I

  Chapter 688 685 [Another undisciplined one]

   "Casualty statistics are out." Wang Yaochen handed over a report.

  Wang Tingchen took a look, and suddenly became silent.

  From the day when the cannon fodder sieged the city until it completely occupied the city, the casualties of the Datong Army were as follows:

  1552 people were killed, 743 were seriously injured, 3639 were slightly injured, and the casualty rate reached 43.9.

  Wang Tingchen is a Ming border general who served here, and the Ming army lost tens of thousands at every turn, and there are no casualties in front of him to make him feel sad.

  These are all cavalrymen who have been trained for several years, each of them is extremely precious. Many people were killed when they climbed the city, they were hit by rolling logs, shot by bows and arrows, or they were surrounded and killed after climbing first.

  Even if they were killed in battle, they deserved to die on the battlefield while galloping on horseback. It’s not worth dying in a siege!

Wang Yaochen comforted and said: "The Tartars guarding the city are all elites of the Puppet Qing Dynasty, and they are all fighting desperately. If the southern city wall hadn't killed the enemy generals and flanked the western city to open the city gate, the Tartar soldiers would have continued desperately. We So many people were killed and injured, in fact... it is not injustice."

   "I understand," Wang Tingchen sighed, "but these are all soldiers trained by us. Since the establishment of the cavalry division, I didn't expect that the most losses were suffered during the siege."

Wang Yaochen said: "There is also good news. The city is full of wheat and livestock. Most of the wheat has just been harvested this year. The Tartars collected it and prepared it as military rations to send troops to support Sarhu. Livestock were also collected to transport military rations. , and now we have seized them all."

  Wang Tingchen said: "If we arrived a few days earlier, the Tartars would definitely not have time to gather their troops, and they would have captured the city easily. In the final analysis, the speed of the attack is too slow, so we shouldn't waste so much time in the north."

   "Who knew that the Tartars were just drawing troops?" Wang Yaochen said.

  The cavalry division swept across the villages in the north, just to quickly cut off the vital forces of the Tartars. As a result, after the raids, they realized that the situation was wrong. The number of Tartars in the countryside was too small, and many young and strong were taken away to fight.

  Wang Tingchen calmed down and said: "Order the whole army to rest for two days. The seriously wounded and military doctors will stay, and the rest of the troops will continue to attack!"

  Here you can go directly to the main battlefield, march along the Huifa River, Baiyun River, and Hun River, and only need to climb a few low mountains on the way.

   But the distance is quite far, a full 300 miles, and the march in the valleys and mountains cannot be fast.

   A few days later, the cavalry division passed a place called Siping, which already belonged to Qingyuan County in later generations.

   "Destroy the weapon workshop!"

   "If there is any resistance, shoot and kill, and all craftsmen will be arrested!"

  Hundreds of years later, there are many "Siping" in the Northeast, such as Da Siping Town, Bei Siping Township, and Xiao Siping Village. Without exception, it must be the production base of bows and arrows in the Qing Dynasty. The original meaning of "Siping" in Manchu language is "making arrow shafts".

   At this moment, on the southern battlefield, Yang Zhenqing's independent regiment is also attacking Siping—Xiao Siping Village, Da Siping Town hundreds of years later.

  Yang Zhenqing started from Yahuguan Pass (in Weiziyu Township), crossed the Great Wall of Liao Dynasty, and went straight to Dasiping Town.

  Many of the land outside the Yahu Pass belonged to the Ming Dynasty.

  Li Chengliang gave up the six castles without authorization and handed them over to Nurhachi on the grounds that "the land is lonely and difficult to defend".

  As for the Kuandian area further south, I am too lazy to attack. Daming built many forts in Kuandian, including Kuandian Fort, Xindian Fort, Yongdian Fort, Dadian Fort, and Changdian Fort. After the Manchu Qing occupation, the local people were forcibly removed, and it has been deserted for 20 to 30 years.

   It was not until Dayuer moved the capital to Hetuala that Kuandian was reclaimed.

  But the population is still sparsely populated. A village has as many as 20 or 30 households, and in many places there are even only a few households.

   It is a waste of food and grass for those who are in the mountains to conquer sporadic Tartars.

   It would be much more comfortable to go east from Yaful Pass, as long as you lay down a few castles along the way, 20 miles to the east is the Tazi’s gold mine, and 30 miles to the southeast is the Tazi’s bow and arrow production base.

  The former fort.

  There are mountains on all sides, mountains on the south, and a narrow river valley between the two mountains.

  The independent group traveled day and night, took a small boat by surprise, and chose to go ashore after passing the castle.

  The guard of this castle is called Dai Qing, a name that has been flooded. There are not too many Mongols and Jurchens called Dai Qing, Dai Qin, and Dai Qing, which means "brave".

   Even Dorgon's title before being crowned king was "Mergen Daiqing", that is, "wise warrior".

  The Dai Qing in front of me is probably not very brave. When he woke up, he found thousands of enemies behind the castle, and his face turned pale with fright.

  The function of the front fort is to block the army. Thousands of people can easily row past without luggage.

   "Go and persuade to surrender!" Yang Zhenqing said.

A warrior from Sinicized Jurchen ran quickly to the bottom of the castle, and shouted loudly: "Listen up, the defenders inside, 200,000 Datong heavenly soldiers have surrounded Sarhu. The puppet Qing court is about to disappear. If you resist in the corner, you will die with the puppet Qing. Kaesong surrenders, and there is still a chance of survival!"

  The Tartar archers listened carefully to what they said, but none of them chose to shoot their arrows.

   Dai Qing became silent, hesitating whether to surrender.

   When Nurhachi first joined the army, it was a fat job to guard here. Because the Yahu Pass in front of them is an important trade channel between Daming and Jianzhou Jurchen, and there can be a lot of money here every month.

   But now, trade is banned, and stationing in this fort is tantamount to dispatching, and it may be attacked by the Datong army at any time.

"Arrests!"

   Without waiting for the defenders to make a decision, Yang Zhenqing ordered to do it.

  The castle is not big and cannot accommodate too many people. There were only a hundred defenders inside, and their families lived and farmed in the river valley to the north of the castle.

  Yang Zhenqing left 1,000 people to block the castle, and the remaining soldiers were divided into multiple teams and began to sweep the valley to the north.

   "Bang bang bang!"

   Gunshots kept coming, and the defenders were worried about their families, and all lost their will to fight.

  In fact, they had no fighting spirit in the first place, even the guards on duty at night were lazy, otherwise, how could Yang Zhenqing go around the back of the castle easily.

   Most of the real elite Tartars were taken away by Mandahai, and those hard bones were hit by the cavalry division. And those in front of them are ordinary bannermen who have turned into the Eight Banners Army. As long as they are young and strong, crooked melons and split dates can join the army. Many people don't even have cotton armor and only wear leather armor to fight.

   Dai Qing looked around, and found that the soldiers were sad, and they didn't look like they were defending the castle.

   "Open the door and surrender!"

   Dai Qing gritted his teeth and said.

  He didn't want to be buried with the Manchus, and he wasn't a Manchu nobleman. On the contrary, he fought with the Qing Dynasty. He had already lost his two elder brothers, and the property his father and brother had robbed from the Han Dynasty had long been thrown in Haizhou and never brought out.

   To put it an exaggeration, Dai Qing, as the castle guard, can't even afford sorghum wine, so he can just get his stomach full.

   More than a hundred Tartar soldiers left the castle one after another.

Yang Zhenqing confiscated their armor, and said with a sneer: "I only said that I will give you a chance to survive, but I didn't say that you will all survive. Let's line up and draw lots, draw one out of ten, and kill one out of ten. Those who are unlucky will be beheaded, and they will be killed." It should be for others to take the blame! You tartars, you all deserve to die!"

  This practice is a serious violation of military discipline.

   But Yang Zhenqing didn't care so much, he didn't care if he was promoted or not, he joined the army only to kill the Tartars. If he hadn't been on a military mission, he probably would have killed all the Tartars who surrendered!

  The Tartar soldiers who surrendered were terrified when they heard the words, but they took chances.

  Kill one out of ten, the chance of survival is great.

  They have been disarmed, so they can only bite the bullet and draw lots. A group of ten people smoked weeds blindly, and the short ones were beheaded.

   "Forgive me, I don't want to die!"

  The first unlucky guy appeared. He wanted to struggle to escape, but was held down by Datong soldiers. Those in the same group as him all showed the expression of the rest of their life after a catastrophe, thankfully they were not the one who was beheaded to stand up.

   "I...I want to draw lots too?" Dai Qing trembled with fright.

  Yang Zhenqing smiled and said, "It's all the same!"

  Dai Qing didn't dare to look any more, closed his eyes and stretched out his hand, felt a weed and pulled it out.

  When he opened his eyes again, his heart was ecstatic, and he sat paralyzed on the ground as if exhausted.

  The last group has less than ten people.

  Yang Zhenqing pointed to the Tartar captives captured in the village, selected the strongest ones, made up ten and continued to draw lots.

   This approach is even worse. After this battle, his title will definitely be gone, and he will not even be able to lead troops in the country. Most of them will be thrown to Luzon as an officer.

   Knowing that the castle has been occupied, the grain-carrying men a few miles behind led the mules and horses carrying the luggage, and rushed to join the army as quickly as possible.

Yang Zhenqing said: "Send a hundred peasants and soldiers to garrison this fort, and send twenty soldiers to guard these Tartar civilians. Those Tartar soldiers who survived will follow me to fight. If you kill more than two Tartars, you will be killed Forgive your past sins!"

   Just like that, Dai Qing, who had just surrendered, took his own soldiers and followed Yang Zhenqing to continue marching.

  Yang Zhenqing's move seems to be risky, but he is actually well versed in the psychology of surrendering troops. These Tartar soldiers had already abandoned the city and surrendered, and they would be questioned even if they returned to Manchuria.

   What's more, they just drew lots and escaped from the gate of hell. If he surrendered and rebelled, wouldn't the life and death lottery drawn just now be for nothing?

  Furthermore, many of their family members are in the hands of the Datong Army!

  Drawing lots to kill people is not just about venting anger.

   It is not only to establish prestige, but also to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the captives.

  Dai Qing's two elder brothers both died at the hands of the Datong Army, and he himself was almost killed just now. But this guy is actually still lecturing the soldiers: "Listen well, kill two tartars, and you can clear your sins. For your family, for yourself, kill them all! Kill the tartars, kill the tartars! !"

   "Kill the Tartars, kill the Tartars!"

  A group of Tartar soldiers who had no fighting spirit, just surrendered, actually shouted to kill the Tartars, and seemed to have the will to fight.

  Follow the Taizi River, continue to the east for more than ten miles, and you will come to the second castle.

  Yang Zhenqing said to Dai Qing: "Go and persuade the guards to surrender. If you can persuade the guards to surrender, you don't need to kill two Tartars to get away with it!"

Dai Qing was overjoyed, knelt down to kowtow to Yang Zhenqing, and then rushed to the castle: "Anba, I am Dai Qing, and I have surrendered the heavenly soldiers of Datong. You also surrender quickly, and I will give you a chance to survive. Sal Over there, half a million Datong heavenly soldiers have surrounded Saarhu City. Do you still want to be buried with the little emperor?"

  (end of this chapter)