By the time of the Wanli Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was exhausted and its national strength was getting weaker and weaker, while the Dajin Dynasty, founded by the Jurchens in northeast China, was as powerful as the rising sun in the east. In 1619, after the Battle of Salhu between the Ming Dynasty and Dajin, the development of this trend was further determined.
In the 44th year of the Ming Dynasty, in 1616 AD, nurhaci of the Jurchen tribe was called "The Heroic Khan of the Overthrowing Nations" in Hetuala, and the national name was "Dajin" (historically known as Houjin), becoming the Great Khan of Houjin. After establishing the Great Jin Dynasty, Nurhaci annexed the Jurchen tribes, commanded Liaodong, and actively expanded his army to prepare for the attack on Daming.
In April 1618, Nurhaci issued the "Seven Great Hates", which counted the seven major crimes of the Ming Dynasty against jurchens, and then led 20,000 foot horses to attack the Ming army. In the same month, when the Later Jin soldiers approached Fushun Castle, the Ming general Li Yongfang feared the enemy and Kaesong surrendered. Later Jin plundered more than 300,000 people and livestock, more than 9,000 horses, and 7,000 pairs of armor. For a time, the wind was loud, the border police were everywhere, and the Border Defense System of Liaodong, which Daming had painstakingly operated, was in danger of collapsing.
There was a problem in the northeast, and the Ming Emperor decided to devote all his efforts to a battle and raise a large army to requisition. The Ming Dynasty monarchs, who had won the "Three Great Expeditions of the Wanli Dynasty", were confident in the smooth destruction of Jianzhou. The reason why it was left unchecked before was because Jianzhou ostensibly still respected the Ming Dynasty as the suzerainty, and second, because the Ming Dynasty had financial problems and did not want to start a war lightly and spend money on the country. Nowadays, Jianzhou is becoming more and more unscrupulous, and if the Ming Dynasty can no longer control it, the northeast will no longer be owned by the Ming Dynasty.
In 1619, the Ming Dynasty, with Yang Hao as its commander, marched into Houjin in four ways, namely Junsong, the general of Shanhaiguan, Li Rubai, the general of Liaodong, The general of Kaiyuan, Ma Lin, and the general of Liaoyang, Liu Kui, with Juniper's army as the main force. Gathering the elite troops of more than 88,000 people of the Ming Dynasty, plus the reinforcements of the Yehe tribe and the Joseon State, the total number of people exceeded 100,000 people, known as 470,000 troops, and they wanted to flatten Liaodong in one fell swoop.
Hou Jin's Eight Banners totaled about 60,000 troops, which was obviously at a disadvantage compared with the Ming army, and Yang Hao's attack strategy of dividing into multiple roads and attacking in combination was originally promising. However, when the Ming army was scheduled to send troops, it suddenly snowed heavily, causing the Ming army to lose the opportunity in the sky. The Ming army postponed the dispatch of troops, but the date of the dispatch was inquired by Nurhaci, who analyzed the enemy situation and believed that the Ming army's three roads to the east, south and north were dangerous and could not be reached immediately, so he adopted the operational policy of concentrating troops and breaking through each one.
The Ming army that had lost the "heavenly time" also had problems in terms of "people": although Liu Hao, the commander-in-chief of Liaoyang, was brave and good at war, he had a disagreement with Yang Hao, and was sent to the east road and went deep alone; in addition, The general of Shanhaiguan, Du Song, did not follow the planned attack time, and the enemy ventured forward lightly, giving Nurhaci a chance.
When Juniper's army advanced to Salhun, Nurhaci personally led the Six Banners to attack Juniper's main force. In the darkness, the Juniper Army lit torches to accurately shell, and HouJin used the enemy's fire to strike darkly and bow and arrow. After a fierce battle, the Ming army was defeated, Juniper was killed in the battle, and the Western Route Army was completely destroyed.
After the main Ming forces were annihilated, Nurhaci immediately led his division to attack the Malin army on the north road, and Malin fled back to Kaiyuan in defeat. After defeating Marin, Nurhaci immediately marched south. At this time, Nurhaci encountered Liu Quejun on the Eastern Road. Liu Que's army was strictly organized, and the artillery vehicles and firearms were complete and well-equipped. Nurhaci did not confront him head-on, and adopted a strategy of enticing the enemy to set up an ambush. Nurhaci sent his soldiers to pretend to be Ming troops, armed with Juniper's arrows, falsely claiming that Juniper's Western Road troops had approached Hetuala, and asked Liu Que to advance quickly and attack the city with Juniper's division.
At that time, Liu Kui did not know that the West Road and north road had been annihilated by Nurhaci, and ordered a light and rapid advance, only to be ambushed by the Later Jin army, Liu Kui's army was defeated miserably, and Liu Que himself was killed. Yang Ho, who was sitting in Shenyang, saw the loss of various Ming troops and urgently dispatched Li Rubai, the commander of the South Road, to withdraw his troops. On the way back to the division, Li Rubai's army was harassed by the Houjin sentry, and the sergeant thought that the Jin soldiers were coming to attack, fled in terror, trampled on each other, and killed and wounded more than a thousand people.
At this point, the Ming Dynasty poured all its strength into planning a major campaign to conquer The Liao for nearly a year or so, which ended in a fiasco in less than five days. 88,000 officers and men suffered casualties of more than 450 million people, 310 civilian and military officials died, 28,000 horses, mules, camels and other camels were lost, and more than 20,000 firearms were lost.
The Battle of Salhu was a crucial battle between Ming and Later Jin for Liaodong. The victory of the Later Jin army in this battle not only made its political power more stable, but also took advantage of the situation to capture Kaiyuan and Tieling, conquered Yehebu, and thus seized the initiative in the Liaodong battlefield. The Ming Dynasty was in a slump, and became passively compromised with Houjin until the Qing soldiers entered the pass and the Ming Dynasty collapsed.