Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 138 Unusual Movements in Liaodong: On High Alert

Huang Taiji's attempt to feign peace failed, and he was naturally subjected to ridicule and sarcasm from Amin and Mangultai.

Huang Taiji ignored the insult and ordered Daishan, the leader of the Plain Red Banner, to lead his troops to visit the Khorchin tribe with the Kharachin Mongols, inviting Tushetu Khan Oba to send troops to jointly attack the Chahar tribe. If Oba remained obstinate, then they would turn their attention to the Khorchin tribe and eliminate him first.

He ordered Jirgalang, Shuotuo (chief of the Bordered Red Banner), and Mangultai (chief of the Plain Blue Banner) to join forces with 20,000 troops to conquer Korea and capture Seoul. Meanwhile, he himself would lead a large army, joining forces with the chief of the Bordered Blue Banner with 60,000 troops, to conquer the Ming Dynasty in the south!

Despite Amin and Mangultai's boastful attitude, Huang Taiji had actually controlled four of the Eight Banners, and none of the others combined could rival him.

His direct command was the Plain White Banner, and he also inherited Nurhaci's legacy of the Two Yellow Banners. These three banners were the three most powerful banners among the Eight Banners. This year, he also seized the Bordered White Banner from Dodo and made the young Dorgon the banner lord, but in reality, it was still under the control of Huang Taiji.

During Nurhaci's time, Amin's Bordered Blue Banner was second only to Lao Nu's Plain Yellow Banner in terms of military strength. Now that it has been divided and dismembered by Huang Taiji, he hates Huang Taiji to death and is unwilling to travel with this guy. Why would he choose to travel with him when there are so many other options? It seems like he has ulterior motives.

Zhengming put it nicely, saying that last year and the year before were all in vain, so how could things possibly turn around this year? From Amin's perspective, this expedition seemed to be deliberately orchestrated by Huang Taiji to kill him.

But as disgusting as Amin was, it was fine for him to just talk back, but if he disobeyed Huang Taiji's military orders, things would get very bad. He could only grit his teeth and obey orders, dealing with whatever came his way.

Huang Taiji had a traitor infiltrated into the Ming court. The Ming's Imperial Guard was practically defunct, no longer capable of sending spies to Liaodong to gather intelligence, but Mao Wenlong did. He even bribed some of the Jurchen princes. Of course, his intelligence primarily came from Han Chinese in Liaodong, merchants of various ethnicities, and scouts in Dongjiang Town.

Nurhaci rebelled against the Ming Dynasty and established the state of "Great Jin". As a newly emerging military-political alliance, the Later Jin had a much stronger organizational and mobilization capacity than the Ming Dynasty. From the start of preparations to the formal deployment of troops, the Jurchens only needed one to two months to prepare, and in extreme cases, they could mobilize immediately without any preparation. The Ming Dynasty, on the other hand, was much slower, and each expedition often required half a year of preparation time.

However, the situation has improved slightly. At least if the Beijing garrison needs to select elite troops for an expedition, they can depart immediately, because the elite troops are always in a state of combat readiness.

Huang Taiji originally did not plan to attack the Ming this year, because what Amin said was true: even if they put all their troops into it, they would be helpless against the three major cities of Guan, Jin and Ning.

Although they captured and copied many cannons, limited by smelting technology, they could only replicate some light cannons. They were unable to manufacture cannons like the Ming Dynasty's Hongyi cannons. The cannons could only be used in field battles and were far from sufficient for siege warfare.

But after he got to know the newly enthroned young emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he felt a sense of crisis. In a daze, he seemed to see the shadow of Xiong Tingbi, who was steady and cautious, cowardly and self-protective, and shameless. This was not the behavior of a young man at all.

Like his own younger brothers, such as his brother Dorgon, weren't they all eager for war and conquest? Xiong Tingbi was alright; although he had some ability, his strategies certainly wouldn't be favored by the upright officials of the Ming court. But if that person were the emperor himself, it would be terrifying. Huang Taiji seemed to see himself surrounded, helpless, and ultimately defeated and killed. Therefore, even if he couldn't take the Liaoxi coastal route, he wanted to give the Ming Dynasty a shock, preferably forcing them to change their defensive strategy.

The Jurchens had launched a full-scale attack, and Mao Wenlong quickly received the news. In fact, Mao Wenlong had known about the situation a month earlier, when they were preparing their provisions, but he hadn't known where the Jurchens would attack. Now that he knew Shenyang was undefended, based on his past behavior, he should have already led his cavalry out to graze their horses outside the city.

Unfortunately, he was captured and beaten by Amin. During the Dingmao Campaign in Korea, the Jurchens destroyed his strongholds within Korea, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers, civilians, and the elderly. Enraged, he led a large army to fight the Jurchens near Tieshan for several months before finally being defeated and fleeing. It can be said that his Dongjiang Town was now severely weakened and far from its former glory.

More importantly, he didn't know if the Jurchens were coming for him. If they were, and he led his troops deeper into Liaodong territory, he feared he might even lose Pi Island. Learning from his experience, Mao Wenlong dispatched the Pi Island navy before the sea froze over, intending to spend the winter in Lushun and also to inform Yuan Keli, the Liaodong military commissioner, and the imperial court.

Zhu Youjian was somewhat bewildered when he first received the news. According to the original historical timeline, no large-scale battles occurred between the Ming Dynasty and the Jurchens in the first year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign.

At that time, Huang Taiji suffered setbacks in Ningyuan and Jinzhou, and was busy eliminating threats from his left and right flanks. He was desperately squeezing Korea in the east and busy recruiting his vassals and defeating Ligdan Khan in the west. Meanwhile, the Ming Dynasty was busy dealing with the newly erupted Shaanxi civil unrest, cleaning up the mess in the southwest, and dealing with the northern barbarians.

This year, Zhu Youjian was busy making money and didn't specifically target the Jurchens. Is it just because he refused to negotiate peace?! That's so unreasonable!

Zhu Youjian believed that the Jisi Incident had broken out prematurely because he had defeated Ligdan Khan. At this time, the capital only had about 15,000 elite soldiers capable of fighting, the local troops of Jizhou might have less than 3,000 who could fight, and 30,000 elite troops from other places, but their combat effectiveness was highly questionable, and they came from diverse backgrounds and were not familiar with each other, so they had virtually no ability to coordinate operations.

Yang Hao was still in the capital, chatting with Zhu Xieyuan and catching up on the current situation in Ji and Liao, as well as the court's political landscape. The troops in Jizhou had not yet undergone systematic training.

If the battlefield is in the capital region, forget about a direct confrontation; the only option is to defend Beijing and wait for reinforcements from other regions.

"Hiss, this Yang Hao is really a bit strange!" Zhu Youjian was starting to doubt his own existence. He felt he might as well just chop Yang Hao up, or at least keep him as a mascot. Putting aside his abilities, this old guy Yang Hao seemed to be plagued by bad luck and was quite unlucky.

The unrest in Liaodong plunged the entire capital into a tense atmosphere. The number of cavalrymen traveling between the capital and Shanhaiguan and other passes in Jizhou was several times greater than before.

Since he didn't know what would happen, all Zhu Youjian could do was to be on high alert: he dispatched 5,000 elite troops and 10,000 auxiliary troops from the Beijing garrison to urgently reinforce the Great Wall of Jizhou, patrolling day and night to strengthen the defense; he ordered Yuan Keli, the Liaodong military commissioner, to have full command of the three generals of Liaoxi, to keep a close eye on the movements of the Jurchens, and to make decisions first and report later.

(End of this chapter)