Feeling the breath of failure, Kangxi's sleepiness immediately disappeared without a trace. He quickly rubbed his eyes, and then looked again, and found that one of the people who advised him to give up was actually Tong Guogang.
This frightened Emperor Kangxi into a cold sweat. He raised his finger and pointed at Tong Guogang and said: "Tong, Tong Guogang, why are you back? Are you... going to lose again?"
Tong Guogang quickly lifted his robe, knelt down and replied: "Your Majesty, your Majesty!"
Emperor Kangxi's heart sank: Is this a sage? Can't I just faint for a while?
"Your Majesty," Tong Guogang kowtowed to Kangxi again and said, "It's too late to take back what you see now. If you don't take back now, you will really lose if you continue to fight! And even if you are undefeated on the battlefield, you are actually still defeated. !”
"You, what did you say?" Kangxi was confused.
Tong Guogang was the uncle of the state and Kangxi's most trusted person. Naturally, he dared to speak, otherwise Tuhai and Fei Yanggu would not have allowed him to return to Xingzhou Mountain City to persuade Kangxi to withdraw his troops.
"Your Majesty, although the seven or eight thousand Ming troops besieged by us are mainly Korean soldiers, they are very difficult to fight!"
Kangxi's face turned green when he heard this, "What? Korean soldiers are not easy to fight? Back then..."
Tong Guogang sighed and said: "Your Majesty, don't forget about those days... In those days, we relied on our Eight Banners warriors' invincible bows and horses and superb martial arts to fight the war. But now we fight with a fire stick, which you fire and I fire." You can't even dodge the bombardment. The real goal is to kill a thousand enemies and damage yourself by eight hundred! Let alone eight hundred, even if you discount it, it won't even work if you damage yourself by five hundred! How many of our Eight Banners disciples are there? They are North Koreans. How many people are there? You can’t change it like this!”
Kangxi understood immediately! Could he not understand? If he didn't understand, historically he would have issued flintlock rifles to the green battalion soldiers below - don't think this thing is very high-tech, in fact, the construction office of Emperor Kangxi's Yangxin Hall could have made it a long time ago. Of course, the flintlock guns made by the Manufacturing Office were all for Kangxi to hunt rabbits for fun. Did Emperor Kangxi still know the magical functions of the flintlock guns? This thing is designed to defeat heavenly weapons!
"Then use artillery!" Kangxi was still unwilling to "just give up when things get better", "Add more Weiyuan general artillery and bombard them with sugar-coated bullets!"
Tong Guogang still shook his head: "Your Majesty, it's too late... the rebel reinforcements are about to break through Mr. Ba's obstruction and join the trapped rebels!"
"What?" Kangxi was shocked again, "How is this possible? Their cavalry is so powerful?"
Tong Guogang shook his head: "It's not cavalry, it's infantry! The rebel infantry carried rocket hammers and marched in formation, and surrounded them with pikemen. When our cavalry approached, they fired hundreds of rocket hammers at the Baerhu cavalry who led the charge. If you fall into their trap, you will suffer heavy losses!
General Bahaiba had no choice but to delay the attack with a small team of light cavalry. However, there are many sharpshooters in the rebel infantry, and the harassment of the small team of light cavalry cannot take advantage at all. . "
After Kangxi listened to Tong Guogang's words, there was a burst of stars in front of his eyes!
He originally thought that victory in the Battle of Seoul was certain. Even if he could not annihilate a large number of enemies, he could force the Ming army to abandon Seoul and withdraw to Asan. According to the intelligence previously obtained, the Ming army has been operating Asan, Yesan, Dangjin and other places since landing, and it is clear that they want to use them as their base to control North Korea. If the Ming army was unfavorable in the battle in Seoul, they should quickly withdraw to Asan.
Unexpectedly, the "low-sugar clearing army" that he worked hard for three years could not defeat the "high-sugar clearing army"...even if half of the soldiers in this "high-sugar clearing army" He is a Korean soldier who has recently joined the army!
Moreover, Kangxi also discovered another gap that is more difficult to overcome than "sugar content", which is population!
His Qing Dynasty had a small population and adopted a system based on the Eight Banners. The real core strength was the eight to nine million new Eight Banners population. The total population of Pseudo-Ming is close to 30 million. After merging the five southern provinces of Korea, the population may be 35 to 6 million. If the entire North Korea is further merged, the population will not be far from 40 million!
What's worse is that the Ming Dynasty did not recruit bannermen and soldiers, but used the method of equalizing the land to recruit soldiers, using all the strong men as a source of soldiers.
The number of Ding for a population of 40 million is almost 10 million, while the number of Ding for a population of 800,000 to 900,000 is only over 200,000.
Two hundred thousand against ten million, and there are no "Heavenly Soldiers" left. Isn't the Qing Dynasty coming to an end?
Thinking about it... Kangxi's pockmarked face had returned to calmness, and his tone when he spoke again had also returned to calmness.
"It's getting late now, and it's not the time to fight. Please pass on my orders, and all the armies should withdraw and return to their camps...the infantry should retreat first, and the cavalry should follow behind. Then pass the order to Wang Fuchen in the mountains of the Northern Han Dynasty, and ask him to stay in the Northern Han Dynasty. Most of the flags and suspicious soldiers in the mountains were raised, and the main force of the unit also returned to the Changlingchuan camp."
"Your Majesty!"
Kangxi is really a wise man!
Several important officials of the Qing Dynasty who came together to persuade Kangxi to "give it up as soon as it was good" all said sincere flattery at this time.
Kangxi's skills in using troops are indeed getting better and better! Although he still couldn't defeat the Ming army...but that was not a problem of craftsmanship, but of changing times.
Now we have to fight for population and sugar content. Daming has absolute advantages in both aspects!
Therefore, although Kangxi's performance in the Battle of Seoul was remarkable, it was still difficult to win.
However, retreating now cannot be considered a defeat, and the Ming army will most likely not pursue them... Their cavalry is too weak after all, and they cannot catch up even if they want to.
Moreover, now that winter has arrived, the backbone of the Ming army are all southerners who are afraid of the cold, and it is impossible to launch a continuous fierce attack in the cold winter of Korea.
Therefore, Kangxi still had time to transfer the population and materials from the North Third Road of North Korea to prepare for a long-lasting resistance to the Ming Dynasty.
Thinking of this, Emperor Kangxi and other important ministers wanted to kowtow and resign, and go arrange a "good deal." But the wise master suddenly laughed, which startled all the ministers. They all raised their heads and stared at him blankly.
Kangxi smiled and said: "I almost forgot, I have a decisive battle in Dengzhou! Dengzhou is the escape route for the rebels who penetrate deep into Liaodong. Once Dengzhou is mine, the tens of thousands of people who landed in Liaodong will be killed." The Ming army will become a lonely army and will be destroyed by the heavenly soldiers sooner or later! As long as the thieves of Deng and Liao are destroyed, the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties can still be maintained!"
After hearing these words, several important ministers also showed expectant expressions.
Dengzhou...should be an empty gate, right?
...
When Kangxi said this, heavy snow was falling on the Huangshui River on the Shandong Peninsula.
The Huangshui River is located in Huang County, Dengzhou Prefecture. It originates from the mountains of Laiwu. The river surface is not very wide and the water flow is not very fast, but it has not frozen due to the cold weather.
It's time to finish work on a pontoon bridge. The busy soldiers of the Qing army were gathering at the bridge head, tying up, beating, and beating. It was very lively.
This is the ferry crossing for the elite Qing army led by Yue Le and Chang Ning to raid Dengzhou.
Since King Zhu Tian occupied half of Dengzhou Prefecture, the Yellow River has become a boundary river between the Ming and Qing Dynasties in the west of Dengzhou. The east bank of the river is the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty Dengzhou Prefecture!
However, King Zhu Tian was not interested in the development or defense of this area to the west of Dengzhou Fucheng, so he simply turned this area into a "basically uninhabited land". The reason why it is basically uninhabited is because of the official road leading to Huang County. The road is also an important business road. On weekdays, there are many merchants on the road, and there are also ready-made bridges for passage.
However, as the Ming army sent troops from Dengzhou to conquer Liao across the sea, there was no one on the official road from Dengzhou capital to Huang County, and even the bridge was quietly set on fire by the Ming army.
However, Dengzhou's alert seemed to end here, and no further defenses were deployed. It was still quiet on the other side of the Huangshui River, and life in the city outside Dengzhou Prefecture seemed to be business as usual. War seems far away from this "City of Freedom".
But at this moment, an elite Qing army of 20,000 people had sneaked into Dengzhou Prefecture without anyone noticing, and even built a pontoon bridge across both sides of the Yellow River!
