There is such a large group of people nearby who are approaching Huangzhu Mountain, this news is naturally impossible to hide for too long, Li Zhai Lord and his party were fine when they were still dozens of miles away, but when they approached the range of thirty miles, they were already discovered by the outpost arranged by the Tang Dynasty on the periphery.

Although the mountains are vast and boundless, most of them are deep mountains and old forests, and it is impossible for large groups of people to pass through the dangerous peaks and streams.

If you want to let a large group of people pass, you can only pass through those formed roads, even if these roads are not big roads in some way, but small roads deep in the mountains.

However, even this kind of trail is actually not many, and as long as Huangzhushan arranges sentry posts on these trails, there can monitor the activities of large groups of people and horses within a radius of tens of miles.

Of course, if the other party is only a small-scale force of less than ten or twenty people, it can still easily bypass the sentry post in Huangzhushan.

It is a pity that there are more than 400 people in Li Zhai's party, and most of them are old and weak women and children, and it is impossible for them to bypass the outer outposts of Huangzhu Mountain.

Therefore, when they approached Huangzhushan for thirty miles, Huangzhushan discovered them at the outlying sentry as soon as possible, and then the two outlying sentry posts quickly ran back to the rear to report the news.

When Li Xuan learned that a large group of unknown people had appeared on the periphery, he immediately summoned his ministers to discuss the matter.

In the meeting hall, Liu Bagou, Fang Dongquan, and Wang Danxu gathered together again to discuss this sudden matter.

"According to the report of our spies, the total number of people coming towards our Huangzhu Mountain is more than 400 people, the exact number is not clear, but it should not exceed 500 people." Fang Dongquan explained the situation to everyone:

"Among these more than 400 people, more than half of them are old and weak women and children, and about 100 young people are carrying weapons!"

"Judging from their situation, it can basically be judged that this is a gang of thieves who came to us from outside!"

At this time, Liu Bagou said: "Can you be sure that there are only more than 400 of them?" Could this be just their vanguard, with more to come? ”

At this time, Huang Xueren said: "This possibility is not very likely, if they are just the vanguard troops, then they must all be young and strong, and it is impossible to take the old and weak women and children to act as the vanguard!" ”

Liu Bagou nodded slightly after hearing this: "If there are only more than 400 people, and there are only more than 100 young people, then the threat to us is not great!" ”

Qian Mengjiu also said: "With our strength, it is completely possible to defeat a thief with this strength!" ”

Wang Danxu said: "Yes, even when we were training the new army last year, it was easy to defeat the thieves of this strength, not to mention that now that our new army has just formed, even if there is only one team of musketeers for the time being, but with the strength of other troops, it is enough to defeat them!" ”

Listening to the discussion of everyone below, Li Xuan began to think of another possibility, so he said: "It is naturally not a problem to defeat them, but since they have sent them to the door themselves, they can just allow our new army to train and train, and with the addition of more than 400 people, the population under my Datang rule will also exceed 4,000!" ”

At this time, Li Xuan continued: "Previously, the scope of our sweep was only limited to a radius of 100 miles, and judging from today's situation, there will definitely be more gangs of thieves outside 100 miles, we can just do a large-scale sweep before the summer harvest to increase the population of our Datang!" ”

Hearing Li Xuan's words, several people below were surprised!

They were still discussing how to defeat these bandit gangs that came from nowhere, but their own emperor had already begun to think about taking them prisoner.

That's not all, I even set my sights on a hundred miles away!

I didn't expect that this young man of mine would be so bold and ambitious.

After Li Xuan said this, Liu Bagou, who had always been the most active in expanding the population of the Tang Dynasty, immediately said with joy: "Your Majesty is wise, this matter is a chance from heaven, and it gave us four hundred people of the Tang Dynasty for nothing!" ”

Li Xuan smiled slightly: "In this battle, we must not only win, but also try to control the casualties so that we can accept the prisoners, what is the strategy for this?" ”

Unless it is something that Li Xuan thinks is absolutely necessary, Li Xuan will generally not interfere in the implementation of some specific affairs.

He is very clear about his position in this Tang Dynasty, that is, a high-ranking ruler, their emperor, what he has to do is to decide the general direction, and what to do after setting the general direction, that is Liu Bagou and Fang Dongquan's business.

Even if he has a detailed plan himself, he will generally convey it through Bai Yunqi, and borrow Bai Yunqi's mouth to obtain the unanimous approval of the ministers.

In the past year, he has counted all the slaps in the face of his unauthorized actions, the early one is to establish the Guards, and the later one is to lead the army to attack Longhua Town.

But even so, he only makes decisions in the general direction, and he generally does not interfere with what to do.

After Li Xuan decided the general direction of capturing these foreign thieves, the next thing was Fang Dongquan's business.

How to fight in the future, how to arrange the troops are all relatively detailed and complicated things, and whenever this is the case, Li Xuan will only listen to it and not say it, Liu Bagou and Qian Mengjiu and a few of their ministers are also not concerned with themselves, and let Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, Wang Danxu and several other generals fight there.

And this kind of controversy often lasts for a long time, because almost every military general will have his own opinion, and then think that his opinion is correct.

For example, this time, Fang Dongquan was built in a small valley twelve miles away for ambush, but Wang Danxu thought that the terrain of that small valley was not suitable for the deployment of troops, so he could only rely on traditional fighting, and in this way, he would not be able to give full play to the various formations that the Tang Dynasty had worked so hard to train in the past month.

In other words, if the ambush was based on Fang Dongquan's method, then the fight would be no different from the previous operations in the bandit era.

Therefore, Wang Danxu's suggestion is to let those thieves in and conduct interception operations on a gentle hillside eight miles away, so that the formation and tactics of the new army's hard training can be brought into full play, and the musket team and spearmen can play the greatest battle.

However, Fang Dongquan and Butcher Chen also have opinions on this plan, because in this case, it will not be possible to adopt the ambush mode to fight, the terrain over there is gentle, and the other party will definitely find their troops several miles away, and when the time comes, when they see the tight and neat formation of the Tang Dynasty's division, maybe they will turn around and run away.

And this may not be said to be 100%!

When any gang of bandits sees an enemy lined up in front of them, their first instinct is to run away, and they will run faster than a rabbit.

The biggest example is Huang Zhushan himself, when they attacked the Ming army's grain road, they encountered a camouflage grain team led by Diao Leixun, what did these bandits in Huangzhushan do at that time? They didn't even have the courage to try to attack, they just turned around and ran.

As the so-called self-treatment of others, their bandit gang in Huangzhushan is so unbearable, naturally they can't expect other bandit gangs to rise to the challenge.

Turning around and running as soon as possible is their normal reaction, and it's also the most likely thing they can do.

It is relatively unlikely that an unbeliever will send someone to tempt the attack, but after the temptation finds that it is inappropriate to turn around and flee, this kind of thing is relatively small, but it can happen.

However, knowing that there is a strong enemy in front of him, and stubbornly fighting, this kind of thing is absolutely impossible to happen, and if this kind of thing really happens, it must be that the big boss of the other party and the ordinary minions are all short-circuited in their brains.

Fang Dongquan wanted to choose a complex terrain for an ambush, using the previous mode to surround and completely capture the other party, while Wang Danxu wanted a gentle terrain for a decisive battle.

Both plans have their own advantages and disadvantages, and this is why these generals are at loggerheads.

In the end, it was Qian Mengjiu, who was a civilian official and a scholar of the Ministry of War, who came out and said that we could do the two plans together, and also set up an ambush to give full play to the formation advantage.

After hearing this, Fang Dongquan and Wang Danxu also felt that they couldn't convince each other anyway, so it was better to take a compromise plan, so they agreed.

In the end, they chose to intercept in front of a small valley ten miles away, in front of which there was a forest that was not too dense, and the terrain was undulating enough for people to ambush. At the same time, the undulating terrain is barely smooth, and it is possible to organize less tight queues.

The reason why this small valley can be accepted by both sides as a preset battlefield is because although the terrain there is not suitable for ambushes, it can barely hide troops for ambushes.

Although the terrain is not too gentle, it is barely enough for the troops to fight in formation.

This kind of terrain that can take into account both ambush and line operations will lead to unsuccessful ambushes and will also affect the efficiency of line operations, but there is no perfect thing in this world, and if you want to take care of more ideas and possibilities, then you can only choose to balance all aspects.

And equilibrium often represents mediocrity!

It's just that at this time, balance and mediocrity also mean that the risk is smaller, and Li Xuan doesn't want to take risks, after all, the new professional army of the Tang Dynasty King Division has only been a month since it was formed last month.

It can be said that the Datang New Army is still in the stage of exploration, and now this kind of expected resistance will not be too fierce in battle, which is the most suitable for training.

As for military training, the less risky the better.

Li Xuan didn't want any accidents to happen at that time, whether it was to cause a large number of casualties on his own side, or to let the other party escape, this was not the result he wanted.

After the general plan was determined by the court, the Tang Dynasty quickly turned into a war machine and rotated at high speed!