In the 46th year of Wanli (1618 AD), that is, the third year after the founding of the Later Jin Dynasty, Nurhaci swore to rebel against the Ming Dynasty with the "Seven Great Hate" on the 13th of the lunar month. He counted the seven major crimes of the Ming Dynasty against the Later Jin Kingdom (Juchens of Jianzhou), and led 20,000 infantry and cavalry to launch an attack on the Ming Dynasty. Most of the forts east of Fushun City were captured by the Later Jin army!

The fall of Fushun and other places was one after another. Emperor Wanli was very furious. At the same time, he finally felt that the situation was serious. He sent Yang Hao, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of War, to serve as the Liaodong strategy, to preside over the defense of Liaodong, and decided to send troops to Liaodong to attack the Later Jin Dynasty! However, due to the shortage of troops and wages, the army was unable to move for a long time. Emperor Wanli could only order the "Liao salary" to the whole country, and the order to aid the Japanese in the imperial court, was to send an additional 3 cents per mu, and the total increase of the silver tax was more than 2 million taels. He also drew troops from Sichuan, Gansu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces to reinforce Liaodong!

At this time, Guo Zhiyuan could no longer sit still. He knew that the famous "Sarhu Battle" in history was about to break out. This battle was an important turning point in the history of the Ming and Qing wars, and a decisive battle in the history of the rise and fall of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It can be said that the Battle of Sarhu was the beginning of the Ming Dynasty's defeat. The Battle of Sarhu completely exposed the Ming Dynasty's external strength and middle wars, which further expanded the ambitions of the Later Jin Dynasty. Taking advantage of the momentum to conquer Kaiyuan and Tieling, conquered Yehe's troops, chief Jin Taiji, Buyanggu was killed, and the remaining troops all surrendered to Jianzhou. They launched frequent battles against the Ming Dynasty year after year. After this war, the Ming Dynasty was severely injured and could no longer organize a decent counterattack. They could only defend passively and were almost beaten by the Iron Cavalry of the Later Jin Dynasty!

Before this battle, no one could have thought that the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty would be defeated by the Later Jin, because judging from the forces of the two sides participating in the war, the Ming army had an absolute advantage. In this battle, the Ming Dynasty arrived in Liaodong in various units of the Ming Dynasty. In addition to the Ye He soldiers, the Korean army had 13,000 people, totaling about 110,000 people, claiming to be 200,000 (some say 470,000), while the Later Jin army had only 60,000 people, and it was impossible to lose no matter how you look at it.

Guo Zhiyuan knew that the Ming army would be defeated in this battle, because although the Ming army had superior military strength, its morale was low, its pace was different, and the generals were disagreeable, and they were hindered by each other. In addition, the commander-in-chief Yang Hao was stubborn and mistakenly adopted the tactic of division of troops and divided the troops into four groups, saying that he wanted to encircle and annihilate the Later Jin army. Nurhaci also saw these weaknesses of the Ming army and formulated the policy of "I will only go all the way", concentrating my troops and defeated them one by one. Within 5 days, I defeated three Ming army in a row, annihilated about 50,000 Ming army, seized more than 28,000 mules, horses, and more than 20,000 firearms, and countless other military supplies, which caused the Later Jin strength to expand rapidly after this battle!

Although Guo Zhiyuan is no longer loyal to the increasingly corrupt court, he is unwilling to sit back and see the tragedy of history repeat itself, because the Battle of Sarhu was not only a turning point in the fate of the Ming Dynasty, but also a turning point in the fate of the entire Chinese nation. After the Battle of Sarhu, the court continued to impose "Liao salary" in order to cope with the frequent invasion of the Later Jin Dynasty, which made the lower-class people who were already extremely burdened even more miserable, and the whole of China was in dire straits!

So Guo Zhiyuan took the initiative to submit a memorial to the court and asked to send troops to Liaodong to participate in the war, and said that all the food and money could be raised by himself, and the court did not need to worry about it, but the court did not accept his affection at all. What do you, Guo Zhiyuan, want to do? Raise food and money to help the court fight? When did you become so kind? It is obvious that you have ulterior motives! You should stay in Dongfan honestly!

Guo Zhiyuan had long expected this result. Emperor Wanli was already afraid of him. How could he feel at ease to let him take tens of thousands of troops from the new army to Liaodong so close to the capital? If you support Liaodong, it is fake and the plot is real. When the court was distracted from dealing with the Later Jin Dynasty, he suddenly raised an army and rebelled and attacked the capital directly, wouldn’t it be troublesome?

Therefore, Guo Zhiyuan could only settle for the second best and submitted a memorial to the court, expressing his willingness to contribute 100,000 taels of silver to the court as military pay. In the memorial, Guo Zhiyuan also analyzed in detail the advantages and disadvantages of the Ming army compared with the Later Jin, reminding the Ming army commanders on the Liaodong front that they should not use the tactic of division of troops, but should concentrate their forces and seek a decisive battle opportunity with the Later Jin army, otherwise they will be defeated!

Emperor Wanli was very happy to read the first half of Guo Zhiyuan's memorial. It seemed that Guo Zhiyuan was still loyal to me. He knew that I was short of money and gave me silver. But when he saw the second half, his face became gloomy. Before the battle started, you kid predicted that you would lose this battle. Isn't this a bad thing for me?

However, Emperor Wanli still had some vision when he was unhappy and saw that Guo Zhiyuan's memorial also had some reason to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the Ming and Later Jin armies in his memorial, so he transferred Guo Zhiyuan's memorial to Yang Hao, the Liaodong master who was responsible for commanding the battle on the Liaodong front!

Who is Yang Hao? This guy is a typical villain who "fights outsiders and fights with internal strife"! Historical books say that he "since Hao's actions have failed, he has no authority, he has no belief in rewards and punishments, and he values ​​personal friendship but is less than the generals of the Southern Army. If the heroes are discouraged, he will be timid and compassionate with the rules and will be short of the spirit."

The Ming army was defeated by the Later Jin Dynasty in the Battle of Sarhu, while occupying the absolute advantage of military strength, and it also had a lot to do with Yang Hao's wrong command. Before this battle, Yang Hao did not conduct battlefield reconnaissance and analysis of the enemy situation at all. He seriously underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Later Jin army and pleaded that he would wipe out the Later Jin army and not allow one person to escape, thus making the wrong decision to divide the troops into four groups and attack together.

It's fine, but what's even more ridiculous is that in order to intimidate Nurhaci before the war, Yang Hao was so stupid that he asked the deserters of the Later Jin Dynasty to bring letters to Nurhaci, threatening to gather 470,000 troops and inform the real time and marching route. He thought that as soon as the Ming army arrived, Nurhaci would be left alone. Nurhaci was almost laughing to death when he received Yang Hao's letter. The Ming army had such a stupid commander, and it would be impossible to win this battle. The Later Jin Dynasty's movements to the Ming army were clear, but the four Ming troops were blind. Even the Later Jin army did not know where the Later Jin army was. This was like a person with a clever ear and a clear eye to beat four blind men. Wouldn't it be enough to knock down one to death?

It is conceivable that how could such a person listen to Guo Zhiyuan's suggestions? So after receiving the memorial from Guo Zhiyuan transferred by Emperor Wanli, Yang Hao just flipped it casually, and then he was so angry that he threw the memorial directly to the ground, sneering: "Guo Zhiyuan is just an ignorant junior, and is worthy of talking about military affairs with me? When I defeated Jiannu, I asked the emperor for the imperial edict, led the troops south, broke the Dongfan Island, and took the ignorant junior who was not in the court back to the capital for trial!..."
Chapter completed!