Chapter 437: The high-spirited You Shilu and the indecisive Zu Dashou
"The Commander-in-Chief."
You Shilu, who had just finished dealing with various aftermath tasks in Shanhaiguan City, flew to Li Dingguo and reported, "After Wu Sangui and Zu Kuan's Guanning Army escaped from Shanhaiguan, they will surely inform Zu Dashou soon."
"Zu Dashou, who has no way out, will most likely invite the Later Jin Tartars to settle in Jinzhou very soon."
There was no trace of joy at the capture of Shanhaiguan on his face, but instead a solemn expression.
It is now the ninth year of Chongzhen. In the entire Liaoxi Corridor, the largest areas of Guangning Front, Back, Left, Right and Central have all fallen into the hands of the Later Jin Tartars.
This means that once the Jinzhou area falls under Huang Taiji's control, Ningyuan City will become the most important line of defense in the Liaoxi Corridor.
If Ningyuan City is not captured in time, the Later Jin Tatars will be able to march straight to Shanhaiguan, which will be a severe test for the soldiers of the Pixiu Legion and the Taotie Legion of the Fuxing Army.
"It doesn't matter!"
Li Dingguo calmly waved his hand and said, "I have just asked Dajin to return to Taiyuan City with the military order and asked Hongmei to dispatch the personal guards stationed in Taiyuan City to march day and night to attack Shuntian Prefecture as quickly as possible."
"As long as our army firmly holds Ningyuan City and Shanhaiguan, and buys about half a year for our Fuxing Army to smoothly take over Northern Zhili, we can control all the areas north of the Yellow River."
"At that time, the decisive battle between our army and the Later Jin Tartars will most likely take place in the Ningjin Defense Line area."
"Although Huang Taiji's Houjin clan is powerful, it is as difficult as climbing to the sky to break the defense line built by our army with the help of formations and natural barriers!"
"General You."
Li Dingguo immediately ordered You Shilu, "You Taotie Corps, leave 100,000 soldiers to guard Shanhaiguan, and the remaining 300,000 soldiers will immediately march eastward to capture all the military forts between Shanhaiguan and Ningyuan City as quickly as possible, and eliminate all the enemies there, so as to prepare for the next decisive battle between our army and the Later Jin clan."
"Before our Fuxing Army completely takes over the area north of the Yellow River and stabilizes the internal order, we will temporarily focus on defense."
Li Dingguo was well aware that with the southward migration of the Ming court, a large amount of mess left behind was taken over by the Fuxing Army, and it would take a long time to stabilize, restore and clean up.
Before resolving these thorny issues, the Renaissance Army will not have the energy to take the initiative to expand again.
Otherwise, internal and external troubles will be enough to drag down the Fuxing Army.
For the current Fusion Army, external threats are not scary; what is scary are the internal hidden dangers.
The southward migration of the Ming Dynasty court did not mean the collective southward migration of the aristocratic families, wealthy merchants and other wealthy people in the vast area north of the Yellow River.
On the contrary, most of these people will stay where they are and want to protect their family business.
This would require the Renaissance Army to spend a massive amount of manpower and material resources, as well as a lot of time, to be able to clean them out.
Even in Qin, Jin, Qi and Lu, which have fallen into the control of the Restoration Army, most of the areas still have various hidden dangers and hostile forces.
The Fusion Army has eaten too much this time, and must digest a large amount of victory before it can expand again.
The Renaissance Army is now large in number and powerful, and is continuously forming a large number of recruit camps. Every month, a large number of warrior recruits complete their training, stand out, and join the Renaissance Army.
As long as Li Dingguo is given some time, all problems within his jurisdiction will be dealt with quickly, thus restoring stable order and people's livelihood.
It’s just that the area we have recently conquered is too large and it will take a lot of time to govern.
"Yes, Commander-in-Chief!"
You Shilu immediately took the order and left, and began to carry out the latest orders in full swing.
The vast area north of the Yellow River, covering a million miles in radius, was about to fall into the control of the Fuxing Army, eliminating the last worry in You Shilu's heart.
The new routine development model formulated by Li Dingguo made the cleanup and development work in the newly occupied areas of the Fuxing Army very simple and effective.
All we have to do is to kill all the enemies who pose internal risks.
At this point, it doesn’t matter if You Shilu and Cao Bianjiao, the generals who originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty, are exposed.
Under You Shilu's repeated persuasion in letters, You Shilu's younger brother You Shiwei has led his soldiers to meet up with the Suzaku Legion in Changping and formally joined the Fuxing Army. He is currently conducting elimination training for new recruits and forming the Qiongqi Legion.
Since then, the original You family no longer had any weaknesses and was controlled and coerced by the Ming court. In addition, the Fuxing Army had become one of the three major forces in this eastern land, and it had enough confidence to face everything.
Having witnessed the rapid rise of the Fuxing Army with his own eyes, You Shilu was of course very aware of the terrifying and incredible nature of Li Dingguo, and had enough confidence in the future.
It is no exaggeration to say that the development and growth model of the Renaissance Army is enough to crush any force in the world today.
As long as Li Dingguo is given enough time, all problems will no longer be a problem.
Half an hour later, You Shilu, who had arranged the defense work, led 300,000 soldiers of the Taotie Legion from the Zhenyuan Tower in Dongcheng and disappeared into the night.
……
"what?"
"The Fuxing Army has made a long raid and has already captured Shanhaiguan?"
In the meeting hall of the City Lord's Mansion in Jinzhou City, Zu Dashou sat high in the main seat. After checking the letter he had just received sent by spirit pigeon, his face turned green and red, and his eyes were filled with surprise and doubt.
He never imagined that he had just unified the internal opinions of the Guanning Army and decided to surrender to Huang Taiji in order to maintain the special status of the Liaodong generals, but he would be greeted with shocking bad news so soon.
It doesn't take much to guess what the consequences will be if Shanhaiguan falls into the hands of the Fuxing Army.
The rumored Fuxing Army not only has powerful firearms, but Li Dingguo has also inherited the ancient formations, which is enough to easily turn the Shanhaiguan City into an unbreakable super fortress.
The loss of Shanhaiguan meant that the grand plan of the Later Jin clan to march south to conquer the Ming Dynasty had added countless variables, and it could even be described as hell-level difficult!
This also made the bargaining chips in Zu Dashou's hands drop several levels and become insignificant.
Huang Taiji accepted the surrender of the Guanning Army not because he valued the Guanning Army's combat effectiveness, but because he wanted to easily obtain the vital Guanning defense line.
In terms of real combat effectiveness, any of the main corps of the Eight Banners of the Later Jin Tatars could defeat the Guanning Army that had lost the defense of the strong city.
Now that Shanhaiguan has been lost, the role of the Guanning Army is almost dispensable in Huang Taiji's eyes.
How would the ambitious military families of the Guanning Army feel about this?
Now that Shanhaiguan has fallen into the hands of the Fuxing Army, the value of the Guanning Army in Huang Taiji's heart will definitely plummet.
I estimate that if we surrender now, we will be treated similarly to the Han Eight Banners of the Later Jin clan, that is, pure lackey treatment.
There is even a high probability that their Guanning Army will become the cannon fodder in the next war between Huang Taiji and the Fuxing Army!
"Damn Li Dingguo! Damn the Fuxing Army!"
"And there are those two idiots, Zu Kuan and Wu Sangui! A full 300,000 elite troops, plus the 300,000 defenders in Shanhaiguan, with the help of the super-strong defense facilities of this number one pass in the world, can't even stop the Fuxing Army for an hour!"
Zu Dashou became angrier the more he thought about it. He slammed the table and stood up, gasping for air.
The key point is that now that Shanhaiguan has fallen, the value of the Guanning Army to Huang Taiji has been greatly reduced. What should these Liaodong generals and families do? "Swoosh!"
At this time, Zu Dale flashed in from outside the gate, holding a secret letter in his hand, and said hurriedly, "Brother, something bad has happened!"
"I just received an extremely urgent message from Deputy General Ningyuan that Ningyuan City has fallen!"
"Cao Bianjiao, who has reached the middle stage of the sixth level, personally led a large army to launch a surprise attack on Ningyuan City. Taking advantage of the absence of Wu Sangui's main force and the empty defenses in the city, he took it down in one battle!"
"There are less than 30,000 of our soldiers escaping from the east gate of Ningyuan City!"
"Damn it! It turns out that the mysteriously missing Cao Bianjiao actually defected to Li Dingguo. Not only did his cultivation level improve by leaps and bounds, but he also became the commander of a main corps of the Fuxing Army!"
"Their long-range attack was so fast that they arrived first and captured this vital fortress before Wu Sangui led his troops back to Ningyuan City."
"Wu Sangui has joined up with the 30,000 soldiers who escaped from Dongcheng. A total of 330,000 Guanning cavalrymen have sent back an urgent secret letter and are heading towards Jinzhou City. They are expected to arrive in Jinzhou tomorrow."
Zu Dale looked extremely frightened, even his body was shaking slightly, and it was obvious that he had lost his composure.
"what?"
Upon hearing the sad news, Zu Dashou could no longer sit still. He stood up suddenly, took the secret letter in one hand and began to read it quickly.
After a moment, he sat back dejectedly on the tiger-skin chair, stunned.
If he still held a glimmer of hope after the loss of Shanhaiguan, the loss of Ningyuan City now means that the Fuxing Army can quickly build an extremely solid line of defense to block the Guanning Army and the Later Jin Tatars outside the pass.
The famous Fuxing Army has never been defeated so far and cannot be compared with the extremely corrupt Ming Dynasty court.
Apart from anything else, the 500,000-strong army of Cao Bianjiao mentioned above is enough to firmly defend Ningyuan City and block the way to the south for Huang Taiji and the Guanning Army.
What course of action should the Guanning Army take?
The Guanning Army, which was blocked outside the Great Wall, now had no way to go south to Nanjing with the Ming Dynasty court.
First of all, the sea route is not feasible.
The large fleet of the Fuxing Army along the coast of Qi and Lu has blockaded the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty. Not only can the Guanning Army not pass through, even the large fleets of the Later Jin Tartars and the Ming Dynasty court cannot pass through safely.
As for the prairie west of the Dalingh River, there is accurate intelligence indicating that all the checkpoints and fortresses along the Great Wall have fallen into the control of the Fuxing Army.
In addition, with the fall of Shanhaiguan and Ningyuan City, whether it is the Guanning Army or the Later Jin Tatars who want to enter the pass, they must cross the defense line of the Fuxing Army.
But how easy is it to defeat the Fuxing Army and cross the defense line?
In particular, according to the information sent back by Wu Sangui one after another, Li Dingguo himself had arrived at Shanhaiguan in person. This was fatal!
As we all know, Li Dingguo is no simple person as he was able to build a powerful army that could suppress the Ming Dynasty court.
"Did Cao Bianjiao also defect to Li Dingguo?"
Zu Dashou's eyes widened and he said in shock, "He has become the commander of an army of hundreds of thousands?"
This shocking news made Zu Dashou a little confused.
They were very familiar with Cao Bianjiao, who was originally just a guerrilla general.
It can be said that the reason why Cao Bianjiao was able to leave behind a famous and invincible reputation in Liaodong was due to the role he played, which accounted for at least 50%.
However, at that time, Cao Bianjiao only controlled a vanguard team of several hundred people in the Cao family army, and was not taken seriously by these deeply rooted Liaodong generals.
But no one doubted Cao Bianjiao's military capabilities and combat effectiveness.
However, in the past, together with the Cao family army, they were suppressed by these military families and could not make much waves.
But if Cao Bianjiao, the peerless genius, now controls an army of hundreds of thousands, it will be enough to suppress them, the Liaodong generals.
Not to mention the bandit leader Li Dingguo, who was personally in charge of Shanhaiguan.
"Brother, what should we do now?"
Zu Dacheng on the side asked in horror.
Among the four brothers of the Zu family, Zu Dacheng is the least promising one.
Timid, cowardly, greedy, lustful... He can almost be described as a good-for-nothing, which is appropriate.
"I need to think about it carefully..."
Zu Dashou felt a great headache. He waved to everyone present and rubbed his forehead with one hand, thinking deeply.
The good situation collapsed in the blink of an eye. Even the shrewd Zu Dashou was panicked.
There is the Fuxing Army behind and Huang Taiji in front.
The Guanning Army, sandwiched between two super powers, was not much different from a weakling after losing Shanhaiguan and Ningyuan City.
The Guanning Army, which was once able to arbitrarily control the Ming Dynasty court, is now in decline and has been forced into a desperate situation.
However, the Fuxing Army and the Later Jin clan that surrounded them from front and back were both powerful existences that the Guanning Army could not afford to offend. Either side could easily wipe them out.
"Brother, under the current circumstances, it is impossible to join the Fuxing Army. If we do that, Li Dingguo will surely disband and reorganize the Guanning Army, and we Liaodong generals will lose all our foundations. The best outcome is to start all over again."
Zu Dabi, the fourth brother with the strongest martial power among the four brothers of the Zu family, broke the silence in the hall and suggested, "But if our Guanning Army surrenders to Huang Taiji, we will not be reused in the current situation, and will be suppressed and marginalized, no doubt."
"Neither situation is what we want."
His face turned grim, and he gritted his teeth and said, "It would be better for us to start our own business, break out of the encirclement and be self-reliant!"
"The forces our Zujia controls now, plus the 150,000 troops under Wu Sangui, exceed 600,000 elite cavalry!"
"While Li Dingguo and Huang Taiji have not yet formed a siege on our Guanning Army, it will be easy to jump out of the encirclement without any difficulty!"
"Whether we go through Goguryeo or head west to the boundless northern desert, we will have no problem finding a way to survive!"
"Isn't this better than surrendering to Huang Taiji and becoming his dog?"
Zu Dabi had never wanted to surrender to the Later Jin Tartars, but due to the circumstances, he was forced to do so and the unanimous decision of the Guanning Army generals could not be reversed by his own strength.
Now, after losing Shanhaiguan and Ningyuan City, the value of the Guanning Army in Huang Taiji's eyes has become dispensable. It would be better to establish one's own base!
"This……"
The long and stable life as a local tyrant has worn away Zu Dashou's edge. Although he knows that Zu Dabi's suggestion is very good, he is still hesitant in his heart.
For a moment, the scene fell silent again.
(End of this chapter)
