Chapter 278: Ten Thousand Fires Urgent (Extra for Pioneer)

"The mine tunnel has other exits. If you want to catch a turtle in a jar, using it is the best." He Lingchuan pointed at Jiao Tai. "He knows the location of the mine tunnel exit." Zeng Feixiong was overjoyed, cupped his fists and said: "Thank you, Young Master!"

This title caused a prick in He Lingchuan's heart, and he waved his hand: "Go, come thank me after you've achieved merit."

Zeng Feixiong also knew that time was tight, and still led by Jiao Tai, continued to rush to the mine pit.

During their conversation, He Chunhua took out a piece of white paper, and in his haste, he was too lazy to grind ink, so he simply bit his fingertip and wrote a dozen words with blood.

He Lingchuan wondered: "Father?"

He Chunhua didn't say a word, quickly took out the State Order, dipped it in blood to seal it, then folded the paper, and took something else out of his storage ring—

A gray pigeon.

Everyone was stunned, and only after looking carefully did they realize that this was actually a mechanical bird.

He Chunhua opened a secret compartment, put the blood letter inside, and the mechanical bird flapped its wings twice, and a pair of small eyes lit up.

Then General Manager He threw it into the air, and it flapped its wings *pop-pop* and flew east.

He Lingchuan let out a long sigh of relief: "So you brought this, that's great!"

The mechanical bird was a masterpiece of a puppeteer, but few puppeteers could build a mechanical bird that could fly for tens of miles; that required extremely precise construction. This one was originally a masterpiece of a capable person under the 'rebel leader' Hong Xiangqian; when the rebel army was defeated at Woling Pass, Wu Shaoyi left with several mechanical birds.

Later, Wu Shaoyi surrendered and also offered the mechanical birds for military use.

He Chunhua kept a watchful eye, and this time when he brought people out to wipe out the enemy, he also specially brought a mechanical bird in case of emergency.

Now, the 'emergency' had come.

He Chunhua's expression was solemn: "I hope it can be delivered in time!"

The bird flew much faster than a thousand-mile horse; if it could warn Xinhuang before Hong Chenglue launched the raid, their side might be spared from loss.

Needless to say, He Chunhua then ordered the remaining army to turn around and head east, rushing back to Xinhuang at full speed.

He Lingchuan gradually understood these things; his father thought that since the army had been brought here, it wouldn't be appropriate not to get some spoils back, so he decisively ordered Zeng Feixiong to raid the mine pit. The bait Hong Chenglue threw out was quite attractive, and taking it wasn't difficult; taking a step back, if Xinhuang's grain and grass were also burned, at least he had also taken an enemy general, Baili Qing.

On the way, He Chunhua asked in detail about the process of the event, and upon hearing that Mao Tao had died in battle, he couldn't help but sigh: "He was also an old man who followed you all the way; does he have any family?"

"No."

He Chunhua gave an 'um': "That's also good."

He was burning with anxiety now, wishing he could grow wings and fly back to Xinhuang, and had no mind to comfort his son.

Xinhuang had a garrison and the Chuanyun Pavilion guarding it. But Hong Chenglue was at least half a step ahead of them, and this person had means; he really had no bottom in his heart as to whether it would be too late to rush back now.

Greedy for merit and advancing rashly, he was careless after all.

Abandoned mine pit.

In the low, flat house, Baili Qing slowly woke up. It was already dark, and he was very thirsty, muttering: "Water..."

The personal guard on the side hurriedly fed him water.

Soon, two generals rushed over, happily saying: "Lord Baili, you are finally awake!"

"How long have I slept?"

"Almost an entire day. The wound is recovering well."

Baili Qing looked at his severed arm, his smile bitter. His hand was gone; what was the use of the wound recovering well?

However, he had heard that some secret medicines could make severed limbs regenerate.

Half a roast chicken was placed on the table, and a general picked it up and smiled: "I'll go heat it up; this was brought over by Hong Chenglue to honor you."

"Where is General Hong?" Baili Qing looked out; there didn't seem to be many people walking outside.

"Our scouts left in Bai Lu Town were captured, so the Xiazhou army came here. General Hong took people to lure them away."

Baili Qing was moved: "The mine pit has been exposed? Why not transfer?"

"This..." The two generals looked at each other. "Your injury is too severe; rashly transferring earlier would probably..."

"Confused!" Baili Qing struggled to sit up. "Order a retreat immediately. Where did General Hong say to meet?"

"Xinqiao Township."

"Call the military doctor to change my dressing." Baili Qing saw that the tourniquet was already soaked through.

"The military doctor went with General Hong."

Baili Qing was shocked: "What did you say?"

The more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong; he had only severed one arm, how could he have directly slept through the entire day?

Medicine, he had been drugged.

"How many people are left in the camp who can fight?"

"General Hong left fifty people."

Baili Qing slapped the table and said angrily: "This fellow is so vicious!"

The two generals were still confused, and Baili Qing urged repeatedly: "Order a retreat quickly, find me a stretcher, hurry, hurry!"

The subordinates were just about to agree when there were several screams outside.

The two ran to the door and saw several waves of arrow rain flying out of the mountain forest, and fire was soaring into the sky!

The Xiazhou army had arrived.

￥￥￥￥￥

Xinhuang, grain transport team camp.

It had long been dark, and the camp was brightly lit; on the contrary, looking out from the camp, the entire Xinhuangzhen was almost plunged into pitch darkness, with few houses lit.

The soldier on duty at the West Post yawned and said to his passing companion: "There's no human breath at all; this is a ghost town. We might as well sleep in the wilderness at night, at least we can get some game to satisfy our cravings."

Yawning is contagious, and his companion couldn't help but yawn too: "Didn't you hear those country bumpkins say that the birds and beasts nearby have all been eaten by them. Alright, cheer up, I'm leaving first."

The soldier was shocked: "Hey, don't leave me alone!" His partner had died in a Xunzhou raid yesterday. "I've been on guard for five hours, I'm sleepy as hell!"

"I still have things to do. Everyone has left, what can't we do?" His companion waved his hand and turned to leave. "If you want to blame someone, blame the scheduler for not scheduling well, letting you stand a solo post."

The West Post was on the very periphery of the entire camp, and it was inevitably boring for the soldier to stay alone. The spring night wind was very gentle, and as it blew, he leaned against the wall and dozed off.

At this moment, something gray and plain descended from the night sky, fell in front of him, and moved a few times.

But the soldier was dozing off so soundly that his mouth and nose even made a slight whistling sound, completely unaware of the movement in front of him.

No one had come here either.

It was unknown how much time had passed before three people passed by the West Post, and the leader was none other than Liang Zhanglao of the Chuanyun Pavilion.

He saw the gray shadow on the ground at a glance and stopped. His disciple stepped forward to pick it up and said 'eh': "What is this?"

He thought it was a dead pigeon, but it was ice-cold to the touch, clearly a man-made object.

A mechanical carrier pigeon?

There were claw marks on its back; it was probably raided by some night owl as prey.

This also explained why it didn't fly all the way to Wu Shaoyi; its parts were probably damaged.

Liang Zhanglao took it and looked at it, fiddled with it casually, and the secret compartment on the pigeon's belly opened, revealing the note inside.

Then, Liang Zhanglao took this note and the mechanical bird and rushed into Wu Shaoyi's tent! Wu Shaoyi was reading under the lamp, and just as the tent door opened with a *whoosh*, before he could even ask, Liang Zhanglao slapped the two things onto his table.

Ten thousand fires urgent! Wu Shaoyi's expression changed drastically at a glance, and he slapped the table and stood up: "Unreasonable, alert immediately!"

He Chunhua was not there, so he was the supreme commander of the entire camp.

Wu Shaoyi issued several urgent orders, and several drums sounded in the camp, and the garrison soldiers hurriedly climbed up. Most of them had been busy for a whole day and fell asleep as soon as they lay down at night; they were still a bit dazed when they got up at this time, but hearing the drums, their hearts were shocked.

Wu Shaoyi ordered his men to be ready to go, and then moved the anti-horse stakes to the camp entrance, waiting in full battle array; Liang Zhanglao led his disciples to set up formations; this kind of military formation had miraculous effects for resisting large-scale attacks, such as arrow rain and fire attacks.

However, they had only set up the second formation when urgent horse hoof sounds rang out outside Xinhuangzhen.

These people didn't light torches, but ran in the darkness, and charged straight toward here, clearly with ill intent.

Wu Shaoyi ordered with an iron-blue face, and the archers in the camp immediately fired a wave of arrow rain.

Strike first to gain the upper hand.

He had suffered a big loss at Hong Chenglue's hands last night, losing the camp, grain, and men; now Hong Chenglue was actually launching a second raid while he was in the camp, which was truly unbearable! This time, new and old grudges would be settled together!

He Chunhua was burning with anxiety, and this team of over a thousand people also tried their best to rush back; on the way, several war horses even stumbled and broke their legs directly.

This was the official road, although it hadn't been repaired for many years.

Just after turning the corner, a signal arrow 'bang'ed on the mountain top directly above, exploding into a large red firework in mid-air.

There were people on the mountain top! He Lingchuan was jolted, but He Chunhua turned a blind eye and only urged everyone to continue moving forward.

This was about one mile away from Xinhuangzhen and was the only way to enter and exit the small town from the west. Clearly, Hong Chenglue had specially placed scouts on this mountain top to capture the movements of the government troops.

Those who reacted immediately like He Lingchuan felt a tightness in their hearts, because this meant that Hong Chenglue's team had already arrived at Xinhuang! The enemy was still a step early.

By the time they rushed near Xinhuangzhen, although there were blazing fires in front, after hearing bursts of shouting, He Lingchuan's heart felt slightly relieved.

There was fighting and shouting, which meant the camp hadn't been completely taken.

Looking at it this way, the camp could still be saved.

Sure enough, He Chunhua led the army to rush into Xinhuangzhen; the fire inside the military camp hadn't gone out, but Hong Chenglue's team was no longer there—after seeing the firework signal from the mountain top in the west, they retreated east.

Wu Shaoyi and Liang Zhanglao led the remaining troops to pursue the desperate enemy.

Seeing He Chunhua return, the grain transport team soldiers cheered and jumped for joy.

He Lingchuan scanned and found that the main camp was in chaos. After the camp raid last night, the grain carts were placed very scattered, but at this time, dozens were still burning, and the fire hadn't been extinguished.

There were traces of fighting everywhere, and one or two human and horse corpses could be encountered every dozen steps.

He Chunhua split off a team of men to help extinguish the fire and save the grain, and he himself led the army to pursue east to support Wu Shaoyi.

The contrast in numbers between the two sides was stark, so there shouldn't be any suspense; He Lingchuan didn't follow, but stayed in the camp to help.

Keeping his word, this chapter is an extra for the lucky player Pioneer who opened the 6666 monthly ticket grand prize.

Continuing to beg for monthly tickets~ to keep a ranking.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 279 =====