After capturing Yuanshan Island, the nest of the pirates, Xia Xue obtained a large amount of gold, silver, money, food supplies, weapons and armor, etc., and her strength increased greatly. With the backing of strong capital and materials, Xia Xue can boldly expand.

She first expanded the number of guards to 500 people, and expanded the total number of backup guards to 1,000 people, in addition to the 100 guards and 200 backup members left on Yuanshan Island, and selected and trained a group of black-clothed guards to supplement the black-clothed guards who sacrificed, and the number of black-clothed guards was restored to 100. With a large amount of money and materials, Xia Xue opened an armory workshop, arranged the craftsmen brought from Yuanshan Island to help make weapons and armor in the armory, and recruited many new craftsmen to supplement the military armor workshop in the surrounding counties and towns. Originally, a large number of weapons were seized from the exterminated pirates, plus the newly made ones in the armory, and the current Changxi Village Guard and the Supplementary Guard are basically each armed with a spear, and each person has leather armor; In addition, the members of the escort were armed with a waist knife and shield, and each of them had iron armor and bows and arrows; The black-clothed guards were more well-equipped, each equipped with a waist knife, a three-edged armor-piercing spur, a bow and crossbow, armor, a small round shield, a hook rope for climbing, etc., and each of them was specially equipped with valuable and scarce war horses.

The convoy can now be described as a shotgun for a cannon, and its strength has increased greatly.

After the strength increased greatly, Xia Xue took advantage of the victory to pursue, and successively cleared the other pirate bases entrenched in the Funing sea area one by one, of course, the rest of the pirate base nests are far worse than Yushan Island, most of them are vulnerable, some pirate nests Xia Xue has not yet begun to attack, he was scared away, ran away from Funing, away from Fujian, many pirates even ran to the north Jianghuai overlord Du Fuwei, southern Jiangsu overlord Li Zitong jurisdiction of the sea area. The sea area of Funing finally ushered in the long-lost peace and tranquility, and the coastal residents of Funing finally solved the problem of their henchmen - the cruelty of the pirates, and lived a quiet life of living and working in peace and contentment. Therefore, the backup of the escort is endless.

After the increase in personnel and materials, Xia Xue felt that Changxi Village was no longer suitable as the headquarters of the escort team, and she needed a place with a city as the new headquarters of the escort team. After screening and analysis, Xia Xue decided to take Changxi County as the new headquarters base of the escort team.

Changxi County is defended by more than 800 Sui troops, and its combat effectiveness is not very strong, and it is far away from Minzhou and Jianzhou, where the main force of the Sui army is located, and the road from Minzhou and Jianzhou to Changxi County is not very easy to walk, so I am not afraid of reinforcements from the main force of the Sui army. In order to prevent excessive casualties in the assault, the battle was stalemate, and it was unfavorable to drag on for a long time. Xia Xue decided to outwit the county seat of Changxi.

First of all, she first sent Dugu Jun and Pan Jiang to lead 100 elite black-clothed guards to dress up as ordinary people, and smuggled weapons and other weapons into Changxi County during the day in firewood and grass carriages.

After dark, a cold moon hung in the sky, shining with a few cold stars.

Night March. The sky was covered with dark purple clouds, but it didn't rain. The ground was wet, but not muddy, and the convoy marched silently.

Xia Xue personally led 500 escorts and backup team members to quietly lurk in a valley about ten miles away from Changxi County, quietly waiting for the opportunity.

Since it was autumn and winter, it was particularly cold with frost at night. Everyone hadn't eaten for most of the day, and they were all hungry and cold, shivering. Seeing this, Xia Xue felt sorry for everyone in her heart, and secondly, she was also a little worried, if she was so cold and hungry, her combat effectiveness would definitely be affected. I want to make a fire to cook a hot meal and soup for everyone, but I am worried that the fireworks will arouse the enemy's alarm and increase the difficulty of the siege.

She was in a dilemma when a flash of inspiration flashed in her mind, and she remembered a kind of smokeless stove in the wild that her father had taught her. The smokeless stove in the field, also known as the smoke stove to avoid light, is the most simple and practical cooking stove for individual soldiers in the field. This kind of stove can be used within 5 minutes by a single soldier in the field with only a sapper shovel, no light and no smoke, and it is not too close to be found at all.

She was overjoyed and immediately started digging with daggers, shovels and other tools. The principle of smokeless stove is to dig pits and build soil to increase concealment, increase the flue to expand the area of smoke, and through the method of covering the flue with wheat straw firewood and grass to disperse the smoke as much as possible, the key is not to form smoke and smoke columns, so as to increase the concealment.

Everyone suddenly saw the captain Xia Xue digging a pit in the ground, and felt very curious, so they all came around to see and asked Xia Xue what he was doing, Xia Xue told them that they wanted to dig a pot stove for everyone to make a hot meal and make a hot soup, and everyone immediately objected that if the fire was made to cook, there would be fireworks, and if it was discovered by the enemy, then tonight's sneak attack would be in vain.

Xia Xue smiled slightly and told everyone that what she was going to dig was a lightless and smokeless pot stove. Everyone doesn't believe it, how can cooking on the stove be without light and smoke.

Xia Xue didn't say anything, just kept digging.

I saw her digging a trapezoidal pit with a diameter of about 70 centimeters and a depth of about 60 centimeters. Everyone didn't know what this big pit was for, but Xia Xue knew that it was convenient for users to add firewood and other fuels to the small pit next to it.

Then, Xia Xue dug a smaller pit 30 centimeters away from this pit, Xia Xue named it No. 2 pit, and then penetrated the two holes from the bottom, and piled all the excavated soil around the first hole to enhance its protection from light.

Then, three flues were dug in the upper and backward directions of the second hole, each about 15 centimeters deep and 3 meters long.

Then place the small picnic folding pot in the backpack in the second hole and fill the edges with earth, and cover the flue with branches, weeds, rice stalks, etc., and cover it with soil.

According to the method of "dense pot edge, far and sparse", the flue is hidden, and the ignition is put into the second pit from the bottom of the No. 1 pit.

Then Xia Xue began to add firewood and cook, and everyone found that the fire and cooking smoke could not be seen from a distance, and they could not be seen from a distance of more than 100 meters, not to mention that they were more than 10 miles away from the enemy, which was more than 5,000 meters, and the enemy could not see it at all.

One by one, they were amazed, and they admired the captain Xia Xue even more.

Everyone finally ate hot rice and drank hot soup, and one by one they became energetic and vibrant.