Chapter 25 I Want a River of Blood

On the afternoon of the 23rd, a large group of Jiannu armored flagmen and bondservants pushing shield carts and ox carts finally appeared on the post road northwest of Ningyuan City.

The wind was howling, but the sky was fine, and the sun hung listlessly in the sky. Even though they were two or three miles away, the Ming soldiers guarding the city walls could basically see the red, blue, yellow, and white flags and armor, so there was a commotion on the city walls, and the cries of the Tartar invasion spread from the city walls to the four main streets in the east, west, south, and north, and then through the relay of the people on the streets, it reached the ears of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city.

After the news of the Jiannu's arrival at the city spread, all the soldiers and civilians in Ningyuan relaxed their tension. The feeling of being targeted by the thieves but thinking that they would not take action was gone, and was replaced by anger, fear and helpless despair.

The old slave's previous order to massacre Wugunikan had made the soldiers and civilians in the city give up the last glimmer of hope. In this battle, only those who defend the city will die, and those who surrender will not live.

No one knows whether Ningyuan City can be defended. Even if it can be defended, no one knows how long the Jiannu can keep besieging the city. If the siege lasts for three or four months, will the more than 20,000 Ming troops and 30,000 to 40,000 civilians in the city have anything to eat?
Many people had already prepared themselves for the possibility that their whole family would be eaten by the soldiers. What was terrifying was that during the days of defending the city, this thought would always linger in their minds until that day really came.

……

In front of the city gate tower on the north wall, Zhu Mei, Deng Maolin, Chen Zhaolan and other generals in charge of the camp with their servants were looking at the large group of Jiannu cavalry appearing a few miles away. Li Hao led the Caos, Wu Sangui and their servants to gather at the enemy tower fifty steps west of the city gate tower.

There is a city circle in front of the city gate tower, which blocks the view a bit. The enemy tower protrudes about one step out of the city wall, which makes it more convenient to observe the enemy situation below the city.

Man Gui, the most senior military officer in the city, was in charge of the south side and concurrently commanded the four sides and supported the southeast corner. Therefore, he was stationed near the south city wall. At that time, the Jiannu had not appeared for long, and Man Gui had not yet set out to head north from the south city wall, which was a mile and a half away.

Of course, it is also possible that the whole town will not come to the north city wall. After all, according to the speed of the Jiannu cavalry, they will soon go around to the south to show off their strength.

"All eight banners have arrived. It looks like the old rules will be followed. Two yellow banners will besiege the north, two red banners will be in charge of the west, and the east and south walls will be guarded by two white and two blue banners respectively."

Cao Wenzhao pointed at the Jiannu cavalry with distinct colors and spoke to everyone.

"Is there such a saying?" Li Hao thought it was quite interesting. "Doesn't that mean that the most Tartars need to be dealt with in the north and south?"

The two yellow flags have more than sixty Niulu in total, the Bordered Blue Banner has over sixty Niulu, plus the twenty-one Niulu of Manggurtai's Plain Blue Banner, there should be more than eight thousand Zhen Tatars and bondservants from the two flags coming to attack the city from the south.

"Yes, so Manzhen is responsible for the defense of the southern city wall. But the Bordered Blue Banner will not be mobilized in full force. The area from the Yalu River estuary to Jinzhou is the territory of the two Blue Banners. Maozhen still has several thousand capable soldiers. In addition, there are many Han people who are familiar with the internal affairs of the Jiannu in Dongjiang. Therefore, the Bordered Blue Banner will generally leave about 20 Niulu to patrol everywhere to prevent any changes. Amin, the leader of the banner, usually stays in Shenyang."

Cao Wenzhao is still reliable, and he explains these details very clearly.

Pointing to the convoy in the northwest direction, Li Hao asked: "What kind of artillery is in there? Can it threaten the city wall?"

The Later Jin Dynasty only had a large-scale artillery army under Huang Taiji, which was mainly composed of the surrendered Ming army such as Kong Youde's army and Geng Zhongming's army. The sources of its artillery and bird guns were mainly self-cast and captured, and sometimes they would purchase fire guns from Korea.

It is still the old slave era, and the main combat methods of the Eight Banners cavalry are short-range bow shooting and pig-rushing charges. They should not have a large number of artillery, but it is possible that there are some good light artillery in the gift packages sent by the Ming army in the previous battles.

That's why Li Hao asked this question.

"Maybe there are small Portuguese cannons or tiger cannons. Before the Liao incident, the cannons used by the Ming Dynasty were mainly used to defend against the Mongolian Tatar cavalry archers. They shoot quickly and have a small amount of gunpowder. There are many small cannons in Guangning, and they are all in the hands of the Tatars now."

As he spoke, Cao Wenzhao pointed to the moving shield carts in the distance. "Most of the carts pushed by the Eight Banners' baoyi were shield carts of this type, and the ox carts were mainly equipped with ladders, which shows that they didn't bring many artillery, or even none. The Tartars themselves don't know how to use artillery, and most of the baoyi are the remnants of the Liaodong military households, and they basically don't know how to operate artillery."

"Then I'm relieved. When the Tartars attack the city, they will just climb up the ladders and fight back. I will guard one ladder by myself and kill every Tartar who comes up. I will make the Jiannu army bleed like a river!"

This kind of city defense battle is most suitable for Li Hao to display his current strength. In fact, he is at a disadvantage in field battles because he is not as good as his opponent in bows and arrows and can only take the shots. If the warhorse he is riding falls, he will be beaten unilaterally.

While they were talking, a large group of Jiannu troops had already set up camp in a flat area four or five miles northwest of the city wall. The people working were mainly bondservants who were not wearing armor. Some Jiannu bannermen also dismounted and took off their armor to work.

It seems that the phenomenon of Han people fleeing is indeed serious. Most of the working bannermen are blue-armored, that is, Tatars from the two blue banners.

While the large group of troops were setting up camp, a small number of galloping Jiannu cavalry began to circle the city wall, occasionally shooting arrows at the flags or Ming soldiers on the wall, mumbling something in Mongolian, Manchu, and Yuskin Tatar.

There was a sudden commotion at the city gate tower. Li Hao and others turned around and saw that it was Man Gui who had arrived with dozens of generals and more servants.

After the newly arrived Man Zhen observed the situation briefly, the flag bearer in front of the city gate tower began to wave his flag, but was interrupted by several people who rushed out. The flag bearer and the flag officer were at a loss. There was a brief chaos in front of the city gate tower, and then the three or four people who interrupted the flag bearer ran towards the northwest artillery and soon passed by Li Hao.

What surprised General Li was that these four men were wearing cotton robes and did not look like soldiers or servants, but rather like servants of some high-ranking official.

When the four men ran away, Wu Sangui introduced them to his godfather like he was presenting a treasure: "These are all servants of the Daoting Yamen. The one leading them is called Luo Lisu. He is a family member brought over from Guangdong by Yuan Chonghuan. He usually behaves very erratically and domineeringly."

The "family" in ancient times did not mean the family mentioned by the anchors in later generations, but private slaves. The sons of slaves who also served the master were called house-born children.

"Why send these people over? Does Yuan Chonghuan want to take some credit for his servants?"

Li Hao felt puzzled.

Cao Bianjiao snorted coldly, "General, you can see clearly that officials try their best to bring money home and take whatever they can. Those who don't take anything home like Zhang Taiyue are all upright officials."

Zhang Taiyue was Zhang Juzheng, the prime minister during the Wanli period. After his death, the Wanli Emperor confiscated his property, but only found items worth more than 10,000 taels of silver. At that time, he had a very good reputation among the people. After the court restored Zhang Taiyue's reputation in the second year of the Tianqi reign, all parties further raised their opinions of Zhang Juzheng.

"This Yuan Dudu should have made more than this. Sangui, my son, tell your godfather whether Yuan Bingxian has interfered with your family's business?"

Li Hao narrowed his eyes and asked with a smile.

The Later Jin's move this time was very strange. He had always felt that it was very likely that someone from the Guanning Army had sent information to the old slave, and there was a high suspicion that the Liaohai smuggling side had passed on the information.

"Godfather, my last name is Wu, and my Zu family is just a relative." Wu Sangui was stunned for a moment, then pretended to be relaxed and natural. "My Zu family only does a small business of reselling grain, cotton, oil, tea and other supplies from Tianjin Wei, Denglai and other places. How can the military and military governor be interested in this?"

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(End of this chapter)