Dorgon and Haoge fought openly and secretly while cooperating against the Chu army.
This also caused some problems in the troop mobilization and strategic deployment of the Dongji people. The two sides often had some conflicts. Once the conflicts were coordinated, a lot of time was wasted.
Finally, the most important thing is that without Huang Taiji's personal suppression, they recruited Duoyan's three guards
Dorgon and Hauge's qualifications and prestige alone, or their ability to intimidate, could no longer make the many tribes in Monan Mongolia obey their orders.
If it were normal times, when Dongjiao was in the middle of the sky, even if Huang Taiji was really dead, Dongjiao people would still be able to continue to order Monan Mongolia.
In history, when Chongzhen was hanged and the Eastern Captives entered the Pass, Huang Taiji had been dead for several years, and was also in internal turmoil. However, compared to the Ming Dynasty, it was still at its peak, and the tribes of Monan Mongolia were naturally He was willing to follow the Eastern captives into the Pass and go south to plunder money, food and livestock.
but now……
To the south is not the weak Ming Dynasty, but the newly-rising Great Chu Empire, which is extremely powerful in combat.
The Chu army on the Ji-Liao front line was so overwhelmed that the Dongjiu people were breathless. They had even captured most of the western Liaoning Corridor area, and were about to capture Jinzhou and enter the vast northeastern plains.
Under such a situation, the so-called Qing Dynasty has already sunk, and there is no telling when it will be completely finished.
Naturally, many Monan Mongolian tribes do not want to die with them...
They used to defect to the East, and their motive was very practical, that is, to protect themselves!
The reason why he first defected to the past tribes was because Lin Dan Khan wanted to conquer them, so he defected to the East to protect himself.
Later, Lin Dan Khan was killed, and the remaining tribes, under the threat of Dongji, had no choice but to defect to Dongji to protect themselves.
Now that Dongli was in danger, they naturally had more thoughts on their mind.
The Tumut tribe had already defected to the Chu Empire before the Chu army launched the Liaoxi Campaign. Now the warriors of the Tumut tribe have put on the gray military uniforms of the Chu Empire. Using the standard weapons of the Great Chu Empire, he was incorporated into the Sixth Cavalry Division and the Eighth Cavalry Division (naturalized recruit battalion), and transformed into a soldier of the Great Chu Empire's army to fight in Monan Mongolia.
The leader of the tribe, Bo Ze, has been officially conferred the title of earl by Luo Zhixue, the emperor of the Chu Empire, with the rank of major general in the army, and has served as the commander of the Sixth Cavalry Division.
From the disgraced nobles of the Tumut tribe in the past, they transformed into the powerful military nobles of the Chu Empire. It is impossible to say that no one would be envious of this transformation.
Therefore, the situation in Mongolia in Monan is very complicated now. Some tribes have surrendered to the Chu Empire one after another, while some have hung up neutrality plaques, and some are die-hard loyalists to the Eastern captives and can only follow the Eastern captives. Go dark.
These tribes fought against each other. Today they formed an alliance, but two days later they broke the alliance and started fighting.
As the Tumut tribe surrendered to Chu and the Second Cavalry Army of the Great Chu Empire entered Monan Mongolia, Monan Mongolia was now in chaos.
The dozens of small and medium-sized tribes in Duoyan Sanwei are similar.
The Duoyan Sanwei are not one family. In fact, they have been divided into more than thirty tribes over the long history. They were inevitably involved in the chaos of Monan Mongolia.
Some of them continued to stand firmly on the side of the Dongjiu people in order to protect themselves against the Chu army and Tumut's army.
Some of them were just helpers, especially the Duoyan Sanwei tribe near Ji Town. These tribes had defected to the Ming Dynasty not long ago. However, after the Ming Dynasty's strategy changed, they defected to the East for self-protection.
Now, as the Central Plains people in the Great Wall have risen again, and they have been attracted to them several times, they have already had the intention to surrender to the Central Plains Dynasty again.
When the Northeastern War broke out, and the Chu Army's Sixth Army and other troops began to march out of the Great Wall from Ji Town, they took advantage of the situation and submitted to the Chu Empire.
Today's Duoyan Three Guards have actually become a tripartite force... one side has surrendered to the Chu Empire, one side is still loyal to the Dongji people, and some are trying to remain neutral to protect themselves and try to avoid being involved in the tragic war between the two sides. inside.
Under such circumstances, Dorgon still wanted to recruit at least tens of thousands of cavalry from the Duoyan Sanwei area, which was actually very difficult.
Even if some tribes are still loyal to the Dongdu, these tribes loyal to the Dongdu are no longer able to protect themselves, and there is no extra force to reinforce Dorgon and Haoge in Jinzhou.
This is also the reason that before the Great Chu Empire launched the Liaoxi Corridor Campaign, it first won over the Tumote, and did not hesitate to accept the entire Tumote tribe, and made Boze an earl, so as to cause a bloody storm in Monan Mongolia.
In order to cut off the strong support of the Eastern Captives when the Battle of Western Liaoning was launched, and even turn this strong support into the Chu Empire's own foreign aid.
Now, this strategy works wonders!
Specifically, the Chu army surrounded Xingshan for several days, and the Guards had already reached the gates of Jinzhou City. However, the Eighth Army in the north, which was guarding against the Mongols, was still calm and did not suffer any attack...
The idle Eighth Army left one division in the north to guard against possible Mongolian cavalry, and the other two divisions went directly around to the north of Jinzhou to participate in the siege of Jinzhou.
As a result, the Mongolian cavalry that Dorgon was waiting for did not come...
Instead, they discovered that an army of at least 30,000 Chu barbarians appeared on the north side of Jinzhou!
Unwilling to give up, he even ran to the north city gate tower to take a look. Several miles away was the Chu Barbarian's field tent covered in gray!
At this time, not to mention Xingshan was strategically surrounded, even Jinzhou was surrounded by Chu troops on three sides, leaving only one way to escape eastward.
But at this time, generals with a little military knowledge can think of an idiom: surround three and return one.
Dorgon can think of it too!
So when he saw the Chu army appearing in the north of Jinzhou City, he immediately felt something bad.
At the same time, he also felt a little regretful. If he had known that he should not have agreed to let Hauge take away the more than 20,000 cavalry in the city two days ago, otherwise, he would have been able to send cavalry to attack the Chu barbarians now and attack them while they were still unknown. Retreat them, no matter how bad it is, you can buy a few more days of response time.
Just two days ago, Xingshan City was in crisis. According to Chu Manzi’s unscrupulous siege method, Xingshan City might not be able to hold on for a month...
Let alone a month, it may not even last for half a month.
If the time is too short, there is no way to wait for cavalry reinforcements from Mongolia.
Under such circumstances, some Dongdu generals led by Hauge believed that there was no need to wait for the Mongolian cavalry, and they could directly gather cavalry forces from Jinzhou and Songshan areas to rush to Xingshan.
It is not necessary to directly prevent the siege of Xingshan City, but it is also necessary to create some pressure on the Chu barbarians so that they cannot attack the city unscrupulously.
You must know that in the past few days, when the Chu army discovered that Dongjie had not sent troops to rescue Xingshan City, it had gradually sent the subordinates of the Ninth Army to the northeast of Xingshan City, that is, a first-class division facing Jinzhou, to Xingshan City. A first-class division in the southeast direction, that is, facing Songshan, gradually retreated, and then cooperated with the frontal assault force to launch a siege on Xingshan City.
This means that in the past few days, Xingshan City has been comprehensively besieged by three first-class divisions, one first-class division and several independent artillery units of the Chu army.
The number of troops participating in the siege reached more than 50,000, and two artillery brigades assisted in the battle, gathering at least 300 artillery pieces.
The Navy also dispatched a temporary naval heavy artillery battalion to participate in the battle.
As a result, the pressure faced by Xingshan City can be described as huge.
Even they, under the guidance of the former surrendered general of the Ming Xinbiao Army, built the city defense facilities that the Ming Army had once built, and their defense capabilities against artillery were greatly improved.
But having said that, if the new Ming Dynasty's city defense facilities could really block the Chu army's bombardment, then the Ming Dynasty would not have been defeated so quickly.
Sun Chuanting's troops in the Western Ming Dynasty once relied on Tongguan, a world-famous and dangerous pass, with many new standard troops and artillery as their strength, and relying on new-style city defense fortifications, but in the end they still failed to withstand the Chu army's bombardment.
How should I put it? The city defense system developed by the Ming army is very effective against direct-aimed solid artillery, especially defense systems such as trenches and fortresses. Solid artillery is basically useless against them.
Although the mortar has good lethality, its accuracy is poor, its rate of fire is too slow, and the shells are not very reliable, so it is difficult to shake this city defense system.
But when encountering the Chu army's new howitzers, these city defense systems were no longer enough.
The Tongguan city defense system was eventually broken open by the Chu army's new howitzers, which ultimately led to the complete defeat of the Western Ming army.
At that time, the Chu army did not have many new howitzers.
Now... on the battlefield in western Liaoning, the Chu army is equipped with an extremely large number of new howitzers, and the intensity of the bombardment has increased by several levels compared with the attack on Tongguan.
Under such circumstances, even though the defenders in Xingshan City had a new city defense system and more anti-artillery facilities, they were still suffering from being bombed.
If the Chu army continues to bomb like this, Xingshan City will not be able to hold on for long.
If the Dongji people don't want to see Xingshan City and Guangning Zhongqiansuo City fall into the same ending, then they must take action.
Reinforcements must be sent!
Whether it is breaking through the siege of the Chu army and directly rescuing Xingshan City, or creating pressure on the Chu army by attacking the Chu army so that the Chu army cannot successfully attack the city, something needs to be done.
These were also the strategies finalized by Dorgon, Hauge and others when they discussed the entire Jinzhou defense operation earlier.
The entire Jinzhou direction is actually composed of the three cities of Xingshan, Songshan and Jinzhou. Only in this way can the eastern end exit of the entire Western Liaoning Corridor be actually controlled.
If they only defend the city of Jinzhou, then the Chu army can directly send the Songshan area to bypass Jinzhou, cross the Xiaoling River and run behind Jinzhou.
That is equivalent to directly opening the rear area west of Jinzhou to the Chu army!
Therefore, to defend Jinzhou, we must also defend Songshan.
At the same time, considering that the two cities are one in the south and one in the north, in order to avoid being divided and surrounded by the Chu army, an additional tactical support point is needed, and this tactical support point is Xingshan.
How can I put it, if Xingshan is not broken, then the Chu army will not be able to use its forces to directly attack Songshan or Jinzhou.
At this time, Xingshan City had become the easternmost section of the triangle, the forward stronghold of the Jinzhou defense line for the Dongji people.
In this way, a three-city Jinzhou defense system was formed. The three cities could support each other and also had a solid city defense system.
According to the original thinking of the Dongji people, if Xingshan, as a forward strategic support point, is besieged on a large scale by the Chu army, both Jinzhou and Songshan must send reinforcements to relieve the pressure on Xingshan.
According to the original plan, traditional troops, that is, the main force of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, should be sent to kill them directly.
However, in the preliminary battle between Tashan and Xingshan, that is, the retreat battle of the Tashan defenders, the Dongjiao people discovered that they were at a disadvantage in the field battle.
Although many of them were unwilling to admit it, the fact was that they were defeated by Chu Barbarians in the field battle.
When the Tashan garrison retreated, they were rescued by 8,000 troops from Xingshan, including even 3,000 cavalry.
However, in actual combat, they found that the Chu Manzi's field combat capabilities were quite impressive, especially their field artillery, which was so terrifying that they had to abandon thousands of rear-cut troops after they had retreated properly.
At the same time, this large-scale field battle also caused the Dongji people to give up their original city defense advantage.
Finally, Chu Manzi has a large and powerful cavalry!
The 20,000 cavalrymen of the First Cavalry Corps and the Guards Cavalry Detachment were like a steel thorn stuck between Jinzhou-Songshan and Xingshan.
Any reinforcements from the Eastern Capture must first pass through the Chu army's cavalry interception before they can arrive.
And the only one who can defeat the cavalry is the cavalry!
In other words, even if the Eastern Captives want to send the main force to march westward, they must first send cavalry to kill the Chu army's cavalry. Even if they do not kill them, they must be driven away, at least to give the main force a channel to move westward. pull out.
Therefore, the Dongji people finally decided to let Hauge lead the 20,000 cavalry on the Jinzhou front line to go south first, and then join the 10,000 cavalry on the Songshan front line before marching eastward to Xingshan.
After Haoge successfully defeats or drives away the Chu cavalry and establishes a forward passage, the Dongli infantry and artillery forces from Songshan and Jinzhou will quickly move westward to reinforce Xingshan to relieve the siege of Xingshan.
But what they didn't expect was...that the Chu army from the north would arrive so quickly!
The Eighth Army marched eastward without encountering any obstacles along the way. The East Captives were not seen. Many tribes in the Duoyan Sanwei in Mongolia did not take any hostile actions. On the contrary, many came to the Eighth Army and expressed their submission... …
After some efforts by the military and political officers accompanying the Eighth Army, they actually managed to win over seven or eight small tribesmen from Duoyan and Sanwei to send troops to fight with the Eighth Army to attack Dongli...
So when the Eighth Army appeared in the north of Jinzhou City, in addition to the Eighth Army's own strength, there were more than 4,000 Mongolian cavalry... These Mongolian cavalry were also granted temporary designations by the Ministry of Military Affairs and were classified as temporary numbers. 11th Cavalry Division.
This has to be said to be ironic...
Dorgon originally counted on receiving cavalry reinforcements from Monan Mongolia, especially reinforcements from the three guards of Duoyan who were relatively close.
But he never thought that more than half of the more than thirty tribes in Duoyan's three guards had already defected. They responded to the call of the Chu Empire and sent troops to fight with the Chu army. The remaining half were unable to protect themselves and had no spare power to dispatch. Reinforcements were sent to rescue Jinzhou.
In fact, in the past few months, in addition to the typical Tumut tribe, there were many other Mongolian tribes that defected to the Chu Empire. They either had no choice but to surrender under the pressure of the Chu army, or they were defeated. They had no choice but to surrender, or they surrendered voluntarily in order to make a fortune.
So far, more than fifty tribes, large and small, have expressed their submission, and have sent their young men to carry their own horses and provisions to join the Chu army's battle order to participate in the war against other Mongolian tribes and the Eastern captives.
This can be seen from the rapid expansion of the number of cavalry divisions in the Dachu Empire.
Before the launch of the Northeast Campaign, the Army of the Chu Empire actually had only five cavalry divisions, three independent cavalry brigades, and five cavalry regiments.
After the Tumut tribe surrendered, the young Mongolian men from this tribe and some surrounding small and medium-sized tribes brought their own war horses and organized them into the Sixth Cavalry Division and the Naturalized Recruitment Battalion of the Dachu Empire Army. Later, the Naturalized Recruitment Battalion was officially awarded the Eighth The designation of the cavalry division.
The 7th Cavalry Division in the middle was formed by recruits recruited and trained by the Army itself, and equipped with a large number of horses captured from the cavalry showcase in the northern suburbs of Guangning Zhongqian Station.
After the Second Army launched a large-scale offensive against Mongolia, it successively reorganized six cavalry regiments from the Mongolian tribes who surrendered outside the Miyun Great Wall, four of which were used to form the temporary Ninth Cavalry Division.
Later, a group of cavalry was reorganized from the Mongolian tribes outside the Great Wall in Jizhen, the earliest Mongolian tribes in Duoyan Sanwei to surrender to the Chu army. A group of cavalry also jumped out from the cavalry of these tribes to form a temporary army. The 10th Cavalry Division.
Finally, when the Eighth Army marched eastward, the cavalry from the Mongolian tribes who surrendered along the way was reorganized into the temporary 11th Cavalry Division.
These temporary cavalry divisions seem to have the name of cavalry divisions, but in fact they have been fully integrated into the cavalry system of the Great Chu Empire Army. The Chu side carried out actual operations through mixed formation, large-scale off-site mobilization for operations, and dispatch of officers. Take control.
Instead of forming the Mongolian Eight Banners based on tribes like the Dongji people, the Dachu Empire only allowed each tribe to send men and horses, but the tribes had no authority to interfere in which cavalry units these soldiers and horses served.
After this series of methods, the most important thing is that the Great Chu Empire was powerful, and at the same time it did not maintain great hostility towards these nomads like the traditional feudal dynasty, and wished to expel them all. The Great Chu Empire faced These nomads have a more practical attitude.
If you are willing to join us, then you are one of our own. Since you are our own, there is no distinction between you and me. There is no such thing as canonizing a vassal king or granting grazing land to a certain tribe.
Even the titles of Mongolians are gone... They are all subjects of the Chu Empire. They have adopted a comprehensive sinicization policy. Everything from book culture to clothing and language titles has to be changed.
In addition, according to a series of policies of the empire, the people of the empire enjoy freedom of employment and freedom of residence...
To put it simply, you can do whatever you like and live wherever you like... The imperial officials basically do not interfere.
Applying it to herding, as long as you abide by the laws and disciplines, you can graze wherever you like within the borders of the empire.
Similarly, if other people in the interior of the empire want to go to the grasslands to graze their animals, that is also reasonable.
And these are all those who are willing to join, but if they are unwilling to join...there is nothing else to say, just crush them with the army...
This set of policies is actually the fusion that the ancestors have been playing for thousands of years, but it must be gentler, at least not killing all their men...
"The Sword Comes"
According to the estimates of the top officials of the empire, with regard to the small population of nomadic people in the north, there will be a wave of immigration exchanges, allowing a large number of Han people to go north to herd and farm, and then move some herdsmen on the grasslands south to focus, and encourage mutual marriage, and it will not take long for a comprehensive settlement Fusion.
Then try to promote the integration of agriculture and animal husbandry as much as possible, establish settlements and establish fixed pastures in places where conditions are met.
At the same time, in places where the combination of agriculture and animal husbandry cannot be implemented, fixed nomadic pastoralism should also be implemented and four-season pastures should be designated.
In short, the goal is to establish effective rule as much as possible and not let them mess around like before.
The Great Chu Empire engaged in these things in the grassland area, which was actually very attractive to many nomadic peoples. Just by surrendering, they could go to live and work in the prosperous and warm Central Plains and even the south of the Yangtze River, which made countless nomadic people , even the nobles among the nomadic people yearn for it...
Living in the grassland these days is not a poetic and picturesque thing. If they have a choice, they are willing to live in the warmer and more prosperous Central Plains.
In the past, their ancestors had wanted to go south... In the past, they had foolishly gone south through war, but now, they found that there was no need for any war, as long as they put down their resistance and became a member of the Great Chu Empire, they could run to the south of the Yangtze River in one go. Enjoy a prosperous life and let your descendants become civilized people instead of barbarians.
Of course, some people are not willing... Just like the original Tumut tribe, most of the powerful people are not happy, but there are people like Bose in every tribe!
What the Da Chu Empire has to do is very simple. Find people like Boze, give them a little support, and wait for these Bozes to deal with internal opposition before accepting them openly.
The Chu Empire never forced others to join it.
If you don’t surrender willingly, the empire still doesn’t want it!
The Great Chu Empire's series of military operations and co-optation policies in Monan Mongolia turned Monan Mongolia into chaos, and the Eastern captives lost reinforcements from Mongolia.
Not only did they lose reinforcements, but they also faced the threat of Mongolian cavalry...
The appearance of a large number of Chu troops in the north of Jinzhou, and even the Chu troops who came with the Mongolian cavalry, was a direct reflection of the greater advantage that the Chu Empire and the Dong Dynasty had gained in the fight for Mongolia in Monan.
And this also directly affected the outcome of Jinzhou and even the entire western Liaoning campaign!
When Dorgon was surrounded on three sides in Jinzhou, Hauge, who had just led the Jinzhou cavalry and Songshan cavalry to join forces the day before, and was preparing to march eastward to fight with Chu Manzi's cavalry, was also entangled.
Should we go back to meet the defenders in Jinzhou?
If we don't respond, the more than 40,000 defenders remaining in Jinzhou City will most likely be completely surrounded, or they will be pursued and defeated during their retreat. No matter how you look at it, it is an extremely dangerous situation.
But go and meet him, Dorgon is there...
