Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 372, Ambush at Every Turn

The land of western Hunan is characterized by its high mountains and distant waters.

Some illustrated biographies depict the profession of corpse transporters, who carried the bodies of the dead from other places back to their hometowns, allowing them to return to their roots.

The fundamental reason for the creation of this kind of biography is that there are no roads in this area, and it is full of mountains and rivers, making it difficult for carriages and horses to pass. One can only measure the land with one's own two legs.

After returning to his clan, Peng An immediately issued an order to conscript men.

Within the clan, Peng An's power was in no way inferior to that of a king.

No one dared to disobey his orders.

All males aged 12 to 45 were conscripted into the army, bringing their own rations and weapons.

As for men over forty-five years old, in these indigenous clans, apart from the nobles, very few ordinary indigenous people live to be over forty-five.

Even if some are lucky enough to live to be over forty-five, their bodies will be too old and frail to fight.

Peng An was aggressive and warlike, spending most of his resources to quickly gather more than 20,000 barbarian soldiers. He also demanded soldiers from some small and medium-sized clans that were dependent on him. These clans were not as powerful as Peng An and dared not resist, so they could only obediently send men.

In the end, Peng An's forces reached more than 34,000 men.

Although these people are few in number and far from being elite, with Gong Qi's inside help in the city, taking Changsha will not be too difficult.

If Peng An successfully captures Changsha, Liu Xiang, the King of Shu, can then send troops to follow up, thereby gaining control of key areas in Hunan and continuing the struggle against the Huaiyin bandits.

Peng An led his troops out through the mountains and forests. The march was easier than expected. The people in these mountains were used to climbing these mountain roads. What was a dangerous obstacle for the people on the plains was commonplace for them. Even seven or eight-year-old children in the family had the ability to cross mountains.

Those that lack these qualities will be naturally eliminated.

The group headed south, circling through the deep mountains and passing through the Xuefeng Mountains.

After leaving the Xuefeng Mountains, Changsha was only a little over a hundred miles away. With such a high-intensity march, it would only take a day and a half for them to be at the city's gates.

Actually, heading west through the Zhangjiajie area would have been a faster way out of the mountains, but that route was still some distance from Changsha, and revealing their whereabouts too early could lead to unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, Li Jia and Peng An decided to detour through Xuefeng Mountain.

More than ten days later, Li Jia and his group arrived at the end of the Xuefeng Mountains. One more step and they would be able to leave the mountains.

However, leaving the mountains also meant being exposed. To be on the safe side, Li Jia first led a group out of the mountains to investigate and see if anything had happened in the month he was away.

Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any major changes in just one month.

Before leaving, he used a scheme to provoke conflict between the Hunan gentry and the Huaiyin bandits. Furthermore, there was a resistance force led by Gong Qi in the city that refused to surrender. Changsha should not fall into the hands of the Huaiyin bandits too easily.

However, just in case, Li Jia decided to gather information first before taking action.

He was satisfied with the result.

Although the Huaiyin bandits made some progress during this period, taking control of several cities in Hunan, they were still far from obtaining Changsha.

Li Jia was overjoyed and hurriedly returned to the mountains to report.

Peng An was overjoyed upon receiving this good news. He ordered his soldiers to eat and drink their fill, rest for half a day, and then begin a forced march. After leaving the mountains, they were to reach Changsha as quickly as possible and capture the city.

Peng An also told everyone that the Han people's cities were paved with white jade and made of gold bricks. The people there all wore expensive and gorgeous clothes and had an endless supply of food. The women there had skin as white as snow and bodies more fragrant than flowers. As long as they used all their strength to take the city, all of this would be theirs.

Upon hearing this, the native soldiers' breathing quickened, and their eyes shone with longing.

A boy, who looked to be only a teenager, had a sallow complexion, but his dark eyes were full of longing.

He longed for the world depicted by the Earth King.

This time when he goes back, he wants to bring back a large bag of Han Chinese food and a large bag of Han Chinese cloth so that his mother will never have to worry about food and clothing again. He also wants to take gold bricks, white jade, and he wants to snatch back a plump Han Chinese woman...

The boy took out the few remaining rations from his pocket and swallowed them in large gulps. The rough texture tasted like some kind of delicacy, and he imagined himself eating the food of the Han people. Meanwhile, outside, the army preparing to deal with Li Jia and his men had already been deployed.

He Ai has been operating in Hunan for many years, and his influence extends to towns and villages throughout the province.

Li Jia was never able to escape control from beginning to end.

Changsha was now a scene of utter chaos, a den of dragons and tigers, just waiting for Li Jia to jump in.

The area outside Changsha was equally impressive.

Lianhua Ridge, not far from Changsha, was the land He Ai initially managed, where a large number of ambushes were deployed to cut off Li Jia and his men's retreat.

There was a second layer of ambush in Shaoshan, not far away, to ensure that no one would escape.

In addition, there are third, fourth, and so on...

He Ai made so many arrangements because his original plan was to use Li Jia as a pawn to strike at Liu Xiang, ideally to lure Liu Xiang out of Shu and capture him, or at the very least, to annihilate one of Liu Xiang's armies.

But now, upon investigation, it turns out that not only did Liu Xiang not leave Sichuan, but he also didn't send out his own elite troops, merely sending his barbarian generals instead.

This really made He Ai feel like her talents were being wasted.

However, if they could annihilate this group of barbarians and not let a single one escape, they might be able to deceive Liu Xiang again.

Return to the mountains and forests.

Li Jia was completely unprepared for He Ai's schemes.

As planned, Peng An led his troops out of the mountains and began a rapid march towards Changsha.

Some unexpected events occurred on the way.

Some soldiers fainted from hunger due to the intense march.

They either didn't have enough food, or they had food but hadn't been willing to eat much of it before, which led to this situation.

Unlike the Central Plains army, whose provisions were uniformly distributed by the provisions officer, these barbarian soldiers brought their own food, and the amount varied, so naturally the situations were different for each group.

Peng An showed no mercy to these people and chose to abandon them directly.

They continued marching and encountered a caravan on the road. It was a caravan selling cloth, and the cloth inside was all of the finest quality silk.

The barbarian soldiers were so engrossed in the sight that Peng An had to kill several of them to calm their morale.

"Don't be greedy for these small gains. There are a thousand times, ten thousand times better things inside Changsha!"

Peng An said this.

This is a lie, because these silks were top-quality silks even in the capital, and their price was no less than that of gold.

Peng An's subsequent actions also failed to convince the public.

He knew his stuff, so he secretly ordered his personal guards to wrap the silk up and take it away. Unfortunately, with so many people around, they still managed to find out.

The caravan was naturally a spy for the Huaiyin army. Their purpose in coming here was to confirm Li Jia's marching progress, as Li Jia's marching speed was much slower than estimated, and the Huaiyin army needed to find out the reason.

Peng An originally intended to order the caravan members to be killed.

However, coincidentally, the caravan leader was a member of a collateral branch of the Qian family and had been acquainted with the down-on-his-luck Li Jia, so Peng An ultimately failed to kill him.

Anyway, it's impossible for an army of over 30,000 to hide. Since they left the mountains, they've definitely been exposed to the Huaiyin bandits. Now it's all about speed. Whether they kill them or not won't have much of an impact.

(End of this chapter)