Ming Dynasty: Moral blackmail? I, Emperor Chongzhen, have no morals!

The group observed the situation from inside the house for a while, and finding nothing unusual, they left the house, closed the door, and continued to the next house. After checking two houses, they were about to check the next one when...

Suddenly, a hurried shout rang out: "Who goes there?"

"Bang! Bang!" Several shots rang out from the three-eyed musket!

"Let's go!" Li Shanhe hurriedly called out to the others!

Upon hearing the sound of musket fire, many people rushed out of the house, shouting, "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

Then several more gunshots rang out, and the Jurchen who shouted "Enemy attack!" fell to the ground!

Seeing this, Wang Lao Er stepped forward, swiftly chopped off the head with his knife, tied it to his waist, and ran away.

After a chaotic battle, Wang Lao Er and Li Shan He, along with three others, escaped from the camp and headed towards Songshan Fort outpost...

As dawn broke, the group arrived at a patch of withered grass and hid.

"Brother Wang... I'm afraid... I'm afraid I won't be able to go back..." Hei Zi, one of the five who came with him, said intermittently, clutching the bleeding wound on his waist.

Only then did Wang Lao Er notice that the soldier named Hei Zi had been stabbed in the abdomen: "Hei Zi!"

Hei Zi pressed the two Jurchen heads from his waist into Old Man Wang's hands: "Brother Wang... take them back... take Erzi (Hei Zi's son) away..."

Before the words were finished, the hand that was pressing on the Jurchen's head suddenly slipped away, and there was no more life...

Just then, a soldier next to Hei Zi grabbed Wang Lao Er's arm: "Brother Wang, I'll take these two back too. I've been stabbed twice in the leg and can't go back. I'll run east to draw away the pursuers! Help me get San Ya and the child to the capital!"

"Seventh Brother!" Wang Lao Er was about to take the injured Seventh Brother with him when Li Shanhe stopped him: "If we take Seventh Brother, none of us will go back. The three of us can get 150 mu of tax-free land. If we split it equally among the five families, that's 30 mu each, and we can survive!"

Upon hearing this, the seventh brother's expression softened, and he said with relief, "Brother Shanhe is right! Rather than all of us dying here, it's better for you to go back. Otherwise, we won't have enough heads. Now we have exactly nine!"

He paused, then said solemnly, "I'm entrusting Er Ya and the child to you, brother and Shanhe!"

After saying that, he picked up Kuroko's three-eyed musket and his own musket and began loading gunpowder.

Seeing this, Wang Laosan stopped insisting. Li Shanhe was right. If they took Lao Qi, who had a broken leg, they would all be caught up by the Jurchen scouts. At that time, none of them would be able to escape, and their families would all die in this Songshan Fort outpost!

"You go west, I'll go east!" he said, then staggered to his feet and headed east.

Wang Laosan and Li Shanhe watched Lao Qi's departing figure, wiped away the tears welling up in their eyes, and Li Shanhe gritted his teeth and said, "Let's go!"

From then on, they never saw Lao Qi again, nor did they hear anything about his whereabouts...

Two days later...

Wang Laoqi and his two companions returned to the outpost with six large heads and three small heads.

The families remaining at the outpost rushed forward. Seeing that five had gone, three had returned, and the families of those who hadn't returned understood the reason and burst into tears…

"Brother Shanhe! I'm taking nine Jurchen heads to the Songshan Fort military camp's pay register! You take everyone in the outpost and pack their things! We'll go to the capital as soon as I get back!" Wang Laosan said urgently.

This matter cannot be delayed; the longer it drags on, the greater the risk... They also fear that if too many people are beheaded, the court will not acknowledge the responsibility... But these soldiers underestimated Zhu Jian's cunning. Zhu Jian holds military power; if there's no money, a large number of "wealthy people" will be imprisoned or executed on various charges... The Eastern Depot and the Inner Depot are not just for show...

"Everyone pack your things and get ready to leave together! This time we're going to the capital. We have 150 mu of land, and each of our families will take 30 mu!" Li Shanhe said.

"Thank you, Brother Shanhe!" Hei Zi and Lao Qi's family bowed to Li Shanhe.

At the same time, inside the Qing Dynasty palace in Shenyang, a crisp sound of porcelain shattering rang out, with broken pieces and tea leaves splattering all over the floor.

"Dodo! What have you been doing at the front? These past few days, the Ming troops at the Jinzhou front have started harassing the military farms on a large scale!" Huang Taiji said, pointing at Dodo's nose.

Since Dorgon's strategic retreat into the Central Plains last year, Huang Taiji had been preparing to launch a siege of Jinzhou and was actively stockpiling grain. He did not expect that the Shanxi merchant network would be completely wiped out by the Ming emperor, which caused the Qing army to suffer from a shortage of supplies!

Having barely survived the winter, when spring planting season arrived, they repeatedly encountered small groups of Ming soldiers. These soldiers would behead their victims in the dark and then leave, traveling in small groups of three or five without ever engaging in battle. This caused widespread panic among the soldiers and their families stationed at the front lines...

Many people wanted to retreat, which would lead to a shortage of food at the front and exacerbate the Qing court's losses... If they waited a few more years without launching a campaign and the Ming Dynasty recovered, would they still have any good outcome?

Dodo lowered his head, offering no excuses. This matter truly infuriated him, leaving him with nowhere to vent his anger. These people weren't going to fight him at all, requiring him to send a large number of cavalry to patrol the front lines, which in turn exacerbated the depletion of his forces...

"Your Majesty, why don't we begin besieging Jinzhou now!" said Fan Wencheng, Huang Taiji's chief strategist.

Upon hearing this, Dodo abruptly looked up and cursed, "Bullshit! Now, if we besiege them, we'll wear down the Ming army instead of killing them!"

"Shut up!" Huang Taiji pointed and retorted, "You brainless piece of trash!"

Fan Wencheng was a trusted advisor to Huang Taiji and an important Han Chinese strategist in Huang Taiji's mind. The two brothers, Dodo and Dorgon, were a thorn in Huang Taiji's side because of their strong command capabilities. He was reluctant to remove them, but he was also uncomfortable leaving them alone. So he could only keep suppressing them to maintain the balance!

"Your Majesty, I think it would be better to launch another invasion this autumn to alleviate the food crisis?" Dorgon suggested, trying to help Dodo out of his predicament.

In Dorgon's eyes, a dramatic change had taken place within the Ming Dynasty. The Ming emperor had personally overthrown the Ming's social order and defense priorities, not only exempting the entire country from taxes for three years to alleviate natural disasters and peasant uprisings, but also executing princes, nobles, and wealthy merchants to obtain military funds. This made Dorgon vaguely feel that the Ming Dynasty was no longer the same Ming Dynasty! Therefore, he wanted to take advantage of the Ming Dynasty's inability to recover before expanding the scale of his invasions into the Central Plains to obtain the greatest benefits!

"Your Majesty, this servant feels that Prince Rui's words are inappropriate. The Ming emperor has nearly 200,000 troops stationed near the capital, and tens of thousands more are stationed at the Guan-Ning-Jin defense line! If we enter the pass and are surrounded again, we may suffer the same disaster as before!" Fan Wencheng said from the side. In his opinion, the safest way now is to conserve strength and build up resources. Although the Shanxi merchants have been wiped out and lost an important commercial route, given time, they can still obtain supplies from other channels!

When Dodo saw that Fan Wencheng had directly rejected Dorgon's proposal, he stepped forward and angrily shouted, "Who do you think you are? Pointing fingers here, you're nothing more than a dog we keep!"

"Dodo!"

"I think you're living too comfortably!"

"Guards! Imprison Dodo!" Huang Taiji immediately imprisoned Dodo to prevent him from breaking the peaceful atmosphere he had built!

"snort!"

Dodo snorted and left with the two guards who had entered the hall, without giving Fan Wencheng any kind look.