Chapter 15 Chapter 15 Breaking the Clear River

The aroma of the fushou ointment was as thick as smoke that could not be melted away, permeating the entire Qianqing Palace, especially the dragon bed where Emperor Wanli lived, which was made of brocade tents embroidered with dragon and phoenix patterns and bordered with swastikas. The small world surrounded by him was completely occupied by the aroma of fushou balm; but he still felt that it was not enough, so he repeatedly ordered the eunuchs to increase the amount, so that the whole palace was so smoked that others could not step in, and they would cough continuously when they entered the door.

But he relied on this special fragrance to make his spirit slightly better, so he was able to sit up and give orders in person, and he thought angrily again and again: "Jianzhou Jurchen is just looking at Bian Xiaoyi." How dare you start a rebellion! We must order Yang Gao to calm down as soon as possible!" Therefore, even though he was ill, he braced himself to deal with the matter himself, and quickly approved the new personnel appointments proposed by the Ministry of War. Li Weihan, the original governor, reassigned Zhou Yongchun as the governor of Liaodong in order to reduce his nationality for the people; Li Rubai, the former general soldier of Ningxia, was transferred to be the general soldier of Liaodong, responsible for the main suppression. For the aid of Wang Xuan, the commander-in-chief, Liu Chenchi, a veteran who had resigned and returned to his hometown, was also employed to serve in Liaodong.

In terms of mobilizing troops and horses, he also approved the request of the Ministry of War to mobilize soldiers and horses stationed in Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places to aid Liao; ; and more quickly instructed the Ministry of Households to levy additional taxes, adding three cents and five cents per mu to the land tax, and you can get more than two million taels, which is called "Liao Pay"—— After giving these instructions, he seemed to have run out of strength, tired, tired, weak, and lay down, his eyelids drooping naturally; however, this time the incident was after all what he cared about, therefore No matter how weak he was, he held on for a while, and told the eunuch in front of him: "Do the math, how many troops have our army mobilized to fight Liaodong?"

After a quick calculation, the answer came quickly: "To Long Live Lord, a total of 570,000..." He let out a "huh", tilted his head, and was about to fall asleep, but he seemed to be a little worried, and then asked a question: "Over there, Jianyi, how many people are there?" The eunuch replied: "The reports from the Ministry of War say that there are only tens of thousands—about forty or fifty thousand!" "It's ten times worse!" So, he felt relieved: "This time, Yang Gao will definitely come back with a big victory for me!"

As soon as he closed his eyes, he fell into a deep sleep, and immediately had a dream of winning the army and returning home in triumph. However, Nurhachi was awake at night, busy with the upcoming war. He easily breached Fushun and the surrounding eleven large and small cities. His harvest was very rich, with a population of more than 6,000, hundreds of thousands of livestock, and tens of thousands of food, property, armor, and weapons. And Dazhen made him very happy. In July, he led his army into Yahu Pass and besieged Qinghe City; this time, he encountered stubborn resistance from the defenders, so the battle did not go smoothly.

However, he could not give up——Qinghe City is an important place, with Shenyang on the left, Kuiyang on the right, Liaoyang on the south, and Kuandian on the north. However, there were about 10,000 defenders in Qinghe in the Ming Dynasty, led by Zou Chuxian and Zhang Wei, who were quite capable. Moreover, the city was equipped with firearms, which were powerful when fired, which increased the difficulty of attacking the city. In the first attack, he lost more than a thousand troops because of the firearms on the city, so he had to call for money to withdraw his troops and suspend the siege of the city.

He let the soldiers under his command rest, healed the wounded, and reorganized the team, while he fell into hard thinking; after three days, he finally figured out a way to break the weapon advantage of the defenders on the city. "Prepare a large piece of wood..." The source of the material is not difficult, you can get it by cutting down trees in the forest on the spot; then, he taught the soldiers the method: "every few people carry a wooden plank and put it on their heads to prevent firearms; , and don’t attack the city with your hands; you only need to dig the foot of the wall with the wooden planks—once you break through the city wall and enter the city through the break, you won’t be afraid of firearms!”

This method really worked, the second attack, Qinghe City was breached, this dangerous place fell into his hands, Shenyang, Liaoyang also entered his invisible threat. However, he did not take advantage of this victory to rush into Liao and Shen. Instead, he asked the soldiers to return to Hetuala, rearrange their equipment, and organize new surrendered and subordinated men to practice and familiarize themselves with his unique command style. He himself was doubly busy. First, he was busy thinking carefully about the news sent back by the people who had sent to collect intelligence from the Ming Dynasty, studying and judging, and then coming up with countermeasures and formulating his own strategy—until the end of the year, and he was still busy. Do not rest.

He had already obtained the list of new officials and generals sent by the Ming Dynasty to Liaodong; A copy was bought for a lot of money—— On this day, he summoned five important ministers including E Yidu, An Fei Yanggu, Fei Yingdong, He Heli, and Hu Erhan, as well as his sons Dai Shan and Huang Taiji to discuss the matter; We are coming to 'massively suppress' us!" But even though he was talking about such an important matter, his tone was not heavy and serious, but relaxed; then, he even said to everyone in a somewhat joking tone: "No, let's see something first! "

As he spoke, he opened the top one of the thick stack of documents in his hand, and spread the contents on the table; it was clearly an announcement issued by the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty to inform the world. Those in Nurhachi will be rewarded with 10,000 taels of silver, and they will be promoted to command hereditary inheritance." After reading, he himself laughed loudly, and said, "Ming Dynasty is too stingy and underestimates me too much! Only willing to spend 10,000 taels of silver, do you want to buy someone to capture and kill me?" The forehead also laughed: "After Li Chengliang became old in the Ming Dynasty, no one knew about Liaodong anymore! It's so funny!"

But Huang Taiji went on to say: "Father Khan, no one in the Ming Dynasty understands the affairs of Liaodong, isn't it a great benefit to us?" Nurhachi nodded and said: "The Han people have a saying: 'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle.' Now, they themselves have forgotten the lessons of their ancestors; we must firmly remember them!" As he spoke, he took another stack of thick documents: "Look—this is the Ming Dynasty's plan of 'four-way attack and attack Hetuala'!" Then he ordered Huang Taiji: "Read it aloud so that everyone can understand it!" Huang Taiji took it with both hands, and read aloud: "West Road: Fushun Road, with Du Song, the commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan as the chief general, leading Baoding Commander-in-Chief Wang Xuan, former Commander-in-Chief Zhao Menglin, Dusi Liu Yujie, former General Gong Niansui and other more than 20,000 officers and soldiers, led by Zhang Quan, the deputy envoy of patrolling troops, left Fushun Pass from Shenyang, entered Sukesuhu River Valley along the right bank of the Hun River, and attacked Hetuala from the west—— "South Road: Qinghe Road, with Li Rubai, Liaodong's general officer as the main general, leading Liaoyang's deputy chief military officer He Shixian, Du Si Zhang Yingchang, Guan Yizhou's deputy general officer Li Huaizhong, guerrilla You Shigong and other more than 20,000 officers and soldiers People, with the guards and the counselor Yan Mingtai as the supervising army, and the official Zheng Zhifan as the reasoning, went out of Yahu Pass from Qinghe and attacked Hetuala from the south. "Northern Road: To open the original road, with the former general officer Ma Lin as the main general, he led more than 20,000 officers and soldiers including Guerrilla Ma Yan, Du Si Zheng Guoliang, Guerrilla Ding Bi, former guerrilla Ge Shifeng, etc. People, with Pan Zongyan as the supervisor of Kaiyuan's military preparation and Taoist affairs, and Dong Erli as the judge of Xiuyan Tong. And 2,000 people from Ye Hejun assisted, and Dou Yongcheng, the capital of guerrilla affairs, supervised Ye Hejun. Jing'an Fort out, towards Kaiyuan, Tieling, attack Hetuala from the north. "East Road: To lay the road for Kuan, with Liu Ting, the general officer, as the main general, he led 10,000 officers and soldiers including Zu Tianding, the guerrilla capital in charge of Guan Kuandian, Yao Guofu, the capital of Nanjing Sixth Battalion, Zhou Wen, the governor of Shandong Guandu, and Zhou Jiming, the governor of the Zhejiang Army Camp. The remaining people were supervised by Kang Yingqian, the deputy envoy of Haigai's military preparations, and praised by fellow acquaintance Huang Zongzhou. They were led by Marshal Jiang Hongli and Deputy Marshal Jin Jingrui sent by the Korean state to lead 13,000 troops, under the control of the general officer Liu Ting, and With Qiao Yiqi, the capital in charge of the guerrilla affairs in Zhenjiang, as the supervisor. He will be rented out from Liangma, join the North Korean army, and attack Hetuala from the east..." As soon as Huang Taiji read it, the atmosphere of the audience immediately changed from relaxed to serious. After reading, Nurhachi added a few points: "The Ming army claims to have a total of 570,000, all of which are coordinated and dispatched by Liaodong Economic Strategy Yang Gao; and In my opinion, the total number of these four troops will not exceed 100,000; one is because the Ming army has always had the practice of "eating vacancies", and the commander benefits by reporting less and paying more; second, it is said that Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places are thousands of miles away, and even if troops and horses are transferred, they will not be able to arrive in a short period of time; The number of troops is about the same as that of the enemy and us; but if we compare general talents, our side will win by ten points——Yang Gao, who was reused by the Ming Dynasty, is actually a mediocre talent, and he will only make things go wrong, not get things done! Secondly? Juniper is known as 'Crazy Du', you can only be brave in battle, not to mention Li Rubai, Liu Chen is already old-in short, without a great talent, there is nothing to be afraid of!" But Huang Taiji asked: "According to Father Khan's high opinion, when will the Ming army attack us?" Nurhachi smiled slightly and said: "The correct news is that until yesterday, he was still urging the army to urge the army to urge food and pay. Obviously, he has not completed all the preparations for the war; therefore, it will be the spring of next year at the earliest—just to make our preparations adequate. Take it easy!" Huang Taiji first praised: "Father Khan has eyesight and eyesight, so he will win the battle because of this. I really admire the child!" On the one hand, he continued to ask: "Ming's troops are divided into four groups, how will Father Khan decide to meet them?" Nurha Chidao: "He divided his troops into four groups and scattered all his forces. The best strategy is to concentrate his forces and defeat them one by one. The final decision; it should be noted that the plan is dead, it is only a principle, the action must be flexible, and it must be adjusted according to the current situation..." He seemed to intend to teach his sons the laws of war, so he explained it in great detail——