The Ming army withdrew from Tashan Fort overnight, and burned all the grain in Tashan Tun with a fire, and all the 150,000 stone grain that Houjin had no time to transport away was burned, leaving nothing behind.

Sun Yueling is taking a certain risk in doing this, maybe some people will go to Ben Shen to consume military rations, but there is no way for him to do this, these grains have to be transported from Tashan to Ningyuan, it will take a lot of time, and before the grain is transported, Houjin's iron cavalry will arrive, and it will still be cheap for the enemy at that time.

Since they can't be transported, they naturally can't be left to the enemy, if their army becomes a food protection team, then the offensive and defensive forces are reversed, and they will become the target of Houjin, which is against the original intention of their guerrilla tactics, so destroying the grain is the best way.

Of course, in the future, some people may impeach him, saying that he would rather destroy the military rations than transport them back to Ningyuan, but at this moment he can't care about so much, and the future will be left to the future.

In the darkness of the night, the Ming army marched in the direction of Hongluo Mountain and entered the Hongluo Mountain area when the sky was bright.

This time, they entered the mountainous area according to the previous deployment, and everyone traveled lightly, of course, they also brought enough food from Tashan, which was enough for them to eat for at least half a month.

Hongluo Mountain is not particularly steep, but the victory lies in the staggered peaks, endless, stretching for more than ten miles from north to south, not to mention thousands of people, that is, tens of thousands of people rushed into it, if you want to find them and completely eliminate them, it is undoubtedly a very difficult thing.

The Ming army entered the mountains from the south, and under the guidance of veterans who were familiar with the terrain in the army, they entered a hinterland in the mountains and camped on the spot.

Sun Yueling's idea is very simple, it is not enough to compete with Houjin head-on at the moment, and it is simply impossible to save Jinzhou with this little force, so he can only adopt flexible and mobile tactics to deal with the enemy. They were alone in Liaozuo, and Yuan Chonghuan would not send troops to support, and he was embarrassed to go back like this, so he could only find a place to live for the time being.

Thanks to the fact that there is such a large mountainous area in the western Liaoning corridor for him to settle in, Hongluo Mountain has a wide range and dense forests, which is an excellent hiding place.

The whole army was already sleepy and tired after running around for days, and Sun Yueling ordered the whole army to rest for a day and be ready to attack at any time.

By the second day, the soldiers of the whole army had basically regained their strength, and the scouts also made it clear about the situation in the vicinity of Hongluo Mountain.

Hongluo Mountain is located on the bank of the border wall of the Ming Dynasty, the northwest is the boundary of the Mongolian Harashen Department, and the southeast is the Liaoxi Corridor, so this area has always been inaccessible, the woods are dense, and it is simply an undeveloped primitive deep forest.

To the north of the foothills, that is, on the road to Jinzhou, near the Daughter River, there are two fortresses of the Ming army, namely Dafu Fort and Daxing Fort.

According to the scouts, the two fortresses have now been occupied by the Houjin, and the Ming army has fled to the point where they are gone, and if they want to go to Jinzhou, they must pass through the range of these two fortresses. Houjin obviously also took these two fortresses lightly, and did not send a large group of men and horses to station, guarding these two fortresses only one Niu Lu's soldiers, plus the puppet army is less than a thousand people, with their current combat strength, these two fortresses can be easily taken.

Therefore, as long as these two fortresses are taken, the passage to Jinzhou will be opened, and from then on there will be no hindrance, and the advance can be attacked, and the retreat can be defended, and the initiative against the enemy will be completely occupied.

According to the development of history, Huang Taiji finally had to divide the main force to attack Ningyuan, and was counterattacked by Yuan Chonghuan with all his strength under Ningyuan City, if the situation was still like this, then they would have a lot to do.

Because the strength of the Houjin to stay in and besiege Jinzhou will not be too much, only about 20,000, and the number of troops in Jinzhou City alone is not less than 30,000, plus their elite who can launch a surprise attack from the enemy's flank at any time, can completely deal a serious blow to the enemy army under Jinzhou City.

In fact, in the past few days, Sun Yueling has also thought a lot, because he found that the legendary invincible Houjin Eight Banners are not invincible. So the question is, why did the Ming army see the Houjin army as if they had seen a life-urging ghost, and they often collapsed without a fight and fled in a hurry?

Since coming to this world, he has thought about this question more than once, and with his current grasp of the situation in the Ming Dynasty and the state of affairs in the world, he has summed up several reasons:

First, the Ming army's strategic deployment was often wrong. In fact, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army did not fall to the point where it could not fight with the Houjin, whether it was the four-way Xingshi in the Wanli Dynasty or the Sichuan-Zhejiang coalition army under the city of Liaoyang, which made the Houjin feel greatly shocked and saw the true strength of the Ming army.

These are all Mingjin's elite divisions, whether it is Juniper or Liu Ling, they are all generals in a hundred battles, but due to internal constraints and difficult coordination, it led to the defeat of Salhu. As for the battle of Liaoyang, the Sichuan-Zhejiang coalition army went to meet the Houjin under the condition that the enemy situation was unknown, and even under such unfavorable conditions, it still dealt a great blow to the Houjin, and the Houjin paid a heavy price to completely annihilate this coalition army.

Second, the internal constraints of the Ming army were too serious. The Battle of Guangcheng is a very obvious example, the disagreement between Wang Huazhen and Xiong Tingbi directly led to the discooperation of the various armies, and finally Guangning was easily obtained by the Later Jin. Don't talk about the past, let's take it now, he Sun Yueling passed through Liaodong and was in charge of the military of Liao, but if Yuan Chonghuan didn't cooperate, he was just an empty shelf, even if there was a good deployment and decision-making, it would be useless.

It was the battle of Songjin in the Chongzhen Dynasty that decided the final fate of the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin, originally according to Hong Chengchou's deployment, the Ming army fought steadily and steadily, and laid out the position, even if it was consumed, the Houjin could be consumed, but Zhang Ruoqi, who was in charge of supervising the army, repeatedly instigated Hong Chengchou to fight, resulting in the miscarriage of Hong Chengchou's strategic plan and the defeat of the Houjin in the case of lack of food and support.

Third, the Liaodong Military Town raised its own respect, but it became a problem for raising tigers. The Liaodong military town generals have the idea of raising Kou and self-respect, while indulging the rise of Houjin while filling their own pockets, the stronger Houjin is, the more they will receive the attention of the imperial court, no, sure enough, the Ming court spent a lot of money to build the Guanning defense line, and it made them all fat and became a warlord.

Unexpectedly, while they made a windfall, the Houjin also rose rapidly under their indulgence, and became stronger and stronger until the Eight Banners were strong enough to compete with the Ming army, or even surpass the Ming army. What is hateful is that at this time, Liaozuo Junzhen is still daydreaming, unwilling to face the problem in front of them, or to the point where they have no ability to change, and Houjin has become more powerful than they imagined, and it is no longer something they can contend with.

Liaozuo Junzhen can't do Houjin by himself, and he doesn't want to watch the friendly army win, so wouldn't they be very faceless, what is the use of the imperial court keeping them?

As a result, when other military towns and reinforcements came to Liao to fight, they always acted in disobedience and dragged them back. I'd rather let the guest army and reinforcements go to death than reach out and pull them along. Sometimes it is even more excessive, often the two armies face each other, and before the battle has begun, or as soon as the battle begins, they flee and sell the flanks of the friendly army to the enemy, resulting in the collapse of the whole army and the annihilation of the friendly army.

Sun Yueling thought of this and was heartbroken, he used to be suspicious of these rumors, but now in Liaodong, he finally saw the "power" of these Liaozuo generals, just like a few days ago, if it wasn't for Wu Xiang, the first dog day to escape, maybe the blue flag would be greatly injured, and the whole army would be wiped out.

While he was thinking, Yan Nantian came to his side, sat down next to him under an old tree, handed him a piece of dry food, and said, "My lord, eat something, you haven't eaten for half a day." ”

Sun Yueling took the dry food and took a bite, feeling like chewing wax.

It was a dry pancake, made of whole grains and soybeans, which was so much worse than what he usually ate that it was a little difficult to eat.

Yan Nantian said: "I have wronged my lord, the food in the army is too poor, and I can only rely on this to satisfy my hunger." ”

Sun Yueling smiled and said: "It's okay, Yuan Chonghuan is not thin on us after all, now we at least have something to eat, don't rely on yourself to raise food." ”

Yan Nantian smiled at him and said, "My lord, how does our army plan to act next?" Do you want to take Dafubao Castle? ”

Sun Yueling took a bite of the pie and said, "Don't worry, let's rest here for a few days and see the situation." ”

"See what's going on?" Yan Nantian was puzzled.

Sun Yueling smiled slightly, pretending to be unfathomable, and said: "As I expected, Huang Taiji will lead the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners to the south, and the first thing is to capture Tashan again, and then wave his army to the city of Ningyuan." ”

"What? Huang Taiji is going to attack Ning Yuan? Yan Nantian looked incredulous.

It stands to reason that Huang Taiji must first break through Jinzhou City, and then it is possible to attack Ningyuan, if he bypasses Jinzhou and travels a long way to fight Ningyuan, won't he put himself between the two fortresses? If Zhao Shujiao of Jinzhou went out of the city to fight at this time, wouldn't they have to be attacked on both sides?

Sun Yueling seemed to see through his thoughts and said, "Nantian, do you think that Huang Taiji would not dare to do this?" ”

Yan Nantian frowned and said, "I don't think this seems likely. ”

Sun Yueling accentuated his tone and said, "I can assert to you that Huang Taiji will definitely attack Ning Yuan. ”

He can say this, it is completely based on the memory of later generations to assert, because if the original trajectory of history develops, Huang Taiji will not be able to attack Jinzhou for a long time, and he will be angry in his heart, and he will attack Ning Yuan in a fit of anger to vent his anger. And judging from the trend of the situation, it seems that there is not much deviation, which is why he is so full of words.

Yan Nantian hesitated for a while before he said, "If this is the case, how should our army act?" ”

Sun Yueling smiled coldly and said, "At that time, it will be our chance to rescue Jinzhou, and we must let the enemy plant a big heel under Jinzhou City." ”8)