Although Mr. Yoo was appointed head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission, he had little idea of what he was going to do until he took the post. After all, he has always grown up in the south, and the biggest religious problem he has seen is that those monks and nuns defraud believers of their belongings or abduct people in the name of religious beliefs.

But for the Mongols, the question of religious belief could lead to war*. In the steppe, ethnic and religious issues are two sides of the same coin, and this is also a fact that he has gradually come to understand in his dealings with the Mongolian right-wing departments in the past few months.

If he didn't know about these things before, he could have agreed first. But now, Liu Jingting didn't dare to agree rashly. After all, all the right-wing departments of Mongolia are tribes that believe in the Yellow Sect, and he doesn't want to make the right-wing departments deviate from the Ming because of his statement here. For the current Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian right-wing departments are much more important than the current Chahar departments.

Liu Jingting was silent for a long time, and finally spoke: "I personally have no opinion on the requirements of the Great Khan, but from the position of the Great Khan, I can only express to the Great Khan that the Ming Imperial Court has only one position on religious beliefs. As long as such religious beliefs are not aimed at opposing the Ming Dynasty and splitting China, and are not aimed at propagating superstitions, the Ming Dynasty will not interfere with the choice of religious beliefs among the Mongolian tribes..."

Lin Danhan interrupted him impatiently, "I don't want to hear you say this, I just want to know if the Ming Emperor will support my actions against the Yellow Sect." ”

Liu Jingting smiled unnaturally before saying, "As long as this is the choice of the Mongols themselves, the Ming Dynasty will not interfere with this." ”

Lin Danhan immediately stood up with laughter and said, "Okay, as long as you are willing to make this promise for Emperor Ming, there will naturally be no problem in sending troops." Guiyingcha will be fully responsible for this dispatch of troops, and as for the opening of bank outlets, we will talk about it after this war is over. ”

At noon on the 15th, Gui Yingcha returned to Datong with the assembled 3,500 men and horses and followed Liu Jingting. In order to compete for the quota of troops, the leaders of the various departments in the Naturalization City also quarreled fiercely. After all, the Ming were willing to provide all the war materials for this expedition, but the captured booty could belong to them.

However, Guiying just relied on the proximity to the water to get the moon first, and simply arranged all the candidates for the troops in his own tribe and the tribe that was friendly with him. In order to prevent those tribal leaders from going to Lin Dan Khan to complain, he couldn't wait to urge Liu Jingting to leave the next day.

Also in the afternoon of this day, Wu Nag, who received Huang Taiji's order, rushed back to the camp of the middle road army in Zunhua City from the front line of the East Road. Before Wu Nag could take a breath, he had already been summoned by Huang Taiji, and the two talked secretly in Huang Taiji's big tent for more than an hour.

In the evening of the same day, Huang Taiji once again convened a meeting of the Jurchen and the important generals of the Eight Banners. At this meeting, Huang Taiji proposed a new battle plan.

“… The Ming army is now divided into two roads to Zunhua, the west route army is led by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but after occupying Shimenxia, it stopped moving forward and began to build a camp at the east entrance of Shimenxia, only a small number of cavalry and our army's sentinel cavalry for contact battles.

Although our army maintained its advantage in this contact battle, it did not continue to expand its advantage in the contact battle according to the plan, and it was originally expected that the Ming Emperor would be able to pour his troops to attack after seeing this situation, but for several days, the Ming army has never moved eastward.

From this point of view, either the emperor of the Ming State or the chief general who led the Western Route Army of the Ming State, one of them must be very cautious in the use of troops. Therefore, if we do not assemble the Ming army, which has an advantage over us, or if we do not show any flaws, this army will not easily advance eastward.

The Eastern Route Army of the Ming Kingdom was composed of our old opponent fighting in Liaodong, the Ming Army of Liaodong. The commander in front is Man Gui, and since he rescued Qian'an in time, he has been entangled with the Mongolian right battalion led by Wu Nag on the mountain road to Zunhua in the east.

Although Wunag won several victories with the help of the terrain, Mangui relied on the large number of troops under his command and always used the wheel warfare method to start a war of attrition with Wunag on the eastern road. According to the information we have received from our current outposts, Man Gui has 9,000 descendants in his hands, and there are still 6,000 back-up troops in Qian'an City behind him, while there are still five or six battalions on the way outside Shanhaiguan, and another three or four battalions are being mobilized.

Wunag had less than 5,000 men and horses, and the mountain road to the east was indeed conducive to defense, but it also offset the advantage of cavalry to the greatest extent. If Mangui is allowed to continue to attack, the Ming army will soon be able to reach the Santun camp, which can be regarded as opening up half of the passage from Zunhua to Shanhaiguan.

Without the Santun camp as a support, we will lose our foothold in the pass, and at this time we can only go out of the pass, and then trek thousands of miles of snowfields, over the mountains and mountains to return to Shenyang.

Therefore, if we want to induce the Ming Emperor to attack in the direction of Zunhua and defeat Mangui, the main force of the Liaodong army, then we need to defeat Mangui first, and then turn back to outflank and annihilate the Ming Western Route Army, and finally capture the Ming Emperor. ”

Mang Gurtai said disappreciatively: "Man Gui has always been brave and fierce, and he is a rare fierce general in the Liaodong Army. When the king of Khan had just ascended the throne, he ordered an attack on Jinzhou, and it was Man Gui who led his men and horses from Ningyuan to aid Jinzhou, breaking our encirclement and finally defeating us.

Since Wu Nag can use the terrain to drag the Mangui army westward, then when we gather the main force to attack Mangui, he can also rely on the terrain to drag us down? At that time, we will be dragged by Mangui in the east, so what will we do when the Ming army in the west begins to attack with all its might? ”

Hearing Mang Gurtai mention the battle of Ningjin that he launched when he first ascended the throne, although the expression on Huang Taiji's face did not change, he glanced at this Sanbeile deeply.

In response to Mang Gurtai's questioning, Wu Nag immediately stepped out and said: "Although Man Gui is brave but has little strategy, the last general has been entangled with him for so many days, if he pretends that the army is exhausted and unable to support it, and retreats backwards in great strides, Man Gui will definitely not have any doubts."

When Man Gui led the army to chase to the city of Santun camp, the main force we were waiting in Santun camp city to ambush Man Gui's army again, which would inevitably give the Ming army of Liaodong led by Man Gui the biggest blow.

Regardless of whether or not Man Gui was captured in this battle, as long as the Ming army led by Man Gui who dared to fight with us in the field was defeated, the last general thought that no one in the Ming army in the east would continue to come out next. And we can move the main forces back to the battlefield to the west.

And our army abandoned its position and retreated, and the news of the victory of the Mangui Festival spread, the emperor of the Ming Kingdom would inevitably not be able to sit still, and he would have to order the Western Route Army to attack Zunhua temporarily. If we show weakness and retreat again, we can let the Ming Western Route Army also enter the terrain that is favorable to our cavalry, and then the main force returning from the eastern battlefield will ambush the Ming Western Route Army again.

As long as the eastern and western armies of the Ming Kingdom were defeated, the battleable soldiers in the Ming State Pass would be roughly destroyed. At that time, our army will no longer have to attack Zunhua, and can directly go west to the capital of Jizhou Boming Kingdom.

If the defenders of Zunhua City go out of the city to pursue our army, then I can destroy them in the field, and if we don't go out of the city, we can enter the plains of Gyeonggi of the Ming Kingdom without hindrance. At that time, our army will leave if it wants to, fight if it wants to, stay if it wants to, and the Ming people will no longer have the power to stop it. ”

Although Wunag was a Mongol, he was a Jurchenized Mongol. His family lived in the Jurchen Yehebu, and after Nurhachi captured the Yehebu, he took refuge in Nurhachi.

However, because he was born in the Yehe Department, he was not used much before, and it was only when the Chinese side came to prominence in the first battle of Juehua Island, thus entering the power center of the Houjin.

After Huang Taiji succeeded to the throne, he was reused and became the Mongol leader who replaced the Ulut Banner Ming Antaiji and was in charge of the Ulut Banner. Wu Nag is very senior in the Eight Banners, even Mang Gurtai does not dare to refute him rashly, not to mention that there is nothing inappropriate about Wu Nag's strategy.

As soon as Mang Gurtai's side was dumbfounded, Dolgon and other little Baylors spoke out in support of Huang Taiji's battle strategy. With the support of these little Baylors, the new combat strategy was quickly adopted by the meeting.

On 16 November, Huang Taiji gathered 10,000 elite cavalry of the Middle Route Army, joined the 6,000 elite troops of the Left Route Army's two white flags and the Zhenglan Banner, and then drove towards the Santun camp.

Noticing that the main force of the Later Jin was heading east, Zhao led the sect out of the city with 500 cavalry and launched a tentative attack on the camp of the Later Jin Left Route Army along the intact east avenue.

Mang Gurtai, who was left behind by Huang Taiji under the city of Zunhua, was already prepared and set up an ambush in the camp of the Left Route Army, and the cavalry led by Zhao Shujiao lost more than 100 people before fleeing back to the city.

After the defeat of this small assault battle, Zhao Shujiao put aside other thoughts and was determined to ensure that the city of Zunhua was defended until the reinforcements sent by the emperor arrived.

On the evening of 14 November, Wang Zaijin, Mangui and other officials of the Third War Zone finally received the news of the victory in the Battle of Shimen.

As the first strong soldier in the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty, Liaoxi Town, from receiving the warning from the Guannei to the present, the only commendable record is to hold Qian'an City.

The Liaodong Army, which had assembled five or six elite battalion leaders outside the Guan, had been unable to break through the Houjin army that was inferior in numbers for several days, and the most frustrating thing for the Liaodong Ming Army was that the Houjin army in front of them was still dominated by Mongols, with only a small number of Jurchens.

When the news of the fall of Santun Camp reached the Liaodong Ming army, which was attacking Santun Camp, the morale of this army was even lower.

When the news of the victory in the Battle of Shimen came, the Ming army led by Man Gui did not take a step forward to the Santun camp, but retreated 2 miles back to wait for the support of the new army.