Free Web NovelThis horse could be said to be the strongest warhorse in history.
If any accident happened, Li Zicheng would be able to ride this horse and quickly escape the battlefield.
He could even ride this horse through ranks of ten thousand troops and kill the enemy's commanding general without any problem.
This horse had already become a lethal weapon.
Aozawa waved his hand, and the soil floating in the air began to fall back down.
He didn't stay here any longer.
Noon was very short.
He had to hurry now to Shengjing beyond the passes.
He would remodel the Eight Banners there, making them Dashun's most loyal fighting force.
The soil drifted down from the sky to the ground.
The Thunder Dragon let out a loud sound, flicked its tail, and, wrapped in dark clouds, left the capital.
The sky turned a boundless blue, without a single white cloud, and bright sunlight poured down on Li Zicheng.
He rode a warhorse that could only be called ferocious, and the armor on his body looked ordinary yet not ordinary, flashing with light, as if it were Divine Armor blessed by a Heavenly Deity.
The Dashun soldiers who saw this scene hurriedly knelt and cried, "Long live the Emperor, long live, long, long live!"
Their voices were a bit uneven at first, but then became perfectly unified.
Those who had coveted the throne had all been cast into the Eighteen Levels of Hell.
Most of the Righteous Army did not believe in Buddhism or Daoism, but they still knew of Hell.
They had heard it was an extremely terrifying place.
They fought on the battlefield.
On the one hand they wanted to live a better life, but if their brief lives went well only for them to fall into a long torment in Hell after death,
they definitely would not want their lives to go too well.
Before, they had hoped to storm into the capital, then all get rich together and enjoy what the women of the capital were like.
Now they no longer had those little thoughts.
Li Zicheng raised his head, looked at the officers and soldiers on the city tower, and said in a voice that carried authority without anger: "Open the gate, I have returned."
The dragon pattern on his face made the soldiers' legs go weak.
Their commander no longer cared about the one in the palace.
The Heavenly Deity had already said that man was unfit to be emperor, so they mortals would naturally obey the god's command.
"Open the gate at once and welcome the Emperor back to the palace!"
The creaking city gate opened.
Li Zicheng rode his horse into the capital, and history turned to a new page from that moment on.
Enter the era of the Shun Dynasty.
...
Beyond the passes, Shengjing.
Shengjing in March was still a bit cold.
Dorgon had not closed the window of his study; instead he had opened it, and he wasn't wearing many layers of clothing either.
He had long grown used to Shengjing's cold, and he also believed that men beyond the passes did not need so much silks and satins; those things only corroded a man's will and body.
Of course, he wasn't worried now.
But after they entered the passes, that would be hard to say.
Dorgon looked at the intelligence reports on the Dashun Righteous Army, and at a letter from one of Wu Sangui's advisers, and fell into deep thought.
He had no direct contact with Wu Sangui, but he did have indirect contact.
The Ming Dynasty was already finished, very likely unable to withstand Dashun's offensive.
Once the Ming Dynasty perished, what path would Wu Sangui of Shanhaiguan take?
He had already named specific conditions; it was just a matter of the other side agreeing, and he believed no one could offer better terms than he could.
The problem was that Wu Sangui might not trust the terms he was offering, and very likely might turn to the Shun Dynasty instead.
But regardless of what Wu Sangui had in mind, entering the passes was something that had to be done.
He had to have his subordinates prepare in advance.
If Wu Sangui refused, then they would bypass Shanhaiguan, take the usual route for entering the passes, and see if they might have an unexpected windfall.
As Dorgon pondered the matters related to future campaigns, loud thunder suddenly rumbled from the sky.
Rumble, rumble.
"The sky isn't dark yet…" He had just been about to say, the sky isn't dark, where's the thunder coming from, when he noticed it was no longer bright outside, but quickly turning dim.
Dorgon rose and leaned out the window.
The sky was as black as ink, and a silver dragon was coming from the distance.
Such a miraculous sight left the battle-hardened Dorgon standing there dumbstruck, unable for a time to come back to his senses.
"Looks like there's going to be a heavy rain."
A gentle female voice came from behind him.
The Empress Dowager entered the study carrying wine and dishes, intending to reward this Regent. freewebnσvel.cѳm
If she wanted her son to sit securely on the throne, she had to steady Dorgon's heart.
And what could steady a man's heart better than a woman's body?
Such behavior was nothing unacceptable beyond the passes.
Dorgon came back to himself and looked at the beauty behind him. He had taken many women, but the identity of the Empress Dowager, and the way she did it, were truly thrilling.
"Xiaozhuang, there's a dragon outside."
Just as he spoke, the ground suddenly began to tremble, bricks cracked like turtle shells, and the very buildings crumbled like sand and drifted into the air. "What?!"
Dorgon was scared stupid.
No matter how brave and skilled in war he was, he was still only a mortal.
In the face of this upheaval of heaven and earth, he had no ability to respond.
"Dorgon!"
Xiaozhuang's voice pulled him back, and he instinctively reached out, wanting to grab her.
But his feet suddenly felt light, and his whole body floated up into the air.
...
"What's going on?" "It's over, we're going to be eaten by the dragon!" "No, I don't want to die yet, someone, come quickly!" "Mother, Mother, where are you?!"
For a time, Shengjing City was filled with human clamor.
No one cared about rules anymore; they spoke out however they pleased.
No matter princes or high ministers, at this moment they were no different from commoners.
All their voices melded together into a jumble that made Dorgon's mind a tangled mess.
He felt his head was about to explode, yet still could not make sense of this extremely bizarre situation before his eyes.
The earth split into cracks and blocks, breaking apart and rising.
Everywhere he looked, any decent building collapsed and shattered.
The commoners' houses were better off; nothing happened to them.
But the people were the same—they floated in the air.
From the elderly about to enter their graves to the infants still wailing for milk, not a single one was an exception.
He looked up at the silver dragon in the sky, and an inexplicable dread rose in his heart. Could it be that today he would die in the dragon's maw?
"I've always said you shouldn't overstep yourselves and proclaim an emperor, and now look, the Ming Dynasty's dragon has come to eat us!"
Amid the noise, some backseat driver's voice mixed in from who knew where.
The sound seemed a bit familiar to Dorgon, but when he swept his gaze over the faces around him, he couldn't see anyone he recognized.
Including Xiaozhuang—he didn't know where she had floated off to.
Rage flared in his heart. He drew his blade and shouted up at the heavens: "If you want to eat me, then we'll see how capable you are!"
The silver dragon lowered its head as if it had noticed a mortal's provocation, and opened its mouth.
In an instant, tens of thousands of streaks of electric current sprayed out from the dragon's mouth.
Dorgon was so frightened he let go of his sword; all the color drained from his face.
He very much wanted to say that he had just been joking, and beg Lord Dragon God not to take offense.
But it was too late; the current fell directly onto him.
Then a sharp pain spread from his brain, as if an invisible voice were telling him
that from now on he would be a loyal subject of the Shun Dynasty, and that he must serve the Shun Dynasty's Emperor with his life.
Only in this way could his sins be forgiven by Heaven.
At first Dorgon still wanted to resist.
But as the voices came again and again, he changed his mind and came to believe that he was indeed a loyal subject of the Shun Dynasty.
The only purpose of entering the passes was to win a realm for the Shun Dynasty's Emperor, and then lead the Banner youths back beyond the passes without taking a single coin, guarding the borders for Dashun forever.
So that the two races within and beyond the passes would be intimately close.
To achieve a great fusion of the nations.
In that instant, Dorgon felt his gaze and his thoughts drift up into the heavens, as if he could see the future scene of everyone being like one family.
His vision instantly broadened.
Unlike his previous thinking, which had been far too narrow.
His head had been full of conquest and ravaging—utterly barbaric.
Once Dorgon's thinking was settled, he drifted down from the sky, landing exactly atop the Command Platform.
Below him were the Banner youths, fully armed and ready to march, their faces all bearing the expression of loyal ministers of Dashun.
"Enter the passes! Sweep away all who defy the Shun Dynasty's Emperor!"
Dorgon shouted high-spiritedly, not even needing to ask the Emperor's permission.
Since they were now to honor the Shun Dynasty's Emperor, the little brat in the palace naturally had to be demoted and could no longer be Emperor.
As for Xiaozhuang, once he finished his campaigns he would flog her every night, making sure she forgot all about her son's throne.
"Roar!"
The Banner youths shouted excitedly, impatient to risk their lives for the Shun Dynasty's Emperor.
Aozawa was very pleased with this result. Electromagnetic Control was truly formidable, capable of manipulating everything from the macro to the micro.
He sighed inwardly, did not linger here, and chose once again to go back, returning to his original world.
