The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 46 Nurhaci
The wise Khan sitting on the imperial desk raised his head and looked calmly at the arguing beiles.

Nurhaci, who was already in his sixties, had a tall stature, a prominent nose, and eyes as sharp as an eagle. He still maintained the fortitude of the Dragon and Tiger General of his youth.

At this moment, the Khan of the Later Jin Dynasty had just shaved his head and it was shining slightly. The small braid behind his head hung down on the right side of his chest, and his hair was loose on the right side.

The great victory in the Battle of Sarhu gradually gave rise to the ambition of Nurhaci, who lived in a corner of the country, to annex Liaodong.

He gently stroked the handle of the chair with his left hand, and flipped through a thick stack of secret letters sent from Shenyang with his right hand.

He glanced at the letters and picked one from the stack. When he opened it, he saw that it was from Ding Bi, the lieutenant general of Tieling.

Nurhaci quickly finished reading the letter, looked up at the flag leaders again, and said:

"The Ming army has entered Kaiyuan and Tieling. Liu Jing's adopted son is inciting the people in the city. The Ming army is slaughtering the Jurchens. Are you aware of this?"

Daishan, Huang Taiji and Manggurtai looked at each other with incredible expressions on their faces.

Ding Bi was a Liaozhen general who was bribed by the Jin Dynasty. With his assistance, the Jin Dynasty had already placed internal supporters in several important military towns in Liaodong. As long as the army approached, they could be incorporated into the Jin Dynasty's territory without bloodshed.

Ding Bi had been operating in Tieling for many years, so how could he be easily driven away by this group of Ming Dynasty soldiers?
The beile knew that the Khan was a wise and powerful man, quite merciful to the Liao people and unwilling to kill them. Without these internal supporters, they would have to storm the city, and who knows how many casualties would have been incurred.

"Ama, do you mean that Kaiyuan won't fight anymore?"

Manggurtai looked delighted. His father often said that without the help of an insider, one should not easily attack the Ming Dynasty's strong cities to avoid losses. It seemed that his father Khan was on his side after all.

Nurhaci snorted, his eyes fell on the Fifth Prince, and he said coldly:
"Master of the Zhenglan Banner, Manggurtai, I want to ask you, this Khan, armed with thirteen suits of armor, raised an army, overcame all difficulties, and established the Eight Banners. What are the Eight Banners?"

Manggurtai, who was feeling proud, did not expect his father Khan to ask him this question. Calling him the leader of the Zhenglan Banner clearly showed his dissatisfaction.

Manggurtai was terrified and didn't know how to answer. He knelt on the ground, and sweat was already dripping from the back of his rat-tail braid.

Nurhaci's eyes slowly swept over the crowd, his majesty evident without anger, and all the beiles lowered their heads.

A powerful voice rang out in the hall.

"The Eight Banners are organized into Niulu units. Niulu are like large arrows. One arrow is easy to break, but ten arrows are hard to break! I divide you into Niulu units so that you can work together and be invincible!"

Nurhaci turned his eyes to Daishan and said:

"As the eldest prince, you must set an example for the younger princes. If you dare to deliberately sow discord again, what will you do?"

Daishan kowtowed and pleaded guilty, then returned to his seat in a sullen manner.

Nurhaci looked around, stood up from the imperial desk, looked out the window at a flying Saker Falcon, and said calmly:

"What we are worried about now is not the Ming army in a city or a pond, but the people's hearts and minds in Liaodong."

"I said in the first year of Tianming: Why does my country distinguish between masters and slaves, great men and small men? If someone resents his country and comes to us and serves us wholeheartedly, we will not make him a slave or a small man!"

Nurhaci said this, glanced at the bondservants still waiting outside the palace, touched his nose, and continued:
"But the Han people also say that those who are not of our race must have different hearts!"

"In Liaozhen, there are many who are willing to make peace with the Great Jin, but there are also many who are stubborn and try to resist the Great Jin!"

"The Liao people number 2.7 million, all of them are brave and skilled in fighting. If they wake up, the Jin Dynasty's ambitions for hegemony will be shattered!"

"For the past twenty years, I have fought against the Liao people, dividing them, bribing them, and killing them. I have exhausted all my energy and walked on thin ice, which led to the great victory at Sarhu and the current situation of the Great Jin."

When Nurhaci said this, his tone suddenly became much higher and his eyes became ferocious.

"Liu Zhaosun, the adopted son of Liu Jing, is but a mere general. He used a small force to resist our great army, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot or an ant trying to shake a tree! He intercepted the Bordered Blue Banner at Hunjiang, severely injuring Amin and demoralizing our Great Jin! He also used tactics like summoning spirits and paying salaries to deceive the people, seducing the ignorant masses of Liaozhong. Liu's power has grown greatly, and Liaozhen is difficult to control. This time, he even dared to march north to Kaiyuan, openly provoking the Great Jin. If such thieves are not eliminated soon, they will become a grave threat to our Jin!"

"What I'm worried about is the people's support. I can give up Kaiyuan and Tieling, but I must not let the Liao people have even a hint of resistance. Pass on my order!"

Hearing that the Khan was about to issue a royal decree, several beiles raised their heads.

"Daishan, the leader of the Zhenghong Banner! Manggurtai, the leader of the Zhenglan Banner! Huang Taiji, the leader of the Zhengbai Banner! Amin, the leader of the Xianglan Banner!"

The four of them immediately looked up at the Khan of the Later Jin Dynasty.

"I order you to lead the warriors of this banner, join forces with the Aitu and Subudi tribes of Mongolia, and attack Kaiyuan and Tieling with firearms. On the day you capture the city, slaughter all soldiers and civilians within. The bandit leader, Liu Zhaosun, will be taken to Hetuala and hacked into pieces!"

On March 23, the 47th year of the Wanli reign, at the first quarter of noon.

The outer position of Kaiyuan City, Jing'an Fort.

A burst of rapid war drums sounded, and the captains of each battalion shouted:

"Shang Xuanhu! Everyone cover your faces! The Tartars are going to shoot arrows again!!" Inside Jing'an Fort, soldiers and horses were flowing in an endless stream. The Zhejiang soldiers holding long spears and the Xuan soldiers equipped with long swords formed a joint battle team, led by the captains of each battalion, marching forward together. They stopped in front of the heavy fort gate, quietly waiting for the street fighting after the Later Jin army broke into the city.

A few steps away from the spearmen and long swordmen was a wall more than three meters high, and outside the wall was a trench fifteen feet wide.

Three days ago, the defenders filled the trench with bamboo sticks, poured in caltrops, and diverted water from the Qinghe River into the trench, forming a small moat.

This is the basic defensive fortification of Jing'an Fort.

At both ends of the wall were tall hanging towers, on which lay the corpses of Ming soldiers. Their bodies were full of arrow feathers, and some were hit by lead bullets. They were not yet dead and were groaning in pain on the hanging towers.

The Ming army archers, braving the dense rain of arrows and muskets from the opposite side, quickly passed through the corridor, pushed the bodies of their comrades off the hanging building, took their places, and continued to shoot at the Later Jin army with heavy arrows.

These archers were composed of Korean soldiers and Liao soldiers. The Korean soldiers were skilled in archery, and the Liao soldiers were fearless and brave.

Most of the artillery in the fort were transferred to the top of Kaiyuan City for defense. They now became cannon fodder, guarding the Jing'an Fort suspension bridge with their lives and responsible for long-range attacks on the Jiannu.

If the Later Jin army wanted to cross the trench and attack the garrison, they had to pass through the retracted drawbridge in front of the pier.

A steady stream of archers climbed up from the piers and shuttled back and forth between the battlements. Some Liao men who came spontaneously carried boulders and wooden planks onto the city wall, and then suddenly threw a stone at the Later Jin soldiers who had managed to pass through the trench.

The dense rain of arrows from both sides was like a swarm of flying bees, flying across the sky above Jing'an Fort.

Two thousand five hundred soldiers of the Bordered Blue Banner approached a position of three hundred steps away from the tower. Two thousand five hundred short-tipped bows were slightly raised, with their arrows pointing obliquely to the sky. Thousands of light arrows were shot into the sky, rising to the highest point, and then falling rapidly in the form of a parabola, using the potential energy of gravity to accelerate towards the Ming army position.

A moment later, like a torrential summer rain, the sharp arrows hit the Ming army's armor, making a tinkling sound.

A wailing sound of Ming soldiers came from the hanging building. At least fifty or sixty people were shot. They quickly fired a wave of heavy arrows in retaliation, but the Ming army's attack was obviously much weaker than that of the Later Jin army. Only a dozen armored Zhenyi fell, and the rest of the soldiers continued to draw their bows and shoot arrows with expressionless faces.

Fifteen-year-old Fei Yangwu stood on his horse, gazing for a long time at the big flags with the characters "He" and "Liu" fluttering on the pier.

The day before yesterday, two insiders who escaped from Jing'an Fort reported that the garrison in the fort was composed of a unit under the command of He Shixian and Liu Zhaosun, as well as some soldiers from Xuanda.

When enemies meet, they are particularly jealous. After the Battle of Hunjiang, all the humiliations suffered by the Bordered Blue Banner, and the bullying and oppression of the two brothers of the Bordered Blue Banner by Daishan, Huang Taiji and others, were all caused by Liu Zhaosun.

Fei Yangwu's slightly childish eyes revealed deep hatred, and he gritted his teeth and said:

"Archers, stop firing. Baoyi, drive the Han people forward to fill the trenches! Anyone who dares to retreat will be killed without mercy!"

Bayala, with a small flag on his back, immediately rode forward and came to the rear of the army to convey Heshuo Beile's order to the bannermen Aha who were ready to fight.

"Fill the trenches for the master and kill all these southern barbarians! I will also promote you to be baoyi! Do you hear me?"

A moment later, a Baoyi Aha, wearing cotton armor and holding a wooden stick, drove a large group of refugees towards the trench like driving sheep.

Less than a hundred steps from the trench, a bannerman named Aha, who looked like a captain, stepped forward and shouted at the refugees who were shivering in the cold wind:

"Everyone, hold a stone, run to the front of the trench, throw the stone in, and then come back to pick up more stones. The group of southern barbarians on the top of the city have been killed by the master, so it's okay!"

"Once the ditch is filled, you will be the master's slaves. You will work for the master and make contributions, and you can even raise the flag."

"Don't even think about running! The masters are watching from behind. See? Bayala's arrows are very accurate. If you want to die, just give it a try!"

After the captain finished speaking, he turned around and took two steps back. The crowd of refugees had not yet reacted and stood there in a daze.

The brave men among the Baoyi had already picked up their swords and started to kill the refugees who were left behind.

The refugees were like horses that had been frightened. They picked up any stone from the ground and rushed towards the trench.

Cao Zhongqing saw a frail old man holding an egg-sized pebble in his hand, running unsteadily among the refugees. He quickly took two steps forward, kicked the old man down, and said angrily:

"You old thing, you still dare to fool the master, I will fill the trench with you later!"

The old man looked at the fierce Baoyi soldier and trembled all over. He picked up a slightly larger stone again. After taking two steps, he was hit by a heavy arrow flying in the direction of him and fell to the ground helplessly.

The Ming army on the watchtower immediately launched an attack. This practice of forcing the people to fill the trenches was a common tactic used by the Jiannu, and the Liao soldiers were already accustomed to it. If they were too soft-hearted and sat back and watched, allowing them to fill the trenches, more people would only die.

Without waiting for orders from their superiors, the Liaozhen archers immediately launched an attack on the refugees filling the trenches.

Cao Zhongqing saw this and knew it was his chance to show off. He ignored the arrows flying around him and swung his sword, hacking at the lagging refugees while shouting incoherently:

"Fill the trench quickly, and once we've killed all these southern barbarians, my master will raise the flag!"

(End of this chapter)