The New Destiny of the Ming Dynasty

However, all of this greatly angered Huang Taiji, who was personally overseeing the battle outside Songshan City.

He summoned Dorobele Nikan and demanded an explanation of the results of his scouting mission, asking whether he had found any trace of the so-called Ningyuan vanguard.

At this time, Dorobelenikan happened to receive a letter from Zu Dashou to Jin Guofeng and others from Nomqi, who was sent by Arsalan.

Therefore, upon Huang Taiji's inquiry, Nikan hurriedly presented the letter and replied that he had already dispatched a group of Gabuxi Xianchaoha, belonging to the Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner, to scout the Ming army's movements along the coast yesterday. Now, he had sent that Gabuxi Xianchaoha group to pursue the main force of the Ming army that was sending the message.

Huang Taiji was quite confident in Gabuxi Xianchaoha, who was carefully selected from the Manchu Eight Banners Bayara Camp. After hearing Dorobele Nikan's answer, he was somewhat relieved.

However, after receiving the letter presented by Nikan and reading the contents of the letter written by Zu Dashou to Jin Guofeng and other generals defending Songshan, Huang Taiji felt doubtful and uneasy, filled with both skepticism and worry.

What made him "skeptical" was that Zu Dashou told Jin Guofeng and others that he would soon mobilize the entire Ningyuan army to go to Songshan for rescue.

However, Huang Taiji was well aware that, so far, no reinforcements had been sent from the Ningyuan direction.

What also filled him with worry was that Zu Dashou said Ningyuan had sent a powerful reinforcement army north by sea to relieve the siege of Songshan City.

Of course, Huang Taiji was worried because Zu Dashou had seriously exaggerated the strength of the so-called Ningyuan vanguard battalion, Xu Changyong's Mongol battalion, Juehua Island naval battalion, and his own central army in his letter to the Songshan garrison commander.

Zu Dashou's letter was somewhat of a lie. After all, he wasn't stupid. He knew that the letter might reach Songshan City, but it was also very likely that it would be intercepted on the way.

Therefore, he considered both the possibility of getting the team into the city and the possibility of them being intercepted along the way. However, regardless of the situation, he felt it was necessary to exaggerate the strength of the rescue team heading north.

If they were sent into the city and into the hands of Jin Guofeng and his men, exaggerating the strength of the rescue team would naturally help strengthen their confidence in holding the city and waiting for reinforcements.

However, if the Tartars intercepted them halfway and they fell into the hands of a Tartar general, he could deliberately exaggerate the strength of the northward rescue team, which could also serve to intimidate or mobilize the Tartar attacking army.

The four teams Zu Dashou mentioned in his letter were indeed true. He mentioned the Ningyuan Vanguard Battalion, the Mongol Battalion, the Naval Battalion, and his own central army.

And these four teams do indeed exist; he was not lying about the composition of the rescue teams heading north.

However, he did not specify how many people were in each of the four teams, nor could he reveal it, otherwise the northward rescue mission would become a joke.

Zu Dashou was not worried at all that this matter would be exposed in the future, because even if it was exposed, he would have enough reasons to defend his actions.

The reason was that he couldn't say it explicitly in the letter, because there was a possibility that the letter would be intercepted or captured by the Tartars.

However, to Zu Dashou's surprise, his letter, which was half true and half false and greatly exaggerated the strength of the northward rescue team, coupled with the huge commotion that Yang Zhen and others made behind the Tartars, made even the usually shrewd Huang Taiji unsure of what to do.

After reading Zu Dashou's letter to the Songshan garrison commander, Huang Taiji was both puzzled and apprehensive. Hearing that Nikan had also brought Nomuqi, the Mongolian battalion commander of the Ningyuan reinforcements who had just surrendered, he immediately summoned Nomuqi to his temporary camp.

Huang Taiji can speak Manchu, Mandarin, and Mongolian, so he can communicate directly with Nomuqi.

"Nomuqi! Since you are Sanggarsai's subordinate, how many of Sanggarsai's Mongol troops left Ningyuan this time and headed north by sea?"

"Reporting to Your Majesty! A total of three hundred men and three hundred horses!"

Huang Taiji was taken aback, then unfolded the letter Zu Dashou had written to the garrison commander of Songshan and looked at it. He then asked, "How many men and how many horses did Zu Dashou's central army send?! How many men and how many ships did the naval force from Juehua Island send? And how many men and how many horses did that advance detachment send?!"

Huang Taiji became increasingly anxious as he asked questions, and he rattled off a string of Mongolian phrases, leaving the others in his tent completely bewildered and astonished.

Not all Manchus could speak Mongolian, and among the Jurchens, only a very small minority could speak Mongolian. Huang Taiji used Mongolian to get the truth from Nomqi.

"General Zu—no, General Zu Dashou's central army has brought a total of one hundred men and one hundred horses! The Juehua Island naval camp has sixty or seventy ships of various sizes, with about five or six hundred men! The advance battalion—we are the advance battalion! Besides us, there are more than two hundred musketeers!"

After speaking in Mongolian, Nomqi glanced at the legendary Manchu chieftain Huang Taiji, noticing his moments of doubt and delight. Feeling he should say more and gain more merit, he looked at the thoughtful Huang Taiji and continued:

"They were all stationed on a sandbar island south of the river mouth! Right behind the reeds! They were the ones who burned the grain and fodder north of the river that night!"

"They originally sent me to Songshan today to deliver a message, but for some reason, all the troops on the island have come ashore by boat! If Your Majesty is unaware of the situation and sends men to pursue Xu Changyong, you'll likely suffer losses! That Yang Zhen from the advance team is a fearless individual who dares to do anything!"

Upon hearing this, Huang Taiji was startled and quickly switched to Manchu, turning to ask Dorobele Nikan, "Nikan, how many Gabuxi Xianchaoha did you send to pursue them? Who is in charge of the army?!"

Nikan couldn't understand Mongolian and didn't know what Nomchi had just reported to Huang Taiji, but since Huang Taiji had asked him a question, he had to answer immediately, so he told him the truth:

"This servant has dispatched the Bayala Camp's Jiala Zhangjing, Arsalan, to lead the army, and all the Gabuxi Xianchaoha from this servant's Bayala Camp have been sent out!"

Hearing this, Huang Taiji was temporarily relieved.

In his view, since four or five hundred Gabuxi Xianchaoha from the Bordered Yellow Banner had gone to pursue them, even if they had fallen into an ambush by the Ming army, there was nothing to worry about.

Even if the so-called Ningyuan Vanguard Battalion only had less than one or two thousand men, and even if the number of Ming troops doubled, they would still be no match for these Gabuxi Xianchaoha.

However, to be on the safe side, Huang Taiji thought for a moment and said to Nikan, "Nikan! Since this Nomchi knows where the Ming army's camp is, let him lead the way and take you there to wipe them out! Take all the men from your Bayara camp with you, and go immediately!"

Having arranged these matters, Huang Taiji felt that the threat to his troops' rear had been eliminated, so he no longer cared about things on the coast. Instead, he continued to urge San Shun Wang's Tianyou and Tianzhu troops, as well as Shi Tingzhu's Wuzhen Chaoha, to continue bombarding Songshan City.

Dorobele Nikan received the order and, with Nomqi, a surrendered general of the Ming Mongol army, hurriedly returned to his camp. He then mustered the remaining 1,200 men from the Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner Bayara Camp and, under Nomqi's leadership, quickly headed towards the south bank of the Xiaoling River estuary.

The further east Nikan went, the more uneasy he felt, because he had traveled several miles without any news of Gabushi Xianchaoha, one of Arsalan's men.

Along the way, they encountered several places where corpses dressed in Ming army uniforms were scattered haphazardly. However, considering that four or five hundred people from Al-Saran had been on their way for more than an hour without sending back any news, it was quite unusual.

This highly unusual situation caused Nikan to begin to feel inexplicably anxious.

Originally, he felt that Huang Taiji's arrangement was somewhat unnecessary, but the further east he went, the stronger and clearer the ominous premonition suddenly rose in his heart.

Although he had considered some bad possibilities and made various guesses on the way, when he finally arrived at the battlefield that Yang Zhen had set up under the guidance of Nuomuqi, he was still completely shocked by the scene before him!

"What's going on?! How could this be?! Who did this?! Who would dare to do such a thing?! Which Ming army unit could possibly accomplish this?!"

Looking around at the scattered limbs and remains of warhorses and the headless remains of the Yellow Banner Gabuxi Xianchaoha knight, both inside and outside the woods and on the salt flats between the reeds, one could see the scattered remains of the warhorses and the headless remains of the Yellow Banner Gabuxi Xianchaoha knight.

The Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner Commissioner, who also commanded the Bayara Battalion and the Dorobele Nikan, was still completely stunned by the scene before him, even though he was used to all kinds of killings.