prosperous age

On a hillside more than 30 miles away from the city of Ava, a small group of Ming troops hid in the forest seven or eight miles away from the main road, staring at the large group of Burmese troops passing by.

"It seems that he was chased badly by Marshal Li. He is in such a mess."

Zhao Paoer said jokingly.

"Shut up."

The subordinate spoke up, but was immediately stopped by Zhang.

What a joke! Although the scouts have strong individual combat capabilities, there are so many Burmese troops at the foot of the hill that a spit from each of them can drown them.

If they were exposed now that they were hiding, they would definitely be dead.

This small team of Ming troops were the Ming scouts who had just returned from reconnaissance in Ruibo City yesterday.

They should have been able to rest for a while and not have to take on new tasks in the short term.

However, soon after they took the reward and went down to rest, they were found by their superiors and assigned a new task.

Yes, that is their mission now.

Instead of continuing to scout the enemy, they tried to find a way to avoid the Burmese army and contact the Ming army following them.

To be honest, this mission is not difficult. The main thing is to predict the location where you may come into contact with the Burmese army and find a place to hide.

After the Burmese army passes, continue moving forward until you meet the Ming army, pass on the message, and the mission will be completed.

The job of a messenger is really not difficult for these people.

The reason why they were arranged to go there was because they had been to this area before and were familiar with the terrain, and Li Rusong was worried that the letters would be intercepted.

If we go north, we will easily run into the Burmese army heading south.

Once the messenger was intercepted, the news would be told to Mang Yinglong, which was not what Li Rusong wanted.

After much thought, this team of scouts is the only reliable one to carry out the mission of delivering messages.

They are naturally alert, otherwise they would not be able to do the job of scouts.

If you are a little careless, the grass on your grave will grow too tall.

Therefore, Zhangtou's team of scouts received new orders, passed the message to the north, and brought supplies out of the city overnight.

At this time, they hid in the mountains and forests, and the horses were led up the mountain and hidden behind dense bushes. The horses were tied to the trees and muzzled to prevent them from making any noise.

And now, they were standing at the edge of the bushes, nervously watching the Burmese troops passing by at the foot of the mountain.

As the old saying goes, if there are a thousand people, the sky and the earth are connected; if there are ten thousand people, there is no end.

What does that mean?

This proverb means that when the number of people reaches one thousand, people will feel that the earth and the sky are connected, as if they can touch the sky.

When the number of people reaches 10,000, people will feel that there are no boundaries around them, as if they are in a boundless space. This is also an expression of momentum, a very spectacular momentum.

In fact, everyone who has seen the movie "The Decisive Battle" knows that there is a section where the Kuomintang army is marching. The director chose to use aerial photography to show the boundless momentum of the large army of tens of thousands of people.

It should be the Battle of Xuzhou and Bengbu. Near the Grand Canal, the army formed countless long dragons, among which there were convoys of tanks and cars marching on the vast land. The majestic and tense atmosphere suddenly came to the face.

In fact, the feelings of this team of scouts were similar at this time, and because they were personal experiences, they were slightly different.

At this time, the roads that could be seen were filled with enemy soldiers.

After Zhang Tou's scolding, everyone shut up and dared not say another word. Even though this place was far away from the main road, they were still afraid that the enemy would hear their noise.

But even though no one said a word, everyone could feel their own heartbeat and the continuous heartbeats.

"dong dong dong"

There is no doubt that the small team of scouts is under tremendous pressure.

Finally, someone couldn't help it and started to crawl back.

They didn't dare to stand up and walk back, for fear that their movements would be discovered by the enemy, so they could only move back little by little.

If you can't see it, you don't have to bear this kind of pressure.

An hour passed, and the road was still crowded with Burmese soldiers.

Two hours later, the Burmese soldiers on the road relaxed a little.

Another half hour passed, and finally, they saw the end.

Another group of loose Burmese soldiers were marching towards them, and behind them, there was no trace of the enemy.

"Oh my goodness, I'm finally done."

Zhao Paoer couldn't help but speak again. He had a pretty good endurance and was very calm, but he also felt suffocated before.

There were tens of thousands of Burmese troops passing by them, and they even saw several elephants carrying large bamboo baskets on their backs.

The people in the bamboo basket were dressed luxuriously. Although they were running for their lives, Mang Yinglong and his men were certainly not treated the same as ordinary soldiers. They needed to measure the length of the journey with their feet.

In fact, when he saw those people, Zhao Paoer couldn't help but touch the musket and almost wanted to shoot at the elephant's back.

Fortunately, he held back.

Knowing the current environment, it is not conducive to doing so.

A single reckless action might put their team in an irretrievable situation.

After making the sound, Zhao Paoer immediately covered his mouth with his hand. At the same time, he saw Zhang Tou staring at him with fierce eyes.

The people in the army are used to being brave and aggressive. Since Zhang Tou can become their leader, he is naturally the most powerful one. There is no one in the team who has not been beaten by him.

Finally, the last column of Burmese soldiers passed by them. Zhao Paoer then whispered again, "Zhang Tou'er, it seems that they have finished their march. Should we set off quickly? We have been climbing for several hours already."

Before coming into contact with the Burmese army, someone in the team judged that they were about to encounter a large group of Burmese troops by lying on the ground and listening to the sounds, so they chose to hide and conceal themselves.

However, even with this ability, there is actually some error in judgment.

They hid for almost half an hour before the Burmese soldiers finally arrived.

In response, the brother said, "It was a misjudgment. Who could have thought that those Burmese cowards would be so slow?"

All in all, they had been hiding here for more than three hours and had not moved much for several hours. Everyone felt their hands and feet were a little stiff.

"Move a little, but still stay hidden. There might be an enemy team behind us."

Zhangtou said something in a low voice and started to move his hands and feet, but he was still lying down.

Others followed suit and started to move.

After half an hour, there was no trace of Burmese soldiers on the road. Zhang Tou stood up and said, "Everyone, get moving. Lead the horses down the mountain. Let's go."

In fact, they were also lucky. If it was a normal march, there would definitely be enemy scouts investigating a few miles or even dozens of miles away before the main group of troops appeared.

However, during the escape, there was no danger ahead and no Ming army soldiers appeared, which made Mang Yinglong become careless.

In addition, last night he knew that there was irregular contact between Ruibo City and Ava City, and they had agreed to inform each other if they found the enemy, so Mang Yinglong made a misjudgment and thought that there would be no Ming army here.

For this reason, along the way, Mang Yinglong did not send out scouts to investigate ahead, nor did he send out troops to cover the rear.

Otherwise, Zhang Tou's small group of Ming troops might encounter Burmese scouts.

Of course, it's just a possibility.

After all, they were very careful and started hiding their tracks a long time ago.

The most likely possibility is that they hid in advance, and then soon saw the Burmese scout team, and then the main force of the Burmese Army.

Soon, a dozen Ming army scouts led their horses down the mountain and when they reached the roadside, they mounted their horses and rode north.

This place is more than 20 miles away from Ruibo City, so there is nothing to worry about unless they are extremely unlucky and encounter the Burmese army's rearguard troops.

But fortunately, after an hour, they did not encounter any enemy forces and were close to the city of Ruibo.

Just like last time, he dismounted early, avoided the main road, and went into the woods on both sides of the road.

Then we took the mountain road and approached the city of Ripple little by little. We hid our horses in the hidden place we had yesterday, and then we went to the woods ahead to observe the movements of the city of Ripple.

They did not choose to lead the horses directly around the city, but instead wanted to see the situation first.

There seems to be no change on the top of the city wall of Ripple City today compared to yesterday, but the city gate is open.

There were also sparse crowds of people on the roads near the city, and even occasionally there were horse-drawn carriages going from outside the city into the city.

"Zhang Tou, are they gathering the people nearby?"

One of the men asked in a low voice.

Yes, at first glance, it looks like the city of Ripple is gathering nearby residents into the city.

"Fortunately, we didn't go around the city directly. I remember there were two forks in the road ahead. If we had gone directly, we might have run into these people."

Zhao Paoer whispered again.

"They should be clearing the countryside, which means the Marshal's troops will soon be here."

Zhang Tou spoke.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

The gate of Ruibo City was open, which meant that the Ming army was at least far away from here, at least twenty miles away.

Otherwise, the city gates would never dare to be left open to receive people.

However, although the main force of the Ming army is still far away from here, the urgency of the situation can be seen from the fact that the other side is so urgent.

In addition to the people constantly entering the city, there were also carriages and soldiers rushing out of the city.

"Zhao Paoer, lead the way, let's go to the main road you mentioned first.

We don't have time to linger here, we can only wait for an opportunity when no one is around, cross the road and continue walking north to find the Marshal's team."

Zhang Tou spoke.

"Thin guy, go to the back and ask them to bring the horses over."

They were going north, so of course they couldn't do it on foot, they had to ride horses.

So, they had to bring their war horses with them.

However, this time the wait was very long.

It took them more than two hours to cross the two roads, because from time to time there were Burmese people passing by with their families.

Moreover, although they could kill people to silence them, there were other civilians in the distance, and they couldn't drag all of them into the woods and kill them.

So, they could only wait, wait for a gap when there was no one around, and quickly cross the road without exposing their presence.

Finally, Zhao Paoer led them around to the north of the city. After taking a look at the heavily guarded north gate, Zhang Tou and the others finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's go a few miles further, then we can mount our horses and take the main road."

Only when he got here did Zhangtou become bolder.

Even if they were discovered by the Burmese scouts, they would only think that they were Ming troops sent by the northern Ming army to conduct reconnaissance and would never think that they came from the south of Ruibo City.

"Bang bang."

Two gunshots were heard, and one of the enemies on the opposite side let out a scream and quickly ran into the woods on the side of the road.

"Don't worry about them, let's go sideways."

Zhang Tou now drew his bow and arrow, and used his legs to control his horse to gallop forward.

Behind him, Zhao Paoer had no time to reload the musket, so he held the reins in one hand and hung the musket on the saddle with the other hand, then changed to a five-barreled musket and followed closely behind.

The bird guns were, of course, fired by the Ming army.

After they mounted their horses and rode a few miles, they encountered a group of about ten Burmese scouts.

Zhao Paoer and his men decisively opened fire at that direction, while several other comrades also drew their bows and shot several arrows, causing certain casualties on the opposite side.

After the other party dodged, they passed by them without stopping. Zhang Tou and several other archers also shot a few arrows at the Burmese soldiers hiding on the roadside.

Zhao Paoer and another firearms officer aimed their five-barreled guns at that direction, but did not light the fuse.

In this kind of contact combat between scouts, the bird gun is indeed not very effective.

The shooting rate is not good and he is completely beaten by archers.

However, the bird gun still has its uses. It can not only scare the opponent, but also exert pressure in terms of momentum.

At closer distances, they would choose to use a five-barreled gun, which not only allows them to quickly fire five bullets, but also allows them to swing the gun like a hammer and use it as a melee weapon.

In fact, some of the Ming army's three-barreled guns did not have only three barrels, but five to seven, depending on the user's arm strength.

However, this type of gun with a barrel is generally called a three-barreled gun.

After encountering this team of Burmese scouts, they traveled more carefully, but they did not encounter any enemy for the next half day.

Soon, the sky darkened and darkness was about to cover the earth.

"There's a wood in front of us. We'll spend the night there."

Zhang Tou gave the order.

Although they should continue northward to find the Ming army and send out intelligence, the scouts knew the dangers and did not dare to continue northward rashly.

If we encounter the Burmese army, it is likely that they will be the enemy's scout team.

In this kind of encounter, it depends on who discovers the other first, and the danger is quite great.

However, when they approached the woods, Zhang Tou suddenly pulled the horse's head and began to observe the woods carefully.

A moment later, he suddenly pulled the horse to the other side of the road.

"Be careful of ambush."

Zhangtou only had time to shout once.

In fact, when Zhang Tou pulled the horse, the tacit understanding of many years had already made others alert.

When Zhang Tou rode his horse to the other side, everyone did the same thing. Many people even hid in the stirrups and directly concealed their bodies on the other side of the horse to avoid being shot by the enemies in the woods.

When they hurried to the other side of the road, they startled countless birds in the forest.

The men alertly observed the surroundings and found nothing unusual before they began to confront the people in the woods opposite.

"Boss, let's go around and walk a little further."

Zhao Paoer reminded again in a low voice.

There must be someone in the woods opposite, otherwise it wouldn't have been so quiet before.

"Who are you?"

Just when Zhang was about to speak, the voice of a Han Chinese shouting suddenly came from the woods opposite.

"We are Major General Li Rusong's men."

Hearing the voice from the other side, Zhang Tou thought for a moment and then answered.

"Why are you here?"

The other side continued to ask questions.

"But is it from Marshal Li's side?"

This time, Zhangtou did not answer, but asked.

The other party was silent for a moment, and finally answered: "Yes, the army is not far from here, put down your weapons and come over."

"We are General Li's messengers, and we have an important letter for you, Marshal."

Zhang Tou finally shouted loudly this time. (End of this chapter)