Chapter 64

What made Hong Hong Chengchou feel it even more deeply was this.

Every tael of silver thrown at the Nine Borders was his own burial fund!

So much silver had been thrown away!

Even if you tied knives to the heads of a hundred thousand pigs and charged them out, they could at least trade blows with the Tartars, couldn't they?!

Besides Hong Hong Chengchou's firm belief that nothing in this world could not be solved with money,

another reason was that this kind of open-field battle outside the city was also the most money-saving way to fight.

After everything was properly arranged,

the troops and horses proceeded according to plan.

If they lost, they lost; if they won, all would be accomplished in a single campaign, with results achieved in half a year at the latest.

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian had said he would repay the money after quelling the external chaos.

Once the war was over, the court would surely have to repay the silver!

Every fraction saved on the battlefield was a fraction he could recover sooner!

Let's do it!

Meanwhile, on the other side, Hong Taiji, who had just ascended the throne, upon learning this news,

immediately sensed that this Ming army marching out of the pass was extraordinary.

The soldiers, who were once barely clothed, now had every scale of their armor polished until it gleamed.

Their firearms had all just been repaired.

They surrounded Dalinghe but did not attack.

They were all thousand-year-old fox spirits; how could such tricks from "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" possibly fool Hong Taiji?

Yet, at the moment he received the news,

Hong Taiji still hesitated.

Hong Hong Chengchou knew this deception would not fool himself.

Yet he still did it.

This meant Hong Hong Chengchou was confident enough to engage in open-field battle outside the city!

Fan Fan Wencheng, standing beside Hong Taiji, clearly noticed his hesitation.

"Great... Your Majesty, warfare is a matter of vital importance to the state, the ground of life and death, the path of survival or perishment; it must be thoroughly examined."

Hong Taiji's brows knitted tightly as he shook his head slightly and sighed,

"It is precisely because I have examined it that I hesitate."

"These hundred thousand Ming troops are not quite like those Ming armies we encountered previously in Liaodong..."

A look of worry inevitably crept onto Hong Taiji's face.

The Great Ming, after all, was still too powerful!

However, Fan Fan Wencheng, standing nearby, looked westward and sneered,

"Your Majesty worries too much."

"For one who commands an army, what matters most is fighting spirit!"

"If our Eight Banners children lose, it will merely be a reenactment of the Chenghua extermination!"

"No matter how exquisite the weapons of the Great Ming, they have only just issued some pay and purchased some weapons and armor!"

"They are Ming soldiers; even wearing the finest armor, they are no different from those Ming soldiers wearing straw sandals just a few months ago!"

"What does Your Majesty have to fear?!"

Fan Fan Wencheng might not understand military affairs as well as Hong Taiji,

but his understanding of the Great Ming far surpassed Hong Taiji's!

So-called new armies, so-called elite troops—

deep down, they were still just the Ming army that charges with the first drumbeat, weakens with the second, and exhausts itself with the third.

66, starting with an all-in gamble!

Fan Fan Wencheng gazed at the Dalinghe River, faintly visible in the distance.

The murderous intent on his face grew increasingly intense.

He then turned to look at Hong Taiji behind him and spoke sternly,

"Please, Your Majesty, immediately order ten thousand copies of the Seven Great Grievances to be transcribed, ensuring every child of the Eight Banners receives one."

"Clearly inform each banner of the consequences of defeat!"

"The Han Eight Banners can lose; at worst, they discard their weapons and return home to farm. The Mongol Eight Banners can also lose; the grasslands lie to the north, and with a horse, they can return."

"But we, the children of the Manchu Eight Banners, have no ground to retreat to; defeat means the death of our entire families!"

At these words,

Hong Taiji looked at Fan Fan Wencheng with a mixture of understanding and confusion.

"Master, are you asking me to emulate Xiang Yu, smashing the cauldrons and sinking the boats?"

Fan Fan Wencheng nodded slightly.

"Indeed!"

"It is just that the water behind our Great Qing today is no longer the Yellow River behind Xiang Yu of old."

"It is the bloodline of the Eight Banners children!"

When the blood flowing in your veins becomes an original sin,

whether king, marquis, noble, or common peddler,

all will fight to the death with every ounce of strength.

The most cruel war among humans is the war between two races.

The reason Ming Taizu was not so cruel back then was because that was a one-sided ethnic war.

The Northern Northern Yuan people opposite did not feel anything about it at all.

It was nothing more than the Han rising in rebellion, causing them to lose the Central Plains.

The Northern Northern Yuan people had conquered many places, so their experience in being driven away was quite rich.

When lice are numerous, one no longer feels the itch.

They could simply return to the grasslands.

Where could they not find a place to herd sheep?

And in the end, they indeed returned.

Therefore, the transition from Northern Northern Yuan to Ming involved nothing too bloody.

Fan Fan Wencheng saw through this very point.

Thus, he used the Seven Great Grievances to force the Eight Banners descendants to fight to the death!

Every child of the Jianzhou Jurchens, since childhood, had heard their ancestors tell the story of "Chenghua Plowing the Courtyard."

Their bloodthirstiness.

Essentially stemmed from fear.

They feared that if a clan survived, their descendants would one day retake everything they had struggled so hard to obtain!

As expected.

Immediately after Huang Taiji's imperial edict was issued.

For a full three days and three nights.

The Qing army camp was deathly silent.

Fear was written on everyone's faces.

That fear did not come from the Ming army before them.

But rather from the stories they had heard since childhood.

There was only one way to prevent all that from happening: defeat the Qing army before them, enter the Central Plains, and trample the Han people of the world underfoot for generations to come!

Looking at the dejected Qing soldiers before him.

Huang Taiji, who had grown up in the army since childhood, clearly felt the true meaning of the words "morale is usable"!

If every time they could force the officers and soldiers to this extent.

Why worry about the soldiers giving their lives!

At dawn the next day, Huang Taiji, having just ascended the throne as Son of Heaven, appeared quietly in the military camp dressed in full armor.