Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 232 The Rebel Jurchens Are Completely Lost (Part 1)

On the city wall of Liaoyang, Amin looked at the faint black dot on the Taizi River in the distance. His face darkened, and his brows furrowed deeper and deeper.

He never expected that the Ming army would resort to the tactic of encirclement.

This is because Liaoyang City is too large, and there are too many places to store grain and fodder.

If they stockpile enough grain and fodder in Liaoyang, their 50,000 troops could hold out for more than ten years!
Moreover, they also had cannons, including the Divine Might General Cannon, which could fire five or six miles away. The Ming army dared not set up camp within five or six miles of the city wall.

The enormous city of Liaoyang, plus its surrounding area of ​​five or six miles, would require an enormous army to besiege.

Moreover, the Taizi River lies to the north of Liaoyang City, and the Taizi River to the north is also within the range of their artillery. If the Ming army's ships blockade the northern section of the river, they can simply open fire and sink it.

How can such a large city with such open terrain be besieged?

The problem was that the Ming army had already surrounded them.

He had sent fast cavalry to scout the east, west, and south sides of Liaoyang City. Five or six miles away, there were dense formations of steel chariots, with less than a mile between them. With the range of the Ming army's muskets, they could easily cover those gaps.

Although these three sides are not enclosed like an iron barrel, they are even more terrifying than an iron barrel.

At least the iron buckets wouldn't hurt anyone, but the muskets in the Ming army's wagon formation could. If they tried to rush through the gaps in the wagon formation, they would be courting death.

Being surrounded on land was bad enough, but he really didn't expect that the Taizi River to the north would also be blocked by Ming warships.

He had also sent swift cavalry to investigate, and those faint black dots were Ming warships. Moreover, the Ming warships were not stationary, waiting for them to bombard them, but were constantly shuttling back and forth, making it impossible to aim at them.

The reason why the Ming army's warships were only partially visible when he stood on the city wall was because they were moving too fast.

That guy was running back and forth like a human, an endless stream, as if it would never end.

Furthermore, the Ming warships deliberately kept their distances apart, with each warship being dozens or even hundreds of feet apart.

In this situation, bombarding with artillery would be a waste of ammunition, and it would be impossible to hit the target.

He originally thought that the Ming army couldn't besiege Liaoyang City because of the Taizi River to the north, which made it impossible to surround. Who knew that the Ming army would use warships to patrol back and forth to block the river.

Now, no one can provide him with support from Shenyang, not even food.

He certainly knew that once the river froze over, the Ming army would be unable to use warships to block the northern waterway.

The problem is, the grain stored in Liaoyang City is not enough to supply more than 50,000 men and horses for half a year.

Their grain production was pitifully low. Even with the servants under their command working day and night to cultivate the land, they couldn't produce much grain. After deducting the consumption of the servants and servants, the remaining grain was pitifully small; they couldn't even produce half a shi of grain per mu.

In other words, even if they forced those slaves to cultivate more than 20 million mu of land, they still wouldn't be able to harvest 10 million shi of grain.

Originally, less than ten million shi of grain would have been barely enough for them, since their entire tribe numbered less than 500,000. Even if you included the servants in the various cities who served them, it was still less than a million.

With such a small population, ten million shi of grain would be enough to feed them, and they could even feed quite a few pigs.

Unfortunately, starting the year before last, after Sun Chuanting became the commander of Liaodong Garrison, that guy took advantage of the absence of their cavalry to frantically devour the land they occupied, fighting all the way from Dalinghe to Santaizihe, and then from Santaizihe to Liaohe. In the end, the entire area south of Haichengwei all the way to Zhenjiangbao was taken back by this guy!

As a result, their original 20 million mu of land shrank by half, becoming just over 10 million mu, and the harvested grain was less than 5 million shi.

In addition, they also conscripted a lot of Mongol infantry and Han infantry, so there was simply not enough food to eat.

If they hadn't conquered the Tatar tribes last year, seized a lot of cattle and sheep, and exchanged a lot of grain with those Shanxi merchants, they wouldn't have had enough to eat last year.

As for the grain stored in Liaoyang City, even after last autumn's harvest, they hadn't stored enough for 500,000 shi (a unit of dry measure).

After more than half a year of depletion of these 50,000 troops, less than 200,000 shi (a unit of dry measure) remained. They had originally planned to collect grain after the autumn harvest, but unexpectedly, the Ming army completely surrounded Liaoyang City from all sides.

Where will they collect grain now?

The city's food supply is only enough to last until the autumn harvest, and the autumn harvest is still more than a month away from freezing temperatures. What will they eat then?
Even if they only drank porridge every day, they could hold out until the ice was frozen.

Will Huang Taiji send someone to deliver grain at that time?

Huang Taiji was at a loss.

He even sent a fast boat to transport some grain from the Beisha River to try it out.

As a result, their fast boats had barely left the mouth of the Beisha River when Ming warships swarmed in, followed by a burst of intense musket fire. The Ming army seized the first few fast boats, along with the grain on board.

In this situation, what other options does he have?

The Taizi River was full of Ming army warships patrolling back and forth. They didn't have any naval warships, so any fast boats of 100 or 200 liters that rushed up there would just be easy prey.

As for cavalry, forget about it; they simply couldn't cross the river, and if they did, they'd be shot.

He could only wait for it to freeze.

Sun Chuanting naturally knew that the Jurchens were waiting for the ice to freeze.

He is also preparing for freezing.

The Liaodong cavalry and the Jingying cavalry, led by Cao Wenzhao and Zhou Yuji, had already built pontoon bridges to cross the river, and the Jurchens in the area of ​​over a hundred li between the Xiaohai River and the Taizi River had also been wiped out.

They have reclaimed another three to four million mu of farmland and three to four hundred thousand Liaodong soldiers and civilians. These fields have already been cultivated. All that is needed is to bring some fertilizer, and in the autumn they can harvest another seven to eight million shi of grain.

They didn't just grow grain; they also had people cultivate the mountainous areas to the east, including the vast mountainous regions in southeastern Liaoning.

This year, he plans to expand the planting area of ​​sweet potatoes and potatoes to five million mu, stockpile more grain, and raise more pigs so that the soldiers can not only be well-fed but also well-nourished, thus making them more combat-effective.

Furthermore, he plans to build a city capable of accommodating over 100,000 troops in the bends of the Taizi River that jut northward on both the east and west sides of Liaoyang City, as well as on the north bank of the Nansha River on the south side of Liaoyang City.

In this way, Liaoyang City was blocked by cities on the southeast, west and south sides, and with the pocket formation to the north, it would be almost impossible for the Jurchens inside to escape. Even if the Jurchen cavalry rushed over and did not flee north, but fled south, they would not be able to escape.

However, for these three cities, he only ordered the Jingying and Liaodongzhen chariot troops to dig the foundations and fire bricks. After the foundations of the city walls were dug, he went to dig the foundations of the barracks inside the city. The bricks were piled up into mountains, but he still did not order anyone to start construction.

This left the Jurchens even more bewildered.

What is the Ming army commander trying to do?

What's the point of just digging holes in the ground? Do you want to trap their warhorses in them?

They're not stupid, why would they ride their warhorses into a pit?
This trap will only be effective if you dig it behind their backs. Do you really think they're fools if you dig it in front of them?

Sun Chuanting certainly didn't think the Jurchens were fools; what he dug wasn't a trap.

He ordered people to dig the foundation, but the reason why construction was delayed was because the cement hadn't arrived yet.

Zhu Jue had told him that building cities and houses with cement was very fast and very sturdy.

They need to boil glutinous rice juice to make glutinous rice lime mortar, but cement doesn't need to. It can be directly mixed with lime and mortar to make an adhesive, and it dries much faster than glutinous rice lime mortar.

He naturally wanted to wait for something so useful.

(End of this chapter)