In order to fight against the bandits who came from nowhere, the small and broken war machine of the Tang Dynasty quickly started operating.
However, although the mobilization speed of this war was quite fast, the battle plan had just been finalized in the morning. At noon, a group of about fifty forward troops composed of various arms had already set off, and by the afternoon, a large group of troops had already arrived in an emergency.
Assemble and prepare to go.
The reason why the speed is so fast is because the Tang Dynasty has always faced a huge threat from the Ming army. The Ming army in Longhua Town and Zhengtai County has always been regarded as a serious threat by the emperors and ministers of the Tang Dynasty, and they are always on guard against it.
The Ming army entered the mountain, so it can be said that the entire Huangzhu Mountain was always in a state of war readiness, so the mobilization speed was quite fast.
Secondly, it is because today's Tang Dynasty King's Army is no longer the half bandit and half civilian army before. If you want to fight a war, you must first gather people, and then train for several days before you can form a preliminary organization.
Talk about going out to fight.
Although today's Tang Dynasty King's Division is much smaller in number than before, with only over 300 people at full strength, these people are completely full-time professional troops with a complete and fixed establishment, and they do not need to do farm work on weekdays.
, but maintain the training state.
Therefore, after an order is issued, they can immediately gather and fight.
The only thing that is still a bit troublesome is the logistics, especially the time required to prepare dry food.
After all, when troops go on an expedition, in addition to regular food such as rice, in order to facilitate marching and even combat, they will prepare a large amount of dry food that can be eaten directly without making a fire for cooking.
But this time they were fighting right at home, and it wasn't expected to take long, so they didn't prepare any dry food and just took rice and set off.
The military mobilized extremely quickly. Preparations started in the morning, and the leading troops set off at noon, and then the main troops set off in the afternoon. It took less than a day before and after.
This time, Li Xuan did not go on a personal expedition like the last time. After all, the enemies he faced this time were just a group of bandits. They were not the main force of the Ming army, and there was no need for Li Xuan to go on a personal expedition to boost morale.
In this battle, Fang Dongquan served as the commander-in-chief, Wang Shanxu served as the deputy commander-in-chief, and the rest of the generals coordinated. The person to oversee the army was still Qian Mengjiu, Minister of War.
Originally, Li Xuan planned to let Wang Shanxu serve as the commander-in-chief. After all, compared to others, Wang Shanxu, the former commander of the Guards, knew and was better at line combat. However, among the many generals of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Shanxu was a junior after all.
Many people would not be convinced by letting him serve as commander-in-chief.
So Li Xuan still chose to let Fang Dongquan serve as commander-in-chief.
Fortunately, since the establishment of the professional army, Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren have seen that the standing army is gone, and the future combat method will be the combat model of the former Guards. Therefore, in order to maintain their power, they will more or less
Take the initiative to learn the tactics of the Guards.
If they were asked to lead the army to fight against the Ming army, Li Xuan would be a little worried, but if they were just asked to lead the army to deal with a group of bandits, then Li Xuan could still rest assured.
At worst, it’s just training as a soldier!
Any famous general needs to be honed by constantly accumulating combat experience. With more combat experience, it is not impossible for bandit leaders like Fang Dongquan and Chen Tufu to become qualified generals.
If they really can't hold up the wall in the future, there will still be more than a dozen young officers of the former Guards who were taught by Li Xuan personally to support them.
Li Xuan worked so hard as a kindergarten teacher during this period, not just to hand over a few students who can add, subtract, multiply and divide, but also to teach a group of qualified officers who can understand basic astronomy and geography and other scientific knowledge.
, of course, in the future, you can also select a few talented people from these people and let them change careers and become scientists!
Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have specially selected these ten people from among the young officers of the former Guards.
After Fang Dongquan, Wang Shanxu and others set off with their people, Huangzhushan returned to its previous calm. People were doing whatever they were supposed to do, and at most they only talked a few more words.
Since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, it has fought endlessly. From last year to now, it has fought seven or eight wars. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a small war in January and a big war in March.
In addition, they are originally bandits and often go out to rob and so on. Therefore, the old and weak women and children in Huangzhushan are completely used to their men and sons going out with weapons, and many of them even know how to do it.
Thinking about it, I hope that this time my men and sons can bring back more trophies from the battle.
In the palace, Dong Yunyun was sitting next to Li Xuan. When she saw Li Xuan bowing his head in deep thought, she immediately said, "Are you worried?"
"Worried?" Li Xuan didn't understand why she asked: "What are you worried about?"
"We are worried about the soldiers who are going to war!" Dong Yunyun said: "They are going out to fight again. Aren't you worried?"
Li Xuan smiled and shook his head: "What am I worried about? They are just a group of bandits, and there are not many young men among them who can fight. There is no risk to Fang Dongquan and the others when they take people out, and it will only last three or four days at most.
They should be able to come home with a great victory!"
"Then what are you thinking about?" Dong Yunyun brought a peeled loquat to Li Xuan's mouth and said at the same time: "You haven't spoken much this afternoon!"
Li Xuan opened his mouth and swallowed the loquat directly. After taking two bites, he spat out the loquat core. At this time, he said: "It's okay. There have been a lot of things recently. I haven't figured out what to do with some things yet!"
Dong Yunyun didn't know what Li Xuan was talking about specifically, but she didn't ask in detail. She just said, "Don't think so much, the boat will go straight to the bridge!"
Li Xuan nodded, what she said was quite right.
His reflection just now was indeed not about worrying about Fang Dongquan and the others, because Fang Dongquan and the others were very sure of their success this time when they went out to fight the bandits. The worst case scenario was that they failed to capture a large number of prisoners.
The reason why Li Xuan was meditating was because he thought that there were obviously many bandit gangs in this mountain. If he could recover a wider range of bandit gangs, he might be able to add thousands more to his Tang Dynasty.
human population.
But if it is more than a hundred miles away, the information will be different. There is no telling where other bandits are hiding, and it will take too much time to go back and forth.
It is now May. Although there is still some time before the busy summer season, this period of time is very precious training and reorganization time for the Tang Dynasty King Division. Li Xuan needs this time to train the newly formed new army.
, Only in this way can we lead the army to "collect grain" during the summer harvest.
But Li Xuan was also a little hesitant, because it was also very important to absorb as many people as possible and improve strength. It could even be said to be the foundation for the Tang Dynasty to continue to fight against the Ming army.
Conquering other bandit nests to capture the population and training the army are like having fish and bear's paws, you cannot have both.
Li Xuan thought for a whole day and couldn't come up with a clue, so he simply gave up. When Fang Dongquan and the others came back, he might be able to get some information about other bandit dens from those wandering bandits, so that he could judge what to do in the end.
Do not send troops to conquer other bandit nests to increase the population of the Tang Dynasty and obtain more soldiers.
In the next two days, Huangzhu Mountain was still peaceful and leisurely. People seemed to have forgotten that their husbands, sons, and fathers were fighting outside. They treated it all calmly and lived a normal life.
However, Li Xuan in the palace received reports from the frontline troops every day. The report on the first day was very simple, saying how far he had traveled without encountering any accidents.
The next day, he said that he had arrived at the planned ambush location and had begun to deploy troops for the ambush, waiting for the gang of bandits to run into them.
However, the report on the third day said that the bandits did not appear as expected, but stopped about ten miles away.
This made Li Xuan a little worried, why didn't this act according to the script?
Did the bandits sense something, so they didn't move forward into the ambush?
When Li Xuan was worried, Fang Dongquan and the others were also a little confused. You must know that Huangzhushan's spies were secretly monitoring this group of bandits all the way. However, since they set up camp in a small valley ten miles away yesterday, they have been secretly watching for two consecutive days.
There was no movement at all.
"What are they doing?" Fang Dong couldn't understand it at all, Huang Xueren and the others couldn't understand it either, and all of them looked puzzled.
At this time, Butcher Chen said: "How about we stop waiting and fight there directly. It's only ten miles anyway. Let's go faster. It won't take even an hour."
However, Wang Shanxu shook his head and said: "No, if we move, they will definitely find us. Then they will run directly to us to arrest people?"
Wang Shanxu’s words also made it difficult for Butcher Chen to refute!
In this expedition, even if they defeated the enemy, it would not be considered a victory. It would only be considered a victory if they captured a large number of prisoners. If their rash actions caused the enemy to run away directly, then all their previous efforts would have been wasted.
"Then what should we do now? We can't wait forever!" Butcher Chen said: "Otherwise, I will bring a small forward force. If they come, then I will stand still. If they want to run,
Then I will bring people to stop them first!"
Fang Dongquan said: "This method is okay, but if there are more people going here, they will find out, but if there are less people going, I'm afraid they won't be able to stop it then!"
Butcher Chen didn't take it seriously and said, "No need for more, just give me twenty people and that's enough!"
At this time, Huang Xueren, Wang Shanxu and the others also looked at Butcher Chen, and then Huang Xueren nodded and said: "I think it's okay!"
Fang Dongquan also said: "In this case, then Lao Chen, take twenty people over first. If they don't run, don't move. If they want to run, hold them back!"
After some discussion, Butcher Chen set off with a small force of twenty people composed of sword and shield soldiers, musketeers, and spearmen.
At the same time, in a small valley ten miles away, Leader Li had just finished listening to his subordinates' report. At this time, his face was terrifyingly gloomy!