Chapter 365

The scale is unprecedented, in addition to the Ning Navy, almost all the expeditions of the Ming Dynasty that can fight are gathered, and at the beginning it really made the Chinese people very excited, thinking that the elimination of Jiannu is hopeful, and the Jiannu who has been making trouble for decades and tossed enough to choke the Ming Dynasty can rest in peace!

The common people are still happy, Liao salary is like a mountain pressing on their bodies, pressing them out of breath, and now Jiannu is dead, which angers the entire Ming Dynasty, the emperor drives a new expedition, vowing to set foot on Jiannu, they all think that this time Jiannu will not be exterminated.

At least you have to be beaten honestly for a few decades, and you probably don't have to pay this salary, right? They were able to catch their breath, too.

However, after the Northern Expeditionary Army set out, they found that this was not the case, 100,000 troops, hundreds of thousands of people, were moved, and they were clothed, grained, and paid...... It's all astronomical amounts, officials at all levels took the opportunity to loot on a large scale, and the court decreed that half a tael of silver would be added, and they could add it to five taels.

The entire Beizhili was ruthlessly looted, especially in the area of Beijing and Tianjin, and I don't know how many people were forced to die. There is no way, the officials at the end of the Ming Dynasty have no other skills, but no one can do the ability to loot the people's fat and ointment and mess things up.

Layers of looting, layer by layer of drifting, although the Beijing and Tianjin areas have been scraped to the sky, but the military funds sent to the front line are far from enough, and the civil servants and some generals who accompany the army are greedy for ink by taking advantage of their powers, and even fewer can be sent to the soldiers, which makes everyone complain.

This time, most of the grain and grass for the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty were in the hands of big grain merchants, who sent the grain to the army, but for the people of Yujinggi, the price was higher, and even rose to eight taels of silver per bucket of grain.

This kind of grain price was only sold at such a high price in Shenyang between the fifth and seventh years of the Apocalypse, because the price of grain was too high, and Nurhachi killed the people of Liaodong and snatched the grain. Now don't say that the people of Gyeonggi can't afford to eat food, even ordinary officials can't afford to eat it, how much silver do they have?

Cheng Shijie is actually not optimistic about this Northern Expedition, as an outsider, he can see at a glance that this is almost a copy of another civil fort change, the last civil fort change, directly broke the situation of equal emphasis on civil and military affairs in the Ming Dynasty, and trampled 500,000 elites and Manchu nobles in the mud, and the civil ministers directly overrode the military ministers and the imperial power.

When Cheng Shijie was thinking about how to deal with it, Zhou Ning, Zhang Yu, Shen Mingyu, Li Xin, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and others came to the Ning Navy General Mansion.

"Meet the Commander!"

Cheng Shijie looked at the people who suddenly came in and asked, "Have you eaten?" If not, eat some together, and if you do, you can wait for me for a while. ”

"This ......"

Zhou Ning was about to speak, Shen Mingyu sat down directly, and said to the servants beside him, "Add a few pairs of dishes and chopsticks!" ”

Shen Mingyu, like Chen Guodong, is Cheng Shijie's protégé, when Cheng Shijie was still white, they lived in Cheng Shijie's home in Dengzhou City, ate and lived, all with Cheng Shijie, and there were no constraints.

Watching Shen Mingyu sit down, Zhang Yu and Zhou Ning also slowly found a seat to sit down, and finally Li Xin, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and Liu Wenxiu sat in the next position.

Fortunately, Cheng Shijie's table is big enough, after all, Cheng Shijie has a lot of concubines in name, so only a big table can sit down.

Cheng Shijie's meals are actually not extravagant, but the style is slightly more, more than a dozen dishes, everyone eats very happily together, only Li Xin, who eats with Cheng Shijie for the first time, is a little restrained.

Cheng Shijie looked at Shen Mingyu lightly and said with a smile: "Can't you wait, ready to go south to Annan?" ”

"Exactly!"

Shen Mingyu led the Annan Army to the south to seize the Red River Plain to house the Daming people affected by the weather of the Xiaoice River, which was the established strategy of the Ning Navy, because of last year's northern snowfall in Mobei, Mobei Mongolia suddenly went south and was forced to stop, and now Shen Mingyu wants to go south again.

Cheng Shijie sighed and said, "The Annan Army has temporarily canceled the plan to go south!" ”

"Why?"

"Because the plan can't keep up with the change!"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "This commander can judge that the Ming Dynasty's Northern Expedition to Jiannu this time will not only be defeated, but also the whole army may be defeated!" ”

Zhou Ning and Zhang Yu looked at each other, and for a long time Zhang Yu said: "Dashuai means ......"

"The mission of the Annan Army to the south is temporarily put on hold, and it will enter restorative training in Haizhou, waiting for orders, ready to go north at any time!"

Cheng Shijie continued: "A while ago, the Guan Ning Army asked Zu Dabi to come over to buy artillery and rocket artillery, and it was understandable to sell them some based on the relationship between the Guan Ning Army and us, but the Guan Ning Army did not use the light artillery, but asked to buy our four-inch and five-inch heavy guns, which is very telling!" ”

Although it is said that the five-inch breech-loading rifled gun is very powerful, the problem is that this kind of artillery is difficult to move and cannot keep up with the movement speed of the field troops, and even the artillery unit of the Ning Navy is not equipped with five-inch heavy guns, and if the five-inch heavy guns are used to demolish the city wall, the effect is very good, especially the rammed earth city wall.

This aroused Cheng Shijie's suspicions, to say that the Guanning army begged to buy armor and equipment from the Ning Navy, which is understandable, the Jiannu faced by the Guanning army has fled, and only the northwest region still has contact with Jiannu, but the problem is that Jiannu has no city wall for the Guanning army to attack.

Obviously, it can be judged that the artillery purchased by the Guanning army is not for them, and it is likely to serve as a white glove to serve Jiannu, and now the Guanning army, one of the main forces of the Northern Expedition, is acting suspiciously, and the Northern Expedition has no hope of success.

Zhou Ning reacted: "What does the marshal mean that Guan Ningjun is no longer credible?" ”

"What can Guan Ningjun trust?"

"That's just as well!"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "If it is determined that the Guanning Army will take refuge in Jiannu, the General Staff needs to formulate a plan, and our Ning Navy will take Liaodong as soon as possible and completely control the entire Guanwai!" ”

"Yes!"

Shen Mingyu was puzzled: "With the combat effectiveness of the Guanning Army, there is no need for the Annan Army, right?" ”

Shen Mingyu's words are not a problem, don't look at the establishment of six brigades of the Ning Navy, after the reorganization, in fact, the third brigade is stationed in Shenyang, the sixth brigade is stationed in Guangning, and the fourth brigade is stationed in Taining, this is to encircle the Guanning Army from the south, east and north, the main brigade of the three Ning Navy has more than 60,000 troops, plus three artillery regiments, and twenty-one infantry regiments, not to mention that the Guanning Army has transferred more than half of its troops to the Northern Expedition, even if the entire strength of the Guanning Army is in Liaoxi, Zu Dashou can carry it for a month, he is really awesome!

"The mission of the Annan Army is not to deal with the Guanning Army!"

Cheng Shijie said: "The mission of the Annan Army is the same as last year's mission in Shanxi, to close the door and fight the dog!" Once Jiannu goes south, you will take a boat to the Funing Acropolis, and with the cooperation of the navy, quickly take Funing, and then divide the troops into two routes, one inside and one outside, and advance all the way along the defense line of the Great Wall, and close the door! ”

Shen Mingyu said: "Now the door understands!" ”

Cheng Shijie looked at Zhou Ning and Li Xindao: "Let you be placed in the back hands of Gyeonggi and Beizhili, and hurry up!" ”

"Moving?"

Cheng Shijie nodded and said: "Ben Shuai is not optimistic about this Northern Expedition, it is foreseeable that Jiannu will not meet the Northern Expedition army of the imperial court in Monan, but lure the enemy to go deep and stretch the grain route of the Northern Expedition army. ”

"The judgment of the marshal is the same as the plan deduction of our general staff!"

"The people are innocent, let them move in the direction of Tianjin, and when we get to Tianjin, we have the sea behind us, and we have the advantage of shipping, so food and materials will not be a problem!"

Cheng Shijie continued: "In the case of large-scale organization, the people will definitely flee south, so that they can avoid the war zone!" ”

Li Xin asked: "Dashuai, have you ever thought that the Gyeonggi refugees and tenants will follow us south, but those who have land, family and business will probably not follow us south!" ”

"There's no way around it, never try to wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep!"

Cheng Shijie said: "Ben Shuai doesn't believe that there is no smart person in the entire Ming Dynasty, and he will not be able to see that this Northern Expedition is a big pit, but the question is, did anyone remind Emperor Chongzhen?" No, so, this world ......"

Li Xin and the others said: "We will swear allegiance to the Lord to the death!" ”

The Northern Expedition army is getting farther and farther away from the Great Wall, and it is getting closer and closer to Jiannu, but the morale of the Northern Expedition army of the Ming Dynasty is getting lower and lower. Lu Xiangsheng, a smart man, saw all this in his eyes and was worried.

As the commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Zhu Chunchen was also very worried after reading the consumption of the troops, two or three hundred thousand soldiers had to be transported from the Guannei, and the manpower and material resources consumed were astronomical, ten days and half a month were okay, and if it lasted for a few months, even if there was a gold mountain in the Ming Dynasty, it would be eaten up!

So, Zhu Chunchen admonished Emperor Chongzhen: "According to the old minister's meaning, it is best to solve this battle quickly, after Huang Taiji became emperor, there are still a lot of troublesome things that have not been dealt with, and he is so busy that he would never dream that His Majesty would personally lead a large army to crusade against him, and our army will attack decisively, and he will be able to catch him off guard!" If Jiannu reacts, this battle will be difficult to fight, and if you don't fight for a year or two, you won't be able to tell the winner! ”

Emperor Chongzhen thought so, he actually knew that the imperial court was short of food, and his biggest expectation was to be able to settle the situation in one battle, so he didn't realize at all, how could the war be as simple as he imagined?

Huang Taiji is not a fool, how could he have a head-on decisive battle with the Ming army when the Ming army has an absolute advantage, just like the tradition of the nomads for two thousand years, only need to retreat in the direction of Mobei, and the Ming army will chase or not?

Every time he takes a step north, the difficulty of supply will increase, even if Cheng Shijie is not short of food, he does not dare to go north easily, because the environment in Mobei is too bad, in case he gets lost and can't find a water source, the whole army will enter a dead place.

From the defense line of the Great Wall to Erin Dabu Sannaoer, it is more than a thousand miles away, and the supply line is so long, in case the Qing army makes a roundabout flank attack, how can the Ming army cover it? That's not how the battle is fought!

Lu Xiangsheng asked to see Chongzhen many times, wanting to reveal the hidden worries and dishes in his heart, but Emperor Chongzhen refused to see him, and he wrote several more memorandaries, urging Chongzhen to stop moving forward and stabilize the grain road in the rear first, but they all sank into the sea, and the ghost knows if Chongzhen has seen it!

In fact, Lu Xiangsheng read all the letters written by Chongzhen, but he didn't read a word. In Emperor Chongzhen's view, the situation is not a small good, but a big good, a big good!

The army fought all the way, invincible, Jiannu fled with the wind, and did not dare to take a break from the army, and Emperor Chongzhen's vanity was greatly satisfied.

However, Lu Xiangsheng repeatedly wrote to him that the situation was not right, and that it might be dangerous to go any further, which made him both disappointed and annoyed. He has been waiting, and when Lu Xiangsheng figured it out, he asked him to replace Zhu Chunchen and lead the three armies to attack Jiannu, Lu Xiangsheng's ability to fight is not comparable to a hundred Zhu Chunchen, which Chongzhen still knows.

However, Lu Xiangsheng didn't have the slightest intention of reflecting, and kept chattering: "Your Majesty, you are wrong, you fell for Jiannu, and people are playing you!" ”

"Hmph, you mean I'm a big fool, and I don't even know that I've been tricked around? I can't go wrong! ”

Emperor Chongzhen was annoyed, he simply ignored Lu Xiangsheng, and waited until he figured it out!

Lu Xiangsheng used a lot of energy, and finally saw Emperor Chongzhen, he said excitedly: "Your Majesty, don't be greedy for merit, it's better to be cautious!" ”

"Champion Hou, the morale of the generals is high, don't pour cold water on everyone! I decided, joined forces, rushed straight to Shengjing, and cut off the head of Hongtai's thief before Jiannu reacted, in order to comfort the spirit of Shenzong and Emperor Xizong in the sky! ”

Emperor Chongzhen looked at Lu Xiangsheng with a displeased face, paused, frowned and said: "Since Aiqing is so unconfident in this battle, don't participate in the war, stay behind and escort the grain and military materials for the army!" Without you, I could have won the battle! ”

Lu Xiangsheng's face turned pale, his lips trembled, and he wanted to say anything but couldn't say a word. What to say? In Chongzhen's eyes, he is no longer a pillar of the town, but a disappointing guy, simply send him to escort grain and grass, out of sight and out of mind!

Chongzhen learned the lesson that the Ming army was scattered in the battle of Salhu and was broken by Nurhachi one by one, and listened to Zu Dashou's opinion, 100,000 troops were combined in one place, and the Qing army wanted to repeat the old tricks, and each broke and ate the Ming army, and only the big teeth were broken.

The Guanning army acted as the vanguard of the army, the Beijing camp was placed in the middle, and the squad army and the people who had poor combat effectiveness were placed at the end, and hundreds of thousands of horses drove out of Jinzhou against the wind and snow and rushed to Shengjing along the official road.

The Qing army seemed to be unprepared for such a rapid attack by the Ming army, and the defenses of the major towns along the way were extremely empty, and the Ming army went down with a drum, and in just a few days, it won seven battles and seven victories, beheading more than 2,000 levels, such a brilliant victory made Chongzhen extremely satisfied, convinced that he had made the right bet this time, and hit Jiannu by surprise!

At this time, the vanguard of the Ming army had entered the territory of Sunit, which was the seventh year of the Mongol Apocalypse (1627), when the Sunit tribe broke away from Lin Dan Khan of Chahar and migrated to Outer Mongolia, where they were attached to the Khalkha Department in Mobei.

It is only less than eighty miles away from Eren Dabu Sannaoer, it is said that no matter what Jiannu thinks, a large number of troops should be deployed here, but the problem is that this is an obvious loophole, but Emperor Chongzhen turned a blind eye, and under Chongzhen's insistence, the Ming army continued to advance regardless of everything. Along the way, they did not encounter any decent resistance, and the Qing army kept retreating to avoid the battle.

Zhu Chunchen was smug and said: "It is said that how fierce and brave Jiannu is, in the eyes of Ben Shuai, he is just a group of local chickens and dogs, a group of cowards who will retreat from the dust!" ”

Wu Sangui echoed: "That's! The power of the Holy Heaven is unpredictable, and the godfather has no last resort, how dare he touch the tiger's whiskers! ”

Wu Sangui is very good at things, he knows that Zhu Chunchen is the captain of the horse, his wife is the daughter of Emperor Wanli, and he is also the uncle of Emperor Chongzhen, but Zhu Chunchen's wife died in the first year of the Apocalypse, and now he has been single for seventeen years. Wu Sangui was like his cousin Wu, who was sent to Zhu Chunchen's tent in the form of a man disguised as a woman.

Zhu Chunchen was very happy, so he recognized Wu Sangui as his godson. ，

Zhu Chunchen was quite useful to Wu Sangui's sycophants, and laughed: "You say, what is Huang Taiji doing now?"

Wu Sangui said: "Maybe you are hiding somewhere to burn incense and worship the Buddha now, begging for the blessing of the ancestors, right?" Unfortunately, it didn't save his life! ”

Zhu Chunchen laughed wildly again, extremely proud.

The generals frowned, and Li Chongzhen wanted to open his mouth several times to look at Emperor Chongzhen, who was also smiling, but finally swallowed back the words on his lips.

However, Wu Sangui guessed wrongly, Huang Taiji did not hide in Eren Dabu Sannao as he said, and at this moment he was leading the army out of Eren Dabu Sannaoer, facing the spearhead of the Ming army's attack.

Long before the Ming army drove out of Jing'an Fort, he secretly transferred the troops of the four banners to the west and went straight to the Hetao Plain, intending to rely on the old nest of Fengzhou and go south to Shanxi with lightning speed.

Thanks to the attack of the Mongol army in Mobei, most of the castles in Shanxi from north to south until the north of Changzhi County in Lu'an Prefecture were damaged.

Many places are built in a way, especially Pingding Prefecture, where the Chechen Khan and Cheng Shijie fought, Cheng Shijie was just an ice city built with hot water at that time, and now it has not had time to freeze, and Pingding Prefecture cannot be used as a fortress.

Through Shanxi, you can pass through Yangqu and Jingcheng to enter Zhending Mansion and threaten the capital from the southwest, which is what Chechen Khan Shuolei wants to do.

The strength of these four banners was led by Dai Shan, Dolgon, Yuetuo, Duoduo, Azig and others, while Huang Taiji himself only had the yellow flag, the yellow flag, the red flag and the blue flag, in addition to 60,000 Mongolian cavalry, 40,000 Han troops, and the total strength was basically half of the Ming army.

However, the Mongolian cavalry has scared the new army of the Ming Dynasty, and it must fight a few big victories to restore the confidence and courage of the past, as for the Han army, it can only be used as a cheerleader for the time being, they are just equipment, training, discipline or will, they are too far behind, let them take the lead, purely to send people to the head.

It is the Manchurian army of the four banners that is really reliable, but they are facing the elite soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, and they do not have any advantage in terms of troops. But Huang Taiji was full of confidence, and he knew from the beginning that he would win this battle!

Entering the territory of Sunit, it is a semi-desert and semi-grassland type, more than 300,000 Ming troops suddenly faced the problem of drinking water, and finally found a small lake, but before they had time to drink water, they found that this lake was stinky, flies were flying all over the sky, and you could see a large number of cattle, sheep, horses, and human corpses floating in the lake, these corpses had already soaked and swollen, showing the appearance of giants, and there were corpses erupting from time to time, making the smell even more unpleasant.

Daming has never encountered this situation, but it has avoided a burst of chaos, especially when it looks like there is water that cannot be drunk, which frustrates the Ming soldiers, and there is a burst of chaos on the scene.

At this time, there were layers of ripples in this unknown small lake, which was the phenomenon of the arrival of a large force of cavalry, and the Ming army did not encounter decent resistance, and suddenly encountered the main force of the Qing army, which inevitably caused a burst of chaos.

At this time, the Qing army was really not polite, the rolling iron horsemen raised dust and smoke, as if like a sandstorm, coming from all over the field, shooting sharp arrows almost covering the sky, the Ming army was shot down in rows, and blood stained the sand.

At the critical juncture, Wu Sangui took the lead, leading the most elite of the Wu family of 3,000 Ding cavalry to meet the spearhead of the Qing army's iron cavalry attack, their formation was quite dense, the armor was also made of fine steel, and the sharp arrows shot them like hedgehogs, but no one was injured and fell off the horse.

The Wu family Ding suddenly rode into the middle of the Qing cavalry like a hurricane, thousands of sabers formed a blue-gray closed curtain, the cold light Shu rolled, the blood flew and the head rolled, the Qing army was cut to the back of the horse, after a round of fierce fighting, hundreds of corpses were thrown back in embarrassment, and the morale of the Ming army was greatly boosted!

Emperor Chongzhen was overjoyed when he saw this, and pressed Wu Sangui's shoulder affectionately and said loudly: "Aiqing is brave and invincible, and he is really the number one general of the Ming Dynasty!" ”

Emperor Chongzhen very generously rewarded Wu Sangui with 30,000 taels of silver, as well as a large number of valuable royal ornaments as a reward.

However, Wu Sangui was not happy, but his eyes were cold.

No matter how hasty Zhu Chunchen was, seeing that the Ming army encountered tens of thousands of troops and horses of the Qing army, he also knew that this was the main force of the Qing army, Zhu Chunchen did not dare to venture again, and ordered to set up camp on the spot and stabilize his position first.

In Zhu Chunchen's view, it is a good thing to have a lake, although people can't drink the lake water, but the war horses can drink it, and the war horses won't mind soaking in the lake water with dead people or dead horses.

There are also many Ming soldiers who fished out the corpses in the lake, but there have been many vomiting and dizziness, which is a slight poisoning, but the problem is that Zhu Chunchen, an idiot, didn't realize that something was wrong, and just watched the main force of the Qing army continue to arrive, seeing that Zhu Chunchen felt a little hairy, and said to the generals: "This battle should be resolved quickly, otherwise the more and more Jiannu gather, the battle will be difficult to fight!" ”

This was actually the primitive biological weapon used by the Manchus.

(End of chapter)