It is not that the Qing army is insufficient, but that the Qing army is really in a dilemma. After the annexation of the dynasty and Xian, the Manchu Qing dynasty was in the dynasty, and the Xian provinces garrisoned troops in Hanyang and Pyongyang at first, and later found that Busan was a paradise for smugglers, and they also garrisoned troops there, and North Hamgyong Province was close to the trading company in the northeast of Moko, so it was also garrisoned to monitor.

These armies were unified by Dorgon's henchman Sukh Saha, who was stationed in Seoul. The Eight Banners stationed in various places, adapted from the previous dynasty, the green battalion and the Xian Eight Banners of the Xian Army, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was in the DPRK, and the Xian garrison had reached 40,000.

After discovering that the Oriental Trading Company had increased its troops on Jeju Island on a large scale, Sukh Saha immediately asked for help from Shengjing, and Dolgon sent troops to help, and when the trading company and the Dashun coalition army landed on the peninsula, Shengjing became serious.

After discussion, Jilharang was appointed as the general king, led the army to reinforce Hancheng, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty dispatched the Eight Banners of the Han Army, the Eight Banners of Mongolia and some of the Green Battalion soldiers to go south with Jierharang, and selected good generals and clan assistants, the famous generals of the Eight Banners Aobai and Kubilong, Boluo and Yue Le in the clan, and Kong Youde and Gaodi in the Han clan also went to war with Jierharang.

For a time, in the DPRK, the Xian Peninsula formed an army of 70,000 people, even if the original dynasty was removed, the Xian army, the troops and horses moved, were more than when the peninsula was annexed.

It's just that not all of these soldiers and horses can be used. For example, the Qing Battalion was the weakest in the Manchu army, not only lacking the will to fight, but also seriously lacking firearms, and was limited to controlling the place and maintaining law and order.

And along the coast, it is necessary to stay on the coast to prevent landing. Eventually, Zilharang amassed an army of 45,000 men in Seoul, which was the most support given to Zilharang by the Manchus while taking into account other strategic directions.

Dolgon assured that as long as the situation in the western Liaoxi Corridor was stable and the garrison of the southern and northern deserts and the Mongolian support of the outer vassals arrived, more than 20,000 troops could be sent to help before the winter, but the 45,000 soldiers and horses in his hands made Zilharang in a dilemma.

For the main force of the First Army in the south of the peninsula, the Qing army generally knew its size, but for the soldiers and horses on Juehua Island, the Qing army did not know the reality.

After the marines landed, they immediately moved all the prisoners and islanders on Kyaw Hwa Island to Jeju Island, arranged guard patrols along the coast, and sent a mobile and flexible galleys to station, so that the Qing army's sentinels could not go to the island, and even if they did, they could not get close to the garrison camp.

Because of the complete loss of sea supremacy, Zilharang did not even have the idea of landing. However, Li Zhaoji tried his best to set up a suspicious formation, constantly sending ships in and out of Juehua Island in a grand manner, and sending a marine corps to Juehua Island again and again, creating the illusion of increasing troops, and after the First Army gained a firm foothold on the peninsula, Li Zhaoji also transported some surplus horses and mules to Juehua Island by sea.

These were all taken into account by the Qing troops placed on the shore, and Zilharang had to consider the possibility of leading the main force south and cutting off his own rear route after he went deeper.

Therefore, Zilharang only sent a small number of cavalry south, harassed and reconnoitred, waited for reinforcements to arrive, and then made a district.

The First Army was not in a hurry to go north, but to conduct a large-scale survey of the peninsula and explore the location of the main force of the Qing army to the north.

In fact, the main force of the Qing army has been stationed in Seoul, but the army's scouts and cavalry are sad to cross the Han River, so they have not been able to grasp it, but they are worried about its ambush on the south bank, so they remain vigilant and distance themselves.

Until mid-August, Li Zhaoji could not withstand the constant urging of Dashun and ordered Yang Yandi to go north, and the First Army immediately arrived on the south bank of the Han River and stationed in the Bucheon area, while the Marines also landed and controlled Incheon, forming a more efficient supply route.

After the First Army reached Bucheon, its strength reached its peak. Originally, it had three infantry brigades, three cavalry regiments, and an artillery battalion, and if you only count the combat personnel, it was 15,000 infantry, 2,400 cavalry, and the military artillery battalion plus the brigade artillery company, a total of 42 artillery pieces.

If we include baggage, engineers, field hospitals, and commanders at all levels, the entire First Army has more than 24,000 troops, which can be regarded as fully manned.

First of all, Li Laiheng personally led two infantry battalions of 1,200 people to join Yang Yandi's command, and as Li Hao appeased many rebels and rebels, maintained local law and order and liaised with supply lines, Li Zhaoji was able to draw guards to support.

This brought Yang Yandi an elite army, including a Guards Grenadier Battalion and a Guards Chasseur Battalion, as well as a Guards Cavalry Team of 200 men.

After arriving in Bucheon, Liu Shun led two battalions of Marines into the battlefield. After entering September, reinforcements from Beihai arrived, and Bargen brought the Jurchen tribes recruited from the north, a total of more than 700 people, each of whom was a cavalry, because there was no formal cavalry training, Li Zhaoji provided horses, and organized them into a hussar regiment, called Balgen's regiment, which was also handed over to Yang Yandi.

In September, the strength of the First Army reached its peak, the size reached thirty thousand. The ammunition supply of this army came from the sea, and Yang Yandi established an ammunition storage point in Bucheon, while the supply of military rations such as grain and forage came from the rear annexed to the Dynasty and Xianzhou Prefecture.

Beginning in September, Yang Yandi sent sappers to try to build pontoon bridges over the Han River, and maneuvered upstream along the Han River, using ships to transport troops to the north of the river, but several attempts were not successful.

In the eyes of friendly forces, this is a manifestation of the army's efforts and a manifestation of seeking war, but in fact it is only for friendly forces to see.

As soon as the First Army arrived at the front, Li Zhaoji sent people to Seoul to seek peace talks with the Manchus.

Li Zhaoji directly opened his mouth and proposed to ask for the four provinces of Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, Jeolla and Gyeongsang, Chao, Xian Badao, and Li Zhaoji asked for four provinces, nominally half, but in fact it was not the case, these four provinces also had two-fifths of the area of the Chao and Xian kingdoms, but the population was more than three-fifths.

In particular, the two provinces of Gyeonggi and Chungcheong, which directly swallowed the essence of the West Coast Plain, the most densely populated part of the peninsula, were naturally unacceptable to the Manchu Qing side.

After consulting with Dolgon, Zilharang did not want the Oriental Trading Company to own land on the peninsula, and he hoped to use silver to redeem it and allow the Oriental Trading Company to trade on the peninsula to settle the war, but Li Zhaoji flatly refused.

For the sake of population and taxation, Lee Zhaoji was determined to seize a dense piece of land in this war. The two sides could not get along, so they could only fight, but it was also difficult to fight, because the Han River was too wide, the pontoon bridge was demolished, and the north and south could only be crossed by ferry, and neither side wanted to launch a difficult river-crossing attack, but pinned their hopes on the other side to attack, so that the opponent could attack one and a half crossings.

But the longer the time dragged on, the more unfavorable it was for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, its annexation of the dynasty, the Xian in the peninsula was a cruel rule, the dynasty, the Xian people and the gentry suffered excessive taxes for this, in the era of the Li Dynasty, the privileges of those two classes of nobles were almost all abolished, in the face of the saber of the Eight Banners, they could only obediently pay taxes and serve.

When Li Hao came to restore the country, and when the army of the Eastern Trading Company showed its strength to make the Manchus helpless, the attitude of the southern state capitals of the peninsula changed.

Some officials and generals were stubborn, but the two classes of nobles in various places began to support Li Hao, and in some state capitals where there were no garrisons, they directly occupied the yamen, and some even dared to fight against the local court and bright green battalions.

As time went on, the situation even north of the Han River became unstable, and Dolgon could only send troops to support him, urging Zilharang to march and defeat Dongfan Daoyi.

The turn of the war took place in mid-December. This year's peninsula is particularly cold, in normal years, the Han River, especially the Han River in the Seoul area, will freeze when the weather is cold, and when the weather is hot, it will form a long-lasting flood posture, but this year, the Han River is particularly cold, since the end of November, the Han River has not thawed after the ice, and it is getting colder and colder, and the ice is getting thicker and thicker, so that both sides have the possibility of crossing the river directly.

The sappers even tried, and the ice of the Han River could withstand a pressure of five tons. This meant that even a twelve-pounder gun could cross the river directly, and the twelve-pounder gun's cart, ammunition, and dragged horses combined weighed about five tons.

Therefore, Li Laiheng once again urged Li Zhaoji to cross the river and march, and even did not hesitate to ask for 200,000 taels from the capital for this purpose.

But Li Zhaoji, who got the money, did not let the First Army cross the river, but chose another method to force the Qing army to cross the river for a decisive battle.

According to Li Zhaoji's order, the First Army deployed artillery batteries on the south bank of the Han River, the closest place to Seoul, and then dragged the 90-pounder guns on the main ships of the Navy to the batteries, which could shoot solid shells 3,200 meters away, and this section of the Han River was only one kilometer wide.

Seoul was within the range of this artillery, and the red-hot solid shells were fired, and later the flowering shells were fired, causing a mess in Seoul.

On 17 December, Zilharang officially led his army to cross the Yangtze River to the south, and at this time the available army under his command had risen from 45,000 to 60,000, forming a twofold advantage over the First Army, especially the cavalry of the Qing Army, which exceeded 20,000 and formed an absolute advantage over the First Army.

Taking full advantage of this advantage, he divided most of the cavalry into a team of 300 men and stationed them along the river, covering the reconnaissance force of the First Army, and then mobilized the infantry to carry out feints to cross the river in many places, and finally completed the crossing of the river in the upper reaches on the 20th, and the main force of the Qing army was launched.

It's just that Yang Yandi did not take the initiative to attack, but waited for the Qing army to fight in Fuchuan, because there were good fortifications built by the first army, and the south bank was plain and wilderness, which was conducive to cavalry galloping and had an advantage over the Qing army.

And the First Army was backed by Incheon and could be supplied nearby. Originally, all parties thought that a decisive battle was about to break out, but a dramatic scene appeared.

On December 21, after the Qing army crossed the river, the cold north wind stopped abruptly, and then the sun appeared in the sky after a long absence, and in the second half of the night, there was a sleet, which meant that the temperature was rising.

However, the First Army, which was entrenched in the vicinity of Bucheon, saw heavy snow that night, and did not realize the rise in temperature, and Zilharang saw that the First Army was not advancing, so he chose to cross the river at night and return to the north bank, still bluffing during the day.

It was not until the 24th of December that Yang Yandi noticed that the temperature was rising, and immediately led the army eastward, but only captured the rearguard of the Qing army, although more than 7,000 people were annihilated, but most of them were Chao, Xian Eight Banners and Mongolian cavalry of the outer domain, and the greatest value was the thousands of war horses captured and a large number of baggage carts and artillery carts filled with grain and artillery shells.