Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 260 The Miserable Li Hao

The war in the south had paused for a while, and on the Liaodong Peninsula, the Qing army's military operations to plunder Korea were nearing their end. The word "miserable" could best be used to describe the situation of the Korean King Yi Hao.

Bolo gathered more than 9,000 Manchu and Han soldiers from inside and outside the Great Wall in Shengjing, with Shengjing general He Luohui as his deputy general, and more than 10,000 bondservants and servants. The total number of the army to conquer the court was more than 22,000 people. They marched to Kuandian and crossed the Yalu River from Kuandian.

Li Hao took action upon hearing the news. What was different between this time and the previous times when the Qing army entered Korea was that Li Hao had already made preparations after refusing the Qing court's demands for money, food and people. As soon as the Qing army crossed the river, Li Hao did not hesitate. He took Queen Zhang, eldest son Yi Bin and three daughters, treasures, servants, and led 2,000 imperial guards to escort them out of Seoul and fled to their old place, the direction of Ganghwa Island, leaving Prime Minister Kim Il to defend Seoul.

In order to have a legitimate reason to conquer Korea, Dorgon listed five major crimes of Korea in harsh words: First, they secretly murdered the Crown Prince Sohyeon Lee??, who was close to our dynasty, and arbitrarily replaced him with Lee Hao, who was loyal to the previous dynasty, with sinister intentions.

Second, we once swore that when Ming attacked, Korea would send troops to help. You refused and rebelled, which is a betrayal.

Third, he secretly colluded with the false Ming Dynasty, joined forces with the rebels, and plotted evil.

Fourth, humiliating angels and ignoring the majesty of the Celestial Empire are rampant.

Fifth, they were preparing for war, harboring evil intentions, and eyeing the border.

Since Korea was invaded by the Qing army several times in succession, its people were already in poverty and its national strength was greatly reduced. It would be easy for He Luo to cross the Yalu River as if he were entering an empty land.

After expelling the Qing envoys, Lee Hao knew that the Qing court would inevitably take action, so he issued an edict to the whole country to intensify military training and preparations for war, and allowed various places to form volunteer armies. At the same time, he sent envoys to the south to beg the Ming Dynasty to launch a northern expedition to contain the Qing court and save Korea's life.

Yin Shandao, the envoy sent to the south, was completely in the dark about what was happening in the south of the Ming Dynasty. He only heard that the Ming Dynasty had recovered Nanjing, so he hurriedly boarded a boat to the south.

On the sixth day of June, the Qing army officially crossed the Yalu River and, with He Luohui as the vanguard, launched an attack on Yizhou. There were only two thousand Korean defenders in Yizhou, who were no match for He Luohui and surrendered in less than a day.

On the tenth day, the Korean garrison commander of Tieshan surrendered without a fight. He Luohui immediately left a small force in Tieshan and supervised the surrendered troops to collect local money and food.

On the 12th, Bolo's troops besieged Guoshan City. The garrison commander of nearby Dingzhou did not dare to send troops to support it. Seeing that there was no reinforcement from any direction and that resistance was meaningless, the defenders of Guoshan City immediately opened the city and surrendered.

Immediately afterwards, the defender of Dingzhou heard that Guoshan City had surrendered, and he opened the city without hesitation to save his life.

At this point, just six days after entering the court, Bolo had captured four cities in a row.

By this time, Lee Ho had already left Seoul. The Prime Minister Kim Ik, who stayed in Seoul, received an emergency letter from the commander of Uiju and learned that the Qing army had entered Korea. He then quickly convened a defense meeting and ordered the troops from all over the country to gather in Seoul, and ordered the volunteer armies in various places to prepare to attack the Qing army's food routes or harass the Qing army.

But the situation changed too quickly, beyond Jin Yu's imagination. The Qing army's advance speed had exceeded the speed of Huang Taiji's last entry into the court. Anzhou was soon lost, and the Qing army's vanguard He Luohui was approaching Pyongyang.

On the 14th, Bolo's army arrived in Pyongyang. Just a letter threatening to massacre the city frightened the Pyongyang defenders so much that they dared not take any action. There were still more than 4,000 defenders in the city, and no one dared to defend the city. The defender saw that the situation was hopeless and drew his sword and committed suicide. The next morning, Pyongyang surrendered without a fight.

Huangzhou, Zhonghe, Fengshan, Ruixing, and Bolo all lost one soldier and fell one after another until Kaesong, when they encountered the only battle that could barely be called a siege. However, it only delayed Bolo for three days. To vent his hatred, Bolo looted the entire city, and Kaesong was emptied out.

After the army rested for several days, it marched towards Seoul in a mighty manner. At this time, only a month had passed since Bolo entered Korea, and Prime Minister Kim Il had not yet completed gathering the rebel forces from all over Korea. At this time, there were more than 13,600 rebels and 15,000 regular troops in Seoul. The force defending the city had exceeded that of Bolo's troops, and the rebel forces from other places gathered together, like a trickle, and headed for Seoul. They built a camp outside the city, gathering more than 18,000 rebel forces, but these rebels were in disarray, and their camp was not as solid as a pigsty.

The Bolo cavalry rushed forward and launched a night attack. More than 2,000 Eight Banners cavalry rushed into the Korean volunteer army camp, killing the Korean volunteers and leaving corpses all over the ground, causing the entire army to be defeated.

The next day, the second Korean reinforcement force of 3,000 people arrived, but before they could set up camp, they were directly defeated by the fierce charge of He Luohui's cavalry.

The third reinforcement force had only 500 people, which was not enough to fill the gap in the Qing army's teeth. In less than half an hour, the entire army was wiped out.

At this point, the rebel patrols from all over Korea dared not advance, but there were still nearly 30,000 troops in Seoul. However, the morale of these soldiers and rebels was extremely low, and people were in a state of panic. The Seoul treasury was running out of money and food, and Jin Yu did not hold out any hope of holding on to Seoul.

Looking at Seoul, Bolo felt very proud. The past defeat in Zhejiang was swept away. Since returning to Beijing, how many people had been cold and sarcastic to him. Until the news came that Lekedehun's entire army was wiped out and he was defeated and killed, although Bolo knew that this mentality was wrong, he still felt a little complacent. Even though he was defeated, he still brought most of the Eight Banners back to Beijing safely, and on the way he captured Fujian and held Zheng Zhilong hostage.

He Luohui said to Bolo with a smile: "The Marshal's army's speed in this attack on the court is rarely seen in the world. When you return to the court with a great victory, the Regent will definitely use you again."

Hearing this, Bolo shook his head and said, "Korea is a weak country with few people. It is not difficult to conquer it. I just hope that the regent can give me another chance to lead the army south and fight the Meng thief again on the battlefield."

"General, are the Meng bandits' troops extremely elite? How could they have killed Prince Duolo?" He Luohui asked with a frown, somewhat puzzled.

"His troops can be considered elite, but not extremely elite. At least compared with our Eight Banners, they are still at a disadvantage. When the Meng bandits defeated Prince Duolo, it was because there were too many Green Camp soldiers and too few Eight Banners. Prince Duolo's troops, including the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia, had no more than 5,000 people in total. That battle involved more than 100,000 people. 5,000 people are too few." Speaking of the latter, Bolo sighed. There were too few Eight Banners, too few.

The next morning, Bolo led the surrendered troops as the vanguard and stormed Seoul. Those who retreated were killed. The battle lasted until the afternoon. Bolo dispatched 200 Solon soldiers to climb to the top of the city wall, and the Seoul defenders were defeated.

The city of Han was guarded by 30,000 people, but within a day, the city was completely breached with only 12 Solon soldiers killed. Jin Yu was captured alive, and when he met with Bolo, Jin Yu took all the blame on himself, saying: "My crime has nothing to do with others."

Bolo wanted to persuade him to surrender and asked him to collect money and food for the Qing Dynasty, but Jin Yu refused and said: "The duty of a minister is to die."

Bolo was furious and ordered his men to execute Jin Di with arrows, a torture method he used during the march. He then plundered the entire city, looting property and people. There was an endless stream of convoys moving from Korea to the north, and he treated everyone equally, regardless of whether they were civilians or officials, and looted all the food and property.

The land of Korea was already in ruins. Even if Lee Hao returned to Seoul, there was no hope of recovery after countless decades of population and development.