Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 385 The Death of the Old Slave
Just as Emperor Tianqi fell into the water and became ill, in the northeast of the capital, where Liaodong is located, the Ming Dynasty's greatest enemy, the old slave Nurhaci, was also lying on his sickbed.

Nurhaci is no longer young and is now 68 years old.

As the saying goes, it is rare for a person to live to be seventy. In this era, only a few can live past seventy. The life expectancy of ordinary people is only forty or fifty. If we look at the average life expectancy in later generations, it is less than forty.

Nurhaci was a Jurchen who was good at riding and shooting since childhood. When he was a teenager, he followed Li Chengliang, the then general of Liaodong, to fight east and west and made great contributions. After Li Chengliang's death, Nurhaci took advantage of the Ming Dynasty's lack of time to take care of Liaodong and first annexed the Liaoxi Jurchen and the Wild Jurchen tribes, greatly increasing the strength of the Jianzhou Jurchens.

Then, Nurhaci rebelled again, broke away from the Ming Dynasty and established his own kingdom, calling himself "Dajin". Then the Battle of Sarhu broke out. This battle shocked the world because no one expected Nurhaci to win the war, and the Ming Dynasty also suffered heavy losses in this battle. Since then, Nurhaci officially rose in Liaodong.

During the decades of military service, Nurhaci fought countless battles, destroyed countless tribes, and killed countless people. But as time went by, Nurhaci was now an old man. The trauma left by the battles when he was young gradually emerged as he aged, and his health was not as good as before.

At the beginning of this year, Nurhaci led his troops to attack Ningyuan. At that time, he already felt a little overwhelmed. After the Battle of Ningyuan ended, with the prestige of the great victory on Juehua Island, although Nurhaci did not take Ningyuan, he temporarily alleviated the plight of the Later Jin Dynasty's lack of supplies with the materials looted from Juehua Island, and then led his troops back.

After returning to Shenyang, Nurhaci was exhausted and it took him a long time to recover. But after all, he was old, and even if he recovered, the old illnesses and injuries in his body kept coming back, which made Nurhaci miserable in the past six months. Especially as the weather got hotter, Nurhaci developed carbuncle on his back, which never healed, making him unable to sleep well.

In mid-July, Nurhaci decided to go to Qinghe Hot Springs in Liaoyang. He arrived at Qinghe Hot Springs on July 23. Nurhaci took a hot spring bath there. At first, the gangrene seemed to be relieved, and Nurhaci's spirit was much better. But a few days later, for some reason, Nurhaci suddenly became seriously ill, and the gangrene on his back suddenly worsened.

Nurhaci had no idea that his illness could not be cured by hot springs. Although hot springs have many benefits, they also carry minerals and other microorganisms that can infect wounds. The gangrene on his back could not touch water at all. In modern medicine, gangrene generally refers to gas gangrene, a specific infection caused by Clostridium. The exotoxins produced by the pathogenic bacteria can cause severe toxemia and extensive necrosis of muscle tissue.

How could a barbarian like Nurhaci understand these things? There was no good doctor around him, and no one told him these things.

He enjoyed the comfort of hot springs, but he never expected that it was because of the hot springs that the minerals and microorganisms in the hot springs entered his body through the wounds, causing widespread infection and toxin production. Within a few days, Nurhaci suddenly became seriously ill, with a high fever and unconsciousness. From the perspective of modern medicine, this was sepsis caused by infection.

Seeing this, the people accompanying Nurhaci were shocked. They originally planned to treat him in Qinghe, but after a few days, Nurhaci's illness not only did not improve, but became more and more serious.

On this day, Nurhaci suddenly woke up and told the people around him to return to Shenyang immediately. At the moment when his life came to an end, Nurhaci knew that he had little time left in this world, and he had to return to Shenyang as soon as possible to arrange his funeral affairs, because once he died, the Later Jin Dynasty would be without a Khan. If he did not arrange his funeral affairs well, the Later Jin Dynasty would be in chaos, and the Later Jin regime he created might end here.

This was something Nurhaci absolutely did not want to see, so he had to go back immediately. After the order was issued, everyone had to take the seriously ill Nurhaci to Shenyang. In order to avoid the bumpy carriage, they specially used a boat to go down the Taizi River, and then changed carriages to Shenyang after arriving at the Jibao.

But no one expected that Nurhaci fell into a coma soon after boarding the ship and did not wake up until he arrived at Jibao. On the night of his arrival at Jibao, Nurhaci ended his sinful life in a coma. This old slave of Jianzhou, whose hands were stained with blood, who had killed millions of soldiers and civilians in Liaodong, was as cunning as a fox and as fierce as a wolf, and was regarded as the number one enemy of the Ming Dynasty, died in such a way that it was extremely unexpected.

After Nurhaci's death, since he did not have time to choose a successor and did not leave a will before his death to instruct who to pass the throne to, a struggle for the position of Khan broke out within the Later Jin Dynasty.

Within the Later Jin Dynasty, in addition to Nurhaci, the Great Khan, there were four leaders of aristocratic groups. The status of these four leaders was second only to the Great Khan and they were called the Four Beile.

Among them, the eldest beile was Daishan. Daishan was the second son of Nurhaci. He controlled the Zhenghong Banner and the Xianghong Banner. He had a high status in the Later Jin Dynasty. He followed Nurhaci in his battles since he was young and made great military achievements.

The second prince was Amin, the leader of the Bordered Blue Banner. He was Shuerhaci's son and Nurhaci's nephew. The third prince was Manggurtai, Nurhaci's fifth son and the leader of the Plain Blue Banner. Among Nurhaci's sons, Manggurtai was famous for his bravery. He led the troops in every battle and was invincible.

As for the Fourth Beile, it was Huang Taiji, the leader of the Plain White Banner. Although Huang Taiji was not as senior as Daishan among his brothers, and not as brave as Manggurtai, among the four Beile, Huang Taiji was always known for his resourcefulness. Moreover, Huang Taiji was good at employing people and could win over useful people. Whether it was the aristocratic class within the Later Jin or the Han people and other ethnic groups who defected to the Later Jin, Huang Taiji could make good use of them and had many supporters.

After Nurhaci's death, according to the status within the Later Jin Dynasty, the successor should be one of the four great beiles. However, the problem was that the second beile Amin was excluded first because he was not Nurhaci's son, but only his nephew. Moreover, Amin's father Shurhaci died at the hands of Nurhaci. From this point of view, Nurhaci had a patricidal hatred towards Amin. Although he later reused Amin, he was always on guard against Amin. There was absolutely no possibility that Amin would inherit the position of Khan.

As for Manggurtai, he was the most likely candidate. First of all, he was brave and good at fighting, and had made countless contributions. He had a high prestige in the Later Jin Dynasty. Moreover, Manggurtai was a legitimate son, and his mother was Fuca, so his family background was extremely noble.

Unfortunately, Manggurtai's mother offended Nurhaci, and he was worried that Nurhaci would be angry with him because of his mother. No one knew what he was thinking, but he actually killed his mother himself, and then brought the head to show his loyalty to Nurhaci.

Even the murderous Nurhaci was shocked by this act. He never thought that his son would kill his own mother just to please him. Even animals would not do such a thing. Since he could kill his own mother, could he kill his own father in the future?

Although Nurhaci seemed satisfied with this on the surface and even appointed Manggurtai as the Third Beile, in fact, for a long time afterwards, Nurhaci was very cautious in using Manggurtai. Apart from sending him to fight, he was not allowed to participate in many important events of the Later Jin Dynasty on weekdays. He was also secretly on guard against this brainless and ruthless man, lest he come with a knife to take his life one day.

It was also because of Manggurtai's matricide that he had no popularity in the Later Jin. The Jurchens of the Later Jin were not ignorant barbarians. How could they elect a man who could chop off his own mother's head as the Khan? What if he took pleasure in killing people after becoming the Khan? How could they save their lives?
In this way, the second and third beile among the four great beiles had no possibility of inheriting the Khan throne, and the position of Khan could only be produced from the first beile Daishan and the fourth beile Huang Taiji.

Logically speaking, Daishan had the greatest chance of succeeding to the throne. He held two yellow flags and was Nurhaci's second son. He was far superior to Huang Taiji in both status and strength.

However, Daishan was very clear-headed. He knew that he was not as talented as Nurhaci and was not the right person to ascend the Khan throne. Compared with himself, the resourceful Huang Taiji was more suitable to be the Khan. Moreover, Daishan and Huang Taiji had a good brotherly relationship, so he declined the position of Khan on the grounds of his old age. Daishan, his sons Yuetuo and Sahalian supported Huang Taiji to succeed the Khan throne and fully supported Huang Taiji to ascend the Khan throne.

In this way, in the subsequent nomination, Huang Taiji, who ranked last, stood out and obtained the qualification to inherit the Khan with the support of Daishan.

After the dust settled, Huang Taiji and Daishan met in private. They conspired for a long time. The next day, they led their troops back to Shenyang. The first thing they did after arriving in Shenyang was to take control of the Queen Abahai.

In front of everyone, Huang Taiji announced Nurhaci's last words to everyone, claiming that Nurhaci had left a message asking Abahai to be buried with him.

Abahai was shocked when she heard this and didn't believe that Nurhaci would do this at all. But at this time she had no ability to resist. Whether she was willing or not, under the coercion of Huang Taiji, Daishan and others, she could only accept her fate and commit suicide to be buried with him.

The main purpose of Huang Taiji was to deal with Abahai, because he did not want Abahai to give orders after he succeeded to the throne of Khan. You must know that Abahai was Nurhaci's concubine, which was the status of the queen from the Han people's perspective.

As soon as Nurhaci died, Abahai became the empress dowager. Even though Huang Taiji was the Khan, the status of the empress dowager was extremely high. Moreover, Abahai gave birth to three sons for Nurhaci. The three sons were Ajige, one of the four little beiles. Ajige was brave and good at fighting. He controlled the Zhenghuang Banner and had no less power than Huang Taiji.

In addition, there are the brothers Dorgon and Doze, who control the Bordered Yellow Banner. That is to say, the three brothers together control two banners. Moreover, these two banners are not ordinary banners, but the Plain Yellow Banner and the Bordered Yellow Banner. In terms of strength, they are greater than Huang Taiji, the new Khan who has just ascended to the position of Great Khan.

(End of this chapter)