Battle of Dalinghe

Battle of Dalinghe
Part of the Qing conquest of the Ming
Date 1631 Location Dalinghe Result Later Jin victory
Belligerents
Later Jin	Ming dynasty
Commanders and leaders
Hong Taiji Tong Yangxing Ajige Dodo Daišan	Zu Dashou Sun Chengzong Wu Xiang Zhang Chun
Strength
80,000	Zu Dashou: 14,000 Sun Chengzong: 40,000

Hong Taiji
Tong Yangxing
Ajige
Dodo

Zu Dashou
Sun Chengzong
Wu Xiang

The Battle of Dalinghe (大凌河之役) was a battle between the Jurchen Later Jin (later known as the Qing dynasty) and the Ming dynasty that took place between September and November 1631. The Manchus besieged and captured the fortified northern Ming city of Dalinghe (大凌河; present-day Linghai) in Liaoning. Using a combined force of Manchu and Mongol cavalry, along with recently captured Chinese artillery units, Manchu leader Hong Taiji surrounded Dalinghe and defeated a series of Ming reinforcement forces in the field. The Ming defenders under general Zu Dashou surrendered the city after taking heavy losses and running out of food. Several of the Ming officers captured in the battle would go on to play important roles in the ongoing Manchu conquest of China. The battle was the first major test for the Chinese firearms specialists incorporated into the Manchu military. Whereas the Manchus had previously relied primarily on their own Eight Banners cavalry in military campaigns, after the siege of Dalinghe the Chinese infantry would play a larger role in the fighting. Unlike Nurhaci's failed siege at the Battle of Ningyuan several years prior, the siege of Dalinghe was a success that would soon be replicated in Songshan and Jinzhou, paving the way for the establishment of the Qing dynasty and the ultimate defeat of the Ming.

In 1629, the Manchu army under Hong Taiji invaded China, bypassing the heavily defended Ming fortress at Ningyuan, where Hong Taiji's father Nurhaci had been defeated three years earlier by Yuan Chonghuan at the Battle of Ningyuan. Slipping through friendly Mongol territory, the Manchus attacked to the west through Xifengkou Pass (喜峰口) in Hebei province, aiming towards the capital at Beijing in what became known as the Jisi Incident. Yuan, who was still commander of the Ningyuan garrison, sent 20,000 troops under Zu Dashou to relieve Beijing. Zu crossed the Great Wall through Shanhai Pass and marched to Beijing, defeating the Manchus outside the city walls. The failure of Yuan's northern defenses led to his arrest and subsequent execution. Before his death, however, he had used the prestige resulting from his previous victory over Nurhaci to rebuild Jinzhou, Songshan and Dalinghe into military colonies (屯, tun) protected by heavy fortifications as part of a forward defense policy that called for building strongholds north of the Great Wall, in particular at Ningyuan, which had served as his base of operations.

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