Eight miles southwest of the market town where the Frontier Garrison Corps was stationed, the remnants of the peaks stretched between the low, gentle hills of the plains, and six figures bent over the path leading to the mountains.

This group of people were dressed as soldiers or guards with unusual armor and weapons, dressed in black tight-fitting leather armor covered with half-chain mail, wearing a pitch-black half-helmet, stepping on cowhide combat boots, with a broadsword forged of fine iron hanging from their waists, and a short knife tied to their heels, and a crossbow on the back of those who could use a bow, and a crossbow hanging on those who could not use a bow, in addition to swords and crossbows, these people also had a special bag on their backs, which contained food, water, hook ropes, and one or two sets of camouflage civilian clothes. or a businessman's fancy clothes, a farmer's short brown, or a homeless man's rotten clothes, they are all characters that they are used to.

They were the soldiers of the task force who belonged directly to the command camp of the Border Garrison Corps, and yesterday they had received orders to track down the small group of Swabian enemy troops who were ambushing and sneaking up. In addition to the task force soldiers, there is also a hired old local hunter to lead the way for the task force.

The task force tracking the enemy was led by Vice-Captain Oliver himself, starting from the fallow farmland where the army was ambushed, and the tracking team had been sniffing the enemy's tracks for a day and two nights from the afternoon of the previous day to now, plus this morning.

The small Swabian army was cunning enough, and after a successful attack they fled to the southwest, and then scattered into five or six groups in all directions, they would surely gather somewhere for the next attack, but they had gone around too many places, and the grass and woods were mostly plains, and it was difficult for the task force to track them down as long as the enemy walked on the turf that did not leave any traces.

In the early hours of this morning, the two soldiers in charge of the southwest direction of the tracking team found traces of the stampede of the brigade and immediately reported to Dawson to assemble.

So Oliver gathered his soldiers to explore.

There are indeed traces of a large number of soldiers passing here, and the footprints on the soft path are very chaotic, and at a cursory glance, there are indeed hundreds of people, and the footprints are also pointed to the southern peak mountain range.

A soldier stood up, pointed to the direction in which the footprints were going, and said: "Deputy Captain, the enemy should have escaped into the mountains after the attack, and it is difficult to march on a large scale into the mountains, so it will be difficult for us to eliminate them."

This point of view is in line with the thinking of normal people, and it is indeed a good way to escape into the mountainous areas with complex terrain in the face of enemy soldiers that are far larger than themselves.

Oliver didn't say anything, he was a woodcutter, although he was not as good at tracking prey as mountain hunters, but he would occasionally set traps to catch some wild animals when he walked through dense forests and hills all year round, so he was no stranger to tracking footprints.

Oliver always felt strange when he stared at the footprints on the ground, the footprints were scattered all over the ground, but he always felt that there was a looming pattern in those messy footprints.

He half-knelt on the ground, ripped off a weed pole from his side, and placed it in several sets of footprints to compare it, "These sets of footprints are abnormal. Oliver made up his mind.

"Vice Captain, this~ nothing abnormal, right?" A soldier simply fell to the ground and approached to make a closer look.

Oliver placed the straw pole into the grooved sole of a footprint, and gently carved the scale on the straw with his fingernail, then moved the straw to the heel of the footprint and carved the scale again with his fingernails.

"According to the confession of the attacked soldiers, the Swaben were wearing cowhide combat boots, and the soles of the feet were hard when ordinary people walked quickly, and the depressions left in the soil should be deep in the front and shallow in the back, and there should be abrasions on the soles of the feet, but this footprint is the opposite, it is deep in the back and shallow in the front, and there are no abrasions, I have just seen it, and many of these footprints are like this." Oliver showed the two notches on the straw pole to the soldier beside him.

Oliver stood up, "And if you look closely, although the footprints are messy, many of them are of the same size and shape, and I don't believe these bastards have the same size and shape of boots. ”

When the soldiers heard this, they all looked around, and sure enough, many footprints were repeated.

One soldier flicked the dirt off his hands, "No wonder, I can't tell why these footprints look weird, but I can't say that there is any difference." ”

Oliver suddenly woke up, "I remember when I was at the Military Academy, Master Odo told us about a battle example, saying that at the beginning of the formation of the patrol team, they were chased by a group of bandits for the whole afternoon, and finally escaped by making fake footprints. "Mobile:

"They must have sent a small group of men to walk backwards and forth on this dirt road that leaves footprints, trying to draw our attention to the mountains to the south!" Oliver guessed Schwabian's conspiracy.

"These bastards, they're so cunning! Let me catch them, I must lift their skulls, dig out their brains, and feed the dogs! The soldier who first discovered this trace scolded fiercely, and it was just a trap to run for a long time.

"Forget it, it's all in vain." The soldier was deflated when he finished scolding.

Oliver didn't answer, he carefully recalled Master Odo's speech at that officer training class.

Suddenly, his head lit up, "Don't worry! There is still a chance, the number of mongrels in this group will not be too small, and they will definitely have to join the brigade after the arrangement, if we can catch the tail of this group of mongrels, we may also be able to find the hiding place of the enemy brigade. ”

"If they want to confuse us, they will definitely cover up the traces of the last retreat," Oliver put the straw in his hand between his teeth to pick at tartar, his eyes constantly rolling.

"You all give me a thought, think about where the enemy will go when he retreats? If I could think of it, I'll give him my portion of bacon in the evening! ”

Several of the soldiers beside Oliver were desperately trying to figure out.

The honest old hunter hesitated for a moment, and then touched behind Oliver, "Great, sir, if I can guess, can I be rewarded with bacon at night?" ”

Oliver turned around and glanced at the Orion who was dressed in tatters and carried a single bow, there were many rivers and mountains nearby, there were not many Orions, and the younger ones were all recruited into the army as archers, Oliver searched all around and caught such an old guy, and this old thing didn't seem to be good at tracking, Oliver suspected that he was disguised after listening to the commission of three pfennig every day. Desktop:

Oliver glanced at the crappy old hunter, "If you can catch the enemy's tail, I'll give you not only a piece of bacon, but also a bag of beer." ”

The old hunter had a smile on his face.

"If I run away, you won't get a copper coin for these two days, you useless old thing." Oliver squeezed out a sentence between his teeth, the Chinese army only gave the task force two days, and if he couldn't go back in the evening with useful news, he probably wouldn't be able to give orders, so he didn't want this old guy to waste time.

The old hunter's face suddenly fell, and he did not dare to speak again.

"You old thing, you say!" Oliver urged impatiently.

The old hunter hesitated for a long time, "Master, I'm just telling you the place, you decide whether to go or not, if there is no one, don't deduct my commission, okay?" ”

"Say it!!"

"I couldn't guess that the Savoyones would have evacuated from that place, and I didn't find any footprints leading to other places along the way, and there were a dozen forks in the road ahead, so I couldn't guess where they ran from."

Oliver was going crazy, "Can you stop talking nonsense?" ”

"Yes, my lord, half a mile back from here, there is a sidewalk leading to the eastern hills, and there is a nearby place where people can hide and bite at any time."

Oliver focused all his attention on following the enemy's tracks, forgetting to think about where the enemy would nest.

"Bastard, a group of people have water in their heads, everyone clean up and we'll search immediately"

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Chapter 338: Tracking the Enemy's Shadow