At the beginning of November, Beijing ushered in another heavy snowfall, and the entire Gyeonggi area was completely covered, and the glazed tiles of the palaces in Bauhinia City also became white.

Dorgon was sure that it would be another cold winter this year, but it was a pity that Dorgon did not make it to winter, leaving the Qing army to suffer another defeat.

"Old Fourteen, close the window!" Dai Shan sat in front of the brazier, his hands were on the fire, and when he saw the snowflakes pouring in through the window, and the cold wind blew his neck cold, he opened his mouth to say something, and then turned his head again, and plucked the flint in the basin with his tongs.

In the first battle of Yangzhou, Dolgon was also responsible, the Heavenly Dao cycle, he used Nanming's fantasy of peace before, and this time Nanming in turn also used him once.

If he hadn't thought of using Yangzhou in exchange for peace with Nanming, and had not withdrawn Yangzhou's soldiers and horses for a long time, more than 40,000 people would not have been buried in Yangzhou.

Dolgon stood in front of the window, was blown by the cold wind for a while, his mind cleared up, he listened to Dai Shan's words, exhaled a white breath, then closed the window, patted the snowflakes on the ermine fur, and walked back to the seat in front of the brazier, "This defeat in Yangzhou has taught this king a lesson, we must re-examine ourselves." ”

"Fortunately, the old fifteen is fine, break out of Yangzhou, otherwise the blow to my Qing Dynasty will be too great." Dai Shan stirred the flint and sighed, "Although Yangzhou lost, we must not be discouraged, and now Haoge is attacking Sichuan, sharing some pressure for us, as long as the old fourteen can regroup, the Qing Dynasty still has a chance to fight for the world, and we don't have to be too arrogant." ”

"What the second brother said is reasonable, at the beginning, we were able to fight with the entire Ming Dynasty for decades in the bitter cold land outside the Guan, and now according to the large territory inside and outside the Guan, the situation is several times better than back then, as long as we re-integrate, we can compete with the Southern Ming Dynasty again." Dolgon stood up again and said, "This king said that he should take a fresh look at himself, that is, to find out what went wrong with my Qing Dynasty, and why I was able to dominate the world at the beginning, but now I am bound to lose every battle?" Only when we realize and resolve the problem, can we fight for the male and female again! ”

"What did Old Fourteen think of?" Dai Shan listened to the fire tongs and looked up at Dolgon, only to react that he was not discouraged, but had new plans and countermeasures to implement.

Dolgon is naturally not something that can be knocked down by a Yangzhou defeat, and he said that to examine himself is to face up to the differences between the Ming and Qing dynasties, and then to rise again.

"At the beginning, we were able to suppress the Ming Dynasty because we were small and strong, although the Ming Dynasty was big, but it faced too many problems, like a giant who had been sick in bed for a long time, slow to react, although we were small, but the problems we faced were also small, the internal stability was more stable than that of the Ming Dynasty, and Taizu created the Eight Banners, which cultivated a strong army for us, so that we could quickly make the decision to attack and immediately implement the action, while the Ming Dynasty was slow to respond, so we were able to defeat the Ming Dynasty repeatedly."

Dolgon said: "Now the reason why we have failed again and again is that we have given up the previous advantages, after entering the customs, we have become bigger, and there are more problems, the eight banners that were originally twisted into a fist have been scattered, stationed troops everywhere, and extinguished fires everywhere, which has led to weakness everywhere, and has been broken by Nanming." ”

Dai Shan nodded, in the past, the Qing army fought, it was indeed the elite out, clenched into a fist to fight the Ming army, and after entering the customs, he stretched out his five fingers to poke people, if the opponent was weak, it was okay to say, but if it was a hard idea, it would be a finger to poke.

Dolgon's argument was reasonable, but Daishan clearly had his doubts, "Old Fourteen means that we shouldn't be bigger?" ”

The larger the territory, the more problems there are, especially for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the problem is more obvious, the more land it represents, the more resistance it represents, and the more resistance it means that the Eight Banners will garrison troops everywhere, which will further disperse the strength of the Eight Banners, but the local area is also a big local advantage, the Qing Dynasty can pay more grain, collect more taxes, and have more people to drive.

Is it so difficult that you refuse to get bigger just because you will face more problems when you get bigger? This clearly doesn't make sense.

"Second brother, this king didn't mean that!" Dolgon sat back across from Daishan, "If the Qing Dynasty wants to compete with Nanming and Haoge, it needs two points, one is at least nearly 200,000 elite soldiers, and the other is to rule the territory steadily. This king is not saying that we should not become bigger, but we should not become too big all at once, and we have become too big all at once over the years. ”

When the Eight Banners entered the customs, there were probably more than 100,000 elite soldiers, and it was indeed invincible at that time, Dolgon saw Dai Shan bowed slightly, and continued: "At the beginning of the eighth year of Chongde, there were only Xiangyang and other places, tens of thousands of horses, and when we entered the customs in the first year of Shunzhi, in just two years, we rebelled to possess the land north of the Yellow River, millions of people. This seems to be the momentum, but in fact there is no foundation at all, so I can in just one year, the Qing Dynasty can exterminate the rebellion, and then look at the Southern Ming, the territory is not extremely rebellious, hundreds of thousands of horses in Jiangbei all surrendered to me after the Qing Dynasty, but still able to resist the attack of my Qing Dynasty, this is because the Ming Dynasty has laid a solid foundation for the Southern Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years. If he had a foundation in the north, he would not have been defeated at Shanhaiguan and would immediately collapse. ”

Dai Shan understood what Dolgon meant, in fact, Dolgon had mentioned it several times before, that is, he wanted to stabilize the north, which was actually to lay a foundation, and only when the foundation was stable, they could concentrate the garrison Eight Banners to prevent local rebellions, and compete with the Southern Ming with elite soldiers.

"What is Old Fourteen going to do?"

"First, we must recruit strong men from outside the customs to supplement the flag soldiers." Seeing that Dai Shan agreed, Dolgon looked at each other, "The second is that this king is ready to abandon Hefei and the Huainan Prefectures, retreat to Huaibei, pack up his troops, and avoid fighting with Nanming in Huainan. ”

After the Ming army took Yangzhou, the next target must be Hefei City, but Dolgon did not have the ability to organize a big war in Hefei, so it was better to simply cede Huainan to Nanming, so that Nanming would need some time to digest Huainan, and he could solve internal problems and destroy Korea during this time.

Dai Shan heard that Dolgon was going to give up Hefei, but his brows were furrowed, "Haoge is attacking Sichuan, and if we give up Hefei at this time, doesn't it mean that Nanming can concentrate on dealing with Haoge?" ”

In Dolgon's view, Hauge and Nanming are both his enemies, so he gave up Huainan, in addition to exchanging space for time, he also had a purpose, that is, to calculate Hauge.

Haoge's meaning may be to quickly seize Sichuan, and then guard the danger, resulting in the fact of occupying Sichuan, and then appropriately ease relations with the Southern Ming, he relied on the danger of Bashu, Tongguan Hangu Pass, imitate the old Qin, sit back and watch the Ming and Qing dynasties fight in the eastern part of the country, whoever is strong he will fight whom, so that the two sides are always in a state of equal strength, constantly consuming vitality, and wait until the Ming and Qing dynasties are exhausted, and then he will go out of the customs with a large army and dominate the world.

Regardless of whether Hauge has such a calculation or not, in short, Dolgon will not allow this situation to happen, for him, the best situation is that the Ming army and Hauge are caught in a long-term tug-of-war in Sichuan, which is in his interests, and he will never want to see Hauge occupy the whole of Sichuan.

There are still many illusions in Dai Shan's heart, but this fantasy is obviously impossible to realize, even if he dies, it is impossible for Bumu Butai and the little emperor to reconcile with Haoge.

"Second brother, we should consider the interests of the Qing Dynasty more, and giving up Huainan does not mean that we will make a truce with Nanming." Dolgon said in a deep voice: "This king is ready to settle Korea within the end of the year, but if he does not give up Huainan, this king will transfer troops to fight Korea, and the Ming army will inevitably attack Huainan and contain this king, so that the army cannot attack Korea." If Huainan is abandoned, will the Ming army dare to cross the Huai River? This king only needs a small number of men and horses to garrison the city, leaving 20,000 cavalry, and the Ming army will not dare to cross the Huai River! In this way, the king can draw men and horses to calmly attack Korea! ”

Huaibei is a horse and a flat river, and the Qing army is criss-crossed, and it is unbearable just to harass the Ming army.

Dai Shan hesitated in his heart when he heard what Duo Er Roll said, he hoped that Dolgon and Hauge could work together to deal with Nanming, but the Qing Dynasty did have many problems now that must be solved immediately, one of which was North Korea.

This year's harassment of the Qing Dynasty by North Korea can be said to have disrupted Dolgon's plan to stabilize the north, and even affected the battle of Yangzhou.