Zhu Yuanzhang's army began to advance in a northeasterly direction...... The scouts are far away.

Luochuan is a terrain like a flat river, scouts are relatively easy to scout, and you can see far away from it, which is quite suitable for these novice scouts to exercise, if you start to march in complex mountains or ravines, you will faint these rookie scouts.

Through relays, they kept briefing them on the situation ahead.

"Report, Brother Zhu, there is a deserted village ahead, and there is no one in it...... It looks like it has been abandoned for more than a year...... Everywhere is full of ash and cobwebs......"

"Report, Brother Zhu, there is a small river ahead, it has dried up, our army can walk directly through the riverbed......"

"Report, Bugling Zhu, there's a grove ahead...... The trees are mostly dead, and it looks very scary...... We went in and reconnoitred, there were no ambushes inside, and we could go through the ...... directly."

Every hour or two after the scouts, a report would come back. In fact...... For the old scouts who are familiar with the military, such painless and unimportant information will not be reported one by one, so as not to waste their foot strength and saliva, but this group of scouts is the first time to come out to act, and they are quite new to this kind of reconnaissance operation, and they have passed everything they have seen back.

Xu Renjie, Wang Er, Poodle, Ma Xiaotian and others also felt fresh, and before they arrived, they knew everything in front of them, and this experience made them feel in a trance, as if everything was under their control.

But Zhu Yuanzhang has long been accustomed to this kind of march, and he does not have this kind of freshness of wanting to hear everything, he only needs to listen to information that is useful for marching and fighting.

He did not blame the scouts for reporting indiscriminately, you must know that people's hearts are flesh and blood, if they work hard, but are scolded by the superiors, then this soldier will not work hard in the future, he will lose his motivation, become a mediocre man, and disobey the orders of his superiors. But if his boss encourages his actions, he can do his job better and better.

The more new recruits are, the more they need to be affirmed, so Zhu Yuanzhang will never scold these scouts who report trivial matters, but use another way to gently remind them of what is useful information and what is useless.

For example, when a scout reports that he has found a dry riverbed or something, he doesn't compliment, just nods his head to indicate that he knows. But when the scout reports that he has found a village ahead, he will look slightly interested and encourage the scouts to continue. Such an obvious difference in reaction quickly made the scouts understand what kind of intelligence Zhu Bugling likes to listen to, and what kind of things are important for the march.

Two days later, the news reported by the scouts was more cautious, and they began to work hard to find information that could interest Zhu Bugs, so as to obtain Zhu Bugs' praise, and this time when they returned to the cottage after the battle, they could also count more combat exploits and share a few more supplies.

"Report, Zhu Bugling, there are dozens of people killed outside the deserted village in front, some of them are wearing rags, and they look like rogues. Some are neatly dressed, and some look like village warriors...... Maybe Li Panlong's Xiang Yongjun and Miao Mei fought in front...... There were some deaths on both sides, but the rogues died a lot more......"

"What?" Hearing this information, Zhu Yuanzhang's spirits suddenly lifted, and he smiled at the scout: "Good job!" You've made a great contribution, let's go into more detail, what's the situation ahead? ”

When the scout saw that Zhu Bugling's expression was obviously different from a few days ago, he seemed very interested, and he also praised him, the scout immediately felt his whole body strengthened, and excitedly reported: "Just five miles ahead, there is a small deserted village, and we have found traces of three or four hundred people resting and staying in the village......

"Well, how did you tell that there were three or four hundred people on the other side?" Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly asked.

The scout perked up, he knew that Zhu Bugs was testing his scout skills, and quickly replied: "You taught me, judge by the dirt on the ground." ”

In later generations, it is actually quite difficult to judge how many people have stayed in a place, but in this era, it is very easy! Because people in these years love to defecate in the open, in order not to fall behind during the march, everyone desperately endures, but as soon as they arrive at the rest place, they will run to the side of the road to solve it casually, and there is no concept of public toilets.

The scouts have studied with Zhu Yuanzhang, and as long as they look at the open defecation in a place, they can roughly estimate how many people are staying. Although this estimate is not entirely accurate, it is not difficult to calculate that there are about a few hundred people.

In addition, judging how many people there are in an army can also be through temporary stoves, fires, etc., which is another way to judge. Because Zhu Yuanzhang was tracking a rogue army, it was easy to make mistakes in calculating the number of people with stoves and fires, so this scout used open defecation to judge the number of enemy soldiers, which was very smart.

"Excellent! Didn't follow me in vain. Zhu Yuanzhang praised it, and the scout was praised by the leader, and he was immediately refreshed, his face was full of red light, and he continued to report: "We followed the traces of these people and walked forward for a while, and when we arrived outside the village, we found a battlefield, and dozens of people were closed on the ground...... It seems that there was an encounter, and both the Liukou and the Xiangyong Army had losses, and the losses of the Liukou were relatively large, so they should have lost and continued to flee in the northeast direction. The Xiang Yongjun also chased after him......"

"Wait...... How do you tell if the outcasts have fled? Xu Renjie next to him was also interested, he followed Zhu Yuanzhang to learn command, this reconnaissance technique is really quite blind.

When the scout heard Xu Renjie's question, his face suddenly brought a smug look: "It's also the judgment method that Zhu Buggy taught me...... Just look at the corpses on the ground to understand......"

"Huh? What do you think? Xu Renjie Qi said: "Look where are there more people who die?" Not necessarily, sometimes the side with more dead people is the winner. ”

"It's not that there are many dead people...... scout said seriously: "Zhu Bugle taught us that if there is a battle between the two armies, the losing side does not have time to pick up the corpses of their comrades, they will throw the corpses down and flee for their lives. The victorious side is different, they should simply clean up the battlefield, if there is enough time, they will bury the corpses of their comrades, and if they don't have enough time, they will also move the corpses of their companions aside and put them away when they are resting, and then return to clean up after the pursuit of the enemy army. ”

The scout said proudly: "We found that the corpses of the Xiang Yong Army were neatly placed side by side by the father-in-law, and the corpses of the Liukou were lying down in a mess...... Judging from this point, the Xiang Yongjun is determined to win this stream of rogues. ”

"Awesome!" Xu Renjie stretched out his thumb and gestured at the scout: "You scout is really good." ”

The scout blushed: "It's all taught by Zhu Bugle......"

Xu Renjie spread his hands at Zhu Yuanzhang and said, "Brother Zhu, what did you do before?" How do I feel that there is nothing in the world that you can't do! ”

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head with a smile and did not explain. This military knowledge was slowly cultivated in his previous life as a horseman, and he couldn't explain it clearly, so he waved his hand to the northeast and said: "Let's step up the march, it seems that the situation is very serious, and the township warrior army has bitten Miao Mei's tail...... If this continues, the morale is relatively high and the supplies are sufficient, and the township brave army will definitely be able to eat all of Miao Mei's group. ”

Xu Renjie flattened his mouth: "Brother Zhu, I can guess that the morale of the Township Yongjun is relatively high, but how do you know that the supply of the Township Yongjun is better than that of Miao Mei and her group?" Are you really clairvoyant? ”

"No...... I don't have to look at it to know. Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "This is analyzed from the perspective of people's hearts...... Think about it carefully, if you are Miao Mei, I am Wang Zuohang...... If you separate from my army and take a few hundred people with you, if you want to take a lot of food, can I agree? ”

"This ......" Xu Renjie sighed: "Yes, Miao Mei is separated from Wang Zuohang's army, and she should only be able to take away some people who are unwilling to surrender, maybe they have some weapons with them, but they definitely can't take away food." ”

"That's right!" Zhu Yuanzhang's brows furrowed tightly: "The army without supplies will continue to lose its combat effectiveness over time, and will eventually be devoured by the pursuers behind, if we can't catch up with Miao Mei quickly, he will not escape death." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang's estimation is not wrong at all, in the real history, Miao Mei took hundreds of rogues who were unwilling to surrender to the imperial court, and fled after leaving Wang Zuohang's army, but it was so bad that the township warrior army led by Li Panlong, a talented talent in Qingjian, pursued and finally died in battle, writing a bloody page in the history of the peasant war at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

It's just that this matter is too small, and the character of Miao Mei is too insignificant, and Zhu Yuanzhang didn't notice such a small person at all when he was observing in the sky in his previous life. He could guess Miao Mei's fate entirely by relying on his own experience and judgment.

The team began to speed up, trotting to the northeast, and sure enough, after running for five miles, a blood-stained deserted village appeared in front of everyone, and on the plain outside the village, dozens of corpses of rogue were lying in a mess, and there were several corpses of village warriors side by side.

If there was no scout to introduce him first, Xu Renjie would not have understood what this scene represented, but after the scout's explanation, he only glanced at the situation in front of him, and then united all the information one by one, and everything in front of him seemed to be alive, and it could tell him a lot of things that had happened.

"With such scouts, it's really under control!" Xu Renjie couldn't help but sigh.