Chapter 91: The North Korean soldiers can still run

For Li Hao, who cleared the city walls and fought his way into the city, this battle was extremely easy.

There were about fifteen full-quota Niulu in the Bordered White Banner, which had the smallest population among the Eight Banners.

Since the Battle of Ningyuan, he and the Bordered White Banner have not had any large-scale head-on battles. The recent combat casualties of this banner were mostly concentrated in the siege of Ningyuan and the defense of Guangning.

As for the Southern Camp, about ten full-quota Niulu were withdrawn, and the frightened Du Du summoned all the remaining soldiers in armor to Haizhou City. There were about five hundred regular flag soldiers, six or seven hundred Solon soldiers, and Han soldiers in the city.

Most of the battle took place before dawn, and the soldiers of the Bordered White Banner needed to confirm each other's identities before deciding whether to shoot arrows. It was much easier for Li Hao who was alone. When he heard any noise, he would swing his whip and mace and hit the target until it was silent.

By daybreak, they discovered that only slaves who could not ride horses were left in the banner lord's mansion. After their masters such as Jala and Niulu'ezhen had all escaped, the members of the Bordered White Banner, who were loyal to the Later Jin, found horses at random and fled in all directions through the open east gate of the city.

A large number of people in the city who were concerned about their families and loyal to the Ming Dynasty surrendered.

Therefore, the biggest difficulty Li Hao faced was that the number of surrendered soldiers was far greater than his own.

He didn't even recognize their faces, but there were more than a hundred surrendered Han soldiers around him.

Many Haixi Jurchen soldiers also surrendered. Li Hao ordered them to take off their armor and hand over their weapons, and then sent them back to their homes. Those whose homes were not in Haizhou City stayed in the military camp first, waiting for the Ming army to take over.

"Don't worry about the city gates for now. Let those who want to escape run away. Let's go and occupy the banner owner's mansion first. Wang Youren, take these twenty or so people to the west wall, chop off all the heads of the Tartars over there, find long spears to stick them on, and place them on the top of the city. The more heads the better."

Li Hao issued the first order.

The leader of the Han army named Wang Youren took the order and left. He was originally a subordinate of Sun Degong and usually stationed in Yizhou. After Yizhou and Guangning were conquered by the Ming army, he had just been incorporated into the Han army of the Bordered White Banner a few days ago.

Sun Degong was the spy who secretly surrendered to the Later Jin during the Battle of Guangning. He took the lead in fleeing in the Battle of Pingyang Bridge, causing the Ming army to be directly defeated. Zu Dashou fled to Juehua Island after this battle.

The Jinzhou general wanted to capture Sun Degong and send him to Ningyuan, Qiantun, Shanhaiguan and other places to be skinned alive by the Liao people who fled. But Sun Degong knew that he had committed a serious crime, so he fled all the way from Yizhou to Haizhou. Now he probably followed the city guards to Liaoyang.

"The rest of you, follow me to the treasury of the Banner Lord's Mansion. Let's first count the belongings of the Bordered White Banner."

Li Haolong, holding a whip and mace, walked with the steps of a tiger and headed towards the warehouse with great momentum.

During the smuggling in Liaohai, Dongjiang Town mainly sold ginseng and other wild animals to Korea and Japan. Korea also sold grain, muskets and gunpowder to Dongjiang and Houjin. Houjin exported horses, chariots and other military equipment to Korea.

The roles played by Juehua Island, Tianjin, Denglai and other places in the Liaohai smuggling are much more complicated.

Tianjin and Denglai simultaneously smuggled various handicrafts produced in the Ming Dynasty to major northern forces. Their main buyers were still Japan across the sea, because Japan had silver mines and could afford extremely high purchase prices.

Even if a three-foot-long pot from Foshan is shipped to Japan, it can be sold at three or four times the original price.

Of course, in addition to silver mines, Japan also has a large number of copper mines. By transporting the copper to Shandong and other places in the Ming Dynasty and then minting it into private money, one can earn two or three times the cost. However, basically no ship is willing to bring copper back from Japan, which shows the profit of smuggling other goods.

Juehua Island was responsible for transporting southern goods from Tianjin, Denglai and other places. The main goods sold to the Later Jin were cotton from Songjiang Prefecture and fine silk from Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas.

What’s amazing is that the Later Jin actually sold horse-drawn carriages to the Ming Dynasty through Juehua Island, and they sold well in Tianjin and other places.

It may be that the Aisin-Gioro family believed that by selling the carriages to the Ming Dynasty, they could reduce the number of war horses in the Nine Border Military Towns, thereby causing a decline in the Nine Border Field Combat Strength.

He kicked open the door of the warehouse and ordered several Han soldiers to go in and explore the way. After confirming it was safe, Li Hao strode in with a mace in one hand and a captured sword in the other.

The warehouse had been raided several times by the fleeing White Bannermen. Shelves and wooden boxes were scattered all over the floor. It was obvious that all the valuable and portable items had been taken away.

"General, these are the only pieces of cloth Curry has."

The first few Han soldiers who entered brought the valuable cloth to the general.

Li Hao took a closer look and smiled with satisfaction.

These cloths were mainly cotton, and there were two pieces of velvet, which were almost all standard pieces, four feet three inches wide and thirty feet long.

Cotton cloth could be fooled by the fact that Jin could grow cotton on his estate and make it himself. This kind of velvet cloth is only produced in Zhangzhou, Fujian, Nanyang and other places, and is an essential fabric for making high-end clothing.

This alone is strong evidence that the forces on Juehua Island were smuggling to the Later Jin.

The reason for excluding Denglai, Tianjin and other places is simple. Even those pigs in the court understand that the merchants in Tianjin and Denglai make more profits by smuggling to Japan.

Li Hao, who was still not satisfied, searched the warehouse again for a long time, but found no other objects from the south. Only then did he lead the surrendered soldiers out of the warehouse.

After waiting for about half an hour, his servants arrived on horseback.

The general of Jinzhou then had the leisure to send people to manage the surrendered soldiers and take over the city gates and stables.

Similar to when he took over Gaizhou before, some of the Jianzhou Jurchen families were quite stubborn. Only after Li Hao personally led his troops to visit them to express their condolences did these families calm down.

After that, everything will remain calm until the body stinks and rots.

After dealing with the troublemakers in the city, the entire Haizhou City was basically controlled by this group of servants and surrendered Han soldiers. After Li Hao ordered the more stable Cao Wenzhao to take charge of all matters in the city, he took Wu Sangui and several other confidants out of the city in a low-key manner.

He went to the west to greet the generals' servants who were about to arrive. If he encountered any blind Tatar cavalry, it would add to his beheading count.

...In front of a hillside west of Haizhou City.

Nearly three thousand Ming army servants were divided into three groups: left, center and right, roughly forming a "品" formation, and officially started fighting with the Tatars from the South Camp who were charging towards them.

The old general Zhao Lushi, wearing cloth armor, was waiting at the top of the hill with the remaining 400-odd servants, acting as supervisor of the army and as reserve reinforcements.

The group of servants behind him were wearing fine armor and riding relatively tall war horses. They were the elite among the servants of the generals at Shanhaiguan. They could fight against the Tartar Bayara guards, but unfortunately their numbers were small.

Even for the Ming army's servants, fighting with their backs to mountains and rivers was the best choice during field battles.

The attacking formation of the Nanying Tartars on the opposite side was not very organized. They just roughly arranged a three-layer cavalry formation, which surrounded the three parts of the Ming army in an arc shape. Then each Niulu Ezhen personally led the guard Bayala to launch the charge. Their flag men were like the wings of a bird of prey, following their master to shoot arrows and charge.

Before the Ming general Li Hao emerged, this style of fighting was the favorite of the Eight Banners generals.

Although it was a bit crude, it was very effective and had many successful battles. The most famous one was when the great prince Daishan led dozens of his cronies to attack first, followed by two red flag soldiers, and they broke through the square formation arranged by the Ming general Malin in one fell swoop.

"Not good, not good!"

Zhao Lujiao observed the situation and shook his head repeatedly.

After the Tartar army rushed up, the Ming Dynasty's "品" army formation basically maintained its position. Many Tartars rushed into the gap between the left and right wings and the central army. So the three Ming armies took the initiative to move closer to each other and used vertical rows of servants to clear out the Tartars in the gap.

This Ming army set out early, and when the Tatars in the South Camp discovered it, they quickly mobilized their cavalry to chase after them.

There were about two thousand seven or two thousand two hundred and eighteen white-armored Tartars who joined the battle first, and the number of Ming army servants temporarily prevailed.

However, many of the Jinzhou army's servants were newly recruited Mongolian soldiers. Not only were they afraid of fighting, they were also restless in the army.

Fortunately, the low-level officers such as the squad leaders, flag commanders, and captains among the Jinzhou servants suppressed the situation well and managed to maintain the army's formation.

What Zhao Lujiao was worried about was that these newly recruited Yi Ding troops would not be able to withstand the subsequent charge of the Tatars. As time went on, more and more Tatars arrived at the Nanying camp and completely surrounded and killed them here.

The commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan was considering whether to take this elite force with him to directly participate in the battle and resolve the battle as quickly as possible before the entire army moved towards Haizhou City.

But he was also worried that after this Ming army joined the war, the Tatars in the South Camp would also send several hundred cavalrymen. By then, the Ming army would be entangled by the Tatars and the situation would become even more embarrassing.

I don’t know how General Li was able to kill people right under the noses of the Tartars in the South Camp every day.

"That's all. You guys load the three-barreled gun with gunpowder, and when I fire the gun, we'll go down the hill and fight fiercely."

The general of Shanhaiguan was actually very reckless. Even if there might be a large group of Tartar soldiers coming to support him, he would want to kill the group of Tartars at the bottom of the slope first.

"Report~" A scout cavalryman rushed over from behind the hillside, "General Li is leading his troops to come back for support, not far behind me."

Zhao Lujiao's spirits were lifted. Li Hao has always been a daring fighter. With his arrival with troops, the situation here immediately became lively.

"How many soldiers did General Li bring?"

The general of Shanhaiguan asked.

"Five in total!" The one who answered him was Li Hao himself.

Holding two maces and riding a large horse, the Jinzhou general had a flushed face and rode up to the veteran general Zhao Luejiao.

"You guys fought well." He praised first, then suggested: "It looks like we can hold this place. There are quite a few infantry Tartars chasing us from the west. I'll deal with the ones that can't run fast first, and then come back to deal with this group."

Li Hao pointed at the pursuers who had just appeared from behind a hill.

The old general bowed and said, "Since there is no need to worry about the pursuers, leave this to me. I will lead the army to rescue General Li within two quarters of an hour."

The soldiers and civilians in the camps near the Liaoxi Corridor all knew that the fierce general Li Shuai could charge into the battle alone. Zhao Lushi was not worried whether the Jinzhou general could stop all the reinforcements from the Tartars. As long as they could hold them off for a while, the dilemma on this hillside would be resolved.

He also became the general of Shanhaiguan due to his military achievements.

Li Hao, holding two maces, also bowed and led his cronies including Wu Sangui straight towards the Later Jin soldiers who were rushing to the battlefield on foot.

Since the Eight Banners didn't even provide horses to this group of soldiers, it means that they were newly formed dead soldiers.

The good news is that this group of dead soldiers did not bring any special weapons such as fishing nets and hooks to target Li Hao. They only brought conventional weapons such as spears, swords, and muskets to deal with the Ming army's servants.

The bad news is that many of these dead soldiers were musketeers brought from North Korea by the two blue flags.

It is well known that North Korean soldiers are very good at running when they are fleeing.

Hunting down North Korean soldiers is a huge challenge.

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(End of this chapter)