When Zhang rushed into the city, a small but extremely brutal ambush was about to take place in a hilly area forty miles northeast of Mou County.
There are hills on both sides of this place, and a valley in the middle, with the Yingwen River flowing through it. At this moment, by the river below the valley, a group of cavalry was rushing along the river.
But halfway through, a large beech tree with flourishing branches fell on both sides of the road. These cavalrymen did not have much doubt. Big trees in these places are often cut down. After cutting down the trees, some loggers would push Mu Shun to win.
As the Wen River flows down, there are specialized wood harvesters in the lower reaches.
So after the cavalry stopped, some of them were about to dismount and move away the beech trees.
Suddenly, a group of soldiers rushed out of the forest with a thick wooden branch. Before the cavalry could react, the group used the wooden branch to push their horses and pushed them to the side toward Yingwen River.
In the blink of an eye, four cavalrymen and their horses were swept into the river.
The cavalrymen who had fallen into the river quickly threw away the bags on their heads, threw off the reins, and were about to swim up. But at this time, five or six water ghosts swam in the water. They held them down with their daggers in their teeth, and then stabbed them with their knives.
Kill, draw the knife, and do the next one.
For a moment, the blood turned red and the water of Wenwen River turned red.
The confrontation on the shore was even more intense.
Among the group of people who rushed out, there was a strong man carrying a big ax on his back. When he just rushed out, he was so fierce that he flipped the enemy cavalry, including men and horses, into the river.
At this moment, he had already picked up a big ax and slashed at the remaining cavalry. He slashed the horse's leg with the ax, and then chopped off the enemy's head.
The remaining cavalrymen quickly dismounted and fought with these people on foot.
But the group of people who rushed out were obviously elites. They could kill an enemy with three or two swords. They drank violently for every person they killed. Some even imitated the wild beasts in the mountains and howled in a bloody and barbaric way.
But soon the enemy cavalry reinforcements arrived, and a team of about twenty people heard the news and ran over.
The ambush group obviously did not detect this situation and panicked for a moment. But one of them, who seemed to be the leader, made a prompt decision and got on a war horse that had been abandoned by the enemy, pulled out a handful of iron bones from the horse's trousers, and then
He sprinted towards the group of infantry.
With the help of his horse power, the man drew a circle with the iron bone flower, from bottom to top, and hit an infantryman on the chin. At that time, half of the soldier's face was broken and he flew to the side.
Then, after Tie Guduo was swung to its highest level, it suddenly hit the head of another soldier, directly smashing his Tianling Cap.
After that, he swung, smashed, swung, and smashed. By the time he rode to the front, more than half of the infantry had been smashed to death by him.
When the man turned his horse around and tried his old trick again, the horseman on the other side charged him with a ring-shaped sword.
The man pursed his lips, clamped his horse's legs, and rushed towards the cavalry.
He roared loudly, and when the two horses crossed each other, he hit the horse's chest with a bone and collapsed. However, he was unharmed and continued to charge towards the next enemy.
At this moment, one of his comrades, the warrior with a big axe, was also killing without restraint.
The strong man chopped off the enemy's feet with an axe, and then smashed the enemy's head with an axe. After he passed by, he left wailing sounds all over the place.
Seeing how brave the axeman was, Meng Ju was overjoyed, and he and Qu Kui made the right decision by borrowing him from the collision team.
That's right, it was Meng Ju, the general of the flying army flag-bearing department of Zhang Chongjun's headquarters of the Taishan Army, who was just riding on the horse and smashing the iron bone flower all the way.
At this time, the battle in the river valley was already intense. Both sides were fighting together. Meng Ju could no longer catch the enemy while riding on his horse, so he dismounted and fought on foot.
An enemy soldier held a spear and wanted to attack him. Meng Ju grabbed the handle of the spear and smashed his head off with the iron bone in his right hand. The spear in his left hand was inserted into the man's chest. He couldn't die.
Die again.
At this moment, he saw one of his brothers in the flying army falling to the ground, and an enemy was stabbing him with a sword in front of him. Meng Ju was so anxious that he pulled out his spear and threw it, hitting the man in the back. But this
Before he died, he stabbed the knife into the chest of his flying army soldier.
By the time Meng Ju arrived, his own soldiers had already died.
Meng Ju narrowed his eyes and rushed to a small formation of three people while wielding the iron bone flower. He swung the knees of two enemy soldiers left and right, and then swung the iron bone flower and smashed the third man's chin.
The three of them were not dead for a while. They lay on the ground wailing and begging for mercy, but their heads were smashed one by one by Meng Ju.
But he was so excited that he didn't see that an enemy soldier behind him with a spear had already stabbed him. Meng Ju tensed up and immediately ducked down to avoid the spear.
Before Meng Ju was thankful that he had dodged the spear, he had already snatched the spear with his hand and pushed the enemy into the water. Then Meng Ju took the spear and stabbed the man to death in the river.
At this moment, the battle in the river valley is almost over.
The ambush flying troops carrying flags slaughtered the wounded and wailing enemy soldiers one after another without any mercy, just because this group of people were scouts sent by Ying County.
Meng Ju and the others had already ambushed several groups of scouts coming from the direction of Ying County. This wave was the largest one, with a total of twenty riders. What was unexpected was that the group of sentry riders had no idea where to find them.
Twenty infantrymen accompanied him, which almost caused the ambush to fail.
During the day march yesterday, Mengju's flying army did not follow the army, but came directly to the junction of Yingmu and Yingmu counties.
Zhang Chong's military order to Meng Ju was to let him lead his flying army and carry flags to cut off the traffic between Ying and Mou, so that no one person or horse could travel between the two places.
After Meng Ju received the order, he divided all 400 flying troops into twenty groups, each group of two, and scattered them all on the traffic road from Ying County to Mou County.
After a night of ambush, no scouts passed by in the direction of Mou County, but there were many scouts in Ying County. Mengju's group alone had ambushed three waves, but this third wave was particularly large.
The flying troops here have cleaned the battlefield, gathered up the remaining war horses, and are ready to leave. It is not suitable to stay here for a long time. This valley is already the boundary of Ying County.
There were no sentry horses returning yesterday. Ying County must have been alert. Soldiers might approach at any time and they had to evacuate the battlefield quickly.
Meng Ju has withdrawn here, but he still has to wander on this traffic line, annihilating the rangers whenever he sees them, until soldiers arrive from the direction of Ying County.
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Taishan County, Fenggao.
At this time, the prefect Zhang Juzheng urgently held a meeting of county-level military attachés.
They just got news of the sentinels today. The Taishan thieves who had defeated Taiye Pavilion yesterday had no trace this morning.
The sentry horse went forward to investigate again and saw the baggage piled up on the roadside. Looking at the ruts and the softness of the horse dung, it was obvious that the Taishan bandits were marching towards Mou County last night.
As soon as Tan Ma completed his investigation, he reported it to Zhang Ju.
Zhang Ju did not dare to be careless, so he immediately called the county captain Li Xiang, the county soldier Cao Houxi, the thief Cao Pang Zun, and the camp general Liu Yin to the military meeting. This time he also called the county chief Zhuge Gui to attend the meeting.
When all the generals knew the situation, they were speechless for a moment.
There is really nothing to say. Isn’t it a good thing that the thieves are gone? They no longer have to worry about them. For example, Li Xiang, the county lieutenant, has been living and eating on the top of the city during this period, and has never been back home. He has lost a lot of weight.
The same happened to Liu Yin, the general of the camp. He couldn't eat or sleep well all night long. He was just worried that the thieves were coming, so the old man Zhang Ju sold himself. Even the military officials in the camp came to him several times to urge him.
He scolded both him and Zhang Ju for asking for pay.
So when the thief left, the county captain Li Xiang and the camp general Liu Yin were the happiest. But two people were unhappy, one was the thief Cao Pang Zun, and the other was the county soldier Cao Houxi.
Pang Zun was unhappy because he regarded defeating the bandits this time as a way to promotion. How could he be happy when he ran away after seeing military achievements? Then why was the county soldier Cao Houxi unhappy?
Because his business was closed.
What does this mean?
Remember the last military meeting, when Hou Xi took the risk of making Zhang Ju unhappy and added at the end that he wanted to invite the powerful people in the city to join forces to defend the city?
Hou Xi is a cunning old official. In the past, military supplies were sold without him, but when was he present? How could he talk about this without profit?
He just wanted to take advantage of the Taishan bandits to attack the city and people were in panic to extort money from the rich households in the city. You see, does this prefect have the destiny to let all the powerful people in the city go to the tower to defend the city?
But I haven't said which families are powerful governors, so the county officials below have to worry about it for the governors.
Those who are really powerful in the county will naturally not dare to come to the door. But those wealthy merchants will have to be blackmailed by him. You can either pay a commission fee and we will hire someone to go to the city wall for you. Or do you want to pay?
Sorry, I can only enter your house and scan people on the wall.
Naturally, it was not Hou Shi who did this to offend people. Naturally, the city foxes and social rats he befriended stood up for him. Generally speaking, most of these wealthy households would choose to spend money to avoid disaster. After all, these low-life people were really allowed to make money.
If you stay at home and harass your female relatives, then the gains outweigh the losses.
But now, the Taishan bandits have not come, so how can I, Laohou, make a fortune from fighting? So he is happy.
But what was even more frightening was Zhang Ju, the Taishan prefect who was sitting high in the hall.
At this moment, he was completely panicked. Because he understood that the thief had really gone to attack Mou County. When Mou County was really broken, everyone in this house would be innocent. Even if he wanted to be a rich man again, he had to look at it.
The board was hit hard or not.
But although he was panicked in his heart, he was calm on the face. He could not let the subordinates guess his joy, anger, sorrow, and fear, and he could use his power to use others. This is the third rule of his being an officer.
Just like now, as soon as he finished telling the news, he guessed the matter just by looking at the faces of the generals below. These Qiu Ba couldn't hide anything on their faces.
But they didn't speak at this moment. He didn't want to express his attitude first. He wanted to lead someone to break the cold atmosphere first. Zhang Ju turned his head directly and looked at Zhuge Gui. Mr. Zhuge, you are needed at this time.
Zhang Ju cleared his throat and asked Zhuge Gui, who had been deep in thought:
"Zhuge Juncheng, I don't know about this, what do you think?"