Just when Zhang Lixin and the others thought that they might be safe and sound for at least a few months until the onset of summer, the soldiers and horses in the Zhongshun camp in Baoding Prefecture once again became restless near the evening.

As night fell, thousands of officers and men on horseback gathered to prepare for another operation. This time: the reprimanded Wang Wenqing and the local military attache in Baoding Prefecture are ready to take action again. In one fell swoop, exterminate the bandits who made trouble in the camp city of Hejian Mansion in the first lunar month.

Wang Wenqing learned the previous lesson, and did not rashly take action after receiving crucial news from the distant relatives of the Yang family who were purchasing goods in the county town around Shengxian Village in Mancheng County. Instead, it took about half a month of effort to personally dispatch reliable people to quietly and secretly investigate the "banditry".

After a careful understanding, Wang Wenqing and others couldn't help but be surprised. Obviously: this is no ordinary hungry trouble, or even an ordinary bandit. It seems to be completely different from the sects in Shandong that have a little bit of means. But in any case, if it is left unchecked, it may be a great harm to the people.

Of course, when the new emperor had just ascended the throne, many officials in the entire Northern Zhili did not put their minds on these thieves who had only been unable to get along with the warriors in the area of Hejian Mansion and did not seem to make too much trouble. It took a lot of time to ask for pay and send troops again, but it was Wang Wenqing himself, together with many large families in Mancheng County who had suffered from it, to pay enough money to get enough money for the opening fee of the Zhongshun Battalion in Baoding Prefecture.

After the last confrontation, whether it was General Ma Shen, some of his henchmen and officers, or Wang Wenqing himself, they all understood that they had to deal with this group of thieves, who were small in number but were extraordinary, and using a team that was too poor would get half the result. Either it takes too long, or you risk another failure.

In fact, General Ma, who had a headache for those thieves, also hesitated for a long time after getting a lot of benefits before finally planning to send troops. Because in the area between the rivers, the general who used to teach the hands of those thieves understood that those thieves with artillery and armor were not soft persimmons. Even if you send at least ten times as many troops, there will probably be a lot of casualties among the thousands of pioneers who can ride horses

Some of the thousands of households in the camp are also quite daunted by this. It's just that General Ma Shen finally used the words from Wang Wenqing to say to everyone: "Now, the thief seems to have some news. It is likely that he is not an ordinary person, but an important officer in the former Weiyuan battalion. If this person can be forced to leave the path of falling grass and return to the court, it must be a great achievement. The new emperor has just ascended the throne, and he will not reward and punish unclear in such a thing... ”

And so it was: after about two days of preparation, the whole team was fully rested and prepared before sunset before the night attack began. According to the preparations of General Ma Shen and Wang Wenqing and others, who were in charge of this encirclement and suppression: first take the horse team first, and quietly rush to the place where the thieves gather at night as quickly as possible, divide and besiege them in the area of Shengxian Village. Waiting for the arrival of the artillery team, baggage, wagons, horses, and rear team during the day, they launched a fierce attack with about 2,000 men and an absolute advantage in artillery fire. In this way, with a force advantage of at least about 20 times, it may be possible to avoid casualties to the greatest extent.

Wang Wenqing's careful preparation and planning for many days still played a big role, because this time it was the horse team that set off at night. Zhang Lixin's eyeliner that was secretly arranged in Mancheng County and even near the Zhongshun Camp in Baoding Prefecture almost didn't play any role at all. The speed of delivering the message to the northwest was a beat slower.

It wasn't until the children in the guerrilla base villages near Shengxian Village who were in charge of daily shifts heard the sound of horses' hooves coming from the "listening urn" and saw the torches dotted at the bottom of the mountain that someone lit the fire signal that had been prepared long ago and launched a warning.

In the past few days, Zhang Lixin's training and combat preparation for the entire team and even the effort spent on vigilance have not been in vain after all, especially when many lower-level people have really obtained benefits that they could not imagine before, and they have established confidence in the team in some previous drills.

When the alarm came, the whistle that was familiar to the officers and men who had joined the new battalion and the officers and men of the reserve was once again sounding rapidly. Because there have been many such emergency training at night before, plus more than a month of mission and training. Although the whole team could not be compared with the team that Zhang Lixin had trained in the Weiyuan Camp at the beginning, let alone with the recruits who had been disciplined in the school since childhood, it took about half an hour to complete the fully armed assembly. Even so, it has been reduced to only about one-third of the original emergency gathering time.

When the team assembled again, most people thought it was just a drill, so they didn't feel much pressure for the time being. And Zhang Lixin's previous training preparations are this kind of "wolf coming" effect. Otherwise, Zhang Lixin knew very well how much the panic faced by the recruits would bring to the preparation of the attack under normal circumstances. It is not impossible for many people to become deserters at night in such a situation.

It wasn't until the whole team entered the preset position that had been secretly prepared outside Shengxian Village and entered the state of imminent battle, and the artillery and trebuchets were ready to be fired, that Zhang Lixin made the final mobilization for battle: "This time, the opponent we have prepared many times is really here!" Prepare for battle according to the previous regulations! Whoever makes a fuss in advance wants the moth to move and expose the target! Don't blame the battlefield discipline for being ruthless! ”

After the experience and experience of the previous daytime anti-cavalry battles in the Hejian area, Zhang Lixin finally decided that although the soldiers were allowed to choose to leave the team freely without equipment in peacetime, it was a completely different matter in the battle formation. Not a very solid team without a minimum of supervision, it is easy to go into a big problem in a slightly confrontational battle.

It was at this time that Ye Bushu, who was in charge of inquiring about the news, cautiously took advantage of the night to approach the distance of about a hundred steps to the Sage Village. Of course: that's all. Usually the people in the camp who do this work will not put themselves in too dangerous situations at all. Therefore, the rocket was quietly placed at a distance of about 100 paces from the existence, and quickly left its original position after ignition. Of course, the purpose of these experienced people is only to test whether the opponent is deployed in the Sage Village as normal as the previous news, and to find out the specific location, so they adopt such a "fire test" method.

The children in the village who were hiding in the tunnels also quickly lit the pine cannon and threw buckshot out by breaking the rope of the earthen counterweight trebuchet as Zhang Lixin had arranged before. At the same time, there were also more than a dozen people in the team who were specially responsible for luring the enemy, creating some chaotic movements, making people outside think that the location of the team was in the village of Sage Village that those people expected.