My father is Chongzhen? Then I have no choice but to rebel.

Emperor Chongzhen and Crown Prince Zhu Ci will personally lead the expedition, but will not explicitly grant them command authority.

Their headquarters were set up in Jinzhou, a key town in western Liaoning and the location of the frontline command post, but not too far forward, so their safety was relatively guaranteed.

The emperor and the crown prince personally went to the front lines without directly interfering in the specific command. The significance of this was to greatly boost morale, demonstrate the court's absolute determination to eradicate the enemy, coordinate all parties at the highest level, and at the same time, supervise logistical support with unprecedented strength.

This is the "best lineup" that could be put together under the historical conditions, combining orthodox prestige, military talent, logistical coordination, internal stability maintenance, and external cooperation.

Such a large-scale war of annihilation naturally needed a fig leaf, or rather, a banner of "justice".

The high-ranking officials in the court were fully aware of this. Although the Jurchens nominally submitted to the Ming dynasty after the Battle of Songjin, both sides knew it was merely a temporary measure. When one is determined to find fault, a pretext is always readily available. For the Ming court, which was already sharpening its swords, a reason was easily found:
One could accuse them of "being outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant, harboring malicious intentions"; one could investigate their "poor quality tribute and inadequate etiquette"; one could exaggerate their "continuous border raids and harm to the people"; one could even directly claim that they "plotted rebellion, with irrefutable evidence of their crimes".

In short, when necessary, the manifesto will naturally contain ten major crimes or twenty major crimes that are enough to "move heaven and earth" and "convince the people".

Shortly afterward, an edict issued in the name of the Chongzhen Emperor and bearing the Imperial Seal of the State, entitled "Edict to Punish the Jurchens," was sent at the fastest speed, covering the two capitals and thirteen provinces, and also notified vassal states such as Korea and Ryukyu. This edict, which was also a final ultimatum, was delivered to Shenyang by an envoy under the guise of "informing" the emperor.

The content is roughly as follows:

By the mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees:
I, the successor to the throne, have inherited the grand plan, governed all regions, pacified distant peoples, and my virtue has spread throughout the world. Nurhaci, the Vice Commander of Jianzhou Guard, and his descendants have received the Emperor's favor for generations, been granted titles and fiefdoms, and have been nurtured by the court. They should have faithfully upheld their duties as subjects and served as a bulwark for posterity.

However, their nature is that of a jackal and a wolf, their heart filled with malice and cruelty. They outwardly obey imperial orders while secretly plotting rebellion. Now, their heinous crimes are proclaimed to Heaven and Earth, and declared to all subjects, both within and outside the capital, and to all vassal states:

The first crime was usurping the throne and disrupting the established order.

The second offense is breaking the oath and repeatedly violating the divine law.

Three crimes: oppressing neighboring states and destroying our defenses.

The four crimes are: disobeying the king's orders and being disloyal and disobedient.

The five sins are tyranny and cruelty, and are condemned by both God and man.

This edict was destined to be like a massive boulder thrown into a calm lake, stirring up towering waves in all the vassal states. It was also like a war horn that resounded throughout the world, officially announcing to the world that the Liaodong war, which had lasted for decades and involved two generations, was about to usher in its final, life-or-death battle!

The Ming Dynasty will mobilize the entire nation's resources to completely eliminate this major threat with overwhelming force!

The eyes of the world instantly focused on that black soil in Liaodong.

Never before has the shadow of war been so heavy, and never before has it pressed down on the walls of Shenyang with such unwavering conviction that the Ming Dynasty would prevail.

In the winter of the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign (1644), in Liaodong.

In the dead of winter, the Liaodong region has become a desolate world ruled by severe cold and snow.

The leaden sky hung low, like a huge felt blanket soaked with ice water, pressing heavily on the rolling hills and bare forests.

The gale, like countless cold, razor-sharp knives, howled southward from the Siberian wilderness, sweeping across the vast black earth without hindrance, stirring up snow several feet deep and forming pale, suffocating "white-haired winds."

The world was a vast expanse of white; as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but snow.

The dead trees, like charred bones, wailed mournfully in the howling wind.

The river had long since frozen over, the ice several feet thick and as hard as iron. Occasionally, a few hungry crows, like ominous black dots, struggled to flap their wings in the wind and snow, uttering desperate cries before being swallowed up by the gale. The temperature had already dropped to minus thirty degrees Celsius; breath turned to ice, and water droplets formed frost. Survival itself was a cruel struggle against nature.

This was the peak of the Little Ice Age, giving Liaodong its most severe landscape.

Compared to this time and place, the winter in Beijing is practically "mild".

Here, winter begins in early September and lasts until April or May of the following year, when the ice and snow show no signs of melting. The long, bitter cold that lasts for seven or eight months is enough to freeze any unprepared creature to death.

However, it was in this desolate and cold land abandoned by heaven that a regime that once made the Ming Empire restless and anxious—the "Qing"—miraculously took root, sprouted, and even flourished, almost overthrowing the vast Ming Empire.

Many people have been puzzled: In such a harsh natural environment, with a lack of arable land and scarce resources, how could the "Jianzhou Jurchens" who rose from the Changbai Mountains and the Heilongjiang River have grown strong and even repeatedly dealt heavy blows to the Ming Dynasty, which was dozens of times stronger than itself?
The answer was once hidden on the secret trade routes connecting the inside and outside of the pass.

Since the time of Nurhaci, the group of traitorous merchants, represented by the "Eight Great Imperial Merchants" of Shanxi, acted like leeches clinging to the veins of the nation. Using their extensive commercial network throughout the north, they disregarded the imperial edicts and continuously supplied the rising Jurchen regime with urgently needed grain, cloth, ironware, salt, tea, and even sulfur, saltpeter, and military intelligence that were strictly prohibited from leaving the country.

The Jurchens exchanged goods unique to Liaodong, such as ginseng, sable fur, pearls, gold, and silver.

It was thanks to the nourishment of this "Han blood" that the Jurchens were able to survive famines and sieges time and time again, and to arm themselves with fierce Eight Banners troops.

This is the cruel truth of history: the "silver" of the Ming Dynasty ultimately became a "knife" used to cut off the heads of the Ming soldiers and civilians.

But now, the situation is completely different.

Several years ago, Crown Prince Zhu Cilang ruthlessly purged Shanxi merchants, uprooting and exterminating the families of the "Eight Great Imperial Merchants," including Fan Yongdou, and strictly sealing off passes and regulating border trade. This "invisible lifeline" that sustained the survival of the Jurchens has been completely severed.

Without the continuous influx of resources from within the Great Wall, the Jurchen regime was like an infant whose umbilical cord had been severed, instantly plunging into an unprecedented survival crisis.

The disastrous defeat at the Battle of Songjin was a further blow, resulting not only in heavy casualties but also in the loss of a large grain-producing area and strategic buffer zone in western Liaoning.

Although the Jurchens later forced Korea to submit through military pressure, thus gaining access to limited supplies from Japan, Ryukyu, and even Southeast Asia through Korean ports, they managed to survive.

However, this drop in the ocean is nothing compared to the enormous sums of goods obtained through Shanxi merchants in the past.

Korea itself was not a wealthy land, and harbored resentment, constantly hindering the region from the shadows. In Shenyang today, food shortages, expensive cloth, scarce ironware, and a severe lack of medicine are already open secrets. The former arrogance and extravagance of the Eight Banners' descendants have been completely worn away by hunger, cold, and poverty. Many lower-ranking bannermen's families have even reached the point of "several members sharing one garment and taking turns going out."

The once fearsome "Baturu" now struggles more with the cold and hunger.

The wind and snow intensified.

A cavalry force of about three or four hundred men, like a few small boats struggling in a white, raging sea, was braving the gale and making its way from north to south along the official road that was almost buried in snow, towards the city of Shenyang.

Everyone in the column was dressed in heavy, mottled fur robes, covered with cotton armor, and wearing fur hats with ear flaps. Their faces were wrapped in thick woolen scarves, revealing only their eyes, which were red from the cold wind. The warhorses were also draped in simple winter coats, and the white breath they exhaled from their nostrils instantly condensed into frost, which clung to their bridles.

Even so, the men and horses were still shivering from the cold, their beards and eyebrows all white. At the very front of the procession, a brocade dragon banner, frozen stiff, fluttered weakly in the gale, as if it might be torn apart by the wind at any moment—that was the royal banner of Prince Su, Hauge.

Haug sat astride an exceptionally magnificent black warhorse, his imposing figure still evident despite being fully covered up.

His gaze was sinister as he stared intently through the wind and snow at the silhouette of the city looming on the horizon like a colossal beast, barely visible amidst the swirling snowflakes—Shenyang, his "home," and a place of heartbreak he had once vowed never to set foot in again.

A year ago, in this very city, in that magnificent palace, he, Nurhaci's eldest grandson, the prince most qualified to inherit the throne, suffered a crushing defeat in a brutal power struggle with his fourteenth uncle, Dorgon. He not only lost the throne but also nearly lost his life.

Furthermore, he fell for the Ming army's divisive tactics, and was ultimately forced to leave for the front lines with humiliation and resentment.

He had vowed never to set foot in this "dragon's den and tiger's lair" controlled by Dorgon again unless absolutely necessary.

However, the vow could not withstand the cold reality, nor could it withstand the sense of responsibility for the survival and continuation of the Aisin Gioro family that came from the depths of his bloodline.

What prompted him to break his vow and risk returning to Shenyang was not Dorgon's "invitation," but rather a suffocating message that had come from the southern border a little over a month earlier, spreading like a plague within the army.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties demarcated their borders and established their rule, although the two sides did not formally go to war, an invisible "wall" built of despair quietly rose on the border.

As living conditions in the Jurchen territory deteriorated rapidly, there was an extreme shortage of necessities such as food and salt. Meanwhile, in the Ming-controlled area across the border, the people's livelihood miraculously stabilized under the promotion of sweet potatoes and potatoes and new policies, and there were even signs of a drop in food prices.

The stark contrast in living standards spurred an unstoppable wave of exodus.

At first, there were only a few Han Chinese bondservants and aha, but later there were even entire families of Mongolian herders, and even... a few low-level Manchu bannermen who couldn't survive!

Under the cover of night, risking being shot by the patrol, they waded across the icy river, traversed the dense forest, and fearlessly rushed towards the Ming Dynasty's outpost.

Initially, Hauge and his generals dealt with such incidents extremely harshly: once captured, regardless of whether they were Manchu or Han, they were beheaded on the spot, and their heads were hung on wooden stakes on the border as a warning to others.

They believed that the bloody killings would be enough to intimidate people.

However, they were wrong. The killings did not stop the escape; instead, they were like pouring hot oil on a pile of dry wood. The desperate people discovered that staying meant a slow, undignified death from freezing and starvation, while fleeing, though fraught with peril, offered a glimmer of hope.

As a result, the number of fugitives increased, and their methods became increasingly covert.

The border is long and difficult to defend against.

Haug's patrols were constantly on the go, often neglecting one thing for another.

What chilled Haug even more was that, from the accounts of some captured fugitives and the intelligence brought back by his spies who had infiltrated the fugitives to gather information, a horrifying picture was gradually piecing together—

The Ming army on the other side did not lie low despite the cold winter.

On the contrary, since the beginning of winter, key passes along the Liaoxi Corridor, such as Jinzhou, Ningyuan, Shanhaiguan, and even further back in Jizhou and Xuanfu, have suddenly become unusually "busy".

Countless Ming soldiers, dressed in different styles of mandarin duck battle jackets and speaking in various regional accents, are braving the wind and snow and heading to the front lines in an endless stream! According to reports from spies, these newly arrived troops are well-disciplined, well-equipped, and in high spirits, a stark contrast to the previous Ming troops who were lax in discipline and looked pale.

They built fortifications, stockpiled provisions, and practiced formations, as if preparing for some earth-shattering event.

Roughly estimated, in just two months, the Ming army's troop strength on the Liaodong front increased by at least 50,000! And the reinforcements are still ongoing!
"Winter... a large-scale troop increase..."

The moment Haug received the news, he felt a chill run through him, as if he had fallen into an ice cave. As a seasoned veteran, he knew all too well what this meant!

Using troops in the dead of winter is a major taboo in military strategy, and the logistical requirements are extremely demanding.

The Ming army would never have dared to take such a risky move unless they had absolute certainty and ample preparation! Their unusually large-scale mobilization had only one objective—Shenyang!
It's the Ming Dynasty launching a full-scale offensive! They're going to wipe the Qing Dynasty off the map completely!
If they can muster 50,000 troops in two months, and give the Ming Dynasty another three or four months, how many troops will they be able to gather by next spring? Two hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? Or even more!
At that time, given the Qing Dynasty's current predicament of being beset by internal and external troubles and suffering from hunger and cold, what will it use to resist?

Immense fear and an intense sense of mission gnawed at Haug's heart like two venomous snakes.

He hated Dorgon, wishing he could eat his flesh and sleep on his skin. But he knew even better that if the Qing Dynasty fell, he, Hauge, and all the descendants of the Aisin Gioro clan would die without a burial place! If the skin is gone, where will the hair attach? Faced with the enormous shadow of national subjugation and racial extinction, personal grudges seemed so insignificant and ridiculous.

He wrote a secret letter overnight, sending the news of the unusual troop movements of the Ming army and his own judgment to Shenyang via express courier, and presented it to Regent Dorgon.

In the letter, he argued the pros and cons and called for setting aside past grievances to discuss national affairs together.

A few days later, a reply arrived from Shenyang.

To Hauge's surprise, the reply did not come from Dorgon, but from the highly respected Prince Li, Daishan.

In his letter, Daishan, speaking with the heartfelt sorrow of an elder, described the panic in Shenyang caused by the Ming army's movements. He swore on the lives of his entire family that Hauge should prioritize the greater good and return to Shenyang immediately to discuss a strategy to repel the enemy with Dorgon and the other princes and nobles. (End of Chapter)