Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 399

Li Jing laughed and said, "You fight Cao Wenzhao. If you lose, you blame yourself for your incompetence. Who told you that your girl is too early? My second boy is not your turn. But I think your girl married Cao Wen Zhao's youngest son would be more suitable."

Ma Wuyi curled his lips: "Pull it down, just Cao Wenzhao's youngest son, who looks crooked, my daughter looks like a fairy, can she marry him?"

"Hahaha!" Li Jing clapped his hands and laughed when he heard the words.

After laughing for a while, Li Jing picked up the wine glass and said, "Fifth brother, it's getting late. After drinking this glass of wine, I won't keep you, or my sister-in-law will scold me."

"Hehe, it's not that she doesn't know who contributed to Ma Wu's success today, so she can't scold you if she scolds anyone?" Ma Wu smiled and raised his wine glass.

After drying up the wine in the glass, Li Jing called Xiao Wu in and said, "Go and get two bottles of the wine that the emperor sent me to your fifth uncle."

"What a good thing, if you don't take it out while drinking, let me go home and drink it." Ma Wu asked suspiciously.

Li Jing smiled and said nothing, and when Xiao Wu brought the wine, Li Jing smiled and said to Ma Wu: "Fifth brother, this is the Peiyuan wine that the emperor gave me, you drink a glass every night, it is good for your health, but you can drink it every night." Don't drink too much, it won't do you any good."

"Is it so evil?" Ma Wu took the wine bottle in doubt, and looked at it carefully.

"It's not evil, you'll know it after drinking it. Come on, go back quickly, we two brothers will drink it after the Chinese New Year. Xiao Wu, let your fifth uncle be my car and go back." Li Jing waved his hand.

Ma Wuchong clenched his fists at Li Jing, got up and left.

……

In the Chongzheng Hall in Shengjing (now Shenyang), Huang Taiji sat on the dragon chair and scanned the officials in the hall.

After the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Gyeonggi, Huang Taiji had trouble sleeping and eating for several months, and his originally obese body had lost weight rapidly.

In the past, when Huang Taiji rode a horse, he needed two people to help him get on the horse, and the mount couldn't bear his weight at all, so he had to replace it with a new mount after a while.

The current Huang Taiji walks nimbly, and when he gets on a horse, he always jumps up, without any help at all.

It should be said that the defeat in the Battle of Gyeonggi was a good thing for Huang Taiji. After all, it is not easy to lose so much fat.But for the Qing Dynasty, it was an unbearable burden.

The population of the Manchus (Huang Taiji changed the name of the Jurchens to Manchus the year before he changed his name to the Yuan Dynasty) was only a million or so. (Note: The Manchus are actually an integrated ethnic group. In addition to the Jianzhou Jurchens, they also include the Haixi Jurchens and Savage Jurchens, as well as the Han Chinese, Mongols, Koreans and even some Russians living in the Northeast).

With this little population, tens of thousands were lost all at once. Although most of them were Han, Mongol, and Korean, it was a lie for Huang Taiji to say that he didn't feel sorry for him.

After all, these people are young and strong, especially those Han Chinese.

The Liaodong area is vast and sparsely populated. Most of the Jurchens and Mongols do not know how to cultivate land. Farming mainly depends on these Han people, and those young and strong soldiers are the main labor force for farming. This loss of tens of thousands means that there is a large piece of land. If no one cultivates, the grain harvest in the coming year will definitely decrease a lot.

If the grain harvest decreases, it will be even more difficult for the Jurchens in the coming year.

Therefore, Huang Taiji must solve the population problem of farming before spring begins.

If this happened in previous years, Huang Taiji would definitely not hesitate to send troops into the customs to rob and plunder, but the current situation is different from previous years. Huang Taiji had just suffered a big defeat in Beijing, how dare he enter the customs to rob, let alone enter the customs Even the Songjin area and the Mongolian direction Huang Taiji dare not send troops to harass.

Since Li Jing entered Beijing, the Ming court has continued to take military actions. First, it used troops against Mongolia. After a great battle, several major Mongolian tribes that had originally defected to the Qing Dynasty surrendered to the Ming court.

Then Li Jing transferred troops from Shanhaiguan to the front line of Songjin. It is said that Wu Sangui's troops stationed at Shanhaiguan had already entered Jinzhou city. Now the Songjin front line has 20 troops from the Ming army, and it is Emperor Ling who will succeed Wu Sangui in guarding Shanhaiguan. Cao Wenzhao, who suffered too much.

According to the movements of the Ming army, Huang Taiji judged that Li Jing wanted to change the Ming court's previous defense strategy, from defense to offense.Moreover, Huang Taiji had already learned that Li Jing was imposing taxes all over the Ming Dynasty. Judging by Li Jing's posture, as long as the Ming court's court situation stabilized and the treasury had money for soldiers, Li Jing would take action against the Qing court.

At this time, if Huang Taiji went to harass Daming, once Li Jing was angered, and launched an offensive now, how would the Qing army resist?

Daming's idea could not be won, and Huang Taiji decided to attack North Korea.

Speaking of it, Huang Taiji's use of troops against North Korea can be regarded as settling old scores with North Korea.

The current king of Joseon is Li Zong (later known as Renzu), the king of Lingyang. Li Zong's throne was actually obtained through court coups.

There are two reasons why Li Zong launched the coup. One reason is that the previous king Gwanghae-jun made mistakes in governing the country, and the other reason is that Gwanghae-jun adopted a smooth diplomatic strategy. .

This kind of attitude was not tolerated by the orthodox faction in North Korea, so in the third year of Tianqi, a coup was launched, and Lingyang Jun Li Zong, who was inclined to Ming Dynasty, was supported as king.

After Li Zong succeeded to the throne, with the support of Confucian scholars, he adopted a policy of pro-Ming and excluding gold.

At that time, Ming and Jin confronted each other, and if Hou Jin wanted to attack Daming, he had to consider the actions of North Korea in the east.In order to avoid fighting on both sides, Nurhachi decided to adopt a policy of wooing North Korea, and sent envoys to North Korea many times to submit letters, hoping that North Korea would break away from Ming Dynasty and form an alliance with Hou Jin.

But North Korea remained unmoved, and still supported Daming and opposed Houjin.Moreover, in order to deal with the threat from Houjin, North Korea stepped up its war preparations and spent two years building Namhan Mountain City in order to resist Houjin's attack.

In the first month of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, Huang Taiji brazenly declared war on North Korea on the charges of "helping the Southern Dynasty invade our country, harboring Mao Wenlong, recruiting my fugitives to steal my place, sweating before dying, and not sending people to congratulate me".

Huang Taiji led the army to the east with Amin, Jierhalang, Yuetuo and others, and the three armies went south all the way, successively capturing Yizhou, Tieshan, Dingzhou, Anzhou, Pyongyang, Zhonghe and other places.

Seeing that the general situation was over, Li Zong had no choice but to send envoys to seek peace with Houjin. After more than a month of negotiations, the North Korean side agreed to a series of conditions proposed by Houjin, including paying tribute to hostages, going to the next year, and forming an alliance. Daming never agreed to this point.

Dissatisfied with North Korea's oath, Amin ordered the Eight Banners soldiers to plunder in the Gyeonggi-do area of ​​North Korea for three days before withdrawing the troops to Pyongyang.

At this time, Huang Taiji ordered Amin not to retreat, threatened that "to the west of the Datong River, it cannot be returned", and forced North Korea to sign the Pyongyang Oath.After Jin's invasion this time, North Korea's history called it "Dingmao's randomness".

Although North Korea signed a covenant with Hou Jin, Li Zong ordered someone to make a statement to Daming as soon as the Hou Jin army retreated. understanding.

Since then, North Korea has repeatedly shown disgust in its exchanges with Hou Jin. Hou Jin asked North Korea to open the market, and North Korea has repeatedly delayed it for various reasons.After Jin asked North Korea to pay tribute regularly, North Korea also tried its best to reduce the amount.After Kong Youde defected to the Jin Dynasty, Huang Taiji ordered North Korea to help with food and wages. North Korea not only refused, but helped Daming hunt down and kill Kong Youde.

It can be said that after North Korea formed an alliance with Houjin, although it could not compete with Houjian militarily, it never really surrendered, so that Jin once used soldiers against North Korea two years ago.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji was going to change the Yuan Dynasty and proclaim himself emperor. He notified North Korea of ​​this matter in advance, hoping that North Korea would write a letter to persuade him to advance. The letter made the embassy of Houjin leave Seoul angrily.

When Huang Taiji officially proclaimed himself emperor, the North Korean envoys refused to bow down, which made Huang Taiji extremely angry, thinking that the Korean king intended to humiliate him.

However, due to political considerations, Huang Taiji did not use troops against North Korea at that time, but launched an attack against Ming Dynasty.

Because North Korea is only a vassal state in the end, no matter how much you teach him, as long as the suzerain state does not fall, you can support the vassal state at any time. In Huang Taiji's mind, the only way to beat Daming completely is to let North Korea know that Daming can't protect him at all. Only then will he obediently submit to the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, the Qing Dynasty had just been established. If people want to recognize his status, they must first let people know that he has the qualifications to be equal to Ming Dynasty, and the most direct way to express this qualification is to overwhelm Ming Dynasty in the military.

Therefore, Huang Taiji considered again and again, and decided to temporarily let go of North Korea and use troops against Ming Dynasty. As long as this battle can be won, the status of Qing Dynasty will be recognized, and then North Korea will really change its court.

Huang Taiji's plan was very good, and the early operations were very smooth. Who would have thought that Li Jing would suddenly take over Beijing, and then command the troops to launch a counterattack against the Qing army. The Qing army was defeated in the first battle of Gyeonggi, and Azig led the remnants to flee in embarrassment. Back to Shengjing.

Being hit hard by this, Huang Taiji was naturally unable to force North Korea to surrender through political means. Seeing that Mongolia had already surrendered to Ming Dynasty, and North Korea was also tending to return to Ming Dynasty, Huang Taiji knew that if he did not use troops against North Korea, North Korea would definitely tear up the previous covenant with Jin .

However, if you want to mobilize troops, you have to recover your vitality first. As soon as you lose a battle, you will attack North Korea. Huang Taiji will not do such a stupid thing.

After several months of rectification, the Qing army finally regained some vitality. Just as there was a huge shortage of manpower for spring farming in the coming year, Huang Taiji called a group of ministers to discuss the use of troops against North Korea.

However, to Huang Taiji's surprise, when he expressed his thoughts, all the ministers remained silent. Not only did no one support him, they even had no voice of opposition.

Seeing that the officials did not say a word, Huang Taiji couldn't help but frowned, turned his eyes to Fan Wencheng, and said in his heart: When I discussed this matter with you, you supported me all the time, why don't you say a word now?
Seeing that Fan Wencheng stood upright and said nothing, Huang Taiji couldn't directly call him by name, because the meaning of speaking proactively is completely different from that of his name-calling. where?Could it be that those princes and ministers of the Manchus are just decorations?

After pondering for a while, Huang Taiji turned his head to look at Dorgon: "Fourteenth brother, what's your opinion?"

(End of this chapter)