stubborn thief

Chapter 123 The invisible line 【Please subscribe】

In the camp on Jiapao Mountain, several leaders of Liu Ying stayed up almost all night.

Especially Liu Chengzu and Cao Yao, sitting in the Chinese army tent that was simply set up with cotton cloth, listening to the news from the horse soldiers, they were both full of fatigue.

After Liu Chengzong left in the afternoon, there were two more fights here, but they kept a certain distance and did not engage in battle.

The soldiers of several leaders took turns to line up. With Luo Rucai in front, the soldiers who went up to line up later were not so afraid.

Only sixteen people died in three rounds of bombardment, just surpassing Luo Rucai's number of deaths.

The leaders of the remaining teams and the bandits were all suffocated: Those beggars can do it, but you can't?
Confused, without knowing it himself, Li Bei became a military trainer for the leaders of the gang, feeding and recruiting the soldiers one by one.

Li Wanqing's department, Liu Guoneng's department, Liu Chengzu's department, Gao Yingxiang's department, and even Wang's own department all pulled up and stood there for a while.

The whole body is bathed in the sparse shell attack, and initially overcomes the fear of artillery in the battle.

Sixteen people died from each department, and two people died from the few. On the contrary, [-] heavy artillery shells from Li Bei's department were consumed.

But this consumption is all fake.

As soon as it got dark, the troops on both sides ceased, and Li Bei sent someone to stealthily pick up the shells. Liu Chengzu found half of the shells, and then started the first hand-to-hand combat that had been confrontational for a whole day.

More than a dozen cavalry from Li Bei's troops went to pick up shells, and more than [-] cavalry from Chuang's troops intercepted them. Both sides suffered casualties.

As a result, Li Bei started to play at night, relying on the long range of the heavy artillery, he fired a cannon towards Jiapao Mountain every once in a while, and then shot more than ten riders to touch it here.

Cao Yao has a strong revenge mentality. Seeing that Li Bei still wanted to deal with them with exhausted tactics, he immediately discussed with Liu Chengzu and went back exhausted.

All the ministries retreated to the north of the mountain to sleep in turn, leaving two men and more than a hundred riders from the Chuang tribe on standby.

The Sanmen Buddha wolf machine was pulled down the mountain, and pushed in a carriage to the front of Li Bei camp for a mile. The cart did not get off, and the buttocks of the cart were supported by wood, and they were beaten.

No way, their guns have a short range.

Or let the horse soldiers run to the vicinity of Li Bei's camp and put a few arrows, galloping and roaring, anyway, they just don't let people sleep.

On the one hand, the purpose is to be exhausted, and on the other hand, it is also to consume Li Bei's gunpowder and shells and prepare for tomorrow's battle.

Perhaps it was due to his great confidence in the township of Liuguo, Li Bei was not to be outdone, and worked hard for exhaustion. Down the mountain, shoot arrows whizzing up the mountain.

The two sides just hurt each other all night.

It didn't cause any real harm, but instead killed a small tree in the drought of Jiapao Mountain.

It was broken from the waist, and only a few dead leaves fell all over the ground, looking extremely miserable.

The Monkey Department sent a letter to the horsemen to come, just when they were most sleepy, they suddenly heard the news of the battle in the west, their hearts were raised in their throats, they stood up together, and fell silent together.

No one dared to ask the result first.

Finally, Cao Yao reached out and said, "Guan Liu, you can ask."

Liu Chengzu nodded and let Chuanxin Ma Bing speak.

"We went to attack the camp at night. General Liu was behind the enemy. After encircling them, he defeated them. The general had one man killed and more than ten wounded at four outposts; we were killed more than a hundred and injured more than 400; the officers and soldiers were killed and injured less than [-], and the rest surrendered. gone."

Hearing until the end that the officers and soldiers had surrendered, Liu Chengzu and Cao Yao looked at each other and put their hearts back in their stomachs: "We won."

Cao Yao went up to look at the horse soldier, and thought that this kid also stayed up all night, just like himself, and his affection doubled.

He asked in a warm voice: "General Four Sentinels, are you camping and sleeping in Yanhe now? Did you say when you will come?"

"This meeting should be coming soon." The horse soldiers said: "The general asked for 48 mules, and said that he would ride the mules to sleep on the road, and he would be on the road after hunting. Let the younger ones come and report to the leaders. The general will follow the route of the army. Walk for [-] miles, when the battle starts today, wave the red flag in front of the formation, and he will lead his troops to attack from the enemy's flank."

"Oh, by the way, the general's mules can't cross the mountain. After the battle, let the leaders send some horse soldiers to lead the horses and long soldiers to support them."

Liu Chengzu nodded, Cao Yao simply ran outside to blow the mountain wind, looked at the sky in the east where the white edge was just beginning to appear, and clenched his fists, as if doing a big fight for himself.

Not long after, Liu Chengzu appeased the horseman who sent the letter and found a place to rest.

Chengzu walked out of the military tent, looked at Cao Yao's back and laughed, and said seriously, "How about you, you haven't slept all night, can you fight another battle during the day?"

"Look at what you said, although I didn't sleep, my soldiers did... As long as he can fight Li Bei, I can fight him forever!"

Liu Chengzu sneered, didn't say any more, turned his head back to the tent of the Chinese army, and took a pen to record his feelings about this battle in the book.

This is not only the first time for Liu Chengzong to command a large-scale battle, but also for Liu Chengzu, Cao Yao and others.

These small captains, guards, starving refugees, bandits and robbers are a mob.

But these mobs survived the shelling like a lottery, and confronted the government and army in the valley with an upright identity.

All this was thrilling for Liu Chengzu.

He was so thrilled that every time he was bombarded, his heart was in his throat, but if Li Bei's determination was even the slightest bit firmer, they would lose ground more or less regardless of the attack from the flanks.

But now, with the light of burning linseed oil, Liu Chengzu wrote nine characters on the book with a pen.

All fighters win by right combination and by surprise.

A few years ago when he was studying in Mizhi County, he knew this sentence. That year, the lion asked the merchants to go south to buy "Jin Ping Mei", and he asked his father to buy "Sun Tzu's Art of War" in Mizhi.

But having read it does not mean that you will use it. For a long time, Liu Chengzu thought that this sentence meant to fight a war with dignity and use ingenuity to win.

He didn't understand the meaning of this sentence until yesterday, standing on the mountain ridge and watching the artillery roaring in the enemy's formation, beating the soldiers in the first three formations to bloody blood.

The combination of positive and odd wins, use the positive to offset the positive of the enemy, and the remaining is odd, and the odd and even numbers are odd.

The so-called righteous army must line up the front of the battlefield to attract the main force against the enemy. This army is the embankment, and the soldiers of the army are earth and rocks, repeating simple, boring and cruel tasks.

Go forward, stand firm, swear to the death.

The so-called army of odd victories can be the reserve team or the outside division.

Partial divisions must be elite, capable of quickly moving around the periphery of the main battlefield, eliminating or avoiding enemy partial divisions, coordinating operations on the main battlefield, and further breaking through the enemy's front when the correct army confronts each other.

This is the art of war that Liu Chengzu learned from Li Bei.

The fortunes of people cannot be compared. If their family conditions were better, perhaps the merchants would have bought Liu Chengzu a copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War with Cao Cao's annotations.

It clearly stated Cao Cao's two definitions of Zhengqi.

It is positive to go out first, and it is strange to go out later.

The righteous are the enemy, and the strange soldiers are unprepared to attack from the side.

The regular soldiers and the strange soldiers can change each other, today they are the regular soldiers, tomorrow if Liu Chengzong leads his troops to fight Li Bei first, and they will cover up and kill them, the regular soldiers will be Liu Chengzong, and the strange soldiers will be them.

Liu Chengzu put down his pen, opened the tent, the cold night wind blows against his face, and looked at the distant sky, where the sky at the edge of the shadows of the mountains glowed with white light.

"Today, we will take the initiative to attack."
-
In the Chinese army tent on the other side of the battlefield, scattered letter paper was spread all over the floor.

Sitting on the blanket, Li Bei also stayed up all night, his energy was still vigorous, and he was lost in thought while looking at the map.

On the letter paper scattered all over the place, there are his calculations of the attack speed of Wu Weifan and Pianshi Liuguozhen from Qingyang.

Ma Ke opened the curtain, stood sideways and said: "General, it's dawn, and the bandits have formed five formations and are digging trenches in front of them."

Li Bei nodded, thumped his sore legs from sitting for a long time, and couldn't help getting up and looking west: "It's time for General Liu to leave, how much ammunition is left?"

"It is counted at night, and the gunpowder left is enough for the whole battalion to fire six salvos."

Li Bei was sure of winning, and his words were also extremely confident: "Refresh them with three general cannons, fire them twice, and save the remaining gunpowder. The four Buddha wolf machine guns are all loose, and attack in an hour."

After resting and waiting yesterday, the bandit soldiers did not escape, which means that they are also gathering strength and trying to resist.

This is exactly what Li Bei was thinking.

If they had lined up to fight against each other in other places, he would have already fought, but here, it is not beneficial to defeat the enemy with one blow before encircling them.

It is easy to win, kill hundreds of people, and thousands of thieves will run around the ground. In the spring of next year, Yan'an Mansion will still be full of thieves.

Only by completing the encirclement and blocking the thieves in the valley, no matter whether they are killed or appeased, can they not be allowed to escape.

Right now, the thieves are already familiar with his rhythm of firing three cannons separately and in volley, but his firepower is not like this. When he comes into close combat, more than ten light and heavy cannons fire a volley at once, and they are sure to smash the enemy in any burst.

As long as they are defeated for a while in an instant, there will be a gap in the front line and they will be driven straight in. Even a thousand troops cannot resist hundreds of people rushing to kill.

Drive them to the north, and Liu Guozhen led his troops south to intercept them when the team was reorganized, so that they could complete the battle.

A moment later, the three Qianjin general cannons in front of the formation were fired.

There was smoke in the camp, cooking pots were buried to prepare for the war, the officers and soldiers led the horses out of the camp looked at the opposite side, the bandit soldiers did not fire back, and a group of soldiers were digging trenches to build a front.

In the early morning before the decisive battle, the river valley was eerily quiet, only the wind across the valley blowing on the golden millet field made a rustling sound.

Liu Chengzu rode through various military formations, and taught each department to set up a hollow square formation with soldiers on the outside and officers in the middle, which is commonly used by the Ming army. Then he returned to the central army, and after discussing with several leaders, they dispersed to command the troops.

In fact, it was mainly Professor Luo Rucai.

The two battles are far away, this guy can stand in front of the battle and play awe-inspiring, and leave life and death to God to play bravely.

But in a face-to-face battle, officers can stand in front of the formation, but the chief general must never stand in front of the formation.

Why do they not belong to each other? Each phalanx of four to five hundred people has its own leader. If the leader is dead, no one can lead the team.

It's different if you change the officers and soldiers. The general will be considered dead, and there will be thousands of generals behind, and the troops will not flee directly.

The six infantry phalanx, using the formation of four in front and two in back, pressed forward and horizontally with a width that almost filled the valley.

In front are Luo Rucai, Liu Guoneng, Li Wanqing, and Wang Ziyong, and behind them are Gao Yingen and Liu Chengzu.

The left wing is Gao Yingxiang's cavalry team, the right wing is Zhang Tianlin's cavalry team, and all the troops are moving forward in a straight line.

"General, the bandits have formed an formation."

Li Bei glanced across the enemy line, looked up at the sun, signaled the flag bearer to wave the flag, turned his head and said: "It's a little early, but it's okay, they can't run away, gather troops and horses."

Horns sounded one after another in the officer's camp, and the frontier soldiers filed out from the camp, and the two officers and officers in the headquarters also formed a hollow phalanx.

The artillery pushed the general's heavy artillery and the Buddha wolf machine's fast artillery in front.

The four sides of the outer layer of the phalanx are mixed with artillery and archers who carry the Pearl Cannon, the Small Frang Cannon, and the Tiger Crouching Cannon. The spearmen are behind them for protection, and some horsemen lead their horses in formation to protect the officers. Go slowly.

More officers and horsemen walked outside the formation, and made the last battlefield visit before the war to the flanks and rear, searching for possible enemies in the abdomen and back.

Compared with the formation of the peasant army, the formation of the official army looks too small.

But they marched more firmly.

The two armies were within [-] paces of each other, and the cavalry in the officer's formation stepped forward, waving flags, and the formation stopped. The three generals adjusted their cannons and blasted at the enemy.

boom!
Three solid iron bullets whizzed across the battlefield and flew towards Liu Guoneng's army formation. One smashed into the front of the formation, and two smashed into the formation, driving out two paths of blood.

The riot in the military formation stopped, and moved on after a while.

There was a small gap in the front of the Peasant Army. Liu Chengzu arranged for the officer Tian Shoujing in the front to gallop across the front line, ordering the remaining three teams to slow down and re-level the front line.

The cavalry of Gao Yingen's troops on the left stopped at the same time, but Zhang Tianlin's troops on the right did not stop and continued to move forward.

The officers and soldiers stood on the spot, surrounded by five-meter-long spears, and the artillery quickly cleared the barrel of the general's gun.

The gunner of the Fran cannon also unloaded the cannon. Five sub-guns weighing several tens of kilograms were placed in a row on the right side of the cannon, and a bucket was placed on the left side.

"General!"

The cavalry patrolling outside retreated towards the army formation, and one of them dismounted alone, broke into the formation, prostrated himself on the ground and pointed to the south: "General..."

Seeing that he was hesitating to speak, Li Bei ordered him to go forward, only to hear the horse soldiers whispering in a low voice: "There are infantry at the rear of my formation who have crossed the mountains and are right at the foot of the mountain. They are not General Liu's troops."

Not General Liu?
Li Bei waved his hand for the cavalry soldiers to explore again, closed his eyes on the Chinese army, and thought quickly.

Was Liu Guozhen defeated?

Or at the same time Liuguozhen sent troops, the bandit soldiers also sent out a ranger, and the two armies missed in the mountains?
After a moment, he opened his eyes.

Oops.

The enemies in the rear prevented him from chasing them.

The bandits' right-wing cavalry was close to outflanking. No matter what happened behind the formation, his army was not allowed to move at this time, so he could only defeat the enemy for a while, and then turned back to wait for the battle.

"The thieves marched nearly [-] paces in four formations!"

The artillerymen waved the command flag in front of the formation, and the three generals fired out again, the target was still Liu Guoneng's phalanx.

This time, all three shells ran over the formation, smashing bloody roads amidst the whistling sound, and beat the phalanx that had just stabilized its morale into chaos again.

They didn't retreat, and they realized that they were being targeted by enemy artillery, and no one would hit him but him.

Several captains said anxiously in front of Liu Guoneng: "Leader, if you continue walking slowly, they are fine, and we are about to die!"

Liu Guoneng clenched his fists tightly, his scalp was tense, he pulled out his waist knife with a bang, stepped forward and said, "Let's move forward!"

The Liu Guoneng formation, located on the left side of the two formations in the middle, stepped forward before Tian Shoujing, who was maintaining the formation, arrived, leaving the friendly army behind for a moment.

This drove the remaining three formations to speed up their pace, and the large horizontal formation of the peasant army was in chaos.

The officers and soldiers did not move, but a loud arrow whizzed across dozens of steps and landed on the ground between the two formations.

People stared at the invisible line, breathing more and more heavily.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)