Chen Yixin's expectation was correct. At this time, there were more than 100,000 Ming troops inside and outside Beijing. Even if their strength was not as good as that of Haihan, they were still far from being unable to resist. If they opened the city and surrendered, it would inevitably make the Ming court look too much. Weakness can be bullied.
Even if Chongzhen had the idea of ​​surrender in his mind, many interested groups in the government and the public would never support him in doing so.
The Ming Dynasty has already lowered the price once a few years ago. If it is lowered again, many people's minds will probably change.
Someone in the court even proposed punishing Wang Chengen for making bottomless concessions during the negotiations in Hangzhou.
However, everyone with a discerning eye knows that Wang Cheng'en, a eunuch in the palace, does not have such great authority to negotiate with the Haihan people. Whatever conditions he negotiated in Hangzhou were actually instructed by Chongzhen.
But as a minister, it would be disrespectful to openly oppose Chongzhen, so Wang Chengen, who was in charge of this matter, had to become the scapegoat.
And Wang Chengen never expected that while he was dealing with the Haihan Executive Committee under huge pressure in Hangzhou, the court would blame him for the unfavorable situation of the Ming Dynasty, and even wanted to charge him with treason and shout that he should be beaten and killed. .
Not everyone in the Ming Dynasty wanted to negotiate peace with Haihan, so although the Haihan army stopped its active attack after receiving the order from the Executive Committee, the confrontation between the two armies did not completely stop.
On the third day after Wang Chengen's messenger entered the capital, the Ming army launched counterattacks in the southeast and northeast of the capital at the same time.
In this battle, the Ming army dispatched at least 40,000 to 50,000 horses, and the cavalry accounted for about one-tenth, posing as a decisive battle with the Haihan army.
Chen Yixin could tell from the flags in the Ming army's formation that almost all those who entered the battle were foreign reinforcements who had never fought against Haihan before and had recently arrived in the capital. It seemed that the Ming court also wanted to use the morale of these new troops to make another charge. The position of the Haihan Army.
Chen Yixin realized that his opponent had shrewdly avoided the direction of the main force of the Haihan Army outside Chaoyang Gate, and instead chose to attack from the northeast and southeast, apparently with the intention of attacking Haihan's flank.
If the defensive line on the flanks of the Haihan Army could be penetrated, then with the strength of the Ming Army, there would indeed be a chance to overwhelm the Haihan Camp in the east of the city.
However, Chen Yixin had long been on guard against the Ming army's counterattack. He had not left his troops idle in the past few days since the truce, and had built huge defensive positions outside each station.
In terms of defense, this is the Haihan Army's specialty, even stronger than its offensive capabilities. In just a few days, trenches, iron nets, mines, deer villages... all kinds of defenses were built around the perimeter of the station.
Although the Ming army had a huge advantage in strength, it was really difficult to take advantage of the chain of positions that the Haihan army had already deployed.
At this time, Chen Yixin also generously assigned the few water-cooled heavy machine guns in the army to the front lines of the battle, allowing this mysterious new weapon to deal with the Ming army's massive charge.
A heavy machine gun with a high rate of fire is undoubtedly a sickle that harvests lives in this battlefield environment. Only one heavy machine gun and one machine gun squad can defend a large area.
Wherever the heavy machine gun's muzzle pointed, the Ming soldiers and horses fell like grass. In terms of killing efficiency, this new weapon even exceeds most artillery on the battlefield.
The intensive firepower output not only repelled the Ming army's charge, but also defeated the Ming army's will to fight. After several waves of offensives were repelled, most of the elite Ming army fell in the charge, while the remaining troops were obviously not that brave. The battle continued for a day, and almost all the Ming army units participating in the battle were maimed, with heavy casualties.
The commanders of these troops probably only then understood why there were so many Ming troops guarding North China and why they had to be transferred from other places to reinforce the capital. I dare say that most of an army was destroyed in one battle, but they barely touched the enemy's side. This kind of fighting method would not consume Haihan no matter what.
In response to the Ming army breaking the temporary armistice and provoking a war, Haihan later that day set up artillery and fired more than 20 shots at the Chaoyang Gate Tower. Although the city tower was not destroyed, the movement was enough to frighten the defenders in the city.
After several days of intermittent fighting, several fresh troops transferred from other places had turned into remnants. Some troops with a large proportion of casualties even had to temporarily merge the remaining personnel into other troops to maintain a complete organization.
The advantageous Haihan side was not without pressure. The inland combat environment forced Chen Yixin to devote a considerable part of his troops to maintaining logistical support.
Although most transport capacity problems from Tianjin to the front line in Beijing can be solved through inland river transportation, the problem is that combat materials must be transported across the sea from Shandong and Liaodong. The long supply lines make it difficult for the front line to maintain the consumption of high-intensity operations.
Moreover, the participating troops had been fighting continuously for more than a month, and their physical and mental fatigue had reached a level that Chen Yixin could not ignore. And he did not have any more reserve troops that could be transferred to the front line to replace the exhausted troops.
Even if the Executive Committee did not issue an order to cease the war, Chen Yixin actually had plans to cease the war and rest, so that his troops could rotate and fight, get a chance to rest, and accumulate strength for the final siege.
If the negotiations in Hangzhou eventually break down and the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the Haihan Army will still launch an offensive against Beijing. Chen Yixin did not want his troops to attack in their current state by then. Even if they could capture Beijing, they would inevitably suffer greater losses due to poor condition.
Of course, he hoped that the Ming army would take the initiative as they did in the past few days and let the Haihan army use its best defensive warfare to consume the Ming army, so that it would be less difficult to attack the city in the future.
The intermittent fighting continued until early June. Wang Chengen ended the negotiations in Hangzhou and returned to the north by ship under the escort of the Haihan Army.
Wang Chengen's return to Beijing brought another big impact to Mingting, because he brought back the results of negotiations with the Haihan Executive Committee.
To be precise, it brought back a lot of conditions put forward by the Haihan Executive Committee. Ming Dynasty must recognize the conditions proposed by Haihan before the two countries can sign a new armistice agreement.
The first thing to bear the brunt is, of course, the investigation of the Hangzhou assassination incident.
Haihan asked Mingting to hand over all the people involved in the incident, and Haihan would handle it.
This not only involves officials from the Factory Guard Yamen, but also relevant personnel from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs who promoted the implementation of the matter, as well as senior cabinet officials.
Given the status of these people, if Emperor Chongzhen handed them over to Haihan, it would be a disguised attempt to clean up the hard-liners in the court.