Relying on this strategy to confuse the enemy, Li Chengdong succeeded in making the bandit leaders in Dongtai City think that tens of thousands of officers and soldiers had come, so they abandoned the city and fled. Then he set up an ambush by the bridge of the river on the road where the enemy fled, and killed the bandit army halfway through.

Although the bandit army numbered four or five thousand people, which was four times the number of Li Chengdong's left outpost, after all, they were all untrained stove salt people, a group of rabble.

Such a rabble can be easily defeated even in a head-on battle with a thousand people from Li Chengdong's left post, let alone an ambush attack.

In just one round of assault, thousands of bandits were killed, and the wolves and pigs scattered and fled, never to be the same again, and no one dared to resist.

Li Chengdong commanded his subordinates to disperse and pursue, and 1,200 people divided into several ways to pursue in units of 100 people. Although the Pingnan New Army only trained the March New Army, it only focused on training the queue, and the soldiers' individual martial arts skills were very unfamiliar, but even so, it was more than enough to deal with these bandits who were mainly stove households.

Li Chengdong stood on a high post with a few personal guards, and couldn't help nodding secretly when he saw the neat formation of his troops advancing and retreating. In terms of the overall coordination of obedience and discipline of the army, this newly formed army was far stronger than the Gao Jie army that he had been staying there all along.

When Gao Jie was under Gao Jie, although the army numbered tens of millions, the discipline was very loose, and it was all supported by the henchmen of the generals, and most of the other soldiers were tattered and had no combat effectiveness at all.

And now, the whole army no longer distinguishes any ordinary soldiers, all the soldiers are strictly trained, fully fed, and paid, in this sense, the whole army is the same as the previous family.

What makes Li Chengdong feel more comfortable is the obedience and discipline of the whole army, whether it is marching or camping in peacetime, everything has rules and regulations, and he does not need to worry about it at all, and when commanding on the battlefield, his orders can be implemented very well, and the command is very smooth.

At present, it is just that I have never seen a battle and has no experience, and once it matures after a few battles, the combat effectiveness of this army will be limitless!

"Pingnan Hou is really a generation of masters!" Unconsciously, Li Chengdong exclaimed. For the first time, he had a sense of belonging to the Pingnan Army, and he was full of admiration for Pingnan Hou Chen Yue.

Li Chengdong knew very well that the shogunate system and the Pingnan army system were the reasons why this new army, which had only undergone three months of training, had such combat effectiveness. And all of this is due to the shogunate system designed by Chen Yue.

Li Yuanyin, the herald standing next to him on horseback, glanced at Li Chengdong in surprise, and silently turned his head to look at the battlefield, in Li Yuanyin's heart, it was rare to hear Li Chengdong admire a person so much.

The battle on the battlefield has come to an end, the bandits did not form any resistance at all, but scattered and fled, the Pingnan army cut and surrounded the bandit army with a hundred-man team, a large number of bandits who had no way out surrendered on their knees, and a small number fled into the dense forest and reeds.

"Summons, stop the hunt!" Li Chengdong gave the order, since he had won a big victory, it was pointless to pursue and kill again.

Li Chengdong still remembers the lecture of Chen Yue, the Marquis of Pingnan, before the troops were dispatched, that the main purpose of this battle was to quickly quell the riots and stabilize the salt area, and as long as the area in charge could be quickly stabilized, it would be a great achievement, not to see how many rebels were killed. Chen Yue repeatedly stressed that most of the people involved in the riots were forced to helpless stove households, and they should be appeased first. Only punish the evil and threaten and never ask, this is the strategy of sending troops to quell the chaos this time.

As a newcomer who had recently joined the Pingnan Army, Li Chengdong was trembling on weekdays for fear of making a mistake, and now he did not dare to disobey Chen Yue's military orders.

What's more, there are thieves waiting for him in Dongtai County, which is empty, compared to the great achievement of recovering Dongtai, it is nothing to catch and kill a few more rebels.

As Li Chengdong's order was handed down, the 100-man teams stopped the pursuit and escorted the prisoners back.

The losses of the Southern Army in this battle were minimal, except for one who accidentally broke his foot, and two who chased to the river and accidentally fell into the river and drowned half dead, the others were unscathed.

Of course, the rebels' weapons are extremely poor, and the lack of firearms and arrows is the biggest reason, in fact, it is not nothing, the wind broke the county and grabbed a lot of firearms and arrows from several salt inspection divisions, but his subordinates will use less.

The Pingnan Army is not full of armor because it has just become an army, after all, the Ordnance Department can't make enough armor to equip the whole army in just three months, but there is no shortage of shields in the army. There were three shield-bearers in each small banner, protected by shields, attacked by pikemen, and fire-gunned crossbowmen fired from behind, and in front of the well-coordinated Pingnan army, the rebels composed of salt people and stove households could not form any resistance at all, so the losses were minimal.

In this battle, more than 300 rebels were killed, more than 3,000 were captured, and the rest of the rebels fled without a trace.

Li Chengdong did not delay any longer, simply cleaned up the battlefield, buried the dead rebels, left most of the army to escort the prisoners, and quickly headed for Dongtai County with two hundred-man teams.

In Dongtai County, the city that has just experienced a ravage is full of devastation, and the people are sadly tidying up their homes, treating their injured relatives, collecting the dead corpses, and mending the dilapidated homes.

The bandits are gone, and they have to go on with their lives. And for the nearly 10,000 people in the city, there is even greater fear in their hearts. They naturally knew that the bandit army left because the officers and soldiers came, and the officers and soldiers were not much better than the bandits! Bandits are like combs, and soldiers are like grates, which is the best portrayal of the army in this era.

The vast majority of the people trembled, hiding in their homes and waiting for the officers and soldiers to enter the city, to meet the unknown fate.

When Mantianfeng led the bandit army to attack the city, Dongtai County ordered suicide, and other officials such as the lord Bo were killed by the bandits, and there were no officials in the whole city, and no one organized to welcome the army into the city.

When Li Chengdong led the army into the city, what he saw was that the city gates were wide open, and the entire city was closed, and the streets were empty, only the corpses on the roadside, the dark red mottled blood stains on the streets, the broken doors, and the black smoke still rising from the county government's back house showed that this was a city that had just experienced a catastrophe, not an empty city.

"Pass the order, the prisoners will be held in the military camp in the west of the city for the time being, send someone to report to Xiao Yingzheng, and the others will put out the fire first!" Li Chengdong handed down the military order.

Eliminating the rebels is the first step, and the next step is to stabilize the place and solve the problem that the stove household can't sell salt and has no money to buy food, but that has nothing to do with him, the commander, and the battle belonging to Li Chengdong has ended.