"Damn, these water mice are so hard to catch," Yu Laogou said depressedly to Liao Nilu. He slammed his hand on the side of the boat and yelled angrily. Unexpectedly, the palm of his hand was numb due to the excessive force and he was in pain. The face was also convulsed and contorted. No wonder he was angry. Not only had he failed to eliminate a single water bandit in the past few days, but his navy brothers had killed and injured several people. Three days ago, under Huang Dagen's order, they went down the river from Hengyuan Town to Yongqu Township to eliminate the water bandits. However, the water bandits were extremely alert and the boats they were traveling in were light and fast. They hid before the navy warships arrived. I got up and played hide and seek in the reeds. Huang Dagen saw that he could not eliminate the water bandits in his eagerness, so he left the second and third companies of the water army battalion of Yu Laodou and Liao Nili, while he led the teaching company and the first company of the water army battalion of Le Quan'an, and went straight to the Wugenshan water bandits. Lair. Before going into battle, Brother Xuan told him to fight quickly. Now three days have passed, and the bandits' lair in Wugen Mountain has been captured. Lequan'an's company performed very well, and is now clearing out the remaining bandits in Wugen Mountain with the teaching company. I heard that the field camp heading to Dayi to suppress the bandits is also large. They won a complete victory, but the two hundred people on their side were helpless against dozens of water bandits, which really annoyed Yu Laodou and Liao Nilu.
"It's not that we are incompetent, it's that the enemy is too cunning." To say that the main force of the Perak Navy is the navy soldiers who defected from Xinjin City, and they also selected the new auxiliary army of Chongqing Prefecture and the elite of the Perak Army who revolted. Their combat power can definitely crush the water bandits. Yu Laodou and Liao Niluo are more He has been in the military for many years and is good at water warfare. In fact, the main reason why the navy has not achieved any success is that the terrain is too complex. The water bandits hide in the bay on the west bank of the Wenjing River below the confluence of three major rivers in Yongqu Township. As the water flow slows down and the river sand siltates, the river channel is repeatedly washed away by floods, forming a reed marsh of hundreds of acres. The locals It's called Huangjiadang. Huangjiadang is not only connected to the Wenjing River through more than a dozen waterways, but the interior is also densely covered with waterways and river branches. It should be said that Yu Laodou and Liao Nilu often led people to attack water bandits in Xinjin County and other places, but they always drove them away. Often the water bandits dispersed as soon as the warships came out. In addition to the fact that the water bandits were playing hide-and-seek, the main reason for the failure of this war was that the Pili Army warships were too big to sail into the reed swamps, and the number of small boats was insufficient. Yu Laodou and Liao Nilu led people to venture deep into Huangjiadang several times. They were either almost trapped in the labyrinth of waterways, accidentally ran aground on a sandbank, or were ambushed by water bandits. Fortunately, the navy soldiers were experienced and powerful, and they were able to escape with random blasts with firearms. The forceful attack failed, so Yu Laocai and Liao Nilu had no choice but to suppress their tempers and block the water channels in and out of the reed swamp, preparing to kill the water bandits.
The order sent by Huang Dagen was also to besieged. It is said that although the water bandits' lair is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it cannot withstand intensive artillery bombardment. After the gate of the village was broken, they all surrendered. This bandit's den is actually a village. Among the captured people, there are only about 30 young and strong people, and the remaining more than 100 people are women, children and the elderly. Through interrogation of the prisoner Huang Dagen, it was learned that there were more than 50 water bandits trapped in the reed swamps. These water bandits usually fish mainly and wait for opportunities to rob. They have to send fish back to Wugen Mountain every day and bring back food. Huang Dagen's siege order actually meant cutting off his food route, leaving him without food and unable to fish in the Wenjing River. It was early spring, and the water in the reed marshes was dry, so it took a lot of time and effort to catch fish at all. As long as these water bandits are trapped for ten or eight days, they will definitely be so hungry that they can't even lift an oar. Therefore, he did not send troops to return reinforcements, but continued to march deeper into Wugen Mountain.
Huang Dagen also learned from the Jiang bandits that there was actually a lot of food hidden in Wugen Mountain. Of course, Huang Dagen did not believe the prisoners' words for no reason, but because after taking down the bandit's den, the Perak Army not only seized a large amount of dried fish and grain, but also found more than a hundred sheep and three cows in the corral, and even more than ten A chubby pig. Cattle and sheep can grow well as long as they have fodder, but pigs are livestock that cannot be fattened without food. Moreover, all the captured bandits, men, women, old and young, have rosy faces, which is very different from the sallow and thin people in other places. This also proves that there is no such thing. Genshan is rich in grain. It was also learned from the prisoners that in addition to cultivating the land themselves, the water bandits also used the property obtained from fishing and robbery to exchange food with the Wugen mountain people, so they were able to stock up on large amounts of food while being full. Huang Dagen was overjoyed by the news that there was food in Wugen Mountain, and he decided to go deep into Wugen Mountain to find out. If there is really a lot of food in the mountains, it will solve the potential food shortage problem of the Perak Army in the next few months. During this period, Brother Xuan was not satisfied with the food shortage problem, which also made the top brass of the Perak Army who knew the inside story quite anxious.
After going deep into the Wugen Mountain area, Huang Dagen realized that this hilly area was also a geomantic treasure. The low terrain and climate here are no different from those of the plains. The hillside is covered with a thick layer of loess. Although it is not as fertile as the purple soil of the plains, it can also grow wheat in winter and sorghum in summer. The grain yield per mu can only be grown in one season. Wanjiaping and Liuliba more than doubled. What's more important is that the hillsides here are covered with deep forests and dense grass, and there are swamps filling various ravines. Although the swamps have been transformed by the mountain people into winter paddy fields for growing rice, the silt is also knee-deep. This terrain limits the raids of the Mongolian cavalry. .
The government naturally wants to collect taxes here, but due to official corruption and the impact of fleeing refugees, the governance order here gradually collapsed. After Pan Tongzhi took charge of the Chongqing Mansion, he naturally coveted the food here. However, due to excessive plunder, the Wugenshan people simply killed officials and rebelled and stopped paying for food. Pan Tongzhi again sent soldiers to farm in Wugen Mountain. However, due to the strict administration of the farm officials and repeated surprise attacks by the Mongolian cavalry, and the unsustainable supply of grain and grass, he had to give up the farm.
The grain collection teams sent by the government to Wugen Mountain were repeatedly ambushed by mountain people, resulting in heavy casualties. Pan Tongzhi also sent a large army to kill them, but before they entered the mountains, the people hid their food and hid. As for the officers and soldiers burning down houses? Burn it! Anyway, the climate in Wugen Mountain is not cold, so you can survive the winter by building a shack. Pan Tongzhi also sent troops to grab grain during the harvest season, but the grain fields here were scattered scattered. If he divided his troops to grab grain, he would be ambushed by the mountain people. If he didn't divide his troops to grab grain, he couldn't grab much at all. After a lot of effort, he couldn't grab much. After deducting the consumption of the grain that arrived, not much was left. What's even more terrible is that Pan Tongzhi led his troops out to grab grain, but the Mongols frequently attacked Chongqing Fucheng. Thieves from various villages also took advantage of the situation and even went to villages a few miles away to grab grain from the Fucheng. A fire broke out in the backyard, forcing Pan Tongzhi to lead his troops back to Fucheng in despair. Before leaving, in order to vent his anger, he ordered people to set fire to the mountain. However, although Wugen Mountain had deep forests and dense grass, the fire could not form a prairie fire. Because the people here originally set fire to the wasteland before farming, and the slash-and-burn cultivation year after year has long formed a natural fire isolation zone.
