The Xiaoling River came from the northwest, went around the west of Jinzhou City and then turned to the south, and then went north and then to the east, and the river surface opened up for a while. This river is not only the source of the moat of Jinzhou City, but also irrigates the fields near Jinzhou, and is the main source of water for the military and civilian use of Jinzhou City.

However, now this river has become the best natural barrier separating Jinzhou City from the Songshan Ming army. However, this season, the river has begun to freeze, and it is estimated that it will not be an obstacle in another half a month.

But looking at the Houjin camp that surrounded the city from the northwest to the west, Zhang Chun and He Kegang, who were standing on the city wall and watching, also knew that even if they lost the obstacle of this Xiaoling River, it would be extremely difficult to pick up the Mangui army besieged in Songshan.

And on the North Putuo Mountain, which is 15 miles northwest of Jinzhou City, Huang Taiji is taking a group of Han officials to visit the Putuo Temple on Guanyin Cave Mountain. There are several ancient pines in front of Putuo Temple, the snow is covered on the pine trees, the pine snow is upright, stands proudly, full of vitality, it is like a landscape splashing ink painting.

The Han officials were certainly very happy when they saw this beautiful scenery, but Huang Taiji looked at the beautiful scenery in front of him with a solemn face, and he didn't know what he was thinking. Since the master did not speak, how could the slave dare to speak out. So these Han officials stood silently behind Huang Taiji, not daring to make a sound to alarm King Khan's thinking.

Huang Taiji, who was staring at the beautiful scenery in front of him with his eyes, but his mind was not here, naturally didn't care about what these Han officials behind him were thinking. For him, these scholars were just tools used to win over and control the Han people in Liaodong, and since they were tools, they were naturally meant to be used by him, rather than being manipulated by these Han officials.

To be able to make suggestions for the strength of Houjin, he naturally wants to be a corporal of Lixian. But if you talk to him about etiquette and morality, what a king should do and what he should not do, he will be taught a good lesson.

After Nurhachi's education with leather whips and steel knives, the scholars of Liaodong met a Khan king like Huang Taiji who was willing to give them a little status and was willing to listen to them, and they felt that they had encountered a saint who had never been seen for a thousand years, and where could they dare to learn from the Qing style of the south. For them, as long as they don't fall back into the same life as slaves, what else is there they don't want to do?

What Huang Taiji was thinking in his heart was naturally not some poetry inspired by the beautiful scenery, and his heart was reviewing the strategy of using troops in the past month and a half.

If there is one biggest difference between Huang Taiji and other Jurchen relatives, it is that he reflects on his actions every moment of the day, so as to try not to make the same mistakes.

Since the dispatch of troops from Shenyang a month and a half ago, the operational strategy he has drawn up has been implemented smoothly. For example, his father Nurhachi made good use of the upper echelons of the Han people, as long as he encircled the big households in Liaodong and the generals in the Ming army, he could decide the affairs of Liaodong, and as for those ordinary Han people, it was insignificant.

Huang Taiji also implemented a policy similar to that of his father Khan, and it can even be said that he went further, and the rewards he received were also huge, with the help of those fleeing Han generals and gentry, the Later Jin army basically encountered no difficulties in clearing the outer fortresses of Jinzhou.

As the saying goes, "the soldiers follow the generals, and the grass follows the wind", although these Han generals and gentry fled the Ming Kingdom, their previous influence in the local and military areas has not disappeared. With these influences, these generals and gentry of the surrendered Jin either persuaded or deceived the guards of the fortress to open the gates.

With the help of these Han generals and gentry who defected to the Later Jin, the strategy formulated by the Later Jin army was implemented very smoothly. Except for the defenders in Jinzhou City, who were not lured out in a big way, the defenders of Ningyuan City were lured out. Relying on a general who fled from Jinzhou City, disguised as a messenger from Jinzhou for help, Ning Yuan's guard man Gui was finally fooled.

Yue Tuo led the main force of the red and blue flags to cut off the back road of Mangui, and he personally besieged Jinzhou City with two white flags, a red flag, and a yellow flag, and set traps on the east and west sides of Songshan. Hauge sat in Beizhen and Yiju with a yellow flag, guarding the back road. Mang Gurtai took the Zhenglan flag to monitor Yingkou and attacked Jinzhou and Dalian.

Although in the eyes of the Houjin generals, all this action went smoothly. The defenders in Jinzhou City could not retreat, and the Ming army led by Man Gui was besieged on Songshan, and the defenders of Ningyuan also looked very timid, except for sending a few small troops to the east from time to time, they did not send a large army to rescue.

Just when these Houjin generals thought that victory was not far off, Huang Taiji smelled something unusual. First of all, except for those forts that were taken by Houjin at the beginning, when Houjin officially lit up the banner, those peripheral forts did not fall into a state of overwhelm as in the past.

After receiving the news of the Houjin invasion, the villagers of one fort after another did not hesitate to leave their homes with the supplies they could carry, and some extreme villagers even set fire to the villages before leaving. In the past, walking into the wilderness in such weather was tantamount to suicide. But now, they have made such a counterintuitive action, which makes Huang Taiji very surprised.

At this time, the problem of insufficient troops in the Houjin was undoubtedly revealed, in order to be able to control the main traffic routes and concentrate the troops mainly in the main direction. For these villages with no strategic value, the Houjin army has always left them alone and then cleaned them up after the war.

However, the actions of these villages caused the Houjin to lose a large amount of post-war spoils and population replenishment, and Huang Taiji naturally wanted to understand it. He had the villagers who had not had time to flee captured and questioned them in detail. Only then did they realize that the retreat of these people was part of the Ming army's military exercise plan, not only their retreat route had been planned, but even the loss of destroying the village was included in the government's compensation.

In other words, the Ming would rather bear double the losses than let the Houjin gain the slightest benefit from the war, which is a rather dangerous signal. The difference between the volume of Houjin and Daming is too huge, even if it is fought in this way of fighting and attrition, it is Houjin who will be dragged down first, not Mingguo.

In the future, the current population of Jin, if it is used for warfare, will not be able to develop production. If manpower is used for production, it will not be possible to maintain the military superiority over the Ming State. Therefore, it has always been the national policy of the Houjin to replenish the materials and population consumed by the Houjin through looting in the war.

If fighting against the Ming State could not be replenished with materials and population, then the relatives and nobles of the Later Jin would soon be disgusted with fighting the Ming State.

In addition to this change that worries Huang Taiji, there is another change that makes him anxious. That is supposed to be insignificant ordinary Ming ** people, even if these people have a blood feud with the Jurchens, they have always had no say in the question of whether to surrender Houjin.

After the rise of the Later Jin, there were great social changes in Liaodong. A large number of Liaodong people fled into the Hexi region under the control of the Ming Dynasty, and with the arrival of these Liaodong refugees, the homesteaders and small landlord families in the Hexi region shrank sharply.

Instead, there were large landlords from Jiangmen, or local gentry and wealthy families, because in the war, only these two types of people could keep their family property and land, and became the target of the Later Jin and Ming kingdoms.

The tenant farmers and farmers who are attached to these big landlords naturally have to obey the landlords. And those military households who work for the generals dare not disobey the orders of the generals. Therefore, when these large landowners surrendered to Houjin, they naturally could order the farmers and soldiers on this land to surrender to Houjin, and assist Houjin in supporting the errand and food.

However, at the beginning of the year, the Ming court rebelled in western Liaoning, causing a large number of gentry and generals to flee to Houjin, and most of their land was allocated to former tenant farmers, village households, and military households, except for some officers.

When the generals and gentry returned after the surrender, they could force the officers and small landowners who were attached to them to submit, but they could not make the tenant farmers, farmers, and military households who had been allocated the land completely subservient.

The low-level people who were supposed to follow the landlord and the generals in a daze, but at this moment, they were extremely dissatisfied with the lords who followed the return of the Jin army. Think that these old men want to take away the land they just got their hands on and turn them into slaves with nothing again.

The bold people chose to resist by force, and the timid people chose to report to the Ming army, or simply flee.

Because of the insufficient strength of the Later Jin army, the Han people in the control area have always been handed over to the local gentry to suppress. Relying on the old prestige of these gentry, these people were driven to serve as labor for Houjin and pay for food, which also maximized the role of these Han gentry.

But now these Han people actually began to rebel against the orders of the gentry and old men, which caused great trouble to the Houjin army. Without the support of the Later Jin Army, these Han gentry would not be able to carry out the various orders issued by the Later Jin Army. However, if the Later Jin army followed behind these Han gentry and pressed the place, it greatly dispersed its own forces.

The emergence of these two new changes made Huang Taiji worried, and he felt very tricky for a while. If this trend continues, Huang Taiji feels that in the future, these Han gentry generals who surrender to Jin will not only not be a help, but a heavy burden.

If the Emperor of the Ming Kingdom and him enlist the support of the local gentry and generals, Huang Taiji would not be worried at all, because these gentry and generals at both ends of the head and tail would only seek advantages and avoid disadvantages.

The Emperor of the Ming Kingdom could not force these gentry, Jiangmen and Houjin to completely break up and fight to the death, but he could make the Eight Banners fight against the Ming Kingdom. Therefore, the war between the two sides will only make Houjin stronger and stronger, and make the gentry and generals of the Ming Kingdom weaker and weaker against Houjin.

However, the emperor of the Ming Kingdom began to play the game of eliminating the gentry, generals, and supporting yeoman farmers and small landlords, this kind of play of hurting others and hurting himself first, Huang Taiji was a little at a loss. Liaodong refugees and Houjin have a great enmity, once they lose the binding force of the gentry and Jiangmen on them, these people's spirit of resistance to the Houjin is really not comparable to those weak Liaodong gentry and Jiangmen.

For example, Mao Wenlong's Dongjiang Town before, which was not controlled by the Liaodong gentry and Jiangmen, was much stronger on the battlefield than the Liaoxi Military Town.