stubborn thief

On the Kulun grassland outside the Liaodong border.

For five consecutive days, the two large armies rolled towards the northwest, sometimes rushing, sometimes stopping, and entangled for more than 200 miles.

Liu Chengzong walked and stopped, dividing his troops to harass and respond to harassment, and every time he rested for a while, he had to prepare to wait for the enemy to tire themselves out and then return to fight.

Huang Taiji chased as fast as he could, but he did not dare to chase too closely. He tried to outflank the enemy while keeping his eye on the opportunity to fight. His follow-up troops were still receiving continuous reinforcements, and the balance of military advantage was tilting towards him.

The Eight Banners Army had already chased far away from Shenyang and did not seem to have any intention of taking back the baggage and money. They were not afraid at all that Zu Dashou would really occupy Liaoyang.

It seemed like he was waiting for the troops and artillery behind him to have a decisive battle with him.

But Liu Chengzong could understand.

After all, if someone sees smoke coming out of their ancestral grave, they will be very anxious.

The fire was not set by Zhang Xianzhong.

What Zhang Xianzhong originally wanted to do might have angered Emperor Chongde to death on horseback.

He was ordered to take Tang Tong to Dongcheng, intending to go through the Ministry of Rites' ceremony of relocating the tomb and offering sacrifices, and then invite the old Khan out and take him to Shaanxi.

But when he went there, he saw that the old Khan was not there, and the names written on the stele were all of people he didn't know, such as Chu Ying and Shurhaci, so Zhang Xianzhong lost his temper.

Tang Tong was very honest. Like many other generals of the Marshal Army, he maintained the ideology of the old Ming Army and was happy to raid enemy countries.

He had prepared the gunpowder and was about to blow up the tomb passage, but Zhang Xianzhong's dignity as the Minister of Rites suddenly emerged, and he said, "Forget it, my status is too low," and turned around and rode away.

Tang Tong, who was eager to fight, was confused: What do you mean by "too low status"?

I don’t care about your identity, our soldiers want happiness.

This is just like using firecrackers to blow up bricks, setting fire to a house, and burying explosives to blow up a city wall.

A well-built mausoleum, boom!
Explode, happy!
There is no disadvantage to this matter except that it has a bad reputation.

But everything is fine in Liaodong. Following the order from the Minister of Rites, someone has to take the blame, so of course they want to blow it up and then dig it up.

As a result, Zhang Xianzhong left.

Tang Tong led his team towards Tokyo City. The further he walked, the angrier he got. When he saw the woods in the suburbs, he started to get angry: "Burn, burn, burn them all!"

The fire outside the city was really a convenient thing to do.

His soldiers set the woods on fire, and as the woods burned, the fire was blown by the wind to the grave.

Liu Shizi knew the whole story, but he didn't want to write a special letter to tell Emperor Chongde that the fire on his family's grave was an accident and to stop pursuing the matter.

Not suitable.

People's anger is understandable.

Huang Taiji was really anxious.

He had never suffered such a great humiliation in his lifetime.

The ancestral tombs were burned, the old capital was burned, the capital area was looted, the princes were captured, and the people, livestock and farms were burned, looted and killed. This was enough to make people furious.

But this was less humiliating to Huang Taiji than the fact that the navy ships were sunk into the river and the King Gongshun, whom he had conferred upon himself, was beaten and barely escaped with his life.

Those people buried in the Tokyo Mausoleum, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, all died before Huang Taiji was born, and the relationship between him and his eldest brother Chu Ying during his lifetime... was actually quite good. Huang Taiji had a good relationship with all his brothers before he succeeded to the throne.

Moreover, they once studied Chinese under the same teacher, but now their relationship cannot be good.

Because Chu Ying was on the side of the Han people, he was eventually killed because of the policy issue.

Chu Ying didn't want to be Hong Baturu of the Tianming Khanate. He just wanted to be a stable general of the Ming Dynasty.

This can be seen from the names he gave to his sons. The eldest was called Dudu, the second was called Guohuan, and the third was called Hanren. He was a very orthodox successor to the Jianzhou chieftain.

If Nurhaci, the Khan of Heavenly Mandate, had not been there to pressure him, he might have been called Guozhu, Guohuan, or Guozhong.

Before the old Khan started his rebellion, Chu Ying ran to the Liaodong General's Mansion to complain to Zhang Chengyin, saying that my father had great ambitions and the court should be careful of him.

Zhang Chengyin felt that this kid was crazy about gains and losses.

On the eve of Nurhaci establishing the Jin Dynasty, he went out to fight. As soon as the army left, Chu Ying burned paper to offer sacrifices to the sky in the city, cursing the defeat. He also told others: If my father loses the battle, I will not let them enter the city!

Therefore, Chu Ying was a political symbol throughout the Tianming period, and now that Emperor Chongde has ascended the throne, things couldn't be better for him.

The fires in the two cities of Liaoyang and the looting in the capital and the suburbs of Liaoyang were huge losses to the Daiqing Empire. For Huang Taiji, it was a loss of face and his political prestige was shaken, but in reality, he did not suffer much pain.

But the defeat of Kong Youde's troops and the sinking of Shang Kexi's navy is another matter.

This directly caused the military foundation controlled by Huang Taiji to suddenly decline.

This is fatal when political prestige is shaken.

However, what really affected Huang Taiji's mood was that the pursuit was getting more and more intense.

Huang Taiji's original plan was to lead his 20,000 elite troops to the border quickly, regardless of the number of troops, and use the advantage of marching speed to attack Liu Chengzong's rear troops.

Unfortunately, this plan was restrained by Liu Chengzong.

It’s not that the Marshal’s Army marched faster than the Eight Banners. That’s not the case.

The Eight Banners Army was divided into infantry, cavalry and heavy artillery. It was a normal marching level for the infantry and cavalry to march seventy to eighty miles a day. In a forced march, they could even roll up their armor and march two hundred miles a day.

The strength of the Marshal's Army is also in marching, but they are a mixture of cavalry and artillery. Even though there are many cavalrymen who can march 600 miles in three days, the artillery cannot run that fast, and their normal march is only 60 to 70 miles.

So Liu Chengzong blew up all the bridges along the way and sank all the ships.

Huang Taiji's Eight Banners Army was forced to charge rapidly on flat ground during the pursuit, and would be forced to rest if they encountered a river.

As a result, Liu Chengzong's oxcart brigade, which could travel 50 miles a day, had already left the border, and the Eight Banners Army was still struggling with the river water, missing the best opportunity to pursue them.

This is more infuriating than burning down one’s ancestral grave.

The mental state of Emperor Chongde at this time was even worse than that of Emperor Chongzhen after the Ji Si Rebellion.

After all, the Ming Dynasty was a vast country with a dense population. Even the invasion that shocked the world only gave people the most intuitive feeling that "they dared to show off their military power at the gates of Beijing."

However, Dai Qing's core area was only 300 miles between Liaoning and Shenyang. Most of the old Jianzhou moved to Liaoning and Shenyang with the army. As for places farther away, such as the broad Northeast and even across the Songhua River, the ruling power was not as strong as that of Liu Chengzong's Oirats and U-Tsang.

That was not Dai Qing's territory at all, but a human mine where they sent troops to capture people alive.

Liu Chengzong rushed in and started looting, and the damage and shock he caused almost tore the new Daiqing Empire apart.

Huang Taiji is only slightly better than Chongzhen and is smarter.

He didn't kill anyone.

In fact, it was the same as during the reign of Chongzhen. In Huang Taiji's eyes, everyone was blamed for something he did not do, and he wanted to pick some people to kill.

But he knew that killing people at this time was meaningless except for venting anger, and it would only make his relatives sad and his enemies happy. After the defeat, those who stubbornly defended the city were killed by Liu Chengzong, and those who fled back were killed by him. What good would that do?
Therefore, he did not punish anyone. Even Yue Tuo, who had sent troops without authorization and caused Du Du to be captured, was only scolded by Huang Taiji. He still let him be in charge of the Ministry of War and lead 4,000 Red Banner troops to lead the vanguard troops to join the expedition.

The situation is actually very similar to the Later Jin invasion of the Ming Dynasty.

Failure to stop Liu Chengzong from leaving the border meant losing the opportunity to use the border wall to encircle and trap the invading army.

It’s hard to block the inside of the border, let alone the outside.

Fortunately, the terrain outside the Liaodong border is not as open as that outside the Xuanfu border, and Huang Taiji can determine Liu Chengzong's marching route.

After all, the Ming Dynasty's border troops were notoriously poor and violent. As the poorest and most violent among them, Liu Chengzong could not have been unaware of their situation.

If he had nothing in his hands, he would be able to walk across the Ming wall with ease. Anyone who saw this gangster would have to stay away from him.

But now that he was carrying valuables and livestock, everyone he saw was a criminal. No matter how bold he was, he would not dare to walk along the border of the Ming Dynasty.

We must retreat westward via the Greater Khingan Range.

If we go through the Greater Khingan Range, we will definitely be caught up.

Huang Taiji knew the road to Songmofu, which was the road that Dorgon took during his western expedition to Guihua City. Not to mention a large group of ox carts, even for light cavalry, at most 8,000 troops could pass through that broken road in a day.

The troops cannot be deployed and no one can move fast there.

Huang Taiji knew it, and Liu Chengzong naturally knew it too.

Therefore, Huang Taiji no longer had any hope of taking back people, animals, and property. He only wanted to beat Liu Chengzong so hard that he would not dare to come again next year.

Otherwise, just like the sign Liu Chengzong set up, if you come back next year, Daiqing will collapse.

When the Liaohe River freezes, we have to guard against the Ming army's eastward expedition; when the Liaohe River thaws, we have to guard against Liu Chengzong's looting. We have to gather tens of thousands of troops in Shenyang all year round and have nothing to do.

To this end, Huang Taiji changed his previous habit of recruiting Niulu armored soldiers, sending out one and keeping two, and pulled out all the remaining armored men and even the unarmored soldiers. The Liaohe defense line in Niuzhuang and other places shrank nearly 200 miles to the northeast.

There are only a small number of regular soldiers guarding Shengjing City now. A large number of old men and women who can use archers have climbed up the city walls... As for the children, those over the age of fifteen are all in Huang Taiji's border army.

In a very short period of time, 42,000 regular soldiers, surplus soldiers, banner slaves and fish-skin Tatars of the Eight Banners were mobilized, and 9,000 surplus soldiers from the two Mongolian banners and the remnants of the Khorchin tribes were gathered. Even 12,000 Han troops were withdrawn, forming a huge force with a total strength of 63,000 people, and pursued all the way to the northwest.

As the saying goes, if you hold a knife, you must cut; if you hold an axe, you must chop.

Since Huang Taiji had assembled a large army, he made many preparations and was determined to fight a decisive battle.

Even if Liu Chengzong ran away, if the Jinzhou army captured Liaoyang, they would march south to seize Jinzhou to restore the prestige lost due to the looting.

In addition, there is another use for gathering a large army, which is to rescue Ajige who is trapped in the Ming Dynasty after driving away Liu Chengzong.

Many of the Eight Banners nobles believed that they were forced into a desperate situation by Liu Chengzong this year because Ajige's 20,000 troops had taken a roundabout way to attack the Ming earlier, resulting in insufficient manpower in Shengjing and a difficult situation.

Otherwise, Liu Chengzong would not have been able to break through the border wall.

Two massive armies rolled in from the border; during the day, they marched, the dust covered the sky; at night, they set up camp by fire, which was as vast as the stars.

The huge noise caused the city of Jinzhou to close its doors, and even the shops on the seaside moved into the city, for fear that the two enemy armies would turn around and march south.

But in fact, neither Huang Taiji nor Liu Chengzong on the battlefield knew that part of Ajige's troops had already crossed the border.

Ajige was afraid, so before entering the border, he left Fei Yanggu's two blue banners outside the border and informed Huang Taiji. As a result, the army was gone, and after entering Changping, he could not contact them even after sending people out of the border.

It was quite smooth for him to spread out and rob in the capital. After all, the Ming army could not catch up with him in a short time. He plundered and ravaged everywhere, and ran away after robbing. The local civilian armed forces and smaller battalions were no match for him at all.

But Ajige knew very well that this was all an illusion.

No matter how great the advantage the Eight Banners Army had over the people of the capital, they were still rootless and would eventually get tired, and their combat effectiveness would inevitably continue to decline.

No matter how much chaos is created within the edge, it is fake; the key is to get out of the edge.

The problem is that Liu Chengzong is outside the border.

After entering the suburbs of the capital, Ajige did not dare to rob. He just threatened the capital while sending troops to attack Malanyu on the border wall of Jizhou.

It was a small pass, but the Eight Banners Army was familiar with it. During the Ji Si Rebellion, they led the disbanded Jizhou Army into the border from there. The defense was very poor, so it was relatively easy to get out of the border.

The mountain road is difficult to travel on, and only three to four thousand people can pass through it in a day.

On the third day, more than 4,000 soldiers went out, and they transported a lot of baggage and looted goods. The vanguard troops that had escaped the day before came back.

The vanguard reported that Liu Chengzong had burned the mountain dozens of miles outside the border. There were ashes nearby, and the fire was still burning in the distance. The river had dried up, and there was nothing to eat or drink along the way.

Only near the side wall can you find mushrooms to pick and eat.

With the captives and livestock, the large group of people could not move fast. The soldiers, captives, horses and cattle had no food or water, so it would be a dead end if they went out from here.

Of course, the fire was not set by Liu Chengzong.

But no matter how much the Eight Banners Army thought about it, they could not have imagined that their own people would set fire and block their retreat.

Ajige's sky seemed to have fallen.

After much difficulty in transporting people, livestock, and property out of the border, they had to work very hard to transport them back through the narrow path of Malanyu, but many of them were robbed by the Ming army that rushed over.

In fact, the Ming army didn't know what he was doing. They just thought that the Eastern Tartars were about to come out and they must be panicking, so they took this opportunity to grab some things. They never expected that Ajige would come back again. The Ming army was so scared that they ran away, secretly cursing Ajige for being stingy.

Just for that little thing, are you going to fight against the border wall again?
In fact, Ajige didn’t care at all about the property stolen by the Ming army. Anyway, he had entered the border again and could continue to rob.

Afterwards, Ajige went south to attack Wuqing County, but failed to take it. He then turned around to explore Xifengkou in the north of Yongping Prefecture, but was blocked by the Ming army. However, taking advantage of the break in the battle, the defenders of Lengkou in the east were mobilized, creating a gap.

But this is not an easy path either.

It's not far from Lengkou border. If you go northeast along the Dalingh River, you will reach the Yizhouwei border in Guangning, Liaoxi. This is also the shortest road outside the border.

During the Ji Si Rebellion, Huang Taiji's troops took this road, walking along the river valley outside the border to Malanyu and Da'ankou outside the border of Zunhua, bypassing the Guanning Army and entering the interior of the country.

But now Zu Dashou's Jinzhou army was running around outside the border to guard against the two troops in the north, and Ajige's troops encountered them not long after they went out of the border.

The Liaodong Army was like wolves seeing meat when they saw the wealth. After the first fight, the Eight Banners vanguard quickly ordered the troops behind to retreat.

Unable to go east, Ajige could only lead the vanguard troops to move north.

Ajige had a good idea. He planned to bypass the Guanning Army and go through the Halashen tribe, passing through Aohan, Naiman and Horqin. He would first steal some sheep from them and then go back to Shenyang.

Then he saw the deserted Kharashen tribe. Gulusiqibu, who followed him into the border, was almost crying. Where were our people?
He was not the only one crying. The taijis of the Aohan and Naiman tribes, as well as the royal lama whose fiefdom was in Kulun, all cried like they had lost their parents... All the people that Harashen had were robbed, so how could their territories survive?

It can't be specified.

Because Ajige's vanguard camp went forward another 200 miles and saw Liu Chengzong hiding between the Ongniud and Naiman tribes.

On the edge of the desert, an army of 40,000 soldiers set up more than ten camps, with thousands of cattle and horses and cavalry in all directions.

Upon hearing the inquiry, Ajige acted decisively. He turned around and went back to the capital through Lengkou.

Chongzhen went crazy when he received the news. You bastard left, why are you back? (End of this chapter)