Chapter 102: A novice meets a rookie, whoever is more incompetent loses

If it were the Ling Cao of the past, after fighting this battle, he would have set a fire, burned the food and supplies and then ran away.

Ever since attending the officer training class offered by Jinmao with He Qi and others, Ling Cao had a certain understanding of war.

Although he is not as talented as He Qi, nor as brave as Dong Xi, Ling Cao is very ruthless.

Work hard at everything!
No talent for learning? I spend twice as much time learning and practicing at the same time!
Not as brave as others? I'll work harder to train my skills!
The result of his hard work is that Ling Cao now fights fearlessly and has a certain level of brains after the war.

For example, he has two plans.

The first point is to pour oil on each ship. If no reinforcements arrive, they will perish along with the food and supplies. Everyone should jump into the lake and let as many escape as possible.

Secondly, dismantle the enemy's tents and surround the camp outside the fortifications to prevent the enemy from seeing inside and delay time.

Sure enough, this trick worked.

Ling Cao saw the enemy stopped two miles away and reorganized their troops, but the distance was a bit far and he couldn't hear clearly what they were shouting.

Ling Cao didn't care about that. He asked the second brother to take people on guard, and went back to order people to light the stove and prepare lunch!

Next, it’s either a fight or a run. How can we survive by starving?

...

the other side.

Xu Gong partyed too late last night and didn't get up until noon. The first thing he heard made him very upset.

"The food supplies have been robbed. Why are you telling me now?!"

The subordinate replied: "Your retainers did not allow us to report."

Xu Gong was speechless, and then he shouted: "What are you waiting for? Why don't you prepare your horses? What are the soldiers doing?"

"The soldiers are ready and waiting for your order."

Xu Gong was speechless again, helpless and furious: "Hurry up and put on your armor!"

"Trash, it's all trash!"

When Xu Gong finished dressing, his servants brought him a sumptuous breakfast.

In short, by the time Xu Gong led his thousand troops out of the city, it was already past noon.

An hour later, when Xu Gong saw the temporary dock surrounded by bloody camp cloth, he immediately ordered: "Stop!"

The subordinate came to ask again: "Captain, do you want to send someone to check it out?"

"Look at your mother!" Xu Gong whipped his subordinate in the face and pointed at the smoke rising from the opposite side and said, "Are you blind? Don't you see that the enemy outnumbers us?"

However, the fire that Ling Cao had lit earlier had not yet been extinguished, and a lot of smoke was coming out, which gave Xu Gong an illusion.

Another thing is that Xu Gong heard the neighing of war horses from the enclosed camp from afar.

He believed that the enemy not only had more people but was also elite, and only a fool would go against them.

"retreat!"

Xu Gong was afraid of an ambush, so he led his men back to the city, hoping to gather more troops.

This mysterious behavior confused Ling Cao.

It’s not a bad thing. The longer the delay, the happier Ling Cao will be.

The next day, the sound of horse hooves was loud.

Ling Cao thought Xu Gong had come again, and in his panic he almost burned the captured food and fodder.

Fortunately, the fourth brother was sharp-eyed and discovered that it was Dong Xi and Yang Lin who arrived with their men, so it was a false alarm.

"Ha ha!"

"You guys are late!"

Ling Cao smiled proudly: "The donkey meat has been eaten up by the brothers, so you won't have the pleasure to enjoy it!"

Dong Xian ignored Ling Cao's expression until he saw dozens of small boats carrying food and grass. Then he said in surprise: "You kid, you really did a great deed this time!"

Yang Lin said sourly: "I originally wanted to choose the north."

Ling Cao's mouth almost curled up to the sky: "There are only 82 ships. Brothers, help me calculate, how much food and grass do we need?"

He answered again, "I think a boat can only carry thirty or fifty dan of food and grass."

"Oh, I'm not good at counting. Can you help me calculate how much food and grass I need for thirty shi?"

It's old Versailles.

Dong Xian snorted coldly: "Then you have to be lucky enough to transport the food and grass back."

Ling Cao continued to be Versailles: "It doesn't matter if we can't transport it back, it's just a pity that it only went from three levels to one level."

"Oh, what a pity."

Dong Xian turned his head away, for he was afraid that he would not be able to resist hitting this sad man.

Yang Lin couldn't bear to see this, so he said, "When you lit the signal smoke, I sent someone to inform the lord."

"It will take five days at the latest, or three days at the earliest, for the Lord to arrive."

"You two should think about how to spend the next few days."

In an instant, Ling Cao was no longer Versailles.

According to intelligence, there are not only Xu Gong's 2,000 troops in Wucheng County, but Sheng Xian also brought 1,500.

Even if the five hundred people killed by Ling Cao were part of them, there were still three thousand people.

With just their three hundred cavalry and mounted infantry, there was absolutely no hope of holding the city.

Dong Xian was the first to speak: "What else is there to say? Burning the food and grass is a great achievement. As long as we run fast, will they dare to chase us?"

Ling Cao immediately refused: "If I wanted to do this little thing, I would have done it a long time ago. Why should I wait for you two to share the credit?" "Then what should I do?"

Ling Cao said viciously: "Why don't we fight first? Yesterday I led a hundred men to raid the camp and killed five hundred of them without any casualties!"

"I think Xu Gong is just strong on the outside but weak on the inside. He will collapse at the first blow!"

"Then fight!"

All three of them are military generals, so there isn't so much to go around in circles.

Yang Lin was more sober: "How should we fight? What if Xu Gong takes back the food?"

"That's easy." Ling Cao said, "I'll leave thirty brothers who are good at swimming behind to guard the place. If Xu Gong comes to grab the food and grass, we'll let him burn them all!"

"That's it!"

Another day passed.

Xu Gong led his army out of the city again. This time he brought a full force of soldiers. Not only did he have two thousand men under his command, but he also had one thousand men sent by Yan Baihu, for a total of three thousand men.

Xu Gong didn't believe that Jin Mao would dare to lead his entire army on a long journey to rob his food supply. He guessed that there were only a thousand people at most.

Three thousand against one thousand, he doesn't know how to lose.

However, when Xu Gong saw that the enemy had about 300 cavalrymen, he couldn't help but beat his drum, especially when there were more than 100 heavily armored cavalrymen among them, which made him even more frightened.

There were no mountains or forests nearby to block the way, and Xu Gong didn't know whether all 3,000 men would be killed when the cavalry charged, but he knew that he would definitely be finished.

Just when Xu Gong was hesitating whether to retreat again, the person sent by Yan Baihu spoke.

"Captain, don't be afraid. Jin Mao has no real cavalry. I know these people. They are just infantrymen who can ride horses!"

The person who came was Pan Lin!
He has been getting fatter these days.

"Who's afraid? How could I be afraid?" Xu Gong covered his inner feelings with laughter and said, "Deputy Commander Pan, please don't talk nonsense!"

Pan Lin rode on his horse, not caring at all. The armor on his body and the horse he was riding were all given by Xu Gong, and the two were also in the same camp.

"Then please give the order, Captain."

Xu Gong cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, the other side started charging without any moral principles.

"Where are the crossbowmen! Where are the crossbowmen?"

Xu Gong panicked and ordered: "Everyone, shoot! Shoot!"

"Buzz buzz buzz" "Swoosh swoosh swoosh"

Bows and crossbows scatter freely, with impressive accuracy and a sparse scale.

the other side.

Before setting off, Ling Cao and others all put on two layers of armor, those with greater strength took iron shields, and those with less strength took wooden shields.

Those with good riding skills rushed to the front, and those with lesser riding skills followed behind, charging in three rows.

This is an improved version of the charge formation that Jin Mao learned from the Luo family cavalry.

Because his men were not good at riding, if they charged in a long snake formation, the people in the front would probably fall off and be trampled to death by the horses behind.

When the enemy started shooting, the 270 men held the reins with both hands, shielded their faces with shields, and rushed forward.

"Ding Ding Dong" "Beep Beep"

Some arrows were blocked and some pierced the shields. More than a dozen people from Ling Cao's side fell off their horses. Most of them fell off their horses by themselves, and very few were shot off their horses.

Five hundred steps!
Xu Gong's troops began to load arrows in a hurry.

Xu Gong was so anxious that he was sweating profusely, and he didn't know what to do.

"Cavalry! Send the cavalry!"

Pan Lin roared, "Where are your cavalry?"

"Ah? Oh!" Xu Gong suddenly realized: "Cavalry! Cavalry, charge!"

Xu Gong had 200 cavalrymen under his command, but he forgot that the cavalrymen were at the end of the phalanx.

The cavalrymen who heard the order didn't care about anything else and rode their horses through the gaps in the infantry phalanx.

The infantry thought that the enemy cavalry was attacking from behind and turned their guns around in an instant.

For a moment, people were on their backs.

Before the battle even started, Xu Gong lost his composure.

Just at this moment, Ling Cao and others led the cavalry to within a hundred steps, and in a few breaths, they crashed into the infantry formation.

“Boom boom” “Ahhh!” “Scatter quickly!”

There was a complete mess before and after the battle.

After just one encounter, Xu Gong's army collapsed!

Pan Lin started running away the moment Xu Gong gave the order. The bandits saw that their leader had run away, so they decided to run away too.

It can be said that half of the chaos in Xu Gong’s army was caused by Pan Lin.

Moreover, if Xu Gong could calm down and respond calmly, he would find that Ling Cao and others had many flaws.

Not only did they suffer non-combat casualties along the way, but after breaking through the enemy's line, they were unable to expand their victory.

The success was entirely based on the premise that Xu Gong was in disarray.

As long as Xu Gong can withstand the first wave of attack, Ling Cao and his more than 200 men will all die here.

Unfortunately, no if.

(End of this chapter)