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The battle was over, and the battle was over.

11

During the entire fifth year of Tianqi, there were no major battles in Liaodong. Perhaps because the Later Jin consumed too much supplies in the winter of last year, it began to plunder cattle, sheep and horses on the grassland after the spring, and the relationship with the tribes on the grassland became increasingly worse.

At this time, Huang Taiji no longer wanted to expand his territory and unify the world. The most important thing was to keep Jianzhou first.

In the winter of the fifth year of Tianqi, Lu Cheng led a team of special forces and rushed to the south day and night. He personally inspected the progress of the expeditionary forces in various parts of the south, and took the special forces to participate in some battles, further expanding the expeditionary forces' sphere of influence in Southeast Asia and eliminating many Western colonists.

After staying in the south for more than a month, Lu Cheng returned to Liaodong again.

After a peaceful five-year period of Tianqi, Liaodong's industrialization process has made great progress. The improved steam locomotives have been used in ships and factories, and the production efficiency of new machine tools has been greatly improved. The arsenal that originally could only produce a few hundred rifles per month has directly reached a monthly output of 1,500 rifles, and the output of bullets has also been greatly improved.

Throughout the five years of Tianqi, there were 12,000 new rifles in Liaodong's arsenal, and the stock of bullets reached more than 1.5 million rounds.

At the beginning of the sixth year of Tianqi, the arsenal built the first hand-cranked Gatling, which required two people to operate at the same time and could fire 200 rounds of bullets per minute.

At the same time, the first bolt-action rifle that can load 5 rounds of bullets was officially launched and put into production.

At the same time, the expedition team sent to America also brought back rubber tree seeds from America and planted them in Southeast Asia.

In May of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, a violent explosion occurred in the Wanggongchang area of ​​Yanjing. The blast caused a strong wind, which darkened the entire Yanjing city. Countless houses were destroyed and corpses were flying everywhere. The Emperor Tianqi, who was often bedridden because of falling into the water, was even more frightened and almost died on the spot.

Afterwards, the Emperor Tianqi issued an edict of self-blame and pardoned the world.

But not long after, a major flood occurred in Beijing again. Droughts and locust plagues occurred in succession in Jiangbei, Shandong, Central Plains and other places. The people were living in dire straits, and the court was in panic.

It was at this time that the people who fled from Jin Province, under the organization and guidance of those who cared, once again broke out in uprising and raised their troops to rebel.

Immediately afterwards, uprisings broke out in Central Plains, Shandong and other places. The rebels in various places developed rapidly. After quickly gathering manpower, they immediately captured the county, opened warehouses to release grain, robbed weapons, and expanded their teams.

Moreover, the rebels in various places responded to each other, gathered together, and fought together. When facing the government troops, they also used various flexible and changeable tactics, and sent assassins to assassinate the leaders of the government troops.

In just one month, the rebels in various places grew rapidly and shouted the slogan of "equal distribution of land and exemption of grain".

Not only that, these rebels were able to do nothing to ordinary people, and only robbed those wealthy merchants.

Every time the rebels arrived at a place, they would take out a part of the money and grain they robbed and distribute it to the local poor people, so that they would join them.

At first, the court thought that this uprising could be quickly quelled and extinguished like a few years ago, but soon the court discovered that this uprising was too rapid. In just two or three months, no less than 10,000 rebels appeared in Shandong, Central Plains, Shanxi Province, Northern Shaanxi and other provinces.

Then, rebels all over the country sprang up like mushrooms after rain, uprisings were everywhere, and wars were everywhere.

However, the later the uprisings appeared, the more chaotic and disorganized they seemed.

The uprisings that appeared at the beginning were basically organized, disciplined, and targeted. They were never besieged by the government troops. They wandered around, grew stronger, absorbed refugees, trained soldiers, forged weapons, consumed the government troops, and so on.

Later, many government troops directly joined the uprising army, which also made the uprising army more and more powerful.

As some government troops were defeated by the uprising army, it greatly promoted the development of the uprising army.

In fact, the Ming soldiers in many local guards were also living in dire straits. The court took out money and food to pay them military pay, and some places owed them for two or three years. The soldiers not only had to worry about their personal livelihoods, but also had to do hard labor for the officers at all levels.

In this regard, the soldiers who came from military households could no longer bear it.

In the autumn of the sixth year of Tianqi

, the rebels in Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi and other places gathered together, formed an alliance to fight against the government, attacked the imperial guards, occupied the county, and plundered the rich.

For a while, the entire Ming Dynasty was in danger.

In the court, the already sick Emperor Tianqi was unable to handle these affairs and handed everything over to Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Zhongxian did not care too much about the life and death of the Ming Dynasty. Perhaps he did not think that the rebels could make any waves, but ordered the governors and prefects of various places to fight against the rebellion on their own.

In the autumn of the sixth year of Tianqi, Ding Xiu led 3,000 cavalry, plus 2,000 cavalry from the Khalkha tribe, through the Tumed tribe and arrived in Shanxi Province.

Afterwards, Ding Xiu and his cavalry pretended to be Mongolian cavalry, and according to a list, they cleaned up the eight major merchants in Shanxi and many merchants who provided various materials to the Later Jin.

At the same time, a group of tens of thousands of rebels also arrived in Jin Province, but they did not have any conflict with Ding Xiu's cavalry. Instead, they cooperated and began to rob those wealthy merchants.

Soon after, the rebels received a large amount of food supplies and some weapons. The cavalry led by Ding Xiu returned to Liaodong with a large amount of property.

So far, all the wealthy merchants in Jin Province who had dealings with the Later Jin were liquidated without a single one.

This also means that the entire Later Jin was completely cut off from external supplies.

In October of the sixth year of Tianqi, when the Ming Dynasty was in chaos, Lu Cheng asked Sun Chengzong to lead his troops to wipe out the Later Jin.

Sun Chengzong was a little dumbfounded when he heard this. He didn't expect Lu Cheng to be so bold now that he was going to directly attack the Later Jin's lair.

"General Lu, are you sure about this battle?"

"Don't worry, Lord Sun. I will definitely capture Hetuala City in one fell swoop and cut off Huang Taiji's head."

In fact, Lu Cheng's development in the past two years has been too rapid. Sun Chengzong also saw something wrong and knew that Lu Cheng would never be willing to be a general.

But Sun Chengzong is already old and unable to think too much. As long as Lu Cheng is still the general of the Ming Dynasty, he doesn't bother to care too much.

"Forget it, be careful."

Afterwards, Lu Cheng led 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, and took He Shixian, You Shigong, and Tong Zhongkui, three generals, to attack Hetuala City together.

In fact, He Shixian and the other three generals did not bring many soldiers and horses, and they were all cavalry.

The main purpose of Lu Cheng calling them up this time was not to let them fight together, but to let them see their own strength and make a choice.

As soon as Lu Cheng's 30,000-strong army entered the Later Jin, it immediately attracted the Later Jin's attention.

The Later Jin had already been forced into a desperate situation at this time. Seeing Lu Cheng leading his army, Huang Taiji directly summoned all the troops of the Later Jin, preparing to fight a decisive battle with Lu Cheng's army in the wilderness. One battle would determine the fate of the Later Jin.

For this reason, Huang Taiji ordered all the tribes south of Hetuala City to retreat northward, and summoned all the troops of the Later Jin, totaling 120,000, to attack Lu Cheng's 30,000-strong army in a mighty manner, and was bound to win in one battle.

When the two sides met on the grassland, Huang Taiji reorganized his troops and directly ordered the entire army to attack and crush Lu Cheng's army.

Tens of thousands of Later Jin cavalrymen joined together, carrying endless smoke and dust, like a huge wave, sweeping towards Lu Cheng's army.

However, as the messenger gave the order, rows of metal pipes were set up on the ground, and thousands of soldiers took positions, raised their rifles, and aimed forward.

Two rows of mortar soldiers also set up rows of mortars and aimed at the enemy's army.

The most advanced weapons and equipment under Lu Cheng's command were unveiled in front of everyone for the first time.

As the distance between the two sides got closer and closer, Lu Cheng, sitting on the warhorse, raised the embroidered spring sword in his hand, waved it downward, and uttered a word: "Fight!"

In an instant, all the mortars fired at the same time, all the hand-cranked Gatling guns started to rotate together, and all the infantry pulled the trigger...