Chapter 18: Jian Nu Arrived

  Wishing everyone a happy Double Seventh Festival! May all lovers be together! Also, please collect and share this post!

  "Father, anyway, there's nothing much going on now, I'll take someone to scout out the surrounding terrain again!"

  Waiting is so unbearable, it seems that Zhou Huchen can't hold on anymore. In fact, the terrain nearby was already very familiar to Zhou Yuji, who had surveyed many times, which was a necessary condition for military operations.

  "Go and scout ahead, just don't go too far south, go! Hurry up and come back!" Zhou Huichen seemed to be getting more and more cautious, which was undoubtedly a good sign. Being tempered wouldn't do any harm, and there were no enemies nearby at the moment, so Zhou Yuji naturally wouldn't stop him.

  Fifty fierce cavalrymen and thirty household troops rode out of the forest under Zhou Hu's leadership, their first target being Yangliuqing Town in the northeast direction of this forest.

  After a simple reconnaissance on the outskirts of the town, Zhou Huachen ordered his cavalrymen to enter the town.

  Yangliuqing Town is a nearby transportation hub and one of the most prosperous cargo distribution centers in the surrounding area. Now, this once prosperous place is full of scars, the corpses of the killed civilians are seen everywhere inside and outside the town, almost every family's door is open, there is no one in the town, to be exact, except for the corpses, not a single living person.

  "These eastern slaves, these thousand-knife-and-million-slash barbarians..."

  Apart from Zhou Huchen, the cavalrymen were not seeing this kind of miserable situation for the first time. Nevertheless, no soldier was willing to see such a scene, after all, it was within their own country's borders and these people who had been slaughtered were their own compatriots. It was inevitable that they couldn't help but curse the brutal Jian Nu incessantly.

  "Now, listen to my order, find all the wells in the towns and fill them up for me!" Entering the town, Zhou Huachen immediately gave the command:

  This is Zhou Huchen's goal, the tens of thousands of troops need a lot of drinking water. Zhou Huchen wants to take advantage of the current frozen season, he wants to destroy the water source, destroying the wells and ponds in these villages.

  The well is easy to fill, and it's not necessary to fill it up completely. Just throw in a lot of bricks and stones, as long as the water can't be drawn out, the well is considered abandoned. However, Yangliuqing Town still has three ponds, and these three ponds seem to be very large. Although they are frozen solidly, they can be chiseled open, and the ice can also melt into water.

  It didn't take long for all the wells to be filled with bricks and stones by the soldiers and servants. Zhou Huachen, Master Zhou, was undoubtedly a very ruthless person, he didn't hesitate at all and gave another order that nobody wanted to do: "All of you go and clean up the toilets, throw them into the pond."

  No one dared to disobey, and they all knew Master Zhou's temper. The cavalrymen and the house guards were trembling with fear just thinking about some of Master Zhou's tactics. This young master was too ruthless, and everyone had suffered from his cruelty before, so no one wanted to try again.

  "Master, this is useless. There's Wuchang Lake nearby and a river. The slaves can fetch water by cutting ice along the Yongding River. Our blocking of the waterway has no effect!" This was questioned by house steward Zhou Wanjiang, who apparently thought that Zhou Huchen wanted to cut off the water supply for the slaves:

  Zhou Huchen smiled and explained, "General Jiang, Jian Nu's troops are likely to be over 50,000 strong. Adding the civilians they've taken captive, the total number is probably no less than 100,000. With a large number of livestock, how much water will they need?! They also have to carry a lot of heavy baggage, so even if they want to hurry, they can't! Therefore, they must be advancing along places with water sources, destroying the wells and ponds in the villages and towns along the way. Wuqing Lake and Yongding River will become their weak points!"

  "Ah, I see. So the reason we're destroying their water source is to make the enemy not dare to leave it, and then attack them when they come to fetch water, making them exhausted, so that we can take advantage of the chaos and win!"

  What Zhou Wanjiang said is very right, this is one of the purposes of Zhou Huchen, and Zhou Huchen has another purpose, but now he doesn't want to say it.

  "I hope we can still save the people from the brink of disaster, and bring effective harm to Jian Nu!" Zhou Huchen's words were righteous and stern, whether they were true or not, but that faint sadness was absolutely real.

  The efficiency of the cavalry was not bad, for an entire afternoon, with Yangliuqing Town as the first target, then along the northwest bank of the Yongding River, all the water wells and ponds in dozens of villages were subjected to a baptism, either filled with bricks and stones or filled with nauseating yellowish-white substances.

  At last, before dusk, fifty exhausted cavalrymen and servants returned to the woods of Yangliuqing.

  When Zhou Huichen returned to Zhou Yuji's side, the scouts had already brought news that a large army appeared in Liugou ten miles away. They were advancing very slowly, and those flags had already shown with the previous scouts that this was indeed the Jian Nu army they had been tracking.

  Night fell, and Jian Nu's scouts did not appear in Zhou Yuji's line of sight.

  It was very cold, and the enemy was not far away. To prevent being discovered, the soldiers no longer lit fires or dared to make any loud noises. Zhou Huachen and Zhou Yuji were no exception. For dinner, they could only gnaw on those frozen hard flatbreads. In order to prevent their water bags from freezing into ice blocks, everyone had to stuff their icy water bags into their chests.

  It was a quiet night, but extremely difficult to bear. Zhou Huchen and all the soldiers had only one piece of felt at night, which was the only thing to get through this cold night.

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  The eastern sky is tinged with a pale white, followed by a faint reddish glow.

  The battle is about to arrive, the awakened soldiers are moving their stiff hands and feet, and then they start to busy themselves, taking advantage of the opportunity to eat something quickly, carefully grooming their war horses, and arranging various weapons and equipment.

  This was Zhou Huchen's first time participating in a real battle, and it was impossible not to be nervous. As he made preparations with everyone else, he began to ask the family servant Zhou Wanjiang beside him: "Uncle Jiang, you have faced these Jian slaves before, are they really as formidable as the rumors say in the capital?"

  Zhou Wanjiang had finished his work, and while checking the bellyband of Zhou Huchen's war horse, he replied: "The Jian Nu are just that kind of thing. They're brave in battle, with strict military law, where merit is based on beheading enemies, and ranks are clearly distinguished between superiors and subordinates. Everyone strives valiantly to accumulate their own military achievements."

  "Claiming to be the unmatched 'Riding God', can he really be more formidable than our own cavalry?" Zhou Huchen continued to ask.

  "What's so special about the Jurchen cavalry, they just have a bit more horsepower! The Jin army's cavalry and ours aren't much different, it's just that they have more horses and more cavalry, but the mobile cavalry units that come and go like the wind are the most difficult to deal with! And then there's the Jin army's armored infantry, which is quite formidable, with extremely strict military discipline, fighting with reckless abandon! As for the imperial court's soldiers who just eat and do nothing, they have no future prospects, and still want to keep their heads attached to eat!"

  "Then aren't we completely at a disadvantage this time? The difference in strength is quite large!"

  At this time, Zhou Wanjiang handed over the war horse to Zhou Huchen. He patted the rare fine horse and praised it: "Huchen, this horse is really good!"

  Then, Zhou Wanjiang turned his head and smiled at Zhou Huchen, saying: "It's not entirely true! Out of tens of thousands of people, how many are real cavalry? Probably only a few thousand at most. Even if there were three to five thousand cavalrymen, they would be just for show. They're probably just farmers on horseback, and to real cavalrymen, they'd be nothing but sheep! The Jurchen army has tens of thousands of people, plus a large amount of supplies to transport, and many captives. How massive will this army be?! How can the Jurchen cavalry possibly keep up?! The combat effectiveness of cavalry lies in their mobility. Even if our attack isn't effective, would the Jurchen cavalry really dare to pursue us?"

  "I understand, Jian Nu wouldn't dare!!! This is our Great Ming's territory, they're afraid we're bait, Jian Nu's cavalry doesn't dare to leave the main army, they can only..."

  Adopt a tactic of driving away, so as long as we maintain our mobility, we will always stand in an invincible position!

  Zhou Huchen excitedly shouted out loud, the mystery of history was right in front of him, this was the real Battle of Yangliuqing, a battle that could not be lost.

  In the Battle of Yangliuqing, Zhou Yuji utilized his powerful mobility. He was not facing Jianzhou's main force but rather some auxiliary troops consisting of surrendered Ming soldiers and farmers who had put down their tools. Jianzhou's true cavalry was too small in number, so when Zhou Yuji faced an enemy that outnumbered him by a hundred times, he could achieve what history recorded: over 700 Ming cavalrymen were able to slay several thousand people. The enemy was simply too weak; this is the truth of history.

  If... there could be reinforcements... soon, Zhou Huchen sighed inwardly. No if, the Ming army was beyond salvation, they had been intimidated by Jian Nu and lost their courage, it was impossible for them to have such guts. The towering tree of the Ming dynasty had thoroughly rotted, now only a slight push remained.

  But with Zhou Huachen present, Zhou Yuji had a more powerful cavalry than in history, what would be the result?