The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 252: Military Front
The low, gurgling sound echoed across the plains of western Liaoning.

The endless black flags merged into a dark cloud that covered the sky.

The black dragon, tiger, unicorn, tiger and leopard beasts engraved on the Kaiyuan military flag pounced on the isolated city of Ningyuan from all directions, giving people an oppressive feeling of the coming of doomsday.

November 16, the first year of Chongzhen.

The majestic and powerful golden drums of the central army sounded on the outskirts of Ningyuan City.

After two days of rapid march, Liu Zhaosun led his 450,000 soldiers and civilians all the way from Wanghai Temple in Huludao to the city of Ningyuan.

The decisive battle of Ningyuan officially began.

Liu Zhaosun ordered the cavalry battalion to quickly cross the Shanhaiguan Road and drive some of the border troops that were sent to reinforce from the south back to Shanhaiguan.

The cavalry battalion assisted the Imperial Guards in guarding the Shanhaiguan Highway and attacking any reinforcements coming from inside the pass.

Jianzhou leader Du Du, who had arrived earlier, led 1,500 Jianzhou cavalrymen to patrol the west of Ningyuan. Their mission was to guard against the Liaozhen cavalry led by Dou Chenggong and Gao Rusong, who were operating in the west, and to prevent a surprise attack from the Liaozhen.

Burhanggu was arranged to defend the east side, and Beile of Xicheng led two thousand elite cavalry to guard the eastern wing of the army to deal with Zhu Mei, Ma Guang and other troops in the east.

Of the 400,000 able-bodied men accompanying the army, excluding some who transported food and supplies and assisted in the outer defense, the remaining number available for siege operations was about 150,000.

These 150,000 people are also the vanguard of this Ningyuan decisive battle.

Under the command of one thousand pacification soldiers, 150,000 able-bodied men were assigned to various battlefields according to the predetermined plan.

Forty thousand able-bodied men were responsible for pushing shield carts to the foot of Ningyuan City.

Thirty thousand able-bodied men built an earthen wall one mile outside the west gate.

Twenty thousand people dug tunnels after crossing the moat.

The remaining 60,000 people will advance with the shield carts. After reaching the city wall, they will use climbing tools to attack Ningyuan City from all directions.

The two guards and the pacification troops, totaling more than 20,000 combat soldiers, followed the able-bodied men and acted as a supervisory team.

According to the pre-planned plan, they would wait until the people in front had exhausted the defenders before launching an attack on Ningyuan.

The artillery battalion and the rocket force arrived at the designated locations one after another and began to load ammunition and deploy the Divine Fire Flying Crows in a tense and orderly manner.

~~~~
Five miles northwest of Ningyuan is the Kaiyuan central army tent.

Director Xie stood in front of Ping Liaohou, his fat face like an eggplant hit by frost.

The civil affairs chief carefully reminded Ping Liaohou that after they had plundered the grain and grass from Guangning, Jinzhou and other places, at most they only had enough food for 450,000 people for ten days.

This does not include the refugees who continue to join us every day.

"Only ten days?"

"Yes, sir. Last spring was too cold and the harvest in western Liaoning was poor. Many granaries in Jinzhou and Dalinghe were empty."

Liu Zhaosun knew that if he failed to capture Ningyuan within ten days, more than 400,000 people would collapse on their own.

Liu Zhaosun, dressed in military uniform, listened to the report from the civil affairs officer and said disapprovingly:
"Aren't merchants supposed to transport grain to Liaoxi in exchange for salt permits? They don't have any grain either?"

Xie Yang touched his head, hesitated for a moment, and then said:

"Marquis Ping Liao, you don't know. The grain merchant ran out of food a few days ago."

Liu Zhaosun was shocked.

"Oh, why? Why didn't you report such a big thing to me?"

Xie Yang said with a stiff upper lip:
"I was unaware of the forced march a few days ago."

Liu Zhaosun waved his hand and let him continue.

"Sir, the Kaiyuan army is now unstoppable and sweeping across western Liaoning. The fifteen or sixteen cities that existed before have suddenly become seventy or eighty, and there are also large cities like Liao, Shen, Guang, and Jin. The original civil officials are simply not enough, not to mention the combat troops and pacification troops. You have all transferred them to Ningyuan to fight. Liaozhen was defeated, and we have no energy to manage the newly occupied cities. As a result, bandits are rampant. Not to mention merchants transporting goods, even walking in broad daylight will be robbed by gangs. Only our Kaiyuan army dares not rob. We cannot send thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers to protect those merchants, and some local officials collude with traitors to harm merchants..."

Liu Zhaosun's face gradually darkened. He was silent for a while, then sighed and said:
"Never mind. You can't have your cake and eat it too. A large army sweeping across the land will inevitably bring in all sorts of people in the later stages. All sorts of monsters and demons will sneak in. There's nothing we can do. Kaiyuan moved too fast and didn't have time to digest everything. But, we have to move fast either. We'll have to have a rectification movement later to get rid of all the local tyrants and replace them with our people. As for those bandits, I'll send pacification troops to wipe them out. No mountain eagles or river dragons will be spared!"

Liu Zhaosun finished speaking, raised his head to look at Xie Yang, and looked at his gradually balding forehead, and comforted him:

"Director Xie, don't worry. I will capture Ningyuan within ten days!"

On that day, Ping Liaohou ordered the army to rest for a while under the city of Ningyuan, and released five captives from western Liaoning into the city.

The captives who entered the city all carried with them a manifesto written by the Marquis of Ping Liao to the soldiers and civilians of Ningyuan. This manifesto is too long (about 3,000 words) to be quoted here, but its content is roughly as follows:

"Marquis Ping Liao led a million soldiers to capture Ningyuan, not to gain an inch of territory, but to avenge the innocent Liao people who died in Kaiyuan! For my beloved wife, for my adoptive father, and for the millions of foreign soldiers! I am determined to capture this city! I am also determined to capture Zu Dashou's head! Ningyuan has been cut off from external aid, and how dare a mere tens of thousands of remaining soldiers stand in the way of a chariot? Unfortunately, the Liao people are pitiful, and the foreign soldiers are innocent. Marquis Ping Liao is merciful. Anyone in the city, whether military or civilian, who can kill Zu Dashou and present his head to me will be appointed General of Kaiyuan, rewarded with ten thousand taels of silver, a thousand acres of fertile land, and spared three lives! I will report to the Emperor, commending your achievements in saving Liao and conferring you a high title. A single thought can destroy everything, leaving nothing alive! Be careful! Be careful!"

Zu Dashou was furious when he heard this and beheaded all the captives as a sacrifice.

However, the manifesto had already spread throughout the city, and people were in turmoil.

~~~~·
Large shield carts wrapped in raw cowhide and covered with wet quilts rolled across the Liaoxi wilderness like a rolling torrent, approaching Ningyuan City from all directions.

The shield cart is nine feet high and made of pear or birch wood. It is shaped like a sedan chair, with four large wooden wheels underneath, and the front guard and top plate are eight inches thick.

The top layer of cowhide was covered with mud and a wet quilt, making it impervious to water and fire. The front guard was fixed with a pin, and sand and soil were added to the carriage. When shells hit it, the guard would relieve the force, and the sand and gravel behind the guard would act as a buffer, thus protecting the auxiliary soldiers behind the shield car.

Groups of Jianzhou hunters and Mongolian herdsmen followed the huge shield carts, holding their bows in their hands and looking warily at the distant city walls from time to time.

Behind the foreign archers were groups of refugees from western Liaoning. They pushed carts loaded with soil and followed the shield carriages like tadpoles.

More than 60,000 tadpoles, protected by shield carts, approached the city walls from all directions, carrying crude weapons such as wooden clubs and swords, and each of them carried a cloth bag filled with earth and rocks. When they reached the edge of the trench and horse pit, they poured the earth and rocks into it.

In this way, the fortifications outside the city were filled up by tadpoles at a speed visible to the naked eye.

At the front of the shield carts, teams of sword and shield soldiers, holding shields and carrying ash buckets, wiped out the artillery marks left in advance by the Ningyuan gunners one by one.

Some of these signs were stones stained with white lime, some were circles drawn with white lime, and some were tree stumps with their trunks cut off.

When the shield car moves to the corresponding position, a red cannon with a corresponding range will bombard it accurately.

~~~~~
The east of Ningyuan City was filled with smoke, soldiers and armor were like clouds at the foot of Hongluo Mountain, and the Kaiyuan army was like wild grass in the wilderness, covering the land of western Liaoning.

On the front line in front of the moat, it was like being in a misty sky, with thunderous artillery roars constantly ringing around.

A flash of orange-red flames pierced through the thick fog and appeared in the sight of hundreds of thousands of people.

The forty red-haired cannons captured from Liaoshen, Guangning, Jinzhou and other places roared continuously, sending twelve-pound iron balls into the air and smashing into the Ningyuan city wall a mile and a half away.

The iron balls smashed the outer bricks of the city wall, and the bricks and stones made a head-scratching cracking sound. The outer bricks of the city wall were shattered, revealing the black rammed earth underneath.

After a flurry of brick debris fell from the sky, the solid shells still had power, bouncing between the city walls and battlements, and falling into the defenders who were shooting arrows and firing guns, splashing blood.

The red cannons mounted on the top of Ningyuan City were not at all inferior and immediately retaliated against the Kaiyuan army.

Under the command of twenty-five Portuguese instructors, the Ming artillerymen returned fire with iron balls several times their number. Hundreds of red-coated cannons roared in unison, and the six- to twelve-pound iron balls rained down like a meteor shower, covering an area a mile in front of the city wall.

There is no need to even aim, every iron ball will hit the enemy formation that is as dense as an ant colony.

"Master Ba, the Kaiyuan bandits are fearless and unafraid of death. Let them kill more people this time!"

"Mr. Luo Li, their shield carts can actually block the Little Red Cannon's shells. They filled the carts with sand to reduce the damage caused by the shells' ricocheting. These clever Orientals are truly eye-opening!"

The north gate of Ningyuan.

A blond-haired, blue-eyed Franji instructor looked at the approaching wave of shield carts in front of him with a worried look on his face.

Right next to the moat, the front shield of a shield cart was shattered by an iron ball, revealing the black sand inside, and the Mongols behind the shield cart fled in panic.

This Mr. Ba was one of the 25 French instructors hired by Zu Dashou from Macau at a high salary.

His full name was Barbaras Brady, but the soldiers couldn't remember it, so they called him Master Barbara.

Babula knows a little Chinese. He has been in western Liaoning for two months and has a close relationship with the Liaozhen gunner named Luo Li.

"Master Ba, our cannons are powerful. The Kaiyuan bandits are just here to die, no matter how many of them there are! If the small red-coated cannons can't break them, then use the big red-coated cannons! Look at this!"

Before Master Ba could speak, Luo Li had already inserted a red-hot iron rod into the medicine pool.

The gunpowder burned with a hissing sound, and a thick white smoke rose around.

The two gunners quickly stepped back, hid behind the battlement, and watched the dense and squirming waves of shield carts a mile away.

~~~~
"Whoosh!"

An eight-jin red cannon shell flew across the Ningyuan moat like a ball of lightning, drawing a low trajectory in the air and crashing into the dense group of shield carts in front of the moat.

Like a small stone splashing a little water in the overwhelming wave of shield cars.

With a loud bang, the iron bullet slammed into the front guard plate of a moving shield cart, and the iron ball was blocked by an eight-inch thick wooden board.

The slowly crawling shield cart seemed to be suddenly pushed from the front by a giant. The huge and bulky body shook slightly, and the body retreated half a step like a toad. The eight-inch thick guard plate could not withstand the violent impact of the iron ball, and countless wood chips exploded and shot in all directions like a rain of arrows.

A dozen or so Mongolian herdsmen who were pushing shield carts at the back let out screams that were not like human voices. Their eyes and faces were pierced by the flying wood chips, and they rolled around on the ground, covering their bodies.

Immediately after the sound of the cannon, several artillerymen carrying stretchers rushed out from the shield carts at the back. They hurriedly bandaged the wounds of the wounded and carried the still-gasping Mongolian away on a stretcher.

More red-haired cannons joined the bombardment from the city walls. As the target drew closer, more shield carts were struck by shells. Fortunately, not all cannons could fire eight-jin iron balls. The eight-inch-thick rawhide planks, combined with the thick mud and sand, were sufficient to withstand most artillery bombardments.

The shield cart following behind ran over the dead body in front without stopping and continued to move forward in a mighty manner.

After losing 300 shield carts and more than 2,000 foreign soldiers, the remaining 2,700 finally reached the moat and began a more brutal siege.

Under the command of the Kaiyuan auxiliary troops, 20,000 refugees from western Liaoning quickly came to the moat carrying heavy timber. Countless people walked in the freezing cold river water, pushed the timber into the water, and quickly built a floating bridge.

Five thousand Mongolian and Jurchen archers and two thousand Korean musketeers provided cover for them.

After several rounds of bombardment, the iron red cannon mounted on the top of the city wall finally became so hot that it had to stop to cool down.

The Ming army artillerymen retreated from behind the battlements one after another, and five thousand Liaozhen soldiers armed with bird guns and longbows appeared behind the battlements, aiming at the Kaiyuan civilians and auxiliary soldiers on the moat half a mile away and firing fiercely.

"Don't let the bandits build a bridge! Kill them all! Quick!"

Zu Dashou's servants were howling loudly on the top of the city wall.

They used their scabbards and wooden clubs to hack and chop at the cowering archers and musketeers behind the battlements, urging them to shoot arrows and fire muskets quickly and attack the Kaiyuan army on the moat.

~~~
On the banks of the East Gate moat, under the cover of hundreds of shield carts, the Liao people crossed the moat and began to dig the soil with shovels and pickaxes.

They dug tirelessly like groundhogs, and soon hundreds of large holes, each ten feet square, appeared around them.

More and more Liao people came to the cave entrance. Some were responsible for digging, some were responsible for transporting soil, and someone would take turns every half an incense stick of time.

The river bank, which was originally flat on all sides, soon became bumpy, and the pockmarked faces on the riverbank looked like they had just been bombarded by a million divine fire crows.

Under the anxious gaze of the defenders on the city wall, hundreds of tunnels soon approached their feet from different directions.

~~~~~~~~~~
Three hundred steps away from the tunnel entrance, closer to the city wall, a dense group of strong men like ants, under the command of countless civil officials, carried pots of freshly boiled water in buckets and poured them on a large area of hard open ground.

The hard earth quickly softened, and thousands of laborers, under the command of a group of masons, dug dozens of mud pits beside the clearing and began to carry water and stir the mud. In the distance, oxen and horse carts brought bricks and stones from the surrounding villages and towns to the clearing.

The craftsmen shouted earth-shaking slogans and used wooden stakes to compact the soft ground. The refugees picked up bricks and stones from all directions and threw them into the foundation. Oxen and horses pulled stone rollers to crush the bricks and stones.

More than 20,000 people worked together to build the earth wall that overlooked the entire city of Ningyuan.

~~~~
Liu Zhaosun looked at the countless black dots stretching out before him, and at the soldiers and civilians running back and forth like ants, and silently said in his heart:
"God bless us, we must not repeat Nurhaci's fate today."

History always repeats itself.

The Ningyuan defense line managed by Wang Zaijun and Zu Dashou was almost exactly the same as Yuan Chonghuan's defense of Ningyuan in history.

Historically, Yuan Chonghuan ignored all objections, defended Ningyuan to the death, and won a great victory in Ningyuan.

The Ningyuan City in front of us is more solid, with powerful troops and sufficient food and grass. Facing this strong city, can we capture it within ten days?
"I am not Nurhaci, and the Kaiyuan Army is not one of the Eight Banners of the Later Jin Dynasty!"

Liu Zhaosun's eyes were firm.

At this time, Burhanggu and Dudu sent white-armored soldiers to the city to ask Ping Liaohou for a fight.

The two Jurchen leaders requested that their cavalry break through on both wings to cover the warriors in attacking the city!
This time, Jianzhou and Haixi were summoned to help in the war, and Dudu and Burhanggu were very active.

Not only did they send troops to Ningyuan, but they also brought a large amount of food and supplies.

Both foreign leaders knew that this was a good opportunity to show their loyalty to Ping Liaohou.

The performance of the Jurchens in the Battle of Ningyuan will affect Ping Liaohou's attitude towards their tribe in the next few years.

While Ping Liaohou was still attacking Guangning, the elite cavalry from Haixi and Jianzhou had already arrived in Ningyuan and began to strangle Liaozhen Yebushou.

The elite cavalry of Jianzhou Haixi, both men and horses covered in double layers of hoop armor, were known as "Iron Heads." They served as spearheads on the battlefield, often employing a flank-based assault to defeat enemy infantry in open battles, a strategy that was infallible.

However, this kind of heavily armored cavalry was vulnerable to the Red Cannon, so sending them to attack the city would not make much sense except for increasing casualties.

Of course, Ping Liaohou would not let these foreigners die in vain.

"No need for that. Let your leaders guard the outskirts of Ningyuan. We have to rely on infantry to attack the city. Look, the Liao people ahead have already started crossing the river and are about to attack the city."

After Liu Zhaosun finished speaking, he turned his head and looked towards the Liaohai Sea in the southwest, feeling lost.

"Shen Lian, Pei Dahu, how are you?"

(End of this chapter)