Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 245 The Time for a Decisive Battle Has Arrived
"Boom boom boom~"

Explosions shook the entire world, and black smoke enveloped the entire battlefield, like a nightmare hanging over the heads of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty. Often, the war horses were hit by artillery shells before they could even charge into the Ming army.

In addition, the horses were frightened and collided with each other, losing their fighting power. The power of the Ming Dynasty's artillery and fire guns broke the original balance. In the past, when they fought against the Ming court's troops, the mere momentum of the charge was enough to scare the Ming army out of their wits.

But now, before even making contact with the enemy, the losses were already close to 20%. The other side was not intimidated, but the Eight Banners cavalry had lost so many men. This huge loss made the Eight Banners leaders of the Qing army heartbroken.

Dorgon watched all this with a telescope. After two rounds of artillery fire, the Manchu princes and buds who suffered heavy losses reacted and made decisions at the first time based on their intuition.

That is to attack the Ming court's central army and force the Ming army to fight a decisive battle.

The sound of low horns resounded throughout the sky, and a larger number of Tatar cavalry charged towards the Ming army like a tide.

Black smoke filled the air, and an unpleasant smell filled the air. The Manchu cavalry exerted their full strength and smashed into the Pinglu Army's camp like a giant beast.

The spear formation and the Tartar cavalry collided at close range, with the neighing of horses as the spears pierced their tips, the metal cutting sound between the spears and heavy armor, the unbearable sound of the spear barrels breaking, and the horrible sound of horses crashing into people...

The spear tip pierced into the flesh, and under the charge of the warhorse, the body was covered with spears and blood plasma gushed out like a fountain, filling the entire battlefield with the smell of blood.

The Tartars on horseback waved their scimitars and shouted.

The soldiers of the Pinglu Army used their hook-and-sickle spears to stab and hook the horses' legs, and stabbed out with their long spears from time to time, knocking the Tartars to the ground one after another.

Hand-to-hand combat is a true contest of strength, with both sides fighting like two wild beasts... The scene instantly turned into an indescribable chaos.

Sun Kewang no longer cared about Hong Niangzi and fought with the Tartars. He swung the spear in his hand and pierced the eye of a Tartar's horse. A burst of blood immediately came out, and the horse fell to the ground with the Tartar.

"Pfft~"

Hongniang murmured, "The ninth... the tenth...", and knocked down several Tartars in succession.

Thick blood poured down, dyeing the earth red.

This battle, which determines the situation in Liaodong, has finally reached a critical point.

"Kill~"

The one who attacked the Pinglu Army was Beile Nikan. Nikan was the grandson of Nurhaci. He had followed Hauge to fight many years ago. After Hauge's death, he surrendered to many villains. Now he was leading the troops, thinking that he would make great achievements in the near future.

He was also extremely brave and led his troops into battle personally.

What he didn't know was that there was someone who had been eyeing him for a long time. That was Li Dingguo, also known as Little Weichi. He led 6,000 soldiers and horses and kept charging forward and backward.

Li Dingguo had seen Nikan a long time ago. He was dressed in gorgeous clothes and was extremely conspicuous in the army.

"Fight and retreat at the same time!" Li Dingguo stabbed a Tartar to death with a gun and ordered his men to retreat. Seeing this, Nikan ordered a pursuit.

But just after running ten miles, he suddenly saw a huge trench in front of him. "Why is there such a big trench?"

The trench was eight feet deep and ten feet wide. The Ming army ran back from the wooden boards and pulled them up directly.

The Ming army could pass, but the Qing troops that followed could not.

At this moment, shouts of killing shook the sky and thousands of guns were fired at the same time.

In an instant, Nikan was shot several times and fell to the ground.

Not only Nikan, but the other Eight Banners descendants of the Qing Dynasty also encountered the same situation and were blocked by the trenches.

……

"Your Majesty doesn't even urge the war?"

In the Ming army camp, Li Banghua looked at Chongzhen and shook his head, smiling, "Why are you urging us to fight? Do you know what your Majesty said to me before you came?"

"What did you say?"

"Four words, don't fight in vain." Li Banghua continued, "Your Majesty has told us that there is no need to resolve the battle before winter. It is best to drink the Qing congee. There is plenty of food in Jinzhou City. At least if we fight here, Zu Dashou will not be in a hurry."

"Take it slow. As long as we keep winning small victories at the front, we can slowly wear down the Qing Dynasty."

"..." The muscles on Chongzhen's face twitched and he couldn't help sighing. Fighting a war with money and without money are really two different things!
What he admired most was Zhu Changgan's ability to identify and employ people, and his complete trust in Li Banghua, who was a general in a military field and was not subject to military orders.

For Chongzhen, this was something he couldn't do from the bottom of his heart, but Zhu Changgan could do it.

So much so that Chongzhen fell into silence.

Li Banghua climbed up to a high place and looked at the Qing camp. "The Qing army is focusing on the front and going to the back. Your Majesty is not deceiving me!"

"? I'm not lying to you?" Chongzhen immediately realized that Li Banghua was talking about Zhu Changgan. His face turned red, but he still asked, "What do you mean, Commander?"

"In order to fight to the death with the Ming Dynasty, Dorgon placed most of his troops in Jinzhou and Nv'erhe, but there were not many troops in the Dalinghe line in the rear. In the past, they came and went freely, and the Ming Dynasty did not dare to fight them in the field, so there was naturally no problem. But now..."

Li Banghua smiled, and the light in his eyes suddenly became sharp, "This will become their fatal weakness."

……

Qianqing Palace,
"Your Majesty, the war in Liaodong is urgent, so why don't we go to Chenghua Palace?" Wang Chengen wrapped up a pile of memorials, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead.

Zhu Changgan took a look and found that the memorial was several times thicker than before. "No, the more urgent the situation is, the more we should treat it as normal. If my position is in chaos, Liaodong will be even more chaotic."

"Anyone who discusses Liaodong affairs should be handed over to the Military Affairs Council. After Sun Chengzong, Yang Sichang, Cao Huachun and others discuss the matter, they will report to me."

Zhu Changgan ordered the Ministry of Revenue to continuously transfer food and money to Liaodong.

"Raise 100,000 men and three months' worth of food."

Is the Ming Dynasty short of food?
However, he thought about the consequences of failing in his haste to fight. His 100,000 elite troops would be lost in one day, Liaodong would be completely lost, the Qing court would become more powerful, and there would even be a threat of the Qing court moving southward and entering the pass.

Zhu Changgan gritted his teeth and raised more food and fodder for a few more months.

That kind of situation was even more difficult for me to accept, and it must have been even more difficult for the Qing Dynasty to bear if it became too powerful.

Therefore, urging war is extremely stupid.

Zhu Changgan could accept Li Banghua. Even if he was defeated, retreating and abandoning Jinzhou and returning to the interior of the country was better than urging the war.

As for the quarrels in the court, Zhu Changgan didn't want to pay any attention to them. The military decision-making mechanism of the Ming court was completely putting the cart before the horse. Civil officials could formulate national policies without going to the battlefield. Military chiefs were killed one by one, and finally the instigator opened the city and surrendered.

This was Zhu Changgan’s original intention in establishing the Grand Council.

This is also the reason why Zhu Changgan established the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Just now, Zhu Changgan also appointed a large number of scholars, letting them go to the grassroots level and let them serve as sheriffs and governors in villages and towns.

In the late Ming Dynasty, social class contradictions were acute, and the contradiction between the common people and the rulers was irreconcilable. It can be said that the contradiction between the lower and upper classes was the main social contradiction before the 16th year of Chongzhen.

Because only a few people such as the county magistrate and county governors in local government offices were eligible to receive imperial food, the ruling order in the countryside was unattended and the court could only rely on the gentry to maintain it.

It is no exaggeration to say that local gentry were more important to the stability of the Ming Dynasty regime than grassroots officials.

Zhu Changgan established security guards at the township and village level, which weakened the power of the gentry to the extreme, so that the gentry was no longer needed to stabilize the Ming Dynasty's regime.

Not only can the sheriff and the consul eat the imperial rations, but even the village head can also eat a portion of the imperial rations, so the role of the gentry will be much weaker. ...

The Qing Dynasty could mobilize about 15 troops this time, including about 6 Manchu Eight Banners, about 2 Mongolian and Chahar Eight Banners, nearly 3 Han Eight Banners, about 1 Outer Mongolians, and an additional troops from Shang Kexi and Shen Zhixiang.

At first glance, the Qing army did not have many troops, but this force actually had an advantage over the Ming Dynasty's, because the 15 Qing troops were all real elite troops.

The five major camps of the Ming Dynasty only had 70,000 troops, because there were still 40,000 to 50,000 troops left in the capital to protect the capital. After all, the gentry had just been struck, so Zhu Changgan had to keep enough troops to let them digest this result.

The rest were the 50,000-man Pinglu Army led by Chongzhen, the 30,000-man army led by Hong Chengchou, the Governor-General of Ji and Liao, and the 20,000-man army led by Lu Xiangsheng, the Governor-General of Xuanda.

Although the army was not small in size, Li Banghua did not dare to hold too much hope of a head-on confrontation with the Qing troops.

The fact that the Qing army was able to enter the pass four times was enough to show that they had doubts about the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners Army.

In addition to Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong Army, Li Banghua did not place the nine border garrison troops including Yang Guozhu, Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, Cao Bianjiao, Ma Ke, Wang Tingchen, and Wu Sangui on the front battlefield, but instead formulated a plan to lure the enemy deep into the territory.

They were asked to lead their troops and work day and night to dig a huge trench to block the Qing cavalry.

An eight-foot-high trench would make it difficult for a person to climb out even if he fell in, let alone a ten-foot-wide trench where a horse would be unable to climb out even if he fell in.

The Ming army had special iron plates and wooden boards that could be used for horse racing. After people crossed the trench, they would simply pull them out. The Qing soldiers could only watch in despair, while the Ming army's musketeers who had crossed the trench began to fire round after round of volleys without restraint.

In addition, there were the roars of hundreds of cannons, dazzling tongues of fire, and deafening noises.

The war horses were smashed into pieces, like plowshares, causing the Eight Banners soldiers to fall off their horses and streak the ground with broken limbs and arms all over the place.

The wailing sounds were endless and extremely miserable. Some of the Qing soldiers had their legs broken, and some even had their upper and lower bodies separated, with only a little bit of flesh connecting them...

Facing such fierce firearms, Yue Tuo was trembling and panic-stricken. "The Ming army has already thought of a countermeasure, which is to block us here and destroy us all..."

He had experienced the victory of Tongzhou, and when he saw the trench, he had a strong sense of foreboding in his heart, "Quick, tell the emperor that the Ming army is ambushing here, we can't attack again!"

He turned his horse around and ran five miles in one breath, his heart still pounding with fear, "No, the Ming Dynasty must be harboring a bigger conspiracy. They are hiding their strength and want to completely kill the Qing Dynasty on this Liaodong battlefield. I have to go and tell the emperor."

Although they suffered a heavy blow from the Ming army, one had to admire the high quality of the Eight Banners soldiers. At a command, all the soldiers turned their horses around and stayed away from the range of the Ming army's artillery fire.

Just as Yue Tuo ran back to the central army camp, he saw a messenger also running over, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, something bad has happened. A large number of Ming troops have appeared along the Daling River. They have also dug deep and wide trenches, cutting off the Qing Dynasty's grain transport troops."

"what?"

It was not until this moment that Yue Tuo's heart suddenly tightened and he began to feel terrified.

It was indeed so. No wonder the five major camps of the Ming army had been hiding their strength and not engaging in a decisive battle with the Qing army. It turned out that they were waiting here.

The surprise attack on the Dalinghhe City defense line cut off the Qing Dynasty's retreat.

The Qing Dynasty's already inferior logistics system would completely lose its grain transport function, and the days when the Qing Dynasty's cavalry had two meals a day would be gone forever.

As soon as the news came out, the central army camp was instantly in chaos and no one knew what to do.

Yue Tuo gnashed his teeth, knelt down and pleaded, "Your Majesty, if we can't win the decisive battle, we should retreat back to Shengjing."

"We cannot retreat. Once we retreat, the morale of our Qing Dynasty will be hard to restore. Besides, without food, how can we explain to the soldiers when we return?" Man Dahai stood up and refuted.

"Your Majesty, you cannot retreat!"

The muscles on Yue Tuo's face twitched, and he pointed at everyone and gritted his teeth, "Idiots, you Aqina and Sethi...you will regret it one day."

Dorgon had a dark face and flickering eyes. After a while, he gritted his teeth and said, "The Ming army digs trenches, so we fill them up. If there are no planks, we will use horse carcasses and human lives to fill them up. We have no other choice but to fight to the death."

"This time, I will lead the troops personally to boost morale."

From the time the Eight Banners Cavalry launched the general attack to the time the Ming army retreated and was blocked by the trenches, the Tartars were not given much time to choose.

Because many of the tasks were done by people arranged by Li Banghua before the confrontation with the Qing Dynasty.

Dorgon drew out his precious sword and said, "In this battle, the Ming army will fight to the death, but our Qing Dynasty cannot lose. Once we lose, the entire situation will change dramatically, and decades of foundation will be destroyed."

"My fellow princes and nobles, in this battle, we will all prosper together and suffer together."

"Everyone will be prosperous, and everyone will suffer a loss!"

All the princes and nobles present had bloodshot eyes, their blood boiling, and drew the swords from their waists.

……

As the Qing army came out in full force again, and as their corpses filled the trenches, the Ming army's bugles soon sounded and they retreated.

Retreat towards Xingshan and Tashan.

Enter Tuoxing Mountain and Tashan City and rely on the natural barrier to resist the enemy.

No matter how the Qing cavalry attacked, the Ming army would never advance to fight you, but used the Ming army's artillery and muskets to the extreme.
The Qing troops attacked for two days and fought dozens of times, but they could not break through and were also heavily bombarded by Ming army artillery fire.

The casualties were innumerable.

On the fourth day, October 18,
Snow flakes were falling from the sky, falling from the white sky like the tears of an angel. A thin layer of snow accumulated on the streets, and the trees were bent down, as if reflecting the suffering of the world, covered with thick silver.

Icy roads, blowing snow and fog, and a chilly atmosphere.

It was freezing cold, so the Ming army in Xingshan prepared in advance and put on heavy clothes and thick cotton shoes.

The Manchus were left in the wilderness, suffering from the cold and wind, and had no food to eat.

The Qing offensive slowed down visibly. Countless Eight Banners, Mongolian, and Korean soldiers were so hungry that they began to kill horses.

Yue Tuo was extremely anxious and asked again, "Your Majesty, the opportunity for a decisive battle has passed, and I am afraid that we are powerless to save the situation."

Dorgon looked up to the sky and howled, "I am unwilling to accept the bad luck~"

But he knew better than to say that if he stayed any longer, there would be even greater casualties. Hunger and cold were like blunt knives that could kill people, and they would hurt morale the most.

"withdraw!"

……

As soon as the Qing army moved, military bugles sounded on the Ming side.

"The Tartars have made a move. They want to retreat."

"We can't let them retreat. Everyone assemble." The sound of gongs resounded throughout Xingshan and Tashan. The well-fed and well-watered Ming army picked up their weapons, quickly assembled, and prepared to go.

Li Banghua and Chongzhen stood on the wall of Tashan City. Li Banghua murmured, "Before, the Ming army could not defeat the Qing army that besieged the city, but now it is almost the same."

"The time for a decisive battle has arrived. Send a message to the central army to march north with them!"

(End of this chapter)