Funiu Mountain is located in the north of Nanzhao County, Nanyang Prefecture, in the west of Ruzhou, in the south of Song County, and in the east of Lushi.
There are mountains to the north and mountains to the west.
However, the Lushan area of Ruzhou to the east is a smooth road, and Nanzhao County to the south is also an open land.
Funiu Mountain, together with other surrounding mountains, forms the mountains in the northern part of Nanyang Basin. With such terrain, it is naturally impossible for any large army to go there under normal circumstances. The road is too difficult to walk.
Therefore, since ancient times, when armies march south from Ruzhou to the Nanyang Basin, they have always passed through Luyang Pass, Fangcheng and other places. These places have also been military passes since ancient times, and heavy troops have been stationed in all dynasties.
However, the roads in Funiu Mountain are difficult to navigate and are limited to large-scale armies. However, Luo Zhixue and his party, who only have a few dozen people, can still barely walk.
In fact, it wasn't just Luo Zhixue and his group who went into the mountains, even other large-scale rebels would run towards the mountains when they encountered a crisis.
Once the situation goes wrong, many rebels will go directly into the Qinling Mountains. On the one hand, they can avoid the pursuit of officers and soldiers. On the other hand, they can cultivate and recuperate in the mountains, recruit troops and buy horses, and hoard food.
This is also one of the reasons why officers and soldiers in the late Ming Dynasty encircled and suppressed the rebels many times but were unable to completely annihilate the rebels.
Today, Funiu Mountain at the east end of the mountains also welcomed a new group of guests.
Sun Chengli, Luo Zhixue and others finally arrived at the Funiu Mountain area after climbing mountains and wading for several days. However, when they arrived, they found that this place had been occupied by other bandits.
"Unexpectedly, there are people who thought of it together with us and also took a fancy to Funiu Mountain." Sun Chengli looked at the mountains ahead, trying to see traces of the enemy in the mountains.
But this is obviously impossible. Although they are already located in the Funiu Mountain area, they are still several hills away from the traces of other bandits discovered by the sentry.
The distance in a straight line is not far, but it is not easily visible through the mountains.
Luo Zhixue said: "If we can see the benefits of Funiu Mountain, others will naturally be able to see it."
"The only solution now is to send elite detectives to find out everything about the situation on the other side, so that we can deal with it calmly."
Sun Chengcheng also nodded: "Yes, we need to find out the situation on the other side first."
Luo Zhixue continued: "If there are a lot of people on the other side, then we have to make plans early and find another place to stay!"
At this point, Luo Zhixue's face gradually turned cold: "If there are just dozens of thieves, then we will kill them directly."
Luo Zhixue still attaches great importance to Funiu Mountain.
This place is located just on the edge of the mountains, with the Central Plains to the east and the Nanyang Basin to the south. These two places are open areas with flat terrain and densely populated areas. Even if you don’t go out completely, there are many places on the edge of the mountains. Villages can obtain enough soldiers and food with the help of this place to complete their goals of cultivating health and accumulating strength.
To the north and west are the depths of the mountains. Once attacked by a strong enemy, you can directly escape to the depths of the mountains to protect yourself.
Luo Zhixue was naturally not willing to give up easily in such a place where he could advance and retreat, and where he could also obtain food and soldiers.
He also wanted to further expand his strength after settling in Funiu Mountain.
On the way, Luo Zhixue had already mentioned to Sun Chengli that he should rebuild the baggage camp to protect and transport the baggage.
Sun Chengli had already agreed to this. After all, Sun Chengli was also in the military, and he had been responsible for managing the camp's baggage affairs before. He knew very well that the men under his command were all cavalry, and they needed a lot of baggage.
Not only the weapons, armor, and dry food of the soldiers themselves, but also the large amount of horse feed consumed by the horses.
This horse eats more than people, and the pressure of baggage transportation has always been very high. The previous Li Tonglin and his party had a baggage camp with hundreds of people, and Sun Lili was in charge of the baggage camp.
But when he broke through the siege of Yiyang, Li Tonglin demobilized all the refugee soldiers in order to escape quickly. The refugee soldiers in the heavy supply camp under Sun Lili were no exception, and they were all demobilized.
Part of the large amount of food was distributed directly to the disbanded refugee soldiers. The cavalry also carried part of the food with them, and the remaining part was carried by dozens of mules and horses.
However, this situation is okay for emergency use in a short period of time, but it will not work in the long run, especially when the scale is expanded in the future.
A professional baggage camp must be established to manage and transport baggage.
Luo Zhixue planned to wait until he arrived at Funiu Mountain, and then use the soldiers and food in the Funiu Mountain area to formally build a supply camp. Through the preparation of the supply camp, he would obtain the first unit under his control.
The problem now is that Funiu Mountain has been occupied by others.
——
The re-sent outposts reported the news very quickly, and in the afternoon of the same day, some sentinels reported back more detailed information one after another.
After Luo Zhixue obtained the detailed information, he immediately found Sun Chengli: "The sentinel we sent visited the surrounding areas and found some mountain people and hunters. After questioning, we got some basic information!"
"The people who now occupy Funiu Mountain came from the south to Funiu Mountain a month ago and are now entrenched in the Sanshui Valley in Funiu Mountain. According to the hunters in the mountain, there were more than 200 people in this group when they entered the mountain. Most of them are young and strong, but there are also some women and children. They should be refugees and bandits who escaped from the south. Their names have not yet been found out."
"This group of people has frequently sent out people to plunder the countryside since they settled in Funiu Mountain. In just over a month, the two villages near them have become desolate and inhabited. It is said that the two villages are littered with corpses, including food, iron, and women. Wait until they are all plundered back to Shanshui Valley."
"In addition, our sentry also made a point of asking and confirmed that there are no cavalry or heavy armor in this group. They don't even have ordinary weapons. They don't even have many swords and spears. They just rely on the number of people. Only then can we continuously destroy villages and plunder."
After Luo Zhixue said this, Sun Chengcheng said: "It seems they are just a group of ordinary thieves from the south. Huh, these thieves are burning, killing and looting wherever they go. I can hear them from several miles away." The smell of blood left behind by their killings, hell, if you have the ability to attack large farms and cities, what's the point of robbing these mountain people, you can't even get a few grains of food after killing them all."
"We will send troops to Funiu Mountain tomorrow to kill the evil thieves and bring peace to the people in the nearby mountains."
When Luo Zhixue heard Sun Chengli's words, he also responded: "If everyone finds and kills such thieves, the general will send troops to Funiu Mountain. This is a great good thing!!"
After being in this troubled world for a long time and seeing more fightings, Luo Zhixue also gained a deeper understanding of this world.
Relatively speaking, they were also rebels, and they were also burning, killing and looting, but Sun Chengli and the others were much stronger than those rogue thieves.
Whether it is Sun Chengli or Li Tonglin who died in the battle before, although they have also become rebels, they have always looked down on those bandits, otherwise they would not have resisted defecting to those large-scale bandits, or even refused Contacted other bandits to fight against the officers and soldiers together.
A few months ago, they were serious officers and soldiers. Now, even if they rebelled, they never regarded themselves as bandits.
They are rebels and rebels, but they will never consider themselves bandits or thieves.
Also, they did not use the coercion method that many rebels like to use along the way. When they recruited soldiers before, they only recruited young and strong people who came willingly, but they would not just coax everyone in regardless.
This is not because they have a conscience, but simply because they think that holding a lot of people hostage, most of whom are old, weak, women and children, even the young and strong may not dare to fight in battle, so holding so many ordinary people hostage has no use except wasting food. .
So they only recruited young adults before.
Burning, killing and looting are naturally inevitable. The food they eat now and the many mules and horses they eat are all looted.
However, they generally do not attack those Kuhaha, and usually only target some large households, especially those large farms owned by officials and gentry.
This is not because they have much conscience, it is simply because those Kuhaha have no food, and even if they rob them for half a day, they will not be able to plunder much food. The cost-effectiveness of robbing these Kuhaha is too low...
But it's different when you rob a large gentry household. After conquering a farm, you can often harvest a large amount of grain, gold and silver. If you're lucky, you don't have to worry about conquering a farm for ten days and a half.
If they could capture three farms in a row like they did outside Luoyang City, it would be enough to feed their more than a thousand people for a month or two.
Of course, their choice to attack large gentry households and conquer large farms and small towns also had something to do with their own strength.
In the past, they had nearly two hundred elite cavalry and more than a thousand homeless young soldiers. Ordinary farms could not stop them, and even some small towns could not stop them.
Ordinary refugee armies, even thousands or tens of thousands of people, may not be able to break through those towns.
The way Sun Chengli and his group behave is one of the reasons why Luo Zhixue has not left them yet.
Luo Zhixue did not leave these people, but chose to continue to hang out with Sun Chengli. On the one hand, it was not easy for him to survive with a little girl in troubled times.
On the other hand, he felt that people like Sun Chengli still retained the last trace of human nature.
And this kind of bottom line of human nature is already rare in this troubled world.
Although Luo Zhixue judged that the reason why they still retained the last trace of human nature was purely because it was easy for them to rob large households in the past, and now they still have food so that they would not go hungry. Once there is a shortage of food in the future, they might join other thieves. Same, directly transformed into a humanoid beast.
But, at least it hasn't changed yet.
Sun Chengli decided to send troops to Funiu Mountain tomorrow. In order to arrange military affairs, he called Lin Dongsheng, Wang Dazhuang, and Xu He over to discuss together.
After everything was finalized, they officially set off to Funiu Mountain Shanshui Valley early the next morning.
