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

Chapter 513 Food shortage
After taking Yongping, Huang Taiji handed over the more than 400 captured Ming soldiers to Ma Dengyun and incorporated them into his Han Army Banner. Then, Huang Taiji set his sights on Shanhaiguan. Since Sun Chengzong's main force was now in Jizhou, Huang Taiji did not want to turn around and confront Sun Chengzong. In addition to returning by the original route, there was another way to return from Daming, which was to return directly to Liaodong through Shanhaiguan.

Shanhaiguan is known as the No. 1 Pass in the World. It is the last line of defense of the Ming Dynasty stationed in Liaodong. It is also the gateway for the Jiannu to enter the interior from Liaodong. It is also a pass that has never been broken before.

From this point of view, the solidity of Shanhaiguan can be imagined, but Huang Taiji just wanted to give it a try this time, because before, they all fought from Liaodong to the interior, and the geographical advantage was on the side of the Ming army, so the battle was naturally very difficult. But this time, they fought from the interior to the outside, because of the geographical location of Shanhaiguan and its design, the main defense was towards the outside, and the inside was much weaker.

Huang Taiji saw this clearly and had the courage to attack Shanhaiguan. If he could capture Shanhaiguan, it would be of great benefit to him. Once Shanhaiguan fell into Huang Taiji's hands, all the Ming army's defense lines in Liaodong would become useless. At that time, Huang Taiji would use Shanhaiguan as a base and cooperate with the remaining Eight Banners troops in Liaodong to easily wipe out several Ming armies in Jinzhou and Ningyuan, sweep across Liaodong, and completely occupy the land outside the pass.

By then, all of Liaodong would fall into the hands of Huang Taiji, and the strange hand of Shanhaiguan would also allow Huang Taiji to completely control the initiative in the future war against the Ming Dynasty. As long as he wanted, he could break into the interior from Shanhaiguan anytime and anywhere, and it would be difficult for the Ming army to take effective defensive measures after losing Shanhaiguan. At that time, he could come to the Ming Dynasty whenever he wanted and leave whenever he wanted, and no one could stop him.

In order to attack Shanhaiguan, Huang Taiji left 10,000 troops to garrison Yongping, while the main force, led by Huang Taiji, marched towards Shanhaiguan in a mighty manner.

For a time, Huang Taiji's army was unstoppable. Qian'an and Luanzhou, which surrounded Yongping, were frightened by the powerful army of Huang Taiji and instantly lost the courage to resist, and they opened the city walls and surrendered one after another. Except for those officials who committed suicide, the rest of the officials in the two places either fled or left, and these territories fell directly into the hands of Huang Taiji.

Upon learning that Huang Taiji was attacking Shanhaiguan, Sun Chengzong immediately understood the enemy's intention and quickly dispatched troops to reinforce Shanhaiguan. At the same time, Sun Chengzong ordered Wang Chengyin, the defender of Shanhaiguan, to find a way to delay Huang Taiji's attack speed and buy time for the reinforcements.

Wang Chengyin received the order to lead his troops out of Shanhaiguan and fought with Huang Taiji's Eight Banners in Qian'an. The battle was fierce. The Liao army took advantage of the terrain and fought a fierce battle with the Eight Banners with their backs against the hills. Although Wang Chengyin killed the Red Banner general Juelu Oboye in this battle, he was ultimately defeated by the Eight Banners due to insufficient troops and had no choice but to withdraw to Shanhaiguan under the cover of night.

Although Wang Chengyin was defeated in this battle, he bought Sun Chengzong precious time for reinforcement. Sun Chengzong finally took an army and rushed to Shanhaiguan half a day before Huang Taiji's main force arrived at Shanhaiguan. The arrival of Sun Chengzong and this army not only gave Wang Chengyin a reassurance, but also greatly strengthened the garrison force of Shanhaiguan.

The news of the fall of Yongping and other places soon reached the capital, and Emperor Chongzhen was immediately frightened upon hearing the news. Even though he did not understand military affairs, he understood how serious the consequences would be if Shanhaiguan was lost. The direct surrender of Qian'an and Luanzhou made Emperor Chongzhen even more furious, especially when he learned that Guo Gong, the former left assistant minister of the Ministry of War, not only did not fight when Huang Taiji's army was at the gates of the city, but instead took his family and fled directly from Qian'an. He was so afraid of death that he ran to the capital in one breath. Emperor Chongzhen was furious and directly ordered the Jinyiwei to arrest Guo Gong and put him in prison to prepare for execution.

The drastic changes in the war situation made Emperor Chongzhen, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, anxious again. He was afraid that Huang Taiji would turn around and attack the capital after taking Shanhaiguan. For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen directly rejected Sun Chengzong's suggestion that the capital's loyalist troops should quickly go north to join forces with Ma Shilong's troops to attack Zunhua together. He ignored the urgent military situation on Sun Chengzong's side and forced the capital's loyalist troops not to attack.

Perhaps the deaths of Man Gui and others in battle and the ferocity of Huang Taiji's Eight Banners had caused Emperor Chongzhen to lose his mind in panic. He now only hoped that there would be as many royalist troops around him as possible. Only when the royalist troops were guarding outside the capital would he, the emperor, feel safe staying in the Forbidden City.

But the problem is that with the continuous arrival of the troops to support the king, there are more and more troops outside the capital. Except for the half-crippled Xuanda Army, Guanning Army and other units, the troops to support the king that have arrived from all over the country have exceeded 70,000. All these troops add up to nearly 100,000.

The daily food and fodder for so many people is an astronomical figure, and many troops came non-stop after receiving the order to defend the king. Many troops did not even bring baggage, and only brought dry food with them. They traveled thousands of miles to the capital, but after arriving at the capital, they originally thought that the capital could solve the food and fodder problem for them, but they did not expect that the court had not made preparations in advance. They applied for the allocation of food and fodder several times, but the court always turned a deaf ear and dumb, as if it knew nothing.

Not only was there no food, but in order to better ensure the defense of the capital, Emperor Chongzhen, who had listened to someone's advice, asked the Ming army outside the city to change guard every few days. That is to say, today this troop was stationed at this gate, and after a few days, it received an order to station somewhere else.

The camp that had just been set up had not even warmed up yet, but they had to move camp. The soldiers were already hungry, and they had to expend energy to carry out the garrison transfer. As a result, all the units complained, and the soldiers' anger grew.

"What are we going to do now?" Hei Yunlong frowned. Wang Rong was sitting in the main seat, and Hei Yunlong and Zhu Shenzhui were sitting on Wang Rong's left and right. As the commander-in-chief of all the troops, Hei Yunlong should have sat in the main seat, but Wang Rong had a special status and was the oldest. In addition, the guards did not belong to the border army system, so there was no subordinate relationship between the two sides. In addition, because of Zhu Shenzhui, Hei Yunlong took the initiative to let Wang Rong sit in the main seat.

"How is the Xuan army doing now?" Wang Rong also frowned. With Wang Rong's arrival, Wang Rong's guards and Zhu Shencui's troops joined forces, but they were still in the Xuan army's camp. Because the Xuan army had suffered heavy losses and was seriously short of personnel, Zhu Shencui did not move the camp for this reason, and he believed that Hei Yunlong also wanted him and Wang Rong to fight side by side with the Xuan army.

"The army in my Xuanda is still okay at the moment, but there is not much food now. The food sent last time as a reward for the troops can only be used for five days at most. If we save it a little, it can probably last for seven or eight days. If the court can allocate more food in the next few days, it should not be a problem to support it for half a month." Hei Yunlong shook his head.

"Is there any news from the court?" Wang Rong continued to ask.

Hei Yunlong still shook his head: "Where can I get any news? There are nearly 100,000 troops gathered in the capital, and the daily consumption is very high. Many troops are short of food... Oh, right! Among them is our Shanxi loyalist army. Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong are very anxious now. They sent people to find me today and begged me to allocate food for the Shanxi army. But I don't have any extra food myself, where can I get it for him?"

As the commander of Luzhou Guard, Wang Rong certainly knew Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong. In fact, these two people were half of Wang Rong's superiors.

However, the Luzhou Weiqin Wang was not under their command. Wang Rong took a different route from them from receiving the order to assemble the army to setting off to arriving in the capital. It was not until shortly after Wang Rong arrived in the capital that he heard that the governor Geng Ruqi and the general Zhang Honggong had also led troops to the capital.

At this time, because Zhu Shenzhu did not leave the Xuanda army camp after joining forces and stayed with the Xuanda army, the Shanxi army was divided into two parts. One was Wang Rong's Luzhou Guard, and the other was the royalist force composed of the other two guards led by Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong.

In terms of military strength, of course, the Governor Geng Ruqi and the General Zhang Honggong had much more troops. They mobilized two guards plus the Governor's Office and the General's direct troops, a total of more than 8,000 people. Moreover, the Governor Geng Ruqi's decision to go to the King's defense was entirely his own, because he did not receive the order to do so. After hearing the news from the capital, he discussed with the General Zhang Honggong and decided to take the initiative to go to the King's defense in order to make merit.

Therefore, they arrived in the capital a little later than Wang Rong. Because they took the initiative to come to the capital to defend the king and now Hei Yunlong is the nominal commander-in-chief in charge of all the troops, the other party did not directly ask Wang Rong to join forces with the Shanxi Army to Defend the King.

In this case, Wang Rong pretended to know nothing and was happy to avoid trouble. But now when Hei Yunlong said that the Shanxi Qinwang Army had run out of food, and Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong even sent people to ask for food, Wang Rong was very surprised.

In his opinion, no matter how weak the Ming army was, it should not reach such a level. After all, it had the capital city at its back, and there was no shortage of food in the capital city. Although the food allocated by the court was always insufficient, they could always hold on.

Seeing Wang Rong's doubts, Hei Yunlong explained to him immediately. The most difficult army among all the troops in the campaign to support the emperor was the Shanxi Army. Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong were eager to support the emperor, but they were too hasty to send troops. They were not well prepared at all, and the army did not carry any food, not even enough dry food.

They had originally thought that they would receive supplies when they arrived in the capital, but the imperial court ignored them altogether because there were too many troops outside the capital asking for food. The stingy Emperor Chongzhen and the ministers in the court were even trying to cut corners on this matter. In addition, there were people who took the opportunity to blackmail the loyal army to enrich themselves. They thought that there was naturally food in stock in the army, and it would not matter if they waited a while, as these soldiers would not die if they went hungry. Therefore, when the Shanxi army arrived in the capital, they were not given food immediately, and the food allocated in the later period was also pitifully small, and was not enough to eat.

In the past three days, the Shanxi army not only lacked food, but also had to be constantly relocated. In three days, they actually changed three locations, which made the Shanxi army miserable. Now the army was somewhat unstable. How could Governor Geng Ruqi and General Zhang Honggong sit still? They could only send people to ask Hei Yunlong for help.

(End of this chapter)