If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools.

Once you have decided what you want to do next and have chosen your goals, it is of course necessary to check and determine how powerful you are.

Because the initial destination was the border military town, the armed forces under Li Tai's command could be said to be dispatched this time, and all five hundred soldiers were dispatched. Together with the entourage's respective retinues, a cavalry force of nearly six hundred people was formed.

In the late period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when thousands of troops were often used, such an armed force of several hundred people was not remarkable, but in fact, it should not be underestimated. Even some counties, including a considerable number of Han Hu Haoqiang, could not reach such a scale of armament.

Because these are the elites of Li Tai's trilogy, they are strong men who can be directly armed into battle, and each has a certain amount of bow and horse skills and combat experience.

Under normal circumstances, such a cavalry team often has to be allocated multiple or even twice as many as the number of soldiers and logistics personnel, which can form a force of one or two thousand or even more.

The cavalry team of 600 people can already carry out many conventional and unconventional cavalry formation tactical coordination, and the Hu tribe that has an impact of tens of thousands of people can do it when the battlefield environment and tactical coordination are dominant.

Although Jihu is fierce and untamable, he can't be a soldier for all the people.

The composition of a Jihu tribe is usually divided into the chieftain and his direct line, as well as the dominant elite warriors, the tribal people such as farmers, herdsmen, and craftsmen, and the slaves who have no property and personal freedom at all.

The boundaries between the latter two are not clear, and the people of the tribe are equivalent to the personal property of the chieftain Qu Shuai, except that the former has been attached for a longer period of time, or has a skill, so the situation will be slightly higher than the effort to be completely expendable.

If there is any difference between the two, it is that the slaves at the lowest level may not even have the right to procreate. Because usually the Jihu tribe needs to control the population at a level that matches the output of the environment, otherwise the survival of the entire tribe will be greatly affected.

A Jihu tribe of thousands of people, its core elite armed forces only occupy a small part, and there may not be as many people as Li Tai.

The other large vassal populations are very low in combat effectiveness and organization, and the threat once they are fought is very small. Even after the battle on the frontal battlefield, these populations can be reorganized to increase their own war endurance.

This is also one of the reasons why Li Tai and his subordinates dare to rob the Jihu tribe, as long as they don't run into real hard stubble, they can run if they can't beat it without the drag of heavy logistics.

Because he had already made two preparations, Li Tai carried a lot of ordnance on this trip.

A bow and a knife were standard, three bowstrings were allocated, and each man carried between thirty and fifty arrows. These rations alone were enough for a field battle of considerable proportions.

In addition, there are 80 horse step shields, 30 collar armor, 20 war horse armor and 20 horse lances, although the number is not much, but if the armor is armed, it is enough to perform the tactical coordination of attack and defense.

They did not carry any heavy baggage such as chariots and horses, except for one war horse that was allotted to them, and only sixty idle horses were used to replace and carry supplies.

The key to maintaining a relatively considerable amount of ordnance is the carrying capacity freed up by the reduction in supplies. In terms of food provisions, each person carried two compressed grain cakes with them, which took up very little space, but it was enough to sustain the consumption back and forth.

Soybean meal and other horse food additives carried hundreds of catties, in late autumn, along the river, there is no shortage of hay and other horse food feed in the suburbs.

In addition, two large iron pots, five felt tents for marching, gravel for sharpening knives, and dozens of catties of ointment for maintaining utensils, although there are a lot of materials carried, they have not yet reached the point of affecting mobility.

After making the decision, Li Tai also issued this order to the subordinates, ordering them to rest well, maintain their physical strength, and slightly adjust the organization and equipment ration of the troops.

Li Yantou, Zhu Meng, and Li Zhi each led a team of 100 people to serve as the left and right flanks and the front drive, while Li Tai led the rest of the people to the rear of the Chinese army, uniformly transporting important materials such as armor and military rations. The three teams in the front are responsible for surveying the terrain and looking for targets, and the Chinese army team is responsible for attacking and pulling out defenses.

After making this arrangement and deploying troops and materials, everyone rested early in this temporary camp that night, leaving only a dozen scout sentries to keep watch at the left and near the night.

Li Tai didn't fall asleep for a long time, and suddenly heard a warning sound from outside the tent, and hurriedly grabbed a knife and cloned his clothes out of the felt tent, looked at the soldiers who had entered the prelude and asked, "What's the matter?" ”

"Suddenly there was a fire in the north of the east coast......"

Li Tai followed the direction of the soldiers, and sure enough, he saw a fire shining in the night on the other side of the river, but he couldn't see a clear source of fire, so he thought that the distance should not be close.

"Is there any unusual sound near the left?"

After observing for a while, he asked again, he had just finished calculating here to make jokes, but it would be a little embarrassing if he was taken out of camp by jokers this night.

When the soldiers heard this, they shook their heads, and only said: "Li Senjun has led his troops to the north to investigate, please wait in the camp." ”

Hearing that there was no difference in the distance, Li Tai secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and did not disturb the subordinates who had fallen asleep and rested, only holding a knife by himself and a few cronies waiting in the camp.

More than half an hour passed, and although the fire on the other side had not completely disappeared, it had also dimmed a lot.

Li Zhi hurriedly returned, his brows furrowed darkly, and his expression was slightly serious: "Lord Lang, there is a reed shoal a few miles to the north, you can see the traces of people and horses, it is estimated that there should be more than 200 people, and there are traces left by people and horses swimming on the river beach, and the traces are not like the official army, it should be left by thieves and horses, and the time is the day before yesterday." ”

When Li Tai heard this, he also frowned, pointed to the faint fire on the other side and said: "If the thief Hu Shiwu has just crossed the border, then the fire over there should be to attack and kill the people on the dock wall of the countryside." ”

"It should be, the thief Hu Fan is haunted, and it is the norm to go to the countryside for food. It's just that there are still few things to see, and I can't tell which thief it is. ”

Li nodded after hearing this, and when he saw that it was getting late, he said again: "Lord Lang, please rest first, it is inconvenient to cross the river tonight, wait until tomorrow, explore the lowly post first, and then cross the river in the rear." There are not many garrisons on the left, and there are no strong troops in the territory, so these thieves should continue to wander in the territory. ”

When Li Tai heard this, he nodded, and glanced hatefully at the direction that had been submerged in the darkness of the night, and then returned to sleep.

On the morning of the next day, the team crossed the Luoshui River with a pontoon bridge and a swimming crossing in the shallows of the Wudu River in Jihubu, and entered Shicheng County from Diaoyin.

The so-called counties in this realm are only in name. The nearest military defense area is still located in Fushi City, which is dozens of miles away, and is under the jurisdiction of Shangjun.

Shicheng County, which was destroyed in the Jihu Rebellion in the seventh year of the Great Unification, is now the county Yaqiao placed in Fucheng County, in addition to requisitioning civilian resources and materials to participate in the defense of the Yellow River, has basically given up the administrative jurisdiction of its territory.

Therefore, this area is basically equivalent to the anarchic Hu barren area, except for a part of the nostalgic and relocated areas where the heroes are still fortified and defend themselves, the rest of the places are almost all within the scope of Jihu's activities.

Li Tai led the rear forward slowly, and as far as the eye could see, there was almost no human wilderness. In terms of geomorphological characteristics alone, Shicheng County is more suitable for farming and grazing than the carving yin on the west bank of Luoshui.

Although there are also ravines and plateaus, the plateau blocks are much larger than those on the west bank, and the wilderness is overgrown with weeds, and after frost, the cold wind drains the water, and the yellow is thrown to the ground.

Luoshui bends to the northwest in this realm, and the river is turbulent during the spring and summer flood seasons, and because there is no river bay canal to discharge the floodwater, the river often overflows, so it creates a large area of tidal flat depression. And this area has a rather loud name in later generations, called Nanniwan.

The land here is a rare area suitable for cultivation on the northern Shaanxi Plateau, so although the government and the army have withdrawn, there are still some villagers who cannot bear to leave, even without the protection of the Western Wei regime, still stay and live here.

If the Western Wei government can effectively organize and increase personnel investment, this realm has the absolute potential to become a strategic point to control the northern Shaanxi Plateau and balance the Eastern Wei Dynasty.

It's just that the foundation of the Western Wei Dynasty is too weak, and even the core area of Guanzhong has not been completely digested, and there is really no spare energy to open another line for operation, so that the great water and soil can only be reduced to a paradise where Jihu is raging.

Li Tai still sighed in his heart that it was a pity, and Li Zhi, who was exploring the way, had already sent back scouts to report the specific location of a villager dock wall that was attacked last night.

After receiving the news, Li Tai led the crowd to go quickly, and traveled more than ten miles east to arrive at a dock wall located in a valley with a back to the platform.

The dock wall is cleverly chosen, facing the valley and backed by a high plateau, half of which is hollowed out and set under the soil layer, like a cave magnified many times.

If you hadn't traveled into the ravine and reached the front, you would hardly have found that there was still a settlement here. It shows how cautious the villagers in this realm are in order to avoid being exposed to the eyes and ears of Ji Hu, but they still can't avoid being poisoned.

The dock wall was already scorched and ashed, and there were still some bones with twisted postures left in the ashes, which showed how cruel the death was at that time.

There are still many traces of knives and arrows on the earthen wall of the dock wall, and it should be that the Jihu team did not attack the dock wall after a fierce battle, so they climbed the platform and set fire downward, and broke through the dock wall with the help of fire.

Li Taice approached, as the mountain wind blew, a scorching smell came to his face, looking at the charred black corpses left in the ashes and those ruins and broken walls, his shoulders trembled slightly, and he held the handle of the knife and said in a deep voice: "The corpses will not be collected for the time being, the thin soil will be lightly covered, and after killing all those thieves, come and sacrifice them with blood!" ”

(End of chapter)