Chapter 121: The Bullback Thief

When approaching Jeju, Zhao Yu unexpectedly got the news of a giant thief.

This giant thief is called the Bullback Thief. Their stronghold is located at the junction of Puzhou, Jeju and Guangji Army, and there is a small hill called Niubei Mountain, which is quite dangerous. As early as three or four years ago, there were already three or four bands of thieves here, and the largest group reached about three hundred.

However, the location of these thieves is too good, at the junction of two states and one army. If the Guangji army came to crusade, they would flee to Puzhou or Jeju, and Puzhou or Jeju would send troops to attack, and they would also dodge. Some people may wonder, don't local officers and soldiers join forces to kill or cross the border to chase and kill?

This is a characteristic of the Song Dynasty, which has a sensitive nerve that others can hardly imagine when it comes to military affairs. For this reason, the palace caught fire, because it was too late to despise the emperor, a certain commander arbitrarily mobilized the nearby forbidden army that was not his subordinate to fight the fire, and afterwards it was actually offset by merit and demerit. Is this a palace fire? What is the Royal Palace? It can be said to be one of the symbols of the Great Song Dynasty.

The palace is like this, how dare the people below cross the border to chase and kill? In case you can't eat mutton and are upset, who will you go to cry about?

As for the joint encirclement and suppression of the two states and the first army, the imperial court will not agree, because there are only so many bandits in Niubei Mountain? The maximum number is only 300, and the number of less than 30 or 40 is in the early 500s. Is it necessary to encircle and suppress on such a large scale?

This is a bandit, not a rebel, and the poor combat effectiveness is about the same level as the village soldiers, so it is strange that the imperial court attaches so much importance to it.

The most important thing is that the bullback thief didn't do anything big, and the bullback thief survived in a weird way.

For this reason, this strange situation has lasted for more than ten years, and recently because of the catastrophe, Niubei Mountain was unexpectedly unified, and claimed to have 5,000 troops. In fact, there are only about 2,000 young and strong, and most of the others are old, weak, sick and disabled. Now they are attacking the city and plundering the land in the vicinity, of course, this city is actually some small villages, small towns and the like, and they are not able to move the county seat.

"That's it! Send a scout horse to find out where they are! Zhao Yu excitedly took a few shots and said heavily.

The general judge Chong Shiheng seemed to have known that Zhao Yu would say this, and said with a smile: "Xiaguan has just asked (Li) Lizhong to send a scout horse to investigate, according to the time calculation, there should be information coming back soon!" ”

Not long after Chong Shiheng's words fell, he heard a high-spirited and long voice outside: "Report!" ”

Zhao Yu immediately asked people to lift the tent cloth door, so that the outside scouts could come in.

I saw a dusty detective horse coming to Zhao Yu quickly, kneeling down on one knee and reporting: "Lord Wang, I just found out the information of the bullback thief!" Thirty miles away, they were attacking a small town called Dongkou, and the number of them was probably no less than three or four thousand! ”

Chong Shiheng expressed his opinion on the side. "There are so many people, I'm afraid I've done my best, but there shouldn't be many young people!"

Tanma replied: "Exactly, although the small ones are only watching from two or three miles away, it can be seen that there are not many young and strong, and the old and young and young are about half each. ”

Zhao Yu nodded thoughtfully, and after half a sound, he asked, "How is the equipment?" What is the situation in the town? ”

"The situation in the town is not optimistic, the little one watched outside for half an hour, and found that some of the walls of the town had cracks. In addition, the cattle thieves had already found the small one, and when the little one was leaving, they were still digging a trench on the west side. "Tanma 1510's report.

Zhao Yu already sighed a little in his heart when he heard this, this Tanma is really not professional enough, and he doesn't know how to hide it on the plains or on his own territory. If he leaves from the east, he will naturally make a big detour, and won't this mislead these bullback thieves?

I think that although this is the case, Zhao Yu knows that now is not the time to scold them, and he should give them encouragement, after all, these cavalry are newly formed. Frankly, they were not so much cavalry as mounted infantry, all of them were rough horsemanship!

"You're doing a great job, keep going!" Zhao Yu showed an encouraging expression and said with a smile.

Tanma's expression showed an uncontrollable excited expression, but his tone still maintained a certain calmness, and replied: "Back to the prince, these bullback thieves are very poorly equipped, but they are only equipped with bows and arrows, and they are all hunting bows, and they can shoot a distance of thirty paces at most!" The effective range is about twenty paces! In terms of weapons, most of them are guns and sticks. There are only a few pieces of armor, and they are leather armor, paper armor and the like. Siege weapons and the like are even more rudimentary, except for siege ladders and rams, and it can be seen that they are all newly built. ”

Zhao Yu already had a plan in his heart, and immediately ordered: "Someone! Order Wang Qi's troops to leave Dongkou Town immediately, and be sure to arrive within two hours! If it can't be completed, the official will be demoted by one level! ”

After a pause, Zhao Yu continued: "The Iron Armor Capital, the first camp is ready to fight, and the rest stay in the camp!" ”

The army that was originally camped and rested was running at an astonishing speed after the order was issued, although it was a little messy, but after seven or eight days of training, as well as Zhao Yu's dispatch of the forbidden army at the grassroots level, the army set off.

Among the 3,000 people, Chong Shiheng, Xin Luyin's department, and Zhang Meng's department were left behind, except for their forbidden army. The five thousand people are actually familiar with martial arts, and every time they set up camp, Zhao Yu will arrange someone to train them. In addition to training, the people all have long sticks in their hands, and some have spears, spears and other self-defense, even if someone comes to grab food, it is not that there is not enough protective power.

Although Zhao Yu brought soldiers and horses from the second battalion and one capital, in terms of establishment, it was three-fifths of the Shenjie army, but in fact there were only about 1,300 people. Because these two battalions are the least powerful in the Shenjie army, judging from the comparison of numbers, they are only one-third of the bullback thieves, or even less.

However, as the so-called newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, these soldiers think that they are already forbidden troops, so they are naturally not afraid of these bandits. Although they are treated like forbidden troops, in fact, their combat effectiveness is not even as good as that of some van soldiers.

But these soldiers are not without advantages, they have crossbows! Three hundred crossbowmen who have completed basic training. The crossbow is an easy-to-learn weapon, and it only takes a week for a farmer to learn how to operate him, and of course, the rate of fire or something, don't think too much about it. But for a group of rabble bullback thieves, Zhao Yu was still confident that he would defeat them with a storm of arrows.