Chapter 77 The fat sheep that came to your door [ views and more, please subscribe]

March 29th, Yizhou.

This city is located 120 miles north of Jinzhou. The original city wall retains 70% to 80% of its height, revealing the rammed earth in the middle of the wall. Large sections of the city wall have been demolished and the city gate has disappeared.

In the second year of the Tianqi reign, Yizhou was conquered by the Eight Banners and the city was destroyed. The Ming Dynasty did not organize troops to repair it. Occasionally, Mongolian herders would stay in the city.

There were quite a few Later Jin Han soldiers and their families farming nearby.

Upon learning that the Ming army was marching northward in large numbers, some Han soldiers of the Eight Banners near Yizhou fled to Guangning City with their families, and some returned to the Ming Dynasty.

"Li Shuai, are we just going to wait here for the Five Camps and the Tartars? Isn't that a bit reckless? Why don't we go directly to Guangning City? The city walls there are relatively intact, and there aren't many Tartars inside, only a few hundred."

Zhu Mei, who led his troops northward, was worried. Although he was always optimistic, he was not optimistic about the upcoming war.

You know, they only brought one battalion under Zhu Mei and more than 200 servants of Li Hao. Li Shuai's battalion was still on the way and it would take at least three or four days to reach Yizhou.

"No hurry. We have to stay in Guangning City for half a month before fighting. I want to whet the appetite of this old servant."

His general's flag had already started fighting in Jinzhou and other places. The demolition team sent by the Eight Banners was led by Haoge and Dudu. The two Tartars were rather timid and did not dare to rush to the vicinity of Jinzhou to demolish the city wall. They stayed near Xining Fort west of Sancha River and did not move, probably waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

Anyway, it only took Li Hao's servants an hour or two more a day to get from Yizhou to Jinzhou, which was enough time for them to return to the base camp for support before or after the arrival of the Eight Banners demolition team.

The commander insisted, and Zhu Mei could not refute, so he commanded the two thousand chariot camp soldiers to quickly enter the city, and organized the civilian laborers and some auxiliary soldiers to start repairing the city wall.

At the very least, the gaps must be built to a level that the Mongolian cavalry cannot directly cross.

Li Hao himself directed a dozen craftsmen to modify a catapult.

This is a medium-sized catapult. The rotating lever originally had only four poles. At the strong request of the commander-in-chief, the craftsmen are installing four additional poles to increase the upper limit of the weight of the bombs.

"Can this thing throw a 200-jin stone? How far can it throw it?"

While supervising the craftsmen's work, Li Hao asked questions.

The chief craftsman, Zhang Foreman, replied, "Maybe it can be thrown. I estimate that it can be thrown about fifty steps away."

"What do you mean by maybe? This is related to whether I can land accurately in the enemy's formation. If you build it well, won't I be able to kill the enemy general in one go?"

He saw this kind of catapult while marching northward, and decided to try this method of attacking from the sky.

The specific method was that he put on a simple parachute made of several cloaks, and then was thrown into the enemy camp with his weapons by a catapult.

This tactic was not very effective against the Mongols because the Mongol cavalry were much farther away from their opponents when they were in formation.

But fifty steps happened to be the starting distance for launching an attack when the Ming and Jin sides fought.

Of course, this style of play is more suitable for siege warfare.

As long as Li Hao was thrown up, one side of the city wall would be almost conquered.

There is no need to climb ladders and deal with rocks and manure, and the appearance posture is cool.

When Foreman Zhang heard this, he was so scared that his legs began to tremble.

"Li Shuai, do you want to use this trebuchet to throw people over? Absolutely not. Although it's only fifty steps away, one person will die with one throw. The corpse will be incomplete and the death will be extremely ugly."

He really couldn't understand why the coach would choose to do this.

"You guys fix it first. I'll try out the effect of throwing in the next two days and wait for the arrival of the cavalry from the five battalions."

Most of the Mongolian tribes that were affiliated with the Later Jin Dynasty were the Khorchin tribe north of Tongliao. The Inner Khalkha Mongolian tribe had an old leader with high prestige such as Chaohua in charge.

They neither paid attention to the Later Jin nor paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty, but only formed a loose alliance with the Chahar tribe, which also belonged to the 30,000 households of the Left Wing of Mongolia.

While urging the civilians and auxiliary soldiers to rebuild the city wall, Zhu Mei heard about the commander's actions and ran over to persuade him.

But after Li Hao demonstrated the fighting method to them and the soldiers in the camp, the attitude of this group of people changed immediately.

"How can ordinary people like us come up with such an ingenious way to attack a city?"

"Only General Li can leap over the enemy camp like this." "The Tartars will probably be so scared when they see this that they won't even shoot with their bows."

There were at least several hundred soldiers surrounding the camp. They had only heard of their commander's bravery, but after seeing the man with the catapult today, they were all full of admiration.

Li Hao was observing the decrease in health points.

From being thrown out to landing on the ground, his health points were reduced by 148 points.

The makeshift parachute made of cloaks had little effect, only slightly reducing the speed of descent.

According to his estimation, no Eight Banners archer would be able to target and hit the target in the second half of the throw.

This is the only benefit brought by the significant reduction in health points.

In the next four days, two pieces of good news arrived one after another.

First, the standard camp of the Jinzhou general finally arrived, which greatly increased the defensive strength of Yizhou City.

Second, Ligdan Khan of the Chahar tribe also sent people to the Ming army camp to convey his intention to form an alliance.

What Lin Danhan meant was that he could not swallow this humiliation because he had launched an expedition to the north to conquer the Khorchin tribe last year, but instead the tribe surrendered to the Later Jin.

It happened that at the end of March, the Inner Khalkha and Khorchin tribes joined forces to march south, preparing to join forces with the Later Jin to recapture the Mongolian tribes that were forced south by Li Hao.

Lin Danhan then decided to ally with the Ming Dynasty and defeat the two major Mongolian tribes that did not obey him as the Great Khan in one fell swoop.

Inside the military tent of Jinzhou Army.

"Your Khan is a man of vision, but my Jinzhou Army does not need him to lead the troops to help in the battle. Just let him block the area around the Great Wall in Liaodi and don't let any cavalry from the Five Camps and Khorchin escape."

Li Hao, wearing a mountain armor, replied to Ligdan Khan's envoy in this way.

Facing the fat sheep that came to his door, he maintained due courtesy before speaking.

No matter what Lin Danhan had in mind, at least until now, almost no one knew that Li Shuai was preparing to take action against Lin Danhan.

The Ming Dynasty had always supported the Chahar tribe and Ligdan Khan, so the nominal Khan of the grassland chose the right camp.

"Respected Marshal Li Hao, our Khan remembers your kindness. Before April 10, he will lead his army south and fight side by side with the Ming soldiers to kill these traitors who defected to the Later Jin."

The envoy, dressed in a Mongolian robe, placed his right hand on his left chest, bowed respectfully, and then sat on a chair at one side.

Before his Khan went south, the envoy would stay in the Ming army and communicate with the messenger cavalry who would arrive later.

After Zhu Mei sent his servant to escort the special envoy out, he advised the commander:
"This Lindan Khan is unreliable. If we lose, they might follow the Tartars and the five battalions of Mongolian soldiers to seize Jinzhou City. How about transferring two more battalions? Counting the days, the reinforcements from Ningyuan will soon arrive in Jinyou. If nothing unexpected happens, Marshal Man will personally lead three or five battalions to help us, and Marshal Zhao of Shanhaiguan will also take action. He can't sit still."

After the Battle of Ningyuan, the military generals of the Ming Dynasty gained confidence. They did not pursue large-scale field battles, but chose to defend the city on the city walls.

Although Jinzhou City was a bit damaged, it could still defend against small Tartar troops after some repairs.

The Tartars would only launch a major battle like the one on the 24th or 25th day of the first lunar month once every one or two years, and they would not be able to withstand more than a few.

"I am on guard against Ligdan Khan. The Later Jin Dynasty probably hasn't told the Mongols what I did in the Eight Banners. The Mongolian soldiers are still willing to fight. I will defeat these fence-sitters under the city of Yizhou."

There is a north-south corridor from Fuxin to Yizhou, with low hills on both sides. When the Mongolian cavalry was defeated, they could only flee northward.

According to Lin Danhan's character, he would not miss the golden opportunity to attack the Inner Khalkha and Khorchin tribes. His Chahar Army would most likely help the Jinzhou Army to block the Mongolian cavalry that was affiliated with the Later Jin.

Under such circumstances, the five major camps and the Khorchin coalition forces finally arrived at the city of Yizhou in a dusty state.

What Li Hao and the Jinzhou army did not expect was that there were Eight Banners soldiers wearing yellow cloth armor following the Mongolian coalition army.

"They are from the two yellow flags, about four or five Niulu, and they should be here to supervise the battle."

On the city wall of Yizhou, Zhu Mei gave his own judgment.

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(End of this chapter)