Ouyang Xuan has been very busy during this time, and has been going back and forth to various places under the rule of the Thunderbolt Army. In addition to devoting his energy to the construction of Yokohara Fort, he spent more time inspecting production in various mines and factories in the mountains, and discussing production technical problems with the research institute. In addition, he also took time to take a turn in Wugen Mountain and inspected the Huaguo Mountain and Huangjiadang camp of the water army. Of course, the rest of the high-level of the Thunderbolt Army are also very busy, after the spring ploughing outside the mountain, the weather in the mountains is getting warmer day by day, and it is time to sow seeds, which makes Li Shuang very busy, and Lu Dezhi also closes the school and night school to help him deal with related affairs. Yu Zhu and Cao Ergou were busy assisting in the construction of Hengyuan Fort, and the off-duty personnel of the Perak Army were basically invested in the fort construction project, and only Dong Hu's internal guard battalion was not involved. Among the four companies of the internal guard battalion, except for the guard company, which was responsible for the protection of important places and important personnel, the counterintelligence company, reconnaissance company, and hoe company all went out to reconnoiter under his leadership.

According to Ouyang Xuan's order, this large-scale reconnaissance was divided into three directions, the first direction was Chengdu-Genting City, focusing on reconnoitering the situation of the battle of Chengdu City; The second direction was in the direction of Qiongzhou-Huojing, because the Mongols had a heavy garrison after occupying Qiongzhou, and the scouts of the Perak Army were unable to operate on the border of Qiongzhou for a time. Recently, it was rumored that because of the unfavorable war in Chengdu, most of the Mongolian cavalry in Qiongzhou City had withdrawn to Chengdu; The third direction is the direction of Meizhou - Jiading Mansion, this direction is mainly along the waterway, the Xinjin City Navy and the downstream Meizhou Pengshanzhai and the downstream Jiading Mansion have contacts, for which the Navy personnel are specially dispatched to accompany them.

The main reason why Ouyang Xuan ordered the Inner Guard Battalion to carry out large-scale reconnaissance operations at the current time was that he needed to grasp and assess the situation. At present, the Thunderbolt army is still too weak to tolerate the slightest miscalculation in strategy. Although he knew about the major historical events of the Southern Song Dynasty, he did not know the details of the events. And he didn't know if the ripples of time caused by his own travel affected the course of history. Has the sudden emergence of the Thunderbolts changed the course of history? Only by grasping the current situation will he be at ease.

There is another consideration for sending such a large number of reconnaissance personnel, and that is to absorb the population. If the original historical process is followed, Pu Zezhi will be defeated in the battle of Chengdu, and on the way to Chongqing Prefecture, his soldiers have fled, hundreds of people have also been slaughtered, and western Sichuan has become a Mongolian horse grazing land. If we can absorb some of the defeated refugees, this will not only be a major event to save people's lives, but also greatly enhance the strength of the Perak army. Although the current population under the rule of the Thunderbolt Army is close to 20,000, and the standing army has reached 1,400 people, coupled with the advanced concepts and technology brought by Ouyang Xuan, although the comprehensive strength cannot be compared with the state capitals such as Chongqing Mansion and Jiading Mansion, it has reached or surpassed the dilapidated state capitals such as Qiongzhou, Pengzhou, Hanzhou, and Meizhou in western Sichuan.

Of course, with their current strength, relying on the protection of the mountains and the fastened fortress, the Thunderbolt army was only enough to protect itself, but it was unable to attack. If the field battle is carried out on flat ground, the combat strength is equivalent to the elite of the Southern Song Dynasty official army with the same number, but when it encounters the Mongolian cavalry, it will definitely not be able to retreat with all its might. In the battle of Dayi City, Cao Ergou led three companies of the most elite field battalion, which were also almost routed by dozens of Mongol cavalry. Although the Mongolian cavalry fled without the intention of fighting, the Thunderbolt army could only watch the enemy go away and was helpless, and Cao Ergou still had palpitations when he told Ouyang Xuan about his experience afterwards.

Ouyang Xuan knew Cao Ergou's helplessness, and he knew that the cavalry of this era was an existence against the sky for the infantry. The Yuejia army could only use heavy infantry as a human shield against the cavalry, and then use dense spears to form a turtle retreat formation, and use strong crossbows to fire back, and then counterattack with the cooperation of their own cavalry. The Thunderbolts had no cavalry, but fortunately they had artillery, and they were able to repel the Mongol cavalry with the protection of their giant shields and spears. However, the artillery was cumbersome, and if the Mongols had broken into the formation before the artillery had been erected, the Thunderbolts would have been defeated. In addition to relying on numerical superiority to deal with the Mongol cavalry, another way to deal with it was to invent and improve new weapons, such as increasing the mobility of artillery, and also to produce machine guns. The invention of the machine gun allowed the nomads to become good at singing and dancing, but with the current level of productivity of the Thunderbolt army, the efficiency of making gun barrels is extremely low, and it is impossible to build machine guns.

In order to defeat the Mongols at present, in addition to the development of industry and technology, it is necessary to have a sufficient population in the final analysis. On the one hand, the improvement of the level of productivity requires scientific researchers and a large number of craftsmen, and on the other hand, under the current level of productivity, only with more people can cultivate more land, produce more food, support mining, industrial production, road and fort construction, etc., and raise more soldiers who are out of production. Therefore, in Ouyang Xuan's order, in addition to reconnaissance, this mission should also promote the Thunderbolt Army to attract the population. To this end, he ordered someone to print a simple route map of the defeated soldiers of the displaced people fleeing to Wanjiaping, and compiled a smooth passage to praise the Perak army such as "Paradise in Troubled Times, Taoyuan in Shu", etc., which should be publicized everywhere they went, so that the people of western Sichuan would know that there was a refuge in the mountains in the northwest of Chongqing.

"People are afraid of being famous, pigs are afraid of being strong", as for whether such a high-profile propaganda will expose its strength, and then be coveted by the Southern Song Dynasty ministers and the Mongols, the top level of the Perak army has also debated. In fact, Ouyang Xuan thought about this question seriously for a long time, but after weighing it repeatedly, he still decided to vigorously publicize it. In his opinion, after the Mongols occupied the entire Xichuan, they would definitely not be able to tolerate the Thunderbolt army like nails, and now the Mongols did not attack the Thunderbolt army because they were fighting a fierce battle with Pu Zezhi, and they could not spare their hands for the time being. As for the Southern Song Dynasty ministers who want to take over the Thunderbolt Army? Ouyang Xuan had absolute confidence in his prestige and control, and the Thunderbolt army would never accept the corrupt government's behavior of mixing sand and picking fruits. Officers and soldiers to fight by force? In the defense war, the Thunderbolt army was not afraid of the rotten officials and soldiers at all, and there were not a few state generals in Sichuan who listened to the tune and did not listen to the announcement, and the Southern Song Dynasty court did not dare to raise troops to conscript, for fear of pushing these warlords who were in power to the side of the Mongols. Of course, Ouyang Xuan and the Thunderbolt Army would never surrender to the Mongols.

Dong Hu divided the reconnaissance personnel into 30 reconnaissance detachments in groups of 10 people, of which 15 detachments in the direction of Chengdu-Genting City were personally led by him, 10 detachments in the direction of Meizhou-Jiadingfu were led by reconnaissance company commander Wu Qing, and five reconnaissance detachments in the direction of Qiongzhou-Huojing were led by Yuan Shanhu, commander of the hoeing company. To say that this reconnaissance is much more difficult than building a fort, not only does it eat and sleep in the open, but also its life is in danger at any time. Being attacked by wild beasts is the lightest, followed by many bandits along the way, and the greatest danger is being attacked by enemy soldiers, among which in addition to the fierce Mongol cavalry, the soldiers in the official army have to be guarded against. Due to poor supplies and poor military discipline among the officers and soldiers, the panicked soldiers often raided homes and houses without distinguishing between the enemy and us. Therefore, Ouyang Xuan prepared the most advanced grenades and muskets of the Thunderbolt Army for this trip, and Dong Hu also ordered the scouts to pretend to be wandering monks, Taoist priests, Confucian scholars and fleeing people. These first three kinds of people are quite respected by the world in this world, and generally will not be embarrassed or harmed, and even the brutal Mongols will spare monks, Taoist priests, and Confucian scholars when they slaughter the city. Another advantage of pretending to be these three types of people is that they praise and propagate the Thunderbolt Army through their mouths, which is more convincing and effective, and more attractive to the homeless people and fugitive soldiers.