gnovel Chapter 73 The Outpost
Chapter 73 The Outpost
Although Li Chengye's troops now have more people, they also have more livestock.
Now the camp has more than a thousand horses and nearly a thousand mules, plus donkeys used by auxiliary soldiers to carry luggage, bringing the total number of livestock to more than three thousand.
Xu Youlu, who was in charge of logistics, told Li Chengye more than once that the livestock were now eating more hay every day than all the people in the world were eating grain in a week.
Moreover, just arranging daily drinking water for the livestock is a major problem.
However, this also meant that Li Chengye's army marched at an exceptionally fast pace.
Their military camp was located in Panlongchuan, south of Fushi County, near Anse County, and 200 li away from Yanchang City.
However, after they finished their military discussion, they broke camp early the next morning and entered Yanchang County along the Yan River that afternoon.
On their return to Yanchang County, they did not take the official road, but instead detoured through the Yanhe River area, taking the Panlongchuan Trail in the middle section of the Yanhe River.
They camped in the mountains north of Panlongchuan that day. On the third day, after traveling about twenty miles past Panlong Mountain, Cao Xianchong, who was scouting ahead, could vaguely see the location of Yanchang City.
But it was at this moment that he discovered the government troops.
Cao Xianchong discovered the government troops in a village. Upon receiving his report, Li Chengye also rushed to the vicinity to observe.
The village is built on a relatively flat area between two mountains, with a stream originating from the mountains flowing through the center of the village.
Li Chengye had an impression of this village, which was called Fangtong Village. Most of the villagers were surnamed Fang. The land in the village was mostly sloping and very barren.
The village was so poor that there wasn't even a wealthy and heartless landlord. Li Chengye had distributed grain there before.
Li Chengye carefully observed the government troops in the village from the mountainside.
There must be a detachment of government troops in the village, about a hundred men, who are going from house to house driving away the villagers, probably to plunder their food.
Several large carts were parked in the middle of the village. One cart was already piled high with grain that had been seized from the villagers' homes, and government troops were loading grain onto a second cart.
No matter how much the villagers cried out and begged for mercy, hoping to leave some food, the government troops remained unmoved; if they encountered fierce resistance, they would be killed with a single blow; even if there was only slight disagreement, they would be forcibly driven away.
Two corpses lay beside the village entrance, likely belonging to villagers who had resisted.
Several soldiers were fighting over two chickens in the village.
Seeing this, Li Chengye still ordered Cao Xianchong to lead men to scout around the village and make sure there were no other government troops around before deciding to take action.
Even a lion must use all its strength to hunt a rabbit.
He arranged for Deng Xian's scout from Luo Dai's rear guard to follow Cao Chongda around to the back of the village and block the mountain road to cut off the government troops' retreat. Once everything was ready, the signal cannon fired, accompanied by a horn blast. Liu Ye's vanguard immediately charged down the hillside.
The government troops were looting wantonly in the village when they suddenly heard a loudspeaker. At first, they thought it was friendly forces and didn't pay any attention.
Until they saw a group of people rushing towards them from a distance, and more than a hundred cavalrymen galloping towards them from the direction of the mountain road.
Only then did the platoon leader of the government troops realize that something was wrong.
Although the enemy was wearing armor, the style was quite different from ours, and the enemy was aggressive and murderous, clearly a "bandit".
He hurriedly ordered his officers and soldiers to resist, but it was too late.
Liu Ye's more than 300 men charged first, followed by Deng Xian's troops who launched an attack from behind the village, forming a pincer movement against the government army.
The hundred or so government soldiers in the village initially tried to resist, but after forty or fifty of them were killed, they dared not resist any longer and surrendered, abandoning their weapons.
Li Chengye ordered his men to strip the soldiers of their armor and clothing, and found that their equipment was quite sophisticated.
Two-thirds of the men here wore cloth armor, and the rest were at least equipped with a pair of mandarin duck battle jackets, which was much better than the border troops that Liu Ye and others had described.
Li Chengye ordered his men to bring the platoon leader, who was leading the government troops, to the capital.
Li Chengye interrogated him about whether there were any other government troops in the vicinity.
The sergeant initially tried to conceal the truth, but seeing that many of his soldiers had been captured, he knew he couldn't hide it any longer and told them everything.
They had three teams going out to deliver supplies, and another outpost was scavenging for provisions in a nearby village.
He didn't react at first because he mistook Liu Ye and the others for his companions. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was too late to defend himself.
Upon learning of the situation, Li Chengye immediately led Liu Ye's vanguard, along with the training corps, to encircle and annihilate another group of government troops.
The operation lived up to expectations and successfully annihilated them.
But when they were about to wipe out the third team, it was already dark. The government troops seemed to have sensed the danger and hurriedly fled back to the city without even taking the looted grain with them.
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At this moment, the town of Yanchang was in complete uproar.
The Shaanxi Provincial Governor's Battalion totaled 2,500 men. Wang Lian led 2,000 men on this expedition, and now 200 have been lost, nearly one-tenth of the total force, which is no small number.
Inside the county government office of Yanchang County, Right Commander Li Huaiguang angrily said:
"It must be a large band of rebels! My lord, we must immediately lead an expedition out of the city to encircle and annihilate them!"
Wang Lian countered, "Leave the city to besiege them? Where to? Do you even know where they are?"
Ba Shangfeng, standing to the side, looked grief-stricken. His nephew was the platoon leader of one of the two groups of soldiers who had lost contact outside the city. He had only come to the army for training, but now his whereabouts were unknown.
"They're just a few bandits, what's there to fear?" Li Huaiguang was still unconvinced.
Ba Shangfeng retorted, "How can we underestimate a few bandits who managed to annihilate over two hundred of our men and two entire outposts, leaving not a single survivor?"
Li Huaiguang was speechless.
In the past, when they suppressed local rioters and bandits, they often used a hundred men to disperse thousands of people. Even one or two complete sentry teams could be invincible. Now, the two sentry teams have disappeared into thin air, and none of them have escaped back. This is really hard for everyone to calm down.
Wang Lian waved to stop his subordinates' argument, then asked, "How are the men sent to Yan'an Prefecture to investigate?"
Ba Shangfeng reluctantly stepped forward to reply, saying that he would take charge of the matter.
Previously, a team led by a centurion from Yan'an Guard was dispatched to investigate, but there has been no news since. A second team has been sent, but so far, no news has been received.
Li Huaiguang, who was standing nearby, immediately seized on the oversight: "It's only a hundred or so li from Yanchang County to Yan'an Prefecture. Cavalry could cover the distance in a single night at high speed. It's been three days and there's still no news?"
Wang Lian, seated at the head of the table, also cast a reproachful glance at him.
Ba Shangfeng hurriedly retorted, "Could it be that the bandits are trying to block our intelligence? The two groups of scouts we sent out have probably been wiped out! Are they trying to trap our army in Yanchang County and then seize the opportunity to devour us?"
"How is this possible? How powerful would it take to swallow up a battalion of my officers and soldiers?" Li Huaiguang questioned.
But then Ba Shangfeng continued, "It's not impossible! Have you all seen the report from Liu Yingyu, the military commander of Shangluo, before?"
He said the peasant uprising in northern Shaanxi numbered no less than 200,000, and that suppressing it early would still offer a chance of victory; however, if it were allowed to grow stronger, the government troops would likely find it difficult to control.
"My lord, why don't we organize the cavalry into squads, clear out the area around the city, and ascertain the enemy's situation before making any further plans?" Zhao Huan, who was serving as the vanguard, suggested.
"Exactly. Instead of guessing here, we should send out more scouts to investigate," Li Huaiguang agreed.
Ba Shangfeng, standing nearby, nodded in agreement. Enemy intelligence is always the most important thing before a battle.
Subsequently, Wang Lian assigned tasks: starting tomorrow, the cavalry in the city will be divided into groups to go out and scout, with each group consisting of fifty riders.
A force capable of annihilating a hundred infantrymen would find it extremely difficult to defeat fifty cavalrymen, since even if the cavalry were outmatched, they could still break through the encirclement.
After Ba Shangfeng and Li Huaiguang took their leave, Wang Lian quietly called Zhao Huan back and asked him in a low voice:
"How is the matter of the severed head going?"
Zhao Huan knelt on one knee and reported, "My lord, we have collected more than eight hundred heads of bandits."
"Are there any women among them?" Wang Lian pressed.
Taking the heads of ordinary people as the heads of bandits is something to be careful about. No matter what you do, it's not right to end up with a woman's head.
"Rest assured, sir, they are all able-bodied men, with absolutely no elderly, weak, women, or children."
"That's good."
The next day, of the six hundred cavalrymen in the city, one hundred were left as Wang Lian's personal guards, while the remaining five hundred were divided into ten teams and went out of the city from the four directions of east, west, south and north to scout out the movements of the enemy.