Chapter 49: White Wolf Mountain Water Interval (16)

  Li Chengzhong couldn't think of a good solution for the time being. There were still eighty people under his command, including Zhong Siliang's most elite combat unit. He was hesitant about whether to send them all out. If he sent them out to participate in "Topping the Bull", he would no longer have any forces that could be mobilized. If something else happened, he would be in an awkward situation where he had no troops to deploy.

  Just then, Li Chengzhong saw Zhao Da leading the logistics brothers rushing up, but why were they still carrying several iron pots? When he saw Zhao Da and his men put down the pots, he looked clearly and found that inside the pots were the firewood used to cook for the whole army earlier. Most of the firewood had been burned halfway through and hadn't been completely extinguished, with the charred parts still emitting bright red flames.

  Only then did Zhao Da command these people to wrap cloth strips around their hands, grab the burning wooden sticks and throw them directly into the Khitan army's formation.

  Li Chengzhong stared at the scene in front of him in amazement, his mouth agape as he muttered: "This is really... a Tang edition hand grenade..."

  As the wooden stakes were thrown in one by one, a burst of miserable cries immediately spread through the Khitan army formation, followed by a wave of burnt smell, which made Li Chengzhong's scalp numb and his whole body shudder.

  The wooden thorn attack achieved a decisive result, and the Khitan people finally turned around and ran away under such a blow!

  The gunner troops led by Zhang Xingzhong were on defense, so when the Khitan army retreated, they didn't pursue. The ones who launched the pursuit were Zhou Kandao's knife-shield squad. This guy, who had been stuck in the back for half a day, was already anxious and eager to take advantage of the opportunity to kill his way out.

  As for Zhou's unauthorized pursuit, Li Chengzhong was initially worried, but he didn't relax until he saw the Khitan army truly collapse. To increase the effect of the pursuit, he ordered Zhong Si Lang to lead 80 reserve soldiers to join the pursuit.

  The heaviest casualties in this battle occurred during the pursuit. Due to the previous wrong detour in Báiláng Mountain for several hours, plus the fierce battle in front of the military camp, the physical strength of the Khitan army was finally exhausted, and they could not outrun the pursuing troops led by Zhou Duan and Zhōng Sìláng, most of whom were eliminated on the mountain road of Báiláng Mountain.

  Zhou Fangdao and Zhong Siliu led their troops to pursue the Khitan army all the way to the mountain pass, driving the remaining Khitan soldiers into the Khitan auxiliary army formation that had been left at the mountain pass before stopping. The two sides confronted each other at the mountain pass for half a watch, after which the Khitans mounted their horses and left this place.

  When the sun was about to set, the White Wolf Mountain garrison's defensive battle finally came to an end. Following Li Chengzhong's order to leave no prisoners, Zhou Kan and Zhong Siliang indeed did not spare a single life. All the Khitan soldiers who surrendered along the way were beheaded on the spot, and all the wounded Khitan soldiers were also finished off with another blow. In this battle, 276 heads were taken, 89 bows were captured, over 60 bags of arrows (approximately 2,000 arrows) were seized, as well as a number of horse knives and spears. The Lulong Army itself suffered 25 deaths, 17 serious injuries, and 32 minor injuries.

  "You won't really kill them all, will you? Not leave a single one alive?" Li Chengzhong asked, looking at Zhou Dangdao with some surprise.

  "Didn't you say no captives?" Zhou Kan Dao asked in surprise.

  Li Chengzhong is not a bloodthirsty person, and when he said this, it actually had a fierce tone to it. It's like when two people are about to fight, the weaker side always says some vicious words before the fight starts, such as "I'll beat you up so badly your mother won't recognize you". This kind of talk doesn't have any real meaning, its purpose is just to boost one's own courage.

  Li Chengzhong was refuted and left speechless, awkwardly muttering: "Zhou Da, you're quite resolute in executing orders, but when you launched the unauthorized pursuit, I didn't see you come to ask for instructions..."

  "Didn't we discuss this before the battle? My knife shield squad is in charge of pursuit..."

  Pursuing and receiving orders before acting are two concepts, Li Chengzhong couldn't explain the difference between them to Zhou Dagou in detail for the time being, so he had to give up for now, but he was already thinking about making "obeying orders" a key point in military officer training.

  However, the disparity in casualties made Li Chengzhong extremely happy, but what he was most satisfied with was not this point. When fighting head-on against the Khitan people, although his soldiers were not a match for the Khitans in terms of experience or skill, at least they did not show less courage than their opponents, and this is what Li Chengzhong was most satisfied with.

  The villagers who fled to the White Wolf Mountain came from three villages at the foot of the mountain, mainly with the surname Cheng. In this village, there were some hunters who would often get injured while hunting in the mountains and therefore had a basic understanding of herbal medicine and wound treatment. At this moment, they were all busy treating the wounded soldiers. Their methods were very rough, and in Li Chengzhong's view, could even be described as "barbaric". The tools were very simple, just heating up knives over fire and then having several people hold down the wounded soldier while directly cutting out the rotten flesh from the wound with a knife. Then they would chew up some unclear grass roots and leaves and apply them directly to the wound. For those who had dislocated or twisted joints during battle, they would simply pull them back into place with force, and the grinding sound of bones made Li Chengzhong feel cold in his heart.

  However, Li Chengzhong had to admit that these hunters were very effective in treating external injuries, especially the herbal mud they spat out of their mouths, which was really useful and could make wounds scab over in just a few days. So Li Chengzhong set his sights on these hunters, planning to capture them all at once and bring them under his command. Of course, only those with light injuries could be cured, while all the seriously injured ones were inevitably left untreated. Li Chengzhong had been through many battles, and in those battles, almost none of the seriously injured people he encountered survived, which was the medical reality of this era, really making one sigh.

  Li Chengzhong had Zhang Laojiang make a wooden plaque ten feet high and set it up in front of a sheltered valley in the back mountain. He buried all the soldiers who died in this battle in the valley, and their names were engraved on the wooden plaque by Feng Dao. Li Chengzhong gathered all the soldiers and civilians to hold a brief memorial service in front of the wooden plaque. During the ceremony, he loudly read out the name of each fallen soldier, then announced that these names would be recorded and used to find their families, and each household of the fallen soldiers' relatives would receive 50 mu of good land. After the announcement, Li Chengzhong stood at the front of the troops, leading all the soldiers to bow silently in mourning.

  The military merit evaluation meeting was held on the third day after the war, and all officers above the rank of deputy lieutenant participated in the evaluation according to Li Chengzhong's intention. Feng Dao attended as a guest. Before the evaluation, there was a routine summary of the war.

  Li Chengzhong did not consider himself a military genius with a keen sense of the battlefield, and he didn't even think he could be called a "good general". He was just an ordinary soldier who had served in the army for two years before crossing over, and hadn't even become a non-commissioned officer. His greatest achievement in the army was getting into the party's activist training program, aside from watching countless historical dramas as an extra actor. In terms of commanding on the battlefield, he didn't think he could do better than the ancients. Those who crossed over and became heroes, killing left and right, revealing their military genius at first sight... Li Chengzhong could only deeply admire them, and kneel down in worship. This was something he couldn't do, and didn't dare to try. What he could do was combine his experiences from the army before crossing over with the habits of this era, and his ultimate goal was to cultivate a batch of qualified military officers, using the power of teamwork to compete with the excellent generals of this era!

  Li Chengzhong regarded summarizing battles as a way to train officers, by reviewing the entire process of the battle, analyzing their own and enemy's strengths and weaknesses, finding out what should be inherited and carried forward in combat, summing up the exposed shortcomings and deficiencies, gradually leaving some basic combat ideas and thoughts in the minds of each officer, making these grassroots officers more deeply understand their own soldiers' characteristics, understanding what to pay attention to in battle, what to avoid, when this accumulation reaches a certain level, Li Chengzhong believed that his officers would become accomplished generals in the future!

  The biggest problem exposed in this battle is the lack of training. Firstly, there was a lack of combat skills and secondly, there was a lack of discipline in formation. Due to these two reasons, when the Khitan people rushed forward for a fierce fight, the seemingly tight gun array immediately became disorganized, leading to both sides getting tangled up and appearing like they were "butting heads" in a comical scene. If this situation were to occur on a battlefield, it could very likely lead to a major defeat.

  The greatest gain in the battle was the transformation of the courage and will of all soldiers. From trembling with fear when hearing about the arrival of the Khitan people at Yu Guan last month, to now maintaining the front line after being broken through by the Khitan people, this transformation took place in a surprisingly short period of time, which greatly exceeded Li Chengzhong's and all the old brothers' expectations. In any case, this transformation is very exciting and expected, many officers couldn't help but feel elated when talking about it. Zhou Kan Dao even directly suggested whether they should try to engage in a frontal battle with the Khitan people in the wild.

  After the summary of the war, it was time to evaluate military achievements. According to Li Chengzhong's proposal, each officer present had three nomination rights, and then voted according to the nominations. The top 20 soldiers with the most votes would be promoted one level. The evaluation of military achievements for officers above the rank of squad leader would be evaluated by a meeting of higher-ranking officers, that is, Li Chengzhong, Jiang Miao, Zhang Xingchong, and Zhou Kandao would discuss it together, based on the number of times their subordinates were awarded as meritorious units.

  Apart from the commendation of meritorious soldiers, there were four teams that were commended as meritorious collectives in this battle.

  Firstly, Zhong Si Lang and his men managed to obtain more than 20 war horses after successfully delaying the Khitan army. Although part of the reason was due to Wang Quan's efforts, with just ten men going forward to meet the enemy, this fighting spirit alone is enough to set an example for the entire army.

  To everyone's surprise, the logistics team led by Zhao Da performed extremely well this time, and it can be said that they turned the tide of the battle. When this team was formed, it was composed of soldiers who were not performing well in other teams, and at that time, no officer would have thought that this team could play such an important role in this battle. In fact, this team did not really fight on the front line, what they did was very simple, just throwing burning wood into the Khitan army like throwing stones... Li Chengzhong emphasized when talking about this issue, through Zhao Da's performance, it can be seen that fighting is indeed a matter of using one's brain, sometimes a small idea can turn the tide of the entire battle.

  The other two companies that made great contributions were the gunner companies that faced the enemy head-on at the mouth of the cave. The casualties of these two companies were also the heaviest in this battle, with a total of seven wounded or killed. Together, the two companies had only six survivors left, all of whom were injured. In the face of such heavy losses, the two companies still held their ground and did not retreat, which is truly commendable. Therefore, when discussing these two companies, all officers were unanimous in their praise.

  The military merit evaluation is complete, and Li Chengzhong secretly calculated an account, and he was frightened to find that the debt on his body was quite astonishing. From a large expenditure point of view, the two rewards that need to be cashed in at present are not something he can afford, and everything needs to be figured out. First, there is the resettlement land for the families of soldiers who died in battle, 42 people died, 50 mu per household, adding up to 2,100 mu. Then there are four meritorious collectives' reward quotas, each person needs to be rewarded with 10,000 yuan, which is 400,000 yuan, or 4,000 guan. In addition, there is another sum of money that Li Chengzhong is seriously considering whether to pay, namely the reward quota for soldiers who participated in the war after the war.

  Following the convention of this era, every time the army went to war, the military leaders would routinely distribute various rewards, including mobilization fees, beheading bounties, and post-war consolation fees. However, Li Chengzhong did not want to do so, fearing that his soldiers would develop a habit of expecting money for battles, and in the future, when encountering wars, they would have the bad habit of not going into battle without being paid, which was very detrimental to a truly mature army.

  After deep thought, Li Chengzhong chose to ignore the issue and not mention it at all. Perhaps due to the current harsh conditions on White Wolf Mountain, his officers didn't ask about this matter, or perhaps because these soldiers were recruited from refugees outside the pass, they didn't understand the "conventions" in the army, so no one thought about this issue. As a result, Li Chengzhong's "sneaky and cunning" behavior achieved unprecedented success, and in the future, his actions that violated the military habits of this era became the convention for his troops, saving him a large amount of military expenses while also leading this army onto a different path from other armies of the same era.