And the war in the northern Guanning area, after the beginning of March, it was very fierce, Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou and other more than 20,000 officers and soldiers, were surrounded by the Jiannu army of more than 100,000 troops in Ningyuan City, Huang Taiji sent people to Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou and others in the city several times to persuade them to surrender, but they were all categorically refused, so Huang Taiji sent a large number of Jiannu troops to launch a fierce attack on Ningyuan City.

Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou and others, then desperately resist inside and outside the city, the soldiers and civilians in the city at this time can basically be said to be united, stubbornly defending Ningyuan City, the people in the city collectively for the military to transport arrows and ammunition, take care of the wounded, and the generals, it is said that they are defending to the death, setting up artillery to bombard the Jiannu army outside the city, the two sides are fighting extremely fiercely, and Hong Chengchou takes the car camp as the line of defense, builds fortifications outside the city of Ningyuan, and prevents the Jiannu army from attacking the city, the siege of Ningyuan City is more than a month, and the defenders have repeatedly repelled the attacks of the Jiannu army.

But the situation is very bad for Ningyuan City, originally the Guanning army was short of food and salary, although some time ago they got a part of the grain provided to them by the large Chinese army, but Ningyuan City did not transport much grain, this more than a month, although the soldiers and civilians in Ningyuan City are frugal, but they are still exhausted of food, ammunition and arrows are almost exhausted, and gradually began to lose the ability to resist.

After April, all the mules and horses in Ningyuan City have been killed, and the soldiers and generals have eaten them, and after the mules and horses are killed, the soldiers and civilians in the city can only eat the bark and grass roots, and then even the bark and grass roots are eaten, and they will eat the corpses of the dead, and later even develop to the tragedy of killing some old and weak people to eat meat.

After these years of operation, the Jiannu army is also much stronger than in the early years, especially after they began to equip Hongyi cannons in large quantities, the firepower is not weaker than the Guanning army, the southern invasion of the Jiannu army, but also brought a lot of heavy Hongyi cannons, these cannons after the beginning of the siege, was Jiannu's Han army outside the city, almost day and night bombardment of Ningyuan City, the two sides launched an artillery battle inside and outside the city, the defenders' firepower was significantly weaker than the Jiannu army, so that a month down, Although Hong Chengchou led the army to block the repeated attacks of the Jiannu army, but the soldiers in the city also suffered heavy casualties, and the city wall of Ningyuan City was bombarded with holes and crumbling, and the soldiers and civilians in the city had to repair the city wall day and night between the bombardments, but as time went by, their resistance had reached the end of the crossbow.

However, the reinforcements they were looking forward to had not appeared outside Ningyuan City, although Chongzhen finally decided to send troops to rescue Ningyuan City, trying to rescue Hong Chengchou and the officers and soldiers in Ningyuan City back to Shanhaiguan, but the soldiers and horses available to the Ming Dynasty were too few at this time, after Yang Guozhu and Tang Tong were ordered, under the leadership of Zhang Ruolin, the prison army, they went out of Shanhaiguan before the end of March, but Zhang Ruolin This guy is just a bastard who has nothing to show for himself, he is a Guanning Army Supervisor, he is very arrogant, in the past two years, He didn't make trouble for Hong Chengchou, so much so that some people in the army said that they could not know Hong Duchen, but they only knew Zhang Jianjun! It can be seen how arrogant this Zhang Ruolin is in the army.

This time, the Jiannu army invaded the south, Hong Chengchou sat in Ningyuan, but this Zhang Jian army refused to stay in Ningyuan City under the pretext of excuse, but ran back to Shanhaiguan, and sat back in Shanhaiguan to watch Hong Chengchou's soldiers and horses were besieged in Ningyuan City, and did not want to rescue them, and now the imperial court ordered to send Yang Guozhu and Tang Tong to lead 40,000 troops to go out of Shanhaiguan to rescue Ningyuan City, Zhang Ruolin had no choice but to supervise the army out of Shanhaiguan Benningyuan.

But Zhang Ruolin is as timid as a mouse, Shanhaiguan to Ningyuan City, it is only more than 200 miles away, if it is fast, it will take two days to reach Ningyuan City, but Zhang Ruolin pressed the speed of the army, but he always refused to speed up the march, although Yang Guozhu repeatedly asked for orders to speed up, but Zhang Ruolin severely reprimanded, saying that he should be careful, and could not fall into the ambush of Jiannu, the result was more than 200 miles of road, they did not go for ten days, not to mention, the daily march was only a dozen miles at most, but not more than thirty miles, Zhang Ruolin ordered to camp.

In this way, the suddenness of the rush to help is naturally needless to say, the Jiannu side got the news early, Huang Taiji even ordered Dolgon and Duoduo to lead more than 30,000 Jiannu troops, bypassing Ningyuan and going south, blocking Yang Guozhu and Tang Tong's reinforcements in the Liugu River, and the two sides launched a big battle in the Liugu River.

Yang Guozhu led his troops to try to break through the Jiannu army several times, but because Zhang Ruolin dragged his feet, he failed to succeed, but it made the army disheartened, and was defeated by Dolgon, and Zhang Ruolin saw that the situation was not good, and actually led the standard battalion to retreat, Tang Tong was not a person who dared to fight, and never dared to fight to the death with the Jiannu army, Zhang Ruolin retreated, he also immediately led his troops to retreat, and as a result, Yang Guozhu's rear road was cut off by Duoduo's army, which suddenly caused the collapse of Yang Guozhu's department, Yang Guozhu led his troops to break through the siege, but in the end it was unsuccessful, Yang Guozhu was hit by several arrows and several bullets on the battlefield, and died on the spot in the chaos.

Tang Tong escorted Zhang Ruolin to flee towards Shanhaiguan like a desperate man, but was caught up and killed by Duoduo's troops, and the whole army was defeated, and the last available army of the Ming Dynasty who went out of Shanhaiguan to rescue Ning Yuan was completely collapsed.

The rout is not any combat effectiveness at all, under the cover of the Jiannu army, a large number of officers and soldiers were chased to the sea, and finally more than 10,000 officers and soldiers were driven into the sea, including Zhang Ruolin, and they were not spared, and they were drowned in the sea. But their behavior is still singable and weeping.

After this battle, only Tang Tong took a very small number of soldiers and returned to Shanhaiguan to escape, but the Ming Dynasty also completely lost the power to rescue Ningyuan City, and could only sit back and watch the fall of Ningyuan City.

After the news reached Jingshi, Zhu Youzhen was silent for a long time on the main hall, neither crying nor scolding, as if the old monk had settled down, and did not say a word for almost half a day, until he suddenly coughed violently for a while, spit out a mouthful of blood, and immediately fainted on the dragon chair.

Yang Guozhu was defeated and died, and the news that the reinforcements were defeated and almost wiped out was quickly spread to the left army of the large Chinese army in the Xuanda area, Lu Xiangsheng learned the news that Yang Guozhu died on the battlefield, and immediately cried loudly, Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Guozhu had a very good relationship, when Lu Xiangsheng was the governor of Xuanda, Yang Guozhu was his subordinate, and when he entered the guard, Yang Guozhu always followed his side to obey orders, Yang Guozhu's loyalty Lu Xiangsheng knew that Yang Guozhu could choose to surrender to the Chinese army in XuandaIn this case, Yang Guozhu had no problem saving his life, but Yang Guozhu finally rejected Lu Xiangsheng's persuasion to surrender, although he gave up Xuanda, but he led his troops into the pass, and led his troops to aid Ning Yuan under the order, he could have gone without the order, but he finally resolutely led his troops out of the pass to the north, and finally died on the battlefield.

In fact, Yang Guozhu should be very aware of the danger of their trip, whether it is in terms of troops, morale or even equipment, they have no advantage in dealing with the Jiannu army that went south this time, and going out to rescue Ningyuan is largely a risky operation, once it fails, there is no possibility of escaping back to Shanhaiguan at all, but Yang Guozhu finally chose to lead his troops to go on the expedition, embarked on this road to hell, and finally became a martyr.

This is not only Lu Xiangsheng admires Yang Guozhu very much, even Yan Chongxi and other generals of the Great Chinese Army, but also very respectful of Yang Guozhu's personality, Yan Chongxi immediately ordered in Xuanfu Town, for Yang Guozhu to build an ancestral hall, and find craftsmen for Yang Guozhu statue, for people to worship his heroic spirit, many years later, this Yang Guozhu ancestral hall, also by Xiao Tianjian renamed the Martyrs' Shrine, Yang Guozhu's descendants have also been properly cared for by the Great Middle Dynasty.

At this time, the situation in Guanning was already very dangerous, although Wu Xiang once again served as the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, but at this time, there were only less than 20,000 officers and troops stationed along the Shanhaiguan, and it was impossible to rescue Ningyuan, and even guarding Shanhaiguan had become a big problem.

At this time, the General Staff of Li Xin of the Central Route Army sent someone to the Left Route Army to transfer a holy decree from Xiao Tianjian, ordering the Left Route Army to immediately organize its troops out of Juyong Pass and rush to Shanhaiguan along the Great Wall.

Once the Ming army tried to stop them, they were defeated on the spot, but the left army did not have to think about the affairs of the Beijing division for the time being, all their energy should be put on the front line of Shanhaiguan, the capital of the Ming Dynasty was already like a ripe apple, which could be picked at any time, and now the Ming Jingshi did not have the strength to do anything big, leaving them to survive for a while, and it was the most important thing to solve the matter of the construction of slaves that entered the pass first.

After Yan Chongxi and the others got this order, they no longer hesitated, at this time the situation had reached an extremely dangerous level, the Dazhong Army was actually fighting with Jiannu for time and space, it depended on who would control the Shanhaiguan area first, as for taking the Daming Jingshi, it has now become an inconsequential matter.

Therefore, the Left Route Army quickly began to assemble in Yanqing Prefecture in Xuanfu Town, and with Wang Chengping as the vanguard, it began to enter Badaling and march towards Juyong Pass, and Lu Xiangsheng, the supervising army, also took the initiative to ask Ying to go to Juyong Pass with the forward army.

(Today's special thanks to the zzpiggy brothers for their tip!) Thank you very much! ）