Chapter 87

These corpses... are all of the Great Ming's imperial clan and descendants of meritorious officials...?

80, are you a Han person?!

A biting cold wind blew.

The Ming army in the canyon suddenly came to their senses.

Looking at the corpses around them.

No one knew who started crying first.

"Child, we'll be home soon... wait until we get home so your mother can make tangyuan for you."

Before long, the Ming army's weeping echoed through the canyon.

Huang Taiji rode his horse slowly to the front of Tang Wang Zhu Yujian and the old Qin Wang Zhu Cunji, then personally dismounted and bowed with clasped hands to Zhu Yujian, saying

"Your Highnesses, surrender. If you fight on, the Zhu family will be left without descendants!"

Zhu Yujian ignored Huang Taiji.

Instead, he saw Fan Wencheng, wearing a scholar's cap and Han official robes.

Filled with burning rage, Zhu Yujian immediately shouted in a harsh voice

"Are you a Han person?!"

Fan Wencheng, harshly rebuked by Zhu Yujian, immediately froze in place.

At this moment, the weeping had already spread throughout the canyon.

Finally, all the weeping gradually turned into a single surge of angry questioning.

Are you a Han person?!

At this moment, all the Han Eight Banners soldiers involuntarily lowered their heads.

In the vast valley.

The Ming soldiers' question lingered without dispersing.

Just then, from the other end of the canyon, a sudden burst of frantic shouting and killing sounds erupted.

"Where is the barbarian chieftain? Come quickly to die!"

"The Great Ming's reinforcements have arrived!"

In an instant, the entire canyon once again descended into chaos.

The remaining Ming soldiers immediately rushed toward Cao Bianjiao as if driven mad.

However, news of the Ming soldiers' identities was spreading through all the Qing troops at a rate of fission.

The Qing army, which had previously held the upper hand, suddenly lost its composure!

Gongshun Wang Kong Youde, who had crawled out of the Zhu family's sea of blood, stared fiercely at the bottom of the canyon.

He shouted harshly at the Deng-Lai New Army behind him

"Why are you all standing there frozen? Load your ammunition and rush to aid Your Majesty!"

But this time.

Not a single man of the Deng-Lai New Army behind Kong Youde moved.

A subordinate general behind him, with hollow eyes, looked at the Ming army at the foot of the mountain and said

"Prince, those people are all of our Great Ming's imperial clan."

"Even the royal family has been pushed to this point... we brothers are Han people!"

Kong Youde immediately shouted in anger

"Who is 'our Great Ming' with you?! Do you intend to rebel?!"

"Someone, seize this beast!"

Kong Youde shouted several times in a row.

Yet not a single soldier around him moved.

All the Deng-Lai New Army soldiers stared fiercely at Kong Youde in the night.

Only at this moment did Kong Youde, shocked, discover that all the Manchu Eight Banners Army Supervisors sent by Huang Taiji had been cut down and thrown to the ground long ago.

Before Kong Youde could react.

A flash of cold light appeared before his eyes.

A sharp blade stabbed fiercely into Kong Youde's chest.

Then Kong Youde lost consciousness forever.

Less than the time it takes to burn a stick of incense later.

The Deng-Lai New Army on the Qing positions immediately began to pour ammunition wildly into Huang Taiji's dragon tent.

The whistling shells that arrived directly knocked Huang Taiji off his warhorse.

Protected fiercely by several bond servants, Huang Taiji asked in shock

"Where did the cannons come from?! Where did the Ming army get cannons?!"

Only at this moment did Jirgalang run over in shock, shouting hoarsely at Huang Taiji

"Your Majesty, the Deng-Lai New Army has rebelled, the Gongshun Army has rebelled!"

"Where is Kong Youde?!"

"Kong Youde has been beheaded and thrown off the cliff!"

Hearing this, Huang Taiji felt his vision go black.

However, the rebellion of the Deng-Lai New Army was only just the beginning.

Not long after.

Within the Han Eight Banners, Han soldiers themselves threw off the helmets on their heads and in one motion cut off that ugly pigtail.

He cursed in a harsh voice.

"Damn it! The Deng-Lai New Army has revolted, and our Han Army's Plain Red Banner has rebelled too!"

"Tell the brothers below: recognize only the queue, not the person; cut down those sons of bitches!"

"..."

On the other side, Dorgon stared fixedly at the Deng-Lai New Army's Red Barbarian cannon positions.

With eyes bulging in fury, he led the soldiers of the Plain Bai Qi in a vast, surging charge against the Deng-Lai New Army.

This was the Qing court's only firearms unit.

All their assets were in the hands of the Deng-Lai New Army.

If this unit were lost,

the Qing army's combat effectiveness would immediately regress to the era of Nurhaci.

The soldiers of the Plain Bai Qi, as if driven mad, fought the Deng-Lai New Army to seize the Red Barbarian cannons.

The Deng-Lai New Army itself numbered only seven thousand men.

Under the fierce assault of the Plain Bai Qi, they soon began to falter.

Finally, amidst the sinister laughter of the Deng-Lai New Army, they ignited all the gunpowder on the position.

A tremendous boom—"Boom!"—rang out.

Over eight hundred Red Barbarian cannons, amid the violent explosions, were utterly reduced to a pile of scrap iron.

The two sides fought until dawn, when the armies finally sounded the retreat.

But everyone knew.

This war.

Only after this battle did it truly begin.

Twenty-eight princes of Great Ming fell in battle!

The Crown Prince's fate is unknown!

The news that twenty-five thousand members of the imperial clan were annihilated in Liaoxi spread across all of Liaodong in an instant.

The Great Ming armies at Jinzhou, Ningyuan, and Shanhai Pass were constantly dispatching troops to reinforce Songshan.

The common people around also spontaneously went to the Xingshan area to collect the bodies of the fallen imperial clan members.

Only when they saw with their own eyes the remains of the imperial clan lying on the battlefield.

did all the Han people across Liaodong weep in grief.

Urgent dispatches traveling eight hundred li per day were sent to the capital at the fastest speed of the Great Ming dynasty.

The gentry in various regions even directly opened their granaries to send grain and fodder to Shanhai Pass.