Chapter 78: Different Thoughts
If you get beaten and can't fight back, you have to go to your big brother to get revenge, of course you have to do it.
At the very least, you have to find someone to back you up.
This is what Li Le thought after being caught off guard by the sneak attack before dawn.
No matter whether this eldest brother is their nominal eldest brother Guo Tai, or Yang Feng, who actually has the most power among the four of them, he is going to the same place after all.
He also thought that he couldn't just run away in such a miserable state.
Under the premise that they are still in competition with each other, this kind of decline will only become a reason for the other party to swallow up themselves.
He quickly straightened his clothes which were a little crooked, and asked the men behind him who were retreating from the tunnel like him to tidy up their appearance, especially to dust off the dust on their bodies, making these more than a thousand people look a lot more respectable, and then they headed towards Yang Feng's base.
Fortunately, they didn't have to bother with each other like Qiao Yan had to spy on them. They would inform each other of their moves, otherwise finding people would be a big problem.
This kind of necessary information in a state of mutual assistance obviously has no possibility of lying.
Li Le had been in the mountains for quite some time, and he could walk around the mountains in the Xiangfen area with his eyes closed. Therefore, before noon, he had already reached the outskirts of where Yang Feng was.
As expected, he was stopped by the patrolling Xu Huang.
Yang Feng is not like him who focuses on hiding. After all, he has a subordinate who makes Li Le jealous, which is enough for him to gain a foothold here.
In Li Le's opinion, Xu Huang was a man who used his brain to plan his defenses, and he also had great martial arts skills. If it weren't for the kindness Yang Feng had shown him in his early years, this guy might have become the leader of the Baibo faction.
But there is no point in saying this now. After all, this guy is loyal to Yang Feng, and he has also done a great job in guarding the camp that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.
But thinking about it, since he could intercept them so quickly, he must be able to quickly detect the attacking men of Leping Hou, so his safety would be guaranteed.
Li Le was forced to flee and now he finally breathes a sigh of relief.
"Why are you here, General Li?" Xu Huang looked at the people behind Li Le with a suspicious expression.
Even though Li Le had spruced up his and his followers' image before coming, Xu Huang knew their abilities and qualities, and this concealment could not hide their panicked state of fleeing.
It is obvious that he has lost his base and is being chased by others.
His eyes were too sharp, and he immediately said, "Marshal Li has come with a thousand people, and we dare not entertain them. If you just want to discuss matters with Marshal Yang, just bring ten of your personal guards." Li Le was choked for a long time, but he had to tell the truth.
But when he thought about it carefully, he felt that he didn't need to be so timid.
These people were defeated by Leping Hou's men and did not gain much advantage at Xingkou, and the situation was not limited to his place.
Now that Marquis Leping came personally with his men, it was normal that he didn't get any good result.
At least he managed to escape because he left himself a way out, and even saved more than half of his men.
After he finished his speech, Xu Huang caught the key words in his words and asked, "Are you saying that Leping Hou personally brought people here this time?"
He took another look at the situation of Li Le and his followers, and was not as optimistic as he was. Instead, after getting a positive answer, he arranged for them to stay outside the camp, and immediately went to report to Yang Feng.
But before he could finish, they received news that Han Xian had also arrived.
Compared with Li Le's situation, his situation is even more miserable.
During Qiao Yan's attack on Li Le, he didn't even let Dian Wei take action, but let him act as a qualified bodyguard. However, Zhao Yun, who was responsible for attacking Han Xian's camp, had no intention of showing mercy.
He and Xu Fu sent someone to notify Han Xian first.
It's a pity that Han Xian believes that his power is only second to Yang Feng's. He doesn't hide like Li Le, and he even has a camp that he can defend. So if someone really attacks, he will be able to fight and there is no need to worry so much.
If the person who came to tip him off had not been so sure in what he said, he would not even be willing to set up another line of defense.
But after Zhao Yun and Xu Fu had agreed, they chose to attack when the other party was having breakfast, which was really unexpected!
As Zhao Yun had already fought with the enemy and led his troops forward with great bravery, this line of defense seemed to be useless. At most, it only bought Han Xian some time to escape.
Han Xian kept muttering that he regretted not listening to others, while he gathered his remaining troops and joined Yang Feng.
Because he and Yang Feng did not have a very good relationship on weekdays, he simply dressed himself up a little more miserable, so that if Yang Feng did not take him in, he would have a reason to blame him.
Who knew that when he arrived here, the first person he saw was not Yang Feng, but Li Le who was ordering his men to set up camp.
The two of them stared at each other for a long time before they asked as if in a secret code: "Le Ping?"
As soon as they saw the other party's behavior, they guessed that the other party was indeed a fellow sufferer.
However, they soon realized that although they had suffered heavy casualties and almost lost their lives, they were still better off than their inferiors.
When another group of remnants arrived here, they learned a surprising news -
Hu Cai died at the hands of Chu Yan.
After Hu Cai's death, the group of Baibo bandits who barely escaped from the melee, under the guidance of one of their small leaders, chose to come here for refuge.
"Fortunately, I dug an extra tunnel..." Li Le couldn't help but sigh, and was extremely grateful that his two opponents were still young and lacked some skills.
"Fortunately, my fellow villagers informed me of the recruitment..." Han Xian said almost at the same time.
The two men looked at each other again and saw the relief in each other's eyes.
Three of Bai Bo's four commanders were attacked by Leping, and now the pressure is undoubtedly on Yang Feng.
Because the three parties encountered different situations, Yang Feng did not realize that Han Xian and Li Le's coming was a trap set by Qiao Yan. He just asked Xu Huang: "In Gongming's opinion, will the Marquis of Leping attack us?"
Xu Huang thought about it and replied, "I don't think so."
"We have more than 4,000 men, but we are often restricted by the enemy because it is not convenient to have too many men in the valleys and mountain roads. But if they want to break through our camp, even if we are completely unprepared, they must have more than 5,000 men. In your opinion, can Leping really have such a number of men?"
Yang Feng shook his head.
Leping was only a county with tens of thousands of households. Even if it took in the Black Mountain bandits, the number of people who were truly capable of actual combat was no more than three thousand at best.
Even among this group of people, most of them must have been stripped of their weapons to prevent them from gathering again and posing any threat to the safety of Leping itself.
Any normal person would not use too many bandits from one side while clearing out bandits from another side.
After all, these days, being a thief is better than being a civilian, and there is no guarantee that the two parties will not unite together.
So this number would be at most 3,000 people.
This is a number that would make it impossible for them to launch an attack.
Yang Feng felt a little relieved, and asked Xu Huang, "What do you think? Should we take in Han Xian and Li Le, or let them go out and rebuild the camp?"
Xu Huang did not answer this question directly.
He just said: "For such an important matter, the commander should make his own decision."
Yang Feng’s previous attitude had actually already expressed his inclination.
Xu Huang saw clearly that when Hu Cai's troops arrived, Yang Feng's behavior was more like coveting these manpower than sympathy for the situation of another leader in the same camp.
At this time, although Xu Huang intuitively felt that leaving all the people here was not a good choice, it was not appropriate for him to say this out loud.
All he could do at this moment was to strengthen the camp's defense. On the one hand, he had to be on guard against Li Le and Han Xian, and on the other hand, he had to be careful that he had misjudged Leping Hou and that the other party really led his troops to attack him at this time.
Yang Feng laughed when he heard Xu Huang's answer. He patted him on the shoulder and said, "Gong Ming is not sincere."
But having said that, he was still very satisfied with Xu Huang's knowledgeable and interesting attitude.
He was confident that he had the confidence to swallow up Hu Cai's troops, and even further swallow up Li Le and Han Xian. So since his side had an absolute numerical advantage, it would be no problem to leave those people behind.
Needless to say, the place where Xu Huang settled his people was also the barrier of their camp.
If the Marquis of Leping, with the confidence built up from his previous three successful attacks, chose to attack them, these people would just become his "helpers".
To use Qiao Yan's words, it would be more appropriate to say that they were cannon fodder.
But in this alliance that is more like a community of interests than a bond of friendship, he coveted the group of people from Hu Cai's army who fled here. Don't other people have the same idea?
Li Le and Han Xian had just experienced a period of heavy casualties and wanted to make up for the losses they had suffered.
They knew very well that it would not be easy to recruit new people after just suffering a defeat.
So they all turned their attention to Hu Cai's subordinates.
One side has lost its leader, and the other side needs to replenish manpower. Isn't this a perfect deal?
However, they also knew that they were now in a state of dependence on others, and because of the existence of competitors, they could not reveal their intentions so quickly.
In addition to these two people, there was another person who was keeping an eye on these people, and that was the nominal leader Guo Tai.
How did he become the leader? It was because when these people first gathered together, each of them only had a few thousand people under their command, and no one was willing to submit to anyone else, so they simply pushed him up.
But Mrs. Guo was able to mobilize hundreds of people at that time, so she was not completely incompetent.
However, these people are obviously not happy to see a real powerful leader over them, so in the past two years, the sect has restricted his development a lot, and at best has only given him a position of commander in chief.
So much so that when these people had developed thousands of subordinates, and their numbers had further expanded because of their families, he was still holding on to that pitiful thousand or so people.
Now that Hu Cai is dead, shouldn't his subordinates be under the command of him, Commander Baibo?
Mrs. Guo couldn't help but have some thoughts.
He couldn't help but think of a more dangerous idea at this moment.
If he, Li Le, Han Xian and Hu Cai's troops were combined together, they would have the numerical advantage over Yang Feng. And if they attacked from such a close distance, even with Xu Huang's greatest skills, he would probably not be able to defend against them.
He didn't expect to swallow everyone in one breath, but if Hu Cai was gone, he could become a commander with real power, and even kill Yang Feng, who had never respected him much. How wonderful it would be!
However, before achieving this goal, these people with different ideas have to face a more realistic problem.
Their food is not enough.
If only Yang Feng's group was stationed here, there would be no problem at all with their planning of food and supplies. With Xu Huang helping him solve security issues, Yang Feng simply paid more attention to internal affairs, fearing that they would face food shortages in the winter that was about to arrive.
But now there are two more parties, no, it should be said that there are three more parties and it is a bit troublesome.
Yang Feng couldn't help feeling a little sad about distributing the things, and it might even put his side in trouble, but what if he didn't distribute them?
We are all thieves!
When they really faced the situation of not having enough to eat, the generally accepted approach was to rob, and they would even complain. As allies, why could Yang Feng and his men still have enough food and clothing, but they didn't care about the lives of those who were attacked by Leping.
Logically speaking, if there aren't enough things, just go down the mountain and rob them.
But then they received a message.
After the three parties succeeded but failed to fully realize their goal, the Marquis of Leping did not return to Leping as a nobleman who was out to spread rumors should have done, but instead stationed outside Pingzhou County.
This is a state where, although there is still some distance between them, they can launch an attack on them at any time.
Under such circumstances, it would be somewhat inappropriate for them to focus on Chenguanxing.
Then, we can only look at Hedong County?
Compared to the entanglement and depression of these people, Qiao Yan was undoubtedly much more comfortable.
Ping Zhou was under the jurisdiction of Xihe County. Because of the position of General of the Central Army who protected the Xiongnu, the military power of the governor of Xihe County was greatly checked. At least Qiao Yan, the Marquis of Leping, openly stationed his troops here, so he had no way to deal with Qiao Yan.
It is impossible to file a complaint. Didn’t you see that Qiao Yan attacked the governor of a state, but he didn’t receive much punishment. He even forced the original governor Zhang Yi to flee to Xuzhou. What if she attacks him again?
The last time she did it for the sake of the locust plague and people's livelihood, this time it was to suppress the Baibo bandits, and it seemed like a very legitimate reason.
He could only pretend that he didn't see this inappropriate behavior.
With this tacit consent, and the fact that it was not difficult for Qiao Yan to bring military rations from Leping, and that it would not affect Pingzhou's rice and grain reserves, and he could even serve as a bodyguard outside the city, if he had not guessed that the Xihe governor was in a bad mood, the Pingzhou county magistrate would have wanted to bring something to reward the troops and express his condolences.
Qiao Yan, who had no idea what his "neighbor" was thinking, was staring at the paper and pen in front of him in a daze.
Although this three-pronged attack was carried out completely according to her plan and achieved the desired results, any battle would inevitably involve casualties.
This is a completely unavoidable situation.
In addition, the number of people in these three parties was greater than the number of people she sent out, so the advantage of her own strong physique was balanced by the number of people...
In short, the number of casualties in each group was over a hundred.
Although each side killed about 400 people and captured 600 to 700 people, which was an obvious victory, but no force could take the loss of life in such a battle lightly when it was just starting out.
But maybe this is also a good opportunity for her.
She also took advantage of this battle to establish a system of rewards and punishments for military merits and compensation for deaths in combat.
However, just as she was holding the pen and worrying about the rules and regulations, she suddenly heard Xu Fu's voice coming from outside the tent.
"Sir, the Hedong Wei clan has sent someone to ask for an audience."
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