In the city of Yizhou, Xiong Tingbi, the overseer of the Northeast Military Region, and the general soldier Man Gui and Xu Chengming sat silently, all looking at Huang Taiji's letter with the smell of demonstration. Xiong Tingbi used to be a hot-tempered person, and he didn't accept anyone else except for the people he looked at in the Manchu Dynasty, but he almost didn't see anything pleasing to the eye, so after he committed the crime, no one spoke for him and his head was almost cut off, and after this setback, he also became unwilling to talk more. Man Gui is a Mongolian, who is originally a person who has more actions than words, and Xu Chengming is a newcomer from Guizhou, and he does not dare to be presumptuous, so the three of them don't talk much.

Xiong Tingbi looked at Xu Chengming's clothes and said, "Are the clothes made of duck down warm?" ”

Xu Chengming said: "It's warmer than cotton, it's about the same as sheepskin, but it's thinner than a sheepskin jacket and neat on the body." ”

Xiong Tingbi nodded and said, "Since it's warm, I'm relieved, I'm worried that if your clothes are not warm, your people will all freeze on the mountain." ”

Xu Chengming said: "This is specially given by the emperor, in order to have a good set of armor when fighting in winter, with warm clothes and weapons at hand, we can completely station all the people on the mountains on both sides, so that the emperor Taiji can not move an inch, why only guard the west and not the east?" ”

Xiong Tingbi said: "This is the order of the Military Affairs Yuan, you just carry it out, as long as the enemy does not come to attack, you will stay on the mountain, if the enemy attacks, you will slowly retreat, you are on the mountain, he is cut off the road under the mountain, and he is not afraid of him coming up." ”

Seeing that Xiong Tingbi didn't say the reason, Xu Chengming had to accept it, Man Gui said at this time: "Since Huang Taiji is going to attack the city at noon, and the soldiers in the city are not much withdrawn, Lord Xiong will go with me now." ”

Xiong Tingbi shook his head and said, "Don't be busy first, since Huang Taiji wants to salute first and then soldier, I will delay him for a while." There are still four days to go before the Chinese New Year, and I am afraid that he will cause you trouble by walking along the east side. ”

Man Gui said: "I see that there are only twenty or thirty thousand Jurchens outside the city, maybe there are still people in Huang Taiji who have not arrived, if he walks along the east side and does not approach the mountain in the west, then his troops are a long snake formation." I don't think it's possible for him to recklessly place his own long snake formation in the mountain path where we can attack at any time without first clearing out General Xu's men. ”

Xiong Tingbi shook his head and said: "I'll give him a letter back, don't let people laugh at us for not knowing how to exchange etiquette, there are still four days left before the New Year, and it can be delayed for a day." ”

Near noon, Huang Taiji received a reply from the city of Yizhou, in which Xiong Tingbi said that the Ming court had made huge concessions, and the army also retreated to the right and then retreated to the Daling River and retreated to Yizhou, which shows the sincerity of the Ming Dynasty to love peace and avoid fighting. And the Jurchen soldiers first captured Phi Dao and then killed our Ming soldiers in Jinzhou, and now after occupying Jinzhou, they are in Yizhou, and they look brave and ruthless, and they don't know what the Jurchens have for their purpose. If Huang Taiji really wants this Yiju City, it is not impossible, but please stop the siege first and explain what the real intention is.

Seeing that Xiong Tingbi said that Yizhou could also give in, Huang Taiji was immediately a little confused, and the Ming army in Youtun, Dalinghe Fort, Jinzhou and other places had not really fought hard with themselves, compared with the previous style of fighting to the end, it was like a group of people, and there must be fraud in it. According to the example mentioned in the book, this tactic of fighting and retreating is mostly to lure the enemy into the depths, is the Ming army trying to lure themselves into the trap step by step to eliminate it, Huang Taiji is a little puzzled. The strength of the Ming army has improved, but it is still impossible to annihilate all the 80,000 Jurchen soldiers, unless they get into the most unfavorable terrain.

Huang Taiji looked at Yizhou in front of him, and after looking at the mountains beside him on both sides of Yizhou City, he had a certain calculation in his heart. According to the intelligence, no human beings were found on the eastern mountain, and now it is winter that no human footprints have been found in the snow on the mountain, indicating that the Ming army has no intention of stationing on the eastern mountain at all. The mountain to the west is the place where the Ming army has been operating for several years, all the roads up and down the mountain have been man-made, truncated and flattened, the whole mountain looks like a solid thickened Great Wall from the outside, there is no road to go up, you have to go up unless you dig a road or build a ladder.

The sentinel came back and said that although he couldn't go up on the mountain in the west, he could see that there were Ming troops on it and there were quite a few of them, so did the Ming army really want to set up an ambush here? But it was so open and it didn't look like an ambush, Huang Taiji really couldn't think of any conspiracy and tricks of the Ming army.

If he couldn't think of it, he didn't want to, so Huang Taiji made up his mind to take Yizhou first, and then wait until the follow-up troops and Dolgon and others arrived, and then advance along the mountains on both sides to drive the Ming army back to his hometown. Of course, if the Ming army is willing to go by himself, it is purely unwise to fight with the enemy in unfavorable terrain, and 20,000 people fought with Mao Wenlong in Jinzhou, Huang Taiji is still a little distressed, and he has made up his mind not to do such a stupid thing again until he has to.

In order to achieve the goal of surrendering the army without a fight, and also to wait for all the follow-up troops to arrive, Huang Taiji asked the clerk to write a letter to Xiong Tingbi again. The letter said that he had heard of Xiong Tingbi's name for a long time, and for the sake of peace between the two sides and following the virtues of God, Dajin Tiancong Khan decided to postpone the siege of the city for one day. Xiong Tingbi can come early if he is willing to surrender, if he is not willing to surrender, he must withdraw from Yizhou within a day, and the real purpose of Dajin is to let all the Ming troops retreat to the west of Ningyuan.

Xiong Tingbi did not delay after receiving Huang Taiji's letter, and immediately replied that he could temporarily withdraw from Yizhou, but whether to retreat to the west of Ningyuan depends on the will of Emperor Daming, and he can't be the master. Because of the large number of personnel, it is not easy for more than 40,000 people to retreat, and it is difficult to evacuate all of them in one day.

Huang Taiji replied that he disagreed, and the words of Tiancong Khan and the words of Emperor Ming were the same as Chrysostom, saying that one day would never change, that is, the city would definitely be attacked at noon tomorrow. This time, Xiong Tingbi did not reply to the letter, and Huang Taiji also set up camp to wait for the arrival of the follow-up troops, and the two sides spent a peaceful night in a tense situation.

Early the next morning, Dolgon came, in order to show his bravery Dolgon's request to attack Yizhou immediately, Huang Taiji thought about it and did not agree, he just asked Dolgon to try to attack the mountains west of Yizhou, so as to not only abide by the letter but also test the reality of the Ming army. Dolgon did not salute first and then soldier, and with 3,000 men he headed straight for the hill to the west, and the attacking troops carried long ladders in addition to their weapons, and were ready to climb the hill with great strength to drive away the hateful Ming army.

Dolgon's men and horses had just arrived at the foot of the mountain west of Uiju, and before they could spread out, they saw a lump of iron emitting white smoke thrown down the mountain. Probably in order to cooperate with these well-informed people, the iron lumps dropped by the Ming army on the mountain immediately exploded, the sound was loud and the smoke was frightening, and those who had participated in the battle of Ningyuan were even more frightened.

Seeing this, Huang Taiji immediately withdrew his troops, he only knew that the Ming army had a very powerful weapon during the battle of Ningyuan, which could explode and injure people if thrown in the crowd, but he did not expect that the Ming army would use it in Yizhou, which made him feel even more strange, could it be that the Ming army in Yizhou really had any big secrets? He also carefully inspected the soldiers who had been wounded in the Battle of Ningyuan, and found that most of the injured parts of these wounded were not protected by armor, such as the face, hands, neck, armpits, etc., which means that the penetration of this thing after the explosion was not particularly large, but because of the large number of injured fragments caused by the explosion.

According to these circumstances, Huang Taiji deliberately made some shields that could protect his head, and then it was useless to put them in Shenyang without much siege warfare, and now seeing that the Ming army began to use this thing again, Huang Taiji immediately ordered someone to go back and transport the special shield.

As soon as he sent people out, Dolgon came back, and Huang Taiji saw that Dolgon's face was not afraid, only unwilling, nodded with satisfaction and said, "I have already sent someone to get a special protective shield, you can rest and go again." ”

Dolgon said: "Yes, but I always feel that something is wrong, I heard that the weapon of the Ao Bai army is very powerful in throwing it into the crowd, causing it to explode and indiscriminately shoot and injure people, but today the Ming army on the mountain did not wait for our army to pass and began to lose it." The sound was loud and smoky, and it looked scary, but it didn't hurt a single person in our army, is there any way to say this? ”

Huang Taiji also felt strange when he heard it, this situation is not right, put people closer and blow them up bloody on the ground, isn't this deterrent effect more powerful? Why did it go ahead like firecrackers, as if to welcome Dolgon. Could it be that this weapon of the Ming army is a fake? But many Jurchen soldiers during the Battle of Ningyuan were killed by the Ming army's weapon, and those cries of wounds and pain would not be fake.

Huang Taiji looked at the sky and saw that it was not yet noon, and wanted to try the defense of Yizhou City but thought that he could not break his promise, so he said to Dolgon: "Since you suspect that the new weapons of the Ming army are in doubt, then you should go again, this time I will not interfere with your command, if the Ming army throws another iron lump that will explode, your subordinates will see blood and come back." ”

The Ming army on the mountain is Xu Chengming's troops, and now only he and his troops are left on the mountain, Xiong Tingbi received Huang Taiji's ultimatum yesterday, and quietly transferred with Man Gui from the back gate of Yizhou City overnight. Ni Yuanlu and Zhang Xiangan ran faster, after the two of them came to Yizhou three days earlier, they stopped for a while and went directly to Lianghekou along the Daling River Ancient Road. Before Ni Yuanlu left, he gave Xu Chengming a few boxes of iron lumps, and told Xu Chengming that this thing has no lethality, but it is loud, and if the enemy comes to attack, he can set this thing on fire and throw it down, which can scare people, and today Dolgon came to attack Xu Chengming and tried it, and the effect was not bad.

Before leaving, Xiong Tingbi solemnly told Xu Chengming that after the Ming army withdrew from Yizhou, only these people on the mountain remained, and they could keep retreating but not too fast. It is about sixty miles from Yiju to the bend of the Daling River, and it is impossible to retreat from this position before the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve. Of course, after the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve, Xu Chengming can retreat west along the river, where there are people who have ancestors and birthdays to answer, all for the time of the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve.