Just after the Ming and Qing armies led by Li Yan and Dolgon were at Yingkou City for several days, the large army of the Ming army that had gone to Xiongyue Town finally returned from the sea, and it obviously took longer to retreat from the sea than to land from the sea.

However, fortunately, Sun Chuanting's decision was early, when the Qing cavalry such as Laosa and others arrived at Gaizhou City, the Ming army had almost retreated, and the Qing army in Xiongyue Town was obviously blinded by the fierce attack of the Ming army before, and they did not carry out any obstruction and reconnaissance for the sudden withdrawal of the Ming army, but just stayed in the fortress and hurried to repair the fortifications damaged by the shells, for fear that the Ming army would go and return.

It wasn't until Rausa sent a herald to communicate with the defenders of Xiongyue Town that the defenders knew that the Ming army had withdrawn from the sea, and the Jinzhou Ming army, which had been holding back the Fuzhou army, also began to slowly retreat to Jinzhou, and Abatai and Azig were also not interested in pursuing them.

Under the leadership of Geng Zhongming, Kong Youde, and Jin Riguan, the attack on the Fuzhou army forced Abatai and Azig to defend the city and dare not leave the city to fight with the other party.

Although Shenyang has been co-opting Dongjiang Town and dividing the mutual trust between it and the Ming court, as the Ming Dynasty seized Jeju Island in Korea, and established newly opened cities in Vladivostok, Shuangchengzi, the lower reaches of Heilongjiang, Phi Dao and other places, and moved a large number of Liao people and military families from Dongjiang Town to these areas, Dongjiang Town's original status as a nearly semi-independent military town gradually lost.

After Mao Wenlong returned to the capital and entered the senate for retirement, Dongjiang Town was no different from the ordinary border army system of the Ming Dynasty. In the past ten years, Chongzhen has not used the subordinates of Dongjiang Town, coupled with the continuous promotion and transfer of generals and the continuous appointment of generals from the outside into Dongjiang Town. By the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the troops of Dongjiang Town, like the troops of Liaoxi Town, were almost difficult to form a military group with consistent internal interests.

For example, the three generals of the Ming army stationed in Jinzhou, Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde were born in Mao Wenlong's righteous sons, but Jin Riguan was born in Jizhou Town. The breaking of this pattern of local military blocs further strengthened the imperial court's control over these local forces.

Of course, in a sense, the upward channels of these generals have also been opened. For example, Zhao Chengdong, the most powerful son of Mao Wenlong, has now become the governor of the Eastern Siberian Governor's Palace, and his status is not much lower than Mao Wenlong.

In the eyes of Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde, these Dongjiang generals, although the East Siberian region is cold and remote, this is still the governor of the Ming Dynasty after all, and what is the difference between him and the emperor of the soil in the local area. It is precisely with such an example as Zhao Chengdong in front of him that the Dongjiang generals naturally want to go to the battlefield to earn some military merits, and also show the emperor that he is not inferior to Zhao Chengdong, hoping to gain the emperor's favor.

Since the establishment of the General Staff, there have been many changes in the organization of the Ming army and in terms of rewards and punishments for military merits. Because the replenishment of military personnel must now be uniformly deployed through the General Staff, not only will those who recruit privately not be recognized by the General Staff and will not be able to obtain logistical supplies, but the generals who violate the rules will also be punished by transfer or retirement.

Even Mao Wenlong, a military leader who founded a town on his own, finally relented under the constant rubbing of the General Staff and the Military Department, handed over part of the military power, and came to Beijing to take up his post, and the generals of other armies lacked the will to confront the imperial court and the General Staff.

Having mastered the replenishment of troops, logistical supply, and the promotion of officers of an army, then this army naturally cannot talk about any independence. Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde, the Dongjiang generals who were born as miners in Liaodong, although they can still talk about the feelings of the township with their subordinates, it is no longer realistic to want to control their subordinates like Mao Wenlong before.

And for the General Staff of the Ming Dynasty, although the officers of the General Staff were more willing to support the new army formed from scratch, such an army was more likely to be controlled by the General Staff. But after all, the nine-sided town of the Ming Dynasty is not a mess of the Weisu Army, this border army system still has some combat effectiveness, and it will still cause many problems if you want to dismantle them together.

In order to ensure that the old Ming army can be dismantled as much as possible and a new army that can be controlled by the General Staff can be established, it is natural to formulate a standard for dismantling and reorganization. The standards set by the General Staff are certainly not a testament to the freedom of civilian officials, but they are ultimately divided around the performance of the military in combat.

In other words, the more the old army that cannot be fought and does not dare to fight, the more likely it is that it will become the target of dismantling in the first place. And those armies that dare to fight and can fight will not only be favored by the General Staff in various resources, but will also be easier to expand their establishment.

In the Battle of Jizhou, most of the Liaoxi armies that maintained their strength in the face of the Eight Banners Army were now dismantled or scattered into other armies. However, the Mangui Army, which had been defeated in successive battles, was not only replenished for the first time, but also first received the name of the new army.

The soldiers of Dongjiang Town found that although the imperial court had given them certain preferential treatment, they had solved their food and clothing problems, and greatly reduced the frequency of their battles. But behind this preferential treatment, it was the ten years of rapid development of the Ming New Army, and in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, they originally thought that the treatment was not bad, but in the comparison between the treatment of the Guards and the Field Army, it was a little unsatisfactory.

Under such circumstances, the officers and men of Dongjiang Town began to slowly change from the idea of holding the territory to the idea of wanting to be rewarded for meritorious service and receive the same treatment as the field army.

In the past few years, out of consideration for their own safety, the soldiers of Dongjiang Town have built the Nanshan Fortress Area of Jinzhou as impregnable. But they also found that this was also a problem, and in the first few years, the Qing army continued to attack and harass them, trying to prevent them from building the fortified area.

However, with the gradual formation of the fortress area, the Qing army was reluctant to attack Jinzhou and Dalian, but built several forts on the border between Fuzhou and Jinzhou to monitor the Ming army in Jinzhou, and stationed troops in Fuzhou. The plan is to encircle them in the Lushun Peninsula behind Golden State, and let them toss themselves in this peninsula.

Although they had also obeyed the orders of the General Staff Headquarters before and set out from Jinzhou to plunder the nearby prefectures and counties, the Qing army had already taken strict precautions against them, and there were not many civilians in the nearby prefectures and counties, so they did not get much credit. They even felt as if they were being treated by the General Staff as a fragile miscellaneous army, and could only divert the attention of the Qing army from the sidelines, but could not fight any tough battles.

For the officers and men of Dongjiang Town in the past, this kind of work that did not contribute to the work was actually not bad. But for them now, such work can neither allow them to make meritorious contributions, nor allow them to take revenge on the Manchurians, and sooner or later they will become the targets of dismissal, which is a little difficult to reassure.

Therefore, when Sun Chuanting contacted the Jinzhou and Lushun garrisons and wanted to encircle and annihilate the Qing troops in Fuzhou and Gaizhou with them, the Jinzhou garrison was still excited. However, they didn't expect that they had just gained a little momentum, and Sun Chuanting ordered them to retreat and stop the attack.

If it weren't for the fact that there was a piece of information sent from Shenyang behind this order, indicating that Huang Taiji personally led the army to attack Yingkou, Geng Zhongming, Kong Youde, and Jin Riguan really didn't want to withdraw. After all, this is also the first time that Dongjiang Town and Houjin have been fighting for so long, and it is the first time that so many Qing troops have been besieged in a city.

Although the three had to withdraw their troops and return to Jinzhou, they could not avoid complaining about Sun Chuanting along the way. Geng Zhongming said to Kong Youde and Jin Riguan: "If there is no one in this court, it is not good, and this general staff is just a dog meat that can't be used as a table, so when you think of it, let us send troops to fight with them." If you can't think of it, you will leave it aside and ignore it, and when it will be our turn to sing the leading role, and let the other armies cooperate with us. ”

Kong Youde also nodded again and again: "That's it, that's it." We still have to count on Mao Dashuai's support and ask him to say good things in front of His Majesty, and also give us a jackpot..."

Jin Riguan was silent on the side, but he felt that what these two colleagues said was not out of line. If the General Staff could really cooperate with them wholeheartedly to attack Fuzhou, instead of commanding the Guards to attack Xiongyue Town alone, it would be really hard to say what the outcome of this battle would be.

The retreating officers and men of Jinzhou were dissatisfied, and the officers and men of the Guards who withdrew to Yingkou were also dissatisfied. After all, this was not the case with the plan for cross-sea operations drawn up by the General Staff. Although they still keep Yingkou City, the opportunity to expand their power to the vicinity of Yingkou City has been lost.

After all, Yingkou is a small port city sandwiched between the Liao River and the swamps, and there is not enough depth of defense, so it is extremely difficult for the city to survive the two-month freeze period.

And the toss of going back and forth from Xiongyue Town by sea, and the withdrawal of troops at the moment when Xiongyue Town was almost captured, also made many officers and soldiers of the Guards extremely disappointed. It's like they've been running all over the place, but they've gotten nothing. Until they returned to Yingkou, many people were still muttering that they should capture Xiongyue Town and then retreat.

In the face of these impetuousness and impatience displayed by the officers and soldiers of the Guards, Sun Chuanting, who realized his mistake, did not suppress it with power, but convened a military meeting.

At the meeting, he first admitted that he had made the mistake of expanding and controlling the Yingzhou area in advance because of the easy capture of Yingkou, so he did not follow the operational plan drawn up by the General Staff to expand and control the Yingzhou area.

Sun Chuanting immediately explained: "If you attack Yaozhou City with all the strength of the Guards Division, you can not only capture this city as soon as possible and cut off the connection between Shenyang and Gaizhou and Fuzhou, but also use the siege of Yaozhou City to annihilate the Qing troops who came to rescue Yaozhou, so as to better deal a blow to the Qing army's control of this area...

From this point of view, His Majesty's understanding of the power of the Manchus was correct. We have begun to equal the strength of the Manchu army. But Liaodong was, after all, the inner line of the Manchus, and here they still had a great advantage in the speed at which they mobilized their troops.

Especially after gaining the support of the Mongol tribes in eastern Liaodong, the mobility of the Manchu cavalry on this plain is difficult for us to compare. So, for now, this is not the time for the Ming Dynasty to expand the scale of the war with the Manchus..."

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