bullyxtreme Chapter 91 The Belated Sensation Throughout the Court
Chapter 91 The Belated Sensation Throughout the Court
Chapter 92 The Belated Sensation Throughout the Court
Chapter 091 "King Khan, King Khan————"
Seeing Nurhaci vomit blood and faint, the Jin generals and ministers around him were all horrified. Huang Taiji reacted quickly and caught Nurhaci, managing to prevent him from falling to the ground.
To Huang Taiji's astonishment, Nurhaci, the founder of the Jin Dynasty and a Khan who would not flinch even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, was now ashen-faced and breathing weakly.
Huang Taiji gritted his teeth and forcefully pinched Nurhaci's mouth, finally waking Nurhaci up. However, Nurhaci's eyes were glazed and his breath was barely a whisper.
Those around him dared not breathe. Nurhaci, after a full quarter of an hour, finally regained his strength. He glared at Daišan with bloodshot eyes and demanded, "Where are my—my—soldiers?"
Dai Shan's head was almost buried in the ground. He had only one thought in his mind: I shouldn't be here. I should die. But the problem was, it was too late when he wanted to die. His relatives were keeping a close watch on him and escorting him all the way back to Shenyang.
Finally, Nurhaci struggled to his feet. He pushed away Huang Taiji, who was supporting him, and slipped, almost falling. Dorgon rushed forward to help Nurhaci up.
However, Nurhaci did not give his beloved son a kind look at this moment, and angrily said: "Get out of the way!"
""
Nurhaci grabbed Daišan's arm and lifted him up from the ground: "Tell me, where are my soldiers? Where are my soldiers?"
To be precise, Nurhaci also accomplished a counterattack. When he started his rebellion in the eleventh year of Wanli (1583), he was just a branch of Jianzhou Left Guard, with a total population of about two to three hundred people.
This was a very weak force. At that time, he was just an insignificant chieftain within the Jianzhou Jurchen. Although Nurhaci was very small when he started his rebellion, the "Jianzhou Jurchen" as a large ethnic group consisted of five tribes: Suksuhu, Hunhe, Wanyan, Dong'e, and Zhechen.
By the time he rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, after annexing the Haixi Jurchens and plundering the Mongols and Han Chinese, the total population of the Later Jin Dynasty had surged to about 600,000, including a large number of captured Han Chinese and Mongols, as well as the Haixi and Wild Jurchens that had been annexed. The army that could be mobilized was about 100,000 men.
Since the first year of the Tianqi reign, the Jurchens have occupied Shenyang, Liaoyang, and the entire territory of the Twenty-Five Guards of Liaodong, including a part of Liaoxi. However, the problem is that although the Later Jin have achieved successive victories, the Jurchens are not invincible. They just did not count the armored men and Aha who died in battle. Although the Jurchens have now annexed the four tribes of Haixi Jurchens.
In reality, their main population had dropped from tens of thousands at the height of Jianzhou Guard, Jianzhou Left Guard, and Jianzhou Right Guard to less than 60,000. This attack resulted in more than 10,000 casualties. How could this not drive Nurhaci crazy?
This is equivalent to cutting off one-sixth of the population of the Jianzhou Jurchens.
Daišan dared not answer. Nurhaci, like a wounded beast, snatched the riding whip from his personal guard and began lashing Daišan's body indiscriminately. Each lash left a bloody welt, and as he whipped him, he roared wildly, "Where are my soldiers? Where are my soldiers? Give my soldiers back to me—"
Daishan was quickly beaten until he was covered in blood and gore, but he stubbornly endured it without daring to dodge or utter a sound.
This defeat was devastating. It not only cost the lives of over ten thousand elite soldiers and generals, but also destroyed the Later Jin's formidable reputation of being "unbeatable even with ten thousand men," and even cost the life of their own son.
Knowing the weight of his responsibility, Daishan dared not utter a sound. Even if Nurhaci beat him to death, no one would pity him. Amin was terrified. Nurhaci beat even his own son like this, so when it came to his nephew, he would be beaten to death. He hurriedly gave a wink to Nurhaci's youngest son, Dodo.
"Your second brother is about to be beaten to death!"
Dodo was only nine years old, still a child, and very easily fooled. He quickly ran over to block Nurhaci, crying out in a pitiful voice, "Father, stop hitting him! If you keep hitting him, you'll kill my second brother!"
"Get out of here!"
Nurhaci kicked his beloved youngest son away and then lashed Daišan several more times with all his might until Daišan lost consciousness.
Seeing Daišan unconscious, Nurhaci trembled and closed his eyes in anguish. He now faced a difficult choice. He had originally planned to take advantage of the Ming army's slow advance to solidify the relationship between the Inner Khalkha and the Khorchin Mongols and complete the alliance.
The problem is that with the resurgence of the Haixi Jurchens, he had to postpone his alliance with the Inner Khalkha Mongols. Now, if he were to turn around and lead the elite Jianzhou Jurchens to annihilate the Haixi Jurchens and Chen Boying's Ming army, without a doubt, the Jin Dynasty would suffer many more casualties, possibly in the tens of thousands.
Having already lost over 10,000 men, could the Jin Kingdom afford to lose even more?
If this Ming army is allowed to return, the morale of the people of the Ming Dynasty will surely soar. If the Ming court takes advantage of this opportunity to train a new army on a large scale, in just a few years, the Jin Dynasty will face a well-equipped and highly motivated new army of 100,000, 200,000, or even 1 million.
With only 600,000 to 700,000 people, did the Great Jin Dynasty have any chance of survival? Not to mention that letting this Ming army go back would be tantamount to admitting a complete defeat in this battle, which would have a huge impact on the prestige of the Great Jin Dynasty.
The problem is that the four banners on the right wing lost more than 10,000 men in this battle. More importantly, these four banners were rendered useless and had no strength to fight again in the short term. They were like the Ming army defeated by the Jurchens. Although the men were still alive, they had lost their spirit and could not even muster the courage to fight the Ming army.
This was the most fatal blow to the Jin Dynasty.
More importantly, the Inner Khalkha Mongols had a huge conflict with Ligdan Khan and wanted to form an alliance with the Jin Dynasty. However, Daišan suffered a defeat, which might cause the Inner Khalkha Mongols to change their minds and have a fatal impact on the alliance.
Nurhaci was indeed a great ruler, decisive in his actions. After weighing the gains and losses, he quickly made a decision: before the news reached the Inner Khalkha Mongols, he had to form an alliance with them as soon as possible.
As for that Ming army, even if he led his troops to attack Shuangchengwei now, he wouldn't be able to solve the problem. This Ming army has a powerful navy. Even if the Ming army can't defeat him, they can retreat by sea. His warhorses can't fly over the sea.
Even if he were to pay a heavy price to annihilate this Ming army, the Ming Dynasty, having gained confidence, could retrain such a new army. They could quickly form hundreds of thousands of such new troops. The Ming Dynasty has a population of over 200 million and tens of millions of able-bodied men. The loss of tens of thousands of lives is something the Ming Dynasty can afford, but they cannot.
The only way right now is to minimize the losses and impact by first forming an alliance with the Inner Khalkha Mongols. As for this situation, we can get back at them later. The Ming Dynasty is best at killing its own people; perhaps we can use someone else to do the dirty work.
However, what Nurhaci was unaware of was that the Ming court still adopted an indifferent attitude towards this great victory, turning a blind eye and pretending not to know, because the Ming court was frightened by the boastful battle reports from its generals.
After seven or eight days of cooling off, as the great victory at Sanhe was brewing within the territory of Nurgan Commandery, the various tribes of the Jurchen, who had been severely bullied by the Jurchens, suddenly became anxious.
Of course, Chen Ying did not truly ignore the situation, but rather sought to understand the basic circumstances of the various tribes of the Wild Jurchen. Like the Haixi Jurchen, the Wild Jurchen were large tribes followed by a group of smaller tribes.
In short, the Wild Jurchens consisted of four major tribes: the Warka tribe, the Hurha tribe, the Woji tribe (also known as the Forest Tribe), and the Hezhe tribe (also known as the Dog-Handling Tribe). Under these four tribes were the Guarjia clan and the Wolf tribe, also known as the Niohuru clan.
It was only then that Chen Ying realized that the Niohuru clan, which would later become very famous, had produced five Qing dynasty empresses, including the famous Heshen and Eidu. It turned out that they were not Jianzhou Jurchens or Haixi Jurchens, but rather the Warka tribe of the Wild Jurchens.
Of course, Guarjia was also a wild Jurchen. Sakda means wild boar, and Nimacha means goat. They also changed their surname to Yang, taking a homonym for their names. Biladak also changed his surname to Bi.
It is strange that most of the filial sons and virtuous grandsons of the Manchu Qing dynasty were actually Jurchen people.
In front of Chen Ying's council hall in the eastern city of Shuangchengwei, more than thirty leaders of various Jurchen tribes knelt, including Eheli, the leader of the Niohuru tribe.
Chen Ying was not very familiar with him. He had a very famous descendant, the notorious corrupt official Heshen, one of the five ministers of the early Qing Dynasty, Eidu, who was of the same generation as Eheli's grandfather. Ebilun and Eheli were of the same generation.
At this moment, heavy snow began to fall. Before long, the more than thirty leaders kneeling outside the hall were covered in snowflakes, and they looked at Chen Ying with longing eyes.
Chen Ying did not stand up immediately, but instead waved slightly and said, "Everyone, please come in!"
However, once these thirty-odd leaders entered the council hall, the hall had not only been modified with firewalls, but also equipped with heated brick beds and floor heating. Chen Ying, who was not cold in the room wearing only a single layer of clothing, found that the snow on these leaders' bodies melted rapidly as they entered the hall. In particular, their boots, under the scorching heat of the floor heating system, began to emit a smell comparable to that of Resident Evil.
"Huff—"
Chen Ying couldn't take it anymore. He turned to Hada and said, "You, take them to wash themselves clean before you come to see me!"
"Yes, Master!"
Hada led the tribal leaders away, and Chen Ying quickly had someone open the windows to air out the smell; his nose couldn't stand it. He said to Chen Yongren, "Remember, from now on, anyone who wants to see me must be clean and tidy before they come to see me!"
"yes!"
The room smelled rather strong. Chen Ying stood up and said, "Go to the warm pavilion and tell Hada to come over after soaking for at least half an hour!"
Chen Yongren bowed and said, "Yes!"
Upon hearing the order, Hada immediately changed his mind and summoned a group of middle-aged women to scrub the tribal leaders' bodies with the kind of scrubbing brushes used for pots and pans.
More than half an hour later, after taking a bath, these tribal chiefs changed out of their fur robes, which hadn't been washed for who knows how many years, and each put on a new cotton coat.
The tribal leaders eagerly followed Hada to the warm pavilion where Chen Ying was, where wine and food had already been prepared.
The food and drinks were plentiful, with eight hot dishes and eight cold dishes, eight meat dishes and eight vegetable dishes. They were all delicious and visually appealing, making your mouth water just looking at them.
These Jurchen leaders, being unsophisticated and oblivious to Chen Ying's attitude, sat down, picked up their bowls and chopsticks, and began to eat voraciously, leaving a mess of dishes and cups.
However, Chen Ying also understood that these wild Jurchens were even further from the Ming Dynasty's homeland. They had to struggle for survival almost from birth, and most of them had not received much education. It was understandable that they couldn't learn to behave rudely or have unsightly eating habits, and there was no need to be too demanding.
During the meal, a tribal chief died. The Jurchen chiefs who were attending the banquet were also shocked. They thought Chen Ying had poisoned him. Chen Ying also knew that this was troublesome and that bloodshed might be involved.
Chen Ying pointed at the hada and said, "Hada, go and see what happened!"
If these Jurchen leaders were to suddenly launch an attack, they would have no choice but to deal with Hada first. He was unwilling to let his adopted son Chen Yongren take risks, much less himself.
As it turned out, it was a false alarm. The chief had died from overeating; he had eaten too much meat and rice and had simply choked to death. When the surrounding tribal chiefs realized that there had been no poisoning, they also felt somewhat ashamed.
"Everyone—"
Chen Ying raised his wine glass and said in Chinese, with a translator beside him: "You savages wish to join the trade alliance, which I naturally welcome, but there is one condition: if you join the alliance, you must abide by its rules."
An older Jurchen chieftain stepped forward and asked in broken Chinese, "Your Majesty, what are your rules?"
"Within a hundred li of the Shuangchengwei territory, no fighting is permitted!"
Chen Ying solemnly stated, "Within a hundred li radius of Shuangchengwei, internal conflicts within the alliance must not escalate into mutual attacks. Any disputes will be mediated by me, or each department will elect an elder to make a public judgment. Whoever draws a knife first is the enemy of the alliance."
Through translation, it was learned that these wild Jurchens had no objection to this request. Their conflicts were survival conflicts; fighting to the death between tribes over pastures and hunting grounds was a normal phenomenon.
The key issue is that there are also long-standing feuds between their various factions, making it unrealistic to expect them to turn hostility into friendship.
Chen Ying wasn't a wet nurse, and he couldn't control that much. He was just a businessman, not a judge.
"Second, join the trade alliance. Each tribe will send ten of its best knights to protect the trade market. Of course, you won't be sent for nothing. Ten people can get a thousand catties of snow salt a year!"
"Third, fair trade is mandatory in the border markets. Forced buying and selling is prohibited, as is the plundering of merchants. Violators will be expelled from the alliance and never allowed to rejoin."
After Chen Ying finished speaking, there was a long silence.
The Hezhe chieftain asked, puzzled, "That's it?"
"It's gone!"
Their biggest concern was whether Chen Ying would help them if the Jurchens attacked.
Chen Ying looked at the leaders and said, "Are you worried about a Jurchen invasion? Actually, you don't need to worry at all. You can do the same as the other Jurchen tribes of Haixi and take the initiative to attack. For each Jurchen head you take, you can obtain a sword that can cut through iron like mud. Or you can exchange five heads for a suit of armor made of fine steel, or other supplies. We Han people have a saying: the best defense is offense. If a small group of Jurchens attacks, you can deal with them yourselves. If a large group of Jurchens attacks, you can move the elderly, weak, women, and children of your tribes to Shuangcheng. I will protect their safety. Without the burden of the elderly, weak, women, and children, even if you can't defeat the Jurchens, can't you at least outrun them? As long as you get the Jurchen heads, I will exchange them for grain and weapons. Of course, you can also exchange them for warhorses, cattle, and sheep!"
Chen Ying paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd: "If you can do these three things, you can stay. If you can't, you can leave now. I will not force you to stay."
There was a moment of quiet around the campfire.
The old chieftain was the first to kneel down, his right hand pressed to his chest: "The Savage Jurchen Woji tribe obeys!"
"The Warka tribe obeys!"
"The Hezhe tribe obeys!"
One after another, the leaders knelt down and kowtowed to Chen Ying.
Chen Yongren leaned close to Chen Ying's ear and whispered, "Godfather, you've just taken over all the wild Jurchens. Twenty or thirty tribes, three or four thousand people. If the Jurchens come again, we'll have far more soldiers than this."
Chen Ying shook his head slightly and said, "It's not about taking them in, it's about forming an alliance. They are still themselves, just following us to fight the Jurchens. Remember, no one in this world is born to be anyone else's slave. If you want them to truly follow us, you have to let them see that following us means they can survive and have a future."
Chen Yongren nodded thoughtfully.
The following morning, outside the eastern city of Shuangchengwei, the various tribes began to reorganize their guard teams according to the new rules.
The Shuangcheng cavalry guard, which originally numbered only two hundred, suddenly grew overnight. The various tribes of the Wild Jurchen selected their strongest warriors, and the Haixi tribes also sent over their best and most trusted men.
By noon, a brand-new cavalry unit had been lined up, numbering over 860 riders, all unarmed and highly skilled. Chen Ying paid no attention to the petty schemes of the various tribal leaders; the equipment of over 860 riders was a trivial matter to him.
After the great victory at Sanhe, he had captured a large amount of Jurchen equipment. Although much of it was in ruins, he could still easily pick out thousands of suits of armor from among the many.
Looking at this newly formed cavalry unit, Chen Ying sighed inwardly, "This isn't a guard; it's clearly hostages sent by various tribes!"
Indeed, the people sent by each tribe were all noble sons, no longer ordinary young men. Of the ten people sent by the Xibe tribe, four were Hamutai's sons, two were his sons-in-law, two were his brothers, one was his cousin, and one was his brother-in-law.
Chen Ying did not refuse. In this land, sending one's sons to serve as personal guards for a strongman was an ancient way for tribes to express loyalty and gain trust.
If he refuses, it will only make the tribes uneasy.
These people may become the strongest link between the Ming Dynasty and this land in the future.
Half a month later, the prisoner-presenting team arrived in the capital. This victory presentation was led by Wang Tiezhu, the military commander with the fewest merits under Chen Ying. There were more than 240 Jurchen prisoners and more than 3,400 heads that had been preserved with lime. Yue Xu's head was kept separately.
As more than two hundred prisoners and seventeen carriages loaded with heads entered the capital in a grand procession, the Ministry of War immediately sent people to check the heads. After preliminary inspection, all the heads were found to be genuine.
The entire court was in an uproar; however, a month and a half had passed since the great victory at Sanhe, so this was a belated sensation.
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