During the Miyun ambush battle, the three thousand Dongjiu vanguard cavalry who broke into the Great Wall were completely wiped out, and not a single horse could escape.
Hauge, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Capture, could only watch helplessly from a few thousand meters away as his three thousand forward cavalry were heavily surrounded by the Chu army, and then all of them were killed!
Standing between Hauge and his forward was a seemingly thin Great Wall, but within this seemingly thin Great Wall were more than 14,000 soldiers of the 10th Division of the Chu Army!
They used guns, cannons, and flesh and blood to block the impact of Hauge's cavalry!
It even blocked the retreat of the enemy's three thousand cavalry forwards!
After suffering this disastrous defeat, Hauge, who led the army, retreated on the spot. It is said that he was reprimanded and deprived of rank by Huang Taiji when he returned.
After the Miyun ambush battle, the Dongjiu people had temporarily stopped.
——
In the Miyun ambush battle, the cavalry led by Zhu Xingfa played an important role. Without the cooperation of the cavalry, the tactic of beating dogs with closed doors would not be possible.
No matter how good your 1st and 10th divisions are in fighting, they can't outrun their cavalry. If you want to encircle and fight in Miyun, their 3,000 forward cavalry can't beat them, and they can't run away... If Miyun can't break through, there will be more After running dozens of kilometers, go somewhere else...
But it was different with Zhu Xingfa's cavalry.
Your Dongfeng cavalry dares to give up their formation and turn around to run away. Zhu Xingfa leads eight thousand cavalry to charge in every minute. By then, the Dongfang cavalry without formation will be dead!
You Dongqiu cavalry lined up to fight, Zhu Xingfa and his cavalry did not charge, but just watched from the side... because there were a large number of Chu army artillerymen not far away, pulling the artillery over.
It feels uncomfortable even if you hit me, and you feel uncomfortable even if you don’t hit me!
After several failed attempts to break through, the three thousand Eastern Cavalrymen were finally completely surrounded by the Chu army and the entire army was annihilated!
This battle also made the Chu army pay more attention to the role of cavalry. They have begun to recruit cavalry-savvy soldiers in many places in order to train more cavalry.
Although the Chu Empire is now on the Jiliao front line and can assemble tens of thousands of cavalry in a single battle if necessary, this is still not enough.
Before the Battle of Tianjin, the Chu army had only three cavalry brigades and some half-baked divisional cavalry regiments. During the Battle of Tianjin, Zhu Xingfa could only lead 5,000 cavalry in combat. If Zu Dashou's Guan Ning cavalry hadn't escaped first, During the Battle of Tianjin later, the Chu army's cavalry was afraid that they would be at a huge disadvantage.
After the battle in Tianjin, the Chu army recruited more than 3,000 Ming army cavalry.
Immediately after the Battle of Youzhou, thousands of frontier cavalry from Miyun, Xuanfu and other places were recruited.
Now, except for those divisional cavalry regiments, the Chu army has been organized into ten cavalry brigades, two in Xuanda and eight in Jiliao.
Although the current strength of the Chu army's cavalry is not as good as that of the Donglu opposite, it is probably stronger than the previous Ming army.
This does not mean that the number is greater than that of the previous Ming army, but that the quality is better. For example, in terms of treatment and equipment, the Chu army's cavalry is far better than the Ming army's cavalry.
The most important thing is that the Chu army's cavalry is the cavalry of the empire, not the cavalry of individual generals.
This means that when necessary, they can be mobilized smoothly without worrying that the Xuanfu defense line in Jizhen has been torn apart by the enemy, and the cavalry in Shanhaiguan is still standing still...
Just like the Miyun ambush battle, Li Chengtong gave an order and transferred several thousand cavalry from Zhu Xingfa's command in the Shanhaiguan direction directly to Miyun, so that the Miyun ambush battle could be carried out smoothly.
If it were the Ming Dynasty, if you wanted to celebrate your ancestor's birthday, Wu Xiang, Wu Sangui and his son would lead thousands of elite cavalry without saying a word to cooperate with the other Ming troops and the Eastern captives to risk their lives... This would be impossible.
The Chu army and the Ming army are different, and this is directly reflected in the battles on the Ji Liao front line!
Huang Taiji's attack on Shanhaiguan failed, and Hauge's detour to Mongolia to attack the Great Wall also failed. After two consecutive failures, the Eastern Capture people completely stopped...
If they continue to fight like this and suffer heavy casualties, they will not be able to hold Liaodong even if they want to, let alone enter the border.
As soon as the Dongjiao people subsided, the entire war in the north pressed the pause button. The war machine of the Dachu Empire, which had been running at high speed for more than half a year, was finally able to take a breath and replenish its fuel.
——
In a small village in Jinan Prefecture, Shandong Province, Lu Tiancheng was vigorously swinging a hoe in the fields. Even though he was considered a scholar by outsiders, in addition to studying, he still rolled up his trouser legs and went to work in the fields with a hoe. , and he is still the mainstay of the family.
Not only Lu Tiancheng was busy in the fields, but his old and skinny father and his twelve-year-old sister were also working in the fields.
Even the son left behind by his eldest brother who had already disappeared and died unknown there, although he was only over five years old, was already helping out in the fields doing what he could.
For farmers in this era, everyone has to work hard every day in order to have enough to eat.
Even Lu Tiancheng, who was regarded by his family as a scholar and expected to gain academic fame, was no exception.
But when they were busy in the fields, they did not look as numb as before. Instead, although they were exhausted and sweating profusely, when they sat down to drink water at the head of the fields after their work, they had expressions on their faces. Smile, talk and laugh.
After Lu's father took a sip of water, he said to the head of the field: "We will work harder on this field later. We will finish the work on this field today, and then start working on the field to the east tomorrow!"
Lu Tiancheng also forgot about the dignity of the so-called scholars in the past. Instead, like his old father, he sat directly on a stone at the head of the field, took a drink of water from a bamboo tube and said, "Go back later today, and then go back after you are done."
The little girl on the side answered: "It will be later, it will be later. Now I am working on my own fields. It is worth it to be tired!"
But Father Lu made a face: "It's not our family's land now. We have to pay for it for another fifteen years before it can truly be considered our family's land!"
The younger sister said, "But your name is already written on the land deed."
After hearing this, Lu Tiancheng sighed and said: "In the past and present, except for our great Chu, has there ever been such good governance!"
While Lu Tiancheng sighed, he couldn't help but recall the policy of installment purchase of official land that had been raging in their hometown recently.
After the Chu army arrived in Shandong, it also brought many policies of the Chu Empire, including a series of land policies.
Among them, there are two that have the greatest impact. The first is to abolish all exorbitant taxes and levy only a unified agricultural tax. This agricultural tax is only levied on land owners and not on people.
Second, the government continued to rent out a large amount of confiscated official land to the original tenants at low prices, and recruited landless farmers to cultivate the uncultivated land.
This is a routine policy and there is no need to elaborate.
Third, and this is the point that has caused the biggest stir recently, that is, the official allows leaseholders to purchase these lands in installments. The price is very low, and the payments can be spread out over fifteen or even twenty years.
However, some "smart people" have discovered that the total annual installment payment for land purchase, plus the unified agricultural tax, is slightly higher than the rent for renting official land, but it is basically the same. The rent for leasing land from landlords is about the same.
As a result, many farmers who rented government land directly chose to purchase government land in installments and became self-cultivators.
Although they are slightly more stressed than the land-owning farmers, they still live better than the pure tenants in the old days.
At the same time, the government is still using various means to force large landowners to sell their land and prohibit landowners from owning large amounts of land...the most critical of which is the stepped agricultural tax rate.
The more land you own, the higher the agricultural tax will be, and in the end it will be unprofitable or even loss-making.
Part of the land sold by these landlords was directly absorbed by other farmers, and then part of it was purchased by the government in installments, and then resold to those farmers by the government.
In rural areas under the rule of the Chu Empire, a large amount of land that was originally concentrated in the hands of a few landlords is being redispersed into the hands of many farmers, initially easing the already fierce conflicts over land concentration.
The Lu family is the beneficiary of the land policy of the Great Chu Empire!
The land policy of the Great Chu Empire was good governance for farmers like the Lu family, but it was completely harsh governance for those big landowners.
You have good governance, but he has harsh governance!
This is why the Chu army often implements policies very quickly and radically in the newly occupied areas.
It is because they know that it will cause a huge backlash that they want to cut the knot quickly and forcefully promote various policies while the army or armed tax police are still on the ground, so as to avoid causing serious trouble later.
Compared with the previous Ming Dynasty, the various policies of the Dachu Empire were not just simple improvements, but almost a reinvention, and would seriously damage the interests of the gentry, especially the traditional gentry, and especially the big landowners.
This kind of damage to interests is bound to lead to large-scale bloody conflicts and even large-scale rebellions, and this requires military suppression.
However, the army's stay in the local area is relatively limited, and even armed tax police will not maintain a large number of troops in a certain place for a long time.
Therefore, every time the Chu Empire captured a place, the administrative agencies would rush to implement many policies quickly, and would not say that they would first slowly stabilize the situation and then take their time.
Otherwise, what do you think the Chu Empire is doing by pulling thousands or even tens of thousands of armed tax policemen wherever it goes... You don't really think they are collecting taxes...
They went to ransack the house...
The Chu army's early governance methods in the newly occupied areas were very simple. There were only two tricks to come and go:
First use the army to kill batches and loot batches in the name of "wiping out the stubborn enemies and clearing up the remnants of the past";
Then the armed tax police killed and looted another batch in the name of "armed tax resistance" and "tax evasion";
Basically, after these two processes are completed, no matter the local scholarly family or the wealthy landlord family, they basically have to lie down obediently. Dachu will do whatever he says...
What, they actually want to go against the Dachu government?
The tax department will be happy to repeat the second process above...
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