Chapter 152 Whistle War
When Zhang rushed into the city, a small but extremely brutal ambush was about to take place in a hilly area forty miles northeast of Mou County.
There are hills on both sides of this place, and a valley in the middle, with the Yingwen River flowing through it. At this moment, by the river under the valley, a group of cavalry was rushing along the river.
But halfway through, a large zelkova tree with flourishing branches fell on both sides of the road. These cavalrymen did not have much doubt. Big trees were often cut down in these places. After cutting down the trees, some loggers would push the trees down the Yingwen River. There were specialized log collectors downstream.
So after the cavalry stopped, some of them were about to dismount and move away the beech trees.
Suddenly, a group of soldiers rushed out of the forest with a thick wooden branch. Before the cavalry could react, the group used wooden branches to support their horses and pushed them to the side of Yingwen River.
In the blink of an eye, four cavalry companies and their horses were swept into the river.
The cavalrymen who had fallen into the river quickly threw away the saddlebags on their heads, threw off the reins, and started to swim up. But at this time, five or six water ghosts swam in the water. They held the dagger in their teeth and held them down. Then they stabbed them with the knife, drew the knife, and then the next one.
For a moment, the water of Yingwen River turned red with blood.
The confrontation on the shore was even more intense.
Among the group of people who rushed out was a stout man carrying a big ax. When he just rushed out, he was so fierce that he flipped the enemy cavalry, including men and horses, into the river.
At this moment, he had already picked up a big ax and slashed at the remaining cavalry. One ax cuts the horse's leg, and the other cuts off the enemy's head.
The remaining cavalrymen quickly dismounted and fought with these people on foot.
But the group of people who rushed out were obviously elites. They could kill an enemy with a few blows, and they drank violently every time they killed them. Some of them even imitated the beasts in the mountains and howled in a bloody and barbaric way.
But soon the enemy cavalry reinforcements arrived, and a team of about twenty people heard the news and ran over.
The ambush group obviously failed to detect this situation and panicked for a moment. But there was a person inside who seemed to be the leader. He made a prompt decision and got on a war horse that had been abandoned by the enemy. He pulled out an iron bone flower from the horse's trousers, and then sprinted towards the group of infantry.
With the help of his horse power, the man drew a circle with the Iron Bone Flower, from bottom to top, and hit an infantryman on the chin. At that time, half of the soldier's face was rotten and he flew to the side.
Then, after Tie Guduo was swung to the highest level, it suddenly hit the head of another soldier, directly smashing his Tianling Cap.
After that, he swung, smashed, swung, and smashed. By the time he rode to the front, more than half of the infantry had been smashed to death by him.
When the man turned his horse around and tried his old trick again, the horseman on the other side charged him with a ring-shaped sword.
The man pursed his lips, clamped his horse's legs, and accelerated towards the cavalryman.
He roared loudly, and when the two horses crossed each other, he hit the horse's chest with a bone, causing it to collapse. But he was unscathed and continued to rush towards the next enemy.
At this moment, one of his comrades, the warrior with the big axe, was also killing without restraint.
The strong man chopped off the enemy's feet with an axe, and then smashed the enemy's head with an axe. After he passed by, he left wailing all over the place.
Seeing how brave the axeman was, Meng Ju was overjoyed. He and Qu Kui made the right decision by borrowing him from the collision team.
That's right, it was Meng Ju, the general of the flying army's flag-bearing department of Zhang Chongjun's headquarters of the Taishan Army, who was just riding on the horse and swatting the iron bone flower all the way.
At this time, the battle in the river valley was already intense. Both sides were mixed together and fighting. Meng Ju could no longer catch the enemy while riding on his horse, so he dismounted and fought on foot.
An enemy soldier held a spear and wanted to attack him, but Meng Ju grabbed the handle of the spear and smashed his head off with the iron bone in his right hand. The spear in his left hand was inserted into the man's chest. He couldn't die. Die again.
At this moment, he saw one of his brothers in the flying army falling to the ground, and an enemy was stabbing him with a knife in front of him. Meng Ju was so anxious that he pulled out his spear and threw it, hitting the man in the back. But before he died, the man stabbed his knife into the chest of the flying army soldier.
When Meng Ju arrived, his own soldiers had already died.
Meng Ju narrowed his eyes and rushed to a small formation of three people while waving his Iron Bone Flower. He smashed the knees of the two enemy soldiers left and right, and then swung the Iron Bone Flower to smash the third man's chin.
These three people were not dead for a while. They lay on the ground wailing and begging for mercy, but their heads were smashed one by one by Mengju.
But he was so excited that he didn't see an enemy soldier holding a spear coming towards him from behind. Meng Ju tensed up and immediately leaned down to avoid the spear.
Before Meng Ju could even rejoice that he had dodged the spear, he had already snatched the spear with his hand and pushed the enemy into the water. Then Mengju took a spear and stabbed the man to death in the river.
At this moment, the battle in the river valley is almost over.
The ambush flying troops carrying flags slaughtered the wounded and wailing enemy soldiers one after another without mercy, just because this team was the scouts sent by Ying County. Meng Ju and the others had already ambushed several groups of scouts coming from the direction of Ying County. This wave was the largest one, with a total of twenty cavalry, and what was unexpected was that this group of sentry cavalry found twenty infantry to accompany them from nowhere, which almost caused the ambush to fail.
During the day march yesterday, Mengju's flying army did not follow the army, but came directly to the junction of Yingmu and Yingmu counties.
Zhang Chong's military order to Meng Ju was to let him lead the flying army and carry flags to cut off the traffic between Ying and Mou, so that no one person or horse could travel between the two places.
After Meng Ju received the order, he divided all 400 flying troops into twenty groups, each group of two, and scattered them all on the traffic road from Ying County to Mou County.
After a night of ambush, no scouts passed by in the direction of Mou County, but there were many scouts in Yingxian County. Mengju's group alone had already ambushed three waves, but this third wave was particularly large.
The flying troops here have cleaned the battlefield, gathered the remaining war horses, and are ready to leave. It is not suitable to stay here for a long time. This valley is already the boundary of Ying County.
There were no sentry horses returning yesterday. Ying County must have been alert. Soldiers might approach at any time and they had to evacuate the battlefield quickly.
Meng Ju has withdrawn, but he still has to wander on this traffic line, annihilating the rangers whenever he sees them, until soldiers arrive from the direction of Ying County.
——
Taishan County, Fenggao.
At this time, the prefect Zhang Juzheng urgently held a meeting of county-level military attachés.
They just got the news from the sentinels today. The Taishan thieves who had destroyed Taiye Pavilion yesterday were nowhere to be found this morning.
The sentry horse went forward to investigate again and saw the baggage piled up on the roadside. Looking at the ruts and the hardness of the horse dung, it was obvious that the Taishan bandits were marching towards Mou County last night.
As soon as Tan Ma completed his investigation, he reported it to Zhang Ju.
Zhang Ju did not dare to be careless, so he immediately called the county captain Li Xiang, the county soldier Cao Houxi, the thief Cao Pangzun, and the camp general Liu Yin to the military meeting. This time he also called Zhuge Gui, the county magistrate, to attend the ceremony.
After all the generals knew the situation, they were speechless for a moment.
There is really nothing to say. Isn’t it a good thing that the thief is gone? No more worrying about them. For example, Lieutenant Li Xiang has been living and eating on the city wall during this period, has never been home, and has lost weight. The same happened to Liu Yin, the general of the camp. He couldn't eat or sleep well all night long. Just because he was worried that the thieves would come, the old man Zhang Ju sold himself. Even the military officials in the camp came to him several times to urge him and Zhang Ju to ask for pay, but he scolded him and left.
So when the thief left, the county captain Li Xiang and the camp general Liu Yin were the happiest. But two people were unhappy, one was the thief Cao Pangzun, and the other was the county soldier Cao Houxi.
Pang Zun was unhappy because he regarded defeating the thief this time as his way to promotion. How could he be so happy when he just ran away after seeing military achievements? Why was the commander-in-chief Cao Houxi unhappy?
Because his business is closed.
What does this mean?
Remember the last military meeting, when Hou Xi risked upsetting Zhang Ju and added at the end that he wanted to invite the powerful people in the city to join forces to defend the city?
Hou Xi is a cunning old official. In the past, military supplies were sold without him, but when was he included? How could he say this without any benefit?
He just wanted to take advantage of the Taishan bandits to attack the city and blackmail the wealthy households in the city when people were in panic. You see, does the prefect have the order to let all the powerful people in the city go to the tower to defend the city?
But I haven't said which families are powerful eunuchs, so it's up to them, the county officials below, to worry more about the eunuchs.
Naturally, those really powerful people in the county would not dare to come. But those wealthy merchants would have to be blackmailed by him. Either you give us a sum of money, and we'll hire people to go up the city wall for you. Do you want to hand it over? I'm sorry, I can only go into the tenant's house and scan people on the wall.
Of course it was not Hou Shi who was responsible for offending people like this. Naturally, those city foxes and social rats he had befriended stood up for him. Generally speaking, most of these wealthy households will choose to lose money to avoid disaster. After all, if these low-life people are allowed to enter the house and harass the female family members, the gain outweighs the loss.
But now, the Taishan bandit has not come, so how can I, Lao Hou, make a fortune from the war? So he is happy.
But what was even more frightening was Zhang Ju, the Taishan prefect sitting high in the hall.
At this moment, he was completely panicked. Because he understood that the thief really went to fight Mou County. When Mou County is really broken, everyone in this house will be innocent. Even if he wants to be a rich man again, it will depend on whether the slap on the wall is serious.
But although he was panicked in his heart, he was calm on the face. He could not let those below guess his joy, anger, sorrow, and fear, and he could use his power to control others. This is his third rule as a master.
Just like now, as soon as he finished telling the news, he had already guessed the matter just by looking at the faces of the generals below. These Qiu Ba can't hide anything on their faces.
But they didn't speak at this moment, so he couldn't express his attitude first. He wanted to lead someone to break the cold atmosphere first. Zhang Ju turned his head directly and looked at Zhuge Gui. Zhuge Laoer, you are needed at this time.
Zhang Ju cleared his throat and asked Zhuge Gui, who had been deep in thought:
"Zhuge Juncheng, I don't know about this, what do you think?"
(End of chapter)