Chapter 23 Chapter 23 Disobedience

A great thing for Nurhachi, but a very bad thing for Yuan Chonghuan... When he received the news of Lin Danhan's retreat, he sighed: "The only force that can hold Nurhachi from behind is gone!" He was in utter isolation and helplessness. I don’t know how many memorials I wrote to the imperial court to try to stick to the Jinning line of defense, and I sent them to the capital quickly, but I didn’t get any reply at all; Gained a lot of sympathy: "The art of war has no retreat, the three cities have been restored, and it can be retreated lightly? If the brocade and the right are shaken, then Ning and the front will be shocked, and the security will be lost when the door is closed. Now, if you choose a good general to guard it, you must have no other worries. "

However, those who resonate with these words are all courageous, loyal and upright people who really planned for Liaodong—Gao Di, who was promoted by giving bribes to the eunuch party, is not such a person at all. Although this righteous and far-sighted famous sentence was spread all over Liaodong, Gaodi who wrote directly to the letter not only seemed to have never heard of it, but did not respond at all. Ningyuan and Qiantun are no exception. As a result, fierce conflict broke out. A lieutenant general and several civil servants who were in charge of carrying out the withdrawal task came to Ningyuan City with Gaodi's personal order.

Yuan Chonghuan immediately slapped the table and scolded people: "This is an act of treason at all! I want to give away my land, city, and people to Houjin for nothing!" When his temper came up, he couldn't care about anything else, and all the anger in his heart poured down, and he simply reprimanded Gaudi loudly, and even said to the people sent by Gaudi: "The withdrawal of the troops, Can you come up with the imperial decree? Otherwise, it is a false edict—” As soon as these people arrived in Ningyuan, they found that something was wrong. From the very beginning, they adopted the attitude of "swallowing one's anger and making compromises" to face Yuan Chonghuan, hoping to complete the task of withdrawing troops after Yuan Chonghuan lost his temper; however, after a few words, I already knew it in my heart: Yuan Chonghuan would never accept Gao Di's order anyway, and withdrew his troops from Ningyuan.

Especially when Yuan Chonghuan came out with the word "Jiaozhao", the hearts of several people were cold: "It is true that we are not acting according to the imperial decree of the imperial court, but are only sent by Mr. Gao, let alone a "Jiaozhao" ' felony-" This matter risked the consequences of being punished by Gaodi when he went back, so he had no choice but to retreat. And Yuan Chonghuan also declared in a sharp voice: "I am the Ningqian soldier appointed by the imperial court to prepare for the road. I swear to defend the two cities of Ning and Qian, and protect the people in my city!"

These few people had no choice but to touch their noses, bowed their hands together and said goodbye to him: "Low ranks and other positions are small and light, so I dare not say more!" However, I also respected his fierceness in my heart. When I was leaving, I respectfully and sincerely said to him: "Master Yuan, please take care of yourself! The low-ranking people are unable to help you to stick to the city. After returning, you can only burn incense in the morning and evening, and pray for God's blessing." My lord, guard the second city of Ningqian!" These words came from sincerity in helplessness and powerlessness, and they were indeed touching; so Yuan Chonghuan bowed his hands to them in return, and said: "As ministers of the Ming Dynasty, let's all do our best!"

However, these lofty spiritual meanings are of no help to the actual situation; Gao Di does not move him, and simply adopts the strategy of "ignoring him", allowing him to stay in peace and front, while accelerating the urging of other places to withdraw troops As a result, guards, soldiers, and common people in Jinzhou, Youtun, Linghe, Songshan, Xingshan, Tashan and other places were all driven into the pass, and more than 100,000 rice and millet were abandoned in the abandoned city. Walking is difficult, death is the way, crying is loud, people's grievances are soaring, and the morale of the army is even more sluggish.

The foreign enemy has not yet launched an offensive, and the people have died because of the domestic mediocrity and rampant. However, these places are not under the jurisdiction of Yuan Chonghuan, and he cannot lend a helping hand-Yuan Chonghuan, who is heartbroken, can only follow Sun Chengzong's past example and resign from office. However, as if fate was playing tricks on him, the imperial court quickly issued an order for this visit, concluding that not only was he not allowed to resign from his post and stay away from Liaodong, but he was also promoted and appointed as an inspector. And take things as they are.

This is simply an ironic imperial decree—his opinion of "keeping outside the pass" contradicts Gaudi, but the imperial court asked him to "see the matter as before" and at the same time asked Gaudi to withdraw his troops to "keep inside the pass"; the policies were basically two-sided. Contradictions, no consensus! "What the hell—" Yuan Chonghuan cried out to the sky in grief and anger, but how could the sky respond to him? And the situation is imminent - the news has reached his ears, Nurhachi has mobilized 300,000 troops, and is about to set off some day to kill south!

The total number of defenders in Ningyuan and Qiantun is only 15,000, even if the old, weak and disabled soldiers are counted together... For Nurhachi, the original target was Shanhaiguan, but a message came in temporarily: "Yuan Chonghuan resisted orders and did not withdraw, stick to Ningyuan!" "Yuan Chonghuan?" Nurhachi was surprised: "Isn't it some big man! Dare to resist orders and not withdraw, blocking my army?" This person seems to have a strong heart and courage—but this name is really not loud enough. Compared with the fame of Xiong Tingbi and Sun Chengzong, it is too far away. He searched carefully in his mind, but he couldn't find any deep impression. Obviously, Never participated in a major battle.

And when the ministers handed over the information about Yuan Chonghuan and let a person read it out in a pen, he even laughed dumbfounded: "The Jinshi in the forty-seventh year of Wanli was appointed as the county magistrate of Shaowu; the recommendation in the second year of Tianqi was an exception. Promoted to be the head of the Ministry of War - a young boy who has never really been on the battlefield!" Such a person, in his early forties, has been a county magistrate for three years; he has been in Liaodong for four years, and his current official position is "Deputy Envoy of Ningqian Military Preparation" with the title of "According Envoy"; the most important achievement in Liaodong is Ningyuan City was built, nothing else.

The opinions of the subjects are: "such a person, how can he be our opponent?" Everyone chattered and said: "He has never fought a war before, so he thinks he can resist our country's Eight Banners Cavalry - the Ming Dynasty's system, using civil officials to coerce generals. I don’t understand military affairs; just like Yuan Yingtai from before—he’s also surnamed Yuan, he’s just as stupid, isn’t he?” Nurhachi smiled lightly and said, "Anyway, he is courageous, but he is also a man!" Then, he ordered people to explain the strength of Ningyuan City in detail: "There are 15,000 soldiers now, and there are generals Man Gui, deputy generals Zuo Fu and Zhu Mei, generals Zu Dashou, guard He Kegang, and former garrison general Zhao Late. teach, and serve under Yuan Chonghuan's tent!" This kind of strength is ridiculously weak! Among the several generals, only Man Gui is indeed a famous general, and Zu Dashou was born in a family of generals in Liaodong, with a little reputation-the rest are simply "not worth mentioning"! Therefore, this meeting will be completed soon. Nurhachi made the final decision: "Let's go and surrender first, or use troops if you don't surrender—Ningyuan and Qiantun should be wiped out within ten days, and then go straight to Shanhaiguan—this battle still takes Shanhaiguan as the ultimate goal; Make preparations, set off on the 20th of the first month, Daishan and Amin will go forward first, capture Ningyuan, Qiantun and the rear, and directly march to Shanhaiguan, and capture Shanhaiguan on the first day of February!" His words were bold and dry, full of confidence to win, and boosted morale very high. On the contrary, it also showed that the pre-war preparations that he had already carried out for a long time were very complete. This time, since the scale of the planned war was much larger than the previous ones, in addition to mobilizing all the powerful troops of the Eight Banners to participate in the battle, he also specially recruited troops from various Mongolian ministries that had made friends with him and allied with him. Thousands of troops formed a large and strong team; and prepared a large number of weapons, food, vehicles, siege equipment, and even well-designed tactical strategies and special secret weapons. "Break Shanhaiguan in one fell swoop and go straight to the Central Plains—" This will be the most important battle in his life - he has completed full preparations, so he is extra excited. But in Ningyuan, the heavy snow is raging, and the world is even more solemn and solemn; the war is approaching, and the wilderness is becoming more and more brutal... Yuan Chonghuan, who was determined to do a feat like a mantis arm blocking a car, was busy day and night, preparing for the challenge. The resources he can use are very scarce, but the time to prepare for the war is very urgent, and the overall environment and even all conditions are unfavorable to him, so that he must do his best and exert his greatest potential to carry out. The first step, of course, is to convene the generals to agree on a strategy for fighting and defending. And just a moment before the meeting, Nurhachi's letter to surrender was delivered. Nurhachi's offer was very favorable, compared to Fushun's surrendered general Li Yongfang, who was recruited as his son-in-law and given the post of chief military officer. The letter was only half read, and it was torn to pieces by the impulse caused by the anger rising in my heart. His face turned red, and his emotions were even more surging because of this stimulation, but he was also reminded of one thing: "Nurhachi used to lure surrender with huge profits, and bought internal agents—in the past, he broke Liao, Shen, Guangning and other places. Every time, it worked like this; this time, even the idea came to me, so why not attack others? I must be on guard!" Then, he specifically proposed in the meeting that the measures in this area were intensified-the meeting first discussed the original focus: strategy. There are two principles to choose from: one is to stick to the city, and the other is to divide the troops out of the city to meet them. But almost all the generals are opposed to confronting the battle and advocate sticking to it. Zu Dashou was the first to speak: "Our army is alone and alone, it is not appropriate to disperse our strength and go out of the city to fight, it is easy to be defeated by everyone!" Moreover, he cites examples of several previous defeats and city falls: "Looking at the past, the loss of Shenyang, first, the commander-in-chief He Shixian led more than a thousand troops out of the city to meet them, and they were defeated and died. The enemy army took advantage of the momentum and charged in; in the battle of Liaoyang, the five generals led their troops out of the city to form an formation five miles away, they were defeated, and the city fell the next day—these are lessons that cannot be forgotten!" Then, he even expressed a unique opinion-among the generals, Mangui is a Mongolian, Zhao Shijiao is from Shaanxi, and the rest are all from the pass. understand things much more deeply than others... "Most of Houjin's Eight Banners are cavalry, which were originally good at sprinting in the field, but short at attacking high-risk cities; therefore, Nurhachi's way of winning the city's siege actually relies on the use of tactics and strategies; now, our way of winning should be It's the opposite!" These words received unanimous resonance, so the strategy was established. Then, Jin Qiyi put forward another opinion: "The Eight Banners Army is good at sprinting in the field, so it must be clumsy in the use of artillery, especially Western artillery, which they have never seen before. Our army will definitely make them unable to deal with it!" This is also an important opinion. There are eleven Western cannons in Ningyuan City, and Mao Yuanyi, who has personally learned the method of firing from the barbarians, has also taught these methods to several people, such as Sun Yuanhua, Peng Zangu, Luo Li, etc. People are in the military now. "This should be the biggest and most important advantage of our army!" After listening to the words, Yuan Chonghuan murmured to himself, and his confidence began to build up, which was a little more optimistic than the previous idea of ​​"sticking to it".