It was too dangerous to pursue directly at night, but Diao Leixun couldn't let the puppet Tang thief army run away without a trace, although he didn't let the army move that night, he still sent scouts to monitor the puppet Tang thief army.

Wait until early the next morning, and continue the pursuit with men and horses!

If you don't chase him, you can't do it, Su Jiakang's messenger arrived with his letter in the early morning, in which Su Jiakang did not return to his usual politeness, directly scolded him, and even threatened to write to the governor.

This made Diao Leixun feel a lot of pressure, he didn't sleep well this night, he couldn't sleep well, naturally the next day before dawn he called the soldiers to start a fire to cook, and as soon as the sky was dark, he had already embarked on the journey again.

But even if he set off again and started the pursuit, he himself knew very well that this pseudo-Tang thief army could not catch up, and the spies reported that the pseudo-Tang thief army did not stop its pace yesterday when it was dark, so that after a night, those pseudo-Tang thief armies had already run out of almost twenty miles away.

Although they have not lost the traces of these pseudo-Tang thief armies, it is basically impossible to catch up again.

But even so, he still had to continue the pursuit, not to catch up with the pseudo-Tang thief army to make a contribution, but just to avoid punishment from above.

Yesterday evening, Ying Tianhu's fiasco, although the main responsibility is on Ying Tianhu, but in the final analysis, Ying Tianhu is still his deputy Qianhu in Tong'an Qianhu, his subordinates, Ying Tianhu's failure, in fact, can be regarded as his failure.

In order to avoid punishment from above, he must show that he is doing his best!

As for Su Jiakang in the back, he was bent on annihilating the main force of these pseudo-Tang thief troops, and constantly put huge pressure on Diao Leixun for this reason, and at the same time, he was also personally leading people to pursue him behind.

As a result, the Tang Dynasty once again played a game of circles with the Ming army in the mountains.

Even in order to better contain the Ming army and prevent the Ming army from losing the motivation to pursue, Li Xuan maintained the distance between the two sides at more than ten miles, and even once put the distance closer to seven or eight miles, in order to let the Ming army see the hope of catching up.

Just when the Ming army and the Tang Dynasty were circling in the mountains, Huang Xueren and Bai Yunqi also returned to Huangzhushan smoothly with the baggage team.

When they returned, they not only brought a large amount of food, but also brought back to Huangzhushan more than 30 craftsmen, including craftsmen who had been semi-forcibly arrested or who had been fed and had been fed, and who had been attracted by various promises such as women.

The arrival of a large amount of grain finally alleviated the food crisis that has been hanging over Huangzhu Mountain, with this batch of Fengjiazhuang grain, and the army ate the enemy outside, leaving hundreds of young and strong people in Huangzhu Mountain to save some, theoretically enough for them to support the autumn harvest.

Seeing a large amount of grain being carried into the warehouse, Liu Bagou also smiled: "With these grains, it is enough for us to support the autumn harvest, and after the autumn harvest, we will be able to harvest enough grain here." ”

Huang Xueren said with a tired look on his face: "That's good, it's good to be able to survive until autumn, but now that there are so many of us, I'm afraid there won't be enough food even after the autumn harvest!" ”

Liu Bagou said with a smile: "When we were busy in the summer, but from morning to night, we planted grain in all the places where we could grow food, and in a few days I plan to take people to start building ditches and flood controls, and we will never repeat the disaster of this spring, after the autumn harvest, we will harvest enough food for 5,000 people, maybe there will be more!" ”

"That's right!" Bai Yunqi on the side said: "Now we have a total of just over 4,000 people, and now that the army is still outside, we can also save a lot of food, so we can also capture the population of a few more villages from outside!" ”

The population growth of the Tang Dynasty never relied on natural growth, but on captives.

This captivity consisted of Ming captives, rival bandits and their families, as well as ordinary villagers taken captive from outside the mountains.

For the expansion of the strength of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Bagou and Li Xuan both wanted to expand the population, and Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren, the bandit leaders, were also extremely keen to capture prisoners to supplement the strength of the Tang Dynasty in order to have more soldiers under their hands and control more power.

Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, whether it was Li Xuan, the emperor, Liu Bagou, the first assistant, or Fang Dongquan and Wang Danxu, these generals were extremely keen on capturing prisoners.

The last time they went out of the mountain, they directly brought back more than 1,000 ordinary villagers.

This time, the reason why I didn't have this plan at the beginning was because of the lack of food in Huangzhu Mountain, and the original 4,000 people couldn't support it, let alone catch a large group of people, but now that the food crisis has been initially alleviated, it is normal for Liu Bagou and Huang Xueren to come up with the idea of expanding the population.

Therefore, Liu Bagou nodded: "This thing can be done, but how to do it still has to be decided by His Majesty!" ”

Capturing hundreds or thousands of captives to expand the population, this matter is a major event related to the future strategy of the Tang Dynasty, this kind of strategic affairs, Liu Bagou and Huang Xueren naturally did not dare to decide on their own, and they had to tell Li Xuan, who was on the expedition at this time, and let Li Xuan decide personally.

In the past six months, Li Xuan's influence in the Tang Dynasty has been increasing, especially the famous Guards in the first battle, and the subsequent establishment of the Tang New Army, so that Li Xuan can finally effectively control the armed forces of the Tang Dynasty, even if this control still needs to compromise with Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Danxu, but as the supreme commander above, he skillfully used the contradictions of Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, Wang Danxu, these generals, and always put himself in the position of arbiter. And thus completely controlled the whole army.

Now it is impossible for Li Xuan to let the soldiers kill Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren, but when they do not infringe on Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren's vital interests, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren and Wang Danxu are also unwilling to disobey Li Xuan, so that others can find an excuse to attack them.

Therefore, Huang Xueren also said: "This matter naturally needs to be reported to Your Majesty, so that Your Majesty can make a decision in person, and when this matter is over, I will take the baggage team to meet Your Majesty!" ”

Bai Yunqi also said: "Now that the army led by His Majesty has been containing the Ming army for many days, I am afraid that there is a crisis of food shortage, we had better set off to meet Your Majesty in these two days!" ”

Liu Bagou said: "So good! ”

After saying this, Liu Bagou paused and continued: "But the army is outside, and it should be eaten by the enemy!" ”

Liu Bagou didn't say it very clearly, but Huang Xueren and Bai Yunqi are not stupid, naturally what does Liu Bagou mean, that is, don't let them take too much food, if the army outside is short of food, it is best to go directly to the mountains to 'collect grain'.

The food here in Huangzhu Mountain needs to be eaten by the elderly, weak, women and children in the mountains, and if you take too much, there will be not enough food in the mountains.

But Liu Bagou must not take the initiative to say this kind of thing, because once he says it, he is suspected of framing the army.

Especially now that Li Xuan is still leading the army to deal with the Ming army, if Huang Zhushan says that Huang Xueren and them are not allowed to take away the food, what if the army is really short of food, this matter is something that Liu Bagou, the first assistant, is not willing to bear, nor can he bear the responsibility.

So after Huang Xueren and Bai Yunqi listened, they didn't speak, but just said in unison: "This is the way it should be, if you can collect more grain, you still have to collect more grain!" ”

They did not say that they would not bring food, but that they would 'collect food' as much as they could.

Huang Xueren and Bai Yunqi did not stay in Huangzhu Mountain for long, and set off again the next day, but the number of people who set off again was nearly half, only about 100 people, and the food they carried was not much, and the more important materials were actually all kinds of weapons.

Including more than a dozen muskets and ammunition created by the Ministry of Industry Workshop in the recent period, in addition to arrows, swords and other weapon supplies.

After all, no matter what kind of weapon, it is actually a consumable, and the attrition rate of individual weapons is still very high, for example, the steel knife used by the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers, even if the blade is covered with steel, but it is very common for the waist knife to have a gap after a battle.

Not to mention the pure consumables such as lead bullet, gunpowder, and arrows, the archers can shoot more than ten arrows in a battle, and there will be seven or eight arrows at the least, although some of these arrows can be recovered after the battle, but this is based on the early stage of their own cleaning of the battlefield after victory, and the number of arrows that can be recovered is not much, if it is defeated or in a hurry, these arrows will not be recovered.

In order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the troops, it is very necessary to replenish equipment in a timely manner.

Early this morning, when Huang Xueren and Bai Yunqi set out again with their baggage team and went to the edge of the mountain to meet Li Xuan, the Empress Dowager Bai in the palace sent someone to bring a large bag of things and asked Huang Xueren to send them to Li Xuan.

Worried about her son's safety, Empress Dowager Bai didn't put anything messy in the package, but put a stainless steel waist knife and a soft armor that she specially asked the craftsmen to build.

And there are things sent by Dong Yunyun and Ye's in this package, Dong Yunyun sent a pair of clothes that she claimed to be hand-sewn, but in fact, most of them were clothes that Zhu'er did for her, and Ye's gave her hand-sewn leather gloves.

Ascending the stairs and watching the baggage team go away, Empress Dowager Bai sighed before slowly turning around and going down the stairs, muttering softly as she walked: "It's all a bunch of waste, and you have to let Xuan'er go to this kind of thing like a war!" ”

The old mother who followed behind her listened, but she couldn't help muttering in her heart, when you first set out on the expedition, your old man encouraged his son to march in person, saying that he wanted to establish prestige and completely control the new army, so as not to let the generals below control the army and rebel.

However, few of these old mothers who can follow the Empress Dowager Bai are stupid peasant women, all of them have the unique shrewdness of women, and naturally they know what they can say and what they can't say, so even if they hear this, they muttered in their hearts, but no one dared to say it.