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Chapter 343: The Battle of Sarhu

[Battle of Sarhu, how Nurhaci defeated four Ming armies, historical trivia and historical figures]

This was a strategic decisive battle between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty's so-called 47-strong army was defeated by Nurhaci's attack, and the defeat in this battle accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

In this video, we will learn why the Battle of Sarhu broke out between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty, and how Nurhaci defeated the four armies of the Ming Dynasty.

In February of the 47th year of the Wanli reign, the Battle of Sarhu broke out between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty. Sarhu is located near the Dahuofang Reservoir on the east side of Fushun, Liaoning today. The Ming Dynasty claimed to have troops divided into four routes to attack Liaodong, but ended in a disastrous defeat.

More than 300 civil and military officials died, more than 2 soldiers died, more than muskets and artillery pieces were lost, and the three generals Du Song and Ma Lin were all killed in the battle.

The historical background of the Battle of Sarhu can be traced back to the late Northern Song Dynasty. After the Jurchen Wanyan and other tribes established the Jin Dynasty, they entered the Yellow River Basin from the northeast, but some continued to live in the northeast.

By the early Ming Dynasty, these tribes were mainly divided into Jianzhou Jurchen, Haixi Jurchen and Donghai Jurchen. During the reign of Emperor Wanli, the Jurchen tribes constantly invaded the Ming border.

As the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, Li Chengliang took advantage of the conflicts between the tribes to implement a series of control measures. In the second year of Wanli, he led tens of thousands of troops to launch a fierce attack on the Jianzhou Jurchens headed by Wang Gao.

Wang Gao's army was almost completely wiped out in the battle. Wang Gao's son was named Ata, and he attacked the Ming army many times to seek revenge. When Li Chengliang learned that he was hiding in Gule Village, he sent troops to surround him.

For the safety of his family, Jue Changxin of Jianzhou Jurchen entered the city with his son Takshi to persuade Ata to surrender. Unexpectedly, when they entered the city, the Ming army suddenly launched an attack, and Jue Changxin and Takshi were all killed in the war.

Takshi had a 13-year-old son named Nurhaci. He was determined to avenge his grandfather and father, so he started a war to unify the Jianzhou Jurchen tribes with the sets of armored cavalry left by his grandfather.

Five years later, he had 5 soldiers, most of whom were well-equipped heavy cavalry. After more than 10 years of fighting, Nurhaci established the Later Jin regime in the 30th year of Wanli.

At the same time as Nurhaci rose to power, the politics of the Ming Dynasty had become increasingly corrupt. Although Zhang Juzheng and others carried out successful reforms and changed the decline of the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent, it was ultimately only a flash in the pan.

The long-term inaction of Emperor Wanli, the protracted struggle for the foundation of the country, and the infighting between factions accelerated the decline of the Ming Dynasty. In the first month of the 46th year of the Wanli reign, Nurhaci took advantage of the fierce party struggles in the Ming Dynasty and decided to launch an attack on the Ming Dynasty.

Then, after careful preparation, on the 2th day of the fourth lunar month, he enumerated the seven major crimes of the Ming Dynasty against the Jurchens, and launched an attack with infantry and cavalry with the "Seven Great Grievances" to fight the Ming Dynasty.

Under the swift attack of the Later Jin army, the Ming Dynasty lost Fushun, Qinghe and parts of Yilu successively. The successive losses of many places made Emperor Wanli feel the seriousness of the situation, so he sent Yang Hao, the Minister of War, to take charge of Liaodong military affairs.

In February of the 47th year of the Wanli reign, an army of was divided into four groups and launched a siege on Liaodong.

However, before attacking Fushun and Qinghe, Nurhaci had planted spies within the Ming Dynasty, and some Ming generals were also bribed.

Therefore, Nurhaci had already discovered the Ming Dynasty's action, and had strengthened the defense at Jilin Cliff in the east of Fushun in advance to curb the Ming army's westward advance. At the same time, he decided to concentrate his forces to defeat them one by one.

In fact, Xu Guangqi, the second assistant of the cabinet of the Ming Dynasty, pointed out that the four-way attack by Yang Hao was a big mistake. He believed that the Ming army at that time had no elite soldiers and no coordination. Nurhaci would definitely send troops to respond to one route, and the one who would be defeated would definitely be General Du.

In the end, just as Xu Guangqi had expected, Nurhaci concentrated his forces and first attacked the Ming general Du Song.

At that time, the Ming army's western route was led by Du Song, and the eastern route was led by Liu Jing. They adopted the tactic of making a feint to the east and attacking in the west. Liu Jing led the vanguard troops northward to contain Du Song, while Du Song led the main force of the western route eastward.

However, Nurhaci saw through their intentions. In addition, Du Song's marching speed was too fast and he lost the coordination with the other three tribes. Nurhaci took advantage of his isolation and prepared to use 500 soldiers to delay Liu Jing who was closer, and then use the main force to fight against Du Song.

Du Song arrived at Sarhu a few days later. Perhaps because he was overconfident, he divided his troops into two. The main force was stationed near Sarhu, while he led 10,000 people to attack Jilin Cliff.

Nurhaci's troops were scattered in the early stage, so he immediately sent a team of troops to reinforce Jilin Cliff, and then led his men to attack Du Song's main force. The next day, the weather was foggy, and Du Song's main force lit torches to facilitate artillery fire, but this move exposed their position.

The Houjin army in the dark suddenly shot in time, instantly killing a large number of Ming troops. Seeing the chaos, Nurhaci immediately took advantage of the situation to attack Du Song's main force, which was eventually defeated with heavy casualties.

The troops led by Du Song were also completely wiped out at Jilin Cliff with the cooperation of the Later Jin defenders and reinforcements, and the main and deputy generals were all killed.

With the annihilation of the main force of the Ming army in the west and the northward advance of Liu's army in the east, the two routes became isolated and in a very unfavorable situation. Nurhaci then turned his troops to Ma Lin and Li Rubai in the north of the Ming army.

He first sent 4500 cavalrymen to fight Li Rubai, and then led the remaining troops to march towards Ma Lin's camp. However, Ma Lin mistakenly believed that the Jin army had only more than people, so he took the initiative to attack and started a melee with Nurhaci.

As a result, despite having a superior force, most of them were killed or wounded, and even more fatally, Li Rubai's army also ended the battle in failure. When the six flags of the Later Jin were about to join Nurhaci, they found that the two armies were fighting, and immediately joined in and attacked Ma Lin's camp.

Ma Lin was unable to withstand the attack from the two Jin armies, and was almost completely annihilated in the end. Only Ma Lin and a few soldiers escaped.

At this time, Liu Jing on the east route was also trapped in the rugged mountains and could not reach the original designated location for a long time. He was unaware of the failures of the west and north routes. On the way, he suddenly encountered a team of Ming soldiers. The team of Ming soldiers held Du Song's command arrow and asked Liu Jing to be quiet. Liu Jing then took off his equipment and marched lightly.

But he didn't expect that these Ming troops were actually Jin troops in disguise. Nurhaci had already set up an ambush in front of him, and Liu Jing was eventually ambushed and killed.

At that time, Yang Hao did not fully consider the possible emergencies. He only had a mobile force stationed in Shenyang. It was not until he learned of the defeat of the two northwestern divisions that he hurriedly ordered Li Rubai in the south to join forces.

However, Li Rubai was also a talented person. However, because of his slow movements, he was discovered by the Later Jin's sentinels during his retreat.

The Later Jin sentry then shouted loudly, signaling an attack. Li Rubai thought it was an attack by the main force of the Later Jin, and all the soldiers fled in panic. As a result, there was a serious stampede, and more than 1000 people were killed or injured before the battle even started. In the end, they successfully escaped back to BJ.

At this point, the Ming army suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Sarhu, the situation in Liaodong fell into a completely passive position, and eventually most of the Liaodong territory was lost.

Moreover, due to the war, the Ming Dynasty had huge military expenses and could only rely on increasing taxes to maintain itself. However, the heavy taxes intensified domestic conflicts. From then on, the Ming Dynasty fell deeper and deeper under the double blow of internal and external troubles.

Why did the Ming Dynasty suffer a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Sarhu? Under the iron hoof of the Later Jin, the Ming Dynasty army, which was said to have 47 soldiers, had no power to fight back. Many generals died on the spot. This battle even sounded the death knell for the Ming Dynasty.

So what was the reason for the Ming dynasty's disastrous defeat at Sarhu? Was this incident really as simple as it seemed?

In the previous video, we talked about the Battle of Sarhu between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty. The four armies of the Ming Dynasty were eventually defeated by Nurhaci. The result of this war also directly accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the reason for the Ming Dynasty's failure in the Battle of Sarhu was definitely not caused by a single factor, but a combination of multiple problems in politics, economy, military and personnel.

The first was Emperor Wanli, the Ming Shenzong himself. In order to prevent the mining interests in Liaodong from being secretly diverted by the bureaucracy, he sent many eunuchs to Liaodong for monitoring in the 24th year of Wanli.

However, the eunuchs were not as worry-free as Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty imagined. For example, Gao Huai, as soon as he arrived in Liaodong, he exploited workers and oppressed the people, which directly led to the Dongmin Rebellion in the 28th year of Wanli.

However, Gao Huai did not restrain himself. He even laid hands on the food and wages of the Qiantunwei Army and committed many humiliating acts against the officers and soldiers in the army.

These soldiers finally could not stand it any longer and launched a mutiny in the name of peace and appeasement. Gao Huai, unable to end the situation and fearing to be killed, fled back to the interior of the country. This is the Gao Huai Rebellion in Liao in history.

In fact, when Gao Huai was wreaking havoc in Liaodong, Nurhaci, the leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens, was developing rapidly. There is a record in Zhongzhou Yelu: "Five out of ten strong and brave young men died."

The general meaning is that half of the young and strong people in Liaodong area defected to Jianzhou Jurchen because they were dissatisfied with the imperial court. In other words, Nurhaci's rapid rise to power was related to the emperor's appointment of eunuchs.

Moreover, the long-term inaction of Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty led to a gap in officials in the middle and late Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.

The bureaucratic system collapsed due to the lack of timely replacement of new officials, so the average age of Ming Dynasty generals during the Battle of Sarhu was over 60 years old. In contrast, the Later Jin army, except for Nurhaci, was basically composed of strong and healthy middle-aged soldiers.

The second issue is the military strength of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty claimed to have 47 troops marching into Liaodong, but the actual military strength on paper was only 20, and this number was actually quite inflated.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty army had a serious problem of eating empty salaries and withholding military salaries. For example, during the Battle of Sarhu during the Wanli period, and even during the Gengxu Incident during the Jiajing period, the Ming Dynasty was deeply touched by this.

At that time, the Tatars approached the capital with an army of 5. The Ming Dynasty immediately organized the imperial guards to resist. However, there were more than imperial guards registered on the capital's roster, but only were present when they showed up at the parade ground. This shows how many people were drawing empty salaries.

Moreover, more than half of the existing soldiers were old, weak, sick and disabled. Seeing this situation, Emperor Jiajing immediately called on troops from all over the country to come to Beijing to defend the emperor. However, this was the case even for the emperor, let alone those local troops far away from the capital.

There were hundreds of thousands of registered people, but only more than 5 people arrived in the capital. This shows how serious the situation of people eating empty salaries was during the Jiajing period.

The Ming Emperor Shenzong during the Wanli reign was even more relaxed than the Jiajing Emperor, becoming a complete hands-off boss. So the situation would only get worse during the Wanli reign during the Battle of Sarhu.

For example, the strength of the Ming army in the Battle of Sarhu was recorded as 20 in all Qing Dynasty historical records, and was claimed to be 47. However, some scholars later believed that the record in "Compilation of Liao History of Three Dynasties" was the most realistic and detailed data record, and that the Ming Dynasty had only troops.

Moreover, in a memorial submitted by Chen Wangting, the Censor-in-Chief of the Imperial Academy, it was stated that although Du Song's main force in the west had 6 troops, in reality there were only 2.

So from this point of view, there was a lot of water in the actual number of troops that the Ming Dynasty deployed in the Battle of Sarhu. The remaining tens of thousands of troops were just empty salaries and vacancies, and there was basically not much military advantage.

The worst thing is that the false information grasped by the Ming Dynasty’s central system would directly lead to the erroneous issuance of orders.

For example, after 4 soldiers were killed in battle, the court would believe that there were still 16 troops, but the actual remaining strength might be only 4, and the court would make serious mistakes in its next decision.

Before the Battle of Sarhu, Emperor Shenzong repeatedly urged Commander Yang Hao to start the war quickly, which was because he had the wrong information. Emperor Shenzong thought he had an absolute advantage in military strength, otherwise he would not have rushed to urge him.

In addition to the lack of pay, it was also common for the court to owe soldiers money, and many soldiers were hungry. Once the court issued military pay, they would be exploited by generals at all levels.

We know that muskets must be maintained regularly, but according to historical records, two out of three muskets in the Ming Dynasty army were not used, which had a lot to do with the fact that the soldiers had no food to eat.

Including the protective gear on the soldiers, many soldiers have no protection at all except for the armor on their chest and back. But looking at the Later Jin army, they are covered in iron armor from head to toe, and even many war horses are no exception.

So how could the Ming army defeat the well-equipped Later Jin army with such a gap?

We always think that carrying heavy artillery will give us a dominant advantage, but in the Northeast region with its undulating hills and crisscrossing rivers, heavy weapons and gunpowder will make it difficult to move, which is completely different from fighting on the flat grasslands.

So, logically speaking, under the conditions of difficult transportation, the Ming army should have advanced slowly and cautiously. However, in the Battle of Sarhu, the various Ming troops did not carry out targeted tactical deployments, and the advantages of firearms were not effectively utilized.

In fact, in the Battle of Sarhu, in order to avoid being led by the nose by the Later Jin army, the Ming army adopted the tactic of dividing its troops into four routes to deal with the highly mobile Later Jin army, which was not wrong.

However, split-force attack requires a high degree of coordination between teams. When and where a team should appear, and how to cooperate with other teams to achieve strategic goals all require extremely excellent information communication.