Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 231 No One Can Live
"This humble general pays his respects to Your Majesty."

Outside the city gate, inside a tent at the Manchu army's temporary camp, Wu Sangui knelt before Dorgon.

This was the first time he had met Dorgon.

Although Dorgon had accepted his surrender, he had to be cautious and take Shanhaiguan first.

Today, Dongluo City is Wu Sangui's pledge of allegiance.

Having already defected once, even if he were to defect back to the Ming Dynasty, the Ming emperor would surely kill him. That's why Dorgon is only now truly accepting him.

Dorgon was somewhat unhappy that he hadn't captured the entire Shanhaiguan Pass, but outwardly he said, "General, please rise."

After Wu Sangui stood up, he seemed to notice that Dorgon's expression was not good, so he cupped his hands and said, "This humble general is ashamed that I failed to help Your Majesty capture Shanhaiguan. I don't know why, but yesterday the Ming army's garrison was more than twice as many as usual. Otherwise, if we had launched a surprise attack, they would not have been able to react in time."

Fan Wencheng, who was serving as the military advisor beside the general, said something to the effect of, "They probably tricked the general into entering the city in order to capture him for their own use, but they just stumbled upon the truth by accident."

"Ah."

Dorgon thought it made sense and nodded, saying, "If that's the case, General, you don't need to worry about it. Sit down and let's talk."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

Wu Sangui sat down on a chair on one side of the tent.

Dorgon said in a deep voice, "We haven't taken the pass yet, we're stuck here, we can't advance or retreat, what should we do?"

Fan Wencheng said, "Your Majesty should first send men around Jiaoshan to cut off the Ming army's food supplies and trap them inside the pass, and then send men to persuade them to surrender. The Ming army is short of food and pay, and perhaps they will collapse on their own soon."

"Then let's do it this way for now. I'll have Dordo lead some men around there later."

Dorgon nodded.

Actually, it's very easy to bypass Shanhaiguan.

Even without considering entering the pass through Zhangjiakou or Lulong Pass, one can bypass it by going through Jiaoshan, north of Shanhaiguan.

From the north side of the Changshoushan Scenic Area in Qinhuangdao, one can circle around to Shimenzhai Town in Qinhuangdao.

These places also have sections of the Ming Great Wall, but the Ming Dynasty is currently short of troops. The garrison at Shanhaiguan, which stretches for more than 20 kilometers, numbers only 40,000 to 50,000 men. They are scattered across the wall, making the defense very weak, not to mention other places.

So Beijing during the Ming Dynasty was actually a sieve; the Manchus could enter whenever they wanted.

Previously, Wu Sangui's Guan Ning cavalry had been blocking Ningyuan, and there were also garrison troops at Shanhaiguan, which meant that the Jurchens had no logistical support and could only plunder, not occupy.

Now that Wu Sangui has surrendered, Shanhaiguan has become an isolated city. They can easily bypass the Ming army and cut off their retreat, thus encircling them.

"Even so, I still find it difficult."

Wu Sangui said, "I have heard that the bandits within the Ming Dynasty have been wiped out. Sun Chuanting has presented Emperor Chongzhen with a lot of grain and silver. When Wang Jiayan came from Beijing, he brought a lot of grain and salary, and even transported a lot of supplies for me. It is enough for Ningyuan for half a year. There must be more inside Shanhaiguan. It will be difficult to attack from both sides."

Fan Wencheng laughed and said, "Therefore, we need to take multiple measures. First, I think Prince Yu can plunder the area around the capital to cut off the Ming army's supply lines and rear. Second, we can threaten Beijing and scare the Chongzhen Emperor. Third, we can continue the siege strategy used by the late emperor during the Battle of Songjin, forcing the Ming army to come to our aid and annihilating their troops on the way. In this way, Shanhaiguan will not be able to hold out for long."

"Ah."

Dorgon said, "That's what I think too. Haste makes waste. Great wars between nations don't end quickly. As long as we can capture Shanhaiguan, whether it takes six months or a year, it will be worth it!"

Fan Wencheng added, "Your Majesty can also take advantage of the fact that the Shanhaiguan city wall is too long and the Ming army cannot cover all sides. We can take advantage of the night to break in from other city walls. We have more troops than the Ming army. As long as we keep climbing the city walls, we will eventually be able to break through their city."

"Ah."

"Ideally, we should capture the south and north wing cities. Even if we can't capture them, we should at least take the city walls of the south and north wing cities and the pass. This way, we can attack the Ming army's defensive forces from the flanks."

"it is good."

"There are also three cities: Weiyuan, Weihai, and Ninghai. As long as we capture these three cities, slowly nibble away at the northern and southern wing cities, and finally surround the fortress, the garrison in the city will be like turtles in a jar, unable to escape."

Fan Wencheng was indeed very resourceful. Faced with the current dilemma, he spoke eloquently and came up with many solutions.

However, this was actually a common tactic used by the Manchus and Jurchens.

In the Battle of Sarhu, Nurhaci made full use of mobile warfare, launching attacks from all sides to defeat the Ming army piecemeal and ultimately achieve victory.

In the Battle of Songjin, Huang Taiji adopted the strategy of besieging the city and attacking the reinforcements. He surrounded Songjin, dug a large number of trenches, fought a war of attrition with the Ming army, defeated the reinforcements, cut off the Ming army's supply lines, and finally defeated the Ming army.

They're basically all using the same old formula now.

One option was to send Dodo to bypass the Ming army and attack its rear, besieging Shanhaiguan and cutting off its supply lines and reinforcements, thus using this strategy of encirclement and suppression.

Secondly, they launched an attack from all sides, taking advantage of the weakness of Shanhaiguan's long city walls and few defenders. They used ladders and similar tools to climb up the undefended sections of the city walls and attack other cities one by one.

Fan Wencheng believed that as long as these two moves were successfully executed, the Ming army inside Shanhaiguan would be defeated or even surrendered within a month.

Dorgon agreed, and even if Fan Wencheng hadn't said it, he himself planned to use these two tactics.

He then summoned Dorgon and ordered him to lead a portion of his troops to bypass Jiaoshan and attack the rear of the Ming army. At the same time, he convened a meeting of generals and adopted a multi-pronged attack strategy to keep the Ming army busy.

This move certainly put the Ming army in a difficult position.

In the following days, the Ming army and the Manchu army continued to confront each other on the city walls, with both sides launching probing attacks every day, resulting in numerous casualties.

Two days later, the Jurchens suddenly launched an attack on the other city walls, ambushing the southern city wall and nearly threatening the right flank of the Ming army.

Fortunately, Ming general Zhou Yuji led his men in a valiant fight, which repelled the Jurchen army that had reached the city walls. Otherwise, if the Jurchen army had attacked from both sides, the defensive line would have collapsed.

This forced Wang Jiayan to divide his forces and deploy small numbers of troops to various sections of the city wall in order to alleviate the pressure of the Jurchens' constant harassment of each section of the city wall.

In fact, Wang Jiayan and others had already noticed this problem.

However, they didn't have any good solutions.

With fewer than 50,000 men, totaling just over 40,000, defending seven cities with walls stretching over 20 kilometers in total was an impossible task.

As the saying goes, it's hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice.

Just like Hong Chengchou in the Battle of Songjin, he was short of food and pay, his subordinates were not on good terms and his morale was low. Even though he was a very strong commander, he could only suffer defeat and capture.

Therefore, Wang Jiayan was forced to defend, and even abandoned Weiyuan City, which was also outside the Great Wall to the northeast, to concentrate his forces to resist the enemy.

But a few days later, even worse news came – a large contingent of Jurchen cavalry suddenly appeared behind the city gates.

This means that the Jurchens have bypassed the main route and are now surrounding Shanhaiguan.

Just like Jinzhou and Songshan.

For a time, the Ming soldiers inside Shanhaiguan were in a state of panic. If Wang Jiayan and his men had not repeatedly sent people to spread the word in the army that the Taizu and Taizong Emperors had descended to earth to save the world and that reinforcements would arrive soon, they would probably have been at risk of collapse.

Amidst this tense battle, time slowly passed to June 14th of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, more than ten days after Dorgon began his siege of the city.

In the height of summer, the scorching sun shines down, making people feel a bit hot and bothered.

During the Little Ice Age, the south was frozen in winter, while in the north, it was still snowing in Hebei in July. Such a period with even a little summer heat was rare.

A troop of soldiers walked slowly along the official road leading from Funing to Shanhaiguan.

Zhou An wiped the sweat from his forehead, shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked up at the afternoon sky. The sun was high in the sky, and the earth was covered in a golden hue.

Weeds grew rampant on both sides of the road, and farmland lay barren in the distance, with waist-high wormwood swaying in the wind like waves of wheat. The village was dilapidated, and one could vaguely see piles of white bones under the old locust tree at the north entrance of the village.

"I've heard that Yongping Prefecture, Shuntian Prefecture, Xuanfu and other areas around the capital have been invaded by the Jurchens for many years, and the villages and towns outside the cities have long been slaughtered. This place is indeed desolate."

"Don't forget that when we passed through Shandong before, we talked about how a few years ago, Dorgon led an army of 100,000 south and massacred hundreds of thousands of people in Jinan."

"There are also Zhao Prefecture, Changping, Sanhe and other places. His Highness the King of Wu said that the Jurchens will slaughter millions more in the future. In Nanchang, our Han women are being humiliated by them day and night. More than 100,000 women have been killed in Nanchang alone."

"The Jurchens are truly a bunch of beasts," several of Zhou An's trusted guards said indignantly.

They came from Beijing, passing through Tongzhou, Sanhe, Yutian, Fengrun, Lulong and other places. Along the way, they saw desolation and empty, dilapidated villages everywhere.

Whether the Manchus entered the pass through Lulong Pass or Zhangjiakou, they would inevitably pass through the vicinity of Beijing.

Each time, Beijing was unable to defeat the Qing army in the open field. The garrison inside the city was already struggling to defend Beijing and had no power to help the surrounding areas.

Therefore, the areas surrounding the capital had long been slaughtered, looted, and burned by the Jurchens. Many Han Chinese in Liaodong were people from the capital who were captured. When the capital region was no longer enough to kill, they went to Hebei and Shandong to commit atrocities.

From the time Huang Taiji first entered the pass through Xifengkou in the second year of Chongzhen's reign, looting and massacring Zunhua, Liangxiang, Gu'an, Xianghe, Yongping, Shunyi, Qian'an, Luanzhou and other places, until the Qing army marched south in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, there were more than ten large-scale massacres of people within the pass before the Manchus officially entered the pass.

The Battle of Jinan in 1644 was the most brutal, with the entire city being massacred. Records show that as many as 130,000 bodies were found in the city, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed. This event is known as the Massacre of Jinan.

Massacres also occurred in places like Zhaozhou, Changpyeong, and Samha in the Gyeonggi region, with tens of thousands of people killed each time.

If county towns and prefectural cities were in such a state, the situation in villages and towns in the countryside was even more dire. When the Jurchens attacked, there was basically no possibility of escape or resistance.

This meant that the places Zhou An and his group passed through could no longer be described as hell on earth.

Because the killings have passed and been smoothed over by time, all that can be seen are large numbers of skeletons by the roadside. The rotting corpses and the horrific carnage are no longer visible. Only white bones remain exposed in the wilderness, and for miles around, not a single rooster crows.

"Clang, clang, thump, thump!"

Just then, Zhou An suddenly reined in his horse and stopped, raising his right hand to signal the troops to halt, and said, "Listen."

The guards nearby stopped and listened intently. After a moment, one of them said, "The sound of horses' hooves."

"They're coming this way, and it's a large cavalry force."

"Launch the drone."

Zhou An said without hesitation.

The horses of the Ming Dynasty mainly came from Shaanxi and Gansu.

Since Li Zicheng wreaked havoc in Shaanxi and looted a large number of horses, the Ming army was increasingly short of horses by the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Currently, the only large-scale cavalry units are the Guan Ning Iron Cavalry and Sun Chuanting's troops, which have a portion of cavalry. The troops at Shanhaiguan are mainly infantry, with very few cavalry.

Sun Chuanting is currently in Beijing, and the only large cavalry force that could be present here besides the Jurchens is Wu Sangui's Guan Ning Iron Cavalry, both of whom are enemies.

"Buzz!"

The drone pilot immediately took off.

Above the open fields, looking down from high above, the surrounding area is densely forested.

About three or four miles to the east, groups of dark figures came galloping towards them; at a glance, there were at least a thousand knights.

The pilot maneuvered the drone closer, and as the distance closed, the footage revealed that the cavalrymen were all wearing blue cloth armor with many protruding copper studs, and black lacquered gourd-shaped helmets with black tassels hanging from them.

"They are Tartars."

Zhou An recognized it at a glance; it was the attire of the Manchu Jurchens.

He obviously hadn't seen it.

However, the Ming army's uniforms were completely different from theirs, and any Ming soldier could tell the difference.

"Commander, kill him?"

The guard asked.

"kill!"

Without hesitation, Zhou An waved his hand forward and said, "Line up in a straight line, don't let a single one escape."

"Yes."

The guard immediately took out a walkie-talkie and said to the two captains below him, "Enemy attack, face forward and form a straight line."

Upon receiving orders, the guards quickly turned their horses and dispersed to the fields on both sides of the official road.

A gentle breeze rustled through the wild grass, and the horses' hooves trod on it silently.

At this moment, Aisin-Gioro Bolo is leading 1,500 Plain Blue Banner troops toward Lulong.

The soldiers under his command were not all Manchus. There was only one Niru of 300 Manchus, and the rest were 600 Mongol Plain Blue Banner soldiers and 600 Han Plain Blue Banner soldiers.

The Mongol Eight Banners and the Han Eight Banners were not independent forces, but were subordinate to the Manchu Eight Banners. Therefore, the banner lord of the Manchu Eight Banners was also the banner lord of both the Mongol and Han Eight Banners, essentially a subordinate army.

As the son of Abatai, the Prince of Doroi Raoyu, Bolo, after Hauge was punished and stripped of his title for insulting Dorgon, led part of the Plain Blue Banner army as a Gushan Beizi and followed Prince Yu, Dodo, into the pass.

Now he is on Dodo's orders to raid the area surrounding the capital to the west.

Besides him, there were other troops from the Eight Banners, totaling more than 10,000 men, who launched an attack on the areas surrounding Beijing.

Despite the fact that the troops were scattered, with each part consisting of between one thousand and one thousand five hundred men, the soldiers in the early Qing Dynasty were incredibly powerful. In open field battles, a few thousand Qing soldiers could often chase after tens of thousands of Ming soldiers.

Therefore, they swaggered around without trying to conceal their whereabouts.

As they crossed the wilderness and came to see an abandoned village in the distance, a troop of cavalry suddenly appeared outside the village.

Bolo's gaze sharpened, and a cruel smile appeared on his face as he said, "This is the first time I've seen so few Ming soldiers dare to block my way."

A Niru standing nearby said, "Master, this servant will go and kill them all."

"Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit, surrounding it completely."

Bolo waved.

The two sides met abruptly, without any prelude or dialogue.

At Bolo's command, the Mongol and Han Eight Banners on the flanks immediately detoured to the left and right, while the two Niru in the middle charged straight ahead, and his own 300 Manchu Eight Banners held the line.

This was a common tactic used by the Jurchens, and it was also to reduce the casualty rate of the Manchus. In any case, even if they encountered fierce resistance, it was the Mongols and Han Chinese who would die.

To his surprise, the other side not only did not run away, but instead launched an attack on them.

The distance between the two sides is getting closer and closer.

"Ta-ta-ta-ta!"

A strange sound came, and then the cavalrymen who were still charging fell down one after another.

In an instant, the Mongol and Han Eight Banner soldiers who had already surrounded the enemy suffered heavy casualties, with both men and horses riddled with holes.

"hiss!"

Bolo gasped, completely unaware of what had happened. He only saw the strange object in the other man's hand spew fire, and his soldier died in the wilderness.

The next second, countless bullets came hurtling towards them.

Bolo and the Manchu soldiers around him were caught off guard, as if struck by a heavy punch, and then fell off their horses with lifeless eyes.

The remaining Eight Banner soldiers nearby reined in their horses in terror and began to flee.

"Ah."

This time, Zhou An grinned maliciously and said, "Chase them! None of them will survive!"

(End of this chapter)