Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Cui Nanyi came up with this idea because the Ming Dynasty offered a reward before he set out on this trip.

Each Tartar soldier's head was worth at least ten mu of land, which would be a reward of one hundred taels of silver.

In other words, as long as he could get a real Tartar head, he could obtain Ming citizenship for one of his family members.

This naturally filled his heart with motivation.

However, he certainly knew how difficult it was to get the head.

Therefore, he and most of the soldiers were aiming for the next level of kill confirmation.

The reward was only half of the head, but the advantage was that it was not required to obtain the head. All it took was two or more witnesses and the nearest officer to confirm the victory.

For musketeers and archers, this way of recording merit is extremely beneficial.

Of course, in order to prevent false reporting of military achievements, the consequences of false reporting being discovered would be very serious, especially for officers.

Once it is confirmed that an officer has deliberately lied about his military achievements, he will be subject to various punishments, and a record will be left in his file. He will be labeled as unreliable and will be barred from important positions.

This new way of commending merits is now strictly enforced. In particular, officers of the Ming Dynasty will not give Korean soldiers slack at will.

Officers at all levels such as the Guards and the Imperial Uniform Guard who are responsible for commending merits will cross-identify and confirm the corresponding results of the battle.

Cui Nanyi has not thought about cheating yet, he is confident in his own abilities.

As a sharpshooter, he is confident that he can hit the target accurately from a hundred paces away.

After obtaining the Ming Dynasty's muskets and arrow-shaped bullets, he was able to kill the enemy from 200 steps away.

At this distance, the Jianlu's arrows could not reach him at all. As long as he could hit him, he could kill the enemy and gain merit.

After talking with Xu Litie for a while, Cui Nanyi returned to the military camp and called his deputy observer, and contacted several other sniper teams to agree to commend each other.

Of course, the more important thing is the officers. The confirmation of the killing results requires the approval of the Ming officers.

When he and several North Korean shooters were about to go to their superiors, the captain of the sniper team, Xie San, took out a deck of cards and said:
"Come and take a look at these people. Take note of their appearance."

"Our sniper's mission is to kill important targets. We must remember these people."

"As long as you can kill one, you can get a title, or even be made a marquis."

This shocked all the snipers. They wondered which Jianlu was worthy of such a high reward from the Ming Dynasty.

Choi Nam-yi, who was a former yangban student, was surprised and asked:

"Could it be Huang Taiji?"

"Besides him, who else deserves to be a marquis?"

Xie San said happily:

"It's Huang Taiji!"

"The Emperor has offered a reward of 10,000 households, and we just need to confirm the kill."

"This is a real ten thousand households, with 10,000 military households and two guards, and the fiefdom is a full 400 li."

"As long as you kill Huang Taiji, you can become one of the princes of the Ming Dynasty."

As he spoke, he held up a "Wan" sign and showed it to all his subordinates.

Cui Nanyi and others looked carefully and saw a Wan character in the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the card, with a spade next to it, representing its suit.

In the middle of the card is a bust, which should be the appearance of Huang Taiji.

Xie San pointed at him and said:

"This is what Huang Taiji looks like in his regular clothes. You must remember this."

"There are three more photos of him, one in full body, one in profile, and one in military uniform, so you can compare them."

He took out three more cards, each with Huang Taiji drawn on them as well.

The suits of these three cards are circles, diamonds and clubs, with no hearts.

This is a deck of cards that Zhu Youjian made by imitating the playing cards of later generations, combining the leaf play and mahjong cards of the time. Because the ordinary version was printed with only black ink to reduce costs, he did not use the red hearts that look more like spades, but used mahjong round cakes instead.

He also replaced the J, Q, and K numbers above one to ten with hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands, referring to the Mahjong cards.

Fifty-two cards of four suits, plus the Joker and the Jack, also make up a deck of fifty-four cards, used as entertainment tools.

Because of the various mature playing methods in later generations, this kind of cards became very popular in the palace, quickly replacing the original Majiang cards and becoming the most commonly played game among concubines in the harem.

Then, when Zhu Youjian was watching them playing cards, he suddenly had an idea and thought of the "Poker Wanted Order" of later generations. He asked the Jinyiwei to collect the appearances of the high-ranking officials of the Jianlu and make a bounty card.

Of course, the one he valued most was Huang Taiji. The four suits of Wanzi cards all had Huang Taiji's appearance. The reward he offered was also the title of Wanhu Hou, which was a real title of Wanhu.

The person who drew the playing cards was Zeng Jing, who was recommended by Dong Qichang.

Based on traditional techniques, he absorbed Western painting techniques. His portraits are very lifelike, and are praised as "like a mirror image, lifelike".

In the opinion of Liu Xingzuo, who had met Huang Taiji and others, the four portraits of Huang Taiji were enough for the soldiers to recognize this person.

Zhu Youjian was very happy about this and asked Zeng Jing to draw a portrait for him. He also suggested using charcoal pencils to sketch and simulate the portrait, and asked Zeng Jing to figure it out and pass it on to the Jinyiwei.

The other portraits on the cards were also drawn by Zeng Jing.

The four cards with the word "Thousand" were for the four young princes, Haoge, the leader of the Bordered Yellow Banner, Duoduo, the leader of the Plain White Banner, Dorgon, the leader of the Bordered White Banner, and Shuotuo, the leader of the Bordered Red Banner. If they could kill them, they would be granted at least a viscountship of 2,000 households.

Among them, Haoge's reward was different from others. As the eldest son of Huang Taiji, the Ming Dynasty offered him a reward of 5,000 households.

In other words, if you kill him, you can be granted the title of Earl and own a Wei.

Looking at the cards handed down by the captain, Choi Nam-yi flipped through them and asked:
"Where's Amin?"

"Why is there no reward from Amin?"

Xie San explained to them:

"Amin, Manggurtai, Daishan and Huang Taiji are collectively known as the Four Great Beiles. They are all people who check and balance Huang Taiji within the Jianlu."

"Killing these three people is not encouraged now, so there is no reward."

This made many North Koreans indignant, as they believed that Amin's reward should be compared with Huang Taiji's.

During the last Dingmao Rebellion, it was Amin who caused the greatest harm to Korea. After the oath of allegiance in Jiangdu, he plundered for three days and forced Korea to sign a new treaty in Pyongyang.

Therefore, the North Koreans hated him very much and did not recognize this treacherous alliance.

If they were allowed to offer a reward, Amin would probably be on par with Huang Taiji.

However, in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, Amin's insistence on attacking Korea was a good thing, and of course they were unwilling to kill him. On the grounds that Amin and others could contain Huang Taiji, they did not offer a reward for them.

This made the North Koreans resentful but they had no choice but to accept it.

However, they thought that if there was a chance to kill Amin, they would still kill him. Even if the Ming Dynasty did not reward him, the King of Korea should still reward him.

Below the four young beiles, the high-ranking Jianlu officials who had the hundred-character plaque printed on them were Amin's brother Jirgalang, Manggurtai's brother Dergelei, Daishan's son Sahalian, and Nurhaci's son-in-law Yangguli. They were all supporters of Huang Taiji.

Anyone who kills them will at least be awarded a centurion title, which is a hereditary knighthood. If they kill them on the battlefield and change the situation, they may be awarded a baronial title.

There are no portraits on the cards from one to ten, because the Ming Dynasty did not collect detailed enough pictures of their appearances. And this is only the initial version of the reward cards, which were printed and distributed to the army for trial use.

However, portraits of Ajige, Abatai, Dudu and others are already being drawn and may be printed on playing cards in the future.

In addition to them, there are two more, "Big King" and "Little King", which were printed with Nurhaci and Chu Ying by Zhu Youjian.

Use Xiao Wang to illustrate Chu Ying's position in Jianlu and cooperate with the plan to instigate Du Du's rebellion.

Because the two men were already dead, the Ming Dynasty naturally did not offer a reward. The portrait was also very abstract and looked very funny.

And because Nurhaci had a very bad reputation in the Ming Dynasty, he was often contemptuously called an old slave.

His son, Chu Ying, who was the eldest son but failed to succeed to the throne, was despised as a clown and regarded as a jumping buffoon.

They are collectively called the old slave clown, which is used as a nickname for the big and small kings. (End of this chapter)