From Shanhaiguan to Liaodong, there is a narrow plain between the rolling mountains and the raging sea. This plain is about 180 kilometers long, about 15 kilometers at its widest point and only about 8 kilometers at its narrowest point. Geographically, it is called the "Liaoning West Corridor". It is also the most important transportation artery in the mainland and eastern Liaodong. At one end of this strategic road is Shanhaiguan and at the other end is Jinzhou. As far as the Central Plains regime is concerned, as long as it controls Jinzhou, which is at the exit of this corridor, it is strategically in a favorable position to attack and retreat. On the contrary, once Jinzhou is lost, if you want to enter Liaodong again, generally speaking, you can only attack Jinzhou, a fortified city along the western Liaoxi corridor, and the position that the defending side needs to defend is only Jinzhou, so it is natural that you can easily concentrate materials and personnel, and then use the fortified city to obtain a favorable defensive advantage. In a sense, if the power of the Central Plains became stronger, for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was based in Liaodong, Jinzhou would be their Shanhaiguan. Huang Taiji has no chaos, how can he not sit idly by and watch Jinzhou fall.

But in fact, Zheng Sen was not willing to fight Huang Taiji in Jinzhou, and the reason for this was very simple, that is, Jinzhou was not close to the sea, and it was not convenient for Zheng Sen to supply. Although the Daling River has a certain navigable capacity, its capacity is limited, and it freezes in winter, which leads to the suspension of navigation. And if you want to supply the city from land, not to mention the high cost, you will need to take up a lot of military power to ensure the safety of the supply line. Previously, Zheng Sen wanted to attack Jinzhou, not only to cut off the supply line of the Qing army by capturing Jinzhou, but also because Jinzhou was used by the Manchus as an advance base for attacking Shanhaiguan, and a large amount of materials were stored here. In fact, now, for Zheng Sen, retaking Liaodong is not the most urgent thing for him. The most urgent thing is actually to eliminate Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant rebels as soon as possible.

This is not because Zheng Sen believes in the idea that "the outside must be according to the inside", but in order to reduce the loss of the population as much as possible. The civil war of the Ming Dynasty brought huge population losses. Although this loss cannot be compared with the loss caused by the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the original history, Zheng Sen still felt that this loss must be stopped as soon as possible.

Prior to the crossing, Zheng Sen had seen an article analyzing the three-hundred-year cycle of rise and fall evident in Chinese history, in which the author attributed the cycle to the contradiction between land carrying capacity and population growth. It is believed that 300 years of population growth is enough to saturate China's land carrying capacity, and then the slightest wind and grass will lead to large-scale famine and war. This argument was also accepted by Zheng Sen, and even expressed in his "Origin of Species" and other similar works. If there is no other way, if the world is really only the size of the area that China now controls, out of selfish thinking, perhaps Zheng Sen really did not intend to end the war too soon, because in a sense, the massive loss of population is one of the foundations for the next dynasty to be able to maintain peace and stability for a long time.

But Zheng Sen has other methods, because the world is far more big than China. Colonialism is the only way to get out of the three-hundred-year cycle of agricultural civilization, and to obtain sufficient accumulation, so as to open a new industrial age. The abundance of the country's population was a natural advantage for global colonial expansion. Therefore, for Zheng Sen, the most important thing now is to end the domestic war and reduce the loss of population as much as possible.

So for the time being, Zheng Sen didn't plan to eliminate the Manchus immediately, he only planned to block the Manchus out of the pass first. To do this, Zheng Sen felt that it was enough to cut off the Liaoxi Corridor. To accomplish this task, occupying Jinzhou is not a cost-effective approach. In Zheng Sen's heart, there is actually a better stronghold, that is, Beacon Hill, which Zheng Zhihu once occupied for a period of time.

Beacon Hill is a peninsula connected to the mainland by a land bridge. This land bridge submerges into the sea at high tide and only emerges from the water at low tide. So if the Manchus were to attack this target, they would find that even if they mobilized all their forces, as they did in the Battle of Songjin, they would not be able to form a siege on this target, because it was a peninsula where sea ships could dock directly. To besiege such a target, it is necessary to have a strong sea force. Today, the maritime power of the Manchu Qing Dynasty is basically as powerful as the Mongolian navy of later generations.

As for the assault, it was even more impossible, the width of the land bridge was limited, and by this limitation, the number of attacking troops that the Manchus could put into it at one time was very limited, and it would not be more than the defending side; Moreover, the time of the attack is also limited by the tide, in fact, even in the most ideal conditions, it can last no more than three or four hours. And throughout the assault operation, the entire land bridge was within the fire of the model naval fleet. In such a short period of time, to use an army that does not have a numerical advantage to attack a model army with strong fortifications and naval support, and even an advantage in the number of combatants, is simply not to fight, but to send heads.

Although Beacon Hill is not large, it can still accommodate two or three thousand soldiers, including six or seven hundred cavalry each. With such a force, it is not difficult to rely on the mobile advantage brought by the navy that can land everywhere, and use this as a base to attack and even cut off the logistics line of the Qing army. Zheng Sen felt that with such a stronghold, it would be very difficult for the Manchus to enter the Central Plains to compete for the world.

Of course, the Manchus could also make a detour to Mongolia to enter the customs, as they used to do. However, the road to do so was far away, and it would be very difficult to replenish the goods, so before the Manchu Qing Dynasty, they could only plunder inside the pass and withdraw outside the pass. Because of logistical problems, their troops could not actually stay in the pass for a long time.

Now that such a decision has been made, Jinzhou is not particularly important for the time being. Because the attack went smoothly, the Qing army did not have time to burn down the treasury, so a large number of materials were prepared to support the Qing army's war, such as grain, such as pig iron and copper, (although Liaodong is rich in minerals, but in fact, until this time, the Manchus still did not have the ability to mine and smelt metals in large quantities, and most of these strategic materials were obtained through smuggling trade with Shanxi merchants.) For example, cloth, such as leather, but also cannons, swords, bows and arrows, gunpowder, and so on, all fell into the hands of the model army. Zheng Sen ordered that the materials that the model generals could use should be counted so that they could be quickly removed or destroyed. At the same time, he ordered the model army to begin destroying the walls of Jinzhou City.

The quality of the self-made gunpowder of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was very unstable and completely did not meet the quality standards of the model army, so after a series of tests, the staff department proposed to Zheng Sen that considering that these gunpowders were not of much use except for making firecrackers, they asked Zheng Sen for permission to simply use all the gunpowder for the destruction of the Jinzhou city wall. Like Liu Zongmin, they also wanted to blow up the city walls with gunpowder.

However, unlike Liu Zongmin, some of the people in the model army were much more experienced in playing gunpowder than Liu Zongmin. Therefore, their blasting method is more reasonable, they first dig a hole under the city wall that can be climbed into, then turn around, dig a small vertical hole that can be put into a wooden barrel, and then put a wooden barrel full of gunpowder into it, and then use a bamboo pipe to connect the guide. Fire. cable, then plug the entire hole, and then blast it.

This proved to be quite effective, although it was not possible to blow up an entire section of the wall at once (to do this, you can't do it by the power of gunpowder, you have to rely on authentic explosions. Medicine. But a large crater can be blown out at the base of the wall at a time, and several blasts in a row are enough to destroy a section of the wall, which is much faster than having soldiers dig with hoes.

Amid the rumbling explosions, the soldiers of the Model Army pulled their captured supplies out of the city in horse-drawn carts, and through makeshift docks, loaded them onto the ships of the river fleet. The first to be loaded onto the ship were various cannons and metalwork. These things are the highest priority on the shipping list. This is not only because they are the most expensive, but also because they cannot be destroyed by incineration. If the Qing army returned to the division quickly enough, Zheng Sen didn't want the Manchus to capture these things again. Although the various cannons in the hands of the Manchus were substandard products according to the standards of the model army, Zheng Sen could have sold them to the Tokugawa shogunate or those countries on the Indochina Peninsula.

The ships of the river fleet were soon filled with all kinds of cargo, and by this time the walls of Jinzhou had been blown through several large gaps. Including several city gates, all of which were blown up. One of the gaps stretched for more than 200 steps, and it would take some effort for me to repair it.

While the river fleet departed laden with all kinds of metal supplies, a unit of the Model Army's Marine Corps also landed on Beacon Hill. At the beginning, Zheng Zhihu built a lot of facilities on Beacon Hill, but when he retreated, most of them were burned down by himself. The Qing army did not attach much importance to this place, so naturally they did not garrison here, so the Marines easily occupied Beacon Hill and began to rebuild barracks, warehouses and fortifications here.

A day after the departure of the river flotilla, the troops of the Model Army, with some other captures, withdrew from Jinzhou City and began to move towards Beacon Mountain. Before leaving, Zheng Sen asked people to set a fire in the city, burning some things that could not be brought with him, as well as the whole city.

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