment, who would dare to believe that Beijing is unbreakable?
Everyone with some connections is trying to get out of the capital, trying to avoid the war.
Of course, there are also many people who cannot leave at all, including the big shots in the court. They know that if they take the lead in evacuating the capital, it will definitely lead to a loss of morale in the army, and it is very likely that there will be a complete defeat.
But their belief in sticking to the capital is slowly becoming less firm as the war progresses.
Chongzhen weakly put down the memorial in his hand. Almost every day there was a similar content. First, there were reports of a great victory, and then there were requests for money, food, and additional troops.
Chongzhen was not stupid. He certainly knew that few of the things in these memorials were credible, and probably only the part about asking for money and food was true. But exposing the truth of the battle report will not help the current situation.
It is not just the ordinary people who need to rely on victory reports to retain hope. Officials of all sizes in the capital, including Chongzhen himself, also need something to maintain their confidence.
If the true battle situation were announced, the capital would be in chaos, which was not a scene Chongzhen wanted to see.
Several cabinet ministers were still arguing, which made Chongzhen feel more and more headache. He wanted these people to stop, but he also hoped that a feasible response plan could be pieced together from such disputes to solve the urgent needs of the moment.
At present, the opinions in the court are mainly divided into two groups. One group proposes to negotiate a peace truce with the Haihan army outside the city as soon as possible to avoid the capital being exposed to war. The peace negotiators believe that since they were able to negotiate peace with Haihan three years ago, they can also try it now. The worst thing is that the armistice conditions will be harsher, but as long as they can save the country, they can accept the temporary compromise.
The other faction believes that they should not surrender, but they do not need to defend the capital and spend all their elite troops here. They should prioritize preserving their strength and prepare for a comeback in the future.
The imperial court can evacuate to the west, retreating to Baoding Prefecture first to wait and see the situation. If the Haihan Army continues to pursue, it can retreat to Zhending Prefecture. If this is not possible, it can withdraw all the way to Taiyuan Prefecture, Shanxi.
The basis for the evacuation faction is that the Haihan Army has limited strength and is extremely dependent on logistical supplies. Fighting deep inland will greatly increase its logistical burden. One of the few advantages that Ming Dynasty currently has is the depth of its territory, which can be avoided by actively disengaging from battle. unnecessary loss.
The more Chongzhen listened, the more he felt chilled in his heart. The two factions were arguing back and forth, but no one mentioned the possibility of a decisive battle with Haihan in the capital.
It seems that everyone in the court is not optimistic about the prospect of this war. But when the same group of people discussed the feasibility of assassinating the Executive Committee two months ago, they believed that even if it failed, it would not affect the security of the capital.
Thinking of the assassination operation, Chongzhen couldn't help but feel a little regretful. He was so obsessed with listening to the persuasion of this group of people that once the assassination was successful, it would greatly weaken Haihan's strength and give Ming a chance to counterattack.
But who knows that people are not as good as God, but this incident became the reason for Haihan to start a war, dragging Ming Dynasty into the current crisis.
If he had not listened to the slander and implemented the unreliable assassination plan, perhaps the capital would still be peaceful at this time.
But there is no medicine for regret in the world. Now that things have come to this, we can only find ways to make up for the mistakes we made before.
Of course, Chongzhen also knew that if he fought a decisive battle with the Haihan Army in the capital, the country would probably be destroyed in one battle, and the consequences would be serious and irreversible. Of the two opinions in the debate among cabinet ministers, he preferred the former.
Wang Chengen was secretly sent to Hangzhou to negotiate with the Haihan Executive Committee. Chongzhen was worried that this move would encounter fierce opposition, so he did not inform the cabinet of the matter.
Of course, the fundamental reason is that he can no longer trust the people in the cabinet.
But as soon as Wang Chengen left, he disappeared like a cow into the sea and disappeared without a trace. It is not known whether he was already negotiating with the Haihan Executive Committee.
Judging from the reaction of the Haihan Army outside the city, it is obvious that Wang Chengen has not completed his mission and still has no hope of an armistice.
Just when he was feeling dizzy, a eunuch came to report that a letter was sent from the Han army outside the city, specifying that it should be sent to the palace for Chongzhen to read personally.
Chongzhen expected that this letter was probably a letter to persuade him to surrender. When he opened it, he found that, as expected, the content was to advise Chongzhen to open the city and surrender as soon as possible and not to make any more unnecessary resistance. To show his sincerity, Chongzhen had to go out of the city in person to ask for surrender.
After reading the content, Chongzhen laughed angrily and asked the ministers present to circulate the letter of persuasion to surrender.
After reading this, everyone shouted no. They could accept the solution of surrender, but asking Chongzhen to leave the city in person to ask for surrender was actually deliberately humiliating the Ming Dynasty.