On September 25, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, in 1642 AD, the battle of Liaodong officially began.

September 25 is a very special day, the history of Chongzhen fifteen years, is also a very special year, at the beginning of this year, Houjin conquered Songshan in Liaodong, Hong Chengchou led the 130,000 Ming army to resist the Houjin Tartars, almost all the army was annihilated, Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou were captured, both of them surrendered to the Houjin Tartars, encountered internal and external difficulties of the Ming Dynasty, ready to negotiate peace with the Houjin, how did the news leak out, Chen Xinjia, who presided over the peace affair, was beheaded, in the second half of the year, the Houjin Tartars entered the customs again and entered Jizhou, He broke through Jinan and Shandong counties in a row, conquered 88 cities, and did not leave the Guannai until April of the following year. It was also this year that He Renlong was beheaded by Sun Chuanting, and Sun Chuanting was defeated.

It can be said that the fifteenth year of Chongzhen in history was a year of war and chaos, and it was also a key year for the Ming Dynasty to completely collapse.

Interestingly, the attack of the Houjin Tartars in this year began to be planned on September 25.

Because of someone's crossing, all of this has changed dramatically.

140,000 troops, 20,000 left behind the Guanning Jin defense line, the remaining 120,000 troops, under the leadership of Su Tiancheng and Lu Xiangsheng, began to attack Guangning and Xiping Fort occupied by the Houjin Tartars, this attack has a decisive meaning, once the Houjin Tartars lose Guangning and Xiping Fort, Shenyang will be under the direct threat of the Ming army, from Guangning to Shenyang, except for a Liao River in the middle, there is no other barrier.

For Houjin and Daming, this is a battle of life and death, the winner will occupy the absolute initiative, the loser will be difficult to continue, for Daming, the battle of Liaodong failed. All the efforts made in front of him were almost in vain, and the Houjin Tartars would occupy an advantage in Liaodong, and then affect Fuzhou and Xuanzhou, and even directly threaten Dengzhou, Laizhou, and Qingzhou, and the Guanningjin defense line would also encounter a serious threat. For the Later Jin, the loss of Guangning and Xiping Fort in Liaodong, Shenyang will suffer a direct threat, and the Houjin army must retreat from the defense line to protect Shenyang, and the troops in Haizhou, Yaozhou and even Liaoyang must be transferred to the periphery of Shenyang. It is only a matter of time before Haizhou and Yaozhou are lost in this way.

Of course, the defeat of the battle of Liaodong did not mean the fall of the dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty still had enough troops to urgently transfer to Liaodong to hold the Guanningjin defense line and continue the confrontation with the Houjin Tartars. It's a big deal to return to the previous situation, Fuzhou and Xuanzhou and other places. All of them were lost, North Korea no longer became a subject state of the Ming Dynasty, and the Houjin could also adjust their strategies, or even abandon Shenyang, retreat in the direction of Fushun and Sarhu, or even withdraw to Tieling, Kaiyuan and other places. Garrisoned in Zhenbeiguan.

But there is one thing that Su Tiancheng and Huang Taiji both understand, once the battle of Liaodong fails, it will definitely suffer a catastrophe next, and if the Houjin Tartar fails, the Jiangning camp will seize the opportunity. Continue to attack, the morale of the frustrated Houjin Tartars, it is difficult to organize a stubborn resistance, the Houjin occupies a small place, it is impossible to compare with the Ming Dynasty, the Houjin Tartars retreat space is limited, and finally can only retreat to the Songhua River, or enter the Mongolian steppe, and start a wandering career.

As for the failure of the Jiangning camp, Su Tiancheng will be directly liquidated, Zhu Youzhen will not let go of such a good opportunity, when the time comes, Su Tiancheng will not have any support, become the object to be slaughtered, and the people who are attached to Su Tiancheng will also have no good end, maybe the journey will come to an abrupt end at this moment, and after a few years, the Ming Dynasty will still be destroyed by the Houjin Tartars, and history will continue to continue, but the Ming Dynasty has survived for decades.

Su Tiancheng attached great importance to the battle of Liaodong and would never allow defeat.

In order to fight the battle of Liaodong, Su Tiancheng did his best, the arsenal produced artillery and shells day and night, and transported them to Liaodong in large quantities, the equipment of the artillery battalion was further strengthened, the cavalry was equipped with soft armor and armor, and it was used according to different needs, flintlock pistols were popularized in the Jiangning battalion, whether it was cavalry or foot soldiers, each person had a flintlock pistol, and the training subjects of the cavalry of the Jiangning battalion had changed many years ago, they were no longer connected with shooting arrows on horseback, but shooting with flintlock pistols on horseback, as for the training of foot soldiers, In addition to the technique of fighting, the shooting of the flintlock pistol is the most important training.

As for the Shenji battalion and the artillery battalion, it is the focus of the reinforcement, and the artillery battalion is equipped with the most advanced artillery; with the deepening of research and development, the artillery is constantly updated, and the power of the general's cannon and the red-coat cannon is no longer the same as before, and there has been great progress in both range and lethality.

Cold weapons are in the era of excessive hot weapons, with advanced hot weapons, it is to occupy an absolute advantage, not to say that Su Tiancheng who has crossed understands this, even Huang Taiji is also clear, but from a deep understanding, Huang Taiji is far inferior to Su Tiancheng, Houjin has always been proud of the outstanding quality of the sergeants, and what they show off most is the cavalry's charge and combat ability in the field, even if it is the process of previous history, it is also revealed, the Manchurians do not attach importance to hot weapons, Su Tiancheng is different, his rich historical knowledge makes him fully understand the importance of science and technology, it is impossible for a cavalry wielding a broadsword and spear to confront an army armed with a submachine gun, such a battle, it can't be said to be dead, it can only be said to be stupid.

It is also because of this understanding that Su Tianhao has put a lot of effort into improving and developing firearms, but this research and development work has also been affected by the times, such as seamless steel pipes, which cannot be possessed in this era, the so-called fine iron, and steel have a lot of similarities, but there is still an essential difference between the two, not to mention the smelting technology, modern science and technology have not yet sprouted, and the first steam water lifter in the world only appeared in England in 1698. The steam engine in the real sense was invented by the Englishman Watt in 1765, and these times are a little far away from today.

Su Tiancheng can completely promote scientific and technological progress, but it is a pity that he must have a suitable environment, under the current situation, it is definitely impossible to do it, and it is impossible to do it.

The artillery owned by the Jiangning battalion, from this era, has reached the limit in terms of technology, and the effective firing range of the red-coat cannon has reached five kilometers, that is to say, the shells fired can form a lethality five kilometers away, which is a great progress, the emergence of the flowering shell is the most important progress in artillery, if it is not for the invention of the flowering shell, there is not much difference between artillery and trebuchet, but it saves a lot of manpower.

The most advanced artillery and flintlock pistols are only owned by the Jiangning battalion, and they are absolutely not allowed to be traded, and they cannot be leaked out, during the battle of Gaizhou, artillery and flintlock pistols played a decisive role, but at that time, Su Tiancheng, who had some considerations, did not use artillery on a large scale, but the battle of Liaodong was the time for artillery to play a role.

There are as many as 1,000 artillery pieces that arrived in Liaodong, including red-coated cannons, general-style cannons, tiger squat cannons and Fulong machine guns, of which red-coated cannons and general-gun cannons account for more than half.

What made Su Tiancheng most happy was that William and David, with the assistance of their companions, improved the Furlong machine gun, these techniques were directly transmitted from the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, the most new Furlong machine gun, close to the light machine gun hundreds of years later, the close-range lethality is great, the only drawback is that it cannot be used for a long time, and the barrel needs to be constantly cooled.

These are the capitals that Su Tiancheng relies on, and they are also the guarantee that he can defeat the Houjin Tartars.

With the guarantee of hot weapons, the next thing is the combat effectiveness and morale of the soldiers, which is also Su Tiancheng's place of pride, the army of the Ming Dynasty is a lot, according to the statistics of the Ministry of War, the total number of people is more than two million, excluding the water in it, it is more than one million in practice, but there are not many of them who really have combat effectiveness, Su Tiancheng once made statistics, the first-class army of the Ming Dynasty, only the Jiangning battalion, I am afraid that the first-class army in the whole world, there is only the Jiangning battalion, followed by the Liaodong border army and the Datong border army, and then the Beijing Beijing camp, Nanjing Jingying, Fengyang Jingying, the fourth is the army led by Liu Zeqing, Huang Degong, Zuo Liangyu and others, and the worst is the army of the guards in various places.

The morale and combat capability of the Jiangning battalion are not comparable with other armies in the Ming Dynasty, this is an army that runs through the current combat thinking, has strict military regulations and military discipline, has sufficient guarantees for the treatment of officers and soldiers, and their families can be properly resettled, and the ideological education of officers and soldiers is the most important, and officers must take the lead in leading by example, be considerate of their subordinates, and work together from top to bottom, so as to ensure the morale and combat capability of the army.

The so-called ten years of sharpening a sword, Su Tiancheng founded the Jiangning Battalion, it has been more than ten years, what I used to think of was to rely on this army to revitalize the Ming Dynasty, but now the meaning has changed, not only to revitalize the Ming Dynasty, but also to help him seize the world and conquer the whole world.

On the eve of the conquest, Su Tiancheng made sufficient preparations, he firmly believed that the battle of Liaodong could win the most victorious victory, as for the length of the expedition, there were many uncertain factors, and prompted Su Tiancheng to make up his mind, there is one more thing, that is, Zhu Xianxuan, who was in the capital, has been placed under house arrest by the imperial court, Zhu Xianxuan's safety must be absolutely guaranteed, after the victory in the battle of Liaodong, Su Tiancheng will directly speak, asking Zhu Xianxuan to come to his side, I believe that at that time, the imperial court can not refuse, I didn't dare to refuse, otherwise Su Tiancheng led the army and entered the capital directly from Shanhaiguan, and no one could resist it.

At the moment of the decisive battle, Su Tiancheng didn't care about anything for the time being, he was thinking about the battle of Liaodong, he rarely rested, uncharacteristically cared about the details of the preparations, and even went to the barracks to check the preparations in person, which also made it clear to everyone that the battle of Liaodong was very important. (To be continued......)