Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan and other places in the Ming Dynasty finally fell into the hands of the peasant rebel army headed by Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, except for a few important towns that were firmly held by the Ming Dynasty army, the rest of the large rural areas have become the territory of the rebel army, and more county government yamen has been in the tug-of-war between the two sides, sometimes occupied by the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers, sometimes occupied by the peasant rebel army.

In order to deal with the strong counterattack of the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers, Li Zicheng distributed the generals of the peasant army such as Tianxing and Liu Zongmin in the Henan border with Luoyang as the center, desperately counterattacking the counteroffensive of the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers.

The peasant rebel army was able to hold on, thanks to the large-scale mobilization of the Qing Iron Cavalry at the end of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, which helped it share a large number of troops.

The Qing people experienced a man-made smallpox epidemic, and their national strength was greatly damaged.

Jurchen generals such as Duoduo, Dolgon, Amin, and Aobai gathered the elite cavalry of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, as well as a lot of Han and Korean soldiers under their command, claiming to have 300,000 troops, and killed the Ningjin defense line, which had just been stable for more than a year.

The Huang Taiji, who sat in the center of Shengjing, organized tens of thousands of soldiers of the Eight Banners who stayed behind to strictly defend the coastal area, and marched in a mobile manner, making a good posture of guarding Dongjiang Town, so that the soldiers of Dongjiang Town did not dare to act rashly.

In the face of the rare Jurchen army coming over for many years, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Xuliao, who had been painstakingly managing the Ningjin defense line, stepped up the deployment of troops and dispatched generals, and on the other hand, quickly asked the imperial court for help and urgency, and asked the imperial court to be prepared for emergencies.

With such a large army, the Qing people made full preparations, and vowed to take Ningyuan and Jinzhou, the last two important towns of the Ming army outside the Guanwai, so that Hong Chengchou, the governor of Ningyuan, had never slept well since he knew that the opponent's army was coming to the city.

In the past two years, the huge wealth of the families of several major rebel families in Jinzhong has been exhausted, and the Ming household department has become poor and white again, and every year it is almost the middle of the year, and the income of one year old is consumed, and then it can only be used to shirk and send additional means to send border soldiers and raise military funds.

This made the combat effectiveness of the Ming army at the border pass lower and lower in the past few years, which formed a sharp contrast with the strong Qing army, which was also an important reason why Li Tianyang had been reluctant to set foot in the mess of the Ming Dynasty's military field.

However, at the time of the current national crisis, even if it is not for the sake of the country, for the sake of their relatives behind the lotus, this group of soldiers at the Liaodong border pass can only desperately stalemate with each other.

And when the superintendent Sun Chengzong established the Ningjin defense line, he also considered the problem of being besieged by the Qing army, and the two important towns that were horns of each other were in the stable time of last year, and the superintendent Hong Chengchou was not idle, although the military salary was owed by the imperial court, but the grain produced by the local Tun army, the supplies in the south of the Yangtze River, and the output of the people in several provinces were integrated and placed in important towns such as Shanhaiguan and Ningyuan.

Coupled with the complete repair of the city fortifications and the dozens of artillery pieces transported from the south, not to mention the Ningjin defense line was built impregnable, but it was not easy for the Qing people to take down.

The two sides were in a stalemate on the Ningjin defense line for more than two months, during which the Qing Dynasty had countless siege operations, and was finally repelled by the remaining generals such as Cao Bianjiao and Wu Sangui, but in the same way, in the destruction of the Qing army again and again, the two cities of Ningjin were also crumbling.

Especially when there is no other stronghold built by the Ming army outside the pass, except for the two fortified cities of Ningjin, Hong Chengchou, as a supervisor, knows that this battle is really going to be defeated.

The elite iron cavalry of the Qing people has not yet been dispatched, almost just sending the Han army and the Korean army under their command, at most plus the Mongolian Eight Banners soldiers, they have almost captured the city of Ningjin City several times, if it were not for the existence of fierce generals like Cao Bianjiao and Wu Sangui, the city would have been captured by the Qing people a long time ago.

It is true that the Qing people lost nearly 50,000 troops in the siege of the city for more than two months, but in the same way, the losses of the officers and soldiers stationed in the two cities of Ningjin and the surrounding strongholds also reached as much as 70,000 or 80,000.

This is still under the situation that the Ming army has a natural geographical advantage, with the help of powerful fortifications such as artillery, which is barely persevering.

However, with the last stronghold of the Ningjin defense line built by Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan outside the Guan, the last stronghold of the Ningjin defense line was removed, and the reinforcements in the Guannei did not dare to come to support the two cities of Ningjin in a rash manner, which actually means that the time for the final fall of the two cities of Ningjin is getting closer and closer.

The thirteenth day of the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen was supposed to be a day of joy, but for Hong Chengchou, the soldier and supervisor of the Daming border pass, it was a sad and frightening day.

Late at night on the 12th, the Qing Dynasty suddenly dispatched Jurchen elite soldiers to launch a surprise attack on Jinzhou City from the middle of the night, and soon climbed the outer city wall of Jinzhou City, and took the opportunity to open the east gate of the city.

The Qing Dynasty Iron Cavalry, which had been waiting for a long time, swarmed up, giving full play to the excellent mobility and skillful riding skills of its cavalry, and slaughtered from the East City Gate like a fierce tiger, announcing the countdown to Jinzhou City falling into the hands of the Qing Dynasty.

When the day dawned on the second day, the Qing army that rushed to kill overnight basically suppressed the Ming soldiers in Jinzhou City, and the remaining more than 100,000 Ming people in the city became prisoners of the enemy.

In this battle, the chief soldiers Zu Dabi and Sun Xianzu who were stuck in Jinzhou City were killed, and the rest of the general soldiers Cao Bianjiao and others led a small number of soldiers to break through and retreat.

After the fall of Jinzhou, it also meant that Ningyuan City lost its mutual reliance on each other's helpers, and Hong Chengchou, the supervisor who was sitting in Ningyuan City at that time, immediately made a decision, and when the Qing army poured more troops into Jinzhou's attack and defense, and had no time to return to Ningyuan, he integrated the remaining officers and soldiers and people in Ningyuan City, and suddenly protruded from the south gate on the night of the 14th, and retreated in the direction of Shanhaiguan with the Qing army besieging Ningyuan.

In the meantime, the Ming soldiers lost their armor, and even used the old, weak, sick and disabled soldiers to break off with the people of Ningyuan who went south together, and finally only more than 10,000 officers and soldiers of Ningyuan fled into Shanhaiguan.

And the people of Ningyuan in Daming, who went south together, suffered heavy losses, and the more than 10,000 Ningyuan people who originally acted together were only a few hundred households that could enter Shanhaiguan in the end, and the rest either died under the pursuit of the Jurchen Iron Cavalry or became prisoners of the other party.

(End of chapter)