For this battle, Lao Daozi and the others prepared for this for more than an hour, but the real battle time was less than a quarter of an hour.

Looking at the three captives who fell to the ground and wailed, the old knife's tone did not fluctuate, and he ordered: "Interrogate them separately, and after the interrogation, everyone will report the results of the interrogation to me, and whoever lies will be killed immediately." ”

"Understood!"

A trace of coldness flashed in the eyes of the scholar and the others, and they each lifted a rogue's detective and walked to the woods on the side, and soon a mournful wail sounded.

After a while, the scholar came over and reported: "Head, the thief has recruited, a few days ago, after Liukou and others captured Huaiqing Mansion, they jointly took Gao Yingxiang as the leader and called the king of Chuang, and now the thief and others are killing Luoyang, and now most of their men and horses are gathering more than sixty miles away from the front of a place called Wild Boar Ridge, but this thief is just a low-level spy, and he doesn't know much about the next move of the thief." ”

The old knife frowned, and said suspiciously: "Didn't he say how many thieves there are, and who is the leader?" ”

The scholar shook his head: "Although the thieves support the rebel as the leader, in fact, they are still not subordinate to each other, and the rebel is only the largest group of people, even if they themselves are difficult to know their situation and the number of people. ”

While talking, several people who were in charge of interrogating the other two thieves also came over and reported the interrogation to the old knife, and what they said was basically the same as the scholars, not much different.

After listening to the reports of several companions, the old knife pondered for a moment, took out a small book and a pencil from his body, wrote a few lines quickly with the help of the light of the bonfire, and handed them to a night buster.

"Liangzi, you and Ergouzi will immediately bring these three thieves and this information back overnight and hand them over to Grandpa Guo, and I and the scholars and a few of them will continue to move in the direction of Wild Boar Ridge, and we must find out the situation of the thieves at night. I figured that the thief who had escaped just now probably knew better, but he had let him escape. ”

"Understood!"

The two who were called by name did not take any nonsense, straightened their chests, took the information handed over by the old knife, and then tied the three rogues to their horses, stuffed rags on their mouths, and galloped along the official road towards the way they came.

After the two of them didn't take it away, the old knife and the others began to clean up the battlefield.

In the battle just now, except for the one who fled at the head, all the others were killed or wounded, and the night guards put their Minnie rifles on bayonets, and cleaned up the battlefield while mending the knives to those who were lying on the ground and had not yet breathed, and soon the battlefield was cleaned.

In this battle, seven rogues were killed, three were captured, seventeen horses, a number of swords, guns, bows and arrows, and some silver and two treasures, but these rogues had no valuable armor. Moreover, this expedition, Yang Feng has already stated in advance that this time the bandits are different from the previous wars with the Manchu Tartars, and the military merits are not counted in the first place, and the seized property is the same as before, all of which are divided into fifty and fifty.

After cleaning the battlefield, Lao Daozi and the others got on their horses and quietly left the woods, leaving only the corpses all over the ground, letting the cold wind blow, as the snowflakes covered it, the blood on the ground also began to coagulate, and the strong smell of blood slowly faded until they were completely submerged by snowflakes......

The sky gradually brightened, and with the familiar shouts and horns sounding, Yang Feng also opened his eyes, and after he got dressed, there were already family members carrying toiletries and a basin of water into the tent.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Song Ye brought two steamed buns, a bowl of porridge and a small plate of pickles, which was Yang Feng's breakfast and the breakfast of all the soldiers of the Jiangning Army. Such a breakfast is naturally very common and even a little cold in later generations, but it is already very good in this era.

After breakfast, the officer on duty came to report that the troops had all finished their meals and could set off at any time.

Yang Feng was about to give the order to set off, when someone came to report that he had gone out to investigate at night and sent important information, and brought three prisoners of the rogue with him.

"Oh...... Let them come right away. ”

Yang Feng met Liangzi and Ergou, who rushed back overnight, in his tent and sent people to interrogate the three prisoners again, after listening to the report of his subordinates, he was a little surprised, he didn't expect these rogues to set up an ambush, aren't they afraid of being surrounded and eaten by officers and soldiers?

Song Ye on the side couldn't help but say, "Grandpa...... It's very likely that the thieves are in ambush ahead, should we hold off? ”

"Hold off, why hold on?" Yang Feng asked strangely: "Isn't this a good opportunity for us to exterminate the main force of the thieves?" As long as they can completely annihilate Gao Yingxiang, the remaining thieves will not have to worry. However, we also need to change our actions. ”

After pacing slowly for a while, Yang Feng called the herald and ordered: "Immediately send the order, the seventh battalion of Gou Xingma immediately went forward, accelerated to the wild boar ridge, and the artillery battalion followed closely. Bengong led the 8th and 9th battalions, as well as the baggage battalion and the medical battalion to follow. ”

"Whoa!"

Gou Xingma, who received the order, did not hesitate, and immediately took the men and horses of the headquarters and the artillery battalion to march towards the Wild Boar Ridge, until noon the next day, the troops came to a hilly area ten miles away from the Wild Boar Ridge.

Just as the troops were hurrying away, there was a night report in front of them, and traces of rogues were found in the front.

Gou Xingma immediately stopped the troops, began to straighten the formation, and told the artillery battalions behind to speed up and keep up.

A thousand general suggested: "General, this wild boar ridge is surrounded by mountains on both sides, the terrain is dangerous, if the thieves lie in ambush on both sides of the mountain, and attack and kill our army when they pass by, our army will suffer heavy losses, according to the general's opinion, we might as well send people to occupy the mountains on both sides first, and then let the army pass, what do you think?" ”

This Qian Zong's suggestion was relatively safe, and several other officers around him also nodded in agreement, but Gou Xingma vetoed the proposal.

"No!"

Gou Xingma shook his head.

"Now that the thieves have occupied the mountains on both sides, if we send people to attack, it will be an upward attack, even if we have the advantage of firearms, we may not be able to gain the upper hand, and even if we can defeat the thieves, it is likely to suffer heavy casualties. In that case, let's stop fighting and wait for the artillery battalion to come up. ”

The officers thought about it, if the artillery battalion was here, with the cover of the artillery battalion, it would be much easier for them to attack even if they were strong, which was indeed much better than just giving way to the pawns to attack.

Soon, the 5,000 soldiers and horses of the 7th Battalion stopped outside the Boar Ridge, and the officers even ordered the sergeants to eat and drink water to replenish their strength and water.

Seeing that the Ming army outside the valley was so leisurely, the rogues on the Wild Boar Ridge began to get anxious.