Fan Wencai's suggestion made Jianzhou people see hope again, but before conquering North Korea, they still had to remove the nail of Kuandian Fort.
At this time, more than 3,000 Han Banners had been killed, and it was time for the Eight Banners to take action.
The two red flags and the Zhenglan flag were already preparing to go to North Korea at this time. The heavy task of attacking the city naturally fell on Huang Taiji's Zhengbai flag!
In the previous battles, Zhengbai Banner suffered relatively few casualties, and its combat power was still relatively intact.
Moreover, Huang Taiji discovered that those people captured from the "savage tribe" in the Heilongjiang River Basin were very skilled in shooting.
So he recruited the cattle composed of these "savages" to shoot arrows against the white pole soldiers in the city.
As natural hunters, these "savages" are skillful with arrows, and their strong physique allows them to easily kill white soldiers on the city from a distance of ninety paces.
Soon Ma Xianglin felt something was wrong. More and more white soldiers were shot and killed by Jianlu under the city, and the arrows were often hit in places such as the face and throat that could not be protected by armor.
Although the white-pole guns of the white-pole soldiers are sharp, their armor is not good. It is neither pierced armor nor cloth-faced armor, and their defensive power is very limited.
Ma Xianglin shouted: "Everyone, please stay close to the city wall. The Tatar archers are very powerful. Don't let them plot against you!"
But at this moment, a sharp arrow pierced the sky like lightning and went straight to Ma Xianglin's face.
Ma Xianglin was caught off guard and suddenly felt pain in his eyes, as if he had been stabbed by a red-hot iron rod. He couldn't help but scream.
He covered his left eye tightly with both hands, and blood seeped out from between his fingers, staining his palms red. His body was shaking with pain and his face was as pale as paper.
The arrow pierced deeply into his eye socket. This scene frightened everyone in the city.
Ma Xianglin was the son of Qin Liangyu, a famous female general in the Ming Dynasty, and Ma Qiancheng, Shizhu's Xuanfu envoy. He was heroic and elegant, good at writing and calligraphy, wore silver armor, rode a white horse, and often rode alone into battle to take the heads of enemy generals.
In the military, he is called "Zhao Zilong" and "Xiao Ma Chao".
However, Ma Xianglin soon cut off the shaft of the feather arrow with his saber. Although his sight was now greatly affected, he could never retreat at this time.
Otherwise, the morale of the white-pole soldiers will definitely plummet.
Finding that Ma Xianglin was injured, his uncle Qin Bangping also rushed over to help direct the white pole soldiers to fight against the Zhengbai flag in the city.
Ma Xianglin even went into battle injured, stabbing several Eight Banners soldiers with the white-barrel gun in his hand.
The surrounding white-pole soldiers seemed to be infected by Ma Xianglin, and their morale was instantly boosted. They burst out with amazing fighting power, driving back the Zhengbai flag that had already gained a foothold on the city.
Huang Taiji was very excited when he saw the Ming general on the city hit by an arrow, but he didn't expect that the Ming general would soon stand up again and join the fight.
Siege warfare is about one-stop action. If we don't win this wave, it will probably be even more difficult in the future.
At this time, the sky was dark, and Huang Taiji had no choice but to withdraw his troops, leaving only some sharp archers below the city to take the opportunity to shoot the white-pole soldiers on the city.
He didn't take it seriously when he heard that the soldiers with white poles defeated the cavalry on foot outside the city last night.
But today's fighting in the city made him see it clearly. Even the elite Bai Bai Yala from Zhengbai Banner couldn't have an advantage when facing the white pole soldiers, and the ordinary Eight Banners were no match for them.
If it weren't for the bows and arrows of the "savage archers" below the city, they might not even be able to attack the city.
In just over half an hour, Zhengbaiqi killed more than 800 people.
There are still nearly 2,000 Ming troops on the city. If the battle continues like this, even if Kuandian Fort can be breached, there will not be much left of his Zhengbai flag.
Neither Huang Taiji nor Nurhachi could accept the loss of thousands more elite Eight Banners soldiers.
The attack on North Korea is currently the top priority. At this time, Shi Shan and others have already moved their troops to the Yalu River. They are only waiting for the arrival of Hetuala's grain, grass and weapons before they can send out troops.
Next, Huang Taiji could only be forced to change his strategy, from a strong attack to a siege. Taking advantage of the fact that the range of his bows and arrows was stronger than the Ming army's gunfire, he shot the growing Ming army with cold arrows every day.
Qi Jin and others spent another two days on Guhu Ridge. After confirming that the Tatars had withdrawn from the siege, they dared to march towards Crow Falcon Pass.
At this time, Li Xianzhong could not withstand Yan Mingtai's repeated urging, so he had to lead his elite cavalry to Crow Falcon Pass.
In fact, he had already known the news about the Qi Family Army's bloody battle at Guhuling, but the news from the Intelligence Department was that the Qi Family Army had been completely wiped out.
He didn't expect to see Qi Jin and others again, so he was a little happy.
However, of the nearly 3,000-strong breakout team, only 8 people survived in the end, which was no different from the entire army being wiped out.
Fortunately, Qi Jin still told everyone about the situation of Kuandian Fort. At present, the food in Kuandian Fort should be enough to feed the white-poled soldiers for two months. If the loss of some troops defending the city is also included, it is not a problem to persist for three months. big.
This also saves the Ming army from having to rush out for rescue.
The Ming army suffered heavy losses in this battle. The Ming army guarding Kuandian lost nearly 10,000 people, and He Shixian's troops responsible for the rescue suffered another 16,000 deaths.
When he attacked Hetuala in March, he had already lost most of the elites from the Nine Sides who were transferred to Liaodong. This time, Yuan Yingtai almost lost all the elites from the Xuanwei Division in the southwest of the Ming Dynasty and the Qi family army.
Even though the Ming Dynasty has a great cause, it cannot withstand such trouble!
After receiving the battle report from Liaodong, Xiong Tingbi, Minister of War, could no longer sit still.
He rushed to Wenyuan Pavilion overnight and found Fang Congzhe, the chief assistant of the cabinet, who was on duty.
When Fang Congzhe saw Xiong Tingbi's late-night visit, he knew that there must be the latest battle report from Liaodong, and most of it was a defeat report.
Even though he was mentally prepared, he still took a breath after seeing the battle report handed over by Xiong Tingbi.
He cursed angrily: "This Yuan Yingtai really succeeds more than fails. How can he play like this with a good hand of cards?"
A few days ago, Yuan Yingtai wrote a letter asking the Ministry of Revenue to collect this year's "Liao rates" as soon as possible, so that he could use troops in Jianzhou to regain Hetuala in one fell swoop.
As a result, Liaodong's elite troops were completely destroyed in just a few days.
This matter is really ironic. At first, Fang Congzhe was worried that Li Xianzhong would become bigger again and asked Yuan Yingtai to try not to give him the opportunity to win military honors.
This is good, now almost all the other elites in Liaodong have been destroyed, and only Li Xianzhong's "Liaodong Iron Cavalry" is left.
Now they can't even think about using it.
This is really shooting yourself in the foot.
Xiong Tingbi said: "Mr. Fang Ge, the Southwest Xuanwei Division that was destroyed this time is the core force loyal to the Ming Dynasty. Once their military strength is greatly weakened, they will be unable to suppress the surrounding forces that have evil intentions against the Ming Dynasty. If this matter is not handled properly , and may even cause turmoil in several provinces in the southwest of the Ming Dynasty."
Fang Congzhe suddenly felt exhausted mentally and physically, so he said: "Xiong Benbing reminded that the pension cabinet for these southwest chieftains will be implemented as soon as possible to avoid causing turmoil in the southwest."
He understood that matters in the southwest could be solved with money and some canonization, but the situation in Liaodong was a headache.
Now there is a mine supervisor sent by His Majesty in Liaodong. He will definitely know if there is any trouble, so Yuan Yingtai must capture it.
But who will take over the Liaodong Economic Strategy may be entangled with the Donglin Party again.
Xiong Tingbi seemed to see what Fang Shoufu was thinking, and said: "In fact, we want to control the military and political power in Liaodong, and we don't have to stick to winning the Liaodong economic strategy."
"Liaodong Economic Strategy was originally a temporary position. After taking Yuan Yingtai, we can not fill the vacancy for the time being. In this way, Yan Mingtai can use his identity as governor of Liaodong to preside over major military and political affairs in Liaodong."
Fang Congzhe thought the same thing. Although there was Li Rubai, the deputy economic envoy of Liaodong, his health was not good recently. After attending Li Shizhong's funeral, he stayed in the capital to recuperate.
Even if they pushed Yan Mingtai to the position of Liaodong governor, with His Majesty's balancing political skills, they would probably give the position of governor of Liaodong to a Donglin Party member.
It would be better to leave the Liaodong Economic Strategy temporarily vacant. Anyway, His Majesty's attitude towards filling the vacancies has always been to delay filling the vacancies as long as he can, and not to fill them if he can't.
In fact, Wanli had already received the news of Liaodong's defeat, and the battle report from Fang Congzhe was already the third.
Liaodong Mine Supervisor Ma Yun immediately spread the news of Jianlu's attack on Kuandian and He Shixian's defeat to the capital.
Then Li Xianzhong bypassed the Ministry of War and sent a more detailed battle report. The report Li Xianzhong sent was very detailed. It had very detailed records of the troops dispatched by Jianlu, the course of the battle, and the casualties on both sides.
In order to give Wanli a clearer understanding of the situation, he even attached a map of the Kuandian area and the current deployment of Ming forces in Liaodong.
This made Wanli for the first time fully aware of the situation in Liaodong, which cost him countless money.
A few days later, Mao Yuanyi followed Li Xianzhong's instructions and made a sand table from the Liaodong area and sent it to the Qianqing Palace.
Wanli was originally very concerned about military affairs. Only after he truly saw the terrain near Hetuala did he understand how difficult it was to break through it.
And Li Xianzhong's construction of the city and mining in Hongtou Mountain was undoubtedly carving out the flesh of Jianzhou, which was far from as easy as he said.
After being the emperor for 47 years, in fact, the Liaodong he could see was only the Liaodong mentioned in the memorial.
At this moment, he even had the urge to hand over Liaodong to Li Xianzhong, but his reason still told him that he could not do so for the time being.
Therefore, when Fang Congzhe sent the Liaodong battle report, Wanli already knew the situation in Liaodong well.
The cabinet's battle report did not deceive themselves, but it was a bit vague in describing the course of the battle and the strength of the opponent's troops.
Yuan Yingtai, the Liaodong manager, must bear the main responsibility for this defeat. Wanli immediately ordered him to be dismissed from his post and escorted to the capital for questioning.
As for the candidates for Liaodong's economic strategy, the cabinet has not yet recommended to fill the vacancy. It only said that Liaodong Governor Yan Mingtai could be temporarily responsible for Liaodong's military and political affairs.
Xiong Tingbi, Minister of War, will go to Liaodong in person to take charge of defense.
Wanli agreed with Fang Congzhe on this point.
But the subsequent appeasement of the Southwest Xuanwei Division became a headache for Wanli.
After Fang Congzhe's reminder, Wanli also realized that if he didn't properly appease the southwest, there might be trouble. Liaodong had already given him a headache. If the southwest became chaotic again, he would really give up.
But now that the cabinet has no money, Fang Congzhe did not dare to ask for money directly from himself, but asked to borrow 300,000 taels from his own internal funds to the Ministry of Household Affairs. After this year's "Liao rates" are collected, the Ministry of Household Affairs will then borrow 300,000 taels from him. Two silver coins were allocated to the internal funds.
After all, this was also a disaster caused by the defeat of Liaodong, and it is understandable to use "Liao rates" to fill this hole.
But asking Wanli to advance money would cost him his life, so he thought of Li Xianzhong.
Although he just got a copper mine from Li Xianzhong, except for Uncle Ning Yuan, he really can't think of anyone else who can get money for him.
Soon Xiong Tingbi selected 3,000 capital troops from the capital to go north to Liaodong, preparing to bring Yuan Yingtai back to the capital to punish him.
But before they arrived in Liaoyang, news came that Liaodong manager Yuan Yingtai had hanged himself in his mansion.
Obviously, the Donglin Party members sent Yuan Yingtai news in advance, which caused him to commit suicide out of fear of guilt.
However, Yuan Yingtai's life and death is no longer that important. Anyway, the power of the Donglin Party in Liaodong has been eliminated.
Xiong Tingbi quickly arrived at Crow Falcon Pass.
At present, there are more than 16,000 Ming troops in Crow Falcon Pass, and with the 3,000 troops brought by Xiong Tingbi, there are nearly 20,000 troops.
There are about 6,000 remaining soldiers in the Xuanwei Division in the southwest of the Ming army. These soldiers have no morale now and must be useless.
After much deliberation, only the 5,500 cavalry under Li Xianzhong could be used to attack.
However, Li Xianzhong expressed his inability to solve the siege of Kuandian.
According to intelligence, a total of more than 62,000 people were dispatched by the Tatars to siege Kuandian.
There are currently at least 50,000 people.
Even if he led his troops out of the customs, he would not be able to carry the Tatars to relieve the white soldiers.
As for "surrounding Wei and rescuing Zhao" by attacking Hetuala, it is unrealistic.
Because of the obstruction of the bounded vassal city, he was unable to return directly to Fushun Pass from Hetuala. Once Li Xianzhong goes deep into Hetuala, Nurhaci only needs to return his troops to "close the door and beat the dog" against him.
In the end, Li Xianzhong's suggestion was to temporarily abandon Kuandian Fort, wait and see what happens, and then solve the siege of Kuandian when there are changes.
Although Xiong Tingbi could not accept the abandonment of Kuandian Fort from the bottom of his heart, under the current situation, even if he forced Li Xianzhong to leave the border, he would not be able to solve the siege of Kuandian.
Now the white-pole soldiers can only wish for blessings!
Of course, Li Xianzhong was not innocent. After all, this plan of "diversion of trouble to the south" was planned by him.
In fact, the relationship between the Koreans and the Jurchens was not good. Historically, after the Jin Kingdom was driven out of Liaodong by the Mongols, the Dongxia Kingdom established by the Jurchen noble Pu Xianwannu began to conquer Goryeo for a long time.
Goryeo was conquered almost every year.
After the Eastern Xia Kingdom was destroyed by the Mongols, the Koryo Kingdom also sent troops to attack the scattered Jurchen tribes, and once occupied some areas on the south bank of the Yalu River.
Of course, due to combat power issues, even though Goryeo was a complete country, it was still unable to defeat the Jurchen tribes. Just 2 years later, the Goryeo people were beaten back by the Jurchens.
The two sides started fighting almost every year.
The Koreans relied on their strong military advantage to barely let the Jurchens invade Pyongyang.
However, Ping'an Road in the north of North Korea's Eight Roads and most of Xianjing have never been Korean territory in history, but belong to the Jurchen's hometown.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the North Korean and Central Plains regimes were actually bounded by the Datong River, and they simply did not have the ability to advance to the Yalu River.
After the North Korea established by Li Chenggui overthrew Goryeo in 1392, it directly professed its vassalage to the Ming Dynasty. Even the name North Korea was personally given by Emperor Taejo, and it was included in the list of "Countries Not Conquered".
Then North Korea took the opportunity to invade the Ming Dynasty land on the south bank of the Yalu River.
At that time, the Ming Dynasty's main energy was used to deal with the strength of Mongolia and had no time to care about North Korea.
Therefore, Emperor Taizu ordered the 30,000 Guards and Tieling Guards to be moved to Liaodong, which was tantamount to giving up the land along the Yalu and Tumen Rivers.
However, giving up by the Ming Dynasty does not mean that North Korea has the ability to eat it.
This land is still home to a large Jurchen tribe. The Oduoli tribe (one of the ancestors of the Jianzhou Jurchens) organized various Jurchen tribes in the Tumen River area and successfully resisted the northern invasion of the Li Dynasty.
However, after the Oduoli tribe migrated to the Suzi River Basin, the "Ten Maidens" in the Tumen River area were leaderless and were gradually annexed by the Li Dynasty.
In the end, North Korea sent envoys to distort the boundaries between Liao, Jin and North Korea, and falsely claimed that the land occupied by the "Ten Virgins" in the Tumen River area was the hometown of Goryeo.
"Yongle Emperor" Zhu Di assigned the land of "Ten Virgins" to North Korea without careful investigation.
In this way, under the confusing handling of the Hongwu and Yongle emperors, North Korea pushed its border from the Datong River to today's Yalu River and Tumen River, greatly expanding its territory.
It was precisely this internal migration of the Jurchen tribe that caused the Jianzhou Jurchen to cause chaos in Liaodong today.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Jurchens and North Korea are feuding.
Moreover, a considerable number of Koreans in northern North Korea are actually descendants of the "Ten Virgins" back then.
Since this happened more than 200 years ago, the main conflict between the Jianzhou Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty was with the Ming Dynasty, so they have almost forgotten this period of history.
But now that the Jurchens were in short supply, it happened that Fan Wencai proposed to invade North Korea, and Huang Taiji remembered this matter.
He quickly told Nurhachi about it.
It turns out that there was still a period of grudges between Jianzhou and North Korea. Today, a large area of northern North Korea is the homeland of the Jurchens, and many of their descendants have directly become Koreans.
Since ancient times, conquests have focused on sending troops with a reputation, so it was perfect for Jianzhou to use this excuse to send troops.
Taking back the land that once belonged to us and rescuing our former compatriots makes sense no matter where we talk about it.
Of course, conquering North Korea is also a major event. To say that North Korea is a small country is only compared to Ming Dynasty.
Although North Korea has barren land and is mountainous with no plains, its area is no smaller than Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty, and its population has reached tens of millions, almost as much as Japan.
For Jianzhou, it is still a small thing to make a big difference, so it is natural to be well prepared.
After taking over most of the six Kuandian fortresses, Jianzhou has expanded his power to the Yalu River.
Daishan and others used Sumianbao, near the Yalu River, as their base for the expedition to Korea.
In the early morning of September 15th, the 47th year of Wanli Dynasty, five hundred Han soldiers wearing Ming army uniforms sneaked into the south bank of the Yalu River under the cover of darkness.
After being discovered by the Koreans in charge of the patrol, they lied that they were the defenders of Sumian Fort in Kuandian on the other side. They were attacked by Jianzhou and asked to return to Jiulian City in the Ming Dynasty via North Korea.
The Ming Dynasty is a kingdom of China. Although this is the territory of North Korea, they do not dare to disrespect the soldiers of the Chinese Dynasty.
Soon these people were taken to Yiju County on the border.
North Korea is divided into eight provinces and 23 prefectures. Uiju County is the capital of Uiju Prefecture. The county governor Yin Daochang warmly entertained these "Ming troops".
Originally, they were thinking about how to sneak into Yiju City, but the Koreans actually invited these Ming troops directly into the city. This was really a sleepy pillow.
Uiju is the gateway to northern Korea.
The size of the city is not small, with a circumference of 9 kilometers. Even in the Ming Dynasty, it was a big city.
However, the height of the city is not high, only 4 meters.
The height of this city is at most the height of the Ming Dynasty Guard City, and even the city wall of Kuandian Fort is twice as high.
There are about a thousand soldiers and horses in the city.
After nightfall, these Han troops marched directly towards the west gate, and within a short time they defeated the hundreds of defenders in the west city.
Then the Eight Banners who were ambushing outside the city took the opportunity to enter the city. In just half an hour, they took control of the entire Yiju City.
Except for a small number of the defenders in the city who died in battle, most of them surrendered and became prisoners.
In this way, Daishan crossed the Yalu River almost without any blood.
Although the military force in North Korea is weak, there are still tens of thousands of soldiers and horses. He originally thought that Mang Gurtai's statement that five thousand soldiers and horses defeated North Korea was a lie.
Unexpectedly, he told the truth.
Two days later, Dingzhou, Yongbyon, Anzhou, Guzhou and other places near Pingan Road were all lost.
Even without the Eight Banners taking action, the Han army was almost invincible.
The defenders of Dingzhou City resisted for a while, so Daishan directly carried out a massacre on the city after breaking the city. Once the news came out, other cities basically turned their backs.
Soon after, the Eight Banners showed up at the gates of Pyongyang.
The guard of Pyongyang City was none other than their old acquaintance, the North Korean Marshal Jiang Hongli who had been captured before.
After North Korea's King Li Hui exchanged a large amount of grain for this "king's man", Jiang Hongli has been attacked and questioned by pro-Ming factions in the country.
The Ming Dynasty even sent an envoy to reprimand Jiang Hongli for his behavior of "surrendering without a fight." Li Hui was under pressure and did not dare to keep him in Wangjing, so he had to let him go to Pyongyang, Xijing, to avoid the limelight.
When Daishan saw that the North Korean defender was Jiang Hongli, a big idiot, he did not attack the city directly.
After all, Pyongyang is North Korea's Xijing, with a tall city and 8,000 defenders.
So Daishan chose to lie and sent someone to deliver a letter to Jiang Hongli.
He claimed that he entered North Korea this time just to raise military supplies.
As long as Jiang Hongli raised 200,000 shi of military rations and 200,000 taels of silver for him, he would withdraw his troops.
As a result, Jiang Hongli actually believed it and sent a large number of soldiers to search for gold, silver and food everywhere in the city.
In the end, Daishan took advantage of him to open the north gate to transport food, gold and silver, and sent troops to attack the west gate from the other side.
At this time, Jiang Hongli's main forces were concentrated on the north gate to defend Daishan, but Mang Gurtai attacked the west gate in one fell swoop.
In this way, North Korea's Xijing and Pyongyang were quickly captured by Jianju. In just a few days, Pyongan Road and Hamgyong Road in the north of North Korea were completely captured.
At this time, the grain outside the city was ripe. 500,000 shi of grain alone were seized. In addition, 400,000 taels of gold and silver and 300,000 livestock were sent across the Yalu River by the Eight Banners soldiers.
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