Wang Yan's pressure in the south restrained most of the Qing army's strength, which made Dolgon's men and horses that could be used to quell the rebellion less than 120,000 people, while Jiang Xiang's Datong army had 50,000 after expansion.

If the Ming army in the south did not participate in this war, although Jiang Xiang's anti-Qing army was surging, the Qing army could still be slowly suppressed.

Because in terms of the quality of the army, the Manchus were much stronger than the anti-Qing rebels.

Historically, Jiang Xiang was against the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing army relied on its superiority in strength and combat power to spend nearly a year suppressing the anti-Qing forces in Shanxi.

At that time, the Yongli court did not cooperate with Jiang Xiang, but now it is different, the Ming army has entered the front line, and when the time is ripe, it will go north, and it will not give Dolgon and the Qing court a year to slowly deal with Jiang Xiang.

The Qing court understood the laws of warfare in the Ming Dynasty, and in order to avoid falling into the severe cold in the north, Wang Yan would inevitably launch a spring offensive after the beginning of spring next year to support Jiang Xiang, and counting the time, the Qing army only had four months at most to extinguish Jiang Xiang's rebellion.

Compared with history, the strength of the Qing army was less, and the time was shortened by more than half, and the difficulty of the Qing army in extinguishing the rebellion can be said to have more than tripled.

In the north of Jin, there will be light to hold Xuanhua City, Nikan 30,000 people can not gnaw Xuanhua, Datong such a big city, the Qing army can only first pull out the rebellious cities and fortresses in Xuanda one by one, after cleaning up the four fields, and then deal with Xuanhua and Datong.

It's just that in this way, the Qing army will undoubtedly waste time when attacking fortresses and small counties.

Xuanda as the Ming Dynasty's nine-sided town, often faced the Mongols plunder, the people here are not like the Central Plains people do not know the soldiers, almost all have a certain amount of training, adult men can dance the sword and open the bow, the Qing army divided the troops to fight, but it is extremely difficult to bite.

Nikan found that these border fortresses were not easy to deal with, and the Qing army could not fight if they went less, and they went to work more and mobilize the people, not to mention the small gains, and the Qing army suffered heavy casualties.

The enraged Nikan adopted a cruel strategy of slaughtering the whole city against the rebellious city, using cruel means and bloody killings to create terror, trying to force the people of Shaoxuanda to submit.

However, the effect was not obvious, and for a whole month, the Qing army broke through only more than 20 forts.

Although the Qing army slaughtered all the left guards and tens of thousands of people were slaughtered, compared with the entire Xuanda and hundreds of dungeons along the Great Wall, the behavior of the Qing army was a little weak.

When Nikan in northern Jin was mired in a quagmire and the counterinsurgency was slow, the war in Jinzhong also entered a stalemate stage.

After Lou Qin led the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners from Beijing to the south, he gathered in the green camp of Hebei, first relieved the siege of Baoding, and then recovered Zhending.

At first, the Qing army progressed relatively smoothly, but after Jiang Xiang retreated to Shanxi, the army held the line of Jingjing, Guguan, and Niangzi Pass, and blocked Lou Qin in the east of Taihang.

Niangzi Pass is known as the ninth pass of the Great Wall, easy to defend and difficult to attack, although the Lou Qin attack is very urgent, but it has never been able to break through, and the war in Jinzhong has entered the stage of stalemate.

The only rapid progress of the Qing army was the battlefield in southern Jin, Kong Youde led 30,000 people, from Huaiqing Mansion in Henan Province to the north, at the end of September to break through the Tianjing Pass, October 7 in Jincheng defeated the leader of the rebel Wei Shijun, captured the city, slaughtered the city of Jin, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed.

In order to deter the people of Shanxi and prevent the people from following Jiang Xiang against the Qing Dynasty, or secretly helping the rebels, the Qing army in the north and south adopted the same strategy, that is, to rely on massacres to deter the Han people.

Dolgon wanted to use killing to make the Han people submit and fear, just like when he first entered the customs, and kill all those who had the courage, and the rest would be able to rule.

On October 10, Kong Youde slaughtered in Jincheng for three days, the army went north non-stop, Wei Shijun took the initiative to give up Kaiping, and went north to Huguan to join Jiang Xiang's general Gao Ding, and the Qing army did not let go of Gaoping, and the Qing army that entered the city slaughtered the city again.

After that, Kong Youde continued to go north, threatening Huguan from the south, Gao Ding had to give up Huguan and retreat into Lu'an Mansion, Kong Youde and the attack on Huguan After the Wakda division, 60,000 Qing troops surrounded Lu'an.

In the southern direction of Jin, because Dolgon directly transferred the elite of the Qing army from Henan, and in terms of the anti-Qing righteous army, the real elite soldiers were the 5,000 soldiers of Gao Ding, and the rest were the swarming rebel army, so it was much weaker than the Qing army in terms of strength comparison, but the pace of the Qing army on the southern front also temporarily stopped at Lu'an.

The massacre of the Qing army caused the righteous army to huddle, and Gao Ding and Wei Shixun gathered 100,000 righteous people in Lu'an and temporarily blocked the 60,000 Qing army in the south.

In the three battlefields, it can be said that the Qing army is on the offensive, among which the Qing army in Jinnan has the most obvious advantage, but this situation obviously cannot make Dolgon feel at ease, and the progress of the Qing army is still too slow.

Seeing that by the end of October, the Shanxi rebels still did not show an obvious defeat, and the Qing court became anxious.

Since the Qing army entered the customs, Dolgon has been sitting in Beijing, which is the same as Wang Yan when he sat in Nanjing and did not dare to move, because he was afraid that once he left the political center, the Beijing division would change.

This time, Dolgon couldn't manage so much, after Nikan attacked Xuanda and the threat in the northwest direction of Beijing was lifted, he rushed to Zhending with illness regardless of his physical discomfort, remotely commanded the Qing army in the middle, stormed Niangzi Pass, broke into Shanxi as soon as possible, and recovered Taiyuan.

The Ming army in the south is like a hanging sword in the sky, and Dolgon must resolve the rebellion in Shanxi regardless of casualties before the sword falls, otherwise the Qing dynasty will end.

In September, after Nikan evacuated Seoul, the Ming army and the Korean army invaded Seoul, killed the Joseon king supported by the Qing court, announced the restoration of the country, and gradually restored control of the Korean Eight Provinces.

Dolgon could foresee that as long as Korea sorted out its domestic affairs, the Ming Dynasty would inevitably unite with Korea to invade Liaodong and threaten Liaoyang.

The spies of the Qing army in Nanming also sent a report, and the canal from Yangzhou to Huai'an was full of large ships carrying supplies and mobilized soldiers.

If the Qing army did not quickly extinguish the rebellion in Shanxi, once the Ming Dynasty was ready, Dolgon had already thought of three offensive routes for Wang Yan.

All the way is the army from Huai'an, after capturing Xuzhou, collecting Shandong, all the way out of Nanyang, collecting Heluo, all the way from North Korea to attack Shengjing.

These three roads are difficult to deal with in themselves, and if Jiang Xiang is added to the back, the Qing Dynasty will undoubtedly be defeated.

Dolgon understood this, so he was in a hurry, but even if he was in a hurry, it would be useless, because with the power of the Qing Dynasty, it would be absolutely impossible to pacify Shanxi in a short time.

Dolgon could only use all his might to quell the rebellion while praying that Fan Wencheng would persuade Haorge to pull his uncle.

(End of chapter)