More than 100 miles west of Baoan County, a team of cavalry was chasing more than a dozen horse bandits. During the chase, both the pursuing cavalry and the fleeing bandits fired at each other with bows and arrows or firearms, and from time to time someone was knocked off their horses.

With a thud, an arrow pierced the back of a bandit riding a motley horse in front of him. The bandit shook his body and fell off his horse.

The rest of the bandits ignored their fallen companions and continued to run away with their horses. One of the horse bandits put on his bow and arrows, turned around and prepared to counterattack, only to find that the leader of the enemy cavalry had already caught up, and the other party was also bending his bow and arrows to aim at him.

The two men facing each other released their bowstrings almost simultaneously, and the two sharp arrows almost grazed their respective tail feathers, striking their master's target.

The leader of the cavalry widened his eyes and looked pale at the swift arrows. Although he tried to dodge, the feather arrow hit him accurately in the chest.

However, the leader of the cavalry after being hit by the arrow did not die, and after his figure only shook for a while, he quickly stabilized and saw that there was no major problem. It seems that the feathered arrows fired by the horse bandits in a hurry failed to penetrate the cloth armor on the cavalry leader.

The feathered arrows shot by the cavalry leader also hit the target accurately, but the horse bandit did not have any good armor, and the sharp arrow entered from the back of the horse bandit, and the arrow protruded directly from the horse bandit's chest. With a strong reluctance, the bandit leaned over and fell off his horse.

The other horse bandits who fled saw that another of their companions had been shot and killed, and after a while, they raised their throats and exchanged words. Immediately, three horse bandits turned their horses' heads and rushed resolutely towards the cavalry with their sabers, but they were all opponents of the cavalry team by their bloody chopping skills. After a few rounds, the bandits were quickly overwhelmed by the cavalry.

Although they did nothing, the sacrificial attack of these horse bandits succeeded in delaying the enemy's pursuit. Several other bandits took advantage of this opportunity to escape a long distance, as long as they turned into a ravine not far ahead. They will be able to take advantage of the terrain and successfully escape the sight of their pursuers.

Just as the bandits were getting closer and closer to their target, another group of cavalry was sent out of the ravine. The cavalry, led by a cavalry leader armed with a line gun, charged at the bandits. Several horse bandits, who felt deeply uncomfortable, hurriedly drove their horses to change directions and fled. However, the consumption of horsepower was too large, and he still failed to escape from the pursuit of the other party, and was chased and killed by the cavalry team one by one.

"Third child, is there any big deal?" The leader of the cavalry, armed with a line gun, looked at the cavalry team that had led the team to come later, and asked with some concern to the cavalry with a feathered arrow stuck in his chest.

"It's not broken, but there will definitely be an arrow paralysis left on the chest, and I have to find medicine and wine to wipe it when I go back, and my chest still hurts now." Naturally, it was Zhang Mengcheng who was called the third brother, and after seeing his second brother appear, Zhang Mengcheng immediately led the team to respond. But it didn't help anything, and all the horse bandits were exterminated.

Zhang Mengguang finally breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that his third brother was fine. said to Zhang Mengcheng: "This armor is really good, I will play a few more pictures in the future." Change it for all of us. After finishing speaking, he also touched the same armor on his body with great satisfaction.

The armor on Zhang Mengcheng and Zhang Mengguang was newly made some time ago. Before following Shen Yikui to attack the city and pull out the city, Jinding Mountain captured some craftsmen, including several armor craftsmen with good skills.

In line with the principle of saving life first, Zhang Mengjin originally wanted to use the resources he grabbed to remake a batch of good armor, but limited to the conditions at the time, and in the end, he only let these armor makers renovate the armor of the cottage. After the Zhang family and his gang were recruited by the imperial court, the plan was restarted.

Zhang Mengcheng and Zhang Mengguang have different physiques, so although they are wearing the same body armor. There are still slight differences in the size and weight of their armor. This batch of body armor is roughly more than 20 catties, each armor leaf from the original eight taels shall prevail, after several people hold a sledgehammer and cold forge hundreds of hammers, forge to three taels.

The nail cloth is red in color and nailed with fire paint. In addition, Jindingshan has always advocated the idea of simplicity, and there is no decorative decoration on the cloth. Completely in the style of combat armor. Plus a two-and-a-half-pound helmet and about five or six pounds of arm bindings. It adds up to less than thirty pounds, and it is still relatively light to wear.

"At the moment, the village is still busy with farming, and we don't have so many materials on hand. Let's wait until later. The ten pairs of new armor sent by the eldest brother have already exhausted us enough. Zhang Mengcheng is also quite satisfied with this armor, the armor he wore before weighed six or seven pounds, not to mention, and slightly because of the width of the sleeves, it was a little too heavy on the shoulders. Every time he shot an arrow in that armor, he didn't feel very comfortable. It's finally much better now.

Zhang Mengguang also knew that at present, for the cottage, the real food is the most important, so he didn't say much about his third brother. He and Zhang Mengcheng gathered two teams of cavalry, and after collecting the gains on the battlefield, they would return to the cottage with their wounded soldiers.

These bandits have been making trouble on their turf lately, in order to strangle their gang of runaways. The cavalry and infantry teams that had been busy with farming in the stockade had regrouped, and had been waiting for this group of horse bandits to emerge for the past few days. Today, we have finally succeeded in exterminating them, and we can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Master, all the horses that ran away have been brought back." Su He took a few people to bring the horse bandits' war horses over and reported to the Xiucai master directly under him.

"Gather all the horses, check the battlefield again, and we'll go back." Zhang Mengcheng gave some instructions, and asked Su He to start working again. Zhang Mengcheng is still quite satisfied with Su He's ability to do things.

Zhang Mengcheng had asked Su He to collect other materials scattered on the battlefield, and at the same time asked Xi Gui to inform Li Yang of the rear team. The leader of the concession team came with the vehicle behind and dragged the dead horse back on the ground as quickly as possible. Calculating the time, Ma Xiangzhong, who led the team in the other direction, should have joined him.

Zhang Mengcheng and Ma Xiangzhong each led a team of cavalry and searched for the horse bandits in two directions. As a result, he was bumped into, and then quickly sent a signal for Zhang Mengguang of the rear team to outflank him, and Zhang Mengcheng decisively launched a surprise attack.

The level of this gang of horse bandits' immediate chopping was not very good, and in the confrontation with Zhang Mengcheng and others, they were actually beaten with a score of 7 to 0. It's just that a few of the horse bandits in this gang have quite a level of riding and archery skills, and in the subsequent chase battle, the sharp arrows fired by several of them caused three people in Zhang Mengcheng's cavalry team to be shot and wounded, and five horses to death.

The sentry cavalry team with the best cavalry and archery level in Jinding Mountain went to Fort Duhe. Except for him and Su He, the other members of Zhang Mengcheng's team were not good at riding and archery. In order to deal with these horse bandits, Zhang Mengcheng could only personally step forward and shoot with Su He. Coupled with the deterrence of Xigui's musket, he finally knocked out these few stabbing ideas in the horse bandits.

"Second brother, how does the riding and archery level of Dazi in the north compare with the people in our village?" Zhang Mengcheng pulled out the feather arrow on his chest and asked Zhang Mengguang, who was inspecting the captured war horse on the side.

"Some of the people I have seen who escaped to serve as soldiers in our Ming official army are not as high as Lao Fan and Ma Ergao, and they are worse than the one named Su He under you. When I used to fight in the battle, I had seen a few people who were similar to Ma Er. I've seen even Dazi, who is more powerful than Ma Er, and that ability may be compared to that of Lao Fan. The second brother Zhang Mengguang replied while inspecting the war horse.

After inspecting a war horse in front of him, he felt that he didn't like it, and when he turned around and saw that his brother was silent and silent, Zhang Mengguang continued: "Don't expect to be able to practice to the point of Lao Fan, most of his skills are in his fate." If you keep practicing, you should be able to practice like Ma Er. In fact, ordinary Dazi is like our farmers in the Ming Dynasty, livestock is their crops, and it takes a lot of time to take care of them, and they don't have so much time to practice their skills. As long as you are willing to put in the effort, you will spend more time practicing than them. I must be able to practice better than them, anyway, you don't have to worry about food and clothing in our village. ”

Zhang Mengcheng didn't expect him to have Fan Shunjiang's level, but he always thought that Su He, who was stronger than himself, was already a rare riding archer, but he didn't expect Su He to be just better than the average Mongolian Ding. He couldn't help but be a little worried about the battle between Duhe Fort and the Mongol rangers in the future, but he hoped that the dozens of bird guns that had been transferred over could effectively support his eldest brother.

Looking at the second brother who had changed to another war horse for inspection, Zhang Mengcheng asked: "Second brother, you can't ride your safflower now, and you can't catch Dazi's bow without a good horse, don't you plan to practice bows and arrows again?" ”

"I can't practice anything in these months, anyway, there are old fans in the rangers to catch and fight. We have a few hundred cavalry, and it's time for me to play my part when it's time to hedge. You don't want to practice everything, you have brothers. Just do your part well. ”

After Zhang Mengcheng heard his second brother's words, he felt that it made sense. Now that they are all recruited, they don't have to be afraid all the time, and they can deal with various situations as a generalist. Now Duhe Fort is a regular army, and their duties are very simple, just cooperate to intercept Dazi. Everyone has their own division of labor, as long as they do their part well, they are not afraid of any threshold that cannot be crossed.