The Ming Dynasty 1626 Enlightenment

Chapter 34 The Jurchens' Retaliation Against Retaliation

In late May of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign (1626), torrential rain poured down on the grasslands beyond the Great Wall.

In front of a large cowhide tent, rainwater seeped in through the gaps in the tent roof, dripping onto the muddy ground and creating pits of varying depths.

At that moment, the tent flap was suddenly flung open.

A burly, dark-skinned man strode out, glanced at the overwhelming rain, and spat out a curse.

"This damn weather!"

"It's been raining for three days straight, and it still won't stop!"

He retreated, cursing, and the tent flap fell heavily with a thud.

The fire in the tent had long since died out, with only a few wisps of smoke weakly drifting upwards.

Several guards were squatting on the ground, frantically trying to rekindle the fire.

A refined-looking middle-aged man sat to the side, holding several newspapers in his hand. He slightly raised his head but did not look at the burly man who had come in.

This man was fair-skinned, with a refined appearance and three long strands of beard hanging down to his chest, looking every bit the part of a Han Chinese scholar. He slowly said, "Why is Third Prince in such a hurry? This rain is good; let's rest here for a few days and go back when the rain stops."

"Rest? How can I rest?"

This dark-skinned, burly man was none other than Mangultai, the third son of Nurhaci, the third beile of the Later Jin dynasty and the banner lord of the Plain Blue Banner.

At this moment, Mangultai plopped down on the animal-skin stool, his broad body causing mud to splash up from the puddle on the ground.

He pulled open his collar, revealing a dark, muscular chest, and exuded a suffocating restlessness.

"Third Prince is right, but the Great Khan's condition is currently stable. As long as you bring back the grain and ironware you obtained from the Shanxi merchants in the border region, it will be a great achievement," the refined middle-aged man said obsequiously. "Such an accomplishment is beyond the reach of the First Prince and the Eighth Prince!"

"Hahaha! You're right, Fan Wencheng, you have a much better way of speaking!" Hearing the middle-aged man say this, Mangultai's expression indeed improved, and he snorted.

The refined-looking middle-aged man was Fan Wencheng, who was intently reading the newspaper in his hands. He replied to Mangultai, "This servant thanks the Third Prince for his praise!"

"..." Mangultai was a little angry when he saw Fan Wencheng looking at the newspaper without glancing at him. "Fan Wencheng, what are you doing? I'm talking to you, and you're not even looking at me?"

"Third Prince, you are so majestic and imposing, I dare not look you in the eye!" Fan Wencheng said calmly, putting down his newspaper and prostrating himself on the ground after hearing Mangultai's reprimand.

"..." Mangultai was also quite speechless. He wanted to show off his prestige as the banner lord of the Eight Banners, but when he tried to hit Fan Wencheng, he felt somewhat powerless, after all, this guy was too good at flattering.

"Hmph! You're smart enough to know your place!" He was a little embarrassed to continue scolding him, then noticed the newspaper in his hand and asked, "You've been reading this Ming Dynasty... Official Gazette repeatedly these past few days, what's so interesting about it?"

"This official gazette... is no ordinary official gazette!" Fan Wencheng continued to kneel on the ground, offering the newspaper with his hand. "This is the Tianqi Daily of the Great Ming Dynasty. The articles in it are all news that is detrimental to our Great Jin."

"Isn't it just that they said our Jin people detonated the Wanggongchang factory of the Ming Dynasty?" Mangultai said dismissively. He had heard people talking about this when he was exchanging grain at the border. It turned out to be just something reported in the official gazette.

Despite saying this, he also took the opportunity to kill a few Han Chinese prisoners to vent his anger, and continued, "So what? What can those weak border troops do to us?!"

"..." Fan Wencheng secretly groaned in his heart, but dared not show it on his face.

This Third Prince's brain was only about the size of a walnut, but these words couldn't be spoken, or his head would be chopped off.

Moreover, the newspapers of the Ming Dynasty carried not only these news items, but also some stories about Nurhaci, as well as the horrific massacres committed by the Jin Dynasty in Liaodong.

If things continue like this, and the news spreads throughout the Ming Dynasty, it will be very detrimental to the developing Jin Dynasty.

"Third Prince, you are mistaken!" Fan Wencheng continued, kneeling on the ground without rising. "It's nothing now. Once this news reaches the nine border regions of the Ming Dynasty, it will boost their morale, and they will strengthen their border defenses. At that time, the difficulty of our siege will greatly increase!"

"Fan Wencheng, how dare you disrupt the morale of the army!" Mangultai was somewhat dissatisfied, after all, the area outside the Great Wall was still under the control of the Eight Banners.

Although they suffered a heavy defeat at Ningyuan at the beginning of the year, the Eight Banners cavalry were not to be underestimated. Moreover, they had brought back a lot of grain and ironware from Shanxi merchants, and their strength would soon be restored.

"This is not me exaggerating!" Fan Wencheng dared not stand up now, and could only continue prostrate, "The Great Ming Daily not only reported on the Wang Gongchang incident, but also... also on the Khan's origins, saying that the Khan was originally a servant of the Ming general Li Chengliang, who betrayed the Ming Dynasty to rise to power; and the battle reports from various cities in Liaodong were smeared by them as... smeared as..."

"What kind of slander?" Mangultai asked urgently.

"It's been smeared as a massacre!" Fan Wencheng said.

"Damn the Ming Dynasty! Damn the Imperial Gazette! Damn that brat Tianqi!" Mangultai snatched the newspaper from Fan Wencheng's hand, tore it to shreds, and gritted his teeth. "You intellectuals, you love writing these inflammatory articles! So vicious, truly despicable and hateful!"

"Third Prince, please calm down!" Fan Wencheng knelt in the mud, neither dodging nor flinching, even wearing a smile on his face, showing no anger. After all, he had several more copies of this newspaper. "The Ming Dynasty's move is indeed ruthless, but it's not without a possibility of countering it!"

"Oh! What method?" Mangultai's eyes lit up. He knew these scholars were rather cunning, but they were indeed useful. Seeing that he was still prostrate on the ground, he said, "Get up and speak!"

"Report against report!" Fan Wencheng patted the water off his clothes, trying to rouse his tired spirits, and replied simply.

"I like violence to combat violence!" Mangultai thought Fan Wencheng was interesting. He was the kind of muscle-bound, simple-minded person who liked simple and brutal methods!

"It's not about using violence to combat violence, but using newspapers to control newspapers!" Fan Wencheng declared. "When I saw the newspaper before, I already had my men in Shanxi deliver a message to Shandong: within a month, a newspaper that can rival the Ming Dynasty's Tianqi Daily will appear!"

Fan Wencheng paused, then, before Mangultai could react, continued, "At that time, those Donglin scholars and Confucian talents from Shandong and Jiangnan will surely have the people of the Ming Dynasty completely bewildered. Literature is a free-flowing art; who cares about officialdom! Who knows whose work will actually reach the border troops and the common people?"

“…” Mangultai listened and remained silent for a long time.

He suddenly felt a tingling sensation on his scalp.

This Fan Wencheng, who was just kneeling and calling himself a servant, suddenly came up with a vicious scheme with interconnected steps.

Using public opinion to manipulate public sentiment and spread rumors to spread misinformation is a tactic that is more insidious than actual combat.

Is it scary? Yes, it is.

But then again, if such a talent were on their side, he would still be a dog willing to be a lackey. That's why Fan Wencheng was valued by Nurhaci.

Mangultai suddenly burst into laughter, slapping Fan Wencheng on the shoulder, causing the scholar to stumble and almost kneel again: "Excellent! No wonder Father Khan values ​​this talent! Mr. Fan is truly a man of great talent!"

"Your Highness, you are too kind. This servant was born a dog of the Great Jin, and will die a dog-servant of the Great Jin!" Fan Wencheng steadied himself, his smile unchanged, but his tone became more solemn. "Serving the Great Jin is this servant's duty!"

"Haha!...What a lackey!" Mangultai laughed even more heartily, but his laughter stopped abruptly the next moment.

He stared intently at Fan Wencheng, his gaze sharp as a knife. "So, are you a slave of the Great Jin, or a slave of the Eighth Prince?"

Fan Wencheng's smile froze for a moment.

The atmosphere inside the tent suddenly turned cold.

Several guards stopped what they were doing, held their breath, and dared not utter a sound.

Fan Wencheng lowered his eyes and gritted his teeth: "Third Prince, this servant is naturally... a servant of the Great Jin."

"Before I left, I knew you and the Eighth Prince had been plotting all night!" Mangultai's voice was neither loud nor soft. "Also, when you were trading with those merchants from Shanxi, you didn't just tell them about 'an eye for an eye,' did you?"

"..." Fan Wencheng thought to himself, he hadn't expected that Mangultai had also sent a lot of people to monitor the movements of the other Beile.

The tent was deathly silent.

The sound of rain was like a drum.

Fan Wencheng inwardly groaned.

He knew all along that these Manchu princes, though seemingly rough and unruly, were in fact no pushovers.

Mangultai's ability to gain a foothold among the princes was not solely due to his brute strength.

Despite his complaints, he showed no sign of panic.

He slowly knelt down, his forehead touching the ground, his voice neither humble nor arrogant: "Third Prince, you are wise! This matter was not made on my own initiative, but was instructed by the Great Khan and relayed to me by the Eighth Prince."

"Is that so?" Mangultai narrowed his eyes with a hint of disbelief. "The things you entrusted to me, even I cannot tell you?"

"able."

Fan Wencheng raised his head, his gaze calm, "I simply handed over the methods for refining salt that the Eighth Prince had failed to experiment with to the Shanxi merchants."

There was a moment of silence in the tent.

Mangultai's brows furrowed into a knot.

He knew about the salt production.

Starting last year, his eighth brother, Hong Taiji, also known as Huang Taiji, suddenly seemed to have become a different person, plunging headlong into those strange and ingenious skills.

For example, brewing distilled spirits, making cleaning soaps, refining salt...

Their names were all incredibly unique, but after all their efforts, they were all failures, wasting countless amounts of money and resources.

Nurhaci was furious and sealed all those things away, forbidding anyone from mentioning them again.

But who would have thought that those "failed" recipes would now be used by Fan Wencheng to exchange for grain and ironware?

Oh! If that's the case, wouldn't that mean the Ming Dynasty would also waste its food resources for nothing? What a vicious scheme!

After Mangultai figured it out, he suddenly remembered something else.

Before the Battle of Ningyuan, Hong Taiji strongly advised his father not to send troops, saying that the battle would surely be lost and his father would be seriously injured.

At the time, everyone thought that Lao Ba had gone mad.

But what happened next?

The Ningyuan campaign suffered a major defeat, and an entire Han Eight Banners army was lost on Juehua Island. Nurhaci was also wounded by heavy artillery fire and is now lying in bed, critically ill and groaning in pain.