Ningyuan, the camp of the Qing army.

Huang Taiji inspected the Qing army's siege preparations in order to capture Ningyuan City in one fell swoop, and the Qing army built a large number of siege equipment, which made the camp a tense and busy scene.

"Your Majesty, the general of the Xingshan garrison sent an urgent report, the night before yesterday, the Ming army of Xingshan City suddenly broke through the siege, and fled to the northeast after killing our army, and our army is now urgently sending people to monitor." Huang Taiji was checking whether a ladder was in full swing when a soldier hurried to report it.

"Ran northeast?"

Huang Taiji had a look of surprise on his face when he heard this, it stands to reason that the Ming army in Xingshan should go south to join the Ming army in Ningyuan, but the north is the territory of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, not to mention that even the grassland in Liaodong is controlled by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, wouldn't they be looking for death by doing this?

Vaguely, Huang Taiji felt that things were not as simple as he thought, and after a little contemplation, he led a group of high-ranking officials and magnates to the Shuai tent to discuss how to deal with the Xingshan Ming army that fled north.

The high-ranking generals of the Qing army were also quite surprised by this news, the move of the Xingshan Ming army was completely unreasonable, did they want to cross the grassland and return to the Ming Dynasty after going north?

"Your Majesty, if the Ming army in Xingshan wants to flee north, it is simply a way to kill themselves, as long as the emperor gives an order, my Qing warriors along the way will wipe them out!" Soon, one of the generals came back to his senses and said with disdain on his face.

"Your Majesty, it seems that they want to make a desperate bet, but the north is our world, and they can't fly out even if they put on their wings!" When the rest of the generals heard this, they all agreed with each other, and they all thought that the Xingshan Ming Army was already a turtle in the urn.

Huang Taiji's brows furrowed slightly, he felt that things might not be so simple, the reason why Li Hongyu withdrew his troops was to create a chance for the Ming army in Xingshan to escape, it was obvious that Li Hongyu succeeded, and the Ming army in Xingshan escaped smoothly.

What puzzled Huang Taiji was that if the Ming army in Xingshan was instructed by Li Hongyu to flee north, then what was Li Hongyu's purpose in doing this? No matter how you look at it, going north is a dead end.

"Your Majesty, will they take the sea route?" Just when Zhongre was talking about it, Fan Wencheng, who had been silent, thought of a possibility and said tentatively.

Since taking refuge in Huang Taiji, Fan Wencheng has been reused and trusted by Huang Taiji, and can be said to be the first strategist around Huang Taiji, who has given Huang Taiji a lot of ideas and made great contributions.

Fan Wencheng knows Li Hongyu very well, he took refuge in Houjin soon after the outbreak of the Salhu War, Li Hongyu was ordered to go to Liaodong to save the crisis, since then Fan Wencheng has been paying attention to Li Hongyu, knowing that Li Hongyu is a very strategic figure, and will never make such a ridiculous mistake.

Therefore, after thinking about it carefully, Fan Wencheng felt that the Ming army would not break through to the north for no reason, and Li Hongyu should know very well that going north was a dead land, so the only way to go was by sea.

This is not Fan Wencheng's groundless speculation, but a result based on the situation in front of him, Li Hongyu is in control of the real Ming naval division troops, and now the Ming army outside the pass has been trapped for more than half a year, so Li Hongyu has enough time to transfer the water division to participate in the war.

"By sea?"

Huang Taiji was slightly stunned when he heard this, and then his expression became solemn, so that everything could be explained, did Li Hongyu want the defenders of Xingshan to retreat from the sea?

"Your Majesty, there are hundreds of warships of my Great Qingshui Division on the sea, and it is very difficult for them to escape from the sea!"

At this time, a general sneered and said with a disdainful face, thinking that Fan Wencheng was worried, if the Ming army could take the sea route, it would have run away a long time ago, and it would have to wait until today?

"Your Majesty, now that the sea area outside the gate has been controlled by my Great Qing Shui Division, it is not easy for them to escape from the sea." Immediately afterwards, another general expressed a similar opinion, not believing that the Ming army in Xingshan would be evacuated by sea.

The words of the two aroused the approval and approval of the rest of the Manchu generals, and they whispered to each other about this matter, although they looked down on those Han generals who surrendered, but Kong Youde's sailors were not vegetarians, and they were very powerful in naval battles.

"The frog at the bottom of the well, Yelang is arrogant!" Seeing this, Fan Wencheng couldn't help but show a sneer at the corner of his mouth, and he was quite contemptuous and ridiculed of those Manchu generals in his heart, they didn't know how powerful the Ming army was at all.

Fan Wencheng deliberately inquired about the situation of the Ming Army's naval division, and knew that the main warship of the Ming Army's naval division was a very strange three-masted sailing ship, which was not only large in size but also very fast, and there were many gun windows on both sides of the hull, which could be described as a turret moving on the sea.

Once the Ming army's naval division enters the war, then how can Kong Youde's small sampan ships be opponents, I am afraid that there will be a one-sided massacre at sea at that time.

However, as a Han Chinese Fan Wencheng, he naturally would not open his mouth to refute those arrogant Manchu generals, and the truth of the facts will soon be known.

Sure enough, that night, Huang Taiji received bad news, and the person who brought him the news was Kong Youde, who was in charge of the Qing Army's naval division.

Kong Youde's forehead was wrapped in bandages, and his clothes were stained with a lot of dirt and looked dirty, and he looked quite embarrassed.

"Your Majesty, the minister is incompetent, and he was attacked by the Ming army's naval division, and the opponent's warships are not only huge in size, but also have a lot of artillery on each one, and the minister's men are almost lost."

After seeing Huang Taiji, Kong Youde came to him and knelt down, touched his head to the ground and pleaded guilty, he finally escaped with his life, although he got out of the battlefield, he still looked flustered and seemed to have palpitations.

Kong Youde's sailors stopped on Juehua Island, which happened to be able to monitor the sea area of the first line of the Liaoning West Corridor, and was suddenly attacked by a large number of ships of the Ming Army's sailors in the morning, and the guns of the three-masted sailing ships in the Ming Army's Sailors directly stunned the people of the Manshui Division on the island, and countless ships were destroyed, and Kong Youde finally took advantage of the chaos to escape in a small boat.

"Sure enough!"

Hearing this news, Huang Taiji's face suddenly became very ugly, it seems that the Ming army sailors are here to meet the Xingshan Ming army, so everything can be explained, the coast in the northeast of Xingshan is more suitable for docking large ships, so the Xingshan Ming army will go north.

"How many Ming Army sailors are coming?" After the initial stunned, Huang Taiji came back to his senses and asked Kong Youde with a gloomy face, he needed more information to make a correct judgment.

"Back to the emperor, the sea is dense, and there are hundreds of ships." Kong Youde hurriedly raised his head and replied, in fact, there are only more than 200 ships of the Ming Army's naval division, most of which are civilian ships requisitioned to transport the Xingshan Ming Army, and there are only twenty or thirty real naval ships.

However, it was these twenty or thirty naval division warships that crushed the morale of the Manshui division with a single cannon shot, so that it didn't even have a chance to resist, and the scene of being bombarded by hundreds of artillery pieces was really similar to Shura Purgatory.

In order to shirk responsibility, Kong Youde naturally had to exaggerate, so that his crime would be minimized, and Kong Youde was invisibly misled.

"Hundreds!" Huang Taiji's brows immediately furrowed when he heard this, if the Ming army sailors had such many ships, then they would be able to transport a large number of troops by sea, and the Qing army would have to suffer from the enemy at that time.

Huang Taiji didn't know how many sailors Li Hongyu had transferred to fight outside the pass this time, and if there were tens of thousands of people, it would be a huge pressure on the Qing army.

However, compared with the battle with the Ming army's naval divisions, Huang Taiji was more worried that Li Hongyu let those naval divisions cross the sea to attack the Liaodong region, which was empty of troops, and the entire Liaodong would be turned upside down at that time, and the lethality to the Manchus would be greater.

With Huang Taiji's understanding of Li Hongyu, Li Hongyu will win by surprise nine times out of ten, taking advantage of the fact that the main force of the Qing army was dragged in Ningyuan and ordered the sailors to attack Liaodong, then Shenyang and Liaoyang and other important cities can be in danger, and the Han people in the city will definitely turn against and welcome the arrival of the Ming army.

"The order went down, and after nightfall, the whole army retreated, retreated to Jinzhou, and Dolgon led his troops to break off." After pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back a few laps in the tent, Huang Taiji finally made up his mind, stopped and gave an order in a deep voice.

The vast majority of the people in Liaodong are Han Chinese, and once the people of the Ming army and sailors are allowed to set off an incident in Liaodong, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Although Huang Taiji wanted to get rid of Li Hongyu, at the same time, he also had to guard against Li Hongyu giving him a trick to shake the foundation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in Liaodong.

Therefore, compared with the two phases, Huang Taiji still decided to withdraw the army first, and the garrison monitored the overall situation in Jinzhou.

To tell the truth, Huang Taiji was not sure to catch Li Hongyu, no matter how much he said that there were tens of thousands of troops in Ningyuan City, it would not be a problem to fight for a few months, and at that time, Liaodong might have been captured by the Ming army's naval division.

After Huang Taiji's order to retreat was issued, the generals of the Qing army who were preparing for war were suddenly stunned, and their minds couldn't turn for a while, and they didn't understand why they were retreating.

It wasn't until they learned that the Ming army's sailors had destroyed Kong Youde's sailors, and the generals of the Qing army realized the seriousness of the situation and strictly implemented Huang Taiji's orders.

In the evening, Ningyuan City.

"Master Taifu, there seems to be an abnormality in the camp of the Qing army!" In the early hours of the morning, Li Hongyu, who was asleep, was woken up by his guards, and the Ming army on duty on the city gate found that there was movement in the Qing army camp in the distance, so they immediately came to report.

Li Hongyu was sleeping in a daze, and after a while, he eased up, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help revealing a sly smile, and then got up and put on his clothes and went to investigate.

"My lord, they seem to have made a move, I don't know what it is."

On the tower of the city gate, Wu Sangui and other generals had already arrived in advance after receiving the news, and were looking at the movement in the Qing army camp from afar, only to see the figure flickering in the dark night and seemed to be carrying out a large-scale transfer.

Li Hongyu took a thousand miles to look at the Qing army camp in the distance, then stretched his waist, and said to Wu Sangui and the others with a relaxed expression, "Jiannu is about to withdraw the army, everyone have a good rest tonight, and send the wounded to Shanhaiguan tomorrow." ”

"Withdrawal?" Wu Sangui and the others immediately looked at each other when they heard this, and they looked a little hard to believe for a while, why did the good Qing army withdraw, haven't they been busy attacking the city these days?

"If Ben Taifu didn't guess wrong, Jiannu must have known that Ben Taifu transferred the sailors of the Customs Division, and they were worried that the sailors would take the opportunity to attack Liaodong, so they returned to help defend them."

Li Hongyu smiled, then walked towards the city gate, yawning as he walked, and said, "I haven't slept well these days, I think everyone is the same, you can sleep peacefully tonight." ”

Looking at the back of Li Hongyu leaving, Wu Sangui and the others couldn't help but look at each other, who would have thought that the Qing army, which had already put up a posture and was ready to attack the city, would be frightened by Li Hongyu's sailors and withdraw their troops to protect themselves?

Then everyone breathed a sigh of relief, which meant that they had gotten rid of the danger, after all, no one wanted to fight with the Qing army with superior forces in Ningyuan, and I don't know how many people would die at that time.

(End of chapter)