Chapter 69

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

The silver thrown onto the Nine Frontiers was all his own coffin fund!

So much silver has been thrown out!

Even if ten thousand pigs rushed out with knives tied to their heads, they could still trade blows with the Tatars, right?!

Besides Hong Hong Chengchou's firm belief that there is nothing in the world money cannot solve.

Another reason is that fighting outside the city is also the most cost-effective way to wage war.

After everything was arranged properly.

The troops proceeded in an orderly fashion.

If they lose, they lose; if they win, Complete the merit in a single campaign, with results coming within half a year at the latest.

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

After the war, the court must have silver to repay, right!

Every fraction saved on the battlefield is a fraction he can recover sooner!

Let's do it!

Meanwhile, Huang Taiji, who had just ascended the throne at the other end, upon learning this news.

Immediately sensed that this Ming army marching out of the pass was unusual.

The soldiers, who were originally half-naked, now had every lamella of their armor polished to a shine.

The firearms had all just been repaired.

Dalinghe was surrounded but not attacked.

Both were thousand-year-old fox spirits; how could such Liaozhai tricks fool Huang Taiji.

But the moment he received the news.

Huang Taiji still hesitated.

Hong Hong Chengchou knew this move could not fool himself.

But he did it anyway.

It showed Hong Hong Chengchou was confident enough to fight him outside the city!

Fan Wencheng, standing beside Huang Taiji, clearly saw Huang Taiji's hesitation.

"Your Majesty, war is a matter of great importance to the state, a ground of life and death, a path of survival and extinction; it cannot be examined too carefully."

Huang Taiji's brows were tightly furrowed; he shook his head slightly and sighed.

"Precisely because I have examined it, I am hesitating."

"These hundred thousand Ming troops are quite different from the Ming troops we encountered in Liaodong before..."

A trace of worry inevitably crept onto Huang Taiji's face.

Great Ming is, after all, still too powerful!

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

"Your Majesty worries too much."

"For a commander, what matters is fighting spirit!"

"If our Eight Banners fall, it will be a replay of the Chenghua Plowing of the Courtyard!"

"And no matter how exquisite the Ming weapons are, they are merely newly issued military pay and purchased weapons and armor."

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

"What is there for Your Majesty to fear?!"

Perhaps Fan Wencheng did not know war as well as Huang Taiji.

But Fan Wencheng's understanding of Great Ming far exceeded Huang Taiji's!

The so-called New Army, the so-called elite.

In their bones, they were still just that Ming army that surges on the first drumbeat, wanes on the second, and exhausts on the third.

66, a high-stakes gamble at the start!

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

The killing intent on his face grew even more intense.

He then turned to look at Huang Taiji behind him and said sternly.

"Please order someone immediately to copy the Seven Great Grievances one hundred thousand times; ensure every member of the Eight Banners receives one."

"Clearly inform each Banner; they must know the consequences of defeat!"

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

"But our Eight Banners have nowhere to retreat; defeat means the death of the entire family!"

Once these words were spoken.

Huang Taiji looked at Fan Wencheng, half understanding.

"Mr., do you want me to emulate Xiang Yu and break the cauldrons and sink the boats?"

Fan Wencheng nodded slightly.

"Indeed!"

"Only the water our Great Qing backs against today is no longer the Yellow River that Xiang Yu backed against in days past."

"It is the bloodline of the Eight Banners!"

When the blood flowing in your body has become a sin.

Whether Wang Hou, nobles, commoners, or peddlers.

All will fight to the death with all their might.

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

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

The Yuan people on the other side simply did not feel there was any issue.

It was nothing more than the Han rising up in rebellion, and they lost the Central Plains.

The Yuan had conquered many places and had rich experience in being driven out.

When there are too many lice, they no longer itch.

Just return to the grasslands.

Where else could one not find a place to herd sheep?

And in the end, they indeed went back.

Thus, the transition from Yuan to Ming involved nothing excessively bloody.

And Fan Wencheng saw through this point exactly.

Therefore, he used the Seven Grievances to force the Eight Banners descendants into a fight to the death!

Every child of the Jianzhou Jurchens had heard their ancestors tell the story of "Chenghua Plowing the Courtyard" in their early years.

Their bloodthirstiness.

Essentially, all stemmed from fear.

They feared a people who could continue to exist, whose descendants would one day reclaim everything they had so hard won!

As expected.

Right after the Son of Heaven's edict was issued.

For a full three days and three nights.

The Qing army's main camp was utterly silent.

Fear was written on everyone's face.

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

It came from the stories they had heard since childhood.

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

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 four words "morale is usable"!

If one could force the soldiers to this degree every time.

What worry would there be for the soldiers' lives!

The next morning, Huang Taiji, who had just ascended the throne as Son of Heaven, appeared quietly in the military camp in full military attire.