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

Chapter 261 A Feud Lasting Months 2.0
When Mao Wenlong learned that he had been impeached, he could not tolerate it. Over the years, due to the emperor's indulgence, he had become increasingly unrestrained. So he directly started a war of words with the person who impeached him, saying that the emperor had said that he would fight the Jurchens to the death, and that he was acting on orders, not for personal revenge!
"The son of a slave chieftain is dead. People who don't know the situation might think that your wife gave birth to Amin. How can it be treated like your mother has died?"
We killed the Jurchens, and you all have such a strong opinion? Aren't you perhaps spies sent by the Jurchens? Whenever anything happens in the court, Huang Taiji knows before I do. There's probably a traitor in the court! I won't say who the traitor is; those who know, know!

Mao Wenlong's outburst wasn't solely due to the impeachment; it stemmed from long-standing grievances between him and the imperial court. After all, he had genuinely suffered hunger on Pi Island and, when relentlessly pursued by the Jurchens, had pleaded for help in vain, ultimately abandoning the Tieshan stronghold and evacuating Korea.

While he enjoyed his insults, the court officials couldn't stand it. Even officials who had no prior conflict with Mao Wenlong joined in the condemnation. His behavior was far too arrogant and had severely damaged his public image! But there was nothing anyone could do about it; Mao Wenlong now commanded a large army, and changing generals on the eve of battle was a grave mistake!

Unable to win arguments with Mao Wenlong, these people devised a new method: manipulating public opinion to coerce the emperor. Gradually, rumors spread throughout the streets and alleys of Beijing that Mao Wenlong was harboring bandits for personal gain, colluding with the Jurchens, and even preparing to launch a coup to seize the throne. Tang Yu relayed the information he had gathered to Zhu Youjian, asking whether they should intervene.

Zhu Youjian shook his head, indicating that he couldn't silence or ban these people, and even arresting a few wouldn't help. As the saying goes, "It's easier to stop a river than to stop the people from speaking," if a few were arrested, the rumors would become solid evidence. Let them talk, why bother with them? Just pretend you don't know.

A one-size-fits-all approach will lead to institutional rigidity and may harm friendly forces, but correcting a wrong requires going to extremes. Every previous strategic wavering has resulted in devastating defeats for the Ming Dynasty. If those at the top are not resolute in their resolve to fight the enemy, those below will inevitably be lost and confused.

In fact, negotiating peace with the Jurchens now is highly likely, as they are desperately eager for it. Since Yuan Chonghuan's Battle of Ningyuan, the Jurchens have suffered countless defeats at the hands of the Ming army. To fight now would be more of a preemptive counterattack against the Ming's aggressive posture.

Huang Taiji may have had ambitions to conquer the Central Plains, but those ambitions have likely been largely eroded by now.

In reality, how strong can the external enemies really be? Ultimately, it's all the Ming Dynasty's fault for being so incompetent.

If it weren't for witnessing the corruption of the Ming Dynasty and the decadence of its army, many battles would never have been fought, and many ambitious figures would never have risen in rebellion. If Zhang Juzheng, Qi Jiguang, and others were still alive, Nurhaci would have remained merely a powerful general of the Ming Dynasty, perhaps diligently paying tribute to the Ming until his death and performing dances in the capital during festivals.

"How long this war lasts is not up to us. We will fight to the very end, as long as Huang Taiji wants to fight, until they withdraw their troops," Zhu Youjian said, shaking his head at Bi Ziyan.

Bi Ziyan sighed slightly. A country that loves war will surely perish. From the seventh year of the Tianqi reign to the fourth year of the Chongzhen reign, there has been constant warfare, coupled with natural disasters and man-made calamities. When will it end? He hated war. He couldn't understand how this war could be fought, and whether he won or lost, he would always be at a disadvantage.

At this time, Haizhou City had not yet fallen. Initially, no one believed Haizhou could hold out, but it defied expectations. Huang Taiji launched a massive war, but it turned into a disastrous defeat. They spread their battle lines across the entire country, from the Han River in Korea to the Liao River, then to the Sancha River and the Daling River.

The war shifted from Nurhaci's blitzkrieg-style tactics to a more archaic form reminiscent of the pre-Qin period, with major battles often lasting months or even years, transforming battlefield victories into a contest of national strength and the endurance of the people. The Ming Dynasty, with its hundreds of millions of people, was undoubtedly stronger in terms of national power. However, its battle lines were stretched too thin, and it had too many other considerations, far inferior to the Jurchens who fought on their doorstep and enjoyed the low human rights advantage of not having to worry about the lives of their own people. Both sides had their disadvantages, resulting in a current balance of power.

After withstanding the first wave of attacks from the Jurchens, Yuan Keli refused the imperial court's offer to send reinforcements. Compared to fighting, he was actually more adept at management. He was able to build the strongest navy in the north from scratch, and he was able to establish a foothold in Liaonan by adapting existing forces, which demonstrates his formidable operational capabilities.

Yuan Keli understood that the pressure of the Jurchens sending troops was completely different from the pressure of the Ming Dynasty assembling hundreds of thousands of troops. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians would bankrupt the Ming Dynasty's finances. Unless it was a decisive battle, it was not worth paying such a huge price.

The Jurchens only needed to worry about the lives of the Eight Banners soldiers; they didn't need to pay them. All other foreign servants, militia, and other civilians could be used as expendable resources, and they didn't even need food. Those who died from exhaustion, starvation, or were shot by the Ming army were simply dragged back and eaten. The Jurchens themselves didn't eat human flesh much, but they forced their slaves to do so.

The Liaonan battlefield had long since become a living hell: Huang Taiji was consciously preserving his elite troops and training new soldiers. His purpose was clear: he launched this war to train his troops, while also depleting the Ming Dynasty's manpower and resources and eliminating its own burdens. The Jurchen Eight Banners troops were behind, forcing Mongol soldiers and slaves of various ethnicities to fill the gaps.

The three concentric rings of barricades outside Haizhou City had already been demolished by the Jurchens. The originally yellowish-brown rammed earth had turned an eerie purplish-red, due to the excessive amount of flesh and blood mixed in with it. Beneath the city walls, corpses piled up like mountains, impossible to clear in time, and the current hot weather only exacerbated the horrific disaster.

The rotting flesh had turned into a huge, gelatinous mass, with maggots burrowing deep within this mountain of flesh. The garrison of Haizhou City had tried to purify the corpses by pouring kerosene on them, but the strange smell of the flesh made the soldiers and civilians in the city vomit acid, reactivating their noses, which had been dulled by the torture.

The grease seeped into the ground, polluting the groundwater. A layer of oil bubbled up from the wells in the city. Only a liter of water boiled with two ounces of tea dust could be barely swallowed. Originally, Haizhou City had no shortage of water. Water from the Taizi River, a tributary of the Liao River, was diverted into the moat. Unfortunately, the moat has now been filled in, and even the filling material is now corpses.

Huang Taiji even had catapults built, but instead of stones, they hurled only corpses. The heavily decomposed bodies were already beyond human form while still airborne, and upon landing on the city walls or inside the city, they would simply splatter and flatten into a large, abnormally flat mass. If someone was caught in the crossfire and hit, they would likely feel like committing suicide.

The Jurchens had utterly lost all sense of humanity. In this desperate situation, a plague, unsurprisingly, broke out in Haizhou City—a man-made plague. At this point in the war, if Huang Taiji had wanted to, he could have already captured Haizhou City, but instead, he chose to prolong the conflict, tormenting the city's defenders with various methods every day.

The front line has now become a huge slaughterhouse. The Jurchens capture slaves from Korea in an endless stream and then slaughter them with the help of the Ming army. Even if it costs a few bullets or a tube of gunpowder, it is worth it for the Jurchens. Human life is not worth a penny here.

(End of this chapter)