Early the next morning, about 80 women from the cat'er fort came to the camp to help with the cooking. The cooking place was an open space in the cat's ear fort, and after about an hour, breakfast was ready, and Zheng Ke organized the 17,80 people in the fort and lined up to eat together.

has an example of the water and land battalion queuing, and there is no chaos in the scene. After a while, everyone started eating, and the amount of food of these people startled the Zhu Houzhao brothers, basically no one's food was less than 1 catty, and the most petite women all ate more than 1 catty of rice, fortunately, they made more today, otherwise it may not be enough.

The less than 200 people of the Cat-Ear Fort ate the food of the 400 soldiers of the land and water battalion, but no one laughed at them, and they ate no less than these burgers for the first time. During the whole meal, there were many people crying, and the crying made people's hearts sour. Not long after eating, the sergeant who had gone to the north to reconnoiter last night came back, and then reported the news to the Zhu Houzhao brothers. It turned out that it was not only the first line of Maoerzhuang Maoerbao that was invaded by the north at the same time, but also the various military forts to the west had Tartar grass valley teams, and the westernmost part of the investigation was Tucheng, where there were about 300 Tartars, who were grabbing grain and burning fields, plundering and killing people, and there were also a small number of Tartars in the various military forts north of Yang and Wei near Maoerbao Fort.

Brother Zhu Houzhao asked these people to go to eat and rest first, and then found Zheng Baihu and asked about the surrounding terrain. Zheng Baihu then took the map left by his father and began to explain it to the Zhu Houzhao brothers and Dong Qinghai.

About an hour later, Zhu Houwei said, "Organize everyone to dig trenches." "Digging trenches is no stranger to Zhu Houzhao and Dong Qinghai, and Zheng Baihu is a little confused. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there were basically no trenches to fight, and the appearance of real trenches was not until the first time, and the Second World War was also regarded as a system. The water and land battalion has trained in the capital camp for a period of time before, so it is no stranger, and this thing needs to be cooperated to play the greatest role.

After breakfast, Zhu Houwei and Zheng Baihu took dozens of people out of Mao'er Fort to check the terrain on the spot. On the way, Zhu Houzhao asked, "How can you be sure that they will return the same way?" If we don't go from here, we'll be useless. ”

Zhu Houwei smiled, "The 3,000 Tartars who ran into the hinterland should be to pick up the big man, and he is also a big man in the army of the little prince (Dayan Khan), if they return to the grassland, it is safest to take the first line of Maoerbao Maoerzhuang, once they pass Jining Haizi, they will be out of the Ming Dynasty's sphere of influence." ”

Zhu Houzhao thought about it and nodded. Dong Qinghai asked, "Second Highness, didn't the little prince just surrender all the tribes north of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty?" Even if you want to go out of the Ming Dynasty, there are many routes. ”

Zhu Houwei closed his eyes slightly, and said slowly, "The little prince has just defeated the relatively powerful Tumut Ministry, but the time is too short to stabilize people's hearts, and many people in the Tumut Ministry are dissatisfied, so they wantonly invade the Daming Border Fort to replenish supplies." Didn't that Jinyi Wei say a few days ago, the grain in the fields of Dongshengwei, Yulinwei, Zhenyuwei and other places in the past two years has been robbed by the Tartars, but they have not set fire to the fields, and there are relatively few people who kill people by breaking some small military forts or civilian forts, and most of them are taken captive to the north. And the nearest Tartar near these places is the Tumut Ministry, they are replenishing supplies, and they don't dare to provoke the Ming Dynasty excessively, and what they have done in the past has been somewhat restrained. But the situation on the Eastern Front was basically the same, killing people, seizing grain, and burning fields, mainly to weaken the power of the Ming Dynasty in the north. Because of this, the big people lurking in Datong did not dare to go north from the western front and return to the north, so they could only send troops from their sphere of influence on the eastern front to help, and they could only go back to the eastern front. ”

Zhu, Dong, and Zheng all nodded and agreed very much. As he spoke, he had arrived at the site of his main observation. As far as the eye can see, the terrain is flat and there is no danger to defend. This place is less than 10 miles away from Mao'er Fort, which is considered to be in the middle of Mao'er Fort and Maoerzhuang. As a result of arriving here, there are three roads in the plain, which are called T-shaped slopes by the locals.

It is said to be a slope because the land looks flat, but if you look closer, you can still see that the terrain in the north is slightly higher than that in the south. The three intersections are due north, south and southeast. Due north and south are Maoerzhuang and Maoerbao respectively, and the road in the southeast direction has to run about 20 miles, and then there is the horse drying platform, the horse drying platform is a thousand households, there are more soldiers in it, and there are many small military forts to the north.

The west side of the road due north is Xiaocang Mountain, and the east side is Dacang Mountain, and the road is between the two mountains. The mountain is not high, but it is difficult for cars and horses to climb. It is impossible for these Tartars returning to the north to go to the mountain, and there are many military forts around the road to the southeast, so these Tartars will not go there, so the road due north is basically the place of battle.

Brother Zhu Houwei looked at it and couldn't help scratching his head a little, it was too flat and too wide. Very good for cavalry, but bad for the defenders. Looking around, the widest point is about 2 kilometers, and the narrowest point is 500 meters. The Tartars are all cavalry, they are very fast, and I don't know if they will have time to dig trenches. Time was running out, and the Zhu Houzhao brothers decided to dig trenches at 500 places, so they ordered everyone in Mao'er Fort and the water and land battalion to bring all the supplies here, and then began to dig the soil.

It only took 2 hours, and all the people and materials in the cat's ear fort were transported to the starting site. During the battle, the sergeants of Mao'er Fort also have to participate in the battle, and it would not be safe to continue to place the old and weak in Mao'er Fort, so they were all sent here, and when it was time to fight, just send the old and weak up the mountain. The works began under the command of the amphibious battalion.

There are two trenches to be dug this time, the southern one is 1 meter deep and 3 meters wide, and the north one is 1 meter deep and 2 meters wide, and the two trenches in the north and south are only one meter apart.

There are 300 shovels brought by the amphibious battalion in the side van, and the shape of the shovel is made according to the sapper shovel of later generations, but only the role of shoveling soil, due to the problem of materials, the quality is also much worse than the famous sapper shovel of later generations. With these shovels and a few cat-ear forts, the soil here is not hard, and the speed of the project is quite fast.

The personnel and materials are all here, and the meals are directly cooked here. The abundant food made the 200 or so people in Maoerbao burst into great enthusiasm for work. There are very few people over the age of 50 in the fort, so almost everyone has done a lot of work, except for the children who can't walk yet. By evening, a large trench to the south was halfway completed.

The excavated soil was not wasted, it was all packed in sacks and then fortifications were strengthened. At a distance of 30 meters from the trench to the south, a wall about 1 meter high and about 1 meter wide was piled up with sacks. At Zhu Houwei's suggestion, the sacks in the middle were filled with sharp things, some were spear heads, some were short knives, and some arrows, the characteristic of these things was that they were all rusty, and once they were scratched by these things, they were very prone to tetanus and other injuries. These things are taken out of the warehouse of the cat's ear burger, although the quantity is not much, but it is also considered waste.

The next day the work was still going on, and by the afternoon the trench to the south had been completed, and the small trench to the north had been dug halfway, and if it had not stopped, it was estimated that it would be completed by about 7 p.m.

At 4 p.m., the 10 people who were scouting south of Mao'er Fort were led to the trench by the two people who were waiting there to respond, and then reported the investigation.

The situation is similar to what Zhu Houzhao's brothers guessed, these 3,000 people went south not to attack the city but to respond. These 10 people followed overnight, followed these 3,000 people to the vicinity of Yang Hewei, and then saw a horse army of about 500 people in the Ming Dynasty, chasing and killing less than 100 people. These people also rode horses, and the speed of the horses was obviously faster than that of the Ming Dynasty, and it was impossible to identify them from their clothes, but these people were very good at riding and archery, and while marching quickly, they turned around and bent their bows and arrows, which was the most famous attack method of the Mongols - Mangugu (the ancient Romans called the archery method of the Sabbatarians). The Ming army couldn't catch up and kept losing manpower, so they had to follow from a distance, and this strategy also saved themselves. The 3,000 Tartars from the north had already met with those 100 people, and if the Ming army was entangled with these 100 people at that time, it was estimated that it would be more than lucky.

No matter what the reason, the 500-odd Ming army is still far away with more than 3,000 Tartars, and it seems that they are going to be sent out of the country. The sergeant of Cat's Ear Fort, who had returned to report the news, said that the leader of the more than 3,000 Tartars had now become one of the more than 100, but he could not see it clearly from a distance, but the man's horse was pure white and his height was a cut higher than that of the surrounding Tartars. The two Zhu Houzhao brothers glanced at each other and thought of the western horse captured in Huairen.

The most important news is that the Tartars have basically returned the same way, and it is estimated that it will be tomorrow morning when they get here, and the battle will begin.