stubborn thief

Southeast of Horqin grassland.

A Saker Falcon flew across the sky, and a large cavalry column formed in twelve rows stretched over ten miles, moving swiftly through the wilderness.

Military flags of various colors fluttered in the wind, slaves from the border flags led camels and bowed their heads, soldiers from the middle flags rolled up their armor and rode their horses, and several large carriages of the royal tent pulled by nine oxen creaked forward.

Messenger cavalrymen moved back and forth in the queue, shamans danced in front of the chariots, and monks played conch shells on the chariots.

The Manchurian Army is advancing.

Emperor Chongde was in the mobile Khan's tent in the middle of the military column.

Huang Taiji wore a two-piece dark blue satin face armor embroidered with dragons. He held the ridged helmet and pressed his hands on the long table, his eyes fixed on the map on the table. His back was as majestic as a mountain.

Time is not forgiving.

He was already forty-four years old. The strong physique that had enabled him to fight actively on the battlefield when he was young had caused him to become fat due to age and changes in lifestyle. He now weighed more than two hundred pounds, and even a good horse could hardly carry him alone.

Even a small task like marching a hundred miles required two good horses to take turns carrying the load.

In fact, not only Huang Taiji, but also the Manchu nobles of each banner, although they had their own military flags, used blue satin for armor and common clothing fabrics. Civilians wore Buddha-head blue cloth in their daily lives, which was also mainly blue.

Traditionally, the Jurchens prefer white, but traditions and preferences are often changed by the surrounding environment.

For example, in Korea, which became a vassal state during the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang, the color of Spring Festival couplets was white; while in Vietnam, which was made a vassal state after the reign of Zhu Di, the color of Spring Festival couplets was red.

Because in Zhu Yuanzhang's era, Spring Festival couplets were couplets, and they were written in black and white on paper.

In fact, it was Zhu Yuanzhang who popularized couplets, a literary and artistic tradition among the rich and powerful, and encouraged everyone to write them.

The Spring Festival couplets, which evolved from antithetical couplets, are the evolution of peach charms, the most powerful defensive technique in ancient times.

In the past, people used peach wood boards to hang the names of the two gods "Shentu" and "Yulei" to ward off evil spirits. Meng Chang, the ruler of the Later Shu Dynasty, was the first to write couplets on peach wood, which later became a tradition.

It was not until the time of Zhu Yuanzhang that the custom of using rice paper to make couplets and hanging them in every household was established.

But there is a problem with this. The door gods, Zhong Kui, peach boards, peach charms, as well as the ultimate defensive equipment of the blunt donkey, turning back deer and horse, and Tianxing posts on the front door during the New Year are all for the purpose of warding off evil spirits.

Only these Spring Festival couplets have no meaning of warding off evil spirits or preventing the Nian beast.

However, as the most powerful man in the 14th century, no one could change the rules he set.

So until Zhu Di ascended the throne, this guy even changed the rules on who should be the emperor. What other rules in the world cannot be changed?

The Spring Festival couplets turned into cinnabar color, which ultimately added the function of warding off evil spirits.

Dai Qing's habit of wearing blue clothes everywhere is also related to the environment.

This blue satin is called Shiqing Japanese satin.

Although it is called Japanese satin, the fabric is actually neither Japanese nor satin. Firstly, Japan does not have this craft, and secondly, it is a kind of pile fabric.

It is actually traditional velvet.

The reason why it is called Japanese satin is that it was originally a luxury fabric that flowed into Zhangzhou and Quanzhou areas through Japan and Japanese pirates at sea. Later, it was improved through domestic production and became Zhangrong, or velvet.

One of the velvet production techniques evolved into the later Shiqing Japanese satin in the Jiangning Weaving House.

The material used is Shu silk, which is woven on a large scale in Nanjing and Suzhou. The craftsmanship is a multi-layer structure, dyeing before weaving. During weaving, short cotton fluff is hidden in the warp threads and scraped and polished after weaving a few inches to make the velvet surface extremely bright.

Because it looks complex and luxurious, it was briefly popular in the Central Plains.

Later, textile tycoons discovered that this kind of fabric was not practical.

A social environment with simple classes and poor manufacturing capabilities provides fertile soil for the manufacture of luxury goods with inflated values.

However, in a society with complex classes and strong manufacturing capabilities, this soil will become barren.

There are more people who know the business, more people involved in manufacturing, more people with the ability to spread culture, and more people who possess basic wealth.

As long as these people generally believe that such things are not good, their inflated value will soon be affected by public opinion.

The Shiqing Japanese satin, which is complex to weave, expensive and luxurious in appearance, faced such a dilemma just a few decades ago.

During the Wanli period, a large amount of silver flowed in, and everything became cheap. Ordinary people could afford this kind of good fabric. If they could not afford to make a whole piece of clothing, they could buy a small piece to use as fabric for edging.

Either make a hat or a collar.

But this is where the problem lies. As a hat, it easily accumulates dust; as a collar, it will be deformed if worn.

Everyone disliked it, so much so that later even wealthy businessmen and officials disliked it.

The high prices kept falling, until they could no longer be sold domestically, so they had to go north to sell to the northern invaders.

A large amount of Japanese satin flowed into Mongolia, Later Jin and other places as luxury goods, and was deeply loved by the nobles.

This custom formed a tradition and gradually became a rule. Huang Taiji was in charge of a lot of things. People below the nobility were not allowed to wear satin clothes. They were only allowed to wear clothes made of Buddha head blue cloth, which was only one tenth of the price.

The Buddha-head blue cloth was woven by all the wild Jurchen tribes, which was equivalent to the Later Jin Dynasty controlling the production area.

For example, recently Huang Taiji has been sending troops to the Hurha and Valka tribes of the Donghai Jurchens to rob property and plunder people and livestock, and the number of Buddha head blue cloths looted is more than sable fur.

Huang Taiji in the royal carriage was under tremendous pressure and his face turned pale.

He couldn't even clearly explain the source of the tremendous pressure, just like Chongzhen's financial situation.

It’s not that the gap in the empire’s fiscal deficit is so outrageous, but that no matter how you rob Peter to pay Paul, the gap cannot be filled.

Huang Taiji is also facing such an embarrassing situation now.

His original plan for this battle was to have Ajige enter the capital via Shanxi, while he sent troops to observe the situation in the area from western Liaoning to the capital, and personally led his troops across the Liaohe River to contain Guanning.

To put it bluntly, for him, Ajige, Hauge, Dorgon and other Eight Banners nobles, this battle was a rehearsal for the destruction of the enemy country.

No one knows whether it will succeed, so we need to rehearse.

But now two accidents occurred on the battlefield.

The first one is Ming Dynasty.

In March of this year, Chen Hongfan was appointed commander-in-chief of the coastal areas, holding the seal of General Pinglu, and he mobilized naval forces from various towns and led them from Shandong to garrison in Lushunkou, Beixunkou and Tongjiang.

According to the confessions of Ming soldiers captured by Later Jin scouts, the new Shandong Marshal Chen Hongfan led 400 warships and 100,000 soldiers. His momentum was so great that he even surpassed Mao Wenlong who was awarded the Imperial Sword.

The second one is the Mo Nan Governor's Office.

In fact, before sending out the troops, due to Yang Qi's cowardly performance last year, Huang Taiji, Dorgon and others, although they had some expectations of Yang Qi's participation in the war, did not expect that the Mongolian army's performance on the battlefield would be so ferocious.

Dorgon, dressed in armor, stood respectfully beside Huang Taiji, while Duoduo, with his face covered by a large black fox hat, sat crookedly on a chair in the tent, looking like a sickly person.

It’s not that Duoduo was really sick, he was just unhappy.

He was not very happy with his military service in Jinzhou, so he reported to Huang Taiji that he wanted to go home and perform.

Huang Taiji had just agreed to his request when Fei Yanggu's arson incident happened. He had to rush his troops north, and Duoduo's wish to return home and perform was dashed.

So much so that now he has a stern face and looks extremely unhappy.

Dorgon asked: "Brother, why did you send that letter insulting Yang Qi?" In Dorgon's eyes, there was nothing wrong with the letter itself, but if it was combined with several other letters, there would be a great risk of the alienation being discovered.

So he didn't understand why Huang Taiji did this.

Dorgon's words seemed to dispel the gloom on Huang Taiji's face.

He turned around and looked at Dorgon, then took two steps and threw the black fox hat on the face of Duoduo, the rascal, aside, and then said, "You want to ask, since we guessed that Liu Chengzong was coming, why did we deliberately write a letter?"

When mentioning this speculation, Dorgon looked embarrassed.

They didn't want to think in that direction.

After all, it was outrageous that Liu Chengzong, whose base was in Qinghai, led his troops to the border of the capital 3,000 miles away.

But now even more outrageous things happened, such as the Mongolian soldiers driving away the Eight Banners soldiers.

What else is impossible?

After all, over the past decade or so, the Ming Dynasty had won at the defensive counterattack and battle levels, while the Mongols had never won a single battle and had long lost their fighting spirit due to being attacked from all sides.

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Even the Mongolian soldiers who were affiliated with the Later Jin Dynasty did not have any remarkable performance on the battlefield.

They dared to take the initiative to fight against the Bordered Blue Banner and even drove them away. It was like they were possessed.

Huang Taiji would rather believe that Liu Chengzong can fly than believe that Yang Qi, that coward, can lead a bunch of stray dogs from the Mongolian tribes to stand up.

He covered the area west of Xing'an Mountains where the Marshal's army was currently located on the map with his hand and said, "That was a deliberate flaw. We cannot be sure whether it was Liu Chengzong or not."

There is no basis for mutual trust between the Han and Mongolian peoples.

This was verified many times in the battles between Ming and Jin, and even Yi Ding, a general under the Ming Dynasty, was the same.

Huang Taiji tried to sow discord between the Mongolian soldiers and the Ming Dynasty, and his success was unsuccessful.

Erlinchen and Tumed Ombu of Ordos had great influence in the south of the desert, so they were not trusted by the governor's office.

If the highest commander on the opposite side was Yang Qi, even if he didn't believe it, he would definitely transfer E'linchen and Omubu away.

Because of Yang Qi's identity, he cannot bear such a heavy responsibility.

But if the supreme commander was Liu Chengzong and had already made deployments for Yang Qi, he would be able to see through the estrangement at a glance.

If E'linchen, Omubu and others really had an alliance with the Later Jin, then Huang Taiji must have known about the deployment of Liu Chengzong's arrival, and there would naturally be no need for that letter insulting Yang Qi.

The letter insulting Yang Qi was a flaw he deliberately revealed in order to provoke Liu Chengzong's ridicule.

After all, there is a very embarrassing thing now, that is, Fei Yanggu lit a fire to stabilize the front line.

The existence of this fire directly led to the almost complete isolation of the roads on the east and west sides of the Greater Khingan Range. There is only the Keshiketeng Pass in the north, while people have to walk along the border wall in the south.

Moreover, the road left in the south was difficult for large groups of people to travel because of the existence of the Luan River.

The problem is that the small group of Ming troops are so ruthless that they are ready to cut off heads, so even a small group of troops can't think of getting through there.

Before the war, although Huang Taiji was able to ensure that intelligence in the eastern part of the Greater Khingan Range was unknown to the enemy, it was also difficult for him to obtain intelligence in the west.

Therefore, he could only obtain information by exposing himself actively.

"It is far less important to alienate a few frontline generals than to find out who the enemy's highest general is."

Huang Taiji said this, shaking his head slightly in distress.

He took a deep breath and said, "If the enemy general is Yang Qi, then the enemy only has 30,000 troops from the Mo Nan Governor's Office, so the battle won't be that difficult."

"If Liu Chengzong comes in person, things will be troublesome. We can't expect a quick victory. We have to drag the war into the summer or even autumn to consume his food and grass."

In fact, when Huang Taiji said this, his heart was bleeding.

Indeed, he firmly believed that his judgment was correct.

Liu Chengzong led his troops to stay in the north of Beijing for a long time, and the consumption of food rations for the soldiers must have been a pain that the poor people in Shaanxi could not bear.

But then again, let's not laugh at the financial situation of our Warrior Nation.

With troops stationed on three sides, even Emperor Chongde couldn't withstand it.

It's nothing more than resisting.

So even though he had prepared himself mentally for the worst-case scenario, Huang Taiji was still unwilling to face it.

Soon, as the army was marching, a messenger cavalryman came running to report. A moment later, a white-armored soldier guarding the gate asked to enter the tent and reported: "Report to the Holy Khan, the blue flag is reporting urgently, the enemy troops to the west of the pass have retreated and set up camp, and the enemy cavalry are still roaming on the battlefield."

Huang Taiji waved his hand and ordered Bai Jia to leave the tent. He faced the tent door, clenched his teeth and frowned.

Backfired.

The Mongolian soldiers were not transferred away, and although no mocking letters were sent, it still meant that Liu Chengzong had indeed arrived at the battlefield in the west.

The difficulty of the matter has reached a new level.

After a while, Huang Taiji took a deep breath and said, "Send Aisonggu to Khorchin to mobilize troops; send Luobi to Aohan, Naiman, Zarut, Urad and other tribes; send Xibaideyi to Talai, Wengniut, Balin and other tribes of the Aru Sizi tribe."

"All the Mongolian tribes, all the Mongolian tribes, each Niulu will send out fifty soldiers."

As soon as these words came out, Dorgon immediately looked sideways, and even Duoduo, who was sitting, stood up and said, "My brother, this won't do!"

In the past, when recruiting soldiers, all Mongolian tribes would join the war, and each banner would recruit only a hundred people, which would not offend the nerves of the great nobles.

Especially this year, Huang Taiji had just abolished the title of Khan of Khorchin, and for fear of causing backlash from the Khorchin nobles, he did not recruit soldiers from Khorchin.

In this conscription, each Niulu will send out fifty soldiers. What does this mean?
There are 106 Niulu in the six banners of Khorchin, and the total number of this group of foreign vassal states is less than 200 Niulu. More than 5,000 troops need to be transferred from Khorchin at once.

Who can bear it when their life force is directly pulled out?

But Huang Taiji had no choice. He really didn't have enough troops, so he had to take a gamble.

It depends on whether the internal situation collapses first, or the military and food supply of the Marshal's Office collapses first.

Dorgon dissuaded him, saying, "Brother, if we keep the troops stationed like this, we will definitely be the first to collapse. Liu Chengzong has a long way to go to make food, but what if the Ming Dynasty provides Liu Chengzong with food?"

"If that's the case, that would be great."

Huang Taiji laughed and patted the location of Zunhua on the map.

"If we send people to this place, they will be captured by the Ming army. Write a letter, pick a Han Chinese with family members as slaves, and order him to deliver the letter to Liu Chengzong. Then we will go here."

"Do you know how to write a letter?"

Huang Taiji looked at Dorgon and tapped the table with his fingers. "Let's say I, Marshal Su Jing, want to negotiate peace with the Ming court, but it is difficult to go against your good intentions. So I am willing to temporarily play a show outside the Great Wall and retreat to Liaodong, waiting for you to get food and grass, and then join forces to attack the Ming court."

"Wait until this letter is received by the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty."

Huang Taiji said as he drew a circle on the map in the western part of Xing'an Mountains: "The Marshal's troops stationed here are facing enemies from both sides." (End of this chapter)