The Battle of Hedong was provoked by the Western Wei Dynasty, but at this time in Hedong, there was a strange appearance, the Wei army that provoked the war rested on the side, but the Qing army was killed with Jiang Xiang.

In December, the Qing army invaded Datong, and the strong attack did not take it for three days, Dolgon immediately ordered the city to be locked, and then the army quickly captured other prefectures and counties in Datong, and then led the army to continue south.

Dolgon learned that there were not many rebels in Datong City, leaving 3,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry troops to drive the people to build a wall and besiege the city, so that the rebels in Datong City could not threaten his back roads and food routes, so he decided to march quickly and break through to Taiyuan.

For the Qing army, the key to the battle of Hedong was Taiyuan, only the army broke through to the city of Taiyuan, and kept the army's grain route unblocked, with Gao Yihuan's troops, it was unlikely to capture Taiyuan, which was heavily armed.

In this way, Gao Yihuan could only withdraw his troops, the Wei army occupied Jinnan at most, and the Qing army could still keep half of Hedong.

If the fight is better, maybe the inside and the outside can be combined, defeat the Wei army, drive Gao Yihuan back to Guanzhong, and return the situation to before the war.

That is to say, the Wei army had only two choices to win the Hedong Campaign, the first was not to let Dolgon get close to Taiyuan, encircle the point to send reinforcements, solve Dolgon on the way, and finally eat Taiyuan.

The other option was to eat Taiyuan before Dolgon reached Taiyuan, so that with the strength of the Qing army, it was also unlikely to recapture Taiyuan, which was heavily guarded by the Wei army.

Dolgon's cavalry was numerous, and as soon as he decided to take Bolo as the vanguard, the army rushed south.

At this time, Jiang Xiang got Gao Yihuan's promise, led the army to the north to meet the battle, to rescue Datong, the two sides met in Shanyin, Jiang Xiang's front army was defeated by Boluo, the army retreated to Yanmen Pass, waiting for the support of the Wei army.

At the beginning of the war, the soldiers and horses controlled by Dolgon were originally more than 400,000 people, and the strength exceeded that of the Western Wei Dynasty, but after this period of tossing, only 20,000 of the 100,000 troops stationed in Hedong were trapped in Taiyuan.

The 150,000 troops of Shandong and Lianghuai were surrendered during the Ming army's northern expedition earlier, and only more than 50,000 people remained, but after the Qing army defeated Zhu Cihong, the Qing army incorporated Zuozhen, and some Ming troops, recovered a little loss, and probably got another 80,000 soldiers, as well as a large number of equipment and grain and grass.

It can be said that this time Zhu Cihong's Northern Expedition was a transport captain for Dolgon, and most of the savings of the Ming Dynasty in recent years and the ordnance materials of the 300,000 army were lost to the Qing army.

Now there are about 300,000 troops in Dolgon's hands, and the division of these 300,000 troops is that there were only 20,000 left in Luoyang, and Dolgon ordered Geng Zhongming to bring back 20,000, a total of 40,000 troops to guard Luoyang, continue to confront Jin Shenghuan, and contain the Wei army in the direction of Huguang and Tongguan.

Among the remaining men, Azig led 20,000 men to hold Taiyuan, Heluohui led 30,000 men to garrison Xuzhou and Shandong to monitor the movements of the Ming army, and Nikan led 60,000 troops to sit in Beizhili and guard against the Wei army in Guguan, Huguan and other passes to attack Hebei and Beijing.

Dolgon led an army of 150,000 to the north of Jin, and then to the south to rescue Taiyuan.

Hedong, the Western Wei State raised 100,000 new troops, plus the 100,000 troops that went to Hedong, the Wei army had 200,000 troops, Jiang Xiang and Li Shutai claimed to have 150,000 troops, just looking at the surface strength, the strength of the coalition army was 350,000, while the Qing army was only 170,000.

In this case, the Hedong Campaign should have been fought quite easily, but in fact, the new army of the Wei army could not do anything at all, and could only maintain local law and order and assist the elite soldiers to defend the city, which could not be counted on in the decisive battle.

In addition, the water of the Datong Army is also very large, and there are probably more than 3,000 people in Jiang Xiang's hands, and there are another 20,000 or 30,000 people who can be used, and the rest of the soldiers are all people who wave flags and shout to fill the façade.

In this way, 100,000 plus 30,000, the coalition forces actually have no advantage in terms of strength.

If you count the Wei army's need to besiege Taiyuan, and the need to guard against Huguan and Guguan, Dolgon's ability to mobilize many more soldiers is actually much more than that of the Wei army.

In the Spring Festival of 1649, Gao Yihuan spent time in Hedong, and he also took time to meet with the envoys of Phuntsok Dorga, Gushi Khan, and the living Buddhas of the Huanghong faction.

This announced that the Western Wei State had restored the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty over Wusizang, and Wusizang nominally belonged to the Great Wei, which made the territory of the Great Wei expand by nearly half in an instant.

Of course, Wu Sizang has long ceased to be brave of the Tubo Empire, and the territory of the Great Wei has increased, but the strength has not increased because of Wu Sizang's submission, and he has only gained a nominal territory.

Although Wu Sizang's submission could not bring benefits to Western Wei in a short period of time, Gao Yihuan was still very happy in his heart.

The coming of all nations is a pursuit of the emperors of all dynasties, and it is also a sign of the prosperity and strength of the dynasty.

Gao Yihuan was just happy about this, and felt that he had a lot of face, but he didn't have any other ideas, but many ministers in the Western Wei Dynasty couldn't hold back, feeling that this matter was very unusual, it was the recognition of the Great Wei around him, and there were already voices asking Gao Yihuan to be the emperor.

This kind of voice, after learning of the failure of Zhu Cihong's Northern Expedition, showed more and more trends.

After all, the Western Wei Dynasty was a rebellious regime, and such a regime usually did not have legitimacy, Gao Yihuan didn't care much about this, but many civilian officials did.

Seeing that the Western Wei Dynasty was bound to go on the road of rebellion, and it was inevitable to overthrow the Ming Dynasty and establish a new dynasty, the civil officials were anxious and racked their brains to find legitimacy for Gao Yihuan.

Now their general idea is to compete for the merit of driving out the Tartars, and then there seems to be nothing to say.

Now that Uszang had submitted, they had opened up an idea to obtain tribute from the surrounding barbarians and vassal states, which was also considered a sign of orthodoxy, so they climaxed.

In this regard, the party Gao Yihuan immediately ordered to reprimand, but did not punish the leading official, but invited him to drink tea and have dinner together, and told him not to mention such a rebellious thing again.

Gao Yihuan's Taidu was soon regarded as acquiescence by some ministers who liked to speculate, and they began to persuade them even more presumptuously.

Gao Yihuan really wants to be the emperor, but he is no different from the emperor now, so he is not in a hurry, he is ready to let out the wind first, and when he takes Beijing in the future, everything will fall into place.

Now he still hopes to continue to win over Zhu Cihong, although judging from the information he gets, it is unlikely, but he still wants to keep it.

I hope that before the end of the Hedong Campaign, or even before the capture of Beijing, the brother-in-law will not block him.

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(End of chapter)