"Didn't you tell them to evacuate, how did you pull them all over?" Chen Yue quietly pulled Shan Minglei aside and asked in a low voice.

If the whole army of the Tartars in Fangshan County came over, even if they set a trap, Chen Yue was not very sure that he could defeat them, after all, there were more than 200 newly refined troops under his command.

In case the battle is unfavorable and is defeated by the Mantars, they can climb the mountain and escape, but if the Mantars enter Xishan Town, the fathers and elders of the town will definitely bring disaster. So when the troops were dispatched, Chen Yue instructed Shan Minglei to explain the situation to the elders of the town, so that they could be prepared. Unexpectedly, this Shan Minglei actually pulled all the men in the town over!

"The sons and nephews are fighting against the Manchu Tartars, and the fathers and elders in the town are unwilling to abandon them and flee on their own, so they have petitioned me to take them to the battlefield and help the soldiers kill the Tartars." Shan Minglei stroked his beard and smiled.

Do the villagers of Xishan Town have such consciousness and courage? Looking at the villagers with hoes and sickles in their hands beaming, Chen Yue was suspicious, this Shan Minglei didn't know how to fool them, but for the sake of his kindness to himself, Chen Yue decided not to ask again.

Back in Sicheng, Chen Yue ordered to bring out a few bags of grain to reward the courageous villagers, although they did not help, but this friendship could not be ignored.

The villagers cheered for the generosity of the inspector and went home to get the containers of grain.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Chen Yue asked the carpenter in the town to help build some oars and shields, the more the better, and it was best for each family to have one or two, all of which would be subsidized by the inspection department.

In Chen Yue's opinion, the Mantars will definitely come to retaliate after suffering such a loss, and with these shields, they will protect many villagers from escaping under the Mantar arrows.

Chen Yue asked Shan Minglei to be responsible for organizing the people in the town, so that they could always be vigilant, and once a full Tartar came to kill, they would either retreat into the Sicheng compound or retreat straight to the mountain.

As for the people in the Inspection Division, Chen Yue didn't plan to retreat and escape, there were hundreds of people in Mantar, and he had more than 200 troops, and there was a city to defend, so why couldn't he fight with Mantar?

Thanks to the dead Zhao Li, the walled wall around the manor in Sicheng is very high and thick, and if there is no artillery, it is not so easy to break through the wall. And how could hundreds of Tatar cavalry carry artillery with the army?

Since you are going to fight against the Manchurians, you must be fully prepared. Chen Yue first sent Wei Yang and Liu Neng to wait for the night and take turns to investigate the enemy's situation, and then in view of the extremely fast speed of the Manchu cavalry, he ordered his soldiers to dig a wide ditch in the open space between Sicheng and Xishan Town.

A war horse may be able to cross a ditch, but it must not be able to cross the back one continuously. In the ground between the ditches and the ditches, some deep holes with the thickness of cups were dug, and once the hooves of the full Tartar war horses stepped into the holes, the legs of the horses were sure to be broken. Although there are many ditches, there are roads for people to walk, and the people of the town can follow the winding road to get between the town and the city.

Whether the Mantars wanted to attack Xishan Town or Sicheng, they had to pass through this winding ditch area. Of course, if the Mantars attacked, Xishan Town, which did not have a wall, would definitely not be able to defend it, but Chen Yue would withdraw all the people into Sicheng. There is only one stone's throw between the two, and it is very convenient to withdraw into Sicheng.

The design is very good, but now it is the harsh winter season, the ground is frozen hard, it is very difficult to dig, and the villagers often use chisels to chisel for half a day to chisel the hard ground. However, when the inspection department was full of three meals a day, everyone was still happy.

"My lord, it's good to take care of two meals a day, why bother with three meals, how can anyone eat three meals this year?" Shan Minglei took the account book and said to Chen Yue unhappily. Although there are still eight or nine hundred quintals of grain in the inspection department, they can't stand such a waste, and if it goes on like this, it will definitely not last next summer.

"Two meals for two." Chen Yue said indifferently, consuming more food is nothing in his eyes, anyway, it enters the stomach of the person. Besides, will they stay here until the summer wheat harvest fails?

The two tiger squatting cannons were dragged back and placed on the earthen platform inside the wall, and the firing angle of the muzzle had already been adjusted, aiming at the outside of the walled gate. Sicheng is facing Xishan Town on the side of the hillside with its back, and the only walled gate is also open on the west side, and the Mantars can only attack from the west side if they attack.

More than 240 soldiers were divided into three groups by Chen Yue, and took turns to defend the wall with the general flag as a unit, always keeping vigilant.

Chen Yue found Li Xiong again, and learned that the gunpowder had been dispensed with sixty or seventy catties, and he had a little bottom in his heart, plus the original gunpowder, which was enough to be one hundred and ten catties, and there should be no problem in sustaining a war. So he asked Li Xiong to stop making gunpowder, and instead led people to make firearms such as "10,000 enemies", which was the best weapon to defend the city in the offensive and defensive battles of the city.

"My lord, since you want to fight the Manchurians, why don't you put the battlefield in the original inspection department yamen, where the roads are narrow and the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and we have more than 200 people stationed in it, which is enough to keep the Manchu cavalry out of the mountain." Yang Zhengping, who had arranged the defense, turned around and asked his doubts.

When the imperial court set up the inspection department, the choice of address was extremely exquisite, and the original inspection department yamen was stuck in a dangerous place, and the defense there must be much better than the relatively empty terrain of Xishan Town.

"It's good, but if we really defend there, the Mantars may not attack!"

The Manchus may have attacked the densely populated town of Xishan, but they would not necessarily attack the Yamen of the Inspection Division, which was guarded by the Ming army. After all, attacking the former will bring them great benefits, and attacking the latter will only bring casualties.

Chen Yue was eager to fight with Mantar in his heart, so he chose the battlefield here.

"The courtyard wall of the Yamen of the Inspection Division is dilapidated, and there is not even a gate, not to mention that there is a shortage of materials inside, we have to spend a lot of effort to repair it to defend, not to mention that the cold weather is not conducive to construction, I am afraid that the Mantar will not give us time." Chen Yue sighed.

"Will the Mantars come over?" Yang Zhengping couldn't help but ask again.

"Then who knows? Maybe, maybe not. But first, we killed one of their cavalry, and there was such a prosperous place as Xishan Town as a temptation, I don't believe that the Manchu generals with troops can endure it! "Speaking of whether the Mantars will attack in the end, Chen Yue can't be sure.

"It's better to come, I've long wanted to kill a few more Mantars to have a good time!" Yang Zhengping clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. His parents were brutally killed by the Mantars, and his two younger sisters were snatched away, which is the eternal hatred in Yang Zhengping's heart!