Chapter 110: The Vulnerable Bandits
An unknown mountain in the western section of Wuyi Mountain.

There is a group of about a hundred bandits entrenched here. The stronghold is located in a location that is easy to defend but difficult to attack, and there is only one entrance and exit, which makes it possible for this group of bandits to plunder indiscriminately.

at the foot of the mountain.

He Qi led one hundred regular troops and one hundred temporary troops of Baiyue here.

This place is too far to the north of Wuyi Mountain and was not taken care of before. Now with Jin Mao's order, He Qi is determined to take it out.

"Zou Hu, take your men to open the gate before dark. If you can't open it, don't come back!"

Zou Hu was a close confidant of He Qi who was promoted from among the Baiyue soldiers and was temporarily appointed as the leader of the Baiyue Army.

"Yes!" Zou Hu issued a military order: "If you can't open the gate, I will die on the mountain!"

He Qi nodded with satisfaction.

Zou Hu led a hundred mountain villagers into the mountains. If you didn't look carefully, you couldn't tell that a hundred people were going up the mountain.

"Team One, follow me!"

He Qi led the rest of the people up the mountain along the main road.

As soon as they reached halfway up the mountain, they were discovered by the bandit sentries.

"Beep——" the horn sounds melodiously.

He Qi was not in a hurry to attack. He gathered at a flat place halfway up the mountain and deployed his troops.

Then, he took out the loudspeaker from his waist and started shouting: "Listen to me, thieves inside!"

"I am the top general under the command of the governor of Yuzhang County. Those who know what's best for you should come out and die."

After shouting like this several times, the gate of the stronghold opened wide and a group of rabble rushed out. The leader was riding a plow horse and carrying a wooden mace on his shoulder.

There was no sadness or joy in He Qi's eyes. Even if the person coming was Pan Lin, he would kill him without hesitation.

Unfortunately, the bandit leader is far inferior to Pan Lin.

"I..."

Before the bandit leader could say anything, He Qi interrupted him and said, "No need to say more, let's see what's going on!"

"Do you dare to fight me?"

The bandit leader was a little hesitant when he saw He Qi's equipment, but there were hundreds of eyes watching him from behind. If he took a step back, he would lose his position as leader.

"Come on, come on!"

The bandit leader rode his horse forward in an unfamiliar manner, shouting, "Give me your life!"

He Qi held the wooden shield in one hand to block the opponent's vision, and slowly drew his sword with the other hand, without moving, waiting for the bandit leader to come and die.

Fifty steps away, the bandits were still roaring.

Ten steps later, the bandit raised his mace with both hands, looking ferocious, as if he was imagining the scene of his brain bursting.

At this time, He Qi moved and threw the shield in his hand straight at the bandit leader's face.

"Bang!" The mace just barely knocked down the shield, and my arm suddenly felt numb from the shock.

He Qi leaped to the side and slashed at the horse's legs with his knife.

"Herodiot--" The horse fell down in pain, and the thief's leader was thrown out, screaming and falling down the mountain.

With a "bang", the whole head broke into 90 degrees, red and white splashed all over the ground, and he was dead.

"The boss is dead! The boss is dead!"

The remaining bandits wanted to escape back to the stronghold.

“Woo~Bang!”

The bandits were disappointed to find that the gate of the stronghold was closed.

"kill!"

He Qi took out his loud speaker and shouted, "Those who surrender will not be killed!"

All the bandits surrendered.

He Qi was very satisfied. According to the temporary military merit strategy given by Jin Mao, living prisoners were much more valuable than dead heads.

This is all labor!
In the future, infrastructure will depend on these people. As long as they are half full, they can make a huge contribution.

In the next two months, He Qi led his men to clear out the bandits and robbers around Wuyi Mountain, beheading more than a thousand people and capturing five thousand.

Two months later, He Qi had cleared the forests within a radius of 200 miles in the north, beheaded 500 people, and captured 4,000.

The east of Yuzhang County was cleared, and the people sang praises to congratulate Qi.

...

Originally, Gong Lei was going to go back to guard Kuaiji County, but when he saw other people gaining military merits one after another, he became extremely envious.

He then applied to Jinmao to join the battle.

In fact, Gong Lei was very nervous. As Pan Lin's partner, he did not notice it at the first time and felt that he had let down Jinmao's trust.

However, he was overthinking it.

Jin Mao agreed to Gong Lei's request without hesitation and ordered him to suppress the bandits in the mountains east of Nanchang, and transferred Dong Xi, a battalion and one thousand new Baiyue troops to cooperate with him.

Gong Lei was very grateful and vowed to wipe out all the bandits nearby. Since he couldn't wipe out such a luxurious lineup, he might as well go back and guard his home.

At the beginning, everything went very smoothly and the bandits in the west and northwest bordering Nanchang County were easily dealt with.

Three hundred were beheaded and three thousand were captured.

Gong Lei was quite puzzled as to why there were so few bandits in such a large mountainous area.

Soon, he discovered the reason.

There is a Jiancheng County in the southwest of Nanchang County. There are many hills nearby, and the people will open up farmland halfway up the mountain or even on the top of the mountain.

Jiancheng County is adjacent to Changsha County, with towering mountainous areas to the north and south.

There was a large bandit group of more than 10,000 people near Jiancheng. The leader was named Qu Xing, who called himself a general.

Qu Xing lived in the mountains and forests, and made a living by plundering Changsha County all year round. This was also the reason why there were so few bandits near Nanchang County, as most of them went to join Qu Xing. Originally, Qu Xing should have been a headache for Changsha County.

However, Dong Xi was eager to achieve success, so he wiped out a small group of passing forces under Ou Xing without asking why.

This has really stirred up a hornet's nest.

After Qu Xing learned about this, he launched a massive military attack on Jiancheng County.

Jiancheng County sent three letters for help in one day, which immediately alarmed Jinmao.

"My lord, it's all my fault. Please punish me!" As the commander, Gong Lei took all the responsibility on himself.

Dong Xi then apologized: "My Lord, this matter was caused by me, it has nothing to do with Captain Gong!"

Jin Mao rubbed his brows. It was already April and the rain had eased but had not stopped.

Nanchang County, Jiancheng County, Yuhan County and Xingan County have all planted early rice. How could Jinmao just give up like that?

"Just a bunch of bandits."

Jin Mao said arrogantly: "So what if there are more than 10,000 people?"

"Generals, dare you follow me to destroy the bandits?"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Jin Mao nodded with satisfaction: "Dong Xi is in charge of Nanchang County. If you have any questions, please ask Gu Yuantan."

"Ah?" Dong Xi was confused.

"Hmm?" Jin Mao glanced at him.

Dong Xi shrank his neck suddenly and said, "Yes."

Jin Mao left behind 200 personal guards from the 21st Battalion and 600 veterans from the New Recruits Battalion to garrison Nanchang.

The remaining 400 personal guards, the main force of the 21st battalion, 1,000 veterans from the new recruits battalion and 2,000 Vietnamese troops were all dispatched.

In Jin Mao's opinion, 3,600 soldiers were enough to defeat more than 10,000 bandits.

However, Jin Mao still overestimated the bandit group led by Ou Xing.

Outside Jiancheng County, the two armies met.

Although there are many hills nearby, making it difficult for Jinmao to deploy his battle formation, most of these 3,600 men are Baiyue troops, who are most familiar with mountain warfare.

On the front, Jin Mao led the royal guards, the main battalion and half-year veterans to form a layered defense line of shields, spears and bows.

On the two wings were the Baiyue troops of a thousand men each led by Gong Lei and Bai Shi.

On the other hand, the bandits were huddled together all over the mountains, with no formation to speak of.

Jin Mao's order to the two wings was to attack when the opportunity arose. Originally, according to his intention, the two wings were to be used for harvesting.

However, Gong Lei was eager to make a contribution, so he took the lead in launching an attack on the right wing of the bandit group.

"A round of archer projectiles!"

Gong Lei has one hundred archers and nine hundred infantrymen. Although most of them can only wear half armor, they are much more well-off than when they ambushed the southern captain.

One round of projectiles caused dozens of casualties among the bandits, which undoubtedly angered the other side. Thousands of bandits shouted "Wow!" and demanded to tear Gong Lei's troops apart.

"retreat!"

Unexpectedly, Gong Lei had no moral principles and ran away after the fight.

When the bandits finally chased over the mountain, they ran into Jinmao's main force head-on.

"A salvo!"

"Stand up your shield!"

"Put your guns on!"

"Sword and shield ready."

A series of commands were given, but to no avail. The bandits were frightened by the first round of volleys and retreated, leaving behind two or three hundred corpses.

Jin Mao quickly ordered: "Crossbowmen, reload! The rest, stand guard."

He was just about to send someone to ask what Gong Lei on the right wing was doing.

Unexpectedly, someone jumped out from the right wing and started hacking at the retreating bandits.

"Failed! Defeated!"

Jin Mao could see clearly that Gong Lei, the leader of the right wing, was chasing and killing while shouting through a loudspeaker.

This time, the bandits also started shouting: "Defeated! Defeated!"

Thousands of people fled frantically towards the bandit center.

Seeing that the bandit army's momentum was unstable, Jin Mao immediately changed his order: "All-out attack! Attack freely in units of villages!"

The sound of war drums, trumpets, and messenger vehicles all came out.

The main force on the front was broken up into small pieces, forming an eight-strand long snake formation and attacking the enemy.

Seeing this, Bai Shi on the left wing finally started, and he was so anxious that he kept roaring.

Just like that, more than ten thousand bandits were defeated in one battle. Qu Xing relied on his horse to run the fastest and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Jin Mao led his troops in pursuit for a whole day, and only ordered the troops to withdraw in the evening.

A post-war statistic.

Hey!
Three thousand heads were beheaded and five hundred were captured. It was obvious that this group of people wanted to kill for military merit and did not want to keep any prisoners. Those five hundred prisoners were kept under Jin Mao's nose.

This is because before setting off, Jin Mao calculated the military merits of this battle as a normal war in order to boost morale.

I didn't expect that the group of more than 10,000 bandits is so weak, what a waste!
The more than 200 casualties on our side are also interesting. Except for the thirty or so unlucky guys who fell to death, the other more than 200 unlucky guys were also injured.

There were more than twenty soldiers who were injured by the bandits, but in order to avoid being laughed at, they insisted that they were injured in falls.

But when the comrades were gossiping, they all had sharp eyes, so these twenty or so people were still laughed at.

(End of this chapter)