According to Luo Zhixue's idea, if they can successfully lure the officers and soldiers away this time, and be more careful and low-key later, with good luck, they might be able to stay in Funiu Mountain for two or three years to continue to gain more strength.
Therefore, the surrounding villages cannot be squeezed too hard. They must be allowed to survive and continue to open up wasteland and farm, so that there will be food to levy and soldiers to recruit.
But not all rebels have the same idea as them. In fact, most of the rebels go to one place, rob, burn, and kill most of them, and finally take the young people into the army and use them as cannon fodder.
No, another group of thieves broke into the outskirts of Funiu Mountain from Nanzhao County in Nanyang Prefecture.
After these bandits entered the southern peripheral area of Funiu Mountain, they were not polite along the way. They basically robbed all the villages they encountered and could beat, and took two thousand young men with them.
Seeing that all the food in the village ahead had been moved out, more than a hundred young men were forcibly tied up.
Ta Tianhu looked pleased.
It was worth noting that he had fought all the way from Yunyang towards Nanyang Mansion, broke through the siege of the army and finally reached here.
There are few officers and soldiers here, and although the population is a little less, there are still some, and it is the autumn harvest. I have been running around for several days and gained a lot.
How could such an opportunity be possible if he still stayed in Yunyang?
Not only was Ta Tianhu happy, but the people under him were also happy. One of the men who looked like a leader came close to Ta Tianhu and said, "Master, we came to Funiu Mountain at the right time."
"There is a lot of food here, and there are not many cities or powerful manors. We can rob it at will."
"I estimate that there will definitely be more villages in Funiu Mountain, and the food and young people in them are ours. If we are lucky, we might be able to recruit tens of thousands of people."
Ta Tianhu glanced back at this subordinate, smiled and nodded: "It's a good place, I should have come here a long time ago."
Speaking of this, Ta Tianhu recalled the tragic experience when he went south.
He had long been involved in the rebellion with Ta Tianhu, one of the rebel leaders in Shaanxi. Later, after Ta Tianhu died, he took over the name of the original leader Ta Tianhu and became the new generation of Ta Tianhu.
However, the name of Ta Tianhu seems to be very loud at first glance, but the actual shortage of these people is very small. In the past, there were only four or five thousand people at most. When Wang Ziyong gathered the rebels from all the camps and elected the leader, he He couldn't even get the title of the Thirty-sixth Battalion.
After Wang Ziyong died, Gao Yingxiang became the leader of the rebel army, and the thirteen families in the rebel army did not have his share...
In fact, the two generations of Sky-Treading Tigers have not achieved anything famous. They are just one of the thieves everywhere in the contemporary era.
In the past two years, as the second generation of Tianhu, he and his men have been following Gao Yingxiang, running around Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan... Last year, he followed Gao Yingxiang, the leader of the alliance, all the way. I went to Yunyang and finally went to Sichuan for a tour.
However, the main force of the rebel army led by Gao Yingxiang suffered a huge defeat in Sichuan. They were forced to return to Yunyang, where they were encircled and suppressed by Lu Xiangsheng and other officers and soldiers. A large number of rebel soldiers were strangled by the officers and soldiers, and the situation of the rebel army suddenly became Get dangerous.
At that time, a large number of rebels began to make a living on their own. Some fled north into the Qinling Mountains, while others headed towards Nanyang Prefecture in an attempt to return to Henan.
Ta Tianhu and the others were also one of the many rebels who returned to Henan, but it was not easy to return to Henan. They were besieged by officers and soldiers along the way.
Along the way, Ta Tianhu took his men and horses to hide in Tibet, and was defeated many times by officers and soldiers along the way. When Ta Tianhu finally ran to Funiu Mountain with the remaining defeated soldiers, his remaining defeated soldiers There are less than a hundred people.
There were only a hundred or so men under his command, and most of the elite elite had been annihilated and dispersed. This was something he had not encountered in many years.
In the past, although his strength in the Tianhu was not very good, and he was not able to get into the ranks of the Thirty-sixth Battalion or the Seventy-second Battalion of the Thirteen Families, but by relying on the young and strong, the men and horses under him have always been strong. He is someone who can maintain a strength of several thousand people, and can be regarded as someone who has barely registered with the officers and soldiers. He is not an ordinary rebel leader with no reputation...
But when he went south and escaped to Nanzhao County after breaking through the army, he only had a hundred people left under his command...
With so few people under his command, he had no sense of security at all, so as soon as he ran to Nanzhao County, where there were fewer officers and soldiers, and to the edge of the mountains, he began to recruit troops eagerly.
Well, that's all.
It is impossible to recruit soldiers, they are all directly forced.
It's impossible to buy horses, they are all stolen directly.
As for food, let alone food, they shot every village they encountered on the road that they could capture.
After working hard for several days, obtaining food and carrying more than two thousand people with him, Tiantianhu still felt that it was not enough.
When he had the largest number of men, there were tens of thousands of men. Even his old brothers had hundreds of men, but he didn't even look at the two thousand young men now.
So he has to keep working hard!
Thinking of this, Ta Tianhu waved his hand and said: "Let the men and women be more agile in their hands and feet, and try to capture another village in the afternoon!"
When Ta Tianhu headed towards Funiu Mountain with more than a hundred cadres and more than two thousand young men, he attracted the attention of others within two days.
Sun Chengli couldn't help but frowned after listening to the sentry under his command saying that a group of more than 2,000 bandits were coming in front of him, that is, to the southwest of Funiu Mountain.
In order to confuse the officers and soldiers as much as possible and block them in the outer areas of Funiu Mountain, they have spent the past few days deliberately leading the officers and soldiers to the west.
But he didn't expect that a group of thieves came ahead, and they were only a day's journey ahead of him.
what to do?
Sun Chengli did not decide without authorization, but summoned Wang Xiazi, Lin Dongsheng, and Wang Dazhuang to discuss it. Although these people had not read military books, they did not even recognize a single big character.
But one after another, all of them were officers and soldiers, and they were officers and soldiers who fought for many years. Sun Chengli was still a junior officer before.
They don't understand too advanced theories, but they still have basic common sense and cleverness.
After some discussion, they felt that they could use this bandit army to divert the targets of the officers and soldiers and let the two groups fight, while they hid aside to see the situation.
The more these four people discussed it, the more they felt it was reliable.
So it started.
They continued to lead the officers and soldiers to the west, but they fled halfway...
At this time, Huang Guangmao, who was behind slowly saying he was chasing, but actually driving the rebels westward, also received the news from the sentinel.
More than ten miles ahead, a large number of thieves appeared, numbering about two thousand, including many refugees.
"There are so many thief troops, have we caught up with the main force of them?" After hearing the news, Huang Guangmao's first reaction was that he had chased too hard all the way, leading to him directly catching up with the main force of the thief army.
In fact, Huang Guangmao never thought about catching up with the main force of the bandits. He just wanted to drive these bandits to the west. As long as they were driven away from Lushan County, would those bandits later harm the Lu family? Song County and the like didn't matter to him at all.
But, the pursuit was too fierce, and it was a bit embarrassing to directly catch up with the opponent's main force.
Because Huang Guangmao never planned to directly catch up and fight with the bandit army!
Furthermore, the number of this bandit army seems to be a bit small, and there seem to be too many refugees with them. It is unlikely that they can pull out dozens of elite cavalry and one or two hundred infantry to break up the rear troops.
In the past few days, his sentinels had come into contact with the vanguard of the rebel army many times, and knew that the rebel army he had been chasing or expelling included at least dozens of cavalry and about two hundred unarmored infantry.
As for a large group of bandits that can have dozens of elite cavalry and two hundred infantry, its main force will definitely not be that small, and there will be more elites.
But, the sentry said that the bandit army in front only numbered more than 2,000 people.
This made Huang Guangmao confused.
The troops of this bandit are a bit small!
It doesn't match the elite power he showed earlier.
Could it be that the thieves set up a suspicious formation to show that the enemy was weak?
Huang Guangmao had doubts in his heart, so he immediately became cautious and ordered to send more sentinels to investigate.
At least we need to find out the situation of the bandit army in front.
If there were more main force of thieves nearby, then he would have to slow down and be steady.
After all, he currently has limited troops. There seem to be thousands of officers and soldiers, but the only recruits he can fight are more than 300 soldiers led by him.
Half of the remaining eight or nine hundred people were local guardsmen or county warriors with little combat effectiveness, and a few hundred people were simply recruited temporarily without weapons to transport civilians.
The troops under his command are limited, so he naturally doesn't want to fight too many rebels. It's not necessary. Even if he can defeat the soldiers under his command, he will probably lose a lot of money.
Thinking of this, Huang Guangmao wanted to be steady and slow down!
But, there is not only Huang Guangmao in this team of officers and soldiers, there is also Wang Jida, the county's respected master who wants to use the thieves as military merit and be promoted.
This man heard that he had caught up with the bandit army, and that the bandit army only numbered more than two thousand, so he didn't bother to let others pass the message, but came to find Huang Guangmao himself.
Of course, Wang Jida, as the county's venerable master, couldn't come here in person on foot, and he couldn't ride a horse, so he came here in a sedan carried by two people.
In fact, when there was a big road before entering the mountain, he took four large sedans. When there was no big road into the mountain and there were only small roads, he transferred to a two-person sedan to accompany the army.
There were more than ten bearers taking turns to carry his sedan chair.
And not only that, Wang Jida also had an entourage of more than 20 people, including secretaries, senior attendants, book boys, personal maids, rough messengers, wives, and even cooks.
Along the way, someone made hot tea and poured water, someone held an umbrella to shade the sun, and someone beat their backs and rubbed their legs.
There is a large tent for camping at night, and there are maids sleeping in the tent.
People who didn't know looked at it and thought he was out for an outing.
