This is a decisive battle that is of great importance, both for the Ming and Qing dynasties.

In this battle, the Ming Dynasty dispatched a total of 85,000 cavalry and sprint troops. This army was also the most powerful field force in the Ming Dynasty except for the Jingying and Lu Xiangsheng, which had just been trained by the 50,000 new troops, so the Ming Dynasty could not afford to lose.

Even if you can't afford to lose, the Qing Dynasty came out from the nest. In addition to the 60,000 Manchu Eight Banners, you also gathered 30,000 Mongolian Eight Banners and 20,000 Han military banners. This is already all the power that Huang Taiji can gather.

If you lose, the Qing Dynasty can declare its destruction.

After a day of march, the army saw the continuous and curved Liao River. Yang Daniu, as the vanguard, came to a narrow and slow place with a relatively slow water flow. He first sent a post to investigate and then the troops began to cross the river.

The process of crossing the river was very smooth, and there was no harassment from the Qing soldiers. I think the Qing generals also knew that the Ming army that came here was extraordinary and the ordinary sniping methods were useless to them. In addition, the Liao River was too long and there were too many places to cross the river, so they simply let the Ming army cross the river generously.

But even so, crossing the river is not an easy task. It took the 80,000 troops two days to all pass the Liaohe River.

After crossing the Liaohe River, the army was less than 400 miles away from Shengjing, and Qing army spotted mails began to appear ahead. After discovering the army, these Qing army spotted mails did not escape immediately, but kept hovering around to investigate the situation.

The Ming army was not willing to be outdone. Teams of people started to roar out and began to expel these whistle-snooping whistle.

Although the scale of the battle between the sentry-snooping missions is very small, usually with only a few dozen cavalry or even a few cavalry confronted each other, its intensity is not worse than that of regular battles, and its bloodiness is even worse.

The Qing army had the advantage of familiar territories, and the Ming army also made full use of its number and weapons. Whenever they encountered a Qing army's post, they would send several times the number of people to expel or encircle and annihilate them.

In just half a day, there were no less than ten collisions, and the Qing army lost nearly a hundred surveillance posts. It was not until the afternoon that the Qing army stopped investigating the Ming army.

The army walked along the wide official road for a long time and then arrived at a small hill with a road pier on the hill.

The road pier mentioned here is not the road pier that exists as obstacles in later generations. This kind of road pier is a small stronghold with outposts and defensive nature that is about eight zhang high and about tens of zhang around.

This kind of road pier can be stationed with twenty to thirty people, which is considered a super-small outpost-like thing. Of course, this road pier has long been abandoned and the defenders inside have long disappeared.

On the right side of the road pier is a winding official road, which is more than 1 meter wide, and the road surface is covered with long-lasting rut marks.

Because it is close to the Liaohe River, there are dense wheat fields everywhere on both sides of the official road, but most of these wheat fields have long turned into wilderness, and the ditches on both sides have been abandoned due to disrepair.

Sun Chengzong walked slowly on the official road, looking at the abandoned wheat fields on both sides of the official road, he sighed long and showed a look of heartache in his eyes, "Oh... these wheat fields were originally cultivated by the people of the Ming Dynasty, but I never thought that in just over twenty years, the efforts that I spent hundreds of years on in the Ming Dynasty were gone in an instant!"

Looking at Sun Chengzong's face full of heartache, Yang Feng didn't know how to comfort the old man.

At this time, the two saw a stone tablet standing in front of them that was about to fall. The inscription was already unclear, and only the signature could be vaguely visible to the big words "Stand in the Chenghua Nian of the Ming Dynasty".

Sun Chengzong got off his horse, walked to the stone tablet, stretched out his sleeve and wiped it on the stone tablet. After a while, the handwriting slowly revealed. Sun Chengzong slowly recited: "Big...Yancun!"

He stood still and looked at the large area of ​​villages around him that had long been ruined, with a mixed look of heartache, hatred and self-blame in his eyes.

Yang Feng could understand his feelings. After more than two hundred years of development, more than two million Han people had gathered in Liaodong, but after more than ten years of massacre by Nurhaci, the Han people in Liaodong are no longer ten, and there is nothing more distressing for Sun Chengzong than this.

As the saying goes, it is easy to destroy and difficult to build. If you want to restore Liaodong to its former appearance, you still don’t know how much time and energy it takes to call.

Seeing this, Yang Feng was afraid that Sun Chengzong would be too sad to be bad for his health, so he comforted him: "The governor should not be sad. The good days of the Qing Tartars cannot last long. When we destroy them, we will let them pay back the blood debts they owe one by one, and no one can escape!"

"Okay, then I'll lend you a good word."

Sun Chengzong also quickly adjusted his emotions. When he was about to talk to Yang Feng, a rapid sound of horse hooves came in front of him. Soon a knight came to them and got off the horse and said loudly.

"Report to the governor, Marquis of Jiangning, the first cavalry battalion rescued our team in front of us at night and intercepted thousands of Mongolian Tartars. Now the two sides are fighting fiercely."

"Oh... have you met an enemy?"

Yang Feng and Sun Chengzong looked at each other and said to the cavalry: "Where is the rescued Ye Busuo, who is now rescued, please bring them to see us!"

Soon, more than a dozen bloody Yebuyan brought him to them. He saluted Yang Feng in a hoarse voice and said loudly: "Zhao Laohei, the 100th general of the third squadron of Yebuyan, has seen the Marquis and the Supervisor!"

Yang Feng looked at the more than ten Ye Bushang. The iron armor made of steel was covered with traces and blood from weapons. Just looking at these traces, you can tell how intense the battle they had experienced was.

He took a deep breath and said in a deep voice: "You will talk about it in detail, what exactly did you encounter."

"yes!"

Zhao Laohei licked his chapped lips and said, "Bi Zhi and others were ordered to go to Shengjing seven days ago to investigate the enemy situation. A few days ago, they rested in a place called Heitunzi less than a hundred miles away from Shengjing. Unexpectedly, they encountered the Yellow Banner of the Mongolian Eight Banners who came to reinforce Shengjing.

Seeing this, Bei Zhi and others immediately slipped away. On the way to retreat, Bei Zhi and others even killed a thousand-strong commander of the Tartars with muskets, but this move completely angered the Tartars.

After killing the commander of the thousand-man, the Tartars were pursuing desperately as if they were crazy. Beizhi and others could only retreat while fighting. They kept dealing with them while retreating here. On the way, Beizhi and others discovered the main force of the Tartars in a place called Heisha Ridge."

"etc……"

Sun Chengzong, who was standing aside, interrupted Zhao Laohei's words.

"You said you discovered the main force of the Tartars? How many of them are there?"

Zhao Laohei swallowed and replied with difficulty, "Because Beizhi had to escape at that time, he was just running by in a hurry. However, according to Beizhi's estimate, the Tartars arranged at least 30,000 troops in Heisha Ridge, and judging from the banner, at least half were people of the Eight Banners."
Chapter completed!