Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 348 When trapped in a desperate situation, every soldier will be courageous.
The argument inside the hall had reached a fever pitch.

Amin's spittle almost landed on Daishan's face, while Mangultai was also shoving and pushing several Beizi who advocated defense, and it looked like they were about to start fighting in front of the emperor.

When people are in dire straits, their words become sorrowful and their actions become wild.

At this moment, Phoenix Tower was less like the Chongzheng Hall of the Qing Dynasty and more like a den of thieves on the verge of collapse, arguing endlessly over the division of their last remaining loot.

Just as this chaos reached its peak—

"Zheng——!"

A sharp, metallic clang, like a thunderclap, suddenly exploded inside Phoenix Tower!
The voice was shrill and resolute, instantly drowning out all the roars and curses.

The entire hall fell into a deathly silence in an instant.

Everyone was startled by the sudden loud noise and stopped in their tracks. Looking in the direction of the sound, they were all horrified.

Huang Taiji, who had been sitting on the throne with his eyes closed and silent, had somehow stood up.

His face was ashen, but his eyes were bloodshot, burning with a chilling rage and madness.

On the precious golden nanmu desk in front of him, a gleaming sword was deeply embedded in the tabletop, its blade humming and trembling incessantly!

With bloodshot eyes, Huang Taiji slowly swept his gaze over each person in the hall like a demon crawling out of hell.

Wherever his gaze fell, whether it was the irritable Amin, the impetuous Mangultai, or even the elderly Daishan, they all subconsciously lowered their heads, not daring to meet his eyes.

His voice was not loud, and even a little hoarse, but the chilling coldness emanating from his words was a thousand times colder than the wind and snow outside the window.

"enough!"

"Are the princes and nobles of my Great Qing Dynasty just a bunch of headless flies?!"

These few words, however, struck like a heavy hammer blow to the hearts of everyone.

Inside Phoenix Tower, even breathing became cautious.

Huang Taiji stared coldly at Amin and Mangultai, his gaze as if he were looking at two dead men.

"Charge?" He squeezed out the word through gritted teeth, full of endless sarcasm. "With what will you charge? With your warhorses, so weak from hunger in the stables that they can barely stand, to charge the Ming army's layered lines? Or with the weak arms of our warriors, so hungry that they're trembling, to cut through their new-style steel armor?"

His voice suddenly rose, like a drawn blade: "Tell me! Do you want to achieve great deeds for my Great Qing, or do you want to lead your loyal Manchu brothers to the border of Shanhaiguan to add a glorious chapter to the Ming army's record of merit?! Are you going to your deaths?!"

This angry rebuke was like a bucket of ice water poured over Amin and Mangultai's heads.

The fervor on their faces vanished instantly. They might not be afraid of death, but they couldn't lead their followers to a pointless death.

After berating the pro-war faction, Huang Taiji turned his cold gaze to the other side, landing on Daishan, whose face was filled with misery and who was trembling.

His tone softened slightly, but it added a touch of desperate sorrow.

"Shou?"

"Brother," he addressed Daishan, but his eyes held no warmth of kinship, only the cold reality, "look carefully, this time, it's different! Completely different!"

He walked up to Daishan and, word by word, shattered the last vestige of hope in the old prince's heart.

"The reason we were able to win in the past and wear down the Ming army was because their rear was unstable and their logistics were inadequate! We could adopt a scorched-earth policy and drag them down until they ran out of food and collapsed on their own!"

"But look at us now! Look at us now!" He pointed north. "That bastard Lindan Khan has been fed by Zhu Youjian! He is now a hungry wolf in the north of our Great Qing, ready to pounce and bite us at any moment! Our backs have been completely exposed to the enemy!"

He then pointed eastward: "And there's Korea! That King Injo is now outwardly compliant to our Great Qing but inwardly defiant, yet he's groveling before the Great Ming. He's determined to follow the same path as the Ming! It'll be as difficult as climbing to heaven for us to squeeze even a single grain of rice out of Korea!"

Huang Taiji turned around abruptly, his voice filled with deep-seated hatred: "The most deadly thing is the area inside the Great Wall! Even if I offer a price higher than gold, not many merchants inside the Great Wall will dare to trade with us!"

Even if someone were blinded by greed and dared to come, that damned Ming emperor, that damned so-called 'whistleblower policy,' would reward the whistleblower with the entire value of any smuggled goods, regardless of whether they were smuggled or not!

"Under such strict defense, no grain can be transported out of the pass! One road, two roads, three roads... all our roads are blocked!"

"Brother, tell me, can we afford to wait?!" His voice was like a sob. "When the snow closes the mountains, we won't even be able to dig up tree bark or grass roots! The Ming army has 150,000 troops and a constant supply from Shanhaiguan. They can get through the winter peacefully! But what about us?"

"We will be the ones who starve to death!"

Huang Taiji returned to his desk, placed his hands on the table, and looked down at the silent crowd below. His bloodshot eyes revealed a calmness that seemed to have seen through life and death.

"To fight is to commit suicide; to defend is to wait for death!"

"Both paths lead to certain death. Now tell me, where does the path for my Great Qing lie?!"

His question, like the interrogation of a ghost or god, echoed for a long time within the Phoenix Tower.

Everyone lowered their heads.

Whether it was the raging Amin or the conservative Daishan, all their previous arguments seemed so pale and laughable in the face of Huang Taiji's bloody analysis.

Seeking death, or waiting to die?
This is an answer that doesn't require a choice, because the outcome was already predetermined.

Inside the main hall, only the heavy, suppressed breathing of the crowd and the howling wind and snow outside the window could be heard.

Despair, like a tangible tide, engulfed everyone's ankles and slowly spread upwards.

In the midst of this deathly silence, Huang Taiji walked step by step toward the huge Liaodong map hanging in the center of the hall.

Everyone's eyes were involuntarily drawn to his figure.

“You are all afraid of that Zhu Youjian, afraid of his youthful arrogance, and afraid of his 150,000-strong army pressing in.”

With his back to everyone, Huang Taiji gently stroked the two characters "Shengjing" on the map with his hand. His voice was low, yet it revealed an unusual excitement.

"But I see the only chance in this dead end!"

He turned around abruptly, his crimson eyes flashing with a light that combined the madness of a gambler betting everything with the extreme excitement of a tycoon who had seen the secrets of the world. These two contradictory lights intertwined to create a terrifying charm that could shatter one's mind!
"Opportunity?" Dai Shan murmured unconsciously, his aged face filled with confusion and bewilderment.

In his view, this was clearly a dead end with no chance of survival, so how could there be any chance?
"That's right! This is the opportunity!" Huang Taiji's voice resonated throughout the entire Phoenix Tower.

He surveyed the crowd, his gaze no longer filled with mere anger, but with a sharp insight that saw through the game.

He roared angrily, "If the Ming Dynasty truly sends 150,000 troops, disregarding casualties and sparing no expense, determined to sweep us all the way here, then our Qing Dynasty will indeed have no choice but to fight a decisive battle with the entire nation! But have you ever thought about it? What gives Zhu Youjian the right? What makes him dare to do such a thing?!"

Huang Taiji pointed at the people below the throne, especially Amin and Mangultai. His words struck the depths of everyone's soul like a heavy hammer.

"My Qing warriors," Huang Taiji said, his words filled with unparalleled pride, "which one of them didn't crawl out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood? Which one of them didn't have dozens of Ming soldiers' lives on their hands? Which one of them wasn't a wolf on horseback and a tiger in the forest?! You, and your subordinates Bayara and Gabushixian, which one of you isn't a battle-hardened warrior?!"

"But what about the Ming army?!" His tone suddenly changed, filled with contempt and disdain. "150,000! What a huge force! But among these 150,000, besides the Liaodong soldiers under Sun Chengzong who have fought bad battles for more than ten years, and the Xuanda border troops under Man Gui who have seen blood, how many capable soldiers are left?"
His newly trained Beijing garrison? They're nothing but a bunch of farmers in new uniforms, their spears barely tucked under their hoes! Send them into battle? Have they ever smelled blood? Have they ever witnessed guts being ripped apart?!

These resounding words rekindled a glimmer of light in the eyes of all the military officers in the hall.

Yes! What are we afraid of? We are the wolves, and they are the sheep! No matter how many sheep there are, they are still sheep!

Seeing the change in the crowd's expressions, Huang Taiji felt somewhat reassured, but he knew that mere brute force was not enough. He needed to show these fear-blinded brutes a bloody path!
"Warfare is based on deception. When the enemy is weak, he makes it appear strong; when he is strong, he makes it appear weak. Zhu Youjian believed that his army was strong and that victory was assured, but this was his biggest weakness!"

He's young, he's never lost, so he doesn't know how to be respectful!
He doesn't understand that war is never simply a matter of adding up numbers!

Huang Taiji's footsteps lingered before the map, like a tiger surveying its prey.

"Therefore, we will have to decide based on the situation and plan carefully before taking action!"

He pointed heavily on the map with his finger, highlighting the narrowest point of the Liaoxi Corridor.

"If Sun Chengzong is prudent and cautious, proceeding step by step, we will lure him out! We will use small elite forces to constantly harass his supply lines and provoke his flanks! Does he want to train his troops? I will make sure his troops never return! We will use the blood of our warriors to extinguish his arrogant confidence! We will force him to divide his forces and make him reckless!"

He clenched his fist tightly and slammed it down on the "Shanhaiguan" sign.

"If Zhu Youjian is truly blinded by victory and ignores Sun Chengzong's advice, driving his army straight in, then we will give him a full-force attack!"

"Gather all the strength of our Great Qing and achieve victory in one decisive battle! Let's fight the Ming Dynasty to the death on this desolate land of Liaoxi! Let them know just how sharp the sabers of our Great Qing warriors truly are!"

Huang Taiji opened his arms as if to embrace the whole world, or as if to embrace the bloody destiny that was about to come.

His voice already carried a hint of tragic roar:

"I know this is a huge gamble! It's the entirety of my Great Qing Dynasty at stake! It's the lives and fortunes of all of us!"

"We've lost! We have nothing! This Shengjing belongs to someone else. Your Niru, your servants, your wives and children will all be at their mercy! We can't even protect our own lives!"

This bloody reality made everyone hold their breath.

But then, Huang Taiji's voice became even louder and more frantic!
"But that's precisely why! We have nowhere to retreat! Behind us is a precipice, and the icy Hun River! We are fighting with our backs to the river!"

He suddenly drew the sword that was stuck in the imperial desk, its tip pointing straight to the sky, the cold light reflecting on his twisted yet resolute face.

"When you put your troops in a desperate situation, they will all be brave! We have already been driven to the brink of death! So we no longer need to fear death! Fear belongs to the Ming army!"
They have a vast empire to enjoy, and countless riches to inherit! They fear death! And what do we have to lose besides this worthless life?!

"Tell me! What else?!"

"No more!" Mangultai was the first to shout, his eyes filled with a fierce despair that had replaced fear.

"That's all!" Amin roared as well, his wine glass shattering in his hand. Sharp shards cut his palm, drawing blood, but he seemed oblivious.

"there is none left!!"

"there is none left!!!"

A cacophony of roars, like those of wild beasts, echoed from within the Phoenix Tower!
Huang Taiji raised his sword high, bringing everyone's emotions to a fever pitch.

"Very well! Since we have nothing, let us use this battle to win everything back! Even a cornered beast will fight, let alone a nation! Put them in a desperate situation and they will live; trap them in a hopeless situation and they will survive!"

"The warriors of our Great Qing have always survived in dire straits! They forged their glory in blood and fire! How difficult it was for our founding emperor to start his rebellion with only thirteen suits of armor! Is our predicament today even worse than that of our founding emperor?!"

"Think of Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King of Chu, who burned his boats and won nine battles in a row, utterly defeating the Qin army! We should have the same determination today!"

"What is called a dead end is merely the end for cowards, but the beginning for warriors!"

"An army driven by desperation will surely win! In this battle, only we can emerge victorious!"

"We must win! We must win! We must win!"

The thunderous shouts completely dispelled the deathly aura that had enveloped Phoenix Tower.

The oppressive fear and suffocating despair, under Huang Taiji's frenzied outpouring that was half inspiration and half hypnosis, were all transformed into a resolute and violent determination to perish together with his opponent!
Looking at the princes and nobles below, their spirits rekindled and their fighting will reignited, Huang Taiji slowly lowered his arm, his flushed face gradually returning to its cold calm in the shadows.

He succeeded.

However, only he himself knew what kind of chill lingered deep within his cold heart, keeping him awake all night.

Huang Taiji slowly turned around and looked at the huge map again. His gaze no longer lingered on the Liaoxi Corridor, but was drawn by invisible threads, sweeping over places he had once valued or disdained.

In his mind, an even larger and more terrifying picture was slowly unfolding.

He really didn't expect it... he never even dreamed of it!

Just two years!

It's only been two short years!

The young emperor Zhu Youjian, whom he and his Han officials unanimously deemed "a mere child, impatient and not worth worrying about," had unknowingly woven such a meticulously crafted web!

Huang Taiji could almost see Zhu Youjian's young and cold face, across thousands of miles, in the depths of the Forbidden City, coldly watching him struggle in the net.

"A brilliant tactic... truly a brilliant tactic..." Huang Taiji sighed silently in his heart.

He looked toward Shanxi, which had once been his lifeline for supplying ironware, grain, and intelligence. Now, the countless bones of Shanxi merchants had completely blocked that route.

Zhu Youjian used the bloodiest means to cut off his money bag that was reaching into the interior of the pass!
His gaze then turned north to the vast Mongolian grasslands.

His former ally, the Khorchin, who had once called him brother and plundered the Ming Dynasty together, was still dead.

Lindan Khan, that unruly wolf king of the grasslands, has now become Zhu Youjian's hunting dog, pinning his back firmly with his sharp saber!

Now look at Korea. The King of Korea, whom he defeated in one battle and forced to submit and pay tribute, is now acting like a weather vane, outwardly complying but inwardly resisting. He has secretly cut off grain trade and instead planted the flags of the Ming Dynasty all over the Yalu River.

Mao Wenlong has become yet another sharp blade that cuts off our supplies from the east!
Finally, his gaze fell back on the Liaoxi Corridor.

Sun Chengzong's defenses were like an iron gate, impregnable.

Man Gui's iron fist is lurking along the Xuanda line, ready to march east to reinforce at any time.

The Shanxi merchants' money pouches, Lindan Khan's sabers, the Korean granaries, Mao Wenlong's raids, Sun Chengzong's fortifications, Man Gui's iron fist...

These seemingly unrelated points have now been perfectly connected by Zhu Youjian with an invisible thread!

This was clearly a rope of death slowly tightening around his neck!
At this moment, Huang Taiji felt the rope cutting into his flesh inch by inch, making it hard for him to breathe.

Everything he just said to everyone—the talk of luring the enemy out of their hole, the all-out attack, the idea that a desperate army will surely win—was nothing more than the final roar of a gambler driven to the brink of despair.

Because when he looked around and assessed the situation, it was truly... there was no other way!
Huang Taiji's hand once again gripped the hilt of the knife stuck in the imperial desk.

This time, the blade no longer trembled.

The same applies to him.

Because a dead person does not tremble.

And someone who is determined to live even in the face of death would not!

(End of this chapter)