However, money is money after all.

If you have money in your hand, you can use it to reward the three armies and boost morale; You can buy food to fill the stomachs of the soldiers; You can repair and replenish weapons and improve combat effectiveness.

Whether as a military commander or as a political leader, Huang Taiji is more sophisticated and mature than the young Emperor Chongzhen - how could he not understand these truths that even Emperor Chongzhen understands?

Therefore, the Ming army on the opposite side has undergone earth-shaking changes in just one day, and it is not an unreasonable thing.

And the only thing that made him feel strange was the five-grade official named "Ji Qingwen".

If the rumors are true, then where did Ji Qingwen get the huge sum of more than 2.5 million taels of silver?

With so much money, why didn't he directly fill his own pockets and want to dedicate it to the imperial court?

Since it is to be dedicated to the imperial court, why not go directly to the emperor to ask for merit and reward, but instead go around in a circle to pass through the hands of the court officials?

What is the origin of this Ji Qingwen?

Why do you have these strange thoughts?

This series of questions made Huang Taiji's round, bare, bare head, with only a braid at the back of his head, dizzy.

However, now is not the time to entangle Ji Qingwen, a nobody, Emperor Chongzhen, Sun Chengzong, Yuan Chonghuan, Man Gui, Zu Dashou and others inside and outside the huge capital in front of him are the people that Huang Taiji really needs to deal with seriously.

So Huang Taiji saw that the opponent's strength was slowly recovering, and his own advantage was slowly weakened at the same time, and finally came up with an effective work measure that was common in ancient and modern China and foreign countries - a meeting!

When it comes to meetings, the Manchurians are not monolithic.

There are two main forces that unite around Huang Taiji, cooperate with each other and tilt each other:

On the one hand, there are the owners of the Eight Banners of Manchuria and the generals of the Eight Banners, most of whom are Huang Taiji's own brothers and cousins, who hold actual military power in their hands and are the core force of the Eight Banners of Manchuria;

On the other hand, it is the Han people recruited by Huang Taiji who surrendered to Manchuria, these humanities include Fan Wencheng, Ning Wanme, Wu Li Yongfang, Bao Chengxian and others, although they are not Manchurians, but because of the importance of Huang Taiji, they also have a lot of right to speak.

To form a situation in which these two aspects contain and cooperate with each other, Huang Taiji also needs to thank Ji Qingwen.

It turned out that Ji Qingwen defeated the elite of Dai Shanzheng's Red Banner in one fell swoop in the encounter with Emperor Taiji's brother, Da Beile Daishan, and severely injured the eldest brother under Nurha's knees, and he is still lying on the bed unable to move, let alone come forward to discuss matters.

Dai Shan's injury is equivalent to suppressing the biggest opposition within Manchuria for Huang Taiji, and to a certain extent, realizing the unification of affairs and powers in the real sense.

Therefore, the meeting convened by Huang Taiji on November 18 in the second year of Chongzhen (that is, the third year of Huang Taiji's self-reliant Tiancong) went very smoothly, and both the Manchu and Han sides came up with their own opinions.

Most of the Manchus believed that this raid on Xifengkou and the entry into the pass was the greatest success since the Battle of Sarhu, and even Nurhachi might not be able to do it during his reign. Therefore, as Cao Cao said in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", you can't get Longwangshu, and after looting around Beijing, you should accept it as soon as you see it and return to spend the winter outside the Guan.

The Han Chinese, on the other hand, believed that if they plundered and left, they would give the impression that Manchuria was nothing more than a few Yidi Liukou, and that only by deciding to attack the Jingshi—and whether or not they could actually attack it—could they declare to the world that the Manchurians were determined to destroy the Ming Dynasty and replace it.

The reason why Huang Taiji is Huang Taiji is because he is stronger than all Manchurians in terms of intelligence and martial arts, and his mind and vision are far above everyone.

He listened to the opinions of the two sides, and felt that taking advantage of the fact that his troops were strong and the Ming army had not yet fully recovered its combat effectiveness, attacking the Ming Jing Division would not only strengthen his momentum and show that he had the ambition to seize the world, but also try to eliminate the main force of Liaodong's iron cavalry stationed outside the Guangqu Gate.

After all, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry and Guan Jinning Defense Line under Yuan Chonghuan are the thorns in the eyes and flesh of Huang Taiji!

The decision had been made, and there was no obstacle from the Great Baylor Daishan, and Huang Taiji's military order was issued very smoothly -- with the main force of the Manchurian Eight Banners, which had the strongest combat effectiveness and the highest loyalty, as the core, after resting for a day on 19 November, the troops attacked Yuan Chonghuan's headquarters stationed outside the Guangqu Gate in the east, and the headquarters of Man Gui and Hou Shilu stationed at the Desheng Gate in the west.

The battle report of Huang Taiji's intention to attack Jingshi drifted into Jingshi, into the Forbidden City, and on the case of Emperor Chongzhen's book in the Qianqing Palace.

The young emperor was already in a panic when he faced such a situation for the first time.

Sun Chengzong, who was assisted by the counselor on the side, was afraid that he, the emperor's student, would be in a panic and give orders indiscriminately to disrupt the war situation, and finally took all military affairs into his own hands regardless of personal gains and losses.

Emperor Chongzhen also realized for the first time that the only way to win was to entrust the military affairs to Sun Chengzong.

Therefore, in addition to the gold medal order arrow and Shang Fang sword that had already been handed over to Sun Chengzong, all the military power tokens that could be given such as the royal order banner and the tiger talisman were handed over to Sun Chengzong.

So one after another clear and clear military orders were issued from Sun Chengzong's mouth, and flew out of the Qianqing Palace, the Forbidden City, and the Beijing Division.

First of all, it ordered the whole city of Beijing to be under martial law, all the nine gates of the inner city were closed, and the seven gates of the outer city were also closed, and the Yamen officials of the Beijing Division, Shuntianfu, Jinyiwei, Dongchang, and Xichang all went to the streets to inspect the streets, and it was strictly forbidden for the people to go out and wander around.

The second is the deployment of the defense of the Beijing Division. Although, according to intelligence, the focus of the enemy's attack was on Guangqu Gate in the southeast and Desheng Gate in the northwest. However, Huang Taiji used troops flexibly and strangely, in order to prevent him from attacking for a while, he turned to attack the other gates of the Beijing Division, so the Beijing Division garrison should all go to the city wall to guard, and all the food and drink should be left on the city wall, and there could be no moments of negligence.

Among them, Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua were in charge of the firearms of the Beijing city wall, except for the fake, bad, and unusable firearms that were vacant on the city wall, the rest of the muskets and artillery should fully support Yuan Chonghuan, Man Gui and other units fighting under the city.

Then he ordered Mangui outside the Desheng Gate and Yuan Chonghuan outside the Guangqu Gate to be ready for a decisive battle with the Manchurian soldiers and horses. At the same time, He Shiwei, the commander-in-chief of Changping stationed in Sanhe, was ordered to be ready to cooperate with Yuan Chonghuan's actions at any time.

As for the 500 elite soldiers of Ji Qingwen's department, Sun Chengzong kept an eye on it, and didn't want them to use Huang Taiji's elite hard work in this battle, so he ordered him to continue to rest in the outer city, and only transferred 200 musketeers to the city wall of Guangqumen to cheer for Yuan Chonghuan.

Such an arrangement is unfair and somewhat selfish, but most of the officials in the court have received Ji Qingwen's gold, so no one will be impeached at this time.

Although the time was short, the people of the Ming Dynasty and Manchuria were within the scope of their capabilities, and they made proper preparations within their capabilities, and the war was about to break out!

Because Ji Qingwen's department sent 200 musketeers to fight in the Guangqu Gate Tower, Ji Qingwen also took this opportunity to climb the Guangqu Gate with the army, and it was also just right to see the style of the battle commanded by Yuan Chonghuan, the commander of Jiliao.

I don't know if Ji Qingwen's pair of myopic eyes that he practiced as a yard farmer for two years in later generations also traveled to the end of the Ming Dynasty, his eyesight was not very good, and the telescope he got from Zheng Zhilong was taken by Yuan Chonghuan as his own.

Therefore, Ji Qingwen was on the top of the tall Guangqu Gate Tower, he could only hit the pergola with his hands, squinted his eyes and looked west?—— only to see the dust in the west, and faintly there was a sound of shouting and killing in his ears - the Manchurian soldiers and horses had been killed.

Yuan Chonghuan, who was under the Guangqu Gate, was not in a hurry, and divided the 20,000 people under his command, including 9,000 Liaodong Iron Cavalry, into three teams. Among them, Zu Dashou led a team in the southeast, He Kegang led a team in the northwest, Yuan Chonghuan led a team in the west, and Lu Xiangshengtian's army responded in the rear flank, forming a "product" formation, waiting for the Manchurian Eight Banners to attack.