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

Chapter 185 Burning the Qing Ancestral Graves, Opening the Coffins and Mutilating the Corpses!
"Your Majesty, the Ming army attacked Fushun and set fire to Fuling!"

"what?!"

In fact, it wasn't just Fuling that was burned down; there were many more things he dared not say openly, for fear of being killed by his master in a fit of rage!
"When did this happen? Why are you only reporting it now? Where are the princes and ministers who were left behind?!" Huang Taiji grabbed the messenger and demanded an answer.

He felt uneasy during the attack on Beijing, and his anxiety led him to make a series of blunders, because there was a question he dared not admit: Where were the Guan Ning cavalry?!

The Ming cavalry that fought him were undeniably tenacious, but the problem was that these were not his old acquaintances or adversaries, the Guan Ning Army. If his intelligence was correct, the one who fought him in Tongzhou should have been Cao Wenzhao, while the one under Desheng Gate was Zhao Shuaijiao, the general of Shanhaiguan.

Huang Taiji and Zhao Lüjiao had a close relationship. When attacking Jinzhou, Zhao Lüjiao was the commander-in-chief of Jinzhou; when the army approached Shanhaiguan, Zhao Lüjiao became the commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan. But the problem was that those soldiers were not the Liao soldiers they were familiar with! It wasn't that they recognized who the Guan Ning army soldiers were, but rather that they had an inexplicable feeling about them.

Every army has its own character, which can be easily discerned once they engage in battle. Before Huang Taiji set out on his campaign, he arranged for a garrison, believing that if he attacked, the enemy would have to come to their defense, and that the Ming Dynasty had no reason not to recall its Liaodong troops.

However, he still miscalculated. The Ming Dynasty stubbornly resisted the pressure of "losing three thousand of its own men but injuring eight hundred of theirs", and gritted its teeth but still failed to recall the Guan Ning Army!
The Jurchen messengers, their faces covered in blood, should have arrived long ago. Messengers from Liaodong had repeatedly come to report to Huang Taiji, yet Zu Dashou and his men had never appeared so refreshed. Having wreaked havoc in Liaodong, they naturally didn't want to be disturbed, especially not by the Jurchen cavalry returning to reinforce them and the Jurchen soldiers flanking them from both sides.

Therefore, they initially dispatched a detachment to garrison the Dalinghe and Xiaolinghe areas to keep watch, both monitoring the movements of the Jurchens entering the pass and intercepting their courier riders. Due to the long distance, the Jurchens did not initially notice anything unusual, thinking that waiting seven or eight days for a reply was normal. By the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

The Jurchens' language system was not very good, and the messenger cavalryman was illiterate and naturally not a eloquent person. Therefore, faced with Huang Taiji's series of questions, he could not answer and could only take out a letter from his pocket and hand it over.

Huang Taiji stared wide-eyed, growing increasingly alarmed as he looked, his hands trembling more and more. Suddenly, he coughed violently, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and he began to sway unsteadily.

Daišan could no longer bear it. He took the letter from Huang Taiji, and Mangultai and Amin also crowded closer, craning their necks to look. Ironically, they hadn't been this close together in a long time; now they finally looked like a family.

"I am guilty for causing my father, the Khan, to suffer and be unable to live in peace after his death. I agree to abdicate and elect a new Khan," Huang Taiji said in a hoarse voice.

"Father?!" Haug exclaimed in surprise, somewhat dumbfounded.

Upon hearing this, Daishan and the others looked up in astonishment, their eyes filled with complex emotions as they gazed at Huang Taiji. Mangultai, who had always been at odds with Huang Taiji, couldn't help but offer words of comfort: "No one expected the Ming army to do such a thing, to be so despicable! But, you can't be entirely blamed."

Huang Taiji shook his head slightly, and whether it was an act or a genuine expression of emotion, his eyes instantly filled with tears. He said in a sobbing voice, "Fifth Brother, there's no need to say more. It's all my fault."

I had intended to follow my father's dying wish, to unite my brothers and build a great empire together, but I never imagined that a single miscalculation would lead to this calamity. It is my own incompetence and lack of virtue that I failed to recognize; the throne of the Great Khan should be chosen from among those of greater virtue!

Huang Taiji was already in his forties, and this crying left Mangultai speechless. He was just trying to save face, but now that Huang Taiji had suddenly backed down, Mangultai seemed to have calmed down a bit, and then he felt a little guilty. This mess was terrifying to look at; if he really became the Great Khan, he didn't know how he would handle it!

Daishan looked at Huang Taiji with some suspicion: "This smiling tiger can cry?! And these tears probably aren't even salty!"

Amin's heart grew even colder. Don't be fooled by Huang Taiji's apparent remorse; this evasive tactic couldn't fool him.

He said expressionlessly, "Back then, the old Khan said, 'Eight Kings of the Eight Mountains, among you who are talented and virtuous and can accept advice, may succeed me to the throne.'"

If one does not heed advice or follow the proper path, then a more virtuous person should be chosen to succeed. If, during the change of leadership, one does not sincerely submit but shows reluctance, then such an unworthy person is unlikely to fulfill the other's wishes.

"This southern expedition was initiated by you, who insisted on doing it against all advice, didn't you?!"

The old Khan had long ago said that if eight families were to receive one item, it must be divided equally among all eight families for public use, and no one was allowed to take anything for themselves. The spoils should be equally distributed among our banner lords. And this rule of the Eight Princes' Council—I'm afraid you've all forgotten most of it, haven't you?

"Manggultai, have you completely forgotten everything Huang Taiji did? You're already paralyzed by just a few tears?!"

Amin's words were ruthless, tearing away all pretense of civility. Huang Taiji's face stiffened; he could no longer maintain his facade. He knew that after this incident, he could no longer be the Great Khan.

Rather than letting others overthrow him, it's better to turn the tables and take the initiative. Even if a new Khan is to be elected, he still has the right to vote. If this happens, he might be able to sit back on the throne later.

Emperor Yingzong of Ming had already demonstrated this to him, and he didn't think he was any worse than the Zhu family. But Amin's demeanor seemed to suggest he was about to betray the Great Jin!

However, since the act had to be convincing, even though Amin had torn off his underwear, Huang Taiji remained unperturbed and didn't argue with her. He continued to bow his head and said, "Second Prince, what you said may have some merit, but the past is the past. Now, the situation in Zhushen is critical, and it is not advisable to quarrel again."

In the past, the Jurchen tribes were a disorganized mess, constantly fighting each other. They were often bullied and humiliated by the Ming army, who killed innocent people to claim credit and slaughtered entire tribes without cause. Regardless of age, all were harmed by the Ming dogs.

Now the Ming dogs have returned, killing my people and slaughtering my relatives. This hatred is irreconcilable.

Even if we join forces, we cannot defeat the Ming Dynasty. If we divide ourselves, wouldn't the Ming dogs be able to defeat us one by one? Even if you gain control of Korea, can you hold onto it?!

"If you wish to become the Great Khan, I have no objection, as long as the other beile agree."

Amin automatically ignored Huang Taiji's embellishments, but what Huang Taiji said wasn't entirely false. There was one issue he couldn't avoid: after gaining independence, he was utterly powerless to face the Ming court alone.

In the past, he would have had such confidence, but now the world has changed. The half-dead Ming court seems to have revived and is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.

Amin crossed her arms, pursed her lips, and said, "There's no point in saying more. Since you've voluntarily abdicated, let's elect a new Khan. I choose... Ajig!"

"what?!"

Ajige looked completely bewildered, while Mangultai glared at Amin with eyes blazing with fury. However, Amin was not easily intimidated; he didn't even flinch at Mangultai's hostility.

Jirgalang looked blankly at Huang Taiji. He had always followed Huang Taiji's lead, but now that Huang Taiji had stepped down, what was he to do?! Other beile held a banner, but he was so weak, he didn't even have half a banner!

Huang Taiji frowned slightly and turned to look at Daishan. Daishan was also stunned by Amin's actions, but upon reflection, he realized that it made sense. To put it bluntly, nobody wanted a powerful Khan like Huang Taiji.

Someone with his seniority wouldn't be seen by others as much better than Huang Taiji; Mangultai, though energetic, wasn't really reliable either. Daishan had always been indifferent to the Khanate, so putting Ajige on the throne now was in everyone's best interest.

“I also vote for Ajige,” Daishan said calmly.

Huang Taiji was having a headache. He actually wanted Daishan to succeed him. The situation in their Great Jin Kingdom was in a mess and needed a capable person to clean it up. Although he felt that he was the most capable one, he had no choice but to abdicate.

After he became the Great Khan, the person he feared most was Daishan. No matter how weak Daishan showed, he never let his guard down. This was because he knew that Daishan was capable. He was a tiger that would lower its head, but it was still a tiger. If it raised its head, it could devour people!
Mangultai said sullenly, "I'll vote for myself."

He wanted to argue a little more, so he continued, "Ajige is still young. As for the Khan, we can take turns. I'll do it first, and Ajige can do it in a few years, okay?"

"The sweaters take turns doing it, what are you talking about?!" Everyone ignored him completely and couldn't help but roll their eyes.

Huang Taiji sighed and said, "I will pledge allegiance to Ajige."

Jirgalang followed Huang Taiji, and whatever Huang Taiji supported, he supported.

Dodo was also completely bewildered. The thought of his brother suddenly becoming the Khan made him feel incredibly awkward and restless. After struggling for a while, he finally said in a muffled voice, "I vote for my brother." Ajige said somewhat hoarsely, "I vote for the Great Prince."

The voting ended there. The Eight Princes convened to re-elect the Khan. Ajige received five votes, Mangultai and Daišan each received one vote, and Dorgon abstained from voting for the eighth vote. The Jurchens elected their new Khan, Ajige!
After the election of the Great Khan, the meeting had to continue. Originally, the four great beile (princes) sat in the main seats, but now that Ajige, one of the four lesser beile, had become the Great Khan, it wouldn't be appropriate for him to still sit below the four great beile.
So Ajige became the fifth person, sandwiched in the middle, with Huang Taiji and Mangultai on his left, and Daišan and Amin on his right. Amin and Mangultai usually sat together…

"Great Khan, what should we do next? You need to come up with a plan," Huang Taiji said, offering his advice.

Ajige was incredibly embarrassed. He had never considered such a question before. He didn't have much say in the matter and had always followed Huang Taiji's orders. Suddenly being asked this question, he couldn't answer and his face turned red.

However, being a young banner chief, he did possess some ability and wasn't entirely incompetent. He took a deep breath and said, "Now that we have plundered to our heart's content, it is only right that we return to the capital and drive away the scoundrels from our homes."

The others nodded in agreement. It was getting to the point; since becoming Khan, the twelfth prince had become quite refined in his speech. The four didn't immediately try to intimidate Ajige, but instead agreed to his order and began adding details about the retreat.

One of the points of contention was whether or not they should defend Zunhua, the city they had finally managed to capture.

Zunhua is an ancient city, with a circumference of over six li. During the Wanli era, Qi Jiguang further fortified Zunhua, expanding the city wall base to 3 zhang and the wall height to 3.6 zhang, using only the finest blue bricks. People at the time said, "Bronze Zunhua, Iron Yongping, and Yutian City with arrow shafts stuck in it," making it an undeniably fortified city and a strategic location.

Huang Taiji insisted that Zunhua should not be abandoned, while others were much more pessimistic. Essentially, the debate over whether or not to take Zunhua wasn't about the city itself, but rather about whether or not to continue the southward invasion of the Ming Dynasty.

Amin and the others felt that it was already a great feat for them to have survived until now without being killed by the Ming army, so why would they want to provoke the Ming Dynasty?

They were even willing to abandon their country's title and submit to the Ming Dynasty as long as the Ming Dynasty agreed to trade. The Ming Dynasty was too terrifying and too unfathomable, so they chickened out.

Huang Taiji felt that although they had lost, they needed to understand where they went wrong and not blindly assume that the Ming Dynasty was so powerful. At least when faced with their plundering, the Ming Dynasty was powerless to resist.

They can send multiple small groups of cavalry to raid the pass, which is something the Mongols have always done. There's no reason why they can't do it if the Mongols can!
As long as the policy of "pruning the branches and weakening the trunk" is persisted in, and Ming people are burned and killed, and the Ming Dynasty is continuously weakened, one day the Ming Dynasty will still be unable to hold on. Otherwise, if nothing is done and the Ming Dynasty is allowed to recover, and Liaodong is blockaded, they will eventually be driven to their doom.

It must be said that Huang Taiji's strategic vision has always been quite good. His failure was not due to a problem with his strategy, but rather because he overestimated his own execution capabilities and underestimated the current fighting strength of the Ming army.

Ajige glanced at the other princes and suddenly realized his current situation. He tentatively said, "I have decided to abandon Zunhua."

After speaking, he glanced at the reactions of the other princes out of the corner of his eye. The three princes remained silent, clearly acquiescing to his command. Huang Taiji sighed but said nothing more.

"Fourth Prince, we are now severely weakened and need to recuperate for a period of time. We may not be able to enter the pass again for several years."

Zunhua is isolated and the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to hold. In the end, Zunhua will still be captured by the Ming army, and we will have lost our troops for nothing. It is a loss that does not outweigh the gain.

"Rumors are circulating that the Ming dynasty has lost its mandate of heaven, but when the heavens change, we will naturally return," Ajige said to Huang Taiji.

Huang Taiji nodded and praised Ajige, saying, "Twelfth Brother, you are the most thoughtful."

The lesson Ajige learned was that he, the Great Khan, was simply an opinion collector. When discussing matters, he would side with whichever of the four great beile had the most people.

However, he wasn't stupid and didn't want to be a human stamp forever, so he took the initiative to raise an issue: that is, to select a new person to fill the vacancies of the eight princes.

To some extent, his thinking was the same as Huang Taiji's: to dilute the original shares through "capital injection," restructure the assets, and thus increase his shareholding as the Great Khan and consolidate his power.

Huang Taiji sought financing from Han Chinese and Mongols, but this man didn't have Huang Taiji's ambition. He was content to be on par with the four great Beile, perhaps even becoming the fifth great Beile. For a Khan like himself, wasn't that a humble request already?

While the Jurchens were holding a small meeting, the Ming court was also holding a large meeting to discuss the following question: Everyone could see that the Jurchens were about to flee. They had taken so much baggage and captured so many people, making it the perfect time to intercept and kill them. Should they continue fighting?

The officials in the court were extremely excited. The past month had been filled with bad news: the emperor was inactive, and they didn't want to be remembered with eternal infamy. Whether they could win was one thing, but the crucial thing was their attitude! The court had to demonstrate an attitude of serving the country and its people!
Why did the government troops allow the Jurchens to plunder everywhere instead of suppressing them, and instead retreated to protect themselves? Is a scorched-earth policy something a human being would do? The people only have so much; clearing it out would cost them their lives.

How utterly disgraced the reputation of the imperial court and its officials would become! Even if they weren't concerned with their reputation, who would honor the local gentry after their homes were ransacked by the Jurchens?!

But now things are different, we can finally hold our heads high! Let's fight, wipe out the Jurchens, pacify Liaodong in a year, and then let the horses graze in the mountains and store our weapons away. This military expenditure is tens of millions a year, when will it ever end? All this money is going to benefit the soldiers; if this continues, the nation will cease to exist!

Zhu Youjian still followed the same old routine: when in doubt, he would consult Zhu Xieyuan.

Zhu Xieyuan shook his head and said, "We can't fight anymore."

"Why can't we fight? Minister Zhu, are you perhaps trying to nurture a bandit to enhance your own power?!"

"Throw him out!" Zhu Youjian said calmly.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Do you remember the story of Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King of Chu? Your Majesty cannot let the tiger return to the mountain..."

“Let’s talk to Huang Taiji. The things can be taken away, but the people must stay,” Zhu Youjian said.

Bi Ziyan frowned upon hearing this, but he held back. He was used to calculating costs, but he wasn't really stupid. Rescuing the people was a great act of benevolence and kindness. If he jumped out to disagree, his spine would be broken!

The Ming army was indeed unable to continue fighting, mainly because the cavalry had suffered heavy losses, and the Sanhe interception battle had reached its limit. There was no way to transfer a large army from Zunhua without the Jurchens noticing; Zunhua was only a short distance from the border, and by the time the main force arrived, the Jurchens would have already fled beyond the border.

Although we can't fight them, we can scare and threaten them. It's unrealistic to expect them to return everything they stole, but we still have a chance to get them to return some of it.

The Jurchens are retreating; the great battle that has lasted for over a month is over, and the Ming Dynasty can resume farming. This news is exciting enough, but even more exhilarating is the battle report from Liaodong:
Phase :

Zu Dashou led 8,000 cavalrymen across the Daling River at night, avoiding the Later Jin scouts, and circled around to Haizhou. There, he joined forces with Mao Wenlong's Dongjiang Town cavalry to attack the Jurchen garrison. They broke through the city with firearms, seized its granaries, rescued more than 3,000 Han Chinese, and slaughtered 7,000 who had shaved their heads and kept queues.

Then they divided their forces into three routes:

Eastern Route: Mao Wenlong launched a surprise attack on Hetu Ala with 7,000 cavalry. After breaching the city, he drew his sword and ordered "all those who shaved their heads shall be beheaded." He slaughtered more than 2,800 bannermen who remained in the city, burned down Nurhaci's mausoleum, dug up the graves, opened the coffins, mutilated the corpses, beheaded them, and hung their bodies on the ground before leaving.

Central Route: Zu Dashou feigned an attack on Shenyang to tie down the main force of the Jurchen garrison, and dispatched cavalry to sweep through the counties and prefectures within a hundred li of Shenyang, seizing 10,000 shi of grain and fodder, and led more than 10,000 Han people south, slaughtering 3,000 households of Manchu soldiers, totaling 10,000 people!

Western Route: Man Gui led 5,000 cavalry to sweep along the Liao River, defeating the Khorchin reinforcements, killing 1,000 northern enemy cavalry, slaughtering 13,000 Manchus, and capturing more than 10,000 cattle, sheep and horses!
In total, over 32,800 Zhenyi were killed, along with over 1,000 Mongol vassal soldiers. 47,000 Han Chinese were captured from Liaodong and relocated to southern Liaoning. Twelve granaries, seven coal mines, and three cities were burned down, and the Hetu Ala ancestral temple was reduced to ashes. Over 900 of our own soldiers were killed in action, and 2,000 were wounded.

However, the above is the official battle report, which only counts the banner soldiers. Many people are not counted as banner soldiers! There is also a secret report, which Mao Wenlong and his men were too embarrassed to bring to the court, but only secretly reported to the emperor.

In another report, they said they had killed more than 200,000 Jurchens or Han traitors, men, women, and children. Han women could choose to surrender, while Manchu women were to be executed on the spot!

The massacre of 200,000 was undeniably cruel, but compared to the atrocities committed by the Jurchens in the Ming Dynasty, it was merely a small amount of interest. Although it was a helpless situation, there was no other way. After all, the Ming army was too small and had to deal with the Jurchen garrison. It was already quite an achievement to have accomplished this much.

(End of this chapter)