In the forty-sixth year of Wanli (1618 AD), that is, the third year after the founding of the Later Jin Dynasty, Nurhachi swore against the Ming Dynasty on the 13th day of the fourth lunar month with the "Seven Great Hatreds", and counted the seven major crimes of the Ming Dynasty against the Later Jin State (Jianzhou Jurchen), and led 20,000 cavalry to attack the Ming Dynasty. Most of the forts east of Fushun City were captured by the Houjin army!

Fushun and other places fell one after another, the Wanli Emperor was very angry, and finally felt that the situation was serious, and sent Yang Hao, the left attendant of the military department, to serve as the strategy of Liaodong, preside over the defense of Liaodong, and decided to send troops to Liaodong to attack Houjin! However, due to the lack of soldiers and salaries, the army could not move for a long time, and the Wanli Emperor could only order to levy "Liao salary" to the whole country, and to aid the imperial widows, adding 3 centimeters and 5 millimeters per mu, and increasing the amount of silver by more than 2 million taels in total. And from Sichuan, Gansu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces to reinforce Liaodong!

At this time, Guo Zhiyuan could no longer sit still, he knew that the famous "Battle of Salhu" in history was about to break out, this battle was an important turning point in the history of the Ming and Qing wars, and a decisive battle in the history of the rise and fall of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It can be said that the Battle of Salhu was the beginning of the defeat of the Ming Dynasty, and the Battle of Salhu completely exposed the Ming Dynasty's external strength and middle cadres, and also further expanded the ambitions of the Later Jin, taking advantage of the situation to capture Kaiyuan and Tieling, conquering the Yehe Department, and the chieftains Jintaiji and Buyangu were killed, and the rest of the troops were surrendered to Jianzhou. And frequently launched campaigns against the Ming Dynasty for many years, and the Ming Dynasty was greatly injured after this war, and could no longer organize a decent counterattack, and could only passively defend, almost being beaten by the Houjin Iron Cavalry!

Before this battle, no one could have imagined that the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty would lose to the Later Jin, because from the perspective of the strength of the two sides participating in the war, the Ming army had an absolute advantage, and the Ming Dynasty arrived in Liaodong in this battle with more than 87,000 reinforcements, plus a Yehe soldier and 13,000 North Korean troops, a total of about 110,000, known as 200,000 (one said 470,000), and the Jin army only had 60,000, no matter how you look at it, it is impossible to lose.

Guo Zhiyuan knew that the Ming army would be defeated in this battle, because although the Ming army had the advantage of troops, it was demoralized, the pace was inconsistent, the generals were not in harmony, and they constrained each other, and the commander-in-chief Yang Hao was stubborn and self-serving, and mistakenly adopted the tactics of dividing the troops, dividing the troops into four ways, saying that he wanted to encircle and annihilate the Houjin army, Nurhachi also saw these weaknesses of the Ming army, and formulated the policy of "relying on a few roads, I will only go all the way", concentrated troops, broke each one, broke the three Ming troops within 5 days, annihilated the Ming army of about 50,000 people, and captured more than 28,000 camels and animals such as mules and horses. There are more than 20,000 firearms, and countless other types of military materials, which makes the strength of gold expand rapidly after the war!

Although Guo Zhiyuan has no loyalty to the increasingly corrupt imperial court, he is also unwilling to sit back and watch the tragedy of history repeat itself, because the battle of Salhu is not only a turning point in the fate of the Ming Dynasty, but also a turning point in the fate of the entire Chinese nation.

So Guo Zhiyuan took the initiative to ask the court to send troops to Liaodong to participate in the war, and also said that all the food and salary could be raised by himself, and there was no need for the court to bother, but the court didn't accept his affection at all, what do you Guo Zhiyuan want to do? Raise your own food to help the court fight? When did you become so kind? It's clearly ill-intentioned! You'd better stay in Dongfan honestly!

Guo Zhiyuan had already expected this result, and Emperor Wanli was already jealous of him, how could he rest assured that he would take tens of thousands of Zixin troops to Liaodong, which was so close to the capital? If your support for Liaodong is fake, and your plot is true, when the imperial court has no time to deal with Houjin, you suddenly rebel and attack the capital, won't it be troublesome?

Therefore, Guo Zhiyuan could only retreat to the second, and then gave the court a twist, expressing his willingness to dedicate 100,000 taels of silver to the court as military salary, in which Guo Zhiyuan also analyzed in detail the advantages and disadvantages of the Ming Dynasty army compared with the Later Jin, and reminded the Ming army commander on the Liaodong front line not to use the tactics of dividing troops, but to concentrate his forces and seek a decisive battle with the Houjin troops, otherwise he will be defeated!

Emperor Wanli was very happy to see the first half of Guo Zhiyuan's recital, it seems that this Guo Zhiyuan is still loyal to me, knowing that I am short of silver, he sent me silver, but when I saw the second half of the face, my face was gloomy, this battle has not yet started, you kid predicted that this battle will be lost, isn't this a bad head?

However, if you are unhappy, Emperor Wanli still has some vision, and he sees that there is a certain amount of truth in Guo Zhiyuan's analysis of the respective advantages and disadvantages of the Ming army and the Houjin army, so he transferred Guo Zhiyuan's letter to Yang Hao, who was responsible for commanding the battle on the front line in Liaodong!

What kind of person is Yang Hao, this guy is a typical villain who is a "layman in war, an expert in infighting"! The history books say that he "since the use of the pickaxe, the authority is not good, the rewards and punishments are not believed, the emphasis on personal relations and the neglect of the southern generals, the heroic and discouraged, cowardly, the guilty and sympathetic, the hero is short-breathed." ”。

Before the battle, Yang Hao did not do battlefield reconnaissance and analysis of the enemy situation at all, and seriously underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Houjin army, and said that he would completely annihilate the Houjin army and not let anyone slip through the net, thus making the wrong decision to divide the troops into four ways and attack together.

That's it, what's even more ridiculous is that Yang Ho was so stupid as to let the Houjin deserters bring a letter to Nurhachi before the war, threatening to gather 470,000 troops, and inform the real time and route of the troops, thinking that as soon as the Ming army arrives, Nurhachi will be tied up and ready to be captured, Nurhachi is about to die of laughter when he receives Yang Hao's letter, the Ming army has such a stupid commander, this battle can't be won, Houjin is clear about the movements of the Ming army, but the Ming army is black-eyed, and even the Houjin troops don't know where the Houjin troops are. It's like a deaf man beating four blind people, isn't that just knocking down one and beating one to death?

It is conceivable that such a person could listen to Guo Zhiyuan's advice, so Yang Hao just flipped through it casually after receiving Guo Zhiyuan's recital from Emperor Wanli, and then he was so angry that he threw it directly to the ground, sneering and saying: "Guo Zhiyuan is just an ignorant junior, and he is also worthy of talking about military affairs with this commander?" When Ben Shuai defeated Jiannu, he asked the Holy Lord for an order, led the troops south, broke Dongfan Island, and escorted this ignorant junior who had no court back to the capital for trial! ……”

Guo Zhiyuan knew that his suggestion would not be adopted by the imperial court, but he had to do something, even if he couldn't turn the tide of the war, at least he couldn't let Houjin win so easily, especially not let Houjin take advantage of the situation to further expand his power, otherwise the general trend would be successful, and it would be difficult for Guo Zhiyuan to reverse the situation even if he had a crossing advantage.