national surname chiming

Chapter 337 The Dust Settles
What should come will come, although because of Zhu Shuren's butterfly effect, the situation in the north of Ming Dynasty after Chongzhen's death has been messed up a lot, and a considerable part of the power has been drawn away from all parties.

But Li Zicheng, Wu Sangui, and Dorgon's respective states of existence predestined them to have such a decisive battle in the end.

Compared with the same period in history, it is nothing more than a change in the course and situation of the decisive battle—from a short decisive battle that lasted only one day to a semi-protracted battle that lasted at least ten days.

The total strength of Li Zicheng's party was a little weaker than that of the same period in history.The number of troops was already reduced by more than 3, and they were still bleeding for many days under the fortified city of Shanhaiguan.

The exchange ratio of siege warfare is obviously much more severe than that of field warfare.As Li Zicheng's attacker, in the ten-day bloody battle, the loss ratio was almost five for one. Wu Sangui's side had only a few thousand casualties, but Li Zicheng's side had at least [-] to [-] casualties, and their morale was also low. There are many former Ming troops who surrendered and fell into instability again.

However, the prolongation of time has also made up for Li Zicheng's initial fault of underestimating the enemy in history——

Li Zicheng's investment was really insufficient in the history of a stone war. He obviously had hundreds of thousands of troops, but he felt that Wu Sangui was not enough to worry about. Considering the difficulty of logistics supplies, he refused to put all the main force on him, and the lion fought the rabbit with all his strength.

Now, after losing the first battle with Wu Sangui, Li Zicheng added troops one after another, which made his combat power in the front line of Shanhaiguan increase by at least several percent compared to the same period in history.

Of course, this increase in troops is not without cost.As mentioned earlier, the logistics of Chuangjun are really poor. If more troops are sent to the front line, it will inevitably exceed the logistics load and cause more chaos.

Some second-line troops and newly recruited young men will inevitably be hungry and full, and they may not be able to eat on time, which is really miserable.

On the other hand, after the increase of troops on the Shanhaiguan front line, once the Chuang army suffers a comprehensive defeat, it will be even more difficult for them to gain a foothold on the Hebei plain. push back.

The intruders who gathered at Shanhaiguan were the hardest "bamboo joints". When these bamboo joints were cut off, they would naturally "be solved after a few knots".

Finally, these butterfly effects will bring about an additional effect: this time, at least Dorgon will not be able to surprise Li Zicheng with a sneak attack on the battlefield.Li Zicheng was fully prepared for Dorgon who came by a detour. Even if there was a fight, he would deal with it in an upright manner, and he would not be caught off guard.

……

The wheels of history rolled over, and the bloody Shanhaiguan battle finally dragged on to the ninth day of February. Dorgon's [-] cavalry from the former Qing army finally arrived on the battlefield.

Li Zicheng, who had been unable to break through the bloody battle for many days, had to give up the attack half a day in advance, and turned to the state of attack.He still has 14 soldiers left, of which [-] are veterans of the direct line, [-] have returned to the Ming army, and [-] are cannon fodder.

In terms of numbers, at least [-]% of the troops from Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong were transferred to this battlefield.

And if it is calculated from the perspective of combat power, the proportion will only be higher, because more than [-]% of the old battalion elites are here.

In addition to the 14 battle-ready soldiers, there were 15 wounded soldiers in Li Zicheng's battalion, all of whom were lost in the past ten days.

Opposite him was 5 Dorgon cavalry from the northwest flank, including [-] full Eight Banners and [-] Mongolian cavalry.

Wu Sangui's nearly 5 horses have already lost several thousand people by now, and the remaining is barely about [-].

14 against [-], this is the comparison of forces before the final decisive battle.

"Dorgon is here after all. For the current plan, what should I do? Do we fight quickly or wait for Dorgon to attack?" On the eve of Dorgon's arrival, Li Zicheng also hastily summoned all his confidant generals and counselors, and urgently We discussed it.

Niu Jinxing, whom he regarded as a prime minister, stayed in Beijing, so the only ones he could mobilize in front of him were Liu Zongmin, Liu Fangliang and Song Xiance.Yuan Zongdi was also left behind by him to take charge of defense.

Among the three, Liu Zongmin, who has the most reckless temper, is also quite aggrieved these days, so he suggested to Li Zicheng to fight quickly:

"My lord, it's better for our army to turn around and concentrate our forces to defeat Dorgon first, so as to knock down the shrunken Wu Sangui. If it delays for a long time, I'm afraid our army's morale will be even lower, and the food road will be easily threatened by Dorgon's cavalry!"

Li Zicheng didn't express his opinion immediately. He felt that Liu Zongmin's statement of "quick battle and quick decision before morale is low" was right, but Li Zicheng didn't believe that "defeating Dorgon would be able to shock Wu Sangui and deter the opponent".

If Dorgon is defeated, I'm afraid Wu Sangui will be even more arrogant, thinking that a strong enemy will hurt both sides, and he will be more likely to sit back and reap the benefits!
Liu Fangliang on the other side saw the king groaning silently, and guessed that Li Zicheng did not fully agree, so he boldly pointed out some other risks:
"Your Majesty, don't be reckless! The Qing army comes and goes like the wind. If we ask for a battle, we may not be able to win the battle. Maybe instead I will advance and retreat, and be exhausted by dispatch.

Our army has a strong camp to defend, so why not attack and defend and change positions, so that we can take the opportunity to observe the relationship between the Qing army and Wu Sangui?

For example, if our army gives up the way for Dorgon to enter the pass, if Wu Sangui dares to open the city gate to let Dorgon enter the pass, Dorgon will gradually deprive Wu Sangui of his power after entering the pass, and the two thieves will inevitably be at odds, and a rift will gradually arise.

If you dare not, the two thieves will also have suspicions, and the Qing army still has no way to rest, and has to build camps outside the pass, so our army can take advantage of the unfinished camp to take advantage of its weakness!
After all, the Qing army is all cavalry. If we have not camped yet and we take the initiative to attack, they can still escape.If the camp has a certain size and we rush forward, they can only choose to fight or abandon the unfinished camp.Our army can't kill many soldiers in Dorgon, if we can take half of his camp, it can also severely damage the morale of the Qing army and boost the morale of our army! "

Liu Fangliang's words really made Li Zicheng a little fooled.He didn't expect that such an old and rough general would have a little bit of strategy, so he couldn't help but secretly nodded: "This statement sounds quite reasonable..."

The mobility of the Qing army is very strong. Although Li Zicheng has never fought against the Qing army, he also captured so many former Ming Dynasty frontier generals. The strength of the army.

The strongest of the Qing army is riding and shooting and maneuvering. If the camp is not established, it may not be possible to catch up by chasing and fighting.However, if the wooden piles and tents of the camp were constructed a little bit, when the fortifications were not completed and the fortifications were still in sight, if the Qing army ran away again, they would lose a lot of tents and even some cart sticks that were too late to take away. With supplies of cattle and sheep, the probability of the Qing army choosing to run would be greatly reduced.

This style of play that temporarily shows weakness first has a magical effect!
But Li Zicheng didn't know that these insights were so brilliant, naturally not Liu Fangliang thought of them himself, but during the time when the army was tackling key problems here and waiting for Dorgon, while Liu Fangliang was chatting with Song Xiance, Song Xiance had subtly analyzed a lot with him.

When the matter came to an end, Liu Fangliang combined his own knowledge and intelligence to speak out through secondary processing.

Song Xiance did this because he didn't want to make more enemies—since Liu Zongmin killed Chongzhen, Song Xiance didn't deal with Liu Zongmin in some previous strategies, and the relationship between the two parties became worse and worse.Song Xiance estimated that Liu Zongmin would definitely choose the most aggressive style of play if he was so reckless, but he urged caution and didn't want to be the first bird, so he pushed Liu Fangliang out.

Liu Fangliang lacked strategy and didn't have many opportunities to show his face in this regard, so he was willing to be a pawn.

Li Zicheng thought about it again, and felt that it was feasible, so he finally checked the omissions and made up for the vacancies, and asked Song Xiance: "What do you think the military advisor thinks?"

Song Xiance pretended to have a bowl of water and thought about it fairly for a long time, as if it was the first time he heard Liu Fangliang's words, and he didn't prepare in advance, so he said after a long time:

"As General Liu said, the art of war is well known. Why don't our troops temporarily defend the camp to show weakness and give way to observe the movement of the Qing army, induce them to set up camp, and then take advantage of the instability of their camp to attack!

However, there is one more thing to note: Although our army can show weakness and wait for changes, it should not wait and see for too long.Chen Su asked that since Huang Taiji, the Qing army changed the tradition of using Manchus as soldiers when the old slaves (nuerhachi) were in power, and preferred to use rebellious Hans as cannon fodder.

Now facing such a bloody battle, how could Dorgon really only fight with full soldiers?There must still be troops from the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty fighting hard and bitter battles, while the cavalry of the Eight Banners are only responsible for picking up leaks!
The Tartar infantry hadn't arrived yet, presumably it was just a detour from Jimen, and the Han army flag marched slowly.If it was delayed for another three or four days and the entire Tartar army was assembled, the battle would be difficult.Therefore, even if you wait and see to show weakness, it will be within a day or two at most. "

After Li Zicheng heard this, he felt more and more reasonable, so he gave orders to wait and see the changes for a day, and shrink back to show weakness to arrogate the enemy.

And Liu Fangliang next to him didn't realize that he was being used by Song Xiance. He thought that Song Junshi's ability to add these points in the end was entirely due to Song Junshi's excellent resourcefulness, and he thought of so many things temporarily.

As everyone knows, Song Xiance has pushed the responsibility completely away: it is not Song Xiance who makes him show weakness and wait for changes. On the contrary, Song Xiance just persuades Li Zicheng not to wait and see for too long, lest the enemy army merge.

When the time comes for this strategy to work, it will be Song Xiance's success in seconding the proposal.

If procrastination really caused the Qing army to merge, he, Song Xiance, had already warned of the risk.It is Liu Fangliang's original version that is too poor. He Song Xiance "corrected the BUG on the Shishan code, and it is already very good to be able to do this step by tinkering."

It can only be said that people who have been fortune tellers for many years like to be ambiguous and leave room for retreat.When fooling people, he was stunned for a while, and if the matter failed, he would not be able to hold him accountable.

……

The Qing army left the pass for more than [-] miles and went to the village. Wu Sangui also provided enough supplies. Seeing that Li Zicheng was so timid, Dorgon rarely gave birth to more underestimation of the enemy.

But then, in just one day, the situation changed dramatically—Li Ziguo, as planned by Song Xiance, chose to let the Qing army rest for a day, and then launched an attack that night when the camp was not stable.

Dorgon's Qing army was fairly well-guarded, with a large number of cavalry patrolling the night in batches, so it was impossible to be attacked by surprise. Li Zicheng's night attack troops were still halfway there when they were discovered by the Qing army.

But the sudden attack also made Dorgon very depressed: it was late at night, and Wu Sangui must not have dared to open Shanhaiguan and close the gate rashly to respond when the enemy's situation was unknown.

And when Dorgon came this time, he had made up his mind to take advantage of the maneuverability of the Qing army's cavalry. When the enemy advances, we retreat, and when the enemy is tired, we fight. The main force of the injury, and Wu Sangui finally took advantage of the two-lose fight?

If Dorgon was really determined to fight to the death, his [-] Manchu and Mongolian cavalry would still have a good chance of pushing Li Zicheng back, but he didn't have this motivation and was unwilling to take the damage.

After a fierce and short offensive and defensive fight, Dorgon resolutely chose to temporarily abandon the camp that Wu Sangui had just subsidized to help him build half of it, and led the main force of the cavalry to retreat to the northwest, further increasing the distance, in order to fight again.

In the night of bloody fighting, the Qing army also suffered 2000 casualties, and the invaders who attacked the camp suffered even more casualties, probably close to 5000.

In terms of exchange ratio, the raid on the army and the robbery of the camp cost more than twice as many casualties, which is really not a good fight.However, they captured half of Dorgon's camp and obtained a lot of supplies, as well as some food, wine and meat that Wu Sangui had just allocated to Dorgon this morning, which greatly boosted the morale of Li Zicheng's army.

Dorgon and Wu Sangui, neither of them wants to be the one who stands in the front and resists damage!

This mentality can be regarded as being grasped by Song Xiance.Li Zicheng's only chance in theory is to take advantage of Duo and Wu's selfishness of beggar-thy-neighbor!
……

However, Dorgon is a big business after all, so if he loses a night battle temporarily and loses a batch of camps and supplies, it will not hurt his bones at all.

In fact, he chose to retreat entirely because he couldn't bear to kill his direct line troops. The next day when the sky brightened, the Qing army re-stabilized their positions and counted their troops. The loss was not much.

Coming and going like the wind, too many people retreat without dying, which also shows that the military discipline of the Qing army is terrible, which is far more rare than winning a battle with a favorable wind.

After stabilizing his position, Dorgon also summoned the military advisers under his tent and the main generals to discuss the next strategy.

Fan Wencheng, a Han civil official accompanying the army, also gave him some well-regulated ideas in time:

"My lord, it's better for our army to plan slowly, wait for the infantry and artillery from the rear to arrive, and join forces to fight again. In addition, the intruders are far away, and the food supply is poor. Even if we temporarily rob a battalion of our army, we will get a few more days of rations. It probably won't last.

Our army's cavalry is strong, and they cut off the food roads in Ningwei and Changli counties along the Liaoxi Corridor. In less than half a month, Li Zicheng was bound to retreat.When the time comes, then cover up and kill them later, you can win a complete victory!
We can also send a messenger to question Wu Sangui, and make an agreement with him that our army will cut off the food road for the robbers, and when they are exhausted, order Wu Sangui to send troops out of the customs and chase the intruders head-on!If Wu Sangui fights again, he will betray the alliance!At that time, don't blame me for sending another army from the northeast to attack Shanhaiguan! "

After hearing this, Dorgon felt that it made sense, so he immediately ordered the troops to recruit.

After being reminded by Fan Wencheng, he also realized that at this stage, he had more bargaining chips for Wu Sangui than before——

When Wu Sangui first negotiated with him, the reason why he was able to hold on to the town without fear was because Li Zicheng would attack Shanhaiguan at any time, and Li Zicheng was closer to Shanhaiguan than Dorgon was.Once Dorgon's treachery angered Wu Sangui, Wu Sangui could escape directly by sea and dedicate the dangerous pass to Li Zicheng.

But now, Dorgon has personally led his troops to detour from Jimen to enter the pass, and is approaching to rescue Shanhaiguan.In the future, if Li Zicheng's food path can be cut off, Li Zicheng is forced to retreat, and Li Zicheng's threat to Shanhaiguan is removed, then Wu Sangui's bargaining chip on the fence will also disappear.

At that time, Li Zicheng's army will be hundreds of miles away from Shanhaiguan, and Wu Sangui just wants to dedicate the pass to Li Zicheng, but he can't do it!The east and west directions of the Guanqiang are the Qing army, and Wu Sangui is the turtle in the urn!I can only listen to him, Dorgon!
Therefore, Wu Sangui wanted to use opportunistic tricks to preserve his strength, so he let him run rampant for at most half a month. When Li Zicheng turned to retreat, Wu Sangui's chips were exhausted!

Dorgon had no intention of sticking to his peace agreement with Wu Sangui for a long time at all, he just wanted to wait for the other party's use value to be squeezed out, and then go straight ahead.

It can only be said that in the Northeast battlefield in February 17, the forces of all parties were shameless villains who did not intend to keep their promises!Everyone is ready to stab the opponent who has signed the armistice treaty at any time!

……

After Li Zicheng won a small victory in the camp, he was immersed in joy for a while, and he was also proud of having captured the camp and some supplies.

But there were also sober people around him, and Song Xiance soon realized that if the Qing army could be defeated without being damaged, and just retreat in an orderly manner to create a distance, the threat to the Chuang army would be too great.

Early the next morning, he met Li Zicheng and pointed out that he must beware of the Qing army using cavalry to detour and cut off the grain road.

Within the Shanhaiguan Pass, the Liaoxi Corridor is a narrow and barren area of ​​a hundred miles, and the coast is easily cut off everywhere, so we have to guard against it.

After Li Zicheng heard this, his thoughts became serious and he had to take it seriously.He didn't have any good solution, now that Dorgon had arrived, he was in a corner, and if he wanted to break through the barrier by force, he had little hope, the more the stalemate would be, the more disadvantageous it would be.

After weighing, Li Zicheng chose to feint again, and sent the former army to approach the newly established camp after Dorgon had temporarily retreated, and threatened Dorgon to a decisive battle.

Dorgon wanted Wu Sangui to consume first, so naturally he would not play, but his morale was boosted by Chuangjun.

Unexpectedly, Li Zicheng was still showing off his might during the day, but at night, the whole army suddenly pulled out of the camp and retreated gradually. Dorgon didn't notice for a while, but Li Zicheng was beaten by Li Zicheng's time lag, and retreated safely to Funingwei.

Dorgon was angry and anxious, and the next day he quickly sent cavalry around to intercept and intercept Li Zicheng's retreating forward troops.Li Zicheng could only walk slowly in formation like Li Ling retreated from the Huns, and he could only travel twenty or thirty miles a day, keeping his guard and retreating.

The two sides fought several fierce and small-scale scout battles.Whenever the cavalry of the Qing army caught the opportunity to relax, they would rush up and shoot.When the left and right sides of the Chuang army surrounded them, the Qing army dropped dozens of corpses and retreated.If it happened more than a dozen times, Chuangjun was exhausted up and down.

And at this point, Dorgon also got enough bargaining chips, and sent people to force Wu Sangui to pursue him with elite soldiers!Otherwise, it will be regarded as a betrayal of the alliance!Shanhaiguan has been captured by the Qing army!
Wu Sangui also found out that as Li Zicheng retreated past Funingwei and retreated to Changli County, he was surrounded by Dorgon in all directions, and he really had no leverage other than abandoning the pass and fleeing across the sea.

He also had to prudently dispatch [-] elite troops, including [-] veterans of the Guanning Army, and [-] former troops of Tang Tong and Bai Guangen, from Shanhaiguan to follow Li Zicheng in pursuit.

Wu Sangui still has 2 soldiers and horses, but the more than 5000 newly recruited men are unbearable in field battles and can only defend the city.Therefore, Wu Sangui had to leave all the recruits and thousands of veterans to guard the house. The elite field troops he could draw were only [-].

After many days of fighting, the two sides finally broke out in a decisive battle near Changli County.

After many days of pulling and cutting off food, the morale of the Chuang army gradually declined and their condition was not good.

And since entering Beijing, those newly attached troops who surrendered from the Ming armies on three sides of Hebei in the Chuang army were mostly disturbed by the plague that was prevalent in Beijing. The combat effectiveness of this part of the army has been greatly reduced.

The Qing army on the opposite side was less damaged by the plague because of the characteristics of nomadic cavalry.As for the Chuangjun troops who came from Shanxi and Henan, the damage from the plague was actually not too great. The main reason was that they had lived there for many years and they already had a certain degree of immunity.

The rat plague in the last years of Chongzhen was originally spread from Shanxi in the 14th year of Chongzhen, and spread to Henan and other places in the 15th year of Chongzhen.

Therefore, as long as the soldiers in Shanxi and Henan are still alive, they have already survived a wave of infections and have a certain degree of immunity. Only the soldiers in Hebei were infected only a few months ago, and their combat effectiveness is low.

But in any case, even if it is just a large number of infections in Hebei soldiers, the overall combat power of the Chuang army will be greatly weakened. After these days, the combat effectiveness of the Chuang army has at least dropped by more than [-]%.

The various factors ebb and flow.On February [-]th, while continuing to retreat eastward from Changli County, the Chuang army was finally harassed by Wu Sangui's pursuit. They couldn't bear it anymore and turned back, trying to fight a bloody battle with Wu Sangui's troops chasing them out of the pass.

Wu Sangui also didn't expect that Li Zicheng would suddenly give up and continue to retreat. Before that, because of paralysis for many days, he followed a little too close, and finally got entangled and had to fall into bloody ground meat.

The two armies fought hand-to-hand on both sides of the Hulu River in the southwest of Changli County.The reason why the Chuang army was able to turn around and fight successfully was also due to the fact that they had already assumed the posture of crossing the Calabash River.
But Wu Sangui saw that this was the first time when the enemy army was retreating slowly and the Wu army was chasing after him from afar, he seized the opportunity for the enemy army to attack at halfway, so he bit it tightly. Originally, he wanted to eat Li Zicheng who was the last to cross the river. rear army.

Most of the soldiers were able to pluck up their courage for the time being when the Chuangjun fought their backs. A small number of those who were timid and tried to escape by wading were either killed by their own people who supervised the battle, or were killed by Dorgon cavalry who had already camped on the southwest bank of the Hulu River in advance. .

The bloody battle lasted for most of the day, Wu Sangui's [-] elite soldiers suffered thousands of casualties, even the elite Guan Ning army could not withstand the onslaught of six or seven times the number of invading troops.

But Dorgon obviously wouldn't let Wu Sangui fall. In the afternoon, seeing that Wu Sangui had taken the main damage and exhausted all the stamina of the Chuang army, Dorgon seized the opportunity and let his tens of thousands of cavalry take turns to flank rush ahead.

The only fly in the ointment is that both sides are in mobile warfare, but the Hongyi cannons of this era have not been used in this kind of field warfare because of their difficulty in moving and slow deployment.
There are only a small number of fast and maneuverable Francophones, old-fashioned tiger squatting cannons, and various bird guns and fire guns, roaring and flying, killing the sky and the earth.

A bloody battle involving more than 20 people between the two sides finally lasted for a whole day on both sides of the Hulu River.

When the setting sun was like blood, the surface of the Hulu River was clogged with corpses.

In the middle of the second month of the lunar calendar, the ice flood in the north has not yet arrived, and the rivers in western Liaoning have not completely thawed.The remnants of the Chuang army were gradually exhausted, and they were able to step on the corpses and retreat across the river.

Li Zicheng personally led the army to fight bloody all day long. At night, he saw his 10,000+ army was cut into countless small pieces in this kind of shopping. He didn't know whether he was alive or dead, and he was also in despair. Finally, Liu Zongmin and Liu Fangliang put him on horseback. , Like a walking dead, stepping on the corpse to cross the river in the dark to break out and escape.

As for how many of his 14 people can return to Beijing, no one knows.

-

PS: The dog eats the dog without the leading role, just pass it by.At the beginning of the next chapter, I can finally write about the southern court.

How Dorgon seized Shanxi, Hebei, and parts of Henan and Shandong, I will not write in detail, but follow up with a few sentences to deduce, just visit Ma to report the bad news.

(End of this chapter)