Later on, Yuan also defeated Nurhaci's son and successor, Hong Taiji, and his 200,000-strong army composed of mostly ethnic Mongol soldiers at the second Battle of Ningyuan.

Yuan met his end when he was arrested and executed by lingchi ("slow slicing") on the order of the Chongzhen Emperor under false charges of treason, which were believed to have been planted against him by the enemy court.

Yuan's rapid promotion was quite notable at the time as he did not have any formal military training at all, save for studying the Confucian classics in order to pass the imperial examination.

Yuan cooperated with the commander-in-chief Sun Chengzong in pushing the frontiers steadily northward, fortifying Ningyuan in 1623.

The elderly Sun was an able commander but refused to bribe Wei Zhongxian, an influential court eunuch under the Tianqi Emperor.

Consequently, Sun was recalled in 1625 and replaced by Gao Di (高第), who ordered a general retreat to Shanhai Pass.

Yuan and his deputies successfully held Ningyuan with the newly mounted and modified "hongyipao" and only 9,000 militiamen against Nurhaci's 130,000-strong army.

As a result of this victory, the Ming imperial court in Beijing appointed Yuan as the Governor of Liaodong on 27 February 1626, with full authority to handle all forces outside the passes.

During this time, Yuan executed Mao Wenlong, a Ming general regarded as ruthless but talented.

This time Yuan had to face again a larger Jurchen force of over 200,000 troops under Nurhaci's successor, Hong Taiji.

Despite little evidence, Yuan was accused of collusion with the enemy and sentenced to death by lingchi ("slow slicing") at Ganshiqiao (甘石橋) in Beijing.

When Yuan was asked for last words before his execution, he produced the following poem: "A life's work always ends up in vain; half of my career seems to be in dreams.

The Qianlong Emperor tried to express his kindness by searching for and rewarding Yuan's direct descendants, but failed to find any.

[citation needed] Yuan Chonghuan's son defected from the Ming to the Qing and in 1642 was placed in the Han Chinese Plain White Banner.

Yuan Chonghuan's sixth generation descendant lived during the Taiping rebellion and was the Qing Jiangsu governor, Fumingga (Fuming'a) (富明阿 フミンガ) (Han Chinese name Yuan Shifu 袁世福, courtesy name Zhi'an 治安).

After the war he was sent in central China to be appointed to a position in Kaifeng and after that he was sent back to his Aigun hometown as military lieutenant-governor or brigade-general (fudutong).

The Fengtian and Jilin governors along with Shoushan all received orders to fight the Russian empire during the Boxer Rebellion in July 1900 from Beijing.

One of his family members, Yuan Ruizhang (袁瑞昌) who was a northern route barracks officer (北路营官) died in battle against the Tsarist Russian forces in Heihe.

Several years later, when he had grown up, he left Mount Hua and traveled around in search of adventure and to redress his father's legacy.