In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, from the eastern, southern, and northern roads of Jinzhou City, the Qing cavalry was full and rampant, and gradually formed a trend of encirclement of Jinzhou. The generals of the Ming Dynasty were worried that Jinzhou would be besieged and would not be able to hold on once there was a shortage of food.

At present, the transportation of grain is more urgent than the increase of troops, but the officials in charge of transporting grain are frightened and do not dare to go to the three forward cities of Jin, Song, and Xing to transport rice and grain, and only to the cities west of Ningyuan, resulting in the grain storage in the western cities of Ningyuan soaring to 10,000 stones, and the granaries of the three cities of Jinzhou, Songshan, and Xingshan only have 2,000 stones of rice.

From the imperial court to the front-line soldiers were very anxious about this, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, and Qiu Minyang, Wu Sangui, the governor of Liaodong, discussed again and again, and decided to take the risk of transporting rice to the three cities of Jin, Song, and Xing. The timing was just in time for the Spring Festival, so they celebrated the New Year with the New Year, and unexpectedly transported the grain over, and this task was handed over to Wu Sangui to complete.

On the second and third days of the first lunar month, 3,400 carts of oxen, mules, and donkeys were used, and 15,000 stones of rice were loaded. Wu Sangui personally supervised the departure of the rice cart, and this plan really escaped the surveillance of the Qing soldiers, and at noon the next day, he arrived in Jinzhou smoothly. Immediately unloaded the car, to the evening of the second watch all unloaded, empty car and safely returned to Ningyuan, this time to transport rice, round trip did not meet the Qing soldiers, so there is no negligence.

On the ninth day of the first month, the Qing soldiers were aware of it, and dispatched more than 20,000 cavalry to pursue in four groups, trying to seize food, but were shelled by the Ming army guarding along the way, and found nothing, and still fled back to the camp from the north of the original road. Wu Sangui took the risk to supervise the transportation of grain, showing that his courage was slightly higher than that of the generals. When people regarded Jinsong and others as a dangerous road and cowered, he dared to take responsibility, did his job solidly, and succeeded in one fell swoop, so he was praised by the imperial court and the surrounding generals. Because Jinzhou was supplemented with provisions, it strengthened the confidence of the soldiers in the city to defend the city, and persisted for a long time, although it was besieged by the Qing soldiers, it was not afraid, which was directly related to the sufficient provisions.

Since Wu Sangui was promoted to chief military officer, he has served the imperial court even more than before, and he is loyal to the sun. These few comments given to him by the imperial court, and the fact that his merits are placed above all the generals, can also be seen that his status has been significantly improved. The imperial court commended him for his courage in killing the enemy and his repeated military exploits, but the most fundamental thing was to praise him for showing infinite loyalty to the imperial court, and praised him for his loyalty.

Wu Sangui was trusted and respected by the Ming court, and Wu Sangui certainly understood that only by being loyal to the court could he get the fame and wealth he was pursuing, so he served the court with the vigor of a young man, which was really natural in his opinion. His performance before and after his promotion to the chief military officer shows that he is fighting to defend the Ming Dynasty. Personally, like the aspirations of the young men who have made a difference, he is to make a mark and attain all the honors he aspires to. This is the basic idea of Wu Sangui, who is vigorously moving forward and galloping on the road with a bright future.

At the beginning of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the Ming and Qing dynasties fought frequently and fiercely in western Liaoxi, which finally led to another major war in the history of the rise and fall of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the outbreak of the decisive battle of Songshan.

This time the war was first initiated by Emperor Taiji of the Qing Dynasty. Since the early years of the Apocalypse, Yuan Chonghuan built the defense line of Ning and Jin, forcing the Qing soldiers to not drive straight forward, and lingered between the Da and Xiao Ling rivers for more than ten years, seriously hindering the Qing Dynasty's war with the Ming Dynasty. Huang Taiji had repeatedly tried to break the defenses of the Ming army, but without success. The only result he achieved was the siege of Dalinghe City, and he never made any further progress.

The two impregnable fortresses of Jinzhou and Ningyuan lay at the throat of the Qing army's western Liaoxi corridor leading to Shanhaiguan, which made Huang Taiji sigh and helpless, but Huang Taiji won great victories on other fronts, he conquered Korea in the east and made it submit, and in the west he attacked the powerful Mongol Chahar tribe to make it bow down to orders, and Huang Taiji fought for more than ten years to make the Qing army stronger than ever.

The Ming Dynasty was suffering from an unprecedented famine in 300 years, and the people were desperate to take risks and rise up one after another, merging into the torrent of the peasant war. The Ming Dynasty was overwhelmed by the peasant armies of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and it was difficult to breathe; outside the pass, the aggressive attacks of the Qing troops plunged it into a deep predicament, and it could only barely struggle, but had no power to fight back. The behemoth Ming Dynasty was in internal and external difficulties, collapsing day by day, and rapidly declining, and the whole situation was unprecedentedly favorable to the Qing regime.

Huang Taiji correctly assessed the strength of the Ming and Qing dynasties, chose an appropriate time, and was determined to break the long-term stalemate of the Ming and Qing dynasties in western Liaoning, and the new powerful attack on the Ming began with Jinzhou, which bore the brunt of the attack. The first step he took was to build a city in Yiju, to build a field, and to accumulate grain and salaries as a base for marching to Jinzhou, and then to advance to Jinzhou. The Qing soldiers tightly surrounded Jinzhou, filled in the trenches and destroyed the trenches, and cut off solidarity.

When the Qing troops entered Yizhou and built the city of Tuntian, Jinzhou was in an emergency, which had caused the Ming Dynasty ruling group to be seriously vigilant, and they could not help but feel panicked when they gradually forced Jin and surrounded Jin. Only then did they see clearly the strategic intentions of the other side, not only to seize Jinzhou, but also to seek the strategic location of Songshan. Some people pointed out that Songshan City and Jinzhou are separated by 18 miles, and the Qing thieves are five or six miles away from Jinzhou to camp, that is, close to Songcheng. The Ministry of War believed that the Qing army's move was to trap the Daling River, so it urgently instructed Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, to design and relieve the siege.

Hong Chengchou was ordered to go out of Shanhaiguan, garrison Ningyuan, and command all kinds of soldiers and horses to rescue Jinzhou, Wu Sangui was one of the generals who rescued Jinzhou. Hong Chengchou first summoned Wu Sangui and Wang Tingchen, the chief soldier of the Qiantun guard, Cao Bianjiao, the chief soldier of Yutian, and Bai Guangen, the chief soldier of Jizhen, to discuss the enemy who besieged Jinzhou. Then Hong Chengchou personally went to Songshan, a military important place around Jinzhou, to measure the terrain and inspect the situation of the Qing army, he felt that the strength of the Ming Dynasty was still insufficient, and asked for an increase in troops, which should reach 150,000 soldiers.

After the cabinet meeting, Chongzhen approved and agreed to increase the troops, so he added Yang Guozhu, the chief soldier of Xuanfu, Wang Pu, the chief soldier of Datong, Tang Tong, the chief soldier of Miyun, and Ma Ke, the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, and other four generals, each leading the troops to rescue Jinzhou. Together with the total army of the first four towns, there were a total of eight towns, with a total of 100,000 troops, 40,000 horses, and 10,000 mules, but it was less than 150,000, and the imperial court made some efforts to increase it to 130,000 to the greatest extent. Order the general soldiers of each town to go out of the customs immediately, and quickly meet the troops in Ningyuan.

Wu Sangui, as one of the eight town generals, was called to lead the troops to participate in the aid of Jin to relieve the siege, among the eight generals, only Bai Guangen, Ma Ke, and Wu Sangui dared to fight. In terms of combat effectiveness, Wu Sangui's Liaodong soldiers are also the strongest and good at fighting. He led 20,000 troops, organized according to his own unique method of administering the army, and selected 1,000 elite cavalry, with 50 cavalry as a team, divided into 20 teams, each team set up a cavalry officer, totaling 20 people.

He wrote the names of the twenty horsemen on twenty bamboo sticks and inserted them into his boots, and in case of emergency, he took out a sign from the boots and called a certain leader, who commanded his own cavalry and followed him to fight and fight. It is no wonder that the commander Hong Chengchou decided that Wu Sangui, Bai Guangen, and Ma Ke could take charge of the three brave generals alone, and the other five generals could only work together and should not take military action alone.

Hong Chengchou waved his division into the area between Songshan and Xingshan, except for Tang Tong, the rest of the seven towns each led part of the army to move to the east and west Shimen near Songshan City, all according to the division of the battalions, the color of the flag, set up a position, a few miles south of Songshan, from the south to the north of the train, infantry, firearms battalions, with cavalry to form two wings; in Xishimen, Wu Sangui's troops were the first on the left flank, in order, the following were the troops of Wang Tingchen and Yang Guozhu; in Dongshimen, Cao Bianjiao's troops were the first on the right flank, and below were the troops of Bai Guangen and Ma Ke. Wang Pu's troops were located between the two wings, connected to the right wing.

The Qing infantry besieging Jinzhou had been deployed on Rufeng Mountain between Jinzhou and Songshan, occupying a favorable terrain, and about 20,000 cavalry were concentrated in Shimentun in the east and west, each lying in ambush around to wait for battle, with the strategic intention of ambushing the Ming soldiers who were reinforced in front. The two sides of the Ming and Qing dynasties launched a fierce battle on the Rufeng Mountain, at the east and west stone gates.

The seven towns of the Ming Dynasty each selected elite infantry, armed with bows and arrows, guns, and launched an attack on the Qing soldiers on the mountain from the east and west flanks of the mountain, and the Qing army on the mountain attacked from a high position. The Ming soldiers are very strong, brave the arrows like raindrops to bravely climb the mountain to attack, seize the high place near Taiwan, set off the cannon and show the flag, a large number of Ming soldiers have multiplied their courage, the shouting is shocking, desperately charge, the Ming soldiers who are surrounded in the city of Jinzhou hear the guns and shouts, know that the reinforcements have arrived, Zu Dashou immediately waved the army out of the south gate of the city, set up a camp array, echoed with the reinforcements, formed a situation of attacking the Qing soldiers inside and outside.

When the Ming soldiers rushed up the mountain to fight with the Qing infantry, the Qing cavalry in ambush at the foot of the mountain first rushed out of seven or eight thousand from the West Stone Gate, and Wu Sangui and others on the left flank led the troops to meet the battle, and the drum was the first, rushing straight more than ten times, the morale was strong, and the Qing cavalry was cut ten people in formation, thwarting the attack of the Qing cavalry. It originally wanted to use elite cavalry to crush the Ming soldiers' formation, but unexpectedly, the Ming army's horse infantry officers and soldiers resisted the battle very fiercely, so it did not gain momentum. At Dongshimen, there was an artillery battalion of the Ming army, which bombarded at a dangerous place in Dongshan Mountain, and effectively cooperated with the infantry attack.

When the Qing soldiers failed to attack, they used ox carts to push and transport 30 red-coated cannons, and bombarded the Ming soldiers from the east and west. The battle continued into the evening, when the Qing soldiers were forced to retreat, and the Qing side admitted that the battle had been lost.

This was a contact battle before the decisive battle of Songshan, Ming Qizhen dispatched about 60,000 soldiers, 20,000 Qing cavalry, plus the infantry on Rufeng Mountain, a total of about 30,000 people, but the two sides actually invested not many troops, so the casualties were not serious. The Ming army suffered heavy casualties, 738 killed, 793 casualties of varying degrees of light and serious, and 657 horses and mules were killed.

The Ming soldiers were on the attacking side, and they were attacking from below the mountain, which was the most difficult to focus, and at the same time, they were also attacked by Qing artillery fire, and his casualties were definitely greater than those of the Qing soldiers. After the battle, Hong Chengchou reported the meritorious personnel to the imperial court, and he listed Wu Sangui as the first meritorious service.

In the battle of Songshan's East and West Shimen, the Ming soldiers won a small victory at a large cost, and did not achieve the goal of relieving the siege of Jinzhou, and Hong Chengchou realized that the vicious battle was still to come. Coach Hong Chengchou was so determined, but Wu Sangui, whom he trusted, actually became a deserter in the decisive battle that was about to break out.

Hong Chengchou originally advocated a long-term strategy, that is, to fight and defend, fight steadily, and drag the Qing army, so that the Qing army could not fight, and the food and salary could not continue, forcing it to trap itself, and then the Ming soldiers defeated it with another drum. However, Chen Xinjia, the military department in charge of military affairs, on the grounds that it was protracted and spent money on food, strongly advocated a quick victory, and even blamed him for going out of the customs and using the division for more than a year, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in food and wages, and the Jinwei was still unresolved and the interior was in trouble, so how could he be worthy of the emperor's trust and the high hopes of the Chinese military forces of the DPRK?

Not only that, he also tried his best to persuade Emperor Chongzhen to support his strategy, so that Hong Chengchou immediately entered the army; at the same time, he appointed Ma Shaoyu and Zhang Ruoqi as the head of the military department and the staff of Langzhong, went out to plan the military, and urged Hong Chengchou to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army. Hong Chengchou was helpless and was forced to give up his strategy, march into Songshan City, and lead the army of the Eight Towns to pour into the lonely and dangerous place of Songshan.

Hong Chengchou took advantage of the sharp spirit of the Ming soldiers and launched attacks again and again, and Yang Guozhu, the general soldier of Xuanfu, was killed in battle and replaced by Li Fuming, the general soldier of Shanxi. These attacks, though unsuccessful, had already put a significant strain on the Qing army and caused it to lose in skirmishes. With the development of the battlefield situation, a major war of unprecedented scale is imminent.