Wu Sangui and the others didn't understand Li Hongyu's intentions, and Huang Taiji was also confused by Li Hongyu's behavior.

This made Huang Taiji feel quite uneasy in his heart, he didn't think that Li Hongyu wanted to fight a frontal war of attrition with him, which would obviously be unfavorable to the Ming army and play into his arms.

Huang Taiji pondered for a while and didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in Li Hongyu's gourd, he was originally worried that Li Hongyu had arranged reinforcements, but most of the Mongols in Monan had been recovered by him, and the Mongols that Li Hongyu relied on most before would no longer be able to help.

Therefore, Huang Taiji finally concluded that Li Hongyu was waiting for reinforcements in the pass, otherwise he would not have spent it with the Qing army in Yecaogang.

In the final analysis, the Ming Dynasty has a large population, and it is not difficult to mobilize a group of troops, which is not comparable to the Manchu Qing Dynasty now.

Huang Taiji was not afraid of the Ming army from the Guannei, and after such a long battle with the Ming Dynasty, he was already clear about the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, no matter how many troops came like that, it would be useless, and in the end they either fled or became prisoners of the Qing army.

What really worries Huang Taiji is the sailor of the Ming army, since Li Hongyu is out of the customs, then the sailor of the Ming army will definitely follow, and the combat effectiveness of the sailor of the Ming army on Shimen Mountain is stronger than the forbidden army praised by the outside world.

Over the years, Huang Taiji has been paying close attention to Li Hongyu's movements, but Li Hongyu does not seem to be liked by Emperor Chongzhen, so that Li Hongyu has been wandering outside and has not returned to Beijing for ten years.

As the emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Huang Taiji naturally understands why Emperor Chongzhen did this, Li Hongyu's existence is like a double-edged sword, and killing the enemy with skills can also hurt himself, so Emperor Chongzhen secretly wants to suppress and alienate Li Hongyu, so as not to shock the lord with his merits.

In this way, Huang Taiji was given the opportunity to develop his power in Liaodong with peace of mind, and finally solved the internal and external contradictions and troubles, and the national strength was greatly improved, which was enough to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army outside the pass, and then drove the Ming army into the pass in one fell swoop.

Huang Taiji once also thought about the intelligence of the three major sailors under Li Hongyu, because Liaodong is too far away from the south of the Yangtze River, and the three major sailors have special intelligence agencies to arrest spies, so he does not have much information about the sailors in his hands, only knows that Li Hongyu has three major sailors.

This time, Huang Taiji was bound to conquer the land outside the Guan, and he knew that his health was becoming more and more worrying, so he wanted to eliminate the threat of the Ming army outside the Guanxi to the Manchu Qing before he died.

Now that Li Hongyu is here, Huang Taiji can take the opportunity to pull out this thorn in the side of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he will not preserve his strength like Nurhachi, but will fight with all his strength.

After careful weighing and consideration, when the Qing army was assembled, Huang Taiji was ready to take the lead in launching an attack on the Ming army in Yecaogang, and he wanted to defeat Li Hongyu before the Ming reinforcements arrived.

To this end, in mid-April, Huang Taiji summoned his Qing generals to arrange combat missions and prepare to open the curtain of the Battle of Wild Grass Gang.

"Your Majesty, the minister is willing to be the vanguard, lead the army to attack the camp of the Ming army, and bring Li Hongyu's head to the emperor."

After learning that Huang Taiji was preparing to go to war, Dolgon, who was the head of the four little Baylors, asked for war without giving in, and after the four Baylors, the four little Baylors were the most popular in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which became a sharp weapon in the hands of Huang Taiji to expand the territory.

Since Dolgon opened his mouth, the generals on the scene naturally had no one to fight with him, and besides, the vanguard was not a good job, and would withstand the fiercest counterattack of the Ming army.

"In that case, then I will let Prince Rui be the main attack in this battle."

Huang Taiji knew that Dolgon was not convinced by Li Hongyu, so he smiled and admonished, "Remember, we have an advantage in troops, and your task is to consume the strength of the Ming army, don't fight with it!" ”

"I understand." Hearing this, Dolgon bowed to Huang Taiji and replied in high spirits, he wanted to see if Li Hongyu was as powerful as rumored, and if he caught Li Hongyu, he would definitely go down in history.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this battle is related to the fortunes of our Qing Dynasty, and we can only succeed and not fail."

Huang Taiji glanced around at the generals at the scene, pondered for a while, and then announced loudly, "Pass the order, whoever captures Li Hongyu will be the prince regardless of life or death!" ”

With a bang, the scene suddenly became commotion, the Manchu Qing Dynasty now has only six princes, if you can take this opportunity to enter the crown prince, then it will be a step to the sky.

The scene of the Qing army deploying troops in the camp was detected by the observation post set up by the Ming army on the wild grass hill, and immediately reported to Li Hongyu, who knew that Huang Taiji was going to attack, so he asked his Ming generals to prepare for battle.

Sure enough, not long after the Ming army was fully armed, the Qing army launched an attack on the Ming army camp under the leadership of Dolgon, and a tragic battle slowly began.

In order to prevent the Qing army from breaking through the Ming army's position, Li Hongyu must put the strongest troops in his hand on the periphery to block the Qing army, which made the Qing army's offensive blocked to death.

Li Hongyu knew very well in his heart that Huang Taiji would definitely use the main force of the Qing army to attack the camp of the Ming army this time, and wanted to break the camp of the Ming army in one go, and only the forbidden army in his hands could be used, and the other Ming troops could not withstand such a fierce offensive of the Qing army.

"The order will go down, and the departments will retreat according to the plan!"

Two hours later, Li Hongyu, who was standing on the top of the mountain to supervise the battle, put down the thousand-mile cylinder he was holding in his hand, and gave an order to the herald on the side in a deep voice.

The Qing army's offensive was still fierce at this time, and the forbidden army had already suffered many casualties, so he decided to retreat in advance, with the goal of retreating to Ningyuan City.

With Li Hongyu's order, the troops of the Ming army in the rear, under the leadership of generals at all levels, quickly marched in the direction of Ningyuan City.

"Huang Taiji, the wild grass gang is left to you!" After glancing at the direction of the Qing army's camp, Li Hongyu waved his hand and led the soldiers around him to leave quickly, not minding throwing away the weeds at all.

The Qing army camp, the handsome tent.

Huang Taiji waited for the latest battle report with a serious expression, and Dai Shan and other Manchu high-level officials accompanied him, discussing the battle situation in a low voice in private.

Due to the slow progress of the forbidden army in resisting Dorgon, many of the soldiers of the Qing army encountered such a brave Ming army for the first time, which was completely different from the previous Ming army outside the Guan.

"Your Majesty, the Ming army retreated and fled south." Just when Huang Taiji frowned and fell into deep thought, a general rushed into the tent in high spirits, knelt down on one knee in front of Huang Taiji and reported in a loud voice.

"The Ming army retreated?" Huang Taiji's eyes suddenly lit up when he heard this, and he looked at the general who reported the news in surprise, but he didn't expect the Ming army to be unable to hold it so quickly.

"Back to the emperor, the Ming army was defeated and fled south, and Prince Rui is now leading the army to chase and kill." The general nodded hurriedly and replied excitedly.

"Congratulations to the emperor, my Qing army is invincible in the world, and even Li Hongyu is willing to bow down." Hearing this, a Manchu magnate couldn't help but say loudly to Huang Taiji.

"The emperor is mighty, and the Ming is vulnerable." Immediately after, the rest of the magnates spoke one after another, and the scene was a jubilant scene.

Unlike everyone else, Dai Shan's brows were slightly furrowed, sitting there quietly sipping tea, among the generals of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he and Huang Taiji were the first to deal with Li Hongyu, the battle of Tieling made him remember it vividly, who would have thought that Li Hongyu would risk his life and borrow reinforcements from Lin Dan Khan.

Of course, now Lin Dan Khan has been killed by Huang Taiji, and Li Hongyu has no reinforcements outside the pass, but it is undeniable that Li Hongyu himself is a very terrible character, whether there are reinforcements or not, it is terrifying, and he and Huang Taiji have a deep experience of this.

Huang Taiji's mood at this time was the same as Dai Shan, the expression on his face was cloudy, he did not show joy but his face became solemn, it was obvious that the current battle situation was very abnormal, which made him feel uneasy, Li Hongyu was actually so easy to defeat.

After a moment of contemplation, Huang Taiji stretched out his hand to stop everyone's compliments, looked at the people at the scene with a serious expression and said, "The Ming army is not defeated, but wants to leave the battlefield and retreat to Ningyuan City!" ”

"Withdraw to Ning Yuan?" Hearing this, those magnates who patted Huang Taiji's ass couldn't help but look at each other, not knowing that Huang Taiji was so sure that the Ming army was taking the initiative to retreat, and it was Ning Yuan who was not the nearest Tashan.

"If Li Hongyu can be defeated so easily, then he can't become the Taifu of the Ming Dynasty, and now although the Ming army is injured, it has not yet broken its muscles and bones, how can it be defeated so inexplicably?"

Seeing that everyone hadn't reacted yet, Huang Taiji couldn't help but tighten his eyebrows, and explained in a somewhat cold tone, "The Ming army only controls the two cities of Tashan and Ningyuan outside the pass, Ningyuan City has thick walls, the strongest city defense, and it is also close to Shanhaiguan, Li Hongyu will definitely choose there as a place to shelter and wait for the arrival of reinforcements." ”

"I see!" At this moment, the magnates on the scene suddenly figured out what was going on, and couldn't help but feel a commotion, just as Huang Taiji said, how could Li Hongyu be defeated so easily?

"Hmph, if you want to escape, it's not that easy!"

Huang Taiji felt that he had seen through Li Hongyu's intentions, and after a cold light flashed in his eyes, he shouted at the herald on the side, "The order goes down, the whole army pursues, and Li Hongyu must be trapped." ”

At this moment, Huang Taiji is bent on catching Li Hongyu, once he misses this opportunity, it will be difficult to get rid of this scourge of the Manchu Dynasty, and the safety of the Manchu Qing Dynasty cannot be guaranteed if Li Hongyu is there.

Under the order of Huang Taiji, the Qing army immediately pulled out the village and set off, day and night to pursue the fleeing Ming army, the Ming army did not love to fight, and retreated to Ningyuan City while fighting.

Two days later, the Ming army withdrew into Ningyuan City, relying on the strong city defense of Ningyuan City to put on a stubborn posture.

The Qing army surrounded Ningyuan City in the south and north, and Huang Taiji set up heavy troops in the south of Ningyuan City to prevent Ningyuan's Ming army from escaping back to Shanhaiguan and preventing the arrival of the Ming army in Shanhaiguan.

In Huang Taiji's view, in the face of the Qing army's heavy encirclement, the Ming army this time can be said to be difficult to fly, although the city defense of Ningyuan City is very strong, but the Qing army is no longer the Houjin army that knew nothing about siege in the past, not only has a systematic siege equipment but also a large number of imitation artillery.

For Huang Taiji, the greatest threat to the Qing army came from the wide-angle forts at the four corners of Ningyuan City, which housed the Ming army's longest-range and most powerful Hongyi cannon, which Nurhachi was almost killed by more than a decade ago.

However, the damage caused by the Hongyi cannon in Ningyuan City is within the psychological tolerance range of Huang Taiji, as long as the walls of Ningyuan City are breached, then Ning Yuan will be at his fingertips.

Just when Huang Taiji convened the generals in the Qing army camp outside Ningyuan City to discuss the plan to attack Ningyuan City, at midnight that day, the closed city gate of Xingshan City suddenly opened, and the Ming army in the city swarmed out and attacked the Qing army camp outside the city at night.

Because Huang Taiji had already transferred all the troops at hand to deal with Li Hongyu, there were only more than 10,000 Han Army Eight Banner soldiers left outside Xingshan City, who were the ones who had experienced the Battle of Bijiagang, and the morale of these people was relatively low, and they were quickly defeated and fled in panic after being attacked.

Dewey, the defender of Xingshan, did not pursue the fleeing Eight Banners of the Han Army, nor did he let the army go south, but rushed to the coast in the northeast.

Dewey had already received information from outside the city, and the sailors sent by Li Hongyu were already waiting on the shore to let them go to the shore to rendezvous.

(End of chapter)