Huang Taiji originally thought that the Ming army would at most set up an ambush in Zuo'anmen, and the Ming army's strongest combat effectiveness now was contained by himself on the front line of Guangqumen, these ambushes were definitely not the opponents of the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners of Manchuria, as long as they gave a death order to fight to the death with the opponent, the Ming army in ambush in the city would be quickly defeated.

Unexpectedly, the battle report from the front was that there was a chasm in Zuo'anmen, and the possible ambushes of the Ming army were all lurking in the chasm.

That's a little weird.

First of all, Jingshi is the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and it is also the most prosperous city, how can there be a huge trench in Zuo'anmen for no reason?

Secondly, this trench is to prevent the Manchurian Eight Banners from riding into the city, and the Ming soldiers who are responsible for defense should be lined up on the other side of the trench, instead of hiding in the deep ditch themselves, which is of course hindering the opponent's attack, but attacking the opponent by himself, isn't it also extremely troublesome?

These two suspicions, even the well-informed Huang Taiji couldn't guess in a hurry, after thinking about it, Huang Taiji still decided to investigate it himself in order to find out the truth.

So Huang Taiji no longer continued to stay behind the formation to command, and under the escort of dozens of personal guards "Baturu" (Manchu warriors) beside him, he braved the not dense arrows and followed into Zuo'anmen.

Huang Taiji separated the army and came to the front of the formation, and sure enough, he saw a deep and wide trench about ten paces away in front of him, but the deep ditch was full of Ming troops who were waiting for the battle—these Ming troops neither attacked nor retreated, but stared at the Manchurian soldiers in front of them with an uneasy and expectant look.

Huang Taiji made a visual inspection, and saw that the Ming army in the trench that blocked Zuo'anmen had more than 2,000 people, but he couldn't guess the intentions of these people.

When he hesitated slightly, the Ming army suddenly played the flag, only to see two large flags embroidered with gold thread respectively with a "Ji" character, a "Qi" character, although it was fluttering in the wind in the trench, but it was also very eye-catching.

The "Baturu" Ao Bai beside Huang Taiji was extremely red when he saw these two big flags, and hurriedly said to Huang Taiji: "Great Khan, this is the banner of the Ming army that injured Da Beile!" ”

Huang Taiji was shocked when he heard this, and hurriedly summoned Dai Shan's son Yue Tuo and asked, "Do you recognize these two big flags?" ”

Yue Tuo immediately replied: "Recognize, recognize." Uncle Khan, this is the banner of the Ming army barbarians who injured my Amma, they have powerful firearms, you have to be careful! ”

As soon as he heard the word "firearms", Huang Taiji immediately became nervous, suspecting that a few days ago, when he led the army to pursue Zu Dashou, he encountered this team of soldiers and horses at the gate of Tongzhou City.

The sharp sense of smell cultivated by being born and dying on the battlefield for more than ten years made Huang Taiji suddenly feel great danger and involuntarily retreated.

At the same time, Ji Qingwen, who was commanding the battle in the trench, also saw Huang Taiji who suddenly appeared in front of the formation, and immediately ordered his musketeers to concentrate their fire on Huang Taiji.

Although his order was fast, Huang Taiji's speed of action was not slow, and he had already retreated to the rear of the formation, so that this array of guns only swept down more than 100 Manchurian knights, and did not hit the Great Khan Huang Taiji.

Seeing this, Huang Taiji also hurriedly ordered all the Eight Banners cavalry, so he opened his bow and arrows and shot arrows at the Ming army in the trench.

At this time, the role of the trench became apparent - although the Manchurian Eight Banners were condescending, the arrows that could be shot could not hit the Ming army in the trench at all.

It turned out that Chen Wenzhao had been thinking about a foolproof strategy to deal with the elite cavalry of the Eight Banners of Manchuria since the Battle of the Hunhe River in the first year of Wanli. He thought about it, only by relying on the advantage of firearms, and under the full cover of favorable terrain, could he have an absolute advantage against the Manchurian cavalry.

However, such a terrain is unavoidable, and even if they find the terrain that is favorable to them, with the cunning and shrewdness of the Manchurian cavalry, they may not fall for this and rashly attack the already heavily defended enemy army.

Therefore, instead of passively looking for favorable terrain, it is better to actively create an advantage yourself.

Therefore, after Chen Wenzhao resigned as a military attache of the imperial court, he took the pension money of the imperial court and went to Yiwu to open a mine.

This method has been practiced by Chen Wenzhao for more than ten years, and finally came in handy in the second year of Chongzhen.

He saw that there was a flat land under Zuo'anmen, which had become very soft after being moistened by the water of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal for many years, so he suggested that Ji Qingwen send someone to remove all the bricks on the ground, and then dig a trench on the spot—this trench should be dug as deep and wide as possible in a limited time.

Others may not be able to guess Chen Wenzhao's plans, but Ji Qingwen is a modern person who has traveled from later generations, and when he was a child, he watched a lot of war movies such as "Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", and "Guerrilla Warfare on the Plains", and he had already guessed his intentions.

Therefore, after Ji Qingwen obtained Sun Chengzong's permission, he gathered all the soldiers, horses, and people in the city in the shortest possible time, operated all the tools that could be used, and immediately started digging a trench in Zuo'anmen.

In order to improve work efficiency, Ji Qingwen promised that no matter who could dig out ten catties of soil, he would immediately reward him with one or two silvers!

Hearing the news of "exchanging soil for silver", a team of more than 10,000 people and nearly 20,000 people immediately gathered in the capital, holding shovels, shovels, iron drills and other objects in their hands, and immediately began to excavate in a big way. Some people can't find the right tools, and even take out the kitchen knives, spatulas, iron pots and other items used to cook at home, in order to earn the silver taels of white flowers promised by Ji Qingwen.

In this way, when Huang Taiji spent more than an hour, got out of the battle with Zu Dashou, and sent troops to Zuo'anmen, a trench more than one person high and two zhang wide had already appeared on the originally flat ground inside the gate.

For this trench, a full 300,000 taels of silver were spent - the favorable terrain for the Manchurian cavalry archers planned by Chen Wenzhao was not so much a shovel or a shovel as it was smashed out of a silver ingot and a silver ingot!

Fortunately, the 300,000 taels of silver were paid from the military salary raised a few days ago, otherwise Ji Qingwen would have to die of distress.

And Ji Qingwen saw that the scale of this trench was so grand, and the five hundred elite soldiers under his command entered the battle, which was inevitably a bit overkill. So he asked the emperor to issue an order to immediately mobilize all the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion near Zuo'anmen, with a total of about 2,000 people, each armed with muskets and firearms, into the trench, ready to deal with the Manchurian cavalry that entered the city.

The Manchurian cavalry on the opposite side was on horseback, and the Ming army in the trench was in the dead end of their shooting, and could not aim directly, but could only launch into the sky, hoping that after drawing a parabola, they could fall down and hit the Ming army in the trench.

The Manchurian cavalry, who could not recognize a few of these big characters, obviously could not solve the one-dimensional quadratic equation, and there was no way to guarantee the accuracy, strength, and accuracy of their shooting into the sky. Therefore, although the Manchurian cavalry was large in number and fast in rate of fire, it only caused negligible casualties to the Ming army in the trenches.

The Ming army, on the other hand, gave full play to the advantages of muskets and guns with great power in a straight line, and began to load gunpowder one after another, shooting at the horses and knights of the Manchurian Eight Banners, killing and wounding hundreds of Manchurian cavalry in a blink of an eye, and making the originally very stable formation of the Manchurian Eight Banners inevitably chaotic.

In the midst of this confusion, suddenly a Manchurian cavalry forgot Huang Taiji's military order in a hurry, urged the war horse under his crotch, and jumped into the trench.

But the trench was so deep and steep that the horse jumped into it, stood unsteadily on its legs, and fell to its knees at the bottom of the trench, and threw the knight on horseback to the ground.

Before this Manchurian cavalry could react, dozens of swords around him cut him into meat sauce!

The rest of the Ming army continued to shoot at the Manchurian cavalry outside the trenches.

In this way, the elite of the Manchurian Four Banners, who had originally entered Zuo'anmen in high spirits, suddenly fell in front of this inexplicable trench, and the battle situation was immediately reversed!