Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 247 I Know You Know I Know (Two Chapters in One)

The observation balloon in Liaoyang is surveilled by five people who take turns in patrolling, while the rest of the people are offline and playing other games.

The weather was clear that day, and the winter sun rose later than usual.

The brothers on duty looked towards the east as usual. The mountains and rivers were still picturesque. People inside and outside Liaoyang were busy collecting firewood for the winter, and thousands of able-bodied men were organized for military training.

Although these people have little combat effectiveness, if mixed with a few hundred soldiers, they can form a force capable of defending the city.

But today there is something more in the eastern mountains and rivers.

The marching troops, connected end to end, twisted their way forward in the valley like a giant snake.

The observer repeatedly estimated the outlines of the enemy's front and rear columns and finally confirmed that it was a Tatar force.

During the critical period when Shenyang fell, no one in the entire Liaodong region possessed a large army group of this magnitude except Huang Taiji's main force that took a detour.

What is strange is that Huang Taiji did not choose the closer Liaoyang, but continued to head north to the farther Shenyang.

The observing player thought that the news of Liaoyang's fall had spread, while the news of Shenyang's fall had still not arrived, so the enemy was determined to go north to relieve the siege, hoping to defeat the siege troops with internal and external support.

After a brief analysis, the observer quickly exited the game and opened social media to send out information and his own guesses.

The news that "Huang Taiji's main force is approaching" quickly spread among players in Shenyang.

More than one hundred marshals and deputy marshals gathered together.

"Huang Taiji is finally back, but it's a shame I've messed up his family... If he'd come back a dozen days later, we would have taken down all the Liaobei guards too."

"Based on the enemy march map my brother took, our preliminary estimate is that the enemy's numbers haven't changed much, remaining at the estimated 80,000 to 90,000. The Tartars must have eliminated the defeated Ming troops in southern Liaoning and recruited some garrisons from the fortresses in southeastern Liaoning. If they gather more garrisons, the force should exceed 100,000."

"Haha, it seems Huang Taiji is desperate and wants to do anything to cure his illness. He even doesn't want to give up these border fortresses."

"Another army of 100,000 is attacking. How should we respond?"

The expressions of the player representatives were calm, as if they could just defeat the enemies if they attacked, with the confidence of veteran soldiers who would win.

"Then let's set the tone. There's no way we're going to retreat. Let Huang Taiji stage another 'Jade Bi' battle."

"We only have 40,000 of the 45,000 auxiliary troops we assembled for the northern expedition. Holding Shenyang will definitely be no problem. Zhu Youjian's personal expeditionary force from Jinzhou should have crossed the Daling River. The tens of thousands of troops leading the rendezvous also arrived in Fuzhou this morning. They should reach Gaizhou in three to five days."

"I don't think Huang Taiji would just run into the city of Shenyang and die. A smart man wouldn't suffer a loss twice. At most, he would dig trenches and surround Shenyang, then attack the reinforcements."

"Then let's fight him. We have most of the arable land in Liaodong in our hands, and reinforcements from both sides are arriving soon. Let's see who can outlast the other."

"We can consume them, but we can't let the common people fall into the hands of the Tartars and be treated like slaves, suffering twice... The civilian team seized the archives and discovered that the Tartars have reclaimed over three million mu of land and enslaved over a million Han and Korean men, women, and children. We control at least 70% of them.

My suggestion is to leave 30,000 soldiers and horses behind, and withdraw the remaining civilians and auxiliary troops back to Liaoyang. After they have weathered this difficult time, they can return."

"I agree. After all, we want to control Liaodong. The people and soldiers in this territory belong to us. We should be heartbroken if one of them dies... The Tartar vanguard has just arrived at the observation point. It's still more than 200 miles to Shenyang, which is enough time for the people to evacuate south."

"Tsk tsk, there were at least two million Han Chinese before Liaodong fell. Now, including the Korean slaves, there are only one million..."

"Even these liberated slaves may not be from Liaodong. Most of them were captured by the Tartars from the interior of China in the past ten years. They were treated as disposable goods, and after they were used up, they were captured again from the interior of China."

"The dog Tartars destroyed our land and slaughtered our people. They deserve to be exterminated a thousand times!"

"Strengthen the defenses of Shenyang, and I guarantee the Tartars will be crushed to a pulp."

"Hey, I remember Liaoning had tens of millions of acres of arable land. Why is it only a few million acres now?"

"Because Liaodong in the late Ming Dynasty was incomplete, and..."

A player took out a booklet, took out a charcoal pencil and sketched the rough outline of Liaoning Province on the paper, then used dotted lines to cut out the jurisdiction of Liaodong.

Everyone looked down and felt that Liaodong in the late Ming Dynasty was like a corn cob that had been chewed by a dog, with a piece missing in the northwest, concave in the middle, and another large piece missing in the northeast.

"Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Liaodong has been a cold and harsh land with a shortage of manpower and few cold-resistant crops. Central Liaodong is also a swamp that is difficult to use, directly dividing Liaoxi and Liaodong.

During the early and middle Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates constantly harassed the people in Liaodong, and even those who wanted to reclaim wasteland were unable to do so. When the Japanese invasion subsided in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the Ming court also entered a state of strategic retreat and lost the motivation to organize the people to settle and reclaim wasteland in Liaodong.

Liaodong was located in the area of ​​three wars, with both the Mongols and the Jurchens active in northern Liaodong. The bitter cold and the casualties caused by the wars quickly overwhelmed the growth rate of spontaneous immigration.

"But you can rest assured. Once we take Liaodong, we'll have three million people within three years!"

"You're exaggerating. Doubling it within five years would be enough. New immigrants, housing, cold-resistant crops, farm tools, water conservancy projects, firewood for the winter, and garrisons to defend against foreign attacks... all of these are essential."

"You must know that the contradiction between people and land is very acute at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The poor people are very resilient. There are wastelands that can be developed everywhere in Liaodong. As long as you create a safe farming environment for them and promote crops suitable for cold regions, even if the people have nothing, they can return you a piece of fertile land.

The number of immigrants to Northeast China soared year by year in the late Qing Dynasty. Doubling Liaodong's population several times within five years was no longer a dream, but a foreseeable reality.

"Farming is truly a racial talent etched into our Chinese genes."

"Ideals are full of promises, but reality is harsh. The Ming Dynasty has taken back Liaodong, but they still allow you to dictate civil affairs? They've controlled Liaodong for over two hundred years and haven't managed it well. Now they can manage it well?
But remember that before Liaodong was captured by Nurhaci, the Liao people had already rioted several times. The corrupt insects did not do it well back then, and they are even worse now. "

"Whoever prevents us from farming peacefully, I will plant him in the fields!"

"That's right! If the damned officials don't allow us to farm peacefully, we'll slaughter them all! If the Tartars can enter the pass, why can't we? Break through Shanhaiguan and march into Zhili. Then we'll join forces with the Qihuo Army in the capital and destroy the pseudo-Ming Dynasty!
If we give the leader a yellow robe, the world will be ours. If the local tyrants and evil gentry are not convinced, we will kill them until they surrender.

The Qing Dynasty was able to stabilize the world with its butcher knife, and we can also use our iron fist to smash all injustices!"

"Smash the heads of corrupt officials! Trampling the bones of nobles in the streets!"

"Wait a minute, the Tartars in front of us haven't been dealt with yet, and you're already thinking about the future. You need to figure out who your enemies are and who your friends are.

First unite with friends to eliminate the enemy, then consider the problem of internal strife. To stabilize the country, we must first resist the foreign invasion. If we don't defeat the Tartars, how can we enter the pass with confidence? "

"Now that the general direction has been decided, we should mobilize manpower to reinforce the defenses of Shenyang. Meanwhile, we should notify the civil servants and generals of all departments and tell them that the Tartars are coming—"

The news that the main force of the Nu chieftain was approaching Shenyang quickly spread among the civil and military leaders.

The civilian officials who supervised the army and the grain and military preparations formed the "retreat faction", while the Liaodong military generals formed the "hold on faction" around the Beiwei Army.

The civil official put on a worried look. "Shenyang's surroundings are not yet stable, the two reinforcements haven't arrived yet, and the main force of the Nu chieftain is coming from behind. If the Nu chieftain gathers all the remaining slave soldiers, how can you hold on?"

"The people of Liaodong can abandon their homes once, but not twice! Regardless of victory or defeat, Shenyang is a place we must defend!"

"You have served your country by dying in battle, earning fame both before and after your death. By the time Shenyang falls, the Han people of Liaozhong will fall back into the hands of the slave chieftains, and the two reinforcements will be defeated one by one by the Eastern Tartars. Where do you place the safety of the emperor?"

"Your Majesty is blessed with great fortune and the protection of Heaven. How could such an unspeakable thing happen to you? Could it be that you wish for Your Majesty to fall into the hands of the enemy?"

This wave of hurtful remarks left the civil servants speechless. Of course, they could not admit to "cursing" the emperor. If Zhu Youjian came, he would definitely hold a grudge against them.

So the civil officials decided to lead the people to retreat south, leaving those "stubborn donkeys" alone to face the main force of the Tartars.

Many generals stayed behind, not only Chen Jinghe and other Liao generals, but also some soldiers from Shandong and Baoding.

In particular, generals from Liaodong expressed their loyalty to the Beiwei Army, claiming that their families living inside the Great Wall had already set off and would arrive in southern Liaoning soon.

Regardless of victory or defeat this time, they and their families will stay in Liaodong forever, vowing to live and die with their hometown!
"Good!" Seeing that the generals from Liaodong were basically "corrupted", even a few generals from inside the Great Wall were won over.

Knowing that the Liaodong hegemony was almost complete, the players were very excited. "Since the chieftain is heading north to Shenyang, let's give him a welcome gift..."

……

The main force of the Qing Dynasty marched very quickly, and Huang Taiji, who was eager to return home, walked in the vanguard.

The closer he got to Shengjing, the more the dejection he felt after suffering a disastrous defeat in southern Liaoning dissipated, as if he had become the powerful ruler who had defeated Zhu Ming before the war.

Shengjing, surrounded by enemy troops, is right in front of him. He still has a chance to cooperate with the defenders to destroy this isolated enemy force deep in the territory.

However, the scouts who had gone ahead brought back unfriendly news.

Shengjing had fallen several days ago, and all the forts and camps around the capital were occupied. The enemy soldiers also left behind terrifying "things" on the south bank of the Hunhe River.

The word "fall" was like a steel needle piercing his brain. Huang Taiji, who was riding on horseback, swayed left and right several times and almost fell off.

Impossible, Huang Taiji muttered to himself, this is absolutely impossible!
The total number of soldiers inside and outside Gaizhou, Haizhou, Liaoyang and Shengjing is more than 50,000. Even if all these forts are abandoned, Shengjing will not fall so quickly if it is defended alone.

The enemy arrived at Shengjing City at such a high speed that they must not be a large army, and it is impossible for a small army to capture Shengjing within a few days!
He couldn't believe that the woman he loved most fell into the hands of the enemy.

Just thinking of the "horrifying" scenes of hundreds of people being humiliated in turns made him feel as if his heart was being cut by a knife, and he quickly put all the distracting thoughts behind him.

After the disastrous defeat in southern Liaoning, he had lost most of his ease in operating the system. At this time, he just wanted to return to Shengjing as soon as possible to see whether the capital of the Qing Dynasty had really fallen.

He personally led tens of thousands of Qing cavalry in a gallop, but was stunned when he reached the south bank of the Hun River.

He saw a flock of vultures circling and descending to the ground, and smelled a pungent stench of death like a huge wave. In the distance, the hazy "black shadows" that were invisible to the naked eye looked like several huge mountains.

Without using a telescope, Huang Taiji continued to move forward with a bad premonition. He saw the body of a defeated soldier hanging on a dead tree like prey.

The dead man's body, pickled in lime, was tied to a wooden sign hanging in the air. The sign read: Welcome home, Manchu slave chief. My Beiwei Army has prepared surprise gifts for your visit. Please come in.

When the wooden sign was turned over, there were also several lines of bright blood words: I am a traitorous dog of the Eight Banners of the Han Army. I curse myself to never be reincarnated and to be a suffering lonely ghost for generations to come.

On the official road further ahead, there were corpses crucified, their withered hands holding wooden signs that read: "One thousand steps ahead." A further sign read: "Nine hundred and fifty steps ahead."

Every fifty steps there was a "road sign" hung on both sides of the official road. The flag guards pointed at the corpses and angrily denounced the cruelty and tyranny of the Beiwei Army, but they did not realize that the bloodshed they had committed was several times greater than that of the Beiwei Army.

Huang Taiji continued to lead his troops forward and found that the "road sign" just now was just the outer fence of the art exhibition, and there was a "surprise" in the wilderness far away from the official road.

Inside the "fence" are thousands of bodies pierced by spear points, and a black mass of vultures fly up and down, happily swooping down to feast on the feast on the ground.

Short spears and flags swayed in the wind. In front of every hundred dead people pierced by spears, there was a wooden sign of medium size, or simply written on the ground.

Some introduced the identities of the deceased, including the Eight Banners and Baoyi of Manchu, Mongolian and Han, and narrated how these war criminals assisted the tyrant and committed countless crimes of massacre.

Some used blood to write on the ground: "Blood sacrifice to the Blood God, skull to the skull throne, the God-Emperor descends, and the sky destroys the wild boar", "We are infinitely loyal to the Emperor", "Damned wild boar skin, you are next", "The whole family of wild boar skin should go to hell together"...

Others used corpses to form texts, such as "If you're unhappy, come and kill us," and "I just like the way you want to kill me but can't."

A group of dark outlines appeared in the center of the "piercing position". Some flag soldiers who were eager to find out what was going on covered their noses and mouths before daring to continue going deeper into the center of the "death zone".

When they got closer, they found that the dark shadows of which they had only seen outlines before were actually small hills made up of human heads.

Countless heads with pig tails hanging down were piled in it, almost all of them were authentic Manchu, Mongolian and Han Eight Banners. Some were old ones pickled in lime, while others were new ones that had just been chopped off.

The "meat mountains" were arranged into eight piles, resembling the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty or the eight city gates of Shengjing. Many bannermen could see familiar faces among the exposed heads.

Their friends and family were killed.

In order to mock and intimidate them, the Beiwei army cast the heads into a Jingguan and placed it on the south bank of the Hunhe River, waiting for their arrival.

Even though the soldiers had been through hundreds of battles and had witnessed the cruelty and bloodshed on countless battlefields, when they saw the pale faces of their relatives and friends today, they felt a deep chill that struck the depths of their souls. They were so scared that they knelt on the ground and cried bitterly.

Others were so frightened that they screamed and drew their swords to slash at the air, tears of sadness streaming from their eyes. They alternated between howling and laughing crazily.

As a cold wind blew, an indescribable stench of sea waves rushed towards me, and in an instant strong stomach acid flowed back into my throat.

Huang Taiji, who was standing in the outer circle, tried to hold back for a while, but in the end he couldn't resist the urge of his stomach and vomited out all the food he had eaten.

This scene of Khorne almost took away Huang Taiji's sanity, but his remaining wisdom was still thinking about a problem.

The Beiwei Army disdained to keep the tens of thousands of "real Tartar" heads they had captured, just to give him a warning at this moment.

Huang Taiji had to admit that the Beiwei Army was really arrogant. They lost tens of thousands of heads, which symbolized their great military achievements. This also meant the loss of tens of thousands of precious Eight Banners men.

What's worse is that Bayala, who explored the center of the "Meat Mountain", brought back piles of charred corpses of all sizes. These charcoals were placed among the eight "Meat Mountains", just like the imperial city was located in Shengjing with eight gates.

Dozens of blood letters with identical contents were left inside the eight "meat mountains" nailed to the ground by arrows.

The gist of it is that the Beiwei Army has recovered many lost territories in Liaodong and has killed all captured Eight Banner soldiers, as well as the elderly, weak, women and children in the Eight Banner sequence. You, the Qing Dynasty, have no chance to achieve hegemony again.

Although the Beiwei Army did not have the opportunity to humiliate the wives and daughters of the Tartars, it was written in the blood letter that your wives and daughters are very healthy, and those who were burned to charcoal were the wives and children of the princes and nobles.

Huang Taiji was dumbfounded.

He looked towards the center through the eight mountains of flesh, staring at the "black charcoal" lying on the ground, among whom was the woman he loved most.

He moved forward in disbelief, each step seemed to take decades, but the loyal guards stopped him tightly.

Aobai's eyes were filled with tears, and he kept saying, "Master, take care of yourself."

Huang Taiji kept repeating the same question in his mind: Why didn't you wait for me to return? Why did heaven humiliate me like this? Why did the young emperor of the Southern Dynasty have the good fortune to gain the loyalty of the Beiwei Army?
Even though these wives, daughters and children were burned to charcoal, many princes and nobles were still able to identify their families through some familiar features.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" They all hugged the bodies of their family members and cried bitterly, screaming in their mouths the sorrow of separation between life and death.

Huang Taiji also saw his wives and concubines at a glance, especially the woman he loved most, whom he would never forget for the rest of his life.

But the moment his eyes overlapped with his "lover", countless images of the two knowing and loving each other flashed through his mind, and finally stopped at the image of a beautiful woman smiling.

Huang Taiji suddenly felt his whole body relax, and a fishy and sweet liquid flowed through his throat, spurting out mixed with saliva.

"His Majesty!"

"master!"

He seemed to hear the panicked shouts of the guards around him, and then his senses seemed to be paralyzed by lightning. His whole body was sore and weak, and he wanted to speak but couldn't utter a word.

A heavy feeling of fatigue swept over his whole body, Huang Taiji's eyes went dark, and he quickly fell into the endless abyss of darkness.

It's dark and cold.

(End of this chapter)