Battle of Salhu

In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, the Ming Empire made a huge gamble. In order to pacify Liaodong, the imperial court assembled a hundred thousand troops, divided into four groups, and surrounded Hetuala, the capital of Houjin. Supervisor Yang Hao sat in Shenyang and decided on the strategy of "split advance and combined attack" in an attempt to determine the outcome in one battle. However, intelligence is like a sieve and military morale is like sand. The leader of the West Route Army, Du Song, greedy for power and rushed forward, fell into a tight siege in Sarhu, and the entire army was annihilated; the North Route Army, Ma Lin, collapsed after hearing the news; the East Route Army, Liu Wei, knew that the road ahead was a dead end, but still led his lone army deep into the bloody battle at Abdaligaon, fulfilling his promise with his life; the South Route Army, Li Rubai, retreated without fighting, leaving only infamy. Within five days, three routes were wiped out, and not a single one of the 100,000 troops remained. This was not only a defeat in a battle, but also a turning point in the fate of a great empire. When the snow fell on the scorched earth of Sarhu, the last afterglow of the Ming Dynasty was extinguished.