Chapter 392: Kill people and rob horses, expand the army again!

However, the Hu Ben Army was very clear about the wishful thinking of the horse thieves, and of course they would not give them a chance to survive. Zhang Zhun deployed powerful troops around Pingdu Prefecture. Zhang Zhun arranged a total of six Hu Ben Army to launch a large-scale encirclement and suppression of the horse thieves from all directions. He must destroy the main force of the horse thieves before the officers and soldiers counterattacked.

According to Zhang Zhun's arrangement, each Hu Ben Army attacked separately, encircled Pingduzhou from different directions, maintaining close contact with each other, forming a large net. What they wanted to deal with was a relatively large number of horse thieves. As for the sporadic horse thieves, they were handed over to sniper teams to deal with.

Because the Hu Ben Gun's range is very long, it can shoot horse thieves at long distances, especially after a military competition, all units are practicing shooting at moving targets. Therefore, some soldiers' shooting levels are quite high. As long as sporadic horse thieves appear, they can shoot the opponent from the horse's back with a bang.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

In the open fields around Pingdu Prefecture, you can always hear sporadic gunshots.

As the gunshots sounded, there were always one or several horse thieves who fell from the horse's back and no sound. When the horse thieves were killed, one or several figures always appeared in the grass beside them, taking away the ownerless war horses. These people were all wearing gray military uniforms and carrying the Hu Ben gun, and naturally they were various sniper teams of the Hu Ben Army.

The horse thieves in Pingduzhou are not a single group. They have many hills. To be honest, there are more horse thieves than the peasant army in Henan, and there are definitely more than thirty-six families. These horse thieves have the largest number, no more than two hundred people. The fewest number are only a few people. The areas where different horse thieves are active are also different. They are very scattered. Generally speaking, if horse thieves in other areas run to the nearby horse thieves territory, they will have conflicts.

Faced with such sporadic horse thieves, the team fighting was naturally the most effective. The ten sniper teams established by Zhang Zhun were dispatched again. In addition to them, there were more Tiger Ben Army squads active in various areas of Pingdu Prefecture. Their main purpose was to ambush passing horse thieves and snatch war horses. The horse thieves in Pingdu Prefecture were jealous of Zhang Zhun's wealth, and Zhang Zhunze was jealous of the horse thieves' war horses.

"The horse thief killed one is one."

"It's a horse that grabs one."

Zhang Zhun's order was very simple, it was to kill people and steal horses.

If the horse thief's war horse was seized in the battle, the Hu Ben Army would immediately put it into use. According to Zhang Zhun's intention, as long as the war horse was seized, each association was responsible for forming its own cavalry to communicate and prevent being defeated by the horse thief. In fact, each association of the Hu Ben Army had a force of about 300 people, and even if it was siege by the horse thief, there would be no danger. It would be impossible for the horse thief without unified command to encircle the Hu Ben Army on a certain route.

"Bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

From the day the Hu Ben Army entered Pingdu Prefecture, the gunfire around them continued.

Of course, the gunshots were getting farther and farther away from Pingdu Prefecture. Under the oppression of the Hu Ben Army, the local horse thieves were forced to leave Pingdu Prefecture City and retreat to the Daze Mountains in the north. The various troops of the Hu Ben Army naturally continued to pursue the horse thieves in the back, step by step oppressing the living space of the horse thieves. In the end, most of the horse thieves were compressed in the Daze Mountains in the north of Pingdu Prefecture.

The battle between the Hu Ben Army and the Horse Thieves froze here.

At this time, Zhang Zhun was formulating a new military expansion plan.

According to Zhang Zhun's judgment, it will take some time for the officers and soldiers to counterattack.

At present, the strength of the Ming army in Shandong is indeed very empty. In the Qingzhou Prefecture area, there is basically no main force of the Ming army. Shandong's military strength is obviously strong in the east and weak in the west. Tens of thousands of Ming troops gathered in Dengzhou Prefecture and Dongjiang Town to the east. However, relying on the thousands of war soldiers in Dengzhou Prefecture would not do anything to Zhang Zhun. If Zhang Zhun was willing to be a bandit like Li Zicheng, it would not be impossible to lead the army to sweep Qingzhou Prefecture after taking over Laizhou Prefecture. Unfortunately, he did not want to do this.

With the current military strength of the Hu Ben Army, it is still a bit insufficient to control the huge Laizhou Prefecture. Currently, the main force of the Hu Ben Army has only ten assistants. Except for six of them to coordinate to suppress bandits, the other four assistants are less than one county. In addition to the huge Qingzhou Prefecture, it is even more difficult. If the territory is not digested well, it will cause diarrhea. Therefore, behind Aoshan City, Zhang Zhun asked Lin Bin to organize more soldiers.

According to Zhang Zhun's new military expansion plan, the original ten associations will be upgraded to ten battalions, each battalion temporarily governs two associations, with a total of ten teams and a total of 500 soldiers. These ten battalions will be the main force of the future warfare of the Hu Ben Army. According to the 55 system, after the full capacity is fully loaded, the troops of each battalion will exceed 7,000. In addition to the equipped artillery troops, there may be more than 8,000, or even 10,000.

Each battalion of the Ming army generally has about three or four thousand people, and the number of soldiers in each battalion of the Hu Ben Army is more than twice that of the Ming army. Ten battalions are 70,000 or 80,000, even if they fight against the Tartars, it is almost enough. Beyond these ten battalions, more are cavalry and artillery units. According to Zhang Zhun's plan, the cavalry must form at least three battalions. It would be better if they can reach five battalions. As for professional large-caliber artillery, about five hundred should be the same.

Since Zhang Zhun does not have so many soldiers yet, each battalion is seriously dissatisfied. There is still a first-level structure called "department" between the Union Battalion, and it has not been established. However, the ten battalions have a total of five or six thousand people. It is basically enough to protect Laizhou Prefecture. As long as the troops are expanded, there will be no worries about the Ming army's counterattack.

As for future soldiers, Zhang Zhun didn't need to worry at all. As long as the land reform was completed, soldiers were definitely not a problem. Back then, Pla was in the Northeast. Before the land reform, many generals of the troops had to be soldier, and went to various places to find soldiers, cheat, and coerce, and tempt, so that they could successfully replenish the troops. However, after the land reform was over, there were so many soldiers that they could not digest them, and the main force could not have so many, so they established a large number of independent divisions. The total number of troops suddenly expanded to more than one million. Chang Kaishen was immediately so tragic that he could no longer have tragedy.

Therefore, the key to all work is land reform.

To successfully complete the land reform, the key is to eliminate bandits.

But at this time, the Hu Ben Army and the Horse Bids were in a stalemate in the Daze Mountain area.

"I'll go and see it myself!"

Zhang Zhun frowned and said slowly.

The main force of the Hu Ben Army and the horse thieves were stalemate, which was not a good thing. Before the large-scale counterattack of the officers and soldiers came, these horse thieves must be eliminated. Otherwise, they and the officers and soldiers should work together inside and outside and make trouble in the rear of Laizhou Prefecture, which would bring huge trouble to the Hu Ben Army's battle. More importantly, if these bandits were eliminated, the land reform in Pingdu Prefecture would not be successfully completed.

On the 28th day of the first lunar month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Zhun came to Pingdu Prefecture.

Sure enough, the situation of bandit suppression here is quite unoptimistic.

Through the continuous attacks of the six associations of the Hu Ben Army, the large number of horse thieves could not stop it and had to retreat to the north. Finally, they concentrated in Laishan (now the area of ​​Zhilai Mountain in Pingdu City) and hidden in Tianchiling. Due to the complex local situation, the progress of the Hu Ben Army was not very big.

Pingdu Prefecture is the largest county in Laizhou Prefecture, with an area of ​​more than 3,000 square kilometers. At the same time, Pingdu Prefecture is also the most complex state. Especially the Daze Mountain area in the north, it has always been an area where poor mountains and bad waters and thieves are breeding. The remnants of the incense sect used to hide here, and the officers and soldiers were unable to clean up.

Near the main peak of Daze Mountain, there are even more mountains and a complex terrain. When outsiders enter here, they are easily ambushed. A large number of horse thieves gather here, gathering and dispersing, which puts huge pressure on the surrounding land reform work. From time to time, horse thieves appear around, killing supporters of the Hu Ben Army and obstructing the land reform work. If these horse thieves are not eliminated as soon as possible, there will be more casualties and injuries to the people.

In addition, the large number of horse thieves is also one of the main reasons. The large number of war horses means strong maneuverability. None of the two legs can run through four legs. After a period of battle, the Hu Ben Army only seized 170 or 80 war horses, which is far from enough to use.

"Go into the mountain and take a look."

Zhang Zhun pondered for a moment and said slowly.

Soon, Zhang Zhun brought the sniper team to the Tianchiling area.

Sure enough, the terrain here is indeed very complex. The peaks are connected to each other. There are mountains in the mountains, caves in the caves, and ditches in the ditch. The roads around Tianchiling are narrow and winding, and passing through the caves, which are extremely dangerous. If people who are not familiar with the situation enter, they will soon get lost.

This is the birthplace of many rivers, with enough water sources, so horse thieves don’t need to worry about water sources at all. As for food, it should be possible to use the skills of horse thieves to produce grapes. Daze Mountain can support the raisins just by gnawing raisins. Therefore, it is impossible to siege.

All the things seen by Qianlijing were mountains, and there was no one. However, Zhang Zhun knew very well that there were many horse thieves hidden in places he could not see. Most of the mountains were high and dense forests and caves. It was no problem to hide some horse thieves. The six Hu Ben Army of the Association were scattered here, just like a drop of water from the sea, landed in the Sahara Desert and disappeared in a blink of an eye.

Of course, as long as there is enough time, the Hu Ben Army can eliminate the bandits. The problem is that the Hu Ben Army does not have so much time. If the bandits cannot be eliminated at the end of February, the counterattack of the officers and soldiers will be coming.

Zhang Zhun will learn more about the situation.

The horse thieves hidden in the Daze Mountain area are said to be horse thieves, but in fact, most of them are infantry without horses. They are mainly those landlords who are unwilling to be suppressed, or bandits who are robbed. These are mixed together and become the hardest bones to crack. It is estimated that there are about eight or nine hundred war horses around the entire Daze Mountain area. In other words, eight or nine hundred cavalry.

War horse!

Zhang Zhun's eyes suddenly lit up.

If he has something he needs most, it is a war horse. Eight or nine hundred war horses are good things! As long as he can seize most of them, he can form two cavalry aids. If all of them are seized, he can form three cavalry aids. In future operations, if he has cavalry, it will be a powerful advantageous force!

"Send the order, stop the attack!"

Zhang Zhun said decisively.

He ordered that all the troops of the Hu Ben Army no longer organize small teams to enter the mountains to find horse thieves, guard the main intersections, and prevent the large troops of the horse thieves from escaping. The situation in the mountains is too complicated and it is difficult to connect between the troops. If there are too many troops, they cannot be deployed. If there are fewer troops, they will easily be defeated by the enemy one by one. Kill one thousand enemies and hurt eight hundred themselves. Zhang Zhun will not do such a thing.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhun ordered Mo Yu to organize personnel to help copy a large number of notices and prepare to throw them into the mountain.

"Welcome to surrender with your companions' heads and war horses."

"Take a horse thief's head and don't blame him."

"Take two horse thieves' heads and reward them with ten taels of silver."

"Tops of the three horse thieves will be rewarded with twenty taels of silver."

"There are ten taels of silver for each horse thief's head! The more horse thief's heads you carry, the more rewards!"

"Each war horse is worth thirty taels of silver! The more war horses you bring, the more rewards you will receive!"

"Any surrendered horse thief can join the Hu Ben Army after confessing his crimes!"

Zhang Zhun said in an orderly manner about the content of the notice.

Mo Yu said strangely: "Sir, will the horse thief really be fooled?"

Zhang Zhun said confidently: "You can't tell if you look slowly."

Mo Yu then organized personnel to copy the notices of several dozen, which were all described by Zhang Zhun. Because he was worried that the horse thief's cultural level was not high and he could not understand the text, Mo Yu also specially drew some easy-to-understand pictures on the notices. After Zhang Zhun read these pictures, he admired them very much and encouraged Mo Yu to paint more comics in the future and post them to various places in Laizhou Prefecture.

After everything was ready, Zhang Zhun immediately asked the cavalry soldiers of the Hu Ben Army to post these notices at various important checkpoints. He also sent people to Daze Mountain and threw these notices everywhere. Throw one here and one there, throw them all down as long as there is a place where horse thieves may appear, to ensure that most horse thieves can get a simple and easy-to-understand notice. Then, he quietly waited for the development of the situation.

The first month passed quickly, and February arrived in a hurry.

When Zhang Zhun confronted the thieves in Pingdu Prefecture, the entire Central Plains area became a fire. In early February, Zhang Zhun received news from Fengyang Prefecture that the uprising army and officers and soldiers were fighting in the Fengyang Prefecture area. The battle situation was very fierce, and several deputy generals of the officers and soldiers died in battle. The uprising army suffered a considerable loss. Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others started to launch an attack since the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and attacked for more than ten days, but still failed to capture Fengyang Prefecture.
Chapter completed!