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

Chapter 762 Ran away?

Li You and Zheng Hongkui discussed it and decided to rest for a day and then head north to attack Jinzhou Wei tomorrow.

The troops that have landed do not need to be transferred to Jinzhou Zuowei. There is simply no room for so many people to live here. Moreover, if they move from the landing point, they will have to return tomorrow. There is no need to go through all this trouble.

The troops were stationed near the landing point, and the Jinzhou Zuowei was handed over to Zheng Hongkui's navy, including all the seized materials. After Li You sent out the troops tomorrow, he would let the captured ordinary Liao people go directly. The Jiannu and Han troops were originally going to be executed, but Zheng Hongkui gave Li You an idea, saying that it was unnecessary to kill them directly. They came to Liaodong this time to cause trouble for Huang Taiji. Killing Huang Taiji would only lose some people, and such a small number of people would be of no use.

Zheng Hongkui said that it would be better to release these people directly, and then cut off their thumbs. Without thumbs, they would be useless, unable to hold a knife or draw a bow, and even unable to do heavy work. Letting them go would cause trouble for Huang Taiji, and at the same time consume the food of Jiannu. In addition, these people could cause panic within Jiannu, so why not?
Li You readily accepted Zheng Hongkui's method. It must be said that Zheng Hongkui was not only ruthless, but also quite smart. Moreover, the spoils of the Jinzhou Zuowei showed that the Jiannu were indeed short of food and grass at the moment, and the food in the rear was very scarce. It was indeed a good idea to use this method to cause some trouble for the other side.

The night passed quickly, and the next day Li You led his troops northward towards Jinzhouwei. Zheng Hongkui stayed there and rearranged the defense of Jinzhou Zuowei. He also led the navy to repair the dock of Jinzhou Zuowei as a temporary base for the fleet.

From Jinzhou Zuowei to Jinzhou Wei is only a hundred miles away, and a fast horse can arrive there in one day. The new army will only need two days to march at most.

Li You sent out scouts ahead, with the rest of the troops following. After a day's march, they camped about thirty miles away from Jinzhou Wei. They waited until dawn the next day to advance again and capture Jinzhou Wei in one fell swoop.

But unexpectedly, just after he settled down, Li You received a report from the scouts, saying that they had noticed unusual movements of the Eight Banners soldiers of Jinzhou Guard. Li You was not sure whether the Eight Banners of Jinzhou had known of their arrival and planned to mobilize their troops for battle. After all, they had captured Jinzhou Left Guard yesterday and were marching quickly today. The Jian Nu were not deaf or blind, so such a big move would be noticed by the other side.

Given the Jiannu's usual style, they looked down on the Ming army. Although Jinzhou Wei only had one Niulu of Eight Banners soldiers, plus the Han army flags and baoyi, there were no more than a thousand people, the Eight Banners had always been arrogant. Dozens of Eight Banners soldiers dared to fight against nearly a thousand Ming troops, let alone an entire Niulu?
To be on the safe side, Li You did not dare to neglect and made arrangements overnight to prevent the Eight Banners from attacking at night. But when the night passed, the expected Eight Banners did not come, and the entire camp was very peaceful, which made Li You very strange.

However, Li You did not think much about it. After dawn, he assembled his troops and continued to march towards Jinzhouwei. They arrived at Jinzhouwei near noon. Jinzhouwei was much stronger than Jinzhouzuowei. It was built completely like a small fortress. When Li You's troops arrived, the gates of Jinzhouwei were closed and there were people running and calling faintly on the top of the city. Seeing this, Li You directly issued an order to prepare for war. The troops were deployed and the artillery was set up. He planned to bombard with artillery first to open a gap and then kill his way into Jinzhouwei.

But at this moment, before Li You could open fire, the gate of Jinzhouwei suddenly opened. This move made Li You stunned.

"How dare you! You actually dare to fight outside the city?" Li You sneered. Fighting outside the city was exactly what he wanted. He was commanding the new army, not the ordinary Ming army. The Eight Banners soldiers had the upper hand against the ordinary Ming army, but to fight a field battle with the new army was like asking an old man to hang himself.

Li You knew very well how strong the new army's combat effectiveness was in field battles. The one and a half battalions of new troops he led were the elite among the elite. Not only were they well-trained and powerful, they also had many firearms. Let alone a mere Niulu, even if there were two or three thousand elite Eight Banners troops, Li You was confident that he could fight hard.

But when Li You was preparing to command his troops to fight, an unarmored man walked out of the open door in front. After this man came out, he shouted towards this side with empty hands. Due to the distance, Li You could not hear clearly. He sent people forward to see what was going on and what the Jiannu garrison of Jinzhouwei was planning.

"General! The man who came here said he wanted to offer the city."

"Submit the city?" Li You was stunned. For a moment, he thought he had heard it wrong. The Eight Banners soldiers surrendered the city without even fighting? What was going on? It was not until he asked further that Li You was sure that he had heard it right. His subordinates had indeed answered in this way.

"Bring the person here, I will ask him in person!"

"Yes!"

The subordinate responded and turned away, and a moment later the man who had left the city was brought over.

"I am Han Gouzi, greeting the Marshal..." When he was brought to the front, the man knelt down in front of Li You with a plop, sticking his butt high in the air, and kowtowed like pounding garlic.

Li You looked carefully and found that the man did not look like a Jiannu, but an ordinary Liao citizen dressed in a weather-beaten face, looking to be about forty years old.

"Who are you?"

"I am Han Ergou, a native of Liaodong, and the Great Khan during the Wanli period... No, no, after Nurhaci started his rebellion, I fell into the hands of the Jiannu and was captured as a slave. I have been living a miserable life here ever since. Today, I am very happy to see the royal division coming. I..." "Stop!" Seeing Han Ergou wiping his tears, crying and laughing, and chattering about his origins, Li You hurriedly stopped him and asked directly, "Are you a local Liao person?"

"Yes, my whole family is from Liao..."

"Then why did you come?"

"I am here to offer the city on behalf of the young and old of Jinzhou Guards."

"Submit the city? How can a mere Liao person like you surrender the city? Where are the Jiannu garrisons in Jinzhouwei?"

"General, I dare not lie. I am indeed here to surrender the city. The garrison of Jinzhouwei had left last night. I and my fellow villagers discovered this morning that there were no soldiers left in the city. I did not know what was going on and did not dare to run away. We could only wait in the city. Unexpectedly, the general's soldiers arrived in less than half a day. I and my fellow villagers then learned that the eight banners in the city were afraid of the general's majesty and fled. After discussion, everyone decided to send me out of the city to surrender the city..."

"What? You said the Jiannu ran away? Are you serious?" Li You asked in surprise.

Han Ergou nodded repeatedly and swore, "I dare not say a single word of falsehood. There are indeed no Jiannu in Jinzhou Guard. Even the Han army that followed the Jiannu have all fled. Right now, there are only about 200 Liao people like us left in Jinzhou Guard. If it were not for this, I would not dare to come out and surrender the city."

"When did the Jiannu escape? Where did they go?" Li You asked.

Han Ergou couldn't explain it. He kept saying that he ran away last night, but he didn't know when exactly. The Eight Banners soldiers were always fierce and vicious, and the Liao people were usually very afraid of them. In addition, the Eight Banners of Jinzhouwei had a rule that as long as it got dark, all Liao people had to stay at home and could not go out. Once the curfew was violated, the Eight Banners would kill them directly.

So it was not until dawn, when Han Ergou and others got up and went out, that they discovered that the Eight Banners soldiers who were usually seen everywhere in Jinzhou Guard were nowhere to be seen, and even the Han army who were relying on the power of others to bully others were gone. The entire Jinzhou Guard was empty, with only the Liao people left.

Just as Han Ergou and the Liao people in the city were shocked by this sudden change and didn't know what to do for a moment, Li You's troops arrived. Several Liao people waiting on the top of the city found that there was an army with the flag of the Ming army coming towards them in the distance. Han Ergou and others then understood why the Eight Banners soldiers who were originally stationed in the city had disappeared. It was obvious that they knew that the Ming army was about to attack and were so scared that they ran away overnight.

After figuring out the situation, Li You's brain was a little idle. Before leading the troops, Li You had considered everything, but he never thought that the defenders of Jinzhouwei would flee without a fight.

It would be fine if it was any other army, such as the ordinary Ming army, or the bandit army, and it is not uncommon for them to abandon the city and flee when they see they cannot win. But this is in Liaodong, and his opponent is the Jiannu!

How could Li You not know how powerful the Jian Nu were? He had fought directly with the Jian Nu during the Ji Si Rebellion, and he was also one of the leading generals in the Battle of the Great Wall, and he had personally led his troops to fight against the Jian Nu.

After Nurhaci started his army, the Battle of Sarhu almost wiped out the main force of the Ming Dynasty, and created a reputation that the Jurchens were invincible if they had less than 10,000 men. In recent years in Liaodong, the Jiannu army was suppressing the Ming army, and fighting with fewer men against more men was the norm. A few white-armored soldiers led a dozen Eight Banners soldiers to kill hundreds of Ming soldiers and make them flee in embarrassment. How could they run away directly after knowing that they came to Jinzhou to defend it?
Could it be that the troops stationed here were not the real Eight Banners? Was his information wrong? Thinking of this, Li You asked Han Ergou about the situation of the Eight Banners of Jinzhou Guard. When he learned from Han Ergou that the troops stationed here were indeed a Niulu of the Eight Banners, and that the Niulu Zhangjing was Wuerte of the Zhenglan Banner, this fact made Li You even more confused.

Li You couldn't understand why Wuerte would flee without a fight and abandon Jinzhouwei. He couldn't understand why the other party did this when they clearly had the ability to resist.

Looking at Han Ergou, Li You was worried whether this was Wuerte's plan. Wuerte and his men did not run away at all. They were hiding in the city and planned to use this method to lure him into the trap and then catch him off guard?
How could a mere Jiannu have such a brain? Li You was puzzled. Although he felt that this possibility was not great, he did not dare to gamble. After thinking about it, Li You decided to go into the city to see what was going on. He quickly called his subordinates and gave them a few instructions. The army was still on high alert outside the city. Two teams cooperated with each other and entered the city first under the leadership of Han Ergou to ensure that everything was safe.

A quarter of an hour later, the army that had entered the city sent someone to report that there was indeed no trace of the Eight Banners soldiers and Han Army Flags in the city as Han Ergou had said. Except for about two hundred local Liao people left in the entire Jinzhou Guard, there was no trace of the army at all.

After hearing this report, Li You was relieved and ordered his troops to enter the city. After entering the city, he continued to send people to search the entire Jinzhou Guard and check everywhere to prevent Wuerte from setting up any dangers. But after a long time of searching inside and out, he finally found no problems at all. Only then did Li You believe that Wuerte had indeed escaped, and Jinzhou Guard surrendered without a fight, and fell into his hands.

(End of this chapter)