Going around and around, the four divisions in Sichuan and Guangxi returned to the tactics of the rattan armored soldiers.
Each division trains 3,000 rattan armored soldiers and equips them with weapons made of stone and white-armed soldiers. Of course, they only draw lessons from the style of the white-armed guns, and the specific materials are definitely better than the white-armed guns.
Qin Liangyu's stone chieftain was very poor. If he wanted to equip his soldiers on a large scale, he could only use the cheapest weapon materials.
Today, in the Datong Army Mountain Camp in Sichuan and Guangxi, the cost of one long gun is roughly equivalent to six white-steel guns. The materials from wood to iron are of higher quality, but the iron hook design at the beginning and end of the white-steel gun is retained.
Send dozens of able-bodied soldiers to climb up, and the spear heads and tails are connected. No ropes are needed, and they can hold on to the spears and climb all the way up.
In addition, the rattan armor is impervious to water and fire and can float when crossing a river.
Such a combination of weapons and armor makes it possible to climb mountains and wades as if walking on flat ground, making it very suitable for fighting in the southwest.
Guangxi not only has many mountains, but also many caves.
Especially those caves, which are warm in winter and cool in summer, with abundant water, are very easy to hide soldiers. As long as you prepare food in advance, you can stay in the mountains for a year. Let alone go into the mountains to conquer, you will not even be able to find them.
In the mountains to the west of Xinningzhou City, Cen Cha led his troops to hide in caves.
The mood of the soldiers was not very high, and all of them had sad faces. They did not want to work for the leader anymore, because they had long heard that the Datong Army would not kill innocent people indiscriminately, and would also allocate land to ordinary people.
Regardless of Zhuang or Yao people, all can divide their fields!
A soldier spy ran into the cave, walked up to Cen Cha, and whispered: "There is news from down the mountain that the Han army captured Qianlong Village a few days ago. There are also large groups of Han troops in Xinningzhou City, but they have not yet attacked.
Send troops from the mountains here."
Cen Cha breathed a sigh of relief, waved his hand and said, "Go and investigate again. Once the Han army enters the mountain, come back and tell them immediately. Let's find a good place to set up an ambush."
"Yes!" The soldiers spies left immediately.
Cen Cha glanced at the soldiers under his command and felt that he should say something. He walked to the center of the cave and spoke in the dark: "Everyone knows what the Han people's government and the Han people's army are like. As long as we children are disobedient, we will be killed at every turn.
Tu Zhai. Even if we children are obedient, we will still be exploited by Han officials. This is Guangxi, our children's Guangxi, and Han people are not allowed to mess around. Although the Han people's firearms are powerful, they are like lost lambs when they enter the mountains.
You can’t win for sure.”
This rhetoric has been spoken countless times and has not aroused any positive response.
Cen Cha continued: "Don't even think about surrendering. Even if you surrender, the Han people will kill us all and take our wives and children as slaves..."
"Master Dong..." A soldier couldn't help but interrupt, "I heard that the Han army allocates fields to soldiers. If we can defeat the Han army, can we all share the fields? There are also crops in the fields.
Can you keep some more of the food you produce?"
Cen Cha was furious: "That's a lie. It's a lie spread by the Han army! Don't you know how virtuous the Han people are? Even if the fields are divided this year, they will be taken back in a few years. Even if the taxes are not heavy this year
, it will become the same in a few years. Some of your families have fields for farming, why are you still thinking about dividing the fields?"
The soldiers did not dare to speak anymore, but they all complained, feeling that the Lord was not as good as a Han official.
At the same time, they did not trust Han officials because Ming officials left too many bad impressions on them.
The Han officials would deliberately exploit and oppress them, sow discord between them and the Yao people, and then let the martyrs and the Yao people fight, and the Han officials would be happy if both sides suffered losses. When there was no war, they would also force the Zhuang and Yao people to serve.
The forced conscription of Ding forced Zhuang Yao to rebel several times.
After Zhuang Yao rebelled, Han officials would recruit other soldiers to suppress the rebellious people.
Anyway, they just let the ethnic minorities fight each other. After the suppression, the villages were often slaughtered, some land was allocated to the soldiers who had made meritorious services, and then most of the land was misappropriated by Han officials.
Of course, there are also Zhuang officials who are causing trouble, because the leaders of the soldiers can also gain benefits through conquests. They are equivalent to the mercenaries of the Ming Dynasty.
These low-level soldiers are hiding in caves and living their lives. They miss their families and don't know why they are fighting. They have long collectively fallen into a state of confusion.
"Boom!"
After nightfall, there was lightning and thunder outside the cave, and the soldiers all put on blankets.
Cen Cha was also very anxious. He used to be just a Taoist leader who took advantage of the chaos of the Ming Dynasty to start an uprising. As the Datong Army pressed forward step by step, many forces like him gradually gathered together to defend themselves against the enemy.
Among them, there are also Han landlords, who are unwilling to lose their land and power.
Over the past few years, the local coalition forces in Guangxi have been defeated many times and have been beaten into pieces by the Datong Army. Since two years ago, the local army has not dared to fight head-on. When encountering the Datong Army, they abandoned the city and fled, hiding in the mountains with Datong.
Military hide and seek.
They didn't expect to win, they just wanted to wear down the patience of the Datong army and surrender on the condition of being granted the title of chieftain.
In the eyes of people like Cencha, it is normal to surrender and become chieftain when there is a change of dynasty.
The Yuan Dynasty was so powerful, and the Ming Dynasty was so powerful. When they pacified the southwest, they did not kill everyone. As long as they were willing to submit and surrender, they could get the position of chieftain and become a local emperor with a piece of territory.
But these Datong troops not only refused to serve as chieftains, but also took away their land and distributed it to the lower-class peasants of various ethnic groups. Why should they be allowed to surrender?
A few days later, the soldiers' spies came back and reported: "The Han army is about to enter the mountains!"
Cen Cha immediately walked out of the cave in person, led his elite troops to investigate the enemy's situation, and then chose a place to set up an ambush. He wanted to beat up the Datong army in a battle, and then ask for surrender and be made a chieftain.
On the other side of the mountain, the Three Thousand Datong Mountain Camp is also hiding in a cave.
A soldier dressed as a soldier quickly ran into the cave: "General Chi, General Qin, the thieves have appeared, and their hiding place has been found!"
"Night attack tonight!" Chi Huchen stood up and said.
The mountain camp of the Thirteenth Division is actually composed of two regiments. The general Chi Huchen, who leads the troops, is the major general and brigade commander. The deputy general Qin Gongming is the colonel commander.
With Chi Huchen’s qualifications, he is actually qualified to be a teacher!
He was originally a personal soldier of Jiangxi Governor Zhu Xieyuan, and then became a personal soldier of Zhao Han. Finally, he led two thousand Tengjia troops and followed Zhang Tieniu to Hunan, fighting all the way from Hunan to Guangdong.
Moreover, Chi Huchen served as a soldier under Huang Yao, and his rattan armor soldiers were organized by Huang Yao.
Just from the title "major general and brigade commander", we can see that Chi Huchen must have serious flaws. He made countless meritorious service and made many mistakes. His cultural level was not as good as that of a primary school student, and he was not willing to learn to read seriously at all.
As for Qin Gongming, he is Qin Liangyu's nephew. He became the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty as early as the Tianqi period. He is now almost fifty years old.
He was transferred to Guangxi to teach the white-armed soldiers mountain warfare. In the surprise attack on Chengdu, he was also a deputy general and led the white-armed soldiers over the mountains and ridges, driving directly outside Chengdu like a magic weapon descending from the sky.
Chi Huchen and Qin Gongming led their troops around the mountain and climbed the mountain wall from the opposite direction.
I saw dozens of mountain soldiers, taking off their rattan armor and shoes, climbing the cliff like apes. When they found a stable tree on the mountainside, they tied up their spears and connected them head to tail, extending all the way to the bottom of the mountain. The rest of the soldiers
, climbing along the spear at night, not paying attention to the cliff at all.
In the blink of an eye, 3,000 people successfully climbed the mountain without any slipping or falling.
Cencha's thousands of soldiers and Yao soldiers went to set up ambush points during the day and moved rolling stones and logs. Since the main force of the Datong army was still at the bottom of the mountain and did not really enter the mountain, they came back to the cave to rest at night.
No defense!
Because their hiding place was very secret, they never expected to be exposed, let alone that the Datong Army had already approached.
Even the soldiers on guard duty were dozing off one by one.
After killing several sentries one after another, until they were a few feet away from the cave, the sentry soldiers finally woke up and quickly picked up the bamboo whistle and blew it wildly.
The cave was very crowded with thousands of soldiers, not to mention the food and supplies, so the ordinary soldiers did not bring their families with them.
Cen Cha had brought his family with him and was sleeping with his concubine in his arms.
Hearing the whistle, Cen Cha hurriedly got up, and there were already shouts of death coming from outside the cave.
Cen Cha picked up his weapon and shouted: "Kill the thief, kill the thief, rush out!"
These soldiers are really fierce. Although their morale is low and diffuse, they actually rush out to kill the enemy when they encounter a night attack.
However, Cen Cha planned to escape. The caves extended in all directions, and there was a way out of the mountain. He took his wife, concubines, and children, and ran in the opposite direction in a panic. Because he didn't have a torch, he fell several times in a row. Several of his wives and concubines were even more embarrassed.
The concubine couldn't run away, so she was abandoned there by Cen Cha.
"Surrender without killing!"
As the commander-in-chief of this night attack, Chi Huchen was simply incompetent. After he stabbed the sentry to death, he rushed very fast by himself, with only a dozen people following him, and the rest of the troops were left behind.
Instead, deputy general Qin Gongming was in charge of organizing the attack.
Fortunately, although the soldiers were brave, they were attacked at night and had no organization at all. They rushed toward the cave entrance in a chaotic manner relying solely on their blood and bravery, and they were blind and unable to figure out the situation.
Chi Huchen led more than a dozen of his men and rushed into the cave first. He stabbed the enemies when they saw them and overthrew several of them in a row.
He also has standard military marksmanship, which is unsightly, but practical, and only knows the most basic moves. However, Chi Huchen's marksmanship is far more powerful than Wu Yong's, and his strength is even different.
More and more soldiers came over, but Chi Huchen was not afraid. He continued to charge while wearing rattan armor, and finally fought his way into the crowd of soldiers alone.
"The Lord has run away, the Lord has run away!"
Inside the cave, the desperate cries of the soldiers could be heard.
The soldiers who were fighting bravely finally began to lose morale, and they all knelt down and begged to surrender.
Chi Huchen, who shouted "surrender" all the way without killing, killed several surrendering soldiers in succession. It was not until he was sure that the enemy had really surrendered that he continued to charge forward. As a general, he had to chase the escaping soldiers alone.
Enemy general.
Then, the guy got lost.
Because the cave is like a maze, with twists and turns and no torches, it is impossible to know which way you are going. Even if there are torches, the chance of getting lost is very high.
It was not until five days later that Chi Huchen was found. The general was almost starving to death.
Looking at the dying Chi Huchen, Qin Gongming didn't know what to say, so he could only turn around and urge: "Bring some food quickly!"
(If I have something to do tomorrow, I will make up for it tomorrow.)