Chapter 83

Vanguard Camp.

"Battalion Commander Li, since you discovered the rebels approaching, why not gather the main army?"

Marquis Wuyang asked with dissatisfaction.

The South City Battalion plus the personal guards had a total force of only two thousand men.

With such a small force, setting up camp on the spot and waiting for the rebels to attack was, in his view, undoubtedly too risky.

Even if they were to fight the enemy, they should gather the entire army of the Five Cities Military Commission.

"Commander, we captured a few prisoners and interrogated them about the origin of the rebels ahead.

Most of them are locals from Xinghua who were coerced by the thieves into joining the rebellion.

They look like tens of thousands, but in reality, there are few who can fight.

According to the prisoners, they are just the vanguard, and the main force is still behind.

If the whole army gathers together, the enemy might just get scared away.

Since they've come, we have to fight a battle.

Anyway, the distance between our three parts is very close, and we can reach the battlefield half an hour after the war breaks out.

You can put your heart in your stomach!

Once the enemy approaches, our army will launch a surprise attack and will definitely gain something!"

Li Mu said with a tired heart.

The opposite side is called a rebel army, but in reality, they can only be counted as chaotic people.

Rebellion is a technical job; it's not that you can turn farmers into soldiers just by hanging up a rebel banner.

Pure peasant uprisings at least have the experience of attacking landlord manors.

Uprisings started by local noble families, except for a few officials resisting, most will surrender directly.

Occupying a county city, the casualties might not even reach three digits.

Having not experienced slaughter, having not received training.

Such an enemy is best suited for training the troops under his command.

"You dare to lead the troops to charge?"

Marquis Wuyang asked in surprise.

In his cognition, Li Mu was good at making money and knew the current affairs; he did have some courage, but honestly, not much.

Risky jobs were always left to others.

"I dare!"

Li Mu answered, biting the bullet.

Frankly speaking, he wasn't prepared to go on the field himself.

However, since the atmosphere had been built up to this point, he couldn't back down.

As long as the enemy was vegetable enough, the risk was controllable.

At worst, he would put on armor and bring more personal guards to protect him.

"Then there's no problem!

I will act with you, just in time to see it on the battlefield!"

Marquis Wuyang slapped his thigh and said.

Looking at that excitement, one knew this was a man's obsession, just that he hadn't dared to go because he was afraid of death.

It was rare to meet a subordinate who was equally afraid of death but also proficient in military affairs.

Since it was confirmed that safety was guaranteed, he had to fulfill his general dream one way or another.

"Commander, it's fine to go together, but you cannot interfere with the command.

There might be stray arrows on the battlefield; for safety's sake, you must wear full armor.

The armor is not light, and it's quite stuffy; you'll have to suffer a bit."

Li Mu advised tactfully.

Marquis Wuyang was now his political thigh; this kind of leader who had a hard backing, could carry the thunder, and did things when paid was hard to find.

Even if he intended to take up a post in the local area, he still needed someone to help speak for him in the imperial court.

In case an accident happened and he died on the battlefield, that would be a huge loss.

"Don't worry, I'll just watch from behind and won't follow the charge!

If possible, lure the enemy to fight near the camp, and I will watch the battle from within the camp.

Even if an accident happens, reinforcements will be able to arrive in time."

Marquis Wuyang said after thinking for a while.

Reason took the upper hand, the dream lost to reality; he was ultimately a person who cherished his life.

Swallowing a bellyful of words he wanted to curse, Li Mu ultimately chose to swallow them back.

Although he wasted his expression, the result was good.

……

Rebel Camp.

"Reporting to the Fifth General, an imperial army camp has been discovered five li ahead, with about one or two thousand people!"

Hearing the soldiers' report, Wen Jianshao's brows suddenly furrowed.

It was likely that the soldiers sent out were lazy again; in this flat terrain, the two armies were only five li apart before being discovered.

Where were scouts needed? The soldiers walking in front of the main army could see the enemy camp with the naked eye.

"Who arranged the scouts? Why wasn't the news reported in advance?"

Wen Jianshao asked angrily.

Fortunately, the imperial army had few troops; if they had bumped into the main force of the imperial army, that would have been the end of it.

"Reporting to the Fifth General, it was I who arranged the scouts.

A total of five batches of scouts were sent out today, and not one has returned yet.

According to the rules in the army, scouts who haven't returned by the hour of the Rooster don't need to be reported to you."

A middle-aged fat man explained uneasily.

The Jiangnan region doesn't produce horses, and the imperial court controls horses very strictly; horses imported from other places are all castrated.

After the Wen family rebelled, they only obtained a small number of warhorses from post stations in various places.

To form cavalry, warhorses and packhorses from all over were collected in Gaoyou.

Xinghua was not valued here; besides Wen Jianshao, the main general, being assigned a packhorse, the other generals could only ride mules.

Because the number was really too small, the soldiers below were miserable.

Nominally they were scouts, but in reality, they had no horses to use and could only work as horses themselves.

Scouting for news relied entirely on running with two legs; at first, the scouting distance requirement was twenty or thirty li, and everyone could easily complete the task.

Later, it was slowly expanded to fifty or one hundred li; the continuous increase in task volume made the soldiers responsible for scouting enemy intelligence run around exhausted every day.

Knowing that the better they did, the heavier the tasks assigned from above would be, the soldiers also began to learn to be lazy.

Anyway, the generals weren't watching by their side, so everyone chose to go out early and return late.

Unless it was the specified time, they certainly wouldn't return early.

Lest the superiors think the scouting task was too light and increase the task volume again.

When nothing happened, no one thought there was any problem with this.

"Hmph!"

"Idiots!"

"The scouts you sent out were all intercepted by the enemy.

It's possible that our army's intelligence was also leaked to the enemy!"

Wen Jianshao couldn't help but scold angrily.

If looks could kill, the middle-aged fat man in front of him would have been torn to pieces.

"Fifth General, please calm your anger; I really didn't know!"

The middle-aged fat man said with a mournful face.

Before raising troops to rebel, he was just a butcher.

He was a bit sturdier than ordinary people, which is why he was selected to be an officer.

Leading troops in battle and such—it was always the superiors saying how to do it, and he followed the orders.

Scolding was scolding, but Wen Jianshao forcibly restrained his desire to kill.

It was a makeshift team, and there were a whole bunch of generals in the army similar to the middle-aged fat man, all pushed onto the shelves.

If the requirements were too harsh, it was possible that the people below would mutiny.

Since raising troops, deserters appeared in the righteous army almost every day.

Sometimes there would even be people from a whole village deserting together.

For Wen Jianshao, compared to pursuing responsibility, stabilizing military morale was the first priority.

"Go down and take twenty military sticks yourself; if you commit this again, watch your head.

Pass the order to all units to surround the enemy camp!"

Reaching out to touch the military book in his sleeve pocket, Wen Jianshao's uneasy heart stabilized a little.

According to the records in the military book, there are many ways to stabilize military morale, one of which is winning battles.

Killing enemies is secondary; the key is to let the soldiers get stained with the imperial army's blood and cut off their retreat.

In his view, the reason everyone dared to be deserters was that they felt they had nothing to do with the rebellion.

As long as they got rid of the rebel army, once the imperial court pacified the rebellion, they could go back and farm peacefully.

Since the soldiers had ideas, they had to cut off their thoughts.

……

On the observation tower, watching the rebels surround them from all directions, Marquis Wuyang put down the binoculars in his hand.

"Battalion Commander Li, are you sure the people outside are rebels and not a civil brawl?"

The lengthened hoe was the "dagger-axe" in the hands of the rebel soldiers.

A kitchen knife tied to a wooden stick was the long spear in their hands.

……

These were considered good; at least they brought sharp blades.

The weapons of more soldiers were just a wooden stick.

It could be seen that it had just been cut down, shaking in their hands, and if they weren't careful, they would accidentally injure their own people.

"Marquis, when we were defending the city, we couldn't even gather enough weapons for the soldiers, let alone a group of rebels.

From a strategic point of view, Baoying has far higher military value than Xinghua.

The strength of the Capital Battalion also far exceeds ours.

The rebels putting their elite troops there is completely reasonable.

Look at the enemy's central army direction; there is a team of soldiers holding long spears, and some even have bird guns in their hands."

Li Mu explained calmly.

The power of the Great Dayu noble families mainly lies in the imperial court, and what remains among the people is mainly influence.

Being able to pull out ten thousand soldiers with a single order from the family head—that was the powerful families of the two Jin dynasties.

Local gentry now, daring to hide a few sets of armor, would have their heads chopped off.

Tossing about within the rule system, scholar families are almost invincible.

Jumping outside the rules, these guys are nothing.

The seven great families of the two Huai regions, who possess salt guards, already have a very top-notch military value among the scholar families.

Great Dayu has been founded for more than two hundred years; one has only heard of feudal princes rebelling and military governors carving out territories.

Scholar families raising troops to rebel—they were still the first wave.

If they really possessed strong military strength, how would the civil official group fear the butcher knives of the factory guards?

"I understand, you come to command the battle!"

Marquis Wuyang nodded and said.

Coming into close contact with the rebels, the original fear slowly began to disappear.

Not just toward the rebels, but even more so toward the civil officials in the imperial court.

Reality told him that those guys who looked imposing were actually all a group of guys who were strong on the outside but weak on the inside.

Essentially, civil officials were the same as his imperial relative status; power all stemmed from imperial power.

It was just that in recent years, the civil official group's power had expanded rapidly, gradually becoming dissatisfied with relying on imperial power and starting to want to limit imperial power.

To a certain extent, the civil officials were successful.

Compared to the several monarchs in the early founding period, the power of later emperors was much smaller.

Even Emperor Tianyuan, a strong monarch, was slowly testing the bottom line of the civil officials, strengthening imperial power step by step.

Should he tell the Emperor what he saw?

After hesitating for a while, Marquis Wuyang chose to give up.

He knew best how much his nephew could toss about.

Even with constraints, he dared to withstand the pressure and push forward a series of reforms.

If he understood the weak essence of the civil officials, who knew what else he would stir up.

"This subordinate receives the order!"

Li Mu answered immediately.

Marquis Wuyang being touched was inevitable.

If he hadn't studied history in his previous life and known how obedient the scholar families were under the butcher knives of the Manchu Qing, he would also have been touched.

The largest interest group holding the empire's power actually had no armed forces to protect its own power; just thinking about it felt incredible.

……

Time passed second by second, and the camp was gradually surrounded by the rebels.

Having experienced the Yangzhou defense battle, the soldiers' emotions were much more stable than that day.

"Pass the order down to have the fire-gun soldiers prepare for battle.

Once the enemy enters range, activate the volley tactics!"

Li Mu ordered with an expressionless face.

It was rare to have such cooperative enemies; it was just right to test the new tactics.

How much effect the fire-gun version of volley tactics could have, he had no bottom in his heart.

Mainly because the range was too short, and the shooting distance was also unstable.

The approximate lethal range was fifty to one hundred meters, and the specific range relied entirely on the soldiers' own performance.

Although Li Mu strictly ordered his subordinates to standardize the ammunition, that was just wishful thinking.

When soldiers loaded ammunition, shaking a little bit would affect the range of the firearms.

"Bang, bang, bang……"

"Ah!"

……

Dense gunfire rang out, followed by a burst of wailing.

Looking in the direction of the sound, more than a hundred corpses were already lying on the ground.

The rebels' chaotic charge successfully turned themselves into living targets.

Those who died were fine; they could just lie there.

The most miserable were those who were hit by the fire-guns but not dead yet, constantly wailing and rolling on the ground.

No matter how miserable the wailing was, it was useless; this was the battlefield.

Behind them were countless rebel soldiers pushing forward, pushing the soldiers in front to move forward and take bullets—a veritable large-scale suicide scene.

Standing on the observation tower observing the battlefield, the tragic scene made Li Mu very uncomfortable.

"Marquis, let's go down first!

The great battle has already begun, and the enemy will definitely prepare weapons to attack the observation tower; it's no longer safe here."

Li Mu advised.

War blockbusters are exciting to watch on screen, but being there personally is a disaster.

(End of chapter)