Li Chengliang's troops did not move slowly in Liaodong. It only took about half a month. They first arrived in Liaoyang from Guangning, then drove from Liaoyang to Qinghe Fort, and then headed for Crow Falcon Pass.
Yang Yuan's actions were not as slow as expected. Although he had to take a detour, it only took him seven days to arrive at Dong E's department. However, his plan to win over Dong E's department did not look particularly smooth.
Dong'e's Ministry said that they had suffered heavy losses, and it was just after the New Year. In fact, spring had not yet begun in Liaodong. They did not say they disagreed, but said they needed time to prepare. In addition, Dong'e's Ministry was also worried that if the war could not be ended quickly in spring, it might affect spring plowing.
God knows that his Dong'e tribe doesn't have a few acres of good land in total. Rather than worrying about spring plowing, he is more worried about Nurhachi's future retaliation.
Yang Yuan was very dissatisfied with this, but at this moment, in order to complete the task, he had to fight with Dong E's troops. He planned to ignore them and deceive them into sending troops first. It didn't matter if they sent more or less.
Yang Yuan knew what Li Chengliang meant by giving him this order. It was not that the few troops Dong E's troops could send would have much military impact, but because the main task of General Kuandian was to suppress Dong E in the north and deter North Korea in the east. There is nothing going on in Korea now, but it is obviously related to Dong E's tribe, so Dong E's tribe must be involved in order to show the power of the Manchurian wind coming from the clouds at the Ming Dynasty's order.
Of course, this was not that important originally, but when Ye He took the initiative to send troops to assist, Li Chengliang had to let Yang Yuan do this.
Ye He sent troops to assist apparently because of Cao Yun's face, but in fact it was because of Cao Yun's high pragmatism. The Practical School had not been operating in Liaodong for a long time. When Gao Gong sent Zhang Xueyan to serve as the governor of Liaodong in the early years, the Practical School had not yet regarded Liaodong as its own sphere of influence. It wasn't until Gao Jingshi took office in Liaonan that the Shi School began to run Liaodong seriously under the influence of Gao Jingshi.
But having said that, the Xin School did not regard Liaodong as its sphere of influence at the beginning. They only started to exert their efforts in Liaodong after Li Chengliang surrendered. It's just that Li Chengliang's foundation in Liaodong is solid enough, so the Xin School has a psychological advantage and believes that compared to the Practical School, Liaodong should be their home field.
Under such circumstances, the Shi School can make a powerful Jurchen chieftain follow suit, so how can the other school and Li Chengliang be outclassed in this regard? The fault is that Hada is now useless. Li Chengliang even wanted to bring Hada on board.
Although Meng Gebulu was praised for being pragmatic and decisive, Li Chengliang felt that Meng Gebulu would not dare to turn a deaf ear to his uncle Li's words - Li Chengliang still had this confidence.
So this deceived Yang Yuan, who had been waiting in Dong E's department for five days. Dong E's department was still counting the grain and grain and "calculating" how many troops it could send.
Cao Yun and Qi Jin's march in the middle road was really not fast. Except for the section just after leaving Fushun Pass where the road was relatively easy to walk, they started to pull their hips since Sarhu.
Since they have already left the border wall, it stands to reason that they may encounter enemy troops at any time. Therefore, the infantry of the Ming Army are marching in heavy armor, not to mention the attached artillery and vehicle camps. In the Changbai Mountain Valley where the ice and snow have not yet melted, Where can we go quickly?
Even though Jinghua's gun carriages and Qi Jiajun's sidecars both use Jinghua's unique spring shock absorption technology, the main problem now is not the springs but the tires.
Not to mention that natural rubber is still in Central and South America, undiscovered by people other than the indigenous people. Even if it is discovered, or even obtained by Jinghua, it will not be of much significance, because Gao Pragmatic does not know the technology of utilizing natural rubber.
The technical content of making natural rubber into tires for industrial use is obviously not something that can be accomplished currently. Except for remembering that sulfur seemed to be of some use, Gao Pragmatic had almost no other memories at all. He knew nothing about the rubber vulcanization process.
The wheels used by Jinghua today are made of thin iron wire spokes and wooden wheels, and the outer ring of the wooden wheels is wrapped with iron sheets. Thin wire spokes are easy to understand, just like bicycle spokes in later generations. Few people may know about wooden wheels covered with iron sheets, but this technology is actually not new.
How was this iron sheet added? After the wheel was completed and the circumference of the outer end of the wheel was measured, the blacksmith was asked to make an iron ring of the same length. First, the wooden wheel was soaked in water, and then the heated iron ring was directly placed on the wooden wheel. Then quickly add water to cool down to quickly cool the iron ring. That is to say, the principle of thermal expansion and contraction is used to put the iron hoop on the wooden wheel to complete the processing of the iron hoop.
There were so many carpenters in the Ming Dynasty... well, so many that there was even a carpenter emperor later. Therefore, Jinghua hardly made the wooden wheels itself, but directly outsourced them. Private carpenters became Jinghua's "parts and components supporting enterprises."
Jinghua itself has steel factories everywhere, so there are many blacksmiths, and they are responsible for post-processing. However, Jinghua also has its own unique skill, that is, Jinghua's iron sheets are not ordinary smooth iron sheets. According to high pragmatic requirements or instructions, Jinghua's wheel iron sheets are added with anti-skid patterns.
But that’s all. Although the patterned iron sheet is relatively slip-resistant, you still have to be careful in the icy and snowy wilderness of Liaodong. Especially those artillery carts loaded with artillery. Due to the artillery, the weight of the car body is too great. Once it slips, it will be an accident, and it is not uncommon to even kill people. Therefore, the march of Cao Yun and Qi Jin was really slow as a snail.
Among the four armies, only Ma Chengxun was able to march at a high speed. Four thousand cavalry, led by him and Fei Yingdong, rushed directly through the Hada territory in just two days, and took a day to capture a stockade belonging to Jianzhou Zuowei.
In fact, this stronghold cannot be said to have been captured. It is actually an empty stronghold with no one inside. It seems that it was abandoned by Nurhaci long ago. After the Ming army entered the stronghold, they found nothing useful. Ma Chengxun planned to burn the stronghold directly when leaving, but was dissuaded by Fei Yingdong.
Although Fei Yingdong was reckless in fighting, he was a Jurchen after all. He knew that with the construction ability of the Jurchens, it was not easy to build a stronghold. This is probably why Nurhachi evacuated people but did not burn the stronghold to create trouble for the Ming army. reason. So he persuaded Ma Chengxun to leave the village behind, "it can be regarded as a place to stay when returning to the army in triumph."
Ma Chengxun thought about it and felt that it didn't matter if he stayed. If he still didn't like it after beating Jianzhou Left Guard, it wouldn't be too late to go back and burn it again, so he gave Fei Yingdong some face. The two of them and their cavalry were in the stockade. We stayed there for one night and continued southward the next day.
After walking another seventy or eighty miles, they "captured" two empty strongholds again. Ma Chengxun couldn't help but sneer: "Nurhaci is not stupid at all. He knew that these small strongholds could not be defended anyway, so he simply gave up. , so that we can fight to the death by withdrawing all our troops to our base. Unfortunately, this idea is not that smart at all. Our soldiers are surrounded by soldiers from all directions, so he withdraws all his troops to Hetuala. In fact, it is just convenient for us to catch them all in one fell swoop."
When he said this, Fei Yingdong suddenly felt that something was wrong.
Here we must first talk about a point that is different from the original history: at the beginning of the 16th year of Wanli in the original history, Hetuala was not Nurhaci’s old village. At that time, Nurhachi’s seat of government was in Foala City.
Fo'ala and Hetuala are not the same place. Foala is located in Erdao Village, Yongling Town, Xinbin County, Liaoning Province, and Hetuala is located in Laocheng Village, Yongling Town, Xinbin County, Liaoning Province. You read that right, they are both in the same county, but their locations are different. , the historical origins are also different.
The earliest Foala Old City was the village where the Jurchen leader Li Man lived. Its name at that time is no longer known. In April of the third year of Chenghua, the Jurchen leader Dong Shan and others accepted the invitation of the Ming court, and together with Li Gunaha and others went to the capital to pay tribute. In August, Dong Shan was trapped and killed in Guangning, and Li Gunaha fled back to Jianzhou. In September, the Ming Dynasty ordered Jinglu General Zhao Fu and others to lead an army of 50,000 to separate and attack Foala, the base camp of Jianzhou. At the same time, the Ming court also "dates Korean soldiers" to attack Jianzhou.
Therefore, North Korea sent Kang Chun and others to lead more than 10,000 troops to suppress the enemy. They crossed the Yalu River on September 2, attacked Li Manzhu and other villages living along the Pozhu River on the 29th, and destroyed Wu on the 30th. In Mifu, Li Manzhu, his son Li Gunaha and 286 people under his command were captured and killed, and the prisoners were sacrificed to Xianzong in the first month.
In the twelfth year of Wanli, Nurhaci built a city on the site. Because he was building a city on an old site, he named it "Foala". "Foala" means "old hillock" and "old old city" in Manchu. . After the city was built, Nurhaci used this place as his administrative center. It was not until the 31st year of Wanli that Hetuala was newly built and moved there.
However, this life was different. Because he received high pragmatic support in the early days of his rebellion, and high pragmatic support meant the support of Jinghua, Nurhachi obtained more income from the trade cooperation with Jinghua than in the original history. financial resources are more abundant.
Therefore, Nurhachi did not take a fancy to Foala this time, but directly built a city in Hetuala, his birthplace, and achieved it in one step.
Although the two places are close to each other, Hetuala is slightly further north and has a better location than Foala. It is located at a three-way intersection of the Sukosuhu River - there is a river to the north and a river to the west.
Of course, the river is an excellent barrier and has high military value, but there is a problem: this is the valley of Changbai Mountain in Liaodong. It is early spring when the New Year has passed but the snow has not melted.
This means that the Sukeshu River is still in the Ice Age, and the so-called isolation function of the river cannot be reflected at all. Given the cold conditions in Liaodong at the moment, it would be no problem for four thousand cavalry to cross the river directly on the ice.
In this case, what is the use of Nurhaci withdrawing the troops and even the people from the villages in the north to Hetuala? Is it really just to facilitate the Ming army to catch them all?
Although Fei Yingdong had never been to Hetuala, he never believed that Nurhaci could build the old Jianzhou Zuowei camp as strong as Kaiyuan. Based on his understanding of the firepower of the Ming army after this trip, if Nurhachi really defended Hetuala, it would be basically the same as waiting to die - the Jurchens' "city" would never be able to withstand the bombardment of the Ming army.
Fei Yingdong didn’t believe that Nurhachi didn’t know this, because Nurhachi had served in Li Chengliang’s army, and Shuerhaqi had been with Cao Yun during the recent Battle of Northern Liaoning. The two brothers had no influence on the Ming army. Everyone should have a very clear understanding of the firepower.
Therefore, Fei Yingdong believes that Nurhachi can never hope to defend the city!
"Ma Canrong, something is wrong with this matter." Although Fei Yingdong felt that Ma Chengxun was a bit arrogant and not very talkative, but it was related to the success or failure of the war, so he had to advise: "Brother Nurhaci, evacuate these villages I’m afraid it’s to tempt me to go deeper, and then…”
"Then you ambush me?" Ma Chengxun waved his hand and interrupted: "It is possible, and I have thought about it."
When he said this, Fei Yingdong was a little surprised: "Since Ma Shenrong also expected this possibility, why did he still..."
"Why do we have to go deep alone?" Ma Chengxun looked up to the sky and smiled: "Ha! You don't dare to go up, and I don't dare to go up, so this battle is a bullshit? Damn my grandma's Li... Humph, he treats me like a fool. , I also think he is an anti-hero (Datong dialect: worthless)! If you have the ability to go up and flatten Hetuala by yourself, you can do it. He looks like a human and a dog, and he does all kinds of things like giving birth to a son without sex. , I won’t pee on him.”
Fei Yingdong did not expect that Ma Chengxun would dare to scold Li Chengliang so bluntly - you must know that the Jurchens all called Li Chengliang "Uncle Li", and Fei Yingdong had never dared to underestimate him.
However, although Ma Chengxun scolded him vigorously, Fei Yingdong was still a little worried. He frowned and said: "Ma Shenrong is so heroic, but we are not in the right place at the right time at the moment. To be honest, we are all cavalry, which is not the case in this Changbai Mountain." It’s so convenient. Even if there are valleys all the way, there are very few places where we can set up our positions. If I were Nurhachi, I would definitely find a narrow place to set up an ambush..."
"I know that." Ma Chengxun looked around and lowered his voice slightly: "Why do you think I rushed so slowly all the way? I was thinking that Nurha didn't have many cavalry under his bare hands (there really weren't many at this time, Because they don’t have much money yet), his infantry have to prepare in advance if they want to set up an ambush. If I come quickly enough, it means ‘soldiers are quick’, and it is possible that I will rush all the way over before they reach the ambush site.”
Fei Yingdong thought for a while and felt that although the truth was this, it was a bit of a gamble. What if Nurhachi moved fast enough?
Seeing that Fei Yingdong was still frowning, Ma Chengxun couldn't help but feel a little unhappy. He said with a long face: "It doesn't matter if you don't dare to go with me. Then it's like this: I'll go in front, and you hang far behind." Now, just think of it as your queen, how about it? I won’t bully you. When the time comes, you will be rewarded according to your merits, and I will still count you as a share of the army."
These words hurt his self-esteem a bit, and Fei Yingdong's expression changed: "Does Shenrong think that the young one is greedy for life and afraid of death?"
Ma Chengxun raised his eyebrows but said nothing. What does that mean...
Fei Yingdong was so angry that his temples were beating, and he gritted his teeth and said: "Fei Yingdong is not a hero, but he is not willing to be left behind. No matter how dangerous it is to join the army, even if it is a dragon's pond, a tiger's den, a mountain of swords and a sea of fire, I, Fei Yingdong, will accompany you to the end!"
Ma Chengxun laughed, and for the rare moment he put down his airs as a heavenly general, he patted Fei Yingdong on the shoulder and said, "Okay, very good. Only with such momentum is he worthy of walking with me as a military commander!"
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