The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 292 A General's Talent
The tall grass along the shore of the high lake is on fire.

When live grass that hasn't been dried is burned, it produces black smoke, so black smoke and dust fill the air.

A slight breeze swept across the lake, carrying the dark smoke across its surface and enveloping much of the lake in a cloud of dust.

Li Bao was in trouble now. Black smoke came straight at him, and the rebel soldiers were all coughing. They had no choice but to try to get as close to the lake as possible.

The local villagers who hid in the tall grass with them are now also having a headache...

They hid their grain in the tall grass by the lake, and now the fire is spreading towards where they hid their grain.

The grass burns relatively slowly, and they can barely hold on for now, but as the fire line draws ever closer, their food supplies will eventually be swept away, and then everything will be lost.

"Li Yishi, what do we do now?" a villager cried out anxiously. "If our grain is burned, we're doomed."

Li Bao gritted his teeth: "Now that things have come to this, we can only carry as much grain as we can on our shoulders and in our hands, and try to escape as far away as possible."

“Once the tall grass is burned down, we will have no cover. When the Jin and Qi soldiers come to attack, we will still be doomed.”

"What should I do?"

The rebels and the villagers were panicked.

Li Bao felt a surge of annoyance. It was a pity he didn't have a boat; otherwise, he could have loaded everyone onto a boat and fled to the other side of Gaohu Lake. This was how江湖豪侠 (jianghu heroes) always toyed with government troops: you come to this side of the lake to suppress bandits, I'll take a boat to the other side. Once you're on the other side, hey, I'm back on this side again.

"Alas, am I, Li Bao, really going to die here?"

As soon as he arrived, shouts erupted outside, a loud noise that seemed to be hundreds of people yelling in unison: "Jin traitors, false Qi traitors, prepare to die!"

Then the soldiers of the pseudo-Qi state began to shout in a chaotic manner: "Oh no, it's the Northern Song army!"

"Ah? Look, that's the Gong flag! The other side's leader has come in person."

"My God, I heard this woman is amazing."

The soldiers of the pseudo-Qi state had extremely low morale and little fighting ability. They panicked as soon as they saw a strong enemy, even before the battle began.

They couldn't help but look towards their Jin Dynasty father!

There are still nearly two hundred Jin cavalrymen here. In the eyes of the cowardly soldiers of the pseudo-Qi state, each of these Jurchen cavalrymen is a tough guy who can take on ten men at once.

However, this time the Jin Kingdom disappointed them. The two hundred Jin cavalrymen were no longer as arrogant as before, and were just as cowardly as the soldiers of the puppet Qi Kingdom. The leader, Pu Nian, mounted his horse and rode north without saying a word. He only left one sentence for the general of the puppet Qi Kingdom: "Hold on."

The general of the pseudo-Qi state: "??"

I was hoping you could hold on, but instead you're telling me to hold on?
In the short time it took him to think this, the Jin cavalry had already begun to retreat, running incredibly fast, covering dozens of meters in an instant...

The general of the pseudo-Qi state couldn't help but swear: "I bought a bag last year, it's super durable."

He wanted to run away, but his father, the Jin Dynasty, had ordered him to "hold on." If he ran away without even holding on, what would his father do to him later? Now he had no choice but to hold on.

The general of the pseudo-Qi state waved his hand: "Prepare to engage the Northern Song army..."

"Bang bang bang!"

The muskets fired from thirty feet away...

The Northern Song army's strategy was to fire only at a distance of ten zhang (approximately 33 meters) against elite enemy troops, and at thirty zhang (approximately 15 meters) against weaker soldiers. As soon as the gunfire rang out, several soldiers of the puppet Qi state fell, and then the entire army collapsed instantly.

"Run! Gong Yi knows sorcery!"

"She defeated the Jin Dynasty using sorcery."

The soldiers shouted in a chaotic manner, then all at once ran north.

Gong Er Niangzi didn't chase after them, but simply waved her hand and ordered, "Put out the fire, quickly put out the water."

Several thousand soldiers rushed toward the fire on the shore of Gaohu Lake. The soldiers began to use all sorts of strange methods to put out the fire. Some scooped up lake water and poured it on the fire, some dug up sand and threw it at the fire, and some even took off their clothes to put out the fire...

But large-scale fires are not so easy to extinguish.

Suppress one, and another will rise.

A breeze blew across the lake, and smoke and fire flew everywhere.

Just then, Yue Wenxuan popped his head out from behind: "Go cut the grass! Go around to the front of the fire, cut a lot of grass, create a firebreak, and stop the fire."

It turns out that Yue Wenxuan had participated in the "civilian spontaneous rescue team" during the 2022 Jinyun Mountain fire in Shuangqing City and had personally witnessed the forest fire brigade's firefighting strategies, the most effective of which was the "firebreak".

The firebreak is still there on Jinyun Mountain and has almost become a tourist attraction.

Under Yue Wenxuan's command, a large number of soldiers rushed to the front line and frantically cut grass. Li Bao's men crawled out of the tall grass and ran to the side of the Northern Song soldiers to cut grass as well. While they were busy cutting grass, they shouted, "Are you subordinates of Zhao Shi, the King of Guohe of the Northern Song Dynasty?"

"What 'King'? That's ancient history!" The Northern Song soldier kept working but laughed, "He's our emperor now."

"Ah, right, right, he has already ascended the throne and become emperor." The rebel soldier slapped his face: "Look at my mouth, I can't speak properly."

As soon as he slapped it, a dark handprint immediately appeared on his face.

He didn't care about saving face and said urgently, "We are subordinates of Li Bao of the Cheng clan. We came to seek refuge with you, but we didn't expect to be surrounded by the Jin invaders and the people of the pseudo-Qi."

The Northern Song soldiers laughed loudly: "So you're brothers who've come to join us! Haha, good, good, great! Let's put out the fire first, and after we're done, we'll be family."

While the soldiers were busy, Li Bao emerged from the tall grass, raised his hands to indicate that he had no intention of fighting, and walked toward the central army of the rebels, shouting as he went: "Cheng Shi Li Bao requests an audience with the righteous man Gong Yishi... cough... Gong Shumi Shi."

He even knew that Gong Yi's official position in the Northern Song Dynasty was Privy Councilor.

Soon, the soldiers relayed the news of Li Bao's request to see the general to the central army.

Gong Erniangzi asked curiously, "Hmm? I feel like I've heard the name Li Bao somewhere before?"

Yue Wenxuan laughed: "It was a message that came from various righteous armies in Shandong when they rose up together, along with Li Kui of Mizhou, Zhao Sheng of Qingzhou, Yan Gao of Weizhou, Li Bao of Chengshi, and others."

Gong Er Niangzi then remembered that she had heard it before.

Thinking of the strange appearance of the group of people in front of her, Gong Erniangzi felt a little distrustful, thinking they were just some insignificant bandits. She couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "True Lord, how does Li Bao compare to Li Kui of Mizhou, Zhao Sheng of Qingzhou, Yan Gao of Weizhou, and others? Is he a capable person?"

Yue Wenxuan deliberately pretended to do some calculations and chuckled, "This man is capable; he has the talent of a great general."

Gong Erniangzi: "Since the True Lord says so, then we must have a proper meeting with him."

(End of this chapter)