Chapter 51: The Smuggling of the Gangs

  Sun Kang slightly raised his head, wanting to ask the middle-aged man with a lame leg beside him. However, when he looked over, the middle-aged man beside him had already started backing away at some point!

  "Fall back!"

  The middle-aged man said in a low voice.

  "What?"

  Sun Kang did not hear this sentence clearly.

  "Fall back!"

  This time, the lame-legged middle-aged man shouted out loud. As soon as his voice fell, this middle-aged man jumped up from the ground and rushed towards the rear in a frenzy. His dozens of followers, with their learned and elegant demeanor, scattered and ran wildly!

  At this time, Sun Kang even if he was numb, reacted. He learned from the crippled middle-aged man, turned his head and ran, while running, he also shouted loudly:

  "Retreat! Quick retreat! We've been ambushed!"

  Sun Kang's subordinates showed a hint of hesitation. Such behavior, fleeing in disarray without even encountering the enemy, was not the way of a good warrior. However, some quick-witted individuals immediately explained to their companions:

  "Sun Lao Da (Sun Guan) actually sneaked into the city through a secret passage! Logically speaking, they should have lit the signal fire to inform us to advance and then open the city gate. Now without any signal, the city gate just opened silently, doesn't that mean Sun Lao Da failed?"

  With this explanation, everyone's blood courage suddenly dissipated. Everyone secretly cursed 'Big Sun' (Sun Kang) for being cowardly, but they didn't dare to stay in place and wait for death, immediately retreating like a swarm of bees.

  But is this approach suitable?

  It was not Sun Guan and the others who rushed out of the fort, but a team of Tianping Army soldiers wearing armor and holding long spears. These soldiers were well-trained and coordinated in their movements, and it was clear that they had undergone rigorous training. The leader, who was not very old, had a solemn expression and an air of ancient generals about him - he was none other than the commander-in-chief of the Tianping Army's first battalion, Yu Jin, also known as Yu Wenzheng!

  Yu Jin pointed his long spear forward and shouted loudly as he faced the fleeing enemy:

  "Chase!"

  Then, this hundred-man team marched in a neat column, five men in a row, advancing in a vertical line. What was surprising was that the footsteps of this hundreds-strong team could be clearly distinguished.

  "...tap, tap, tap, tap..."

  "Ghost... Oh ghost..."

  In the chaotic and tumultuous scene of wolves rushing forward and pigs dashing about, the rhythmic sound of footsteps rose from the rear, causing the routed soldiers who had fallen behind to be terrified out of their wits, thinking they had encountered some kind of ghost or spirit. The braver ones quickened their pace in flight, while the more timid ones knelt down on the ground, trembling all over.

  One side was fleeing with all their might, while the other was arrayed in pursuit. Under such circumstances, the distance between the two sides was being gradually widened. However, on Yu Jin's face, there was no expression.

  The reason soon appeared. In front of these fleeing night raiders, a team of torches suddenly appeared!

  The torch would certainly not make these brave warriors desperate. But there are people under the torch.

  The number of people is not many, about fifty. This small group of people will not make these defeated soldiers desperate. However, under the feet of these people, there are actually horses!

  "Oh no! It's cavalry!......"

  "How is this possible? ... Where did these cavalry come from?"

  A row of neat crossbow arrows shot out, and in an instant, seven or eight long-legged men running in the front were knocked down. The leading cavalryman urged his war horse on, raised his knife and chopped down three fleeing soldiers who had escaped from the crossbow arrows!

  The purple-golden "war aura" lit up, making the short stature of the knight on horseback appear exceptionally heroic. Under a full moon, the round head soared into the sky, splashing blood everywhere, as if the knight in front was the incarnation of an evil ghost from the underworld. Some cowardly soldiers were so scared that they shat and urinated, emitting waves of foul odor.

  "Come down or not?"

  Le Jin was short in stature, but his voice was really loud. When he shouted like this, countless defeated soldiers knelt down on the ground and cried out loudly:

  "Surrender! Surrender!......"

  The sound of the plea was so loud that it could be faintly heard from two miles away at the head of the Wu Fortress. Chen Deng picked up his delicate porcelain cup, took a light sip of the tea water in it, and smiled:

  "Wu Jie is indeed a brilliant strategist, making decisions in the tent that determine victory thousands of miles away. What a joyous and congratulatory occasion!"

  "Yu Long is really great! If it weren't for Yu Long's hint, how would I have thought to be careful and guard against it?"

  Zhang Kuang also lightly sipped a mouthful of tea from his ceramic cup and replied humbly.

  It was already a strange thing to find over 300 stones of good edible salt in such a small stronghold. Moreover, as the local snakehead of Xuzhou, Chen Deng's obvious hint during dinner would make Zhang Kuang unworthy of being friends with him if he couldn't think of anything.

  Not to mention Xie Xun, Tai Gong and Yu Jin also took the opportunity to mention this point to Zhang Kuang.

  Salt was a government-controlled commodity at that time. Ordinary powerful families, although they would also store some salt in their fortresses, could not possibly store several hundred dan of it all at once.

  What's more, these salted goods are even considered quite good by powerful families like Chen Deng's.

  So Zhang Kuang guessed that the owner of the fort was probably a private salt smuggler.

  According to the Han Code, selling private salt was a serious crime, punishable by imprisonment or even beheading, depending on the severity of the case. Therefore, those who dared to sell private salt without strong armed forces were simply handing over their money and lives to others.

  As a pseudo-historical enthusiast, Zhang Kuang has been active on historical forums for many years and has some knowledge of the world's most powerful salt merchants.

  That Huang Chao, who once wrote the poem "In years to come, if I become the Green Emperor, I will repay the peach blossoms and bloom in one place", wasn't he a powerful existence that started with a single vote of salt merchant, wandered all the way, and wandered all the way to Chang'an City, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, and even defeated the Tang emperor?

  Having thought of this, Zhang Kuang felt that he had unintentionally gotten himself into a bit of trouble. So, he immediately called over He Man from Xie Xun's department and told him to bring some people to investigate the surrounding areas to see if there were any large groups of armed personnel nearby.

  He Man has a nickname in Tai Ping Dao, called "Flying Sky Taoist". It is said that He Man is agile and good at climbing. Give him a pole and he can climb to the sky.

  Apart from this, He Man's movements were extremely light and agile, and he was also skilled in hiding and concealing himself. During the time of "Bo Cai Shuai", He Man often received orders from "Bo Cai Shuai" to go and investigate the situation of the Han army. Since Zhang Kuang had discovered a possible hidden danger and didn't quite trust He Yan's limited abilities, he thought of asking He Man to take action and scout out the surroundings.

  As a result, "Fei Tian Dao Ren" got a major enemy intelligence as soon as he made his move: a group of hundreds of sturdy men were lurking in a small valley not far from the fort, clearly with malicious intentions.

  With the enemy's information, Zhang Kuang's response was exceptionally calm. When the enemy approached our fort from the north gate, a cavalry team led by Yue Jin was dispatched to circle around to the enemy's rear. When the time for encirclement was almost complete, Yu Jin's troops were sent out to attack the enemy head-on and sandwich them.

  In anticipation, these enemies who dared to attack with inferior forces must have been quite bold. Even if they were attacked from both sides, they would still put up a desperate fight. However, what was greatly beyond Zhang Kuang's expectations was that these enemies seemed to be frightened out of their wits, and as soon as they found themselves trapped, they suddenly collapsed.

  Zhang Kuang's careful arrangement unexpectedly became superfluous. Such a result indeed gives people a feeling of being at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

  Chen Deng looked at the scattered crowd below and couldn't help but comment:

  "This enemy is as different as black and white, it's really puzzling!"

  The former, with a small number of soldiers, faced a large enemy, and in terms of bravery, he was a fierce warrior. The latter, without having fought a single battle, had his troops collapse on their own, and it's simply unspeakable how weak-willed he is. The difference between the two is enormous!"

  Xie Xun, who was standing beside him, listened to these words and thought for a moment before saying:

  "With a small army approaching a large city, even if we launch a surprise attack, the chance of success is still extremely slim. If there's even a slight delay, disaster will befall us. Is the enemy's bravery merely recklessness?"

  Zhang Kuang's eyebrows moved slightly as he glanced at Chen Deng, but saw no reaction from him and didn't know if he was pretending to be stupid. However, what Xie Xun said was indeed something he had overlooked.

  Following this train of thought, Zhang Kuang said:

  "If the enemy is really so foolish, then it's our army's good fortune. But I'm afraid there's more to this than meets the eye."

  Chen Deng listened and took over the conversation, speaking eloquently:

  "The enemy, if they are not foolish, will have internal support when they attack a large city with a small force."

  Chen Deng glanced at Zhang Kuang and continued:

  "It's unlikely to be an insider, yet your army rushed thousands of miles, and the military is also heavily guarded. How can you contact outsiders? It must be the second possibility, there is a secret passage in the fort."

  Digging secret tunnels was a common practice among the powerful warlords when they were building their fortresses, and several examples of this had been discovered by Zhang Kuang. This would explain how enemy forces could launch surprise night attacks with such ease.

  If dozens of brave warriors suddenly emerged from the city gate, seized the gate and let in the enemy outside, the unprepared Tianping Army would be defeated.

  After all, being suddenly ambushed by the enemy at night, the more troops there are, the greater the losses will be. Just from trampling each other and killing each other, the losses may be even greater than those killed by the enemy.

  Zhang Kuang continued to think along this line, and suddenly a thought flashed in his mind. The enemy outside the city was in disarray and fleeing, but what about the traitors inside the city? Hadn't they made their move yet?!