"I'm not reconciled! Why? Victory was just around the corner, why? Let me die! Let me die like this!" Qirhalang roared in despair as Wang Han, riding a horse, grabbed him by the collar, finally wailing. The battle was seemingly won, but then this unexpected reversal occurred. A black-armored Ming general with unbelievably high martial arts skills appeared. His few subordinates, either fleeing or trying to buy themselves time to escape, were killed in a single exchange. Even Qirhalang himself couldn't escape being captured. His own soldiers and warriors, with their main commander dead or deserted, and even the commander's flag fallen, lost their command, their morale plummeted, and they collapsed in disarray.
Unfortunately, he can't even commit suicide to preserve his last dignity. The bones in his hands and feet have been shattered by the black-armored general behind him, and all his teeth have been knocked out by a single punch. After he was captured, his remaining hundreds of personal guards came to his rescue, but nearly half of them were slaughtered like vegetables. The rest couldn't overcome their fear and fled. Not a single guard could even manage to kill him so that he could preserve his last dignity.
"Death? As one of the Eight Banners generals of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, you won't die so easily. Before they can pry out the information in your mind, you'll be in a state of ecstasy. The Embroidered Uniform Guard is very good at this." Wang Han rode his horse, carrying Qierhalang in one hand, towards the battlefield. Hearing Qierhalang's cries of agony, he couldn't help but sneer.
Upon hearing Wang Han's words, Qirhalang turned completely ashen-faced. Unfortunately, he couldn't even commit suicide now. He could only be carried by Wang Han like a dead dog, awaiting his humiliating fate.
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On the battlefield, after the Manchu Qing dynasty was defeated, the Ming dynasty soldiers, who had suffered heavy casualties, did not pursue the fleeing troops, but instead cleaned up the battlefield.
"This guy is yours." Back at the edge of the battlefield, Wang Han casually tossed the crippled Qirhalang to a few soldiers cleaning up the battlefield and said, "This guy is Qirhalang, the leader of the Bordered Blue Banner of the Manchu Eight Banners. He should be of great use to you. Don't let him die easily. Of the remaining Jiala Ejen, three are dead and one has escaped."
After saying this, Wang Han prepared to leave. Now Wang Han also figured out the time. It was the time of the Battle of Sarhu, and it was also the time when Shen Lang and others had just come down from the battlefield and entered the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Moreover, his identity was still unknown, and he did not want to have too much contact with the Ming court at the moment, so as to avoid encountering any troubles.
"Wait...this...hero." Several soldiers, seeing this, quickly called out, "Our general wishes to see you."
“If he were sincere about seeing me, he would have been waiting here long ago, or sent someone to find me, instead of having a few lowly soldiers cleaning up the battlefield tell me. Besides, I don’t want to see him either,” Wang Han said, shaking his head, and urged his horse to leave.
With the exception of a few, Wang Han wouldn't even give a second glance to the current Ming Dynasty officials. Moreover, the current Ming Dynasty's civil officials, on the one hand, considered themselves superior because of their noble status as scholars, thus separating themselves from ordinary people and taking it for granted that they enslave the lower classes. On the other hand, they manipulated things at every level, making countless decisions that harmed the country and its people for their own benefit, even knowingly making wrong decisions. They even went so far as to pressure the emperor to rescind beneficial policies. It was utterly ridiculous.
The Ming Dynasty's army also suffered from various problems. Not only were military officers severely suppressed by civil officials, but most of the military power was in the hands of civil officials who knew nothing about military affairs, and the generals were constantly subjected to various constraints and difficulties from these officials. These problems didn't stop there; the army also had its share of internal issues. There were widespread instances of soldiers exploiting their own troops, the army's development was a mess, and its weaponry was inadequately updated. Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty wouldn't have been so badly defeated by the Manchus, and it wouldn't have been plagued by various incidents, with officials' sons openly bullying the common people.
Wealthy merchants showed utter disregard for the law, with the tea tax in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces amounting to only twelve taels of silver – a truly laughable situation. Furthermore, some merchants secretly traded arms, grain, and other supplies with the Qing dynasty, betraying state intelligence.
Wang Han now finds it utterly pointless to deal with them, and instead harbors a deep-seated murderous intent towards them, an intent no less intense than that of the Manchus.
In Wang Han's view, anyone with a brain, a sense of the big picture, a spirit of dedication, and who understands the principle of "if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold," knows what the consequences of a country's demise would be. Even with the Manchus' constant massacres and their blatant ambitions, these people still went their own way.
If these people had been able to adjust their mindset and allow the Ming Dynasty to gather enough popular support in the end, a complete reversal of fortune wouldn't have been impossible. However, the Ming Dynasty, with its tens of millions of people, perished at the hands of the Manchus, who numbered only a few million. These people undoubtedly played a crucial role in this. Yet, how many of them ultimately fared well? They genuinely believed themselves superior, only to dig their own graves and be discarded by the Manchus after they had served their purpose.
Wang Han even had a plan in mind: if he couldn't change the current situation, he would bring in an army from the Divine Might Space to carry out a large-scale purge. However, Wang Han still held some hope for the Ming Dynasty, which didn't offer tribute, didn't arrange marriages, allowed princesses to marry commoners, and had the emperor guard the country's borders.
"What should we do?" Seeing Wang Han refuse to leave, the soldiers exchanged glances, completely at a loss. Although they knew they only needed to report this outcome, they really didn't want to relay Wang Han's words back.
"Sigh! What else can we do but report back?" A soldier sighed and shrugged helplessly.
“Should we just report it like this? This man saved everyone; otherwise, we wouldn’t have won this battle at all, and we might all be dead. He’s a great hero. If we report it like this, my conscience won’t be at peace,” another soldier said nervously.
“Report it. If we don’t, we’ll die. But we need to change what we say. Say he has important business to attend to and asked us to give his regards to the general, and that he can only visit the general later. Anyway, his armor covers his entire body, so no one recognizes him. Once he takes off his armor, no one can find him,” a soldier said after thinking for a moment. If it were just a few of them here, they would choose to conceal it without hesitation. But there were too many soldiers cleaning up the battlefield, and many people had seen it. For their own lives, the most they could do was change Wang Han’s words to avoid offending anyone too much.
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“The Battle of Sarhu was not just one battlefield; there must have been other battlefields as well.” Wang Han thought for a moment, then quickly scanned the area with his radar before riding off westward with a cold expression.
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