Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty
Chapter 733: Encirclement of Jinzhou
Chapter 733: Encirclement of Jinzhou
The changes within the Qing Dynasty forced Huang Taiji to focus his main energy on stability. Facing these opponents, Huang Taiji showed no mercy. He immediately took action against Manggurtai, who was the most active in jumping up and down. He first scolded him for murdering his mother, and then took advantage of the situation to invite Daishan and other confidants to discuss Manggurtai's crimes, and directly took away his title and the position of leader of the Zhenglan Banner.
Manggurtai never expected that Huang Taiji would act so quickly and ruthlessly. Before he could react, he, a powerful figure in the Eight Banners and one of the four great beiles, lost everything. Even the leader of the Zhenglan Banner was replaced by his younger brother Dergelei.
Although Degelei was Manggurtai's younger brother from the same mother, their relationship had always been bad. The key reason was that Manggurtai killed his mother in order to please Nurhaci, and used his biological mother's head to curry favor with him.
Even though the Jurchens at that time were not truly civilized people, but at best barbarians, Manggurtai's actions were despised by many people. It was precisely because of this that Manggurtai's reputation was directly tarnished within the Eight Banners. Some people who were originally close to him gradually began to alienate him. Even Nurhaci, who had always killed people like crazy, felt that Manggurtai's actions were too much, and privately commented that he was a "wolf cub" who could not be tamed.
Huang Taiji handed the Zhenglan Banner to Dergelei, which on the surface seemed to be giving Manggurtai a chance to reflect on himself. After all, Dergelei was his half-brother. As long as Manggurtai sincerely repented, he might still have a chance to become the banner leader in the future.
But in fact, what Huang Taiji did was equivalent to completely eliminating the possibility of Manggurtai's comeback, because due to the death of his mother, Dege hated his brother more than anyone else and wished that Manggurtai would be in trouble. How could he possibly return the position of the leader of the Zhenglan Banner to Manggurtai?
Manggurtai knew this truth in his heart. After losing his title and the position of the leader of the banner, Manggurtai knew that he had no chance of turning things around. What made him even more angry was that some people had clearly agreed to unite against Huang Taiji, but when Huang Taiji attacked him, these people seemed to have amnesia all of a sudden, and they stood by and watched, and no one stepped forward to help him.
Faced with this result, Manggurtai was extremely discouraged and cursed these people in private. Without hope, he could only drink to relieve his sorrow every day and get himself drunk all day. In less than a month, Manggurtai woke up one morning and suddenly couldn't speak. By noon, his condition worsened. In the evening, this one of the four great beiles, who was once Huang Taiji's biggest competitor, suddenly died. Was he killed by drinking too much and getting an acute illness? Or other unknown reasons are unknown, but in any case, Manggurtai's death was the best thing for Huang Taiji. With his death, Huang Taiji got rid of a big worry, and at the same time, it also shocked the opposition in the Eight Banners.
Not long after Manggurtai's death, Amin, who had been under house arrest, also died quietly in prison. With Amin's death, only Daishan and Huang Taiji were left of the four great beiles. Daishan had always been Huang Taiji's most powerful supporter. This shows that Huang Taiji's two biggest political opponents were gone.
In addition to Manggurtai and Amin, Huang Taiji also dealt with more than a dozen Eight Banners nobles of varying status. Without exception, these people were either close confidants of Manggurtai and Amin, or their old subordinates, or those who had followed these two people to meddle in the Khan's throne, or those who had been restless after the Battle of the Great Wall and secretly colluded to cause trouble.
The ruthless Huang Taiji quickly eliminated his dissidents, and did not forget to appease and win over the centrists. In less than a few months, he resolved a political storm against Huang Taiji before it even started. At the same time, he took advantage of this incident to readjust the Eight Banners, weakening the power of the banners controlled by others and further enhancing his own strength.
After dealing with the internal troubles, Huang Taiji finally had the energy to deal with external affairs. The most important thing at the moment was the war with the Ming Dynasty. After the Battle of the Great Wall, Huang Taiji had received news that the Ming Dynasty had re-established Jizhou Town, stationed heavy troops in Jizhou Town, and began to repair the broken Great Wall defense line around Xifengkou.
This news made Huang Taiji frown. The Great Wall defense line of Jizhou Town was originally the key route for him to break through the Ming Dynasty. This was how he attacked the heartland of the Ming Dynasty during the Ji Si Rebellion. Although the Great Wall Battle not long ago failed to achieve the goal, this route was still there. Now that the Ming Dynasty has rebuilt the Jizhou Town, which had long been in name only, it means that the strategic deployment of the Ming Dynasty has changed. It directly blocked his way to attack the Ming Dynasty. It would be difficult for him to repeat the same trick in the future.
That's not all. In addition, there was the Tumed's expedition and the losses suffered by the Chahar tribes. After Huang Taiji withdrew his troops and returned to Liaodong, the Tumed's power took advantage of this opportunity to infiltrate the Chahar tribes. Although they had not yet truly occupied the Chahar right wing grassland, the several tribes on the right wing had suffered heavy losses and no longer had the strength to compete with the Tumed tribe.
In this situation, the Tumed Mongols could attack at any time. If Huang Taiji passed through Chahar again, he would have to guard against a joint attack by the Tumed tribe and the Ming army. Although the Eight Banners were capable of fighting, Huang Taiji knew that the Eight Banners were not truly invincible. The Tumed Mongols were brave and good at fighting, and they were not easy to deal with. Now the Ming army in Jizhou Town was not weak either. Both sides had the advantages of terrain and ordnance. Huang Taiji could not fight four hands with two fists, and he was not sure about fighting over a long distance.
The entrance to Jizhou Town was blocked, and Huang Taiji had no chance to attack the Ming Dynasty by taking a detour. He could only turn his attention back and look towards the Liaoxi Corridor.
The remaining passage is the Liaoxi Corridor. They will take the same offensive route as Nurhaci did back then, and fight the Ming army head-on. But the outcome of such a war is hard to predict. After all, the Ningjin Line of Defense on the Liaoxi Corridor was set up by Sun Chengzong back then. Ningyuan and Jinzhou are strong cities. The Ming army is not as good as his Eight Banners in field battles, but they are not bad at defending the city. Moreover, the Ming army also has firearms to assist. Huang Taiji is not sure to take these strong cities by frontal attack, not to mention that Huang Taiji is unwilling to use his Eight Banners to fight such a war of attrition.
But even so, Huang Taiji had no choice but to go ahead. He knew very well that he had to fight. Although the Later Jin Dynasty was now the Qing Dynasty, and he, the Khan, became the emperor, in fact, the so-called Qing Dynasty was not much different from the original Later Jin Dynasty. It was just a change in name.
Whether in terms of territory, population, productivity, technological level and other factors, the Qing Dynasty is far inferior to the Ming Dynasty. Its current advantage in military strength is not absolute. After all, its foundation is too weak and it is no match for the huge Ming Dynasty.
Huang Taiji was a man of great talent and strategy. He understood that the only real way out was to march south to attack the Ming Dynasty. If he continued to stay in Liaodong, the Qing Dynasty would inevitably decline after its prosperity would reach its peak, and by that time the Ming Dynasty would not have to attack, as the Qing Dynasty would no longer be able to support itself.
Fight to support the war, and plunder to strengthen oneself, this was the strategic policy formulated by Nurhaci when he founded the country, and the current Huang Taiji is the same. Taking over the entire Liaoxi Corridor, breaking the Shanhaiguan defense line, and marching directly to the heartland of the Ming Dynasty, this is the only way out for the Qing Dynasty.
Under such circumstances, no matter how difficult it was to attack the Liaoxi Corridor, Huang Taiji had no choice but to fight. The first thing he had to take was Jinzhou. Jinzhou was located in the northeasternmost part of the Ningjin Defense Line. It was the entrance to the Liaoxi Corridor and blocked the passage of the entire Liaoxi Corridor.
As long as Jinzhou is not captured, it will be empty talk to open up the Liaoxi Corridor. However, Jinzhou is not so easy to capture. The one stationed in Jinzhou is the famous Zu Dashou. Zu Dashou has 30,000 troops in Jinzhou City, and nearly 20,000 troops are stationed in several strongholds (forts) outside Jinzhou City. The total force of Jinzhou has reached 50,000. In addition, Jinzhou has high and thick walls, and there are many artillery and other firearms. It can be said that it is strong and impregnable.
Although Zu Dashou's so-called 50,000 troops were a bit exaggerated, it was still at least 25,000. Moreover, relying on the city walls for defense, the Ming army's combat effectiveness was not weak. If Huang Taiji attacked Jinzhou by force and wanted to capture the city, he might have to die nearly 10,000 people.
Huang Taiji would never trade with so many casualties. How many people were there in the entire Eight Banners? How could Huang Taiji waste precious troops on sieges? In response to this situation, Huang Taiji adopted the old tactics he was used to. He first sent Jirgalang to lead troops to attack Yizhou, and then stationed there after taking Yizhou.
Yizhou is located in the north of Jinzhou City, not far from Jinzhou, and can be reached in one day's march.
After taking Yizhou, Jirgalang's troops could directly monitor Jinzhou in the south, disperse the nearby Ming troops, force the Ming troops north of Jinzhou to withdraw to Jinzhou, and at the same time destroy the Ming army's military farms in the areas around Jinzhou, making the Ming army in Jinzhou lose its self-sufficiency.
Then Huang Taiji sent people to contact the Subandai Mongolian tribe in Xingshan, south of Jinzhou. The Subandai Mongolian tribe was a small Mongolian tribe located in the Liaoxi Corridor. They had naturalized into the Ming Dynasty a long time ago and lived under the protection of the Ming Dynasty.
Logically speaking, the Subandai Mongolian tribe should have stood with the Ming Dynasty in this situation and jointly resisted Huang Taiji's attack. However, no one expected that the tribal leader Subandai would take the initiative to surrender to Huang Taiji after Huang Taiji sent someone to contact him in order to protect himself, and suddenly sent troops when Zu Dashou led his troops to recapture Yizhou, and joined forces with Jirgalang to attack the Ming army from the north and south, causing the Ming army to be defeated and flee back to Jinzhou City. As a result, Xingshan in the south of Jinzhou also fell into the hands of Huang Taiji, so that Huang Taiji directly controlled the two important places in the south and north of Jinzhou, and sandwiched Jinzhou where Zu Dashou was located in the middle.
Huang Taiji also sent the Dorgon brothers and his eldest son Haoge to lead the army to eliminate the Ming army fortresses around Jinzhou. In less than a month, the Ming army in the outer fortresses could not withstand the siege of the Qing army, and either gave up voluntarily or was defeated and captured. From then on, the area of more than 100 miles centered on Jinzhou was basically occupied by Huang Taiji, thus forming an encirclement of Jinzhou.
(End of this chapter)
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