Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 234: The Last Whisper (Two chapters in one)

The narrow road, which should have been deserted and vulnerable to collapse, was actually filled with people, just like the strict defense line of the Qing army's first two rounds of attacks.

The Qing soldiers who were eager to return home could not believe what they saw.

After two rounds of bloody battles, the Beiwei Army sent a commando team to attack the Qing army camp, resulting in more than 6,000 casualties.

Besides, no troop transport ships have arrived at the coast in recent days. How could the Beiwei Army have extra troops to continue fighting?

These must be auxiliary soldiers or former slaves of the Beiwei Army. They put on armor and picked up steel swords to pretend. If a real fight breaks out, they will only kneel down and surrender, or retreat to the seaside and escape by boat.

So tens of thousands of Tatars staged the same bloody fight as in the previous two rounds.

As long as the Qing warriors defeat these ordinary auxiliary troops, they can return home safely.

But as they fought, they found that the enemy's combat effectiveness remained the same, or even slightly increased.

The Beiwei Army is like an endless swarm of insects. Through repeated actual combat, they greedily absorb combat experience and analyze the enemy's combat habits, thereby achieving gradual growth.

After tens of thousands of Qing soldiers realized that these were not auxiliary troops of the Beiwei Army, but genuine elite soldiers, they quickly retreated, leaving behind thousands of casualties.

The fierce battle that lasted for several hours seemed as long as years. The faces of the princes and nobles went through a cycle of ups and downs, much like young actors participating in an audition and trying their best to show off their acting skills.

At first, they smiled with the hope of victory, then turned into doubts about not being able to conquer the enemy for a long time, then their solemnity turned into loss and panic, and finally they stopped at astonished fear.

The Beiwei Army is a mountain, an insurmountable mountain.

The Eight Banners soldiers were defeated again and again in the defense line, regrouped again and again, and then were defeated by the enemy again.

Among the hundreds of Niulu who went on the expedition, half suffered more than 10% casualties, a few Niulu suffered more than 30% casualties, and some Niulu were almost wiped out, with only dozens of flagmen left to maintain the organization.

Countless Niulu Zhangjing, Jiala Zhangjing, and Gushan Ezhen died in the battle. Huang Taiji personally led an army of 130,000 to conquer southern Liaoning, but now only 90,000 troops are left.

Dorgon and Hauge were dejected after defeating the Black Flag Camp. They were lucky that the Beiwei Army had only more than 10,000 soldiers and horses, and they had enough time to hold on by relying on the narrow terrain.

If the Beiwei Army had tens of thousands of elite soldiers, it would not be the enemy defending and the Qing attacking, but the offense and defense would be reversed, and it would be the Beiwei Army's turn to launch a fierce attack on the Qing.

Jirgalang's face was gloomy, and he no longer had the confidence to crush the Ming army with ease.

He raised his arm and pointed forward, looked at Dorgon on the left and Kong Youde on the right, his voice hesitant to speak but unable to utter a word, just like a mute who was eager to express what was in his mind but could not utter a complete sentence, with phlegm stuck in his throat and took a long time to cough out.

The "naughty kid" Duoduo was also nearly insane. He held a blood-stained steel knife and slashed at the air at the distant hills, shouting, "Kill the bastards! Kill the bastards! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

He chopped until he was exhausted, and finally threw the knife into the distance, letting out an unwilling roar, then fell down with his head raised as if letting go of everything.

The guards gathered around him, and Duoduo was still roaring, swinging his fists wildly and pounding the ground, like a naughty child who got angry when his parents didn't buy him a toy, "Why can't I kill him, why!"

Huang Taiji's face didn't look good either. His neck remained in the observation position for several hours, and he almost never put down the telescope close to his right eye.

When he saw the soldiers retreating in the third round of attack, he knew that something was wrong.

The Emperor of the Qing Dynasty remained silent, unable to believe the horrifying scene he saw through the telescope.

He kept asking other princes to hand him their telescopes and looked through them.

The Qing warriors did retreat, but the defense line formed by hills and narrow roads remained intact.

Huang Taiji seemed to have encountered a "ghost wall". No matter how he rushed around, took a detour or went straight, he would return to the same starting point.

No matter how the Qing troops attacked, the Beiwei Army always managed to maintain its original defensive posture, as if no soldiers had ever died in battle.

If the Beiwei Army had 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers at the beginning, why did they fight part of it and hide part of it, deliberately making the enemy think that there were only a few thousand soldiers?
Moreover, if the thousands of soldiers on standby had been gathered together to form seven or eight thousand elite troops in the desperate attack just now, they might have been able to attack the Qing Emperor.

But why.

How could the Beiwei Army watch three thousand friendly troops attack the enemy camp and die without sending any additional soldiers?
Teammates’ lives are not lives?
Why did the Beiwei Army not retreat even though thousands of soldiers were killed in the battle and the total number of casualties exceeded 50%, but still held their positions and waited for the Qing troops to attack?

Anger, hatred, loyalty, or perhaps the force of a cult's magic?
Huang Taiji held the telescope tightly, the frame almost embedding into his brow bone, and he couldn't think of any possibilities.

The tactics of the Beiwei Army were not very clever. The rhythm of their attack was either too fast or too slow, and their troop deployment either left too many or too few.

A desperate charge by 3,000 men also seemed extremely reckless. Such precious troops should have been hidden and waited for the next round of attack by the Qing army before suddenly attacking.

When Huang Taiji was young, he followed his father Khan in countless battles. He became proficient in various battle formations and made the Ming army cry for their parents. He rarely suffered defeat.

Huang Taiji believed that the defensive rhythm of the Beiwei Army commander was not even 30% as good as his.

But even such a law-abiding general, with a group of elite soldiers whose morale was always high and would never be defeated, did not consider any tactics, but just set up a defensive formation and waited for the Qing troops to come and attack.

The two sides fought and fought. The Qing soldiers tried their best, but they could not break out of this "Five Finger Mountain".

Thousands of good men and true warriors of the Qing Dynasty died in battle for no apparent reason.

He hated it. He hated that the Beiwei Army chose the path of "blind loyalty" and would rather fight with the Qing Dynasty to a mutual defeat, and benefit the young emperor of the Southern Dynasty for nothing!

How could there be such stupid people in this world who would give up the good world and make contributions to outsiders!
Anyone would agree to the suggestions I put forward, so why would the Beiwei Army refuse them!
As the defeated soldiers of the third round of attack returned to the camp one after another, hundreds of cavalrymen suddenly rushed out from between the hills.

The elite soldiers of the Beiwei Army rode on captured horses, ignoring the fleeing bannermen along the way, and galloped all the way to a position several hundred steps outside the Qing camp.

After the surrounding flagmen retreated a hundred steps away, these hundred people dismounted, several of them took down traditional musical instruments, and dozens of them took out a small wooden board in their hands.

They climbed up the slope of a nearby mound, almost to the same height as Huang Taiji's main camp.

The musicians stood at the top of the slope, and the guys holding wooden boards stood in a square formation around the musicians.

Seeing that the Beiwei army dared to run so close and even abandoned their highly maneuverable horses, Duoduo immediately led his troops to charge and annihilate this enemy force.

He couldn't break through the Beiwei Army's defense line, so wasn't it easy for him to kill a few of the reckless pawns?
It was Huang Taiji who ordered to stop the fighting and wanted to see what the Beiwei Army would do, which stopped the angry bannermen who wanted to "pick on the weak."

This small group of Beiwei troops had no hostility. They just wanted to present a few post-war programs to the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty to ease the excitement on both sides.

The Beiwei army spoke.

Dozens of people held wooden boards in their hands and recited ancient poems with emotion, swaying with their inner feelings as they read.

Those enthusiastic faces looked like kind old grandfathers with rosy cheeks.

"Chi Le Chuan, at the foot of the Yin Mountains. The sky is like a dome, covering the vast expanse. The sky is vast, the expanse is boundless, the wind blows the grass low, and you can see cattle and sheep..."

The sound of the recitation in unison on the high slope spread widely, and almost half of the camp could hear the poetry.

The moment Huang Taiji heard the first sentence, he knew that the enemy soldiers were reciting the collection of Yuefu poems "Chi Le Song".

On the surface, this poem talks about the free and easy life on the grassland, but in reality, it hides a tragic story:

Gao Huan, a powerful official of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, led 100,000 elite troops to attack Yubi, but suffered tens of thousands of casualties and was eventually forced to return.

To boost the morale of his troops, King Gao ordered his general, Hulu Jin, to sing the Chi-Le Song, which rekindled the soldiers' nostalgia and greatly boosted their morale. However, King Gao himself became ill from worry and anger over his failure to capture the Jade Bi, and died of depression.

The Beiwei Army started singing.

The "New Chi Le Song" with lyrics and music added by himself sounded, and various musical instruments played one after another.

My heart follows the world, my mind is led by the cattle and sheep... My face is reflected by the bonfire, I am drunk on the horse's rod... At the end of the sky, I drink with the moon...

Although most of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners could not understand fluent Chinese, the beautiful music could resonate with them.

Each tune conveys the vastness of the grassland, the freedom and grandeur of galloping horses, and the comfort and peace of sleeping with the moon...

For some reason, when the Eight Banners of Mongolia and the Outer Mongolian tribes heard this beautiful song, they became more eager to return home.

The smell of crushed grass trampled by horse hooves, the yurt that has been with me for many years, the roasted mutton and the horse milk I'm used to drinking...

Grassland, grassland.

The prodigal son who had been away from home for many days missed the taste of home.

When the song paused, the Beiwei soldiers, swaying to the music, recited the poem aloud again:

"Go home! The wind blows the grass low and you can see the cattle and sheep..."

"Go back to the grassland! Your friends and family are waiting for you to drink and dance..."

"Go back! Put down your swords and go back to see the smiling faces of your wives and children..."

They were afraid that other tribes might not understand Chinese, so they specially arranged for some players to repeat it aloud in Mongolian.

If decades later, you are lying on a sickbed, surrounded by your relatives, friends and children, you will be glad that you made the decision to go home today.

go home.

Stop working for the Qing Dynasty.

Anyone who aids the Qing Tartars will die.

Huang Taiji was stunned.

He was not defeated by the numerous casualties, nor was he angered by the humiliation of the enemy soldiers building a Jingguan. In the end, he was moved to the core by a poem and a song.

They both commanded over a hundred thousand troops. They both attacked a "strong city" for days, suffering repeated casualties. They both heard the Chi Le Song when morale was low.

A stuffy breath suddenly rolled and stirred in his chest. Huang Taiji felt that he could inhale a breath but could not exhale it. He was eager to exhale the stuffy breath.

His chest felt like it had been struck by a heavy hammer, his heart being pulled by dozens of large hands, and it gradually became difficult to beat normally. Suddenly, Huang Taiji heard the guards shouting, "Master!"

The man pointed at his face with fear in his eyes, and hundreds of guards around him gave him looks of astonishment.

Huang Taiji felt a tingling, itchy and moist sensation in his nose and mouth. He reached out his hand and felt blood.

The blood flowing from the nose wrapped around the dry lips and dripped down the lips and chin onto the yellow nails.

He felt as if his nose and mouth were covered with red flying insects, and he quickly used his hands to scratch, cover, and wipe them.

The guards at the side hurriedly handed over towels and handkerchiefs, but they could not stop the blood from flowing from the emperor's nostrils.

Huang Taiji suddenly felt as if all the strength in his body was drained away in an instant, and the world before his eyes became increasingly darker.

He staggered back a few steps as if exhausted, his feet spinning, and fell into the wall of guards.

The murderous "music" made Huang Taiji faint.

He didn't know how long he lay there before he woke up. He seemed to find himself lying on a military bed, and a group of princes and nobles soon gathered around him.

The princes and nobles cried in different tones, some genuine and some fake, with different expressions, but the Han officials, both civil and military, had real tears and snot, crying even more miserably than if their father had died.

Huang Taiji was the only emperor in the Qing Dynasty who valued Han people. If anything happened to him, these Han princes and generals might be able to maintain their wealth and glory with their soldiers, but these Han officials and secretaries who served the emperor exclusively would be in trouble.

The next word from any one of them could make them fall from paradise into hell.

"How long have I been unconscious..." Huang Taiji was breathing weakly, and his dry lips turned pale.

"Your Majesty has been unconscious for half a day, and the enemy did not take the opportunity to launch an attack. The camp is as stable as a mountain..." Fan Wencheng's voice was mixed with tears, and he raised his sleeves from time to time to wipe away his tears.

"The scouting horses have returned, but they didn't see a single Ming soldier along the way..."

"it is good……"

The route for retreat was clear.

Huang Taiji was not yet fifty years old. In the past, he only felt that his physical strength and energy were declining, and he just needed to eat more medicinal herbs to replenish his body.

At this moment, after the battle with the "Jade Disk", he deeply realized that his body was like rotten wood eaten by insects. When he peeled off the skin, he saw that the inside was hollowed out.

He clearly sensed that this dilapidated body had only a few years left to live. If it took a detour and was bumpy on the mountain road, it might not survive more than two years, and might even end up like King Gao, dying in depression.

Not knowing whether he could return to Shenyang alive, Huang Taiji secretly thought about planning a way out for the princes and nobles in the tent and the tens of thousands of soldiers outside the tent.

"After this battle, the fortunes of the Qing Dynasty have crumbled. If the young emperor of the Southern Dynasty hears of the great victory in Liaonan, he will surely gather the nation's elite troops to attack the Qing Dynasty...

If the Beiwei Army hadn't intervened, it would have been just another Sarhu that passed without danger. Unfortunately, the Beiwei Army's elite troops are brave enough to fight. If the Southern Dynasty Emperor gives them power and money and allows them to train another 30,000 elite soldiers, my Great Qing will definitely not be able to protect the Liaodong area—"

Huang Taiji put forward several plans.

The Liaodong Plain cannot be defended, and the princes must revitalize our hometown of Hetuala.

Once the Ming army launched a siege, everyone would move all their farms, slaves, food, and utensils back to their hometowns.

As for the lack of food to feed the army in the poor hometown, it is not difficult to solve.

If he could make it back home alive through the mountains, Dorgon would follow Jirgalang to take over the entire Korea.

At present, the Qing Dynasty no longer had the national prestige to subdue Korea, and could only conquer their territory by force and force the Koreans' material and human resources to be used by the Qing Dynasty.

Korea alone has a population of at least 10 million, and the eight farmlands are just enough to revive the Qing Dynasty.

After saying this, Huang Taiji intended to dismiss a number of middle and upper-class aristocratic generals, leaving only the brothers and nephews of the Aisin Gioro family.

He told these Aisin Gioro nephews and nieces that conquering Korea was only a temporary measure.

The Southern Dynasty would not allow them to conquer and digest the eight provinces of Korea, and those Koreans would also launch guerrilla resistance.

His real intention was to rob North Korea of ​​some food and slaves, and then move his entire family to the southern steppes of the desert.

Although the Beiwei Army was brave and the Ming Army was large in number, their cavalry was not large enough to chase them to the grassland.

The Qing Dynasty's horseback archery basically came from the Haixi Jurchen and Mongolian tribes, but that does not mean that the Qing Dynasty warriors were not a horse-riding nation.

Since Huang Taiji cannot become the emperor of the Liaodong Plain, he will go to the grassland to be a nomadic king!
As long as the Aisin Gioro family holds on to the core strength of the Eight Banners and conquers more Mongolian tribes, they can recreate the former glory of Temujin.

If Huang Taiji could hold on for a few more years, he would definitely build a vast grassland for his sons and nephews.

He instructed his brothers, nephews and nephews to "treat the Han officials and surrendered soldiers well."

These Han people shaved their heads and betrayed the Southern Dynasty, and were no longer tolerated by the Southern Dynasty. They had no choice but to follow the Qing Dynasty to the end. Raising them into the Han banner and treating them as honorary Manchus would definitely bring unexpected results.

On the contrary, the Eight Banners of Mongolia were once staunch supporters of the Qing Dynasty. Now that the Qing Dynasty is in decline, these Mongolians must have evil intentions and may even reconnect with the emperor of the Southern Dynasty.

All brothers and nephews should marry more often with Mongolian chiefs. On the surface, the two sides are bound together as one family, but in fact their every move is closely monitored, and even Han officials and generals are used to monitor them, in order to ensure the dominant status of the Eight Banners of Manchuria.

Huang Taiji has many more strategies, but it is impossible to list them all.

The intense fatigue washed over him like a tide. He blinked his heavy eyelids and whispered, "Withdraw the troops. The blood of the Qing Dynasty cannot be shed any more..."

Duoduo knelt in front of the bed and asked His Majesty to send him to charge again. If he could lead the team to kill those damn musicians, he could kill more Beiwei soldiers.

More nobles knelt down, just like the soldiers who persuaded Gao Huan to make another attempt for the jade disc.

Huang Taiji knew very well that this was just a kind of consolation, a stubborn refusal to admit failure.

Huang Taiji, moved by the scene, started coughing violently. He raised his trembling arm and pointed at the tent entrance, shouting with all his might, "Retreat!"

The roar almost exhausted the strength he had finally recovered. He lay down powerlessly, as if he had aged ten years, like a dead tree embedded deep in the bed.

Hauge and Jirgalang drove out all the other clan members, and finally leaned close to Huang Taiji's mouth to listen to the relevant arrangements for the withdrawal.

After all the royal family nobles left the tent, only a group of personal guards were left to take care of him. Huang Taiji ate the hot porridge handed to him by the guards, his eyes swept across the bed and the tent, and looked sadly at the tent door.

Even though he was unwilling to admit it, Huang Taiji understood.

His dream of ruling the Central Plains was completely shattered.

The remaining 90,000 Qing soldiers decided to retreat around the Beiwei Army.

They followed Huang Taiji's empty camp strategy, marching and retreating at night, and firing red cannons several times during the day as usual to confuse the Beiwei army.

The Qing soldiers had no time to take away the bodies of their friendly soldiers who died under the "Jade Bi" and could only allow them to be tortured by the Beiwei army.

The infantry went first, followed by the cavalry, galloping dozens of miles at night, and then slowly reorganizing the formation during the day.

It was several days later that the Beiwei Army's observers on the mountaintops discovered that most of the Qing troops had retreated. Even if the Beiwei Army sent troops in pursuit, they did not have enough horses to pursue.

Although we were not able to follow up and attack the Qing troops again when they retreated, all of you brothers know that the results achieved so far are enough.

The "Battle of Pig-Slaying Hill" was a hard-won and resounding victory, and it is definitely a top-notch "epic victory" in the Total War game series!
The victory of this whole thing is not only due to everyone's desperate struggle, but also to the commander who conceived this strategy and tactics.

"He Lusi!" someone shouted at He Lusi.

They rushed over, picked up the commander who had just come down the mountain, threw him into the air, landed to catch him, and then threw him up again...

"Warmaster Horus! Warmaster Horus! Warmaster Horus!"

"Ohhhhhhhh! We defeated the Tartar dogs!"

"We've killed at least 1 Tartars. If we count their heads, I'm afraid the number will be over 6! If we take heads in battle, we'll be the Astartes of the Ming Dynasty!"

"The Warmaster is always healthy!"

"Warmaster! Warmaster! Warmaster!"

The brothers surrounded Horus and shouted in celebration, and the sound of musical instruments and singing filled the air.

The 6,000 players who successfully drove away the Jiannu were ready to start splitting up. Some would take a boat to Xiaojiaguan to block the road, some would take a boat to the Liaozhong Plain, and the remaining main force would clean up the post-war aftermath and wait for the next batch of supplies to arrive before heading north to Gaizhou and even the entire Liaodong Plain.

"Now the reputation of my Beiwei Army is no worse than that of the Qihuo Army."

"Bad? After this battle, we will definitely defeat the Qihuo Army and become the undisputed strongest army in Ming Dynasty!"

"What does it mean to become famous in one battle? From now on, every Northerner will sing our praises! Raise high our black-rimmed battle flag!"

Horus looked at his brothers who were cheering and celebrating and cleaning up the battlefield, then looked towards the distant north.

He clenched his fist and pointed to the north, and suddenly an index finger extended from the clenched fist, stretched straight.

He joined in the cheers of his brothers, and in his heart he echoed the words of the War Marshal Horus.

But he growled firmly, "Shenyang!"

……

The players here are busy with miscellaneous tasks and advancing the new main quest.

Chen Jinghe and others stationed in Jinzhou had not heard of the "epic victory", but received military intelligence from the Tang newspaper that "the vanguard of the Qing troops had arrived."

(End of this chapter)