The Red Mansion: From a Small Pawn to a Leader

From the beginning to now, just two hours, but to the commander of the Fifth Army Camp, it felt like more than ten years had passed.

Now, the victory news came, not only did they win, but they won a great victory. The extremely nervous heart of the Fifth Army Battalion General was relieved, and his body seemed to collapse all of a sudden. He leaned on the folded quilt, breathing slowly, and said weakly after a long while: "Tell the Marquis to report the victory to the court immediately, so that the emperor can be happy too."

The lieutenant general said excitedly, "Yes," and then walked out.

The commander of the Fifth Army Battalion suddenly laughed.

King Zhongshun, who was stunned by the good news, came to his senses and looked at the general of the Fifth Army Camp.

After laughing, the general of the Fifth Army Camp coughed a few more times and said, "With this great victory, not only did we stabilize the crisis, but we also boosted the morale of the army. The Loyal and Brave Marquis has made great contributions to our Dashun."

King Zhongshun snorted, "If Shui Rong hadn't been so overwhelmed by victory, he might not have won this battle. And his contribution to the new muskets and artillery only accounted for a small part at most."

The commander of the Fifth Army Battalion smiled bitterly, not wanting to argue with him, and then said, "With this great victory, your majesty will surely be in a much better mood. If I submit my resignation letter now, your majesty may be able to reduce the punishment or even exempt me from punishment in consideration of my past hard work."

Having said this, he looked at Prince Zhongshun and said, "Your Majesty, please take this opportunity to submit a petition of apology."

Prince Zhongshun wanted to respond but was too embarrassed to speak.

The general of the Fifth Army Camp smiled secretly: "Your Majesty's wounds have not healed yet. Your Majesty said, let me write it. How do you think?"

Prince Zhongshun hummed and closed his eyes.

The general of the Fifth Army Battalion shook his head and shouted, "Bring me some writing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone!"

Here, Shui Rong sat in the middle of the big tent with a gloomy face.

The two sides were filled with White Lotus leaders.

Shui Rong: "How can we break through the defense line of the Five Army Camps?"

The White Lotus leaders looked at each other, and no one said a word.

Shui Rong's face darkened: "Speak up! Don't you usually brag about how powerful you are and how you can easily beat the government troops? Why are you all dumb now?"

There was total silence.

At this time, Yang Qilong walked in hurriedly.

Shui Rong suppressed his anger and looked at Yang Qilong: "How many defeated soldiers have you gathered?"

Yang Qilong panted: "It's the Sharp Warrior Battalion."

Shui Rong was stunned for a moment: "What?"

Yang Qilong swallowed his saliva and said, "It was not the Fifth Army Battalion that defeated the Vanguard Army, but the Sharp Army Battalion. Li Hu is here!"

Shui Rong stood up suddenly: "Are you sure?!"

Yang Qilong: "No doubt about it. I saw Jia Yun from the Jia family. The firearms battalion he led was Li Hu's direct subordinate. If the firearms battalion came, Li Hu must have come too, along with the artillery. The Fifth Army Battalion fled in a panic, and didn't take any artillery with them at all!"

Shui Rong sat down: "No wonder. No wonder the tactics of the five military camps have changed so much, it turns out that the people have changed." At this point, he slammed his palm on the table, "You brat, you dare to ruin my plan!"

Yang Qilong sighed in his heart. With Li Hu and the Ruishi Battalion coming, this battle would be difficult to fight. Although the Ruishi Battalion only had more than 10,000 people, they were the elite who could fight against the Eight Banners Army. The reason why they were able to defeat the Infantry Battalion and the Five Army Battalion was because of the intelligence transmitted by the insider, not their own strength.

There was a gleam in Shui Rong's eyes, and he was obviously thinking.

Yang Qilong hesitated for a moment and said, "As long as the green mountains remain, there will be no shortage of firewood." Shui Rong: "We cannot retreat. If we retreat one step, we will retreat all the way."

Yang Qilong: "But the terrain here is not favorable to us"

Shui Rong's eyes flashed with ferocity: "Send people to drive all the people of Hefei here. Even if we have to pile up their lives, we must make a path! I don't believe that these hundreds of thousands of people can't drown Li Hu and the Ruishi Battalion! We must drown him!"

Yang Qilong was startled: "This..."

Shui Rong raised his hand and said, "It's settled. Bring the bronze vessels looted from Hefei City here and cast bronze cannons. Let Li Hu have a taste of the power of bronze cannons!"

Yang Qilong smiled bitterly: "The Western barbarians have always been on guard against us, and our people have not learned the key technology. Those Western barbarians all died on the battlefield."

Shui Rong frowned and said, "Then bring all those bronze cannons under Hefei City! Oh, and bring all the cavalry here as well."

Yang Qilong was stunned for a moment, then hesitantly said, "Those cavalrymen have just learned how to ride horses. Cavalry combat is completely different from infantry combat."

Shui Rong: "Now we can only take care of the head and not the butt! Sending them here can deter Li Hu and make him dare not easily send cavalry to attack our army's rear wing. And... we will talk about it later. In a word, we must go all out in this battle, mobilize all our forces, and defeat the government troops on the opposite side in one fell swoop!"

At this point, he stood up again and said, "Now is the time when the imperial court's power in Anhui is the weakest. This is a golden opportunity! Once they recover, they will chase us and fight again!"

Yang Qilong hesitated for a moment and replied, "Yes."

Shui Rong thought he was worried about the horses, so he smiled and said, "If we can capture these horses, we can capture them again. Don't worry, we will have an elite cavalry sooner or later."

Yang Qilong had nothing else to say but nodded.

Shui Rong suddenly remembered: "Oh, right, we need to arrange patrols to prevent Li Hu from attacking the camp, especially at night!"

Yang Qilong: “Yes.”

After a war, cleaning up the situation is often more difficult than fighting the war.

The prisoners had to be detained and interrogated, the weapons and equipment had to be collected, and the bodies had to be dealt with. By the time all this busy work was over, the sun had already set.

Li Hu stood on the high ground and looked at the White Lotus camp in the distance. To be honest, Shui Rong's camp was not well set up. If there were 10,000 cavalrymen, they could attack the camp tonight.

At this moment, Wang Yaozu hurried over and handed a stack of paper to Li Hu: "The sentinel is back."

Li Hu took the stack of paper and read it carefully one by one.

If Shui Rong saw them, he would be shocked, because the drawings on these pieces of paper were exactly the terrain and fortifications of various important areas of his camp.

After watching, Li Hu cursed the ancestors of King Zhongshun in his heart. The Mongolian cavalry assigned to him were killed and only a thousand people were left. More than 4,000 cavalry could only rush into Shui Rong's central army camp at most, which was too risky!
Wang Yaozu: "According to the information obtained from the prisoners, Shui Rong did not bring much food and fodder. At most, food and fodder will be shipped from Hefei in three or two days. Let's burn them all and starve these bastards to death!"

Li Hu nodded.

Wang Daniu spoke up: "The lackeys of the scabby dog ​​are here."

Li Hu turned around and saw Huang Jinzhong's trusted young eunuch coming.

Walking up to him, the young eunuch half bowed to Li Hu and said softly, "My Lord, godfather wants you to discuss reporting the victory to the emperor."

Li Hu waved his hand and led Wang Daniu, Wang Yaozu and others down. (End of this chapter)