Seeing that the Ming army on the opposite side had set up camp in an orderly manner, Liu Zongmin said to Li Zicheng: "Your Majesty, the enemy army is coming from afar, and they should be quite tired from chasing us all the way." Why don't we go to the camp at night? ”

Li Zicheng looked at the Ming Jun on the opposite side and said, "It's hard for me to see." Lao Liu, look at their queue, tens of thousands of people are standing there, horizontal and straight, just like popping out of ink lines. Such a team, no matter how tired it is, will not neglect to take precautions. But it's okay to try, even if it's to make trouble for them so they don't sleep too soundly. ”

Speaking of this, Li Zicheng said again: "But you still have to be careful, don't be ambushed by others in turn." ”

"Hehe, Your Majesty, I also know that it is not so easy to rob the camp. I just thought I'd get closer at night and shoot some rockets into their barracks to harass them......"

……

"Major General, I think we should attack them at night." Gan Hui said to Zheng Sen, "The Liukou have been defeated by us head-on, you see, young general, they are hiding behind Checheng, but their soldiers' fear of our army cannot be concealed. These people are already panicked, if we attack them at night, we will definitely be able to plunge them into chaos, and then our army will attack to completely defeat these rogues. ”

Zheng Sen shook his head and said, "There are too many uncontrollable factors in the night battle, and we can defeat them during the day...... However, it is not bad to organize a night raid on a limited scale, and our soldiers are also trained in night warfare, and besides, our soldiers are not night blind, and their eyes are better......"

……

It was the last quarter moon, so there was no moon in the first half of the night. When the sun sets in the west and retracts the last rays of light, the earth immediately sinks into a deep darkness. Fortunately, in this era, there is basically no industrial pollution, and the air cleanliness is quite good, so the stars in the sky are extraordinarily bright. And these faint starlight also make people barely able to see something.

There were lights in the center of the barracks of the Model Army, but there were no lights on the periphery, such as the barracks walls and the barracks gates. Because at night, although the light can provide all kinds of convenience, it can also stimulate the pupils, causing the pupils to constrict, reducing the amount of light entering the light, so that he cannot see clearly in the dark. On the other hand, the lamps lit at the camp gate and the camp wall will also expose themselves, so in places like the camp wall and the camp gate, the model army will not light the lamp.

At this time, the gate of the barracks quietly opened, and more than a hundred soldiers in black overalls walked out of the barracks gates, silently blending into the darkness.

On the other side, Liu Zongmin's righteous son Liu Mangui also left the barracks with a few hundred people and touched towards the camp of the Ming army.

Compared with the model army, it was much more difficult for the Shun army to organize a robbery camp. First of all, the nutritional status of the soldiers of the Shun army was not very good. Although the Shun army has been winning continuously for more than a year, so the soldiers can be regarded as saying goodbye to the state of frequent hunger in the past, but it is far from being able to talk about balanced nutrition or anything. Therefore, there are still many soldiers in the Shun army who have mild or severe night blindness. Therefore, there are not many soldiers who can fight in the dark in the first place.

However, this is not the biggest problem that the Shun army has to face in the night battle, the biggest problem that the Shun army has to face in the night battle, and even the biggest problem in the night battle of all armies in this era, including the model army, is how to maintain organization in the dark.

In the dark, the line of sight is restricted, making it difficult to convey various instructions. Even a model army, fighting in such a situation, can easily fall into chaos because of this. And as long as an army such as the Shun army enters a night battle, it will definitely lose its organization immediately, and then it will become a big chaotic war.

If this is just a problem, night battles may even be a good option for the Shun army. Because the organization of the Shun army was originally much lower than that of the model army, in the night battle, it was entirely possible for them to drag the model army into a melee, and then rely on their rich experience in unorganized melee to take advantage. However, another problem in the dark night seriously threatened the Shun army, so that they did not dare to throw their army into the night battle. The problem is the flight of soldiers.

Whether it was the Shun army or the Ming army in general, their soldiers were forced to participate in the war for various reasons. For example, in the Shun army, most of the soldiers came by coercion, and the victory or defeat of the war had almost nothing to do with them. For them, the most important thing in war is how to save their lives, so whenever they have the opportunity, these soldiers will seize the opportunity to become deserters. In normal times, relying on their own soldiers to act as the ammunition pressure of the Overseers can still force them to fight, but if such soldiers are put into night battles, they will definitely disperse in a hurry if they are not visible to the Overseers in the dark. Therefore, only those who are loyal enough, or who have a stake in the outcome of the war, can be thrown into the night fight. In this way, in night battles such as raiding camps, among the Shun army, those who can really enter the battle are the personal soldiers of those generals; And the general Ming army, only the general's family can do such work, and even the Eight Banners Army has to worry that those coats will take the opportunity to escape. By contrast, the somewhat nationalistic brainwashed model army has far fewer problems in this regard. However, because they are significantly stronger in organization than their opponents, they are certainly reluctant to engage in large-scale, low-organization battles.

The distance between the military camps of the two sides is not too far, but it is just over a mile. And the troops who came out to steal the camp naturally did not dare to walk with torches, so everyone could only grope their way forward. And because they were worried that they would be discovered by the opponent's ambush army, both sides avoided the official road, and both sent capable teams to go ahead and search for the opponent's possible ambush army. The teams of both sides went north from the east side of the official road and the other south from the west side of the official road, but they just avoided each other.

Liu Mangui knew that although it was unlikely that this night attack would really kill the other party, this operation was also very important to cover the retreat of his own army. And if he can perform well in this battle, his stepfather will definitely promote him. So he's still very hopeful to be successful.

The soldiers of the Shun army groped their way forward, and the journey was quite smooth, and they did not encounter any ambush troops. So much so that Liu Mangui couldn't help but think that the Ming army on the opposite side was coming all the way, too tired, and too arrogant, so that he didn't take the Shun army in his eyes at all, and was completely defenseless. He couldn't help but think in his heart, such as quietly touching into the camp of the Ming army, and then killing people while setting fires, in the dark, the Ming army bombed the camp in chaos, and then ...... This kind of sweet dream. Liu Mangui continued to move forward with his troops, and after a while, and then the faint starlight, he could vaguely see the camp of the Ming army. But at this moment, there was a dog barking in front of me.

The night defense of the model army camp relied heavily on military dogs. They are far superior to humans in both sight and hearing, so they are always the first to spot enemy forces that try to take cover of the night. This makes it very difficult for other armies to sneak up on Model Army's barracks at night.

Hearing the barking of dogs, Liu Mangui knew that he had just made a dream of killing people and setting fire to the camp of the Ming army was shattered, but when he saw that the enemy's military camp was not far away, it seemed that as long as he rushed a few steps, he could rush over. Liu Mangui shouted and rushed over with those Shun troops. He had only taken a few steps forward when he heard a scream in front of him, but it was from a scout who was exploring the path in front. The scout shouted, "Be careful, there are bamboo sticks on the ground!" ”

Sticking bamboo sticks around the camp at night was also a common means of fortification. Such a trick was used even into the twentieth century. Until the Vietnam War and the Sino-Vietnamese border war in later generations, the Vietnamese still used this trap in the jungle, and relied on this ancient method to bring certain casualties to the Americans and Chinese. To deal with this, the PLA even at one time added a thin steel plate to the soles of the soldiers' liberation shoes.

The shout slowed down the pace of several people who were rushing forward. Everyone didn't dare to raise their feet to run, but only dared to move with their feet on the ground. Sure enough, as soon as I moved, I came across a lot of things. I think it's all that kind of bamboo skewers.

At this time, right next to them, there was a sudden bang, as if someone had set off a cannon fight. Then a fire quickly burned around them, and in the blazing firelight, the figures of the soldiers of the Shun army immediately became extremely clear.

"This fire? Hurry back ......," Liu Mangui shouted.

Liu Mangui didn't know why this fire suddenly burned, he didn't know that there were several fire pipes fixed in this fire, and next to these fire pipes were gunpowder sulfur and other things, and then firewood soaked in whale oil, all of which could be burned when a spark was seen. The fire hose is connected to the back of the camp wall by a rope, and if the defenders pull the rope hard, the whole fire can be burned almost in the blink of an eye.

The soldiers of the Shun army were stunned by this change, and before they could fully comprehend, the cannon on the opposite camp wall rang out. Immediately, more than a dozen soldiers of the Shun army were knocked to the ground by the flying shotguns.

When Liu Mangui turned around and fled, he tripped over something and fell, but he just dodged the shot. He knew that he had stepped into a trap, and that a little slower movement would be the only way to die, so he jumped up and ran backwards after the cannon, and ran into the darkness almost in the blink of an eye.

Liu Mangui ran violently for a while, until he was sure that the Ming army could no longer see him, and then he stopped and gasped for breath. He looked around, there was no one around, and it was clear that the people who had come with him had fled. Liu Mangui knew that the Ming army had only fired one shot just now, and it couldn't kill too many people no matter what. Most of the people should have run out like him. It's just that they ran away in the dark. However, most of these people are the personal soldiers of the generals of the Shun army, and their loyalty is still guaranteed. So Liu Mangui estimates that these people will still touch back. So he looked at the stars, discerned the direction, and touched in the direction of the Shunjun barracks.