Chapter 1151

Dorgon was a clever man. He had warned himself time and again not to fall for the Ming Army’s divide-and-conquer strategy. However, he had forgotten a universal truth: once suspicion takes root, the verdict is effectively rendered. Currently, he suspected Hong Chengchou of colluding with the Ming Army, yet he lacked evidence. To find proof, he increased the number of men monitoring Hong Chengchou. But the problem was that the seed of doubt had already been sown. The more he failed to find evidence, the more the shrewd Dorgon felt something was amiss. Thus, he quickly fell into a self-defeating loop of logic. Furthermore, two other factors clouded Dorgon’s judgment. First, the issue of Ming spies infiltrating the Guanning Army on a massive scale led him to suspect those closest to him. Second, after Wu Sangui surrendered, Dorgon had launched a probing attack on Fushun, which ultimately ended in failure. These two incidents convinced Dorgon that there were traitors within the Eight Banners, though he did not know who they were.