How to deal with the prisoners is the question now facing Xia Houhui.
It is difficult to escort back prisoners three times as many as yourself.
Not to mention that they were now deep into the area controlled by Jiangdong. Escorting the prisoners would slow down their march and could easily be pursued.
According to Jiang Ban's wishes, it was enough to take them separately outside the camp or into the pavilion, kill them all, cut off their ears, and take them back for merit calculation, so there was no need to worry.
But the cavalry encouraged a hundred-man general to stand up and ask Xiahou Hui and Jiang Ban for permission to take these prisoners back.
To be precise, they wanted to take some of the weapons from the camp back.
The general's surname is Huang and Ji.
He is nearly forty years old and has served in the military for nearly twenty years.
He was a humble man, brave in battle and had considerable military exploits. If it were not for his lack of literacy and his lack of hope for promotion, the person who had previously acted as the military agent for the Scout Battalion would not have been Chiang Ban.
Therefore, his prestige in the scout camp is very high.
He used himself as an example, claiming that most of the cavalrymen in the scout camp were illiterate men, and risking their lives was just to make ends meet. If he wanted to improve his family's situation, he could only hope to be rewarded for his achievements.
In the military laws of the Wei State, prisoners were more generously rewarded than those who had beheaded them; and those who captured weapons and supplies were more generous than those who captured enemy soldiers.
He knew that he could not bring back the food and other things from this place.
But he wanted to use war horses to transport weapons such as ring-headed knives, crossbows and arrows back.
Naturally, the cavalrymen all walked back on foot, and escorting these prisoners back was just a matter of course.
And he has a way to prevent these prisoners from rioting or escaping along the way.
Instead, they cut them all back, tied them into bundles with spears, put them on the shoulders of the captives in the group of three, and tied their necks and shoulders together with ropes. In this way, there was no need to worry about the incoordination of the three in the group.
There is a possibility of an explosion.
As for the most critical point, if the return journey is too slow, will there be a danger of being chased by Wu soldiers?
He thought it was impossible.
Jiangdong has always been dominated by water battles, and there are not many people who dare to fight the Wei army head-on on land.
Moreover, this attack on the Fuling garrison was carried out by chance and was very concealed. Even our own side who launched the offensive had not thought about it before noon, and the Thief Wu side was naturally even more unpredictable.
The most important thing is that after leaving Fuling, it is the buffer zone between Wei and Wu~
If they burned the camp now and escorted the prisoners back at night, even if the thief Wu Hengjiangpu had learned the news, how would he dare to pursue him?
Aren't you worried about being outflanked by Shouchuncheng's cavalry troops during the pursuit?
Therefore, when there was not much danger, he asked Xia Houhui and Jiang Baneng to show mercy, so that he and the other cavalry could receive a reward that could improve the lives of his wife and children at home.
Xia Houhui hesitated about this.
As a scout, you should abide by the principle of not being willing to fight.
The greatest advantage of the cavalry is the mobility that comes and goes like the wind!
Although he knew that Huang Ji's analysis was reasonable, he did not want to commit the taboo of being greedy on the battlefield.
However, before he could say the words of rejection, Jiang Ban was actually persuaded and began to plead with him for permission so that the cavalry could get what they wanted.
Because he had been in the army for a long time, he knew that the desolation and shortage of supplies caused by the Huainan battlefield also made the life of the lower class soldiers very difficult.
And he also felt that there would be no danger in returning.
This also made Xia Houhui hesitate.
If he was an officer who had been promoted from the bottom based on his military exploits, or if he was an old soldier who had served in the army for a long time, he would have sternly refused and reprimanded him. But he was just a son of a nobleman who was released from Luoyang.
I have no resume and no military exploits, so I find it difficult to disobey the public opinion.
In particular, the purpose of his coming to the Huainan battlefield was to quickly accumulate meritorious service.
Just like this time, I risked my life.
As a general's son who is familiar with military art, doesn't he know that a gentleman will not stand behind a dangerous wall?
There is an example of his father and brother dying in Hanzhong County. Doesn't he know the common sense that "supervisors cannot fight in person"?
No, he knows it all!
Knowing it but still doing it is because he feels that time is not waiting for him.
With the natural advantages of being a Xiahou clan, coupled with military achievements, one can rise to prominence and have the right to speak in the temple.
He went through the qualifications step by step and spent ten or eight years waiting for the outbreak of war to accumulate to a high position. He didn't have that much time. Because Cao Zhen was about to conquer Shu, which also meant that Cao Wei Sheji's clan generals were about to face the dilemma of not having any one of them.
He wanted to catch up with Sima Yi when he became the number one in the army, rise up suddenly, become the "clan" that Emperor Cao Rui could rely on, and become the leader of Qiao Pei recognized by the whole country. Only in this way, when the country was facing turmoil, Cao Wei's loyal ministers
Only then will they spontaneously move closer to him and regard him as the mainstay of the Cao Wei State!
With his status as a mere goalkeeper, and his qualifications having just been transferred to Huainan, he had to use extraordinary means to do this.
This insistence on going deep into enemy-occupied areas to take risks is to gain a reputation for bravery.
The military is often rough, but those with a reputation for bravery are highly respected and more likely to gain support.
But now Jiang Ban and Huang Ji's request gave him an opportunity to win over people's hearts, an opportunity that would make all the cavalrymen willing to fight for him in the future.
On the Huainan battlefield, three hundred elite cavalrymen were willing to fight to the death. It was really not that difficult to achieve great achievements~
After all, when Zhang Liao was so powerful in Xiaoyaojin, there were only 800 people willing to fight to the death~
This was where his hesitation lay.
Reason is reminding him that this is wrong; but luck is constantly encouraging him to seize this rare opportunity.
Because once he rejects everyone's request, it is equivalent to cutting off the soldiers' financial path.
From now on, don’t think about getting soldiers to follow you to the death. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get criticized and slandered by them privately!
But at this moment, Jiang Ban saw Xia Houhui's expression showing interest, so he added another sentence.
He claimed that he could rush back to Shouchun overnight and bring hundreds of cavalry from the scout camp to meet them. Calculating the distance, they could be completely out of danger in one day at most.
Having said that, if Xia Houhui refuses again, it would be really unkind.
Therefore, everyone was happy for a while.
Jiang Ban immediately galloped back without mentioning anything. Huang Ji also called on other cavalrymen to work hard to cut off the prisoners, search for weapons, and rush to escort them back overnight. Xia Houhui was collecting lamp oil, firewood and other items to prepare for the attack.
Before leaving, a fire burned down the garrison in Fuling, Jiangdong.
Unavoidably, all the busy work was delayed for half an hour.
When Xia Houhui lit the camp in person and rode away slowly, he murmured something in his heart - this place is quite far away from Hengjiangpu, the thief Wu shouldn't be aware of it, right?
However, on the battlefield, once a general feels lucky, he is often on the road to death.
Therefore, he soon learned his lesson.
Hengjiangpu, Jiangdong Shuwu.
A quarter of an hour after more than a dozen cavalry scouts went out to search, a cavalry force of more than a hundred people also slowly came out of the dock.
The person at the head was surprisingly the chief officer who was transferred to this place at the beginning of the year.
His name is Ding Feng, also named Chengyuan.
Although he came from a poor family and served under Gan Ning, Lu Xun, Pan Zhang and others, because he was brave and good at fighting, he took the lead in every battle and could often kill the generals and capture the flag and return home, so he became a partial general.
After Sun Quan proclaimed himself emperor and moved the capital, with the focus of future attacks on Huainan, he was transferred to the front line of Hengjiangpu as the chief officer.
After he took office, he worked diligently and was always ready to attack Wei.
Small things like today, when the messenger fails to return after the due date, are also not taken lightly.
Instead, while sending out scouts to search, he planned to personally lead his troops to the Fuling garrison to find out.
Yes, he felt that something might have happened to the Fuling garrison point.
This was because after he took office, he went to Jianye, claiming that it was inappropriate to have only a hundred soldiers at the Fuling garrison, and suggested restoring the previous system of three to four hundred soldiers, but it was not adopted.
It was precisely because of this that he paid more attention to Fuling.
It is not surprising that as soon as he heard that the messenger had not returned, he immediately decided to go all the way through the night.
In fact, his sense of battlefield was spot on.
About half an hour after he led his troops out of the camp, the scouts who had been sent out to search the woods and mountain valleys along the way came galloping over and reported the discovery of the corpses of the three messengers.
Furthermore, based on the details that all three of them had their left ears cut off, they concluded that this was definitely the work of a Wei army scout.
The Wei army scouts bypassed Ruxuwu and entered the rear. This unprecedented thing made Ding Feng confirm his suspicion and immediately ordered all troops to rush to Fuling.
As for why no one was sent back to attract more soldiers~
Jiangdong does not produce horses and has no organized cavalry.
In the past, the war horses captured on the battlefield and the Yunnan horses traded with the Shu Kingdom could only be enough to equip scouts and reward brave generals to equip their own troops.
Considering the distance between Hengjiangpu and Fuling, calculating the time and sending infantry to rush over would be useless.
Furthermore, Ding Feng, who bravely defeated the Wu army, was fearless.
Near the third watch, we were halfway through the journey.
Then he met the scouts who had rushed to Fuling to inquire about the news and were returning quickly.
He also learned the military information that the Fuling garrison point had been burned down.
If it were other Jiangdong generals, after learning that the garrison point had been destroyed, they would have returned home as if things were irreversible, went to the temple and organized the army to prepare for war.
But Ding Feng is different.
After fighting from the bottom to the side general with swords and guns, he also questioned the scout in detail.
After learning that the remaining fires in the burned-out garrison were still burning brightly, and that not many bodies had been found inside and outside the camp, he once again urged his troops not to skimp on horsepower and to rush over.
Because he was sure that Wei Jun would not go far!
According to the Wei army's murderous practice, there were not many corpses, so they were naturally taken back as prisoners.
Being dragged down by the prisoners, of course he walked very slowly.
Moreover, he was originally from Lujiang and was very familiar with the geography of the Jianghuai area. Since the Wei army was returning from Fuling, he could have an answer without thinking about which route to choose.
If you dare to cross the border and invade, you will never come back!
As the horse galloped, Ding Feng's anger became more and more intense as the horse's back jolted.