Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 484 Let's do something even bigger
At four o'clock in the afternoon, the sun hung obliquely in the western sky, casting a grayish-yellow hue over Haizhou City.

Zhong Minghui climbed the steps to the top of the city wall. Dark red bloodstains were still embedded in the cracks between the bricks. After being dried by the wind, they hardened into lumps and mixed with the smell of gunpowder into his nostrils.

With each step, the fragments of armor embedded in the brickwork would make a soft, clattering sound, like the whispers of countless dead souls.

Beside the crenellations of the city wall, General Ma Degong of Liaonan Town was chatting and laughing with several officers. His mountain-patterned armor was covered in soot, but he deliberately kept the breastplate shiny—there were a few shallow knife marks there, which were probably his "proof of war merits" that he had kept on purpose.

When he saw Zhong Minghui come up, the weariness on his face was instantly covered by a smile, and the copper studs on his armor jingled as he cupped his hands in greeting: "General Zhong! Are you here to climb up and take a look at our spoils of war?"

Zhong Minghui cupped his hands in greeting to Ma Degong and then wrapped his woolen overcoat even tighter around himself.

He glanced at the plumes of smoke rising from the city, swaying in the twilight like countless incense sticks stuck upside down. "Does General Ma think it was worth taking this city?"

Ma Degong's smile froze for a moment, then relaxed again: "How could it not be worth it? Two hundred and sixty-five heads were taken and more than nine hundred were captured. If this battle achievement is reported, Governor Hong will surely give my Liaonan Garrison a great credit."

He counted on his fingers, "Hundreds of families and slaves of the Han Chinese Eight Banners alone were arrested. All the men had their heads shaved. Aren't they the henchmen of the Qing barbarians?"

“Henchmen?” Zhong Minghui leaned down and looked at the prisoner camp below the battlements.

Those people were crammed into the makeshift wooden fence, most of them pale and thin. An old man was receiving porridge from the Ming army in a broken bowl, his wrist as thin as a piece of firewood.

"I just interrogated a few people who said they were captured by the Qing army two years ago. The men were treated like cattle and horses, and the women were forced to wash clothes for the Manchus. As for shaving their heads, they were all forced to do so. Shouldn't such people be considered as captured?"

Ma Degong's face darkened, and he said in a low voice, "General Zhong doesn't know, these Han slaves are the most spineless! When the Qing army came, they helped carry grain and fodder; when we attacked the city, they even helped carry stones! Keeping them around is just a disaster, so we might as well kill them to make up the numbers."

"Why bother?" Zhong Minghui was speechless.

In order to accumulate merit in battle, they actually wanted to kill these poor Han slaves!
The question is, will Hong Chengchou acknowledge your incredible achievements?
The enemy had over 100,000 elite troops who fought head-on against the Qing Eight Banners along the Songjin line. After several months, they only managed to obtain a little over a thousand heads (due to the failure to completely control the battlefield during many battles, the number of decapitations was very small).

And you second-rate troops who are guerrillas on the flanks and rear are able to behead hundreds of enemies in every battle. How can the generals of the various towns who are fighting desperately on the front lines bear this?

"Does Commander Zhong have a new idea?" Ma Degong sensed that the atmosphere was not right, so he changed the subject without making a sound.

“I do have an idea.” Zhong Minghui patted the crenellation. “Through the interrogation of the prisoners just now, we learned that Liaoyang’s defenses are extremely weak. I think we can go a step further and expand the scope of this operation.”

"Liaoyang?" Ma Degong took a half step back as if he had been burned, the breastplate on his armor making him dizzy. "General Zhong, are you joking? That's the town of Liaodong, with walls several zhang high and a moat ten zhang wide. Back when Xiong Tingbi was in power, the Later Jin attacked for several years but couldn't take it! In the end, they took it with the help of an inside agent."

"A fortified city?" Zhong Minghui smiled. "But this fortified city has fewer than three hundred defenders, mostly old, weak, and disabled. Even the cannons on the city walls have been dragged to the Songjin front. Commander Ma, do you think this is a golden opportunity?"

Ma Degong's fingers dug into the city bricks, his fingernails filled with grime: "An opportunity? I think it's a trap! Liaoyang is more than 120 li from Haizhou, and more than 200 li from the sea. If we go this far inland, our ships won't be able to meet us at the sea. If the Qing cavalry comes, we won't even have a way to retreat!"

He suddenly raised his voice, "Back then, Ajige led three thousand cavalry on a raid, covering two hundred li in a day and a night, and successfully cornered General Huang in Gaizhou. Commander Zhong, do you think that with so few men, we'd be handing our lives over to the Qing invaders?"

"Qing cavalry?" Zhong Minghui sneered, pointing north. "General Ma, you probably don't know, do you? The Qing army not only has Liaoyang's defenses completely inadequate, but Shenyang is practically an empty city. Their chieftain Huang Taiji has mobilized almost all of the country's troops to the Songjin line. Where would they find thousands of cavalry to surround us?"

"General Zhong, don't be fooled by those prisoners!" Ma Degong patiently advised, "You must understand that Liaoyang is one of the few large cities in Liaodong. How could it only have three hundred soldiers stationed there? Moreover, it's only about eighty li from Shenyang. If it's attacked, the Qing cavalry can arrive in a day to reinforce it. We must not be greedy and rush forward, repeating the mistakes of General Huang!"

Zhong Minghui remained silent for a moment.

Huang Long, the former commander-in-chief of Liaonan Town, was known for his cautious approach to military operations. However, several years ago, when he led 5,000 troops to launch a surprise attack on Haizhou, he unexpectedly ran into several hundred Qing cavalrymen and was immediately entangled by them.

After two days of fierce fighting, Huanglong fought and retreated, finally reaching Gaizhou, where he was about to take refuge in Xiong Yue Fort, a dozen miles away.

Unexpectedly, the Qing army's cavalry arrived very quickly. Ajige led three thousand cavalrymen from Liaoyang and arrived in Gaizhou in a day and a night, whereupon they trapped Huang Long's more than five thousand Ming soldiers on the spot.

Unsurprisingly, the Ming army collapsed in less than a day. When they tried to break out in all directions, they were pursued and killed by the Qing army. Huang Long was killed in battle, and nearly several thousand Ming soldiers were wiped out, with only six hundred escaping back to Xiong Yue.

Ma Degong's concerns were not entirely unfounded, but... "General Ma!" Zhong Minghui said in a deep voice, "Our intelligence personnel have confirmed through detailed interrogation of the captured Eight Banners Han soldiers that Liaoyang's defenses are extremely weak. Moreover, after careful analysis, our staff has also concluded that we have a 70% chance of capturing Liaoyang."

"Seventy percent certainty?" Ma Degong frowned. "Isn't there still a thirty percent chance of defeat? Governor Hong only ordered me to capture Haizhou in Liaonan and then use that opportunity to threaten Liaoyang. Now that the mission is complete, and we have several hundred heads to report, let's not... create any more trouble!"

"To complete the mission?" Zhong Minghui smiled bitterly upon hearing this. "General Ma, Haizhou is merely a forward outpost of the Qing army, or rather, a sentry post. In terms of importance, it is far inferior to Liaoyang. If we were to capture this city, it would be tantamount to stabbing the Qing army in the heart."

"Once this news reaches the ears of the Qing troops at the Songjin front, their morale will be shaken and affected. They might even withdraw their troops and return north, allowing your Commander Hong to launch a counterattack and inflict heavy damage on the Qing troops."

"This is nothing short of a monumental achievement, far surpassing the more than two hundred heads taken in Haizhou City!"

Ma Degong rubbed his hands together, his eyes darting around: "Commander Zhong, do we really need to risk our lives like this? Everyone wants to claim the enormous credit, but we still have to consider the lives of the thousands of people in Liaonan Town..."

Zhong Minghui narrowed his eyes slightly.

He understood the mindset of these Ming generals all too well—they sought not merit, but to avoid mistakes.

Wasn't Huanglong defeated and killed because of his reckless advance?
Yang Guozhu, the Xuanfu general who had just died in battle at Songshan City a few months earlier, also wanted to earn some great military achievements in order to wash away the guilt of losing Lu Xiangshan, but he was unexpectedly shot and killed.

Ma Degong was previously the deputy general of Ningyuan, leading 3,000 troops and stationed at Zhonghousuo.

In November of the eleventh year of the Chongzhen reign, when Dodo led his troops to besiege the city, he surprisingly repelled the Qing army's attack with cannons and muskets, forcing the Qing army to retreat. As a result, he was rewarded for his merits and promoted to the rank of general.

He was originally supposed to go to Ningyuan to take up his post, but the newly appointed Governor-General of Jiliao, Hong Chengchou, disliked his slippery personality and petitioned the Ministry of War to change his post to Liaonan Town, where his eldest son had just died.

However, it was precisely this altered transfer order that saved Ma Degong's life.

Because Jin Guofeng, the deputy general who also won the Songshan victory by defending the city, was transferred to Ningyuan as the general and stationed there. However, he found that he could not command Wu Sangui's Guan Ning Army.

As a result, when the Qing army launched a large-scale attack in October of the twelfth year of Chongzhen's reign, he could only lead more than three hundred trusted retainers into battle. In the end, after a bloody three-hour battle, they all perished in the fighting.

During this period, not a single garrison from Ningyuan came to their aid, and they watched helplessly as Jin Guofeng was destroyed.

After Ma Degong took office in Lushun, although he wanted to actively reorganize the Liaonan Town which was in decline, the generals of each unit immediately went their own way and did not obey orders after Huang Long's death.

Deputy General Shang Kexi was the most powerful, leading more than 3,000 troops on the left wing. He was stationed on Changshan and Guanglu Islands and also commanded the most complete navy in Liaonan Town, making him the most powerful military leader in Liaonan Town.

Deputy General Fan Hualong was the most senior. He originally thought that since General Huang Long and several Liaonan garrison officers had died in Gaizhou, it would be his turn to take the position of general. However, Ma Degong was parachuted in, which made him unhappy. He then stationed his troops in Jinzhouwei and did not go to Lushun to receive orders.

During his three years in charge of Liaonan Town, Ma Degong, relying on the righteousness of the imperial court and the power to distribute grain and salary, won over the military commanders Zhang Dalu, Sun Xingzhi, and guerrilla commander Mao Chengdong, and managed to gather more than 1,500 troops to manage Lushun Town.

This time, Xinhua invited Liaonan Town to jointly attack Haizhou City, and the Governor-General of Jiliao also sent a general's order, requiring him to lead troops north to harass the flanks of the Qing army in order to divide the Qing army's forces.

So, whether to obey the imperial edict or to give some face to the Xinhua people, Shang Kexi and Fan Hualong each sent 600 soldiers, and he also mustered 800 garrison soldiers. Together with the 2,000 "military men" that the Xinhua people had cobbled together, they marched in a mighty force towards Haizhou.

Well, we were lucky. Just as the scouts had reported, Haizhou City was extremely weak in defense. We captured the city in a single encounter.

In his opinion, the battle had progressed to this point, and it was about time to report back.

This was a deep penetration into the heart of Qing territory, over a hundred miles away, to recover this former Ming territory that had been abandoned for more than ten years, and with hundreds of heads taken, which can be considered a glorious achievement comparable to General Mao's great victory at Zhenjiang.

What? The new Chinese are still not satisfied and actually want to attack Liaoyang?

The problem is, even if I wanted to go, would the soldiers of Shang and Fan's troops obediently follow me?
Alas, how come these overseas "new Chinese" are even more "loyal and brave" than my Ming Dynasty's imperial army?

(End of this chapter)