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

Chapter 182 Huang Taiji, His Majesty has decreed that you lay down your weapons, kneel down and beg for surrender, and he will spare your life!
The Jurchen troops, braving the Ming army's fierce artillery fire, continued to pour into the breach in the wagon formation. Since the wagon corps had marched all the way from Chaoyang Gate, they formed a three-rank attack formation. This formation was very effective at chasing enemy cavalry around thanks to its firepower advantage, but it lacked depth.

Yu Zigao tried his best to maintain the stability of the formation, but the Jurchen cavalry successfully breached it, breaking the formation and allowing enemy troops to continue pouring in. If the Jurchens hadn't been so determined to escape, all six thousand of them would have perished here.

Helpless, Yu Zigao could only order his men to wave command flags, instructing each unit to form small, circular formations for self-defense and to shoot down any enemy soldiers passing by. The Jurchens, frustrated by the Ming army's defeat, were not without desire for revenge, but Huang Taiji ordered them to leave immediately without delay.

Yu Zigao watched the Jurchens gradually disappear into the distance, his expression crumbling. Now things were really messed up; he had finally achieved some military merit, only to let the Jurchens escape. He wondered how the court and the emperor would judge his merits and demerits.

"General, we've caught a big fish!" a soldier ran over excitedly and said.

"What big fish?!" Yu Zigao was still immersed in self-pity and comparing himself to Feng Tang and Li Guang, and was somewhat slow to react.

"I don't know, we don't recognize him either, but he must be a high-ranking official from the Jurchens. They're called Bei, Bei something..." The soldier scratched his head.

"Beile, capturing one can earn you a title of Earl!" Yu Zigao's eyes lit up, and he quickly ordered a soldier to take him to see.

Huang Taiji fled another ten miles and arrived at the southern part of Beijing, which is the outer city. However, the scene before him chilled him to the bone: of the 30,000 elite troops he brought, 8,000 or 9,000 cavalrymen had been lost, but the remaining 20,000 cavalrymen were still boundless. This was why they had been able to break through a Ming army wagon camp.

However, what lay before him was a vast Ming army, stretching for miles, its depth and width unknown. The ranks rose and fell with the terrain, like a crimson carpet covering the ground. It was certain that there were tens of thousands of Ming soldiers here, far more than they were!
Zhu Youjian asked Zhu Xieyuan, "Can Yu Zigao stop the Jurchens?!"

Zhu Xieyuan said no, but he had a backup plan. It would be difficult to capture the Jurchens all at once; what they could do was to intercept them layer by layer, like cutting flesh with a knife, gradually wearing down the Jurchen cavalry.

In reality, it was Qin Liangyu's Beijing garrison soldiers, numbering as many as 50,000, who stopped Huang Taiji. While not every soldier could be armored, they could certainly be armed with a musket. Matchlock muskets were very cheap in the Ming Dynasty, with the cheapest costing as little as 0.8 taels of silver each. Of course, the chance of injuring oneself with such a musket was a very high one.

However, a reliable matchlock gun only costs two taels of silver, and officials from the Ministry of Works and the Anmin Factory might even make a lot of money off it.

Zhu Youjian was not so trusting of these old bureaucrats. All the arquebuses in this batch were qualified products that had been re-inspected before the war. Moreover, Zhu Youjian stipulated that all arquebuses produced by the Ministry of Works, from the craftsmen to the chief officers, had to be fired live before leaving the factory, and their names were engraved on the arquebuses.

If a barrel explodes when it shouldn't, those responsible will be held accountable. The accountability process isn't about issuing documents from top to bottom and passing the buck; it's about investigating from the bottom up. If a problem arises, no one will escape responsibility!
Where did the Ming Dynasty get so many soldiers?! Huang Taiji was furious. If they had so many soldiers, what was the point of their previous show of weakness?!

However, his question remained unanswered, and everyone was terrified. Despite their constant claims of invincibility, their battles against the Ming army had always been characterized by overwhelming numbers: in the Battle of Fuqing, they had 20,000 against 10,000; in the Battle of Ningyuan, they had 60,000 against 20,000 Ming troops, and still lost. The Jurchens were thoroughly frightened, and Qin Liangyu was also somewhat uneasy. She knew the true quality of her 50,000-strong army; the poor quality of the soldiers was secondary, the most important thing was the unreliability of her generals, a large portion of whom were from hereditary, wealthy lands.

Although nobles who commanded troops needed to pass an examination before they could take command, cheating was possible even in the imperial examinations, let alone in this so-called examination where the examiners were the nobles themselves. Although Duke Zhang Weixian of Yingguo made great efforts to rectify the situation, Zhang Weixian himself was just choosing the best among the worst. If the selection were strict, very few noble sons would be left who could pass.

Although his actions were for the sake of the Ming Dynasty, they were essentially for the benefit of the nobles themselves. Reform was necessary, but revolution was unnecessary. Therefore, the quality of these noble sons who passed the assessment was very worrying.

Qin Liangyu dared not send her army into battle, and the Jurchens were terrified. They weren't unaware that the Ming army in front of them was bluffing, but after two days of fighting, every Ming army they had encountered was formidable. Even the chariot formation they had just broken through had inflicted heavy losses on them. Could they really bet that the Ming army in front of them wasn't elite?

Huang Taiji even thought that the Ming emperor was so afraid of dying that he had frantically transferred all the country's elite troops to guard his capital, which was why he was able to plunder so smoothly in the capital region.

Zhang Weixian donned his ancestral armor and swaggered into battle. This was the armor of his ancestor Zhang Yu, which Zhang Fu had once worn to conquer Annam; now it was his turn. Of course, Zhang Weixian wasn't arrogant enough to challenge a general; he was there to declare: "Huang Taiji, His Majesty has decreed that if you lay down your weapons, kneel and surrender, you will be spared!"

Upon hearing this, Huang Taiji's face turned pale, then flushed. What he found most unacceptable was that the generals around him were all looking at him, their eyes even showing a hint of elation!

He then burst into a tirade: "Have you all forgotten that imperial edict from the young Ming emperor? He swore to fight us to the death. Even if we bow down, do you really expect him to spare us? Our father Khan tricked the Han people of Liaodong in the same way, and look at what has become of them now!"

Uh! Prince Zhu was ashamed, but he wholeheartedly agreed. In that case, surrendering was indeed not an option!
Huang Taiji dared not show himself, fearing he would be killed by a cannon shot from the Ming army. So he sent a messenger to deliver a message:

This time they admitted defeat and hoped that the Ming Dynasty would grant them a way out and let them go home. After returning home, they would return Guangning City to the Ming Dynasty, retreat to the east of Liaoze, live peacefully with the Ming Dynasty, and never invade again.

Otherwise, they would fight to the death to carve out a way to survive, resulting in mutual destruction and benefiting some unknown hero. Huang Taiji also thoughtfully listed potential enemies of the Ming Dynasty, such as the Tibetans, Tatars, Oirats, Japanese pirates, and foreign devils.

They were only slightly outmatched. There were still hundreds of thousands of troops in other parts of the country and hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of followers outside the country. I hope the Ming Dynasty will act wisely and not make a mistake!

(End of this chapter)