Chapter 67: Withstand the Power
There are different opinions about the origin of the Qing bow, but what is certain is that a recurve bow with a short string pad was popular in the left wing of Mongolia and the Northeast region in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The improved version of this recurve bow became the hunting bow used by the Jianzhou Jurchens in hunting in the mountains and forests, and it matured during the war in which Nurhaci unified the Jurchen tribes.

When all the 25 guards of Liaodong were in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, there were many bow makers in Liaozhen who were able to make recurve bows similar to the Jiannu bows, and very few Ming Dynasty servants were privately equipped with such bows.

By the time the Liaozhen only had the Liaoxi Corridor, almost all the bow makers who could make Jiannu bows were on the Later Jin side. The ordnance of the Ming border troops were all made by craftsmen in the interior. The demands of the border soldiers could not be heard by the craftsmen who made the ordnance at all, so it was impossible to imitate the Tatars and build an army composed of heavy arrows and large bows.

“It’s really a surprise.”

Li Hao has a plan to capture able-bodied men from the territory of the Savage Jurchens. After capturing the Sauron soldiers, he will pick out some who are hunters. After a few months of training, they will be able to form a bow and arrow formation like the Eight Banners.

Although it is possible to seize Qing bows on the battlefield, it is not as stable as hiring bow makers to build them. With the Ming Dynasty's abundant manpower, it is not too difficult to organize bow makers to imitate Qing bows.

He asked Wu Sangui: "Are these Jianzhou Tartars or Han Chinese from Liao?"

Hetuala was Nurhaci's second capital and the place where he proclaimed himself Khan. At that time, the Later Jin had not yet annexed the Haixi Jurchens.

Therefore, it is impossible for the Haixi Jurchens to be settled here, but there are quite a few Haixi Jurchens in Jiefan City.

"There are some, mostly Han people. But these Han people are not as good as the Haixi Tartars in Gaizhou City. They were all reluctant to surrender when they saw us attacking them."

This place is located in the remnant of Changbai Mountain. The Han people who have lived near Hetuala for generations have long been assimilated into the Hu people, and are actually not far from the Jianzhou Jurchens.

"They will be much more obedient after a good lesson." Li Hao thought for a moment and instructed Wu Sangui: "Have you captured the Tartars in the camp? Let them first pledge their loyalty. Send another twenty people to watch over these bow makers and urge them to pack up their belongings. You know the time we will set out."

If we march along the Hunhe River Valley, Hetuala is 340 miles away from Shenyang, and 160 miles away from Sarhu.

The 180-li distance from Shenyang to Sarhu took Du Song's 25,000 men about five and a half days to walk. The Eight Banners had many soldiers and horses, and there were villages and forts along the way to replenish rations and bean fodder. The several thousand cavalry could probably reach the destination in about two days.

Including the three days it took for the Tartar who escaped today to report the news to Shenyang, this group of Ming troops only had five days of free time to deal with the three cities of Hetuala, Sarhu and Jiefan.

These three cities were once the capitals of the Later Jin Dynasty. Now that he had fought his way here, Li Hao was unwilling to leave without destroying the cities.

According to Marshal Yue Fei, this is called attacking the Yellow Dragon directly; according to the practice during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, this is called plowing the courtyard and sweeping the holes.

But something seems wrong. Why do we have to go to Huanglong?
This Nanchang guy is very good at fighting.

Wu Sangui took the order and left.

Half an hour later, Zu Kuan and others summarized the situation of the surrendered civilians and soldiers in the entire Hetuala and reported it to General Li.

"Keep all the blacksmiths, bow makers and their families, and the rest, whether Han or Jurchen, will be sent to me. As usual, measure height with the wheel. Let Yongxi come this time, and Sangui go do something else."

Then, General Li summoned his generals, including Cao Xiao, Cao Da and Cao Da, as well as Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, who had recently joined from Kuandian and other places, to discuss the destruction of the city.

"Besides burning it, is there any other way to quickly destroy this city? It would be best to demolish both walls at once."

The commander ordered everyone to think of a solution.

"It's enough to demolish the houses and burn them. If we had gunpowder, we might be able to tear down a few sections of the city wall. But the Tartars are short of gunpowder, and we can't find much in Jianzhouwei."

Wu Sangui said nonsense.

"General, let's burn the gates and towers and leave the rest of the walls alone. We can't stay here for long. The Tartars don't even have enough people to farm, so they probably won't send people to repair an empty city like this in the deep mountains and forests."

Cao Wenzhao gave his insights based on his own experience.

"But it's not a good idea to leave these city walls to the Tartars." Li Hao held his chin in his hand and thought, and finally came up with a good idea.

"Aren't city walls used for posting notices? Do you remember what I said before about the old slave selling his asshole? Find someone who has read books and write a few notices and post them on the city walls. We are all here, so let's discuss the words of the notices first."

It is impossible to destroy the city wall physically, so we can only destroy it mentally.

The generals were stunned, but then they reacted and started to put together their arguments one after another.

"It is important to know that the frontier is bitterly cold and the soldiers are often lonely. The generals are deeply concerned and they maintain military discipline to relieve their worries."

"As a foreigner from the frontier, it is inconvenient for me to enter and leave the military camp, so I pretended to be a servant to do something shameful."

Hearing this, Li Hao asked them to pause.

"Huang Long, you usually speak in a very elegant manner, how come you can't even use an allusion? You can't use the name of a servant. If the Han soldiers under the Tartars see this, they might think that the servants were fighting in the war. Isn't there an allusion called something, which specifically refers to the relationship between foster father and foster son?"

Huang Long said with a bitter face, "General, what I said was all learned from opera. It's too difficult for me to understand allusions, and I haven't learned it seriously from a teacher."

He felt that it would be more difficult for him to kill ten Tartars by himself.

The generals were at a loss as the room was full of rough men and they couldn't even think of a polite word.

"Godfather, it sounds like 'moth borer.'" Wu Sangui scratched his head for a long time and finally remembered the word.

He had the best family background among the group, and had studied seriously with a teacher for several years in preparation for taking the military examination in the future.

The phrase "the rice borer has a son, which is carried by a wasp" comes from the Book of Songs, Xiaoya. Ancient people often used "the son of the rice borer" to refer to an adopted son.

"You have read the book to your heart's content! You are doing shameful things under the guise of a moth. You can continue."

Because of their low cultural level, people can only use more colloquial sentences to describe this fact.

Fortunately, with the help of Huang Long, Wu Sangui and others, they were able to piece together a complete story.

"I am an ugly old slave, but fortunately I have strong teeth and a firm asshole, and can withstand great force. This beast has served me day and night, and has never slacked off for years."

……

"These are all rumors spread by word of mouth among the Liaodong military households. Since the Liao incident, all those who heard about it have been killed by this old slave. I hereby announce this so that everyone can hear it."

After putting together their speech, they found the surrendered civilians in the city who knew Manchu and ordered them to write the proclamation. Of course, the Chinese proclamation was written by Wu Sangui.

What followed was intense preparation. Li Hao, Li Yongxi and others tried the surrendered soldiers and civilians. Generals such as Cao, Cao Xueqin, and Zu Kuan led people to arrange firewood, charcoal, etc. Wu Sangui led people to prepare bilingual notices to be posted outside the city.

After nearly an hour and a half of hard work, most of the work was done. After everyone left the city with the war horses and supplies, Zu Kuan led his men to light fires everywhere and then quickly retreated.

Near the four gates of the outer city, there were more than a dozen notices about Nurhaci selling his ditches.

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(End of this chapter)