Chongzhen also did follow the design of Huang Taiji, and transferred a large number of Liaodong Army and Guanning Army into the Guannei to deal with the Xingtian Army, but what made Huang Taiji greatly discouraged was that these Ming officials and soldiers were too weak, after all walks of life entered the pass, not only did they defeat the Xingtian Army as he expected, but also failed to fundamentally weaken the strength of the Xingtian Army, but after several soldiers and horses went south, they were frozen and disintegrated under the front of the Xingtian Army, first Wang Pu's army was defeated, and then at the end of March, Wu Sangui, Bai Guangen, Ma Ke and other troops were defeated in Yanggu County, Sun Chuanting was captured by Xiao Tianjian, Wu Sangui died in the chaos, Bai Guangen was forced by Ma Ke to surrender to the Xingtian Army, and Ma Ke was later cut off by Fu Zonglong.

Chongzhen's last fight that he managed to organize with great difficulty, so he completely failed in front of Xiao Tianjian and the Xingtian Army under his command, not only did he not be able to save the defeat, but he lost the last batch of soldiers and horses available in his hands, many of which turned against the Xingtian Army afterwards and surrendered, but it boosted the strength of the Xingtian Army, and also made the original idea set by Huang Taiji not fundamentally realized, at most, it greatly weakened the strength of the Ming Dynasty inside and outside Shanhaiguan.

The defeat of the Ming Dynasty not only made Zhu Youzhen discouraged, but even the slave chiefs of the Emperor Taiji who were watching the internal war outside the pass were also disappointed, after the defeat of Sun Chuanting, the construction of slaves was basically and certain, the Ming Dynasty was finished! In the next step, it is only a matter of time before the Xingtian Army will unify the Central Plains.

As a result, Jiannu suddenly had a sense of crisis again, and had to speed up the preparations for the next step and the Xingtian Army to make sufficient preparations in advance for the enemy.

In fact, in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Dolgon, Yue Tuo returned to the Guanwai, Huang Taiji learned about the strength of the Xingtian Army, and began to prepare for the next step to deal with the Xingtian Army, in the 12th year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji ordered the original two banners of the Han army to be expanded into eight banners, since then completely formed the Manchurian Eight Banners, Mongolian Eight Banners, Han Army Eight Banners such as the Eight Banners system, but also made the establishment of the Han Eight Banners, was advanced by more than a year.

After the decision was made to establish the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty, a large number of Han people in Liaodong and a large number of Han people who were taken captive outside the Guanwai and the Han army that surrendered to Jiannu were incorporated into the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty.

Moreover, Huang Taiji accepted Dolgon's suggestion and issued a decree to collect Han craftsmen in various iron-producing places outside the Guan, on the one hand, and on the other hand, use these Han craftsmen to increase the intensity of casting artillery and building bird guns, and re-select the firearms such as firearms, bird guns, and three-eyed guns of the Ming Dynasty officials and soldiers that were originally captured, and distribute them to the Han army of various banners, and ordered these Han army banner owners to increase the training of the Han army under their command, intending to govern them in their own way.

Therefore, from the end of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the entire Guanwai Jiannu control area, everywhere is the Han army that is training the use of firearms, especially in Shengjing (Shenyang) and Liaoyang outside the Guan, it is a forest of iron furnaces, a large number of craftsmen day and night to cast cannons and build firearms such as birds, but also set up a lot of workshops, specializing in the manufacture of gunpowder, after this year, Jiannu has armed tens of thousands of Han troops, these Han troops also follow the tactics and establishment of the Xingtian Army, basically all of them are mainly infantry troops, and nearly half of the soldiers in the army use firearms, It really looks a bit like the tactics of the Xingtian Army.

After the Xingtian Army defeated the official army under the command of Sun Chuanting in Yanggu County, the news soon spread to the outside of the Guan, when Huang Taiji and a group of slave chieftains expected that the Xingtian Army was likely to be defeated after the Liaodong Army entered the pass, and would directly wave the army north to attack Jingfu and Shandong, and finally attack the Ming Jingshi and seize the world, so they immediately began to mobilize troops in April of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen to gather in the Jinzhou area, preparing that once the Xingtian Army went north, they would also go south together, give Daming a beating water dog, and strive to seize the front of the Xingtian Army, Conquer the area of Shanhaiguan, hit the Ming Jingshi, and seize the city of Beijing.

Huang Taiji and his subordinate slave chiefs actually had a very simple idea, that is, they wanted to emulate the situation of the Great Liao and the Northern Song Dynasty back then, and seize the land of Yanyun before the establishment of the Xingtian Army, forming a situation of condescending overlooking the Central Plains, and laying the foundation for the future and the Xingtian Army to seize the Central Plains for the enemy.

How many people who know a little bit of history know that when the Northern Song Dynasty was founded, the Liao State was actually very strong, and decades earlier than the Northern Song Dynasty, Shi Jingjiao in order to be the emperor and obtain the strong support of the Liao State, ceded the Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures to the Liao State, and the Northern Song Dynasty spent more than a hundred years trying to recapture the Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, all of which were unsuccessful, and the Liao State was repeatedly defeated, and even when the Liao State was about to fall, it was not able to defeat the remaining Liao army to control the land of Yanyun.

Therefore, Huang Taiji and his subordinate slave chieftains also thought that as long as they controlled the land of Yanyun in advance, then even if Xiao Tianjian and his Xingtian army established a country in the future, they could only face such a fait accompli, and it would be even more difficult to regain the land of Yanyun from their Great Qing Kingdom.

However, Huang Taiji's transfer of the Jiannu Army also immediately attracted the attention of the current Jiliao Governor Hong Chengchou, Hong Chengchou is still very loyal to the Ming Dynasty at the moment, and he does not believe that Huang Taiji will negotiate peace with the Ming Dynasty sincerely, so when he was in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he opposed it vigorously, but because he knew that when he knew it, the wood had already become a boat, and Hong Chengchou was unable to return to the sky, so he could only evacuate Jinzhou City by order, led his troops to withdraw to Ningyuan, and moved a large number of Han people in the original Jinzhou area to the Ningyuan area. Chen soldiers were deployed to strictly prevent Jiannu from taking the opportunity to go south again.

In the past year, although the imperial court has transferred a large number of officers and soldiers from outside the customs into the customs, so that the officers and soldiers under the command of Hong Chengchou are not as good as before, but Hong Chengchou has still made great efforts to enhance the military strength of Liaodong, and at the same time asked the emperor Zhu Youzhen to change the situation of the previous order of the multi-headed, put the power in his hands, and unify the regulation and control of the Liaodong armies.

As soon as the Jiannu army moved, Hong Chengchou discovered it in advance, so he immediately mobilized Liaodong soldiers and horses to reinforce Ningyuan and Shanhaiguan, and this time both sides made relatively full preparations for war.

Jiannu dispatched more than 100,000 Manchurian, Mongolian and Han Eight Banners troops, first gathered in the Jinzhou area, ready to attack southward, while Hong Chengchou mobilized 50,000 troops to deploy defenses in Ningyuan and Shanhaiguan, and made a posture of not retreating.

It took more than two months for the two sides to prepare for the war, and when the war was about to break out, Huang Taiji found that he and his subordinates had misjudged the actions of the Xingtian Army, and after the Xingtian Army defeated the Ming official army in Yanggu County, it was not as they expected, and then immediately attacked Jingfu and Shandong and other places in the north, and only after controlling most of the territory of Shanxi, they began to divide their troops and put the direction of the main attack in the area of Nanzhili.

So Huang Taiji immediately judged that the next step of the Xingtian Army must be to fight Nanzhili first, and only after controlling Nanzhili and a large piece of Jiangnan territory can he attack northward, so he will fight Ningyuan now, obviously a little too impatient, after all, the Han Eight Banner has not been built for a long time, and the combat effectiveness is not very strong, and a lot of equipment has not yet been in place, and the time still allows him to prepare for a while longer, so after careful consideration, he discussed it with his subordinates and ministers, thinking that he would immediately attack Ningyuan and enter the customs. It's better to wait a little longer and be more fully prepared, after all, Hong Chengchou still has sixty or seventy thousand officers and troops to mobilize, these officers and soldiers are stubbornly defending the key passes, if they want to take the land of Yanyun, they will definitely have to fight hard, it is better to wait and see the limelight, and find a better time before it is too late.

As a result, in June of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Jinzhou, Ningyuan and other places that were already full of war clouds, suddenly the Jiannu army began to retreat again and returned to their territory, which made the war suddenly dissipate invisibly, and as a result, Hong Chengchou and many Liaodong generals worked in vain for a while, and spent a lot of money and food.

And this time Huang Taiji's withdrawal, but it is also quite a wise move, although Chongzhen in the first thirteenth year of the official army into the pass in the battle against the Xingtian army in the defeat and loss, but the north of the remaining officers and troops still have considerable combat effectiveness, at this time the official army has not yet appeared serious shortage of food and wages, the remaining officers and troops still have considerable strength to make full use of the advantages of the terrain to confront it, if Huang Taiji launched an offensive in May and June, attacking Ningyuan and Shanhaiguan, it is really not a very easy thing.

But after a few months, the situation began to change dramatically, Xiao Tianjian led the Xingtian army to capture the city of Nanjing in October, and then quickly captured Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Suzhou, Songjiang and other places, completely cut off the supply of financial grain from Nanzhili to the northern Jingshi, so that the financial and grain reserves of the Ming court suddenly had a serious deficit, and the price of grain in the Jingshi also skyrocketed, not to mention the officials and soldiers guarding Guanning.

After the official army in the north entered October, they began to cut off the replenishment of food and salary, and there began to be a serious food shortage in the army and localities, and the local food was simply not enough to feed so many people and the army, and at the end of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, that is, when Xiao Tianjian was in full swing in Nanjing City to prepare for the enthronement and establish the country, there was a serious food shortage in the entire Guanning area.

At this time, the Guanning army could no longer get the military salary it should receive, and even the problem of eating enough began to appear, and some generals did not hesitate to start plundering the people in order to keep the soldiers fed, so that the situation in the Guanning area immediately fell into chaos.