Chapter 2565: Guizi rolls before dinner, a small battle

After passing Dingxing, the group speeded up and soon arrived at Qingyuan County, Baoding Prefecture.

This can be regarded as the base camp of the Xuanfu Army on the expedition, while the main force of the Jizhen Army is mainly concentrated on the Gu'an and Yongqing lines.

As soon as the Governor's Yamen was established and all personnel were in place, Feng Ziying began to get busy.

It is now late August, and this battle will probably continue one after another without any room for rest.

 Feng Ziying also recuperated her strength and began to actively plan how to fight this battle.

 In fact, in Feng Ziying's opinion, Qingyuan is not a good place for a base camp because it is too far from the front line.

According to his idea, it is best for the base camp to advance directly to Zhending City, but it is too dangerous there. The surrounding Huolu, Gaocheng, and Wuji are all filled with white lotus rebels. Once Zhending is surrounded, how will the battle be fought? ? The whole situation will become passive.

 In addition, Zhending was too far away from the White Lotus Rebellion in the east, making it inconvenient, so it was ultimately left in Qingyuan City.

"We need to fight the first battle first, but before that, we need to have a snack." Feng Ziying glanced at Ma Kongying, "Although the rebels around Yizhou are not large in number, they are very difficult to deal with and directly endanger The grain road must be resolutely resolved, what's going on at the Zijin Pass?"

Ma Kongying said with a bitter face: "For the time being, Shi Lu has been asked to act as the garrison at Zijing Pass. I have arranged a battalion of troops to march from east to west. At present, this rebel army seems to have noticed that something is moving north. News came from the side that there was a small group of rebels, probably their vanguard, who wanted to slip north..."

"Don't worry, Laishui can be defended for a few days with three to five hundred people. Let Laishui become a bait and let it bite the hook. We will attack them from east to west and completely wipe them out. How to fight, Kong Ying, I don't know. Do you need me to teach you?" Feng Ziying said with a smile: "I will give you five days to resolve the battle, is that okay?"

Ma Kongying puffed up his chest and said, "Don't worry, sir. If we can't win this battle, then Kong Ying, the deputy commander-in-chief, will be finished."

 August 22nd.

Hou Shilu stood at the head of the city of Laishui County, looking at the dark army swarming in from the west. He glanced calmly at the earth-colored guard officer next to him, "Why are you panicking? I'm still here. I have three hundred people." , they can’t get in.”

In order to attract this rebel army to attack, Hou Shilu took the initiative to send more than a thousand civilians and guards from Laishui County to search northward as soon as he arrived at Laishui, and went straight to the suspicious formation set up by the Laishui rebel army.

The rebels had many informants in Laishui City, and they all saw and confirmed with their own eyes that the Laishui Guards and Minzhuang swarmed out of the city and headed towards the Juma River in the north of the city.

It is said that a Laishui rebel army was found there. Of course, there must be a rebel army, but it was done deliberately.

 The news spread back to the main force of the Laishui rebel army in the mountains to the west, and it immediately aroused great joy.

"Old Fox Head, can we fight this battle?" A bearded man stood up with a copper hammer in his hand, with black hair on his chest and belly, his eyes wide open, "News came from the three ministries, and the defenders in the city were There were only about 400 people strong, and the other 300 people came from Dingxing to transport grain. I saw it with my own eyes, and they were extremely lazy. When a group of people entered the city, they found a tavern to drink, and they just happened to catch them all. There were tens of thousands more in Laishui City. The stone grain is enough for us for a while..."

"Why are you panicking? King Kong slave, the person in charge of presiding over this time is none other than Governor Xiao Feng, who is now the governor of Hebei. Do you know how many people he killed in Shaanxi? How many women he beheaded in Liaodong Are you really a barbarian?" The middle-aged man with a skinny face but strong muscles on his body subconsciously stroked his whiskers, "Logically speaking, he should pay attention to the food route. Maybe the situation in the south was too urgent, so he went down in a hurry?"

"Old Fox Head, you have already said that Commander Feng would take thousands of us people seriously. He often leads an army of 100,000, or is a frontier army. How can he take a fancy to us? You just Don't be suspicious, and there are internal agents in Laishui City. We can just break through the city and grab enough." The bearded man said solemnly: "We have to be quick, we can't let the officers and soldiers at Zijin Pass react, and there are also people in Yizhou City. If it’s too late, if we break the city and rob it, we’ll run southwest and hide in Wuhui Mountain.”

The people in the underground were all talking about it.

According to the latest news, Feng Ziying has passed Qingyuan City and gone straight to Zhending City in the southwest. It seems that Zhending is in a tight situation, which makes Feng Ziying so anxious. In any case, this battle is worth fighting.

"Okay, we will set off this afternoon. We should discuss it with the city in the evening and raise a fire as a signal. We will seize Laishui City and evacuate within a day. We cannot stay for a long time." The thin-cheeked man finally made up his mind.

 The night is dark.

When the torches were raised at the top of the city, thousands of rebel troops finally rushed toward Laishui City from all directions.

Hou Shilu took a deep breath. In order to paralyze the rebels outside the city as much as possible, only 400 guards and minzhuang were left in the city, while the other guards and minzhuang were already on the banks of the Juma River fifty miles away.

Because there are too many white lotus flowers in Laishui City, if you don't do this, it will be difficult to cover people's eyes and ears.

This also means that the four hundred guards and minzhuang, plus his own Xuanfu army disguised as a grain transporter, must withstand the siege of the rebel army that night and hold back these rebels in order to move from Zijinguan and Yizhou, The reinforcements coming from Dingxing felt that they had gained time.

This is more than 4,000 rebel troops, five times that of our own side. More importantly, the fighting power of these 400 guards and minzhuang is difficult to trust.

There are only two city gates in Laishui, the east and west gates, and the west gate will become the focus of the rebel army's siege.

"Leave a hundred people to help us guard the west gate, and organize some people to help patrol the city wall. The remaining three hundred people will guard the east gate. Although we expect them to focus on the west gate, we must guard against it."

Hou Shilu also knew that he could only take this gamble.

Ma Kongying gave him this task, which meant that he had no choice. Governor Xiao Feng was very dissatisfied with the situation of the war. He had to deal with the Yizhou Laishui group of rebels within five days. If he could not adopt this dangerous strategy, how could he attract the attention of others? Are these rebels coming out of the mountains to fight?

Hou Shilu brought three hundred elites, except for one thousand self-generated fire musketeers, and the other two hundred were all sword and shield soldiers.

Considering that there are too many rebels, if all 300 people use fire rifles, although a wave of strikes can cause a lot of damage to the opponent, once the rebels rely on their numerical advantage to break through and overwhelm them, they will easily be defeated by the enemy with a fierce wave. The offensive collapsed.

Use a hundred fire gun soldiers to snipe from a distance to block the momentum of its offensive as much as possible, and then use two hundred elites on the city wall to compress it into a relatively narrow range by virtue of the terrain advantage on the city wall. The fire gun can fully Use the power of accumulated shooting, and then the sword and shield soldiers can continuously launch counterattacks to completely defeat the opponent's momentum.

 This is the only feasible strategy that we came up with after several rounds of arguments and deductions.

 But these are all theoretical deductions. After all, everything is based on deductions, and you can only know it after fighting.

Laishui City has the Juma River flowing nearby. Considering the location and importance of Laishui City, it is located at the center of the three cities of Yizhou, Dingxing and Zhuozhou. It is also the key pass into Shuntian Prefecture from Zijin Pass, so the county seat is The water of the Juma River was specially diverted to surround the city, forming a moat.

 It's just that the moat is not wide, and it is not deep by anyone. If we have to build a wooden bridge or fill it with soil bags, it can be realized in a relatively short time. Of course, this requires sufficient manpower.

Hou Shilu was a little nervous. The news came from outside scouts that the rebel army had all swarmed in and would arrive at the city within two-quarters of an hour.

 “Who is it? Don’t come near!”

"Master Jun, we are from the county government. We have been working hard at night. The county magistrate asked us to bring you some wine and meat cooking cakes. Look, they are all freshly steamed and hot out of the pot. It is just right for the brothers to eat them first. With,..."

"From the county government?" The sentry officer's eyes were cold and stern, but Hou Shilu looked at him suspiciously.

I have already said hello, and I am not allowed to give military orders. Even if someone comes from the county government, they must be notified first. How could so many people bring food and drinks come all at once?

But the leader was a team leader from the county government. Hou Shilu had met him several times and had dealings with him. He was a very humble and shrewd person, but he always felt that he didn't have much to say.

This is too suspicious to be possible.

"Let them stop, we have to check and they are not allowed to get closer, otherwise..." Hou Shilu ordered subconsciously.

This thought just came to him, and before he could react, dozens of people swarmed from the edge of the city wall, shouting and holding torches, and rushed up.

Hou Shilu's heart sank. Before the enemies outside arrived, the enemies inside the city should have arrived first.

Fortunately, he was well prepared. Thirty gunmen had already been ambushing both sides of the stairs to the upper city. He had issued an order from the moment he entered the city. Anyone who dared to approach the city stairs without his order would be shot.

 Obviously, this group of people had a premeditated plan and had been hiding in a large house near the city ladder. They were not exposed even when the officials at the Laishui County Yamen were cleaning up.

When Hou Shilu came to Laishui, Feng Ziying specifically reminded him not to trust the officials of the local government offices in these places. Many of these local snakes are in secret collusion with the White Lotus Sect and may betray their intelligence to the other party at any time.

So he just watched with a cold eye on the cleanup and raids carried out by the Laishui County government officials, but remained highly vigilant.

 As expected.

Hou Shilu took two steps back and waved his hand violently.

During the dialogue between the two sides, thirty heavy fire gunmen were already in place.

As Hou Shilu waved his hand, the rebels who had just had time to rush to the city ladder saw a cluster of bright red sparks suddenly blooming in the darkness, followed by "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" like firecrackers frying beans. Crisp sounds sounded one after another.

 The acrid smoke filled the dark city top.

 (End of this chapter)