If they didn't eat, they would be hungry. If they didn't drink, they would be thirsty. Eating and drinking were things that everyone had to do every day. If they didn't eat and drink, it would affect their normal life. This was the same for everyone.
For the Nurhaci tribe, who were marching quickly, the need for drinking water seemed to be a little more important than eating.
A full meal could last four or five hours without hunger, but drinking water could not last four or five hours without thirst. Sometimes, after a charge, one's mouth would be dry after running for a while, so they had to drink water.
Mao Wenlong knew that food could be stored in large quantities. Nurhaci would certainly plunder a lot of food to store food, but water could be obtained on the spot. Nurhaci didn't think that much, especially when it came to storing water.
It was very difficult to burn the food, but it was not so difficult to poison the water.
Mao Wenlong sent people to collect information for a period of time, to understand Nurhaci's marching route, and compared it with the route that Xiao Ruxun led the army south, so he was soon sure that Nurhaci would continue to follow the route that Xiao Ruxun had taken.
He was not stupid enough to use 2,000 people to fight head-on with Nurhaci's nearly 5,000 troops. It was not worth it to fail miserably. The North Koreans' weakening of Nurhaci was very limited. Mao Wenlong had to do it himself, so poisoning the water was an act of paying a small price for a big return. Of course, the risk was also great.
But poisoning the water would bring a double psychological and physical blow to the Jianzhou soldiers, making them not dare to drink or take water at will.
They had to test the poison before drinking water, and they had to wait. The more they waited, the more thirsty they would be, and the slower their marching speed, the more unstable their morale, and the more physically exhausted they would be.
Their emotions would also be on the verge of collapse because of this. At that time, they would not even need the army to attack, and they would be able to win by themselves.
This great credit should be enough to satisfy his needs.
As for the North Koreans … he was really too disappointed.
A group of fugitives who had been beaten by the Daqin could actually break into Pyongyang, one of the three capitals of North Korea.
The Japanese pirates could still make sense. After all, they had 200,000 troops and siege equipment. But what did Nurhaci have?
With less than five thousand wounded soldiers and a bunch of burdens, he didn't have any heavy siege weapons, and even if he did, he wouldn't bring them with him. Just like that, he could keep the city and drive Nurhaci away, but in the end, the city was breached.
Not only that, but the entire city was massacred, burned, and looted. What do you think these North Koreans are doing?
The soldiers under his command were dumbfounded. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't figure out how the wandering Jianzhou soldiers had managed to break through such a city.
Mao Wenlong couldn't figure it out either. He couldn't answer the soldiers' questions either.
But there was no doubt that the state of Pingyang City and the corpses had made him think about how to deal with Nurhaci.
On the other side, Nurhaci wasn't having a good time either. Since more than three hundred people died of poisoning from drinking water, he had been very strict with the control of water sources. He especially caught some animals to test the poison. Only those that were not poisonous were allowed to drink, and those that were poisonous were not allowed to drink. Not only the wells, but even some small streams were treated the same way.
This way, no one would be poisoned to death, but it would greatly slow down the speed of the march. It also greatly increased the thirst of the soldiers, and the morale of the army began to become unstable.
Nurhaci gritted his teeth and hated those who poisoned the water. He thought that it must be the actions of some North Koreans. They poisoned the water in order to retaliate against him, so that his troops didn't dare to drink water. Now, he had to start thinking of ways to store water. He used some containers that could be used to store clean water.
For the sake of water, the speed of the march had been greatly slowed down. Originally, they could have attacked the city in a few days, but now they had to spend a lot of time on the road, looking for reliable water to replenish their needs. Even looting was a little difficult. Their morale began to decline, and they were no longer as crazy as before.
Nurhaci began to panic. Even when his brain was at its limit, he didn't know how to deal with the problem of drinking water. He had to drink water, he couldn't not drink water.
At this time, news came from the rear that the Qin Army was approaching. Their rear troops were about a day's journey away from where Nurhaci was.
On the 17th of October, the cavalry of the rear troops of the Jianzhou Army encountered a small group of cavalry of the Qin Army. The two sides fought, and the Qin Army cavalry retreated after killing three Jianzhou soldiers. They didn't continue to fight, and seemed to be going back to report the news.
This news immediately alerted Nurhaci. He immediately ordered the army to speed up the march and pass through Kaicheng to Zhongzhou in the southeast as soon as possible.
He knew what it meant to keep going like this, but he also knew that if they didn't go on like this, they would die faster.
While speeding up the march, the lack of water affected his troops even more. He ordered that water be given to the soldiers first. The others could only get a small amount of water, but they still had to move together with the soldiers. This made their movements even slower.
Although they were desperately looking for a reliable water source, Nurhaci and Fei Yingdong gradually realized that the tens of thousands of people had become a burden.
Especially after they arrived in the Kaicheng area and encountered resistance from the North Korean army.
On the afternoon of the 17th, Nurhaci and the others finally arrived in the Kaicheng area, where they encountered stubborn resistance from the North Korean army.
The North Korean army set up a large number of roadblocks and traps to stop Nurhaci and the others from advancing. They also used the tactic of fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, so that no living person or grain could be found in all the villages and towns near the Kaicheng area. The wells were also blocked with stones or contaminated with animal corpses, making them undrinkable.
There was no doubt that this was the work of Yoo Sung-Ryong. When he arrived in Kaicheng, he received the support of the whole city, so he fully mobilized the people and troops to implement the tactic of fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, so that the Jianzhou Army couldn't get any supplies.
He didn't think of poisoning the wells, but using animal corpses to dirty the wells and throwing stones to fill the wells had the same effect. They both left the Jianzhou Army with no water to drink.
Nurhaci seemed to be in a predicament in a sense. He ordered the soldiers to remove the obstacles and to find a reliable water source. In his opinion, the wells that were filled with stones were drinkable, and the stones inside needed to be taken out immediately.
However, the clumsy Jianzhou Army thought for a long time, but still didn't know what to do. They could only use manpower to slowly move the stones. There was no other way.
They couldn't get water here, and there were traps and roadblocks on the other side. People kept getting injured and killed, which made Nurhaci very angry.
What was even more annoying was that there were North Korean soldiers holding crossbows and fighting guerrillas, which caused great trouble for the soldiers who were dealing with the traps and roadblocks. Although Nurhaci sent people to chase after them, once they entered the dense forest area, they couldn't find the shadow of these North Korean soldiers.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
