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Huang Taiji felt much more at ease when Emperor Chongzhen stripped Tang Tong of his military power. However, Huang Taiji could never get over the harm Tang Tong had done to him. Tang Tong not only robbed his capital, but also took away his concubine.
What does a man hate the most? A man of blood, apart from revenge for the murder of his father, hates being cuckolded the most. For a man like Huang Taiji, the revenge for the murder of his father will surely make him hate it in his heart, but being cuckolded is something he cannot bear. It's just that Tang Tong had a lot of soldiers in his hands, which made Huang Taiji helpless for a while.
Now that Tang Tong had been stripped of his military power, Huang Taiji thought the opportunity had come, so he mobilized his connections lurking in the Ming Dynasty to spread rumors that Tang Tong wanted to rebel. This trick was very simple, but it was effective time and time again. Although the rumor also reached the ears of Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen was not stupid. He would not launch an attack on Tang Tong until the officials he sent out had completely taken control of the team in Tang Tong's hands.
Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Chonghuan could be killed because they did not have real strength of their own. On the contrary, the generals were the ones who truly controlled the army. They were not the kind of people whose subordinates had been crippled. Even if Emperor Chongzhen wanted to kill them, he would not do it.
During this period, due to their close attention to Lord Tang, the Jinyiwei finally found a lot of intelligence. When Emperor Chongzhen learned from these intelligence that Tang Tong had defeated Huang Taiji and burned down Huang Taiji's Shengjing, Emperor Chongzhen was more afraid of the power of Tang Tong's subordinates on the one hand, and on the other hand, he was furious that Sun Chengzu and Zu Dashou concealed such important military intelligence and falsely claimed military merits. Emperor Chongzhen cursed these people for harming the country.
How could Emperor Chongzhen dare to act rashly against an army like Tang Tong's, which was completely private and had unparalleled combat effectiveness? After all, Emperor Chongzhen was somewhat smart. On the one hand, he coveted the combat effectiveness of this army, and on the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen also knew that such things could only be done slowly and after the officials he arranged had complete control of this army.
Under such circumstances, Tang Tong lived a very comfortable life for the time being, and no one jumped out to deal with him. Huang Taiji, due to financial constraints at this time, had to put Tang Tong's affairs aside temporarily and turn his attention to the Kingdom of Korea, hoping to seize some property from this country to cope with the current financial difficulties.
Since his defeat at the hands of Tang Tong, Huang Taiji has also made some reforms in the military. Historically, the surrender of Kong Youde and others brought a large number of craftsmen to Huang Taiji, allowing Huang Taiji to possess a large number of artillery. But now those craftsmen in the hands of Kong Youde and others have fallen into the hands of Tang Tong, and Huang Taiji does not have many artillery pieces.
Huang Taiji was a man with good military talent. He was keenly aware of the changes that muskets brought to war, so he also wanted to organize a musket team. He spent a huge amount of money and finally established connections with Gao Yingxiang and others through Shanxi merchants.
History underwent tremendous changes because of Tang Tong. Huang Taiji and Gao Yingxiang developed a relationship. In name, Gao Yingxiang was a rebel of the Ming Dynasty, and Huang Taiji was also a rebel of the Ming Dynasty. The two rebels hit it off for their respective interests. Huang Taiji exchanged 3,000 horses for 1,000 muskets from Gao Yingxiang.
In this way, Gao Yingxiang had a cavalry team and Huang Taiji had a musket team. Tang Tong sold muskets to Gao Yingxiang at a very low price, with the original intention of supporting Gao Yingxiang. However, Gao Yingxiang made a huge profit this time and had other ideas. He sent people to order a large number of muskets from the arms smuggling organization under Tang Tong.
Tang Tong had a large number of undercover agents in Gao Yingxiang's team, so Gao Yingxiang's deal with Huang Taiji naturally could not be hidden from Tang Tong. Tang Tong was a little angry about this, so he asked his men to raise the price of muskets. However, Tang Tong did not expect that after Huang Taiji formed the musket battalion, he trained it a little and then tested it on those disobedient tribes on the Mongolian grasslands. The huge power of the musket formation made Huang Taiji completely determined to increase the number of people in the musket battalion and buy guns from Gao Yingxiang at all costs. As a result, Tang Tong had no choice but to stop supplying muskets to Gao Yingxiang and instead increase his support for the Lotus Sect.
With the support of Tang Tong, the Lian Sect's strength increased dramatically and they won several battles. They almost occupied the entire Shandong province, posing a serious threat to the safety of the capital. This also largely relieved Gao Yingxiang's pressure, allowing Gao Yingxiang to wreak havoc in Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, living a very happy life.
After Huang Taiji won several battles on the grassland, the Mongols began to fear him, and those Mongolian tribes that had originally surrendered to him also obeyed Huang Taiji's orders obediently. After stabilizing the Mongolian grassland, Huang Taiji launched a large army to prepare to attack the Kingdom of Korea. At this time, the musket battalion in Huang Taiji's hands already had more than 13,000 muskets, and the personnel of this musket were mainly composed of armored slaves.
The main members of the armored slaves were actually Jurchens, but they were generally called Jurchen savages. The first wave of attack on the Kingdom of Korea was this musket battalion. The power of the muskets once again proved the advancement of thermal weapons. The Korean sticks, whose combat effectiveness was not strong, had already witnessed it from the army under Tang Tong in the past two years, so they were afraid of fighting. The musket battalion under Huang Taiji fired a few shots, and the sticks on the other side ran faster than rabbits after hearing the gunshots.
Such a result made Huang Taiji feel very sad and he thought of destroying the Kingdom of Korea. The King of Korea, Li (亻宗), sent a fast horse to ask for help from Zhang Niujiao, who was stationed in the Korean concession.
Zhang Niujiao is now living a very happy life in the Kingdom of Korea, but he has only five thousand regular soldiers under his command, and the Japanese allied forces have 2,000 people. Naturally, they are unable to fight against Huang Taiji's army.
While Zhang Niujiao informed Tang Tong of the news, he also asked Zhang Yiheng, who was stationed in Dalian City, to ask for help. Zhang Yiheng had 3,000 regular soldiers and 10,000 Japanese auxiliary troops under his command. Tang Tong's main forces were now concentrated in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. It would be a waste of time to mobilize them. After receiving the letter, Tang Tong asked Zhang Yiheng to transfer half of the troops in Dalian City to Korea, and on the other hand, he asked Huang Feng to send the army following Huang Feng to Korea.
Emperor Chongzhen also received the news that the Jiannu attacked the Kingdom of Korea. Although he wanted to help this vassal state, he was now in a desperate situation and could only do nothing to help. Tang Tong was afraid that it would be unsafe, so he ordered the transfer of all 5,000 personnel from Taiwan and sent people to negotiate with Huang Taiji. However, Huang Taiji was temporarily emboldened because he had a musket battalion of more than 10,000 people under his command, and the financial crisis was imminent, so he refused to negotiate.
Huang Taiji didn't know that the real equipment in Tang Tong's hand was a breech-loading rifle. People of this era didn't know much about muskets, and didn't know the huge gap between breech-loading rifles and muzzle-loading matchlock rifles. If he hadn't been afraid of Tang Tong in his heart, Huang Taiji would have sacrificed those who went to negotiate at that time.
The Japanese auxiliary army under Tang Tong was also equipped with muzzle-loading matchlock rifles, but these Japanese had been trained for two years and had participated in battles. Their combat effectiveness was much stronger than that of the musket battalion under Huang Taiji. Moreover, the Japanese were very obedient and fought bravely. It could be said that they were a very elite army.
The people of Korea were also very obedient, but they were very cowardly and could only be used as labor export. The Japanese, on the other hand, were well treated by Tang Tong because of their obedience and bravery, which made them very loyal to Tang Tong. Their loyalty was not much different from that of the Ming soldiers under Tang Tong.
Zhang Niujiao, Zhang Yiheng and others under Tang Tong were not good generals and were not capable of facing large-scale battles. Tang Tong was now the prefect of Suzhou. In order not to make things too awkward with Emperor Chongzhen, Tang Tong could not leave Suzhou, so he sent a command team there.
This command team is led by Hong Niangzi and Chen Zilong, and its members include Hu Mengfei and others and several Western consultants. Hong Niangzi is very talented in military affairs. After being with Tang Tong for these years, her military talents have increased. Tang Tong sent her there, on the one hand, to give full play to her talents, and on the other hand, to serve as a military supervisor.
Chen Zilong was from Huating, Songjiang (now Songjiang, Shanghai). He was a Jinshi in the tenth year of Chongzhen and a famous anti-Qing hero in the late Ming Dynasty. He also had some military talents. Historically, this Chen Zilong was also a confidant of Liu Rushi. At this time, Chen Zilong had not yet passed the Jinshi exam and was not well-known. He met Tang Tong at a banquet. Tang Tong had heard of Chen Zilong's reputation later and immediately spent some effort to recruit him as his subordinate.
Speaking of which, scholars like Chen Zilong and Fang Yizhi were able to join Tang Tong's team thanks to the "Na Han Bao" newspaper founded by Tang Tong, which had some influence on young scholars like Fang Yizhi and Chen Zilong. Young people are always full of vigor and are easily moved by ideological and sanguine ideas. After they joined Tang Tong, they also led a group of young scholars to join Tang Tong.
Following Hongniangzi, Chen Zilong and his men arrived in Korea, and a tug-of-war that lasted for more than a year began.
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