Faced with his younger brother Yang Zhiwen's suggestion, Yang Zhiyong desperately wanted to march on the capital and destroy Li Qin.
However, he managed to calm himself down.
A ruler should not raise an army out of anger, nor should a general wage war out of resentment.
Li Qin is currently very powerful, and having just captured the capital, he is at the height of his power. I can only temporarily avoid his sharp edge.
If I were to march towards the capital now, I would be directly running into Li Qin's hundreds of thousands of troops, which would be tantamount to suicide.
After a struggle with his own thoughts, Yang Zhiyong finally gave the order, albeit reluctantly:
"Withdraw the troops and return to Taiyuan."
As time passed, after the Forbidden City was restored, Li Qin personally "escorted" Zhu Qizhen into the Forbidden City.
Zhu Qizhen, who was sitting on the dragon throne again, suddenly felt a sense of unreality.
He actually sat on the dragon throne once again and returned to the Forbidden City.
He thought he would never be able to return to the Forbidden City in his lifetime.
The events that have occurred during this period are truly like a dream to him.
It really feels like a dream.
But Li Qin, sitting next to him and exuding a strong sense of pressure, was telling himself something else entirely.
Everything that happened during this period was not a dream.
Before him stood the remaining ministers who had surrendered to Li Qin.
Standing behind him was Xi Ning, who had just been appointed by Li Qin to a series of positions, including the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial.
At this moment, among the ministers standing in front of him, the three Grand Secretaries who had been appointed into the cabinet were the ones he had personally appointed.
The current Grand Secretary is Sun Zhixie, the Second Grand Secretary is Xu Youzhen, and the current Grand Secretary is Qian Qianyi.
They all surrendered to Li Qin.
This was the most unexpected thing for Zhu Qizhen, because he had personally promoted these people.
Not a single one of them died for their country; they all surrendered?
When I wanted to personally lead the expedition, you all agreed.
You guys have certainly criticized Li Qin quite a bit.
But he doesn't have time to think about these things now; even if he wanted to do something, it would be impossible.
He was now completely under Li Qin's watchful eye.
As emperor, he had no power whatsoever.
"Your Majesty, issue the decree."
Li Qin glanced at Emperor Zhu Qizhen beside him.
Zhu Qizhen immediately shuddered in fear.
He then immediately waved his hand, signaling Xi Ning to quickly read out the decree written by Li Qin.
"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: The Duke of Liaodong, having eradicated treacherous officials and rendered outstanding service, shall be appointed to oversee all affairs of state, granted the privilege of being honored without question, exempt from hasty bowing upon entering the court, permitted to wear a sword and shoes in the imperial palace, granted the authority to establish his own government with the same rank as the Three Excellencies, and appointed Commander-in-Chief of all military affairs, both internal and external..."
Apart from bestowing titles upon himself, the entire decree consisted of rewards for the soldiers who had distinguished themselves in this great battle.
Whether it was his own elite troops or the armies of surrendered generals such as Cui Yuanbin and Geng Zhixiang, he bestowed great rewards upon them.
Nearly ten million in silver alone was awarded as rewards.
As for where he got so much silver?
Of course, they were "collected" from the capital, from the national treasury, and from the residences of officials and merchants.
It must be said that the capital was truly wealthy; just confiscating the homes of those nobles yielded a considerable amount of valuable items.
Of course, this only applies to those officials who did not surrender or who fled.
As for Sun Zhixie, Xu Youzhen and others who were pragmatic, he did not make any moves.
However, they were also quite pragmatic. Many of the surrendered officials, upon seeing the fierce soldiers, voluntarily took out some silver and gave it to them so that they could reward the army.
Li Qin treated them extremely well.
The main purpose is to set an example for officials across the country.
He needed to cultivate a harmless image in the minds of those landlords and gentry.
Tell them that even if I come, they will still drink and dance as usual.
This will minimize the obstacles to conquering the world.
Otherwise, don't underestimate the strength of the Zhili region north of the old course of the Yellow River that you are about to attack.
As soon as those landlords and gentry rebel against him, the entire land of Zhili will be filled with righteous armies resisting him.
Therefore, he also issued several orders to appease them in the name of Emperor Zhu Qizhen.
Let them continue to acknowledge Zhu Qizhen as their emperor, since they have the throne in their own hands anyway.
After everything was settled, a minister immediately submitted a memorial stating:
"Your Majesty, what should we do with the corpses of the false emperor Zhu Qiyu and the treacherous official Yu Gan?"
Upon hearing the names of Zhu Qiyu and Yu Gan, Zhu Qizhen, who was sitting on the throne, immediately stood up from his dragon throne.
His eyes were filled with barely concealed anger.
"Zhu Qiyu conspired with Yu Gan to commit treason, stripped Zhu Qiyu of his status as a commoner, and removed him from the family genealogy."
Yu Gan's body was beheaded and his head displayed to the public.
Looking at the angry Zhu Qizhen standing up, Li Qin immediately recalled the anger, urgency, and fear that Yu Gan felt when Zhu Qizhen went to knock on the door and refused to open it.
This anger towards him reached its peak the moment he learned that Zhu Qiyu had been made emperor and that he had lost his throne.
I'm afraid Zhu Qizhen has been secretly plotting to kill them quite a bit lately.
After all, he had been captured, and instead of trying to save him, they kept pushing him to his death.
During this time in the capital, every time he went to knock on the door and couldn't get an answer, he probably felt his anger towards Gan would intensify.
After he entered the capital, after the first court assembly ended.
Li Qin, immediately escorted by his personal guards, arrived before the large army that had been prepared outside the capital city.
This large army was led by his nephew Li Xuanshang, with Liu Chenghui and Zhang Hengshuo as his deputies, and consisted of 30,000 elite infantrymen from Liaodong, 10,000 Liaodong cavalry, and 20,000 Jurchen troops.
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