"There is a river ahead. It's a good place to camp there." Another day later, the team advanced in the afternoon, and the young general with an injured leg provided information.
The wounded were carried on stretchers, and the prisoners carried part of the baggage, while their armor was placed on the horses.
Tie ten prisoners with one rope, and adopt the most common rule...sitting together.
One of the ten people is missing, and the other nine people are all killed. One hundred people form a team, and ten people are missing, and all the people in the team are killed.
The prisoners were quite honest. They knew that running alone here without horses and weapons would be impossible, as they would be eaten by wild beasts.
After the camp was set up, some people cooked, while others fetched water from the river and boiled it in a pot, and threw in the gauze and bandages used to wrap the wounded.
The wounded and the Ming army ate normally, while the slightly injured and uninjured prisoners only ate half the amount of highland barley noodles mixed with salt.
However, the water supply did not shorten their supply, and they were even given soup. For this, the prisoners understood and were grateful.
Otherwise, giving only a little food a day, no salt, and limited water is the normal way to treat prisoners.
The best prisoners are those who have no strength to resist or escape. If you feed the captives well, you are causing trouble for yourself.
The Ming army explained the policy to the prisoners and told them that after the war, if they had family members, they could take their families with them to the south.
"Have you ever been to the south of the Yangtze River? None? The water there does not freeze in winter, and snow occasionally falls. Only on high mountains can snow be retained..."
A soldier of the Ming Army told ten prisoners about things in the south of the Yangtze River, trying his best to describe what heaven on earth looked like.
After the captives pass, they can mine and no longer need to be tortured. They will be given food and drink as normal and wages will be paid.
It would be better to prevent them from suddenly rebelling here than to kill them.
The prisoners listened, thought, and prepared to go over. In fact, they had no choice but to choose death.
Those who were more seriously injured hummed softly after eating, and the pain did not feel so bad after humming.
There are still people who can't survive it and die, but everyone is numb to this.
"The other two armies don't know the situation. This time we will definitely be able to hit He Lin and drive Bei Yuan out completely."
Lan Yu was eating horse meat, braised with the seasonings brought by the team, but the marinade was dry and it felt like sauce, so she couldn't always carry the marinade with her.
The seasoning packets are provided by Jubiqi. If you catch game or dead horses while fighting outside, and you think it tastes bad if you eat them directly, you can marinate them.
Add more salt when braising, and it can be stored for several days. It is best to cut into slices and dry in the sun.
Many horses were killed in this battle, and those who were seriously injured were given a good life. Their skins were skinned, and they were rubbed with cooking plant ashes, and their meat was eaten.
Xu Da picked up a piece of horse meat and said, "Have you put the material bag away? That one can be reused."
Lan Yu: "..."
He turned around and asked, "Have you collected the ingredients for the braised pork?"
"Put it away, hang it up to dry! Pack it up when it's dry." shouted the person responsible for making braised pork.
Xu Da smiled: "Helin is a strategic location. Beiyuan built the city from there because the land is fertile and there are many rivers, which is suitable for both livestock and farming.
However, they probably won't be able to catch their important people. The vegetation on the grassland is now lush, and they can continue to flee north as long as they bring their livestock.
After continuous fighting on the road, our army could only stop at Helin, where it reinforced the city and repaired the destroyed houses. "
When Xu Da talked about what was going to happen in the future, he had a premonition that if he fought there, he would almost face an empty city.
Unless they are not in a hurry to fight now and wait until winter comes and it snows heavily before going to fight in Helin, the people of Beiyuan will not be able to run north with a large number of people and livestock.
But that would make it even harder for our own army to hold on. We chose this season to fight precisely because we didn’t need to bring fodder for the horses, just salt.
"Oops!" Lan Yu was annoyed: "If we don't use good weapons, we may lose, and even if we win, the casualties will be heavy.
If we use good weapons, they will not fight us head-on after they find out. If we evacuate, they will tear down and burn the house and other things that cannot be taken away.
I heard from them that the houses and palaces in Helin are quite good. How great would it be if they could fight us to the death? "
"Impossible, they won't be able to live because they are lost in a certain place. During the Yuan Dynasty, foreign wars never stopped.
Seeing that they could not defeat them, they would of course make arrangements in advance to take advantage of the lush water and grass to go to the north to recruit other tribes. "
Xu Da shook his head. He knew the people of Beiyuan too well. They would leave as soon as they were told, and no matter what hardships they experienced, as long as they lived, they would become stronger again.
"They continue to run north, but we can't run over and fight again in a short time." Lan Yu shook her head.
"Run! It's better to have them cannibalizing other people in the north than to encounter them directly. When we come into contact with those people, we don't know whether they are enemies or friends.
If we switch to Bei Yuan, we know that we are the enemy, and we can just deal with it the same way we treat the enemy.
Taking over Helin, we raised more cattle, sheep, horses, and camels to prepare for the future. "
Xu Da analyzed it from another perspective. Beiyuan had promised to annex other tribes in the past, and Ming Dynasty was hostile to them.
…
Wang Baobao ran away with his people and returned to his place to recruit people. He had already planned that he and the others would go to Helin immediately.
Zai Helin explained the situation, and then he was ready to go north at any time. Not a single sheep would be left by the Ming army.
Next, we worked hard to find skilled craftsmen and let them build fire guns that were not afraid of rain or lit by open flames.
When he has enough strength and the weapons can keep up, if he fights back, Xu Da will only win by relying on the strength of firearms.
It is necessary to send a spy to inquire about the news and see what happened to the Ming army's firearms. It is best to get the method of making them.
Before that, you must not encounter the Ming army, especially on rainy days, and you must not fight.
"Stop, let's eat." Wang Baobao also came to a river and took a look at his men. They were okay. There were a lot of them brought up by the horses.
More than 7,000 people dismounted and allowed the horses to drink water and eat grass.
They themselves took out a handful of salted fried noodles from their pockets and stuffed them into their mouths, chewing them slowly, waiting for them to swallow, and then drink water.
Everyone in this group was silent and seemed to have no interest in talking. After taking a few bites of food, the injured person looked at his wounds.
They dug out the lead bullets that were easy to dig out yesterday, then found horse manure bags in the grass, and used the ash inside to plug the wounds to stop the bleeding.
Now look at the situation. If there is pus and blood and it is inconvenient to squeeze it out, ask someone to help, and then apply horse manure bag powder.
At the same time, there are other grasses that they also put in their mouths to chew, such as red peony root and astragalus root.
They have learned these since childhood. Once they are injured, they must be able to find the corresponding medicine on the grassland.
(End of chapter)
