Yanglou Cave, Dulong King Barracks.

A crackling stick crackled, and the two strands of the scout leader were beaten to pieces.

In the past two or three months, King Dulong's temper has been very irritable, beating and scolding his soldiers at every turn, and the big and small leaders dare not persuade him, and there is nothing to persuade.

After Song Jiang broke the city, the money and grain population gained countless amounts, recruited troops and horses, and prospered, and one of the seventeen water bandits was counted as one, all of them drank wine in large gulps, ate meat in large pieces, and were indescribably happy. Only King Dulong's troops guarded Shimen and Yanglou Cave, and they tried their best to break the two villages, and they didn't get much oil and water.

A few days ago, he received news that the imperial court had mobilized tens of thousands of troops to encircle and suppress the water bandits, and he was almost so frightened that he fled back to Linxiang directly.

Fortunately, the imperial army did not come to Yangloudong, but went to Tongcheng from the waterway, and King Dulong breathed a sigh of relief for the time being. However, from the night before to the present, none of the spies sent to Chongyang have returned, which makes him smell a faint danger.

There must be some action on the Chongyang side, although the imperial army is gone, the old enemy Wang Kefan Keke is still there.

Life has been so hard, but King Du Long has been staying in this place where birds don't, just to collect the defeated soldiers and reunite the people. Chongyang released several batches of prisoners one after another, and with the addition of other stragglers, his subordinates had recovered to about 2,000 men. However, so many people are empty-handed with a head, and they don't even have all the knives, guns and weapons, if Wang Kefan really comes to attack, he will not be able to resist the enemy, so he can only ask Song Jiang for help.

"Order, send more scouts to scout the horses, and give Lao Tzu an eye on the movements of Chongyang, and report immediately if he finds the official army!"

……

Winter is unexpectedly steep, with yellow mountains and an ancient road winding through the valley, intermittently under the cover of the trees, with only a few sections of road exposed high at the corners.

This ancient road is the only way from Chongyang to Yanglou Cave, the road is lined with deep woods, and the silence in the forest is a little refreshing, as if there is a fierce beast hunting, and danger may occur at any time.

There are all kinds of fierce beasts in the valley woods, but the most dangerous ones are people, and the woods are suitable for concealed ambushes, and they suddenly burst out to kill ......

"When the long is long, when the long ......" a crisp bell sound floated in the distance, breaking the silence in the valley.

Worship the mountain bell!

Baishan bell is a bell brought by the horse gang merchants who walk the mountain road, and it rings all the way. Some friends on the road heard it, and they knew that this group of guests had a friendship with the green forest, and they wanted to borrow some money to buy the road, and they were easy to discuss.

Nowadays, people's hearts are not ancient, and there is no such fool who jumps out first and shouts "I opened this mountain, and I planted this tree".

As the bell rang, a group of young men turned the hillside and walked towards the woods.

There were about thirty or forty of them, all of them in shabby clothes, not like merchants doing business. After walking such a long mountain road, beads of sweat appeared on the foreheads of these men, and they did not speak to each other, but just walked forward mechanically.

Suddenly, there was a whistle in the woods, and five or six people rushed out and pounced on this group of men!

These people were all carrying bright knives in their hands, and they looked like robbers who had robbed houses, but strangely, they all had friendly smiles on their faces.

"Hao Laosi, you're not fucking dead!"

"Jiagui, have you also been put back? It's good to come back, the eldest brother was still talking about you two days ago. ”

"Zhang Datou, Lao Tzu almost killed you with an arrow, fortunately, your big head is still good, and you didn't forget to hang a mountain bell......"

It turned out that they were all acquaintances, everyone was a water bandit under King Dulong, these five or six people in the woods were scouts from Yanglou Cave, and those thirty or forty people were prisoners who had just been released.

"Hao Laosi, Lao Tzu doesn't owe you money, what are you doing with a bitter gourd face?" A scout laughed and scolded, affectionately, and reached out to put his hand on Hao Laosi's shoulder, but Hao Laosi's face was even more ugly, and he dodged to the side, flashing a tall man behind him.

"Hey, dude, are there any other brothers in the woods?" The tall man asked.

"No more ......" the scout replied casually, but he was a little puzzled in his heart, this tall and strong man had an extraordinary bearing, how could he have a very good eye, he seemed to have never seen it before.

Before the words could land, the tall man suddenly pulled out a short knife with a cold light and stabbed it into his chest!

"Do it!"

Tan Xiao stabbed the water bandit scout to death, and the soldiers of the Gongyi battalion also showed their blades one after another, and eliminated several other scouts with three strikes and five divisions, leaving only one confession.

Two miles away, there was a gang of spies of water bandits.

dragged the corpse into the woods and hid it, Tan Xiao and the others escorted several water bandit captives as a guise, and walked forward again......

……

At noon, Wang Kefan led his troops here.

Eight hundred soldiers and more than three hundred auxiliaries, Meng Bao followed behind with two hundred young men, a total of nearly 1,500 people, lined up in a long line on the ancient road. The marching columns were hundreds of meters apart, with scouts in front, three sentinels in the middle, and auxiliary soldiers carrying heavy grain and grass in the back, protected by another sentry.

Seeing the secret message left by Tan Xiao and others, Wang Kefan ordered to stop advancing, climbed to a high place to check, chose an open place as a camp, and ordered Jingliang to blow the camp horn, and the two sentinels lined up to stand guard, and the other soldiers and young men began to build a barrier and set up camp on the road.

Nearly 1,000 people worked together to mark the boundary of the camp on the ground with ropes, and dug trenches along the boundaries.

"Yuntai, what is this trench digging and building a wall doing?" The one who asked was Bu Zuo.

He got a job as a counselor in military affairs with Zhang Kuang, and was sent to Wang Kefan to serve as a supervisor. This originally meant to be a surveillance constraint, but Bu Zuowen was an old fritter, no one wanted to offend, he never behaved after sending troops from Chongyang, and he humbly asked for advice if he didn't understand anything, and he was very polite to Wang Kefan and others.

"Camp, rest here tonight." Wang Kefan's answer was completely unexpected.

"At this time, it is noon, and the army is marching after dinner, why do you build a camp early?"

"The march is not a hurry, I have walked thirty miles today, and it is time to rest."

Time to rest? Bu Zuowen is even more inexplicable, the soldiers and long-term husbands of the Gongyi Battalion are full of energy, and they are digging ditches and building walls in full swing, how can they look a little tired.

"The ancients said that 'the soldiers are noble and fast', Bu someone thought that our army should go straight to the Yanglou Cave and hit King Du Long by surprise, so if he does not move forward, I am afraid that the fighter will be delayed......"

"Does Bu Xianjun like to watch "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" on weekdays?" Wang Kefan suddenly laughed.

"Oh, I've seen it, it's quite exciting." Bu Zuowen's train of thought is a little out of track.

"The so-called 100-mile raid and clever tricks are all stories in the romance commentary, just look at it and laugh, you can't take it seriously." Wang Kefan didn't explain much, and ordered the army to bury the pot and make rice, and the soldiers to rest temporarily.

Running for a hundred miles is the way to defeat, and it is taboo for soldiers.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was an allusion to retreating, and the ancients took thirty miles as a rounding and set the distance of a day's march, which made sense. In ancient times, the road traffic conditions were poor, the soldiers carried heavy armor and weapons, and after a long march, they were exhausted, and they would be loose and relaxed when they rested, and in the event of an emergency, they could not guarantee full combat effectiveness, and they might even be defeated without a fight.

According to the regulations formulated by Wang Kefan, it is advisable for the Gongyi battalion to march 30 miles a day, and never exceed 40 miles, the speed of the march should not be too fast, and it should not be slack off when camping and resting.

The troops set out at dawn with food, plus the time to fight halfway, marched thirty miles in five hours, completed the day's journey, and after eating, spent another four hours building the barracks, and rested just before dark. In this way, the soldiers' mental and physical strength can be guaranteed, and they can meet the enemy at any time, and they are not afraid of the enemy's night attack when camping at night.