"The Liao people cannot be trusted. Those who should be killed must be killed, and those who should not be killed can be spared." On the issue of whether to kill people, Tang Tong was the first to express his opinion.
This statement aroused dissatisfaction among Liaodong generals including Li Xingzhong, Liu Zhaoji and Huang Degong.
Li Xingzhong tilted his head and said, "Brother Tang, what you said is not right. When did the Liao people become untrustworthy? If the Liao people had not defended the Guanningjin Line, the area outside the pass would have been gone long ago."
Tang Tong waved his hand and said, "I didn't say that. Xiong Tingbi said that."
Huang Degong walked up to Tang Tong and patted him on the shoulder: "Brother Tang, what you said is true. This is indeed what Xiong Tingbi said. But General Sun Chengzong also said that the Liao people should guard the Liao land and the Liao land should support the Liao people, which shows that the Liao people can be trusted!"
Can the Liao people be trusted?
Faced with this question, everyone fell into deep thought.
Xiong Tingbi, courtesy name Feibai, was from Jiangxia, Huguang.
After the Battle of Sarhu in the 47th year of Wanli's reign, Xiong Tingbi replaced Yang Hao as the governor of Liaodong.
He once famously said while in office: The Liao people cannot be trusted.
Sun Chengzong, whose courtesy name was Zhisheng, was from Gaoyang, Baoding.
In the second year of the Tianqi reign, he succeeded Xiong Tingbi as governor of Liaodong military affairs.
When he was in office, he also said a famous saying: "To keep the Liao people safe is to keep the world safe. Use the Liao people to guard the Liao land, and use the Liao land to support the Liao people."
After Sun Chengzong left office, his successors continued to implement this policy until the end of the Ming Dynasty.
From the 47th year of Wanli to the 2nd year of Tianqi, in just a few years, the two top leaders of Liaodong said completely opposite things.
On the surface they seem contradictory, but in fact they both make sense.
The situation in Liaodong was very chaotic before the Battle of Sarhu.
Take Gao Huai's rebellion in Liao as an example. He exploited and oppressed local wealthy families and even military households.
The rich and military households did not dare to resist and could only oppress the common people.
Under layers of exploitation, the people of Liaodong were living in misery.
There was a popular saying at that time: It is better to be born in Liao than to be born in Hu.
As a result, a large number of Liao people fled Liaodong and went to Jianzhou to survive.
Nurhaci enthusiastically accepted these Han people who had escaped from Liaodong, arranged for them to reclaim farmland, and implemented a policy of light labor and low taxes.
Under the influence of this policy, the people of Liao turned to Jiannu and hoped that he would save them from the dire straits.
The result was just as Nurhaci expected.
Nurhaci attacked Fushun, and the traitor Li Yongfang opened the city and surrendered.
When attacking Kaiyuan, spies in the city took advantage of the chaos to seize the gate and let the Eight Banners soldiers into the city, and Kaiyuan fell.
When attacking Tieling, spies opened the north gate, the Eight Banners Army poured into the city, and Tieling fell.
The same thing happened during the attacks on Shenyang, Liaoyang and Guangning. When the two sides were fighting fiercely, a traitor opened the city gate, and the Eight Banners soldiers rushed in and the city fell.
For this reason, Nurhaci also shouted the slogan of living together, eating together, and farming together.
The Liao people believed this without a doubt.
Even when they heard that Nurhaci was coming to attack the city, women dressed up to welcome him at the gate.
In addition, Li Chengliang had passed away and Li Rusong had also died in battle.
The servants they trained were leaderless, and because of their wealth and power, they were afraid of death on the battlefield and were defeated time and time again.
So Xiong Tingbi said something that the Liao people could not be trusted.
By the time Sun Chengzong led his troops to Liaodong, the situation in Liaodong had changed dramatically.
Because since the 48th year of Wanli, Nurhaci launched a massacre against the local Liao people in the Liaodong region.
He first ordered a division between those who had grain and those who had no grain.
A person who has more than six dou of grain in stock is called a person with grain.
If it is not enough, then you will be listed as a person without grain.
After the statistics are completed, Nurhaci will order the arrest of those who have no grain.
Due to the chaos and war in Liaodong and the extremely high price of grain, very few people met this condition.
So they started to lower the standards.
Those who have more than five dou of grain in stock are called people with grain, and the rest are called people without grain.
Then they began to arrest and massacre all the people without a grain of rice.
If a family of four only had 19 dou of grain in stock, or less than 20 dou, one of the family members would be killed.
The old Manchu documents record that: the Han people who had no food were killed.
Also known as killing the poor.
In the second year after killing the people without grain, Nurhaci was afraid that the remaining Han people would retaliate against him, so he massacred the Han people who had grain, calling it killing the rich.
The whole process lasted three years.
It is estimated that the number of Han people in Liaodong massacred by Nurhaci was as high as three million.
Under the influence of this bestial behavior, the Han people in Liaodong changed their previous attitude and regarded the Jiannu as their mortal enemies.
This is also the source of Sun Chengzong's confidence in using the Liao people to defend Liao.
However, to be on the safe side, all the generals of Shanhaiguan were not from Liaodong.
Wang Yongji had no idea whether the Liao people would believe it.
He first glanced at Tang Tong, and then at other generals from Liaodong.
"Let's put the Liao people issue aside for now and discuss it after we capture Ningyuan, how about that?" Wang Yongji suggested.
"What about the lives of the fishermen on Juehua Island?" Huang Degong asked reluctantly, "Cats and dogs have lives too, not to mention that they are all living people."
"Yes, Governor, it's bad enough that the Jiannu beasts don't treat the common people as human beings, but we can't learn from them." Liu Zhaoji echoed.
"Hmm..." Wang Yongji pondered for a moment, "Let's detain them for now and discuss it together after we recover Ningyuan."
"Thank you, Governor, for showing some leniency."
At nightfall, Huang Fei, commander-in-chief of the navy, personally came to Wang Yongji's central military tent to discuss military affairs.
After entering the military tent, he extinguished the cigarette in his hand, put the remaining cigarette butt between his ears, and then saluted Wang Yongji: "Huang Fei, the general of the navy, greets the governor."
"General Huang Fei, you are late!" Wang Yongji said with a serious face.
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