The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 215: The King Remains Forever (I)

"The Kaiyuan army is actually using civilians to fill the trenches! Didn't Liu Zhaosun want to be the Yao and Shun of the ages? Wasn't he supposed to be a benevolent and righteous gentleman? Why is he so heartless and insane?"

"Not only are they using civilians to fill the trenches, they're also going to massacre the entire city! Khan, the Kaiyuan soldiers have breached the fourth breastwork and are attacking the palace walls. Hurry! If we don't leave now, it will be too late!"

"Leave? Where to go? All the roads around Hetuala are blocked. I don't want to be like my father Khan, captured by Liu Zhaosun and executed by slow slicing."

In the palace of Hetuala Khan, the Khan of the Later Jin Dynasty looked up to the sky and sighed, as if he was extremely unwilling.

Yuetuo, Sahalian and several Goshiha tried their best to persuade Huang Taiji to break out.

Yuetuo was the eldest son of Daishan, the leader of the Bordered Red Banner, and Sahalian was the Jiala Ezhen of the Plain Red Banner. Several leaders of the banners either died or surrendered, and now these descendants have become the backbone of the Later Jin Dynasty.

Fan Wencheng looked up at his masters, and seeing how anxious they were, he also said angrily:
"The thief Liu is worse than a beast. We, the warriors of the Eight Banners, are the army of benevolence and righteousness. Master, let the people of the world know the true face of the thief Liu! Do not let him deceive you again!"

"So what if you know?"

Gao Hongzhong felt that everything happening before his eyes was too absurd.

Liu Zhaosun, who claimed to be benevolent and loved his people, was actually massacring the city. On the contrary, the Jianzhou Jurchens, who were slandered as barbarians, were still protecting the Han people of Hetuala. What was going on in this world!
"Great Khan, the law of nature prevails, evil will not prevail over good, and the thief Liu will perish!"

Huang Taiji was not interested in these meaningless verbal disputes. He looked at the two Han ministers.

"Tell me something useful. How do we deal with the Kaiyuan Army?"

The two servants immediately fell silent.

Huang Taiji was quite regretful that he had overestimated Liu Zhaosun's bottom line.

He never expected that the Kaiyuan army would be so brutal! They actually slaughtered the people and forced them to fill the trenches.

If these civilians had not filled the trenches, the troops brought by Liu Zhaosun would have suffered heavy losses if they wanted to break through the breastwork.

"After a long expedition with heavy casualties, what good would it do to capture just one Hetuala?!"

Huang Taiji muttered to himself. This leader of the Later Jin Dynasty, who was known for his wisdom and calmness, finally collapsed under the tremendous pressure.

"Great Khan, over half of the Bordered Yellow Banner have been killed or wounded, and their arrows are almost gone. If Nikan ignores the casualties and continues to attack the city, I'm afraid the Khan's Palace will be undefendable."

Yuetuo spoke in a hurried tone. He had fought with Daishan for many years and was considered one of the Khan's confidants.

Even at the most dangerous moment of the Hunhe River, the banners had never been so desperate.

"I will not go to Ningguta. I will perish with the traitor Liu. As long as the Lord of the Bordered Blue Banner can defend Yehe and recuperate for two years, I will have great potential in Jianzhou."

"But the Khan..."

Sahalian hesitated to speak.

"Stop talking! As long as Jianzhou can be preserved, it doesn't matter who becomes the Khan!"

Huang Taiji looked towards the Khan's Palace, where smoke was rising from everywhere, and gradually regained his composure:
"Back then, my father Khan, armed with only thirteen suits of armor, raised an army, repeatedly defeating powerful enemies and ultimately establishing the Liaodong region. Jirgalang is my father Khan's nephew, and he carries the blood of the Aisin-Gioro clan! I believe he can also achieve what the old Khan accomplished. With Jirgalang here, Jianzhou will not be destroyed!"

Several Han officials looked at each other, not daring to speak.

After Huang Taiji finished speaking, he waved his hand to signal Yue Tuo and others to go down and prepare.

"Great Khan, I will immediately mobilize more civilians and prepare more quilts and gunpowder to burn them to death. Liu Zhaosun wants to take over Jianzhou, so let us kill all his soldiers!"

Yuetuo was moved by Huang Taiji's words and spoke excitedly.

Sahalian also expressed his opinion: "I will gather all the women and children in the city who are able to fight and have them all ascend the city walls to fight Nikan to the death."

Fan Wencheng and Gao Hongzhong exchanged a glance. The two high-ranking bond servants did not want to be buried with the Later Jin, so they had to agree:
"I will go to the city to organize the scattered Wuzhenhachao soldiers and organize manpower for a counterattack."

Huang Taiji's frown relaxed slightly, and he gritted his teeth and said, "Alright! This Khan will perish together with Liu the Thief!"

~~~~~
There were mountains of corpses and seas of blood in front of the Khan's palace.

Relying on the cover of shield carts and firearms, the fire soldiers built a temporary earthen wall next to the Khan's Palace, the height of which was the same as the Khan's Palace.

Ladders were placed between the two walls. Fierce and warlike sword and shield soldiers climbed up the ladders, holding a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, and rushed towards the opposite city wall under the rain of arrows.

As soon as the more than 500 sword and shield soldiers from the 2000th headquarters rushed out, the ladders under their feet were set on fire by the Later Jin soldiers on the opposite side using tung oil.

The sword and shield soldiers on the ladders were immediately set on fire, and they fell from the city wall more than ten meters high with screams, like meteors falling to the ground.

The artillery opened a small gap in the city wall, and the Baoyi kept digging bricks along the gap. After sacrificing two thousand people, they finally dug out a hole the size of a carriage.

All the 1,000 spearmen from the headquarters were mobilized. They fought with the Later Jin soldiers near the cave, and people kept falling down on the ruins.

The two sides fought to the death in this small area, exchanging lives.

The Later Jin soldiers and civilians on the gaps in the city wall fought desperately.

The Later Jin archers fired heavy arrows at the spearmen, the strong men poured out jars of boiling gold juice, children and women worked together to push down stones and rolling logs, and the old people threw burning arsenic at the city walls.

The first thousand and five hundred spearmen from the headquarters who rushed into the gap were completely wiped out.

"Fire! Kill them all!"

Sun Chuanting was furious and waved his flag to withdraw the surviving soldiers.

Han Zhenyi led the artillery to continue bombarding the gap.

More than a dozen artillery shells whizzed into the gap, and the iron balls hit the area behind the city wall, causing blood and flesh to splatter. The originally densely packed defenders were wiped out.

Sun Chuanting roared at the top of his lungs.

"Go up and dig up the bricks, push the coffin in, and blow them up!"

Deng Changxiong said in a hoarse voice:

"Sir, all the Baoyi are dead, there is no one left!"

Sun Chuanting was stunned for a moment and looked around. The ladders on the distant earth wall were burning, and the sword and shield soldiers were falling like leaves.

"Drive out the people in the city, one brick for each person!!"

Deng Changxiong was stunned on the spot. He couldn't believe that one day the Kaiyuan army would drive the people to fill the trenches and die.

All the beliefs that Ping Liaohou had built for them, like the precarious position of the Khan's Palace, were about to collapse.

Sun Chuanting grabbed Deng Changxiong by the collar and yelled:
"The soldiers can't attack through the earthen wall, so they can only use coffins to blow up the wall. The artillery camp is short of gunpowder. By the time the artillery fire is finished, the wall hasn't been blown down yet, and the people in front will have died in vain! The army will be destroyed! Everyone will die, go!"

~~~~~
A group of ragged civilians were driven by the Kaiyuan army, step by step towards the wall of the Khan's palace. They were told that they could save their lives by taking a piece of stone along the gap.

Perhaps it was because there were relatives among the people digging bricks, or because they had used up all their arrows, but the Later Jin archers behind the city wall fell silent and stopped shooting arrows at the people.

This cannon fodder, consisting of Han, Jurchen, Mongolian men, women, old and young, walked forward crying all the way to their death.

All those who retreated were mercilessly shot by the soldiers supervising the battle.

Sun Chuanting heard the miserable cries of the people. He looked down at the ground and saw the murderous face of Lord Sun reflected in a pool of blood.

This face seems familiar.

Originally in history, in the 16th year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting went out to fight Li Zicheng. At the last moment of the showdown with the rebel army, Sun Chuanting also tacitly allowed his Ming army to massacre the city...

The cannon fodder finally reached the city wall, and suddenly there was a crackling sound on the wall. More than 300 Wuzhenhachao musketeers who came to reinforce fired their flintlock muskets.

The cannon fodder in front fell down in a group, and the survivors carried down the blue bricks from the gap in the city wall and walked back with numb expressions...
A shield cart protected two coffins filled with gunpowder. Under the escort of a team of soldiers, it ran over the corpses of the people of Hetuala and finally arrived at the gap in the wall of the Khan's palace.

With a deafening explosion, the walls of the Khan's palace collapsed, and a cloud of red smoke rose in the sky north of Hetuala.

The moment the dust settled, the souls of the dead in the city finally escaped from this place of killing and ascended to paradise.

~~~~·
Liu Zhaosun stared at the red mushroom cloud rising in the northern sky and clenched his fists secretly.

Several guards from the Central Army were standing guard all around, looking at Kang Yingqian and the others with vigilance.

"Marquis Ping Liao, Lord Sun has convicted half of the people of Hetuala as bondservants, slaughtering five to six thousand people. He even used your name to parade through the streets. Now even the Jiannu know it was you who ordered the massacre..."

When Kang Yingqian heard that Ping Liaohou had woken up, he was overjoyed and hurried to the central military tent to report Sun Chuanting's misdeeds to Liu Zhaosun.

"Driving the people to fill the trenches, slaughtering the city and killing people, the Kaiyuan Army that Ping Liaohou had been managing for over two years was destroyed by Sun Chuanting in just two hours. This man has evil intentions, and it would be unjust if he is not killed, General Liu..."

"I dreamt of many dead people."

Liu Zhaosun spoke slowly. Kang Yingqian was stunned for a moment and didn't dare to speak anymore.

"From Hetuala to Kaiyuan City, from Wendeng County to the capital, there are dead bodies everywhere. You are dead, Yuan Chonghuan is dead, Sun Chuanting is dead, Qiao Yiqi is dead, Yang Qing'er is dead, Pei Dahu is dead, Lin Yu is dead, Wu Xiao is dead, everyone is dead, only Jin Yuji is still alive."

As he spoke, tears welled up in his eyes.

"I'm dead too."

"Nurhaci is killing people, Huang Taiji is killing people, and you are killing people too."

Du Du and several guards kept their hands on the scabbards, closely monitoring Kang Yingqian's every move, waiting for the order from Ping Liaohou.

Many people died in Hetuala. Liu Zhaosun didn't want to kill anymore people. He wiped away his tears and regained his composure.

"I am not Zhu Qizhen, and Sun Chuanting is not Yu Qian."

Kang Yingqian's face showed joy, and he was about to continue to add insult to injury when he heard Ping Liaohou continue:
"General Kang, I heard that you obstructed Sun Chuanting's attack on the city. You did everything you could to fight for power. How is that any different from him massacring the city?!"

Liu Zhaosun closed his eyes and waved his hand:
"Everyone, get out! I'll be alone for a moment."

~~~~·
Liu Zhaosun looked at the collapsed Khan Palace, turned around and asked Sun Chuanting:

"Has Huang Taiji been caught?"

Sun Chuanting said quickly:

"He hanged himself. His body is outside, and Ajigedu and the others are still trying to identify it."

~~~
Liu Zhaosun looked at Huang Taiji's dim eye for a long time without saying a word.

"Why do you have to do this? I won't kill you. You can go to Beihai (far eastern Siberia) and fight the Maozi, opening up a wider world for the Jianzhou Jurchens. Why do you want to follow the example of the God of War at Coal Mountain? Huang Taiji, I misjudged you."

"Call Haoge here. Huang Taiji is dead, so the disaster will not affect his family. Treat his beiles well."

Farewell Huang Taiji.

Farewell to the ruined Khan's Palace.

Say goodbye to your past.

He said to himself:
"Liu Zhaosun, from now on, you will rule the world. No one dares to disobey you. You will massacre cities and destroy nations, killing people like flies. You will be the king of slaves. You will become a slave to power. Are you ready?"

"not yet."

Before Huang Taiji hanged himself, he hacked all his wives to death. The eldest princess had her left arm cut off and had fainted.

Liu Zhaosun called Old Song and pointed at the dying Princess Jianzhou:

"Heal her."

He has begun planning to find a suitable husband for Princess Aohan Gulun, preferably a Han Chinese, to demonstrate Kaiyuan's conciliatory policy and reverse the negative impact of Sun Chuanting's massacre.

This trick was also learned from Dorgon and others who entered the Pass in history.

"Dudu."

Du Du hurried forward.

This young man from Jianzhou had been guarding him while he was unconscious, fearing that something might happen.

If Ping Liaohou died, the fate of this younger brother would probably be very tragic.

"Jianzhou cannot be without a ruler for a day. I promised you that last year."

Liu Zhaosun paused for a moment, recalling the bloody battle at Hunhe River.

At that time, everyone worked together without any ulterior motives.

At that time, he just raised his arm and his men responded in large numbers.

But now...

Du Du knelt on the ground, terrified and fearful:

"I would like to stay in the Central Army Guard and serve as your vanguard! I don't want to be the leader of Jianzhou!"

Liu Zhaosun waved his hand and motioned him to stand up.

"I need you, and Jianzhou needs you too. From now on, you will be the leader of Jianzhou. You will guard Hetuala for me, allocate a thousand soldiers, and leave some civil officials to help Hetuala restore order."

Du Du didn't dare to look up. He knew that Ping Liaohou still didn't trust him. He said he was helping to restore order, but in fact he was sending people to monitor him.

Liu Zhaosun came close to Du Du and whispered:
"There are many people in Hetuala who want to kill you. I don't have many confidants, and you are one of them. I don't want you to die."

The former leader of the Bordered White Banner had no choice. Everyone in Jianzhou knew that it was he who led the Han people here.

Without the protection of the Kaiyuan Army, Du Du would hardly survive tomorrow.

After Du Du left, Liu Zhaosun looked at the devastated Khan's palace.

The symbol of the Later Jin regime has been reduced to ruins.

In two years, Liu Zhaosun destroyed the Later Jin, killed Nurhaci, and forced Huang Taiji to commit suicide.

Except for the Bordered White Banner which surrendered early and the Bordered Blue Banner which was still fighting hard in Yehe, all the banners of Jianzhou were destroyed.

Driven by the policy of transforming Xia people into barbarians, the Jianzhou Jurchens will gradually become assimilated into Han culture within a few years.

In fact, the Later Jin regime has completely withdrawn from the stage of history.

The nightmare that woke him up in the middle of the night may never become a reality again.

After this battle, the Kaiyuan Army's influence in Liaodong will further expand. In addition to southern Liaoning, dozens of cities and countless garrisons and villages in Liaodong will be under the control of Kaiyuan.

As for the group of vulture hyenas in western Liaoning that like to eat carrion, Liu Zhaosun decided to let them live for another half a year.

After a new round of military expansion next summer, he will annex western Liaoning and destroy Zu Dashou.

The grievances between the time traveler and Liaozhen should be settled.

(End of this chapter)