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

Chapter 183: The Battle of Beijing Ends, 15000 Slave Cavalry Killed in Battle
Huang Taiji was quite the exaggerator; if you really counted, the Ming Dynasty had a million-strong army on paper. When Huang Taiji came, he did consider the possibility of being besieged by the Ming army, but he was very confident that "the Jurchens are invincible if they number less than ten thousand, and if they number ten thousand, they are invincible." He believed that the Ming army that came to besiege him would only be defeated one by one, and if he wanted to leave, no one could stop him.

However, reality dealt him a harsh blow: in a head-on cavalry charge, he failed to defeat the Ming cavalry; and his cavalry attack on the wagon camp resulted in even heavier losses. Their prized mobility proved ineffective due to the confined battlefield beneath Beijing. The close proximity and coordinated support among the various Ming armies left him with simply not enough time to break through.

Logically, after an unsuccessful initial battle, he should have avoided the main Ming army force and instead employed a strategy of weakening the enemy by using his cavalry advantage to eliminate smaller military strongholds around Beijing. In fact, they weren't prepared for a major battle with the Ming army; the 30,000 men were essentially there as an armed demonstration to probe the Ming army's strength.

As a result, a sudden rainstorm threw Huang Taiji off guard, causing him to miss the best opportunity to retreat.

Now, the Jurchens are pursued from behind, surrounded by a vast Ming army in front, and the towering walls of Beijing to the west. Their only way out is to the east, but that leads to Tongzhou, which is also heavily fortified. They had witnessed the firepower of the Tongzhou army when they drove Han Chinese to attack the city, and now they have a sizable cavalry force joining them.

They came from the northeast corner of the capital and could have tried to return the way they came, but Huang Taiji instinctively rejected this approach. He felt that since the Ming army was pursuing and intercepting him from several other directions, there was no reason for them to let go of the escape route he was most likely to choose. If he did not do the opposite, he would probably really fall into the Ming army's trap.

However, this patchy encirclement was not a physical encirclement on all four sides, and the Jurchens still had opportunities to slip away like fish.

In fact, if the Ming army had been cowardly enough, it might have turned into a scenario where they watched the Jurchens leave, only to be mocked by the Jurchens as "the officials are exempt from seeing them off." That's how it was supposed to go, and that's what Huang Taiji thought too. But now, the Ming soldiers have all become incredibly brave. Beating a drowning dog only makes the Ming army even more courageous.

Seeing that negotiations were failing, Huang Taiji realized he had been tricked: the Ming court had no intention of seriously negotiating with him, but was merely finding excuses to delay. He didn't dare to suggest breaking through the Ming army's formation, but instead planned to bypass it from the southeast. Forming an infantry square formation was difficult, and attempting to change formation to intercept them required extremely high skill levels from the soldiers and officers.

He simply couldn't believe it. Could the Ming army really have that many elite troops? There were nearly 100,000 of them. If the Ming army really had 100,000 troops, it wouldn't be him invading the Ming Dynasty from the south; it would be the Ming Dynasty besieging Shengjing, and he would be considering how to defend the city.

Seeing the Jurchens turn to flee, Qin Liangyu dared not send troops to pursue them. Instead, she commanded the various military formations to advance slowly, using her arquebuses and cannons to "entertain" the Jurchen cavalry from a distance. The Ming army's arquebuses were matchlock guns, and these matchlocks were quite exaggerated. They were not short and small, but could be several meters long and coiled into a loop to hang on the soldiers' arms.

At the start of battle, the matchlock was lit and kept burning slowly. When it was time to fire, it was picked up and blown away to remove the ashes and make the smoldering fire at the end of the matchlock burn even brighter. Tactics such as the vanguard chariot battalion and the infantry artillery battalion of the Beijing garrison employed were three-stage firing, advancing in alternating waves.

The combat methods used by the 50,000 ordinary soldiers of the Beijing garrison were even more "foolish." They employed two to three soldiers who were specifically responsible for reloading ammunition for each musketeer. These soldiers were combat soldiers rather than auxiliary soldiers. After the musketeers in front fell to the ground, they needed to step forward to fill the vacant positions.

In fact, in large-scale military operations, tactics should avoid anything fancy. The simpler the tactics, the more effective they are. This is because the scale is so large and the pressure on command is so great that being able to advance in unison is already quite an achievement.

As they advanced, inconsistencies in speed began to emerge between the different formations, and the once orderly ranks became jagged and disorderly. An army of this caliber would likely struggle to maintain its formation and avoid collapse should it encounter a charge by Jurchen cavalry or a direct artillery barrage.

However, the current situation is that the Jurchens have lost the will to fight and are eager to escape. Faced with the Ming army's shooting, they did not even fight back, but tried to dodge and flee as quickly as possible. This is why, at the beginning of the war, the Ming army only dared to use its elite troops to fight the Jurchens, and did not dare to directly bring out its main army.

In reality, both bows and arrows, as well as muskets, have a very long range, capable of hitting targets beyond human sight. It's only because of the need to penetrate armor that their effective range appears so short. The Ming army's volley of fire was more bark than bite; while it wounded many Jurchens, it killed relatively few.

Huang Taiji couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: This is more like it; this is the normal level of the Ming army. If they were all elite troops, they wouldn't need to struggle; they could just kneel down and beg for surrender.

However, the Ming army did have artillery. A large number of arquebuses ensured firepower density and prevented the enemy from breaching the military formation; while artillery, as a weapon for siege warfare, possessed invincible power and an extremely long firing range. Whether the Jurchens attempted to break through the formation or try to flank it, they would encounter artillery fire with a range sufficient to cover several miles.

Cavalry are fast, but they can't fly. With blockades from all sides, they have few options and can't completely avoid the Ming army's artillery fire. Every step they take is a matter of life and death. What's even more terrifying is that they don't know what awaits them ahead—a free escape or another round of Ming army interception.

“I told you long ago that we should leave, but you insisted on staying! If you had listened to me back then, things wouldn’t be like this today!” Dai Shan couldn’t help but question.

Hearing this, the others also cast suspicious glances at Huang Taiji. Although Huang Taiji was annoyed, now was not the time to argue with Daishan. Daishan argued as he pleased, but he did not actually choose this moment to launch an attack on Huang Taiji.

However, since the Jurchens had chosen a detour, it inevitably slowed them down. The Ming army pursuers were already close behind, and Zhao Shuaijiao and Cao Bianjiao's cavalry joined forces, cutting off the Jurchen cavalry formation and trapping five or six thousand Jurchen cavalry inside. Huang Taiji successfully broke out, looking back in panic, but lacked the courage to go and rescue them.

The Ming army, having secured a large prize, did not greedily pursue more, but instead chose to halt and annihilate the several thousand slave cavalry. From the north, Sun Chuanting and Yu Zigao's two large wagon battalions pressed forward, while from the south, ten times the number of Ming troops were deployed. To the west lay the city wall, which is why Qin Liangyu chose to deploy her forces horizontally beneath the southern city wall to intercept them—by using the city wall as part of the encirclement.

With no possibility of breaking through on any of these three fronts, the few thousand slave cavalry, in desperation, had no choice but to target the Ming cavalry. Fortunately, the Ming cavalry also numbered in the thousands, so they weren't necessarily going to lose. And indeed, they succeeded, managing to breach the Ming cavalry formation after losing half their men.

However, what awaited them was not a vast and open battlefield, but rather the already arrayed ranks of the White-Spear Soldiers. This was a gift from the generals of the capital to the White-Spear Soldiers; three thousand White-Spear Soldiers had been wiped out in the bloody battle of Hunhe River, and now three thousand Jurchen cavalry were left as a sacrifice. The Ming cavalry withdrew from the battle, leaving the battlefield to the White-Spear Soldiers. With the support of Ming artillery on both sides, they continued to crush the Jurchen cavalry. The White-Spear Soldiers withstood more than a dozen Jurchen charges, putting on a textbook example of infantry versus cavalry, driving the Jurchen cavalry to the brink of mental collapse. They had shed tears and even knelt down to beg for mercy, but the Ming army showed no mercy.

Killing prisoners is indeed wrong, but does that mean not taking prisoners doesn't count as killing prisoners? Who says surrender will always be accepted? When those people knelt down begging for mercy, the Jurchens didn't show any mercy.
The battle lasted until evening before it ended. Huang Taiji was forced to cut off his tail to survive, but this tail was completely devoured by the Ming army, and all 5,900 cavalrymen were killed.

The defense of Beijing lasted only two days, proceeding at the usual fast pace. On February 20th, Huang Taiji led his army to the outskirts of Beijing. The first battle began in the early morning of the 21st, and the second half began at dawn on the 22nd.

The Battle of Beijing ended in a Ming victory. The Ming army beheaded 11,896 Jurchens, and actually killed over 15,000 cavalry. They also killed one Jurchen Heshuo Beile, two Jurchen Beile, four generals, and over a hundred other officers and leaders.

They captured 5,600 warhorses; 300 complete cannons, 1,500 muskets, 100,000 catties of gunpowder; 20,000 bows, 300,000 arrows; 30,000 shi of grain and fodder; 12,000 sets of cloth armor, 8,000 sets of iron armor, and 3,000 sets of chainmail.

The defenders of the capital suffered 9,763 casualties, half of their 8,000 cavalry were lost, 3,000 of their chariots were killed, and the three infantry battalions were reduced to two. Lu Xiangshan's Hebei army that captured the king suffered more than 1,100 casualties, and one battalion of the four imperial guards that accompanied them suffered 500 casualties.

Hundreds of soldiers from the city walls and the subsequent Beijing garrison also died in battle. Some were shot by the Jurchens, while others died in more abstract ways, such as being trampled, accidentally injured, frightened to death, or dying from illness.

If we only consider the Beijing battlefield, the Ming Dynasty undoubtedly won a huge victory. However, if we include Tongzhou and Lugou Bridge, the casualties on both sides are basically equal, with 20,000 dead and more than 10,000 wounded. In this case, it can be considered a double loss.

After the final battle, Amin and Mangultai arrived late with their army, bringing another 30,000 Jurchen cavalry, which greatly alarmed Zhu Youjian. After two days of intense fighting, the Ming soldiers were nearing their limits. Continuing to fight the Jurchens would severely deplete their strength, so they chose to temporarily retreat and avoid further battle.

At this time, only half of the battlefield outside the capital had been cleared. Valuable items had been moved back, but the corpses had not yet been dealt with. Amin and Mangultai looked at each other, their bald scalps beginning to tingle.

They originally thought that they had been tricked by Huang Taiji into fighting at Lugou Bridge, and that the battle was already fierce enough. However, compared to the situation under Beijing, their situation was nothing.

Didn't Huang Taiji say he was just there to intimidate the Ming court? How come the battle was so fierce? The bigger question is, will these two become targets for Huang Taiji's anger, with him blaming them for the defeat? Although such a thing is absurd, Huang Taiji might actually do it.

The Han dynasty had the Southern Xiongnu, and the Ming dynasty had the Three Guards of Doyan. Amin's expression changed several times. He even had the idea of ​​surrendering to the Ming dynasty, but he was too embarrassed to say it.

Mangultai was much more direct. With his rugged appearance and darting small eyes, he put his arm around Amin's shoulder and whispered in Amin's ear, "I think our chance has come. Rather than letting Huang Taiji twist the truth, we might as well launch an attack now."

Logically speaking, our eight great princes should elect a new Khan. I think the eighth prince has lost his mind and is no longer suitable to be Khan. You might as well support me as Khan, and I'll give you the Kingdom of Korea!

Amin looked stunned upon hearing this. Yes, he had been bullied by Huang Taiji for so long that he had forgotten how to fight back. Now that Huang Taiji's power had been greatly diminished, and even that bastard Daishan was not doing well, why should he listen to him now? "Great Khan, whoever has the strongest army should obey!"
However, he disliked Mangultai's suggestion. Why should he support him as Khan? Back then, he had played a crucial role in Huang Taiji's ascension to the throne, and how did Huang Taiji treat him in return? Mangultai and Huang Taiji were both brothers; would things be better if Mangultai were replaced? Amin absolutely refused to believe it!
However, despite harboring ulterior motives, Amin outwardly agreed to Mangultai's idea. Amin and Mangultai fired a volley at the capital using captured Ming cannons, failing to even break a single brick, before leading their army away in a grand manner. Such preferential treatment would likely have infuriated Huang Taiji had he seen it.

He was practically begging the Ming army on his knees, but they still had no intention of letting him go. Meanwhile, Amin and Mangultai were able to retreat at will. Huang Taiji fled south hoping to encounter their reinforcements, but the two of them were leisurely and in no hurry at all!
"We won!" The radicals became excited again, hoping the court would press on and deal with the next group of Jurchens. Wang Zaijin said the Jurchens were nothing special and should have been fought long ago. His five-year strategy to pacify Liaodong was correct; if the emperor hadn't been so conservative, the Ming Dynasty would have wiped out the Jurchens long ago.

However, some people spoke up, saying that if the court had started a war with the Jurchens two years ago, how could it have started any reforms? Where would the money and provisions have come from? The soldiers were starving and cold, and they were using broken weapons. How could we have achieved the situation we have today?
Even now, is it easy to fight? This is just a siege, and the victory is the result of a confluence of favorable circumstances. If the battlefield were moved to Liaodong, the situation would be completely different.

Zhu Youjian felt somewhat regretful for not being able to eliminate Huang Taiji, and the number of slave cavalry beheaded was also somewhat different from his expectations. Seeing the favorable situation on the battlefield, he once thought he could wipe out all 30,000 slave cavalry, but unexpectedly, half of them still escaped.

This made him question whether the strategy of vigorously developing wagon camps was truly correct. If the Ming army lost, they would almost certainly be annihilated, but the Jurchens, even after losing, could still escape—this was simply too unfair!
After escaping, Huang Taiji headed southwest and arrived at Lugou Bridge. Seeing the bridge in ruins, he realized that they had captured it. He questioned the soldiers left behind and learned that Mangultai and Amin had led their troops to the capital; they had simply missed each other. Huang Taiji was so angry he nearly vomited blood.

He had assumed the two men were delayed because their attack on Lugou Bridge was going poorly, but he hadn't expected them to have already captured it; they had simply taken most of the day before withdrawing. If those two had arrived two hours earlier, or if they had fought the Ming army for another half day, and reinforcements had arrived to join them in a pincer attack, they could have turned the tide of the battle. They were so close!

His great defeat was not due to his miscalculation, but entirely due to the negligence of Amin and Mangultai. Those two deserve to die! Huang Taiji was determined to settle accounts with them later, but he dared not stay here for long, nor did he dare to return to Beijing. He packed up the three thousand troops at Lugou Bridge and took them away, and sent out a small number of scouts to find the two Blue Banners.

Even Huang Taiji's soldiers were terrified and unwilling to undertake such a task, only wanting to retreat with the main force. Therefore, the task was left to the cavalry of the two Blue Banners stationed at Lugou Bridge. The battle was lost, and Huang Taiji was already planning to return home, but the road back would likely be fraught with difficulties!

(End of this chapter)