Chapter 3 Temptation
"Since the Tartar scouts are bound to attack, let's go to Tashan Fortress and wait there to avoid wasting our energy."

After a meal before setting off, Li Hao's health points recovered to 30. After two hours of riding, it dropped by another 2.6.

Several servants also agreed with this approach, so Li Hao led his men to the Tashan City on the hill.

During the Xuande and Zhengtong periods, the city defense system of Liaodong Town gradually took shape, forming a fairly tight defense system consisting of town city, citadel, thousand-household city, and fort city. Before the rise of the Jiannu, the Ming Dynasty had a total of 25 guards and 127 thousand-household cities in Liaodong, but not all of them had their own garrison cities. Most of them were together with the citadel, and only ten of them had separate garrison cities.

Up to now, there are four fortresses in western Liaoning controlled by the Ming army, namely Shahezhongyou Fortress, Qiantunzhongqian Fortress, Qiantunzhonghou Fortress, and Tashan Fortress.

The Songshan Thousand Households and Dalinghhe Thousand Households were nominally under the control of the Ming army. Last year, Yuan Chonghuan and Yuan Bingxian even sent people to rebuild Dalinghhe, but the governor Gao Yi withdrew the garrison troops north of Ningyuan as soon as he arrived.

The Tashan Fortress was much more magnificent than the Shahebei Fortress. It was one li long and wide, with a wall about two and a half zhang high, or eight or nine meters high. There was also an urn at the south gate, and the semicircular urn circle extended more than ten zhang. There were also square corner platforms with a side length of three or four zhang at the four corners, protruding from the wall.

The base of the city wall, which is about ten feet high, is built with six rows of stone slabs. On top of the stone slabs, there are stones inside the wall and bricks outside the wall. Between the bricks and stones is the wall core filled with rammed earth.

Riding a horse into the city wall, you can see a stone plaque on the south gate with the three characters "Guangding Gate" in Taige style. Further up is a stone slab with the words "Zhongzuosuo" inscribed on it.

"If Master Li and the brothers hadn't come, I would have packed up my belongings and retreated south right now."

Inside the city wall, a short and fat middle-aged soldier wearing a straight cloth armor and his subordinates came to greet the six uninvited guests.

"How many waves of Tartars did you encounter? How many people were there in each group? What's the situation at the other three gates? What supplies are left inside?" Li Hao asked as he rode his horse towards the city gate, hoping to extract some useful information from the short and fat soldier.

"Replying to Master Li, there is only one wave of Tartars, five of them, the leader is undoubtedly Bayala, the others are wearing red dark armor, they are from Daishan Tartar, they went to patrol the west after discovering us. I estimate that there will be five to six waves of such vanguard scouts tomorrow. There are twelve soldiers in my outpost, although there is such a big city as support, once the Tartars gather about six or seven teams, they will start to attack. The other three gates have been sealed from the inside, and they cannot be opened without hundreds of people. There are still some fodder and more than a dozen carts of food left in the station, which can't be transported away, so we are going to burn them tonight."

Western Liaoning was the front line between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty. The soldiers stationed here naturally understood the rhythm of the Jiannu's attack.

In order to ensure the safety of the cavalry during the charge, the old slave even asked the red bayalas and flagmen wearing double heavy armor to dismount and charge to the front of the Ming army under the fire of Weiyuan cannons, bird guns, general cannons, and red cannons, and then remove the chevaux de frise and roadblocks. In an empty city with only a dozen people stationed, the Tartar scouts had plenty of ways to climb in and chop people down.

"Your people just said that you are going to set out at twilight hour today. Aren't you afraid that the scouts will catch up with you and kill you in the middle of the night?"

Youshi is 5 o'clock in the afternoon. If you set out at this time, it will be completely dark before you have walked 20 miles.

This group of soldiers gathered near the South City Gate, wearing either straight cloth armor or split cloth armor, all of which looked very new. However, some soldiers' clothes looked a bit bloated, without the drape of cloth armor with armor plates, so the soldiers should have removed the armor plates and sold them for money.

When Sun Chengzong was in charge of Liaodong, he never lacked the Liao army's military pay, but the monthly pay for ordinary soldiers was only seven cents to one tael and four cents of silver, roughly the same as the price of one stone of grain. After eating and drinking, there was not much left. If the grain price rose, the soldiers had to find ways to get money and food themselves, and dismantling armor plates and selling them for money was a common method.

Li Hao rode his horse around and found that the soldiers in the camp had already packed their bedding and luggage for retreat. The entire team had only five horses, two camels and three ox carts, and they could not move fast at all. There was not much hope of survival if they set out this afternoon.

The short and fat soldier smiled helplessly, "Master Li, you don't know that the Tartars came too suddenly this time. There hasn't been such a big movement in three years. Our main force just left this morning, leaving us to guard for a day or two. Unexpectedly, the Tartars showed up in the afternoon. If we don't leave today, we will be trapped tomorrow morning. Fortunately, we all have a bird gun and a lot of long three-barreled guns. If these five Tartars catch up, we have a good chance of winning with the chariot guns. The Tartar scouts are only to clear the obstacles for the old slaves to advance, and they will not fight for us."

Judging from his bitter smile, he himself was not sure about what he said and he just said it to boost his courage.

Mingjia Bayala was a master archer and horseman, and he didn't need to charge, he only needed Qing bows and a pot of arrows to kill the soldiers. The Ming army's bird guns and long three-barreled guns had a shorter range than Qing bows, and they couldn't outrun the Tartars' fast horses, so they could only passively take the beating in the wild.

This group of soldiers was a microcosm of the Ming army outside the Great Wall. They could neither win a fight nor escape in a field battle, so they could only surrender. They might die later if they defended the city, but they were cut off from food and had to eat horses and people, which was almost death.

Li Hao suddenly had an idea. When the six of him were heading north, they did not find any trace of the Tartars. The Tartars probably did not know they were coming. Even if they knew, they might not care and would just start fighting in the wild.

He planned to use this group of people as bait to lure out that group or more Tartars.

"Since you are not afraid of marching at night, why not do this..."

He motioned the short and fat sergeant to come over and began to make arrangements.

……

"Goshha, those Ming soldiers have escaped. Should we chase them?"

In the shadow of a hill to the north of Tashan Fortress, a flagman wearing a red cloth armor asked.

Goshaha means personal soldiers and guards. The leader of this team of scouts, Bayala, is the Goshaha of the flag owner and has a very high status in the Zhenghong Banner.

"They are just a bunch of two-legged sheep. Killing them is a small achievement." The fleshy Bayala grinned. "They could have lived another day hiding in the city, but now they have given me a good meal. Gushan'e really praised me by letting me lead you to go out and scout the military situation. If we kill these Ming soldiers, it will be our first achievement in conquering Shanhaiguan, and we will have face in front of the Khan."

Gushan Ezhen was the leader of the banner, and the leader of the Zhenghong Banner was Nurhaci’s second son Daishan.

The other several bannermen were aroused by Bayala's words. In the Later Jin Dynasty, military merit meant wealth and status. Gushan Ezhen and the Khan were clear about rewards and punishments. Now that a war was about to begin, getting a small merit as an appetizer would be just what they wanted.

So they all started shouting and getting to work.

"Very good, Bashku. You take your men and outflank them from the east, and attack the post road in the south. Give me a pot of your arrows, and I will shoot arrows and kill them alone."

The effective killing range of the Qing bow is 10 to 20 steps longer than the Ming army's outdated muskets. Bayala is confident that with his archery skills, he can force the Ming soldiers with horses to escape first, thus causing the Ming army to fall apart and facilitating their pursuit.

Bashiku means leader or team leader in Chinese. He is a small chief under each Niulu. Except for Bayala who was sent by the flag owner to strengthen the combat power, the remaining four people in this team of scouts are Bashiku and the flag soldiers under his name. They know each other well and cooperate well.

After discussing a strategy, the five Tartars mounted their horses and rushed towards the south in the cold wind that had become biting again.

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(End of this chapter)