Chapter 10: Deployment for Battle (New Book Seeking Attention)

  After handing over the letter to Feng Kaisan, Chen Feng fell silent. To be honest, Zhou Tiedan had mentioned earlier that the horse thief who defeated the security team had threatened to attack Xinghe County City, but he didn't take it seriously.

  In this era, taking down a county town is not an easy task. You have to know that inside the county town, there are not only security teams and police, but also a large number of private guards. If you were to engage in a battle with someone, those rural gentry and wealthy merchants might not react at all, at most they would pay some bandit-suppressing donations.

  However, if that blind man wants to attack the county town, he will offend everyone. The county town is their root, who can guarantee that bandits and horse thieves will not burn his house and rob his daughter when they enter the city? At that time, everyone will definitely gather together to deal with him.

  Don't look at the private guards of those rural gentry and wealthy merchants, they are all scattered soldiers, but they can't stand up to their well-equipped weapons. These masters usually do things very frugally, but this private guard is used to protect their lives. Who dares to be stingy when it comes to protecting their lives? It's said that the largest money house owner in the city, Mr. Xiang, has a private guard with over 300 people, all equipped with flower-shaped machine guns (submachine guns). Adding the police and security teams in the county seat, the possibility of Ma Fei successfully attacking the county seat is not great.

  Chen Feng is now very entangled, due to the lack of intelligence, he doesn't understand the enemy's situation at all. From the tone of the letter just now, the enemy seems to know him well, damn it, this muddy water is not easy to wade through.

  "Xian nephew, Old Man Feng only has this one daughter, Xueqin. This time, no matter what, you must help Old Man Feng bring Xueqin back." Feng Kaisan said with tears streaming down his face.

  Chen Feng was about to refuse, this is likely a conspiracy of those horse bandits. Launching an attack without understanding the situation clearly is obviously not the style of a qualified commander.

  However, Chen Feng's mind suddenly received a prompt from the system's intelligent spirit: "Ma Fei is plotting to stir up trouble in Xinghe County, posing a serious threat to the host's prestige. The system automatically generates a branch task - Ma Fei's provocation. This task is mandatory, and the completion time is one month. There will be rewards for early completion. The completion standard is to annihilate or recruit this group of bandits within a month."

  Dizzy, the words reached the mouth but couldn't be said. Chen Feng thought for a moment and said: "Uncle Feng, although this is likely to be Ma's cunning plan, for Uncle Feng and Xiaochun, I'll take the risk. However, the troops have just been formed, morale is low, and I hope Father will allocate a batch of grain and salary as soon as possible to boost morale. Also, immediately gather the strong men in the county to build defensive works, prepare for the worst, and let me handle other things."

  "I'll leave it to you, my good nephew. I will immediately order the posting of notices to collect donations from the villagers for the suppression of bandits. Furthermore, our family will provide an additional 500,000 yuan in military expenses for the security team. As long as you can bring Xiaochen out safely. As for the construction of defensive fortifications, I will also order it done immediately and guarantee that the county's city walls will be repaired to be as strong as gold." Feng Kaisan said emotionally.

  Leaving the county government, Chen Feng immediately returned to his own security command center.

  As soon as he entered the headquarters, Chen Feng shouted loudly: "Tiebao, immediately notify Deputy Li and the Chief of Staff and the two battalion commanders to come to my office for a meeting."

  "Yes, Commander!"

  Before long, Deputy Commander Li Wensheng, Chief of Staff Yang Yi, First Battalion Commander Li Bin and Second Battalion Commander Hu Tiesheng all arrived.

  "Yesterday, the merchant team of County Magistrate Feng's family was robbed by bandits on horseback. County Magistrate Feng's nephew, Xu Ting, was killed and his daughter was also taken hostage. Now the bandits are boasting that they will attack the county seat of Xinghe, and just now they sent us a letter of challenge, wanting to have a decisive battle with us at Huangshi Cliff in three days' time. What do you think?" Chen Feng said.

  "Commander, now the enemy is in the dark and we are in the light, so the most important thing is to first figure out the enemy's situation, see how many of these bandits there are, and then make a decision." Deputy Li Wensheng said.

  "Deputy captain is right, Ma Fei's men are more troublesome than ordinary bandits. Their mobility is much better than ours. When fighting against Ma Fei's men, we must be prepared for the worst. Li De Guang is a lesson to us!" said Chief of Staff Yang Yi.

  "This battle must be fought, we have no choice. On the one hand, our grain allowance still needs County Magistrate Feng to help us raise it. On the other hand, the appearance of this group of bandits has seriously affected the authority of our Xinghe County Security Regiment. No matter whether they are the remnants of Li Dequan's troops or not, as long as they dare to come, we must annihilate them all. Otherwise, we won't be able to survive in this land of Xinghe." Chen Feng said loudly.

  "Since the commander is ready to fight, let's fight him to death. What's a small bandit like Ma? At most, we'll gather all the brothers from the special forces team. I don't believe that more than 400 people can't take down this group of bastards." said Battalion Commander Li Bin loudly.

  "Don't mention special forces at the drop of a hat, you can only be considered quasi-special forces, far from the real special forces in my mind. You've only learned a bit of what I taught you, don't think that just because you're special forces you can turn the sky upside down."

  Whether it's Li Bin, Yang Yi, or Li Wensheng and Hu Tiesheng, they are all top-notch special warfare team members who were personally trained by Chen Feng. In just over three months, they were able to stand out from among more than 2,000 people, which is indeed a testament to their exceptional abilities. Although they still can't match the standards of ordinary special forces, they are not much different from the ordinary field combat troops of later generations. In this era, they can barely be considered elite.

  But what kind of person is Chen Feng? He has seen the most elite special forces in the world, and no matter whether it's America's Delta Force or Britain's Green Berets, he has fought against them. How could these second-rate special forces members gain his recognition so quickly?

  "Commander, I think the bandits want to engage in a field battle just to utilize their cavalry's powerful impact and mobility to annihilate us completely in the open fields, just like Li Dequan's troops. Therefore, if we want to fight against these bandits, we must first restrain their impact and mobility, otherwise, we have no chance of winning." The second battalion commander Hu Tiesheng analyzed.

  Chief of Staff Yang Yi unfolded a map that was clearly newly drawn, and pointed to one of the points on it, saying: "I don't think it's just this, Commander. The county town is here, Huangshi Cliff is here, and the straight-line distance between them is 28 kilometers. If we march urgently, infantry will need at least two and a half hours to three hours to get there, while cavalry can make it in an hour at most. If we deploy all our troops to Huangshi Cliff, even if the bandits can't defeat us, they can easily bypass Huangshi Cliff and attack Xinghe County Town with their mobility. Our security team is all infantry, and we won't be able to reinforce them in time. This way, these bandits can occupy the county town right in front of us."

  "What you've analyzed all makes sense, the leader of this group of bandits is not simple, with a high level of military training. If we can beat them, we'll fight, if not, they've already moved our old tiger out of the mountains and forests, relying on their mobility to completely take us down before we return to the county city. It's indeed a good strategy, I'd like to meet this leader of the bandits." Chen Feng said with a smile.

  "It's actually not impossible to eliminate this band of horse thieves, it just depends on what the commander thinks?" Yang Yi said.

  "I know what my chief of staff is thinking, but you can think again. The troops on the mountain absolutely cannot enter the city, and Chen's grain protection team also cannot be exposed. At present, the commander-in-chief can only move with the security team of over a thousand people." Chen Feng knew what Yang Yi was thinking. As long as he pulled all the troops from the mountain into the city, even if Ma's bandits arrived at Xinghe County ahead of time, they would have no way to deal with the county seat. On the contrary, they would be attacked by two forces inside and outside, and it would not be impossible to annihilate Ma's bandits completely.

  "What do you plan to do, Commander?" Li Wensheng asked aloud.

  "What to do? Of course, we'll have a cold dish. How many war horses do we have now?" Chen Feng asked.

  "Not many, sir. In this period of time, I have only purchased less than 500 horses. Adding the original horses used for pulling carts at home, there are about 800 horses in total." Li Wensheng said.

  During this period of time, the logistics of the troops were all managed by Li Wensheng, so he was clearer about these things than anyone else.

  "Alright, you immediately send someone to inform Xu Hu, order the two special warfare troops on the mountain to gather at the big willow tree village outside the city, and then send 200 good horses over. Let them secretly investigate the whereabouts of this group of horse bandits along the Saiwu Suo and Da Ku Lian line within these few days. This commander judges that they definitely won't be too far from Huangshi Cliff. If found, that's great, just follow them from a distance. If not found, three days later, advance to Yu Shu Ying, wait for an opportunity, and ambush the horse bandits." Chen Feng said.

  "In addition, the security team immediately made preparations for battle, distributing ammunition to the troops and taking out the hidden long-range artillery. Commander Chen said that he would use these bandits to train his soldiers."

  "Yes," everyone said loudly.

  "Commander, I think we should establish our own intelligence department. Otherwise, it's too passive. This is just a small bandit unit. If we encounter more difficult opponents in the future, we will be at an even greater disadvantage." Yang Yi continued to say.

  "I'm well aware of that, but the problem is we're short on talent in this area. Intelligence work is a technical job, not something just anyone can do." Chen Feng said with furrowed brows.

  Before that, although he was the commander of the Wolf Tooth Special Forces, all the battles he had been in contact with were real and frontal, and all the intelligence gathering was handled by professionals. They only needed to listen to the orders from their superiors and did not need to collect intelligence personally, so Chen Feng was not very good at this aspect.

  "Actually, Commander, I know someone who is quite skilled in this area. I don't know if you can persuade him to help," Yang Yi continued.

  "Who? As long as they're in Xinghe and this piece of land, there's no one that Commander Chen can't invite." Chen Feng said confidently.

  "This is the lady, who is in charge of all Chen's trade on the grassland. I have followed her to the grassland several times, and she is extremely sensitive to all information, with a strong memory, and accurate analysis of intelligence. No one is more suitable for this job than the lady."

  Yang Yi has given Chen Feng a big problem. For his cheap mother, Chen Feng hasn't seen her before, but in the memory of that guy, this mother and tiger are almost synonymous. Now Chen Feng is also afraid of meeting his mother, asking her to come out isn't that simple.