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

Chapter 176 Misfortune may be a blessing in disguise; a blessing may be a misfortune in disguise.

The pattering raindrops fell on the glazed tiles of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the sound crisp to the outside but muffled inside. The noise within the hall gradually subsided, and the atmosphere grew somber. Looking out from inside the hall, the sky was clearly clear and cloudless, yet rain had fallen.

Aside from stargazing, the Imperial Astronomical Bureau relied solely on observing cloud formations to predict the weather. With no clouds even present, how could they possibly predict the weather? This rain, falling without warning, ruined a potentially great victory and cast a shadow over the hearts of the Ming emperor and his officials. Could it be that destiny truly did not favor the Ming? And what mistakes had the Ming made?

Zhu Youjian also felt that the rain was strange, but he did not insist on attributing it to fate, because he had already roughly deduced the reason for the rainfall. It was simply due to the southward movement of cold air from the upper atmosphere of Siberia, which met the warm and humid air currents in Beijing, resulting in the rainfall.

Because the airflow converges at high altitudes, it forms thin, grayish-white alpine clouds. Under strong sunlight, these clouds are not clearly visible to the naked eye on the ground, leading people to mistakenly believe it's a normal sky over Beijing. Similarly, the return of hot, dry air masses causes a "tiger summer" in late summer, resulting in continued high temperatures in Beijing in August.

The Little Ice Age wasn't simply a period of cooling; it led to an increase in various abnormal and extreme weather events, and could even be linked to tectonic activity. Some speculate that volcanic activity disturbed ocean currents and affected sunlight, but this is merely speculation. Perhaps the bad weather was due to the emperor's incompetence?

The Ming Dynasty's consecutive years of drought were very strange. After the drought, floods began to occur in some areas. The alternation of drought and flood led to poor harvests, rampant plagues, exposed bones in the wild, and no roosters crowing for thousands of miles.

If the Ming dynasty merely retreated to its fold, utterly cowardly and disregarding the lives of its people, then with Beijing's grain reserves, the emperor and his officials could hold out for three to five years. Even if the grain ran out, weren't there still reserves? They could learn from Zhang Xun's strategy, similar to the Battle of Suiyang.

But Zhu Youjian wanted to start farming, so he figured it was better to let the Jurchens die. The army marched out of the nine city gates and lined up to meet the enemy. So from the beginning, Zhu Youjian knew that the casualties in the defense of Beijing would be heavy, because they were trading their own lives for the lives of the Jurchens, striving to inflict even greater losses on them.

The Ming army's battles with the Jurchens often involved a back-and-forth struggle between wanting to fight but being unable to, and being unable to avoid fighting.

The Ming army was severely lacking in mules and horses, making it extremely inflexible. When fighting the Jurchens, once they lost, they had no way to escape and often suffered total annihilation. Even if they managed to win, they could not expand their gains, as the Jurchens would quickly withdraw from the battle, and the Ming army could not catch up, making their situation extremely frustrating.

Therefore, the Ming army needed a bait that the Jurchens couldn't let go of, to lure them into a decisive battle. This bait couldn't be easily snatched away; it had to be something that could be pulled along with the Jurchens. Initially, it was Zhao Lüjiao's cavalry battalion, but by a twist of fate, it was replaced by Sun Chuanting's wagon battalion.

Misfortune may be a blessing in disguise; a blessing may be a harbinger of misfortune. This current situation may not necessarily be a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty, at least the Jurchens, who originally wanted to withdraw from the battle, have stayed.

The strangeness of this rain was not only due to its inopportune timing and sudden, hidden arrival, but also because the rain itself was very unusual. The raindrops were icy cold, and this was not just a psychological effect; after falling to the ground, they would actually condense into ice crystals in the puddles.

Just as nighttime combat is something both sides try to avoid, extreme weather is often not a good time to fight, because it often causes serious non-combat casualties, and the number of people lost as a result can be more than those who die directly on the battlefield.

Zhu Youjian ordered Dorgon's tendons to be severed, and he was taken down from Zhengyang Gate and hung at Desheng Gate. Dorgon was tethered to his warhorse and dragged across the damp, cold ground from the south of the city to the north. His white armor, stained with blood and dirt accumulated over the days, had become patchy yellow and brown, looking quite unsightly.

Dorgon's resilience is truly remarkable. Because his sworn brother led an army into the Ming Dynasty but didn't immediately come to his rescue, instead engaging in widespread looting, those brothers who had initially wanted to save him tacitly forgot about him. The displaced people hated him intensely; previously, when they saw him hanging on the city walls, they merely watched him as a spectacle. But during the month-long Jurchen invasion, the people began to physically assault him upon seeing him, pelting him with small stones, which the guards ignored. His current appearance is vastly different from when he was first brought to Beijing; he looks decades older and has lost several tens of kilograms.

Dorgon was filthy and smelly, and didn't look good, so the Ming soldiers kindly gave him a bath. After the bath, Dorgon was much more energetic, transforming from a dead dog into someone who was shivering.

"He won't live past tonight, will he?" Zhu Youjian said with some regret. "Hang it up first, and send some scouts and archers to Huang Taiji, telling him that if he leads his army to retreat, we will return Dorgon, the lord of their Bordered White Banner!"

Zhu Youjian certainly didn't genuinely want to release Dorgon; he merely wanted Huang Taiji and his allies to experience the dilemma of being caught in the middle, knowing full well that the right choice was right, yet feeling morally blackmailed. Huang Taiji would certainly not lift the siege because of Dorgon, but what would the other Jurchens think? What would Ajige and Dodo think?
When the Jurchens launched their surprise attack on Beijing, they gathered their elite troops, but they did not bring any of the Bordered White Banner soldiers. This was probably because they were concerned about the thoughts of the two brothers, so they found a reason to send them away to prevent them from clamoring for the rescue of Dorgon and affecting the army's operations.

Huang Taiji watched as the Ming army's wagon camp changed formation for half an hour. During this time, he sent troops in batches to push shield carts forward to probe. As time went by, the Ming army's cannon fire gradually thinned out. Huang Taiji estimated that it was about time, so he sent a large army to try to attack the wagon formation. Although the strategy was to besiege the point and attack the reinforcements, he would not accept reinforcements unless the point being besieged was severely damaged.

The Jurchen cavalry had been soaked in the rain for so long that their armor was covered with a thin layer of ice, and they were shivering from the cold. Their warhorses were also becoming restless and unable to control themselves, their legs starting to give way. It was time for them to warm up!
However, the truth is deceitful. Sun Chuanting was not an honest man who would sit idly by and wait for death. The Jurchens were actually deceived by him. Due to the impact of rainfall, their firearms were indeed becoming less and less usable, but he exaggerated this phenomenon. The sparse artillery fire that Huang Taiji observed was a performance he put on for Huang Taiji.

In reality, he could ignite more than three times the number of cannons he demonstrated, and there were still two hundred medium and large cannons at his disposal. Rainfall would not quickly wet the sealed gunpowder. What they needed to do was to shield the cannon ignition ports and the matchlocks from the rain.

Their rain gear was limited, so they could only selectively preserve firearms. Most of their fire muskets were no longer usable, but these cannons were enough to surprise the Jurchens.

Hauge was still leading the team. This time, he volunteered. He had lost face in the cavalry battle that morning, so he decided to regain his dignity. However, this time, no one else was willing to let him go out to die with the white-armored Baya La, so they replaced him with the red-armored Baya La.

The Black Camp soldiers pushed the shield carts slowly towards the Ming army's wagon camp, with Hauge leading the Red Armor soldiers in close behind. The shield carts, wet with water, were actually more resistant to artillery fire, but of course, they also became heavier after absorbing water, becoming more cumbersome and sinking into the mud, making their advance extremely difficult and slow.

The Ming army's cannonballs struck the shield carts listlessly, leaving shallow marks before falling to the ground. Surprisingly, not a single shield cart was destroyed. Hauge was overjoyed, thinking that the Ming army was finished and that he was sure to win this time.

After advancing to the wooden wall of the wagon camp, a Black Camp soldier stepped onto the ramp of a shield wagon, climbed up the wooden wall, and peered out. *Whoosh!* A flash of cold light, and the Black Camp soldier's head fell into the wagon formation, while his headless corpse lay outside, its limbs still twitching like an insect.

"Fools!" Haug was furious at the sight. He stomped on the corpse several times to vent his anger. He then lashed his whip across the back of a Black Camp soldier, tearing his skin and leaving him a bloody mess. "What are you all standing there for? Hurry up and overturn this cart!"

Although the beaten soldier was sweating profusely from the pain, he still bowed and scraped, saying, "Your Highness, this side carriage is made of tens or even hundreds of taels of silver, connected together with rings. It can't be overturned!"

(End of this chapter)