military camp
A personal guard of the Marshal hurried into the tent and saw Situ Yi and Lu Zifeng looking at the map. He walked up and whispered something in Situ Yi's ear.
"The Marshal said that this matter must succeed, not fail. Now that Qiyan Pass has been recaptured in Bingzhou, the Tatars in our Dayu Dynasty are like birds in a cage. All that remains is to encircle and annihilate them. Now the Marshal has entrusted you with the task of blocking the Tatars' retreat."
Situ Yi and Lu Zifeng looked at each other and nodded to indicate that they understood. After sending the messenger away and discussing their plan of action, they each began to prepare.
It was already the beginning of the Zi hour, and they had to set out at the beginning of the Yin hour. The time seemed very long, but in fact it was not much. The two of them did not waste any time and ate something casually before heading towards the designated location with their respective two thousand troops.
Some time ago, King Jing led his army in a great battle with the Tatars. The Tatars' military camp outside the mountains had been raided. Some of the remaining Tatars fled into the mountains, while others fled north.
This time, Situ Yi and Lu Zifeng were planning to chase the fleeing Tatars to the north. When they reached a fork in the road, they encountered scouts who were following them.
"Greetings, Captains. The two groups of Tatars that fled this time each numbered approximately 5,000 soldiers."
Situ Yi glanced at Lu Zifeng and said, "It seems we need to split up. I wish you good luck."
"Okay, I wish you good luck too. I hope we can catch some big fish. You know, there will definitely be big fish among the team that escaped."
Lu Zifeng bowed and said, "Then I will take my people away first, you can go too!"
After the two men parted ways, they each took their own men to chase forward. The scouts they sent out had already set out half an hour ahead of them, and it was already dawn.
After galloping for an hour, Lu Zifeng ordered the team to stop. After chasing for a whole night, the men and horses were tired and needed to rest.
"Everyone, take a half-hour break and eat something. We will continue the pursuit after half an hour."
"Captain Lu, we've covered a great distance tonight, at least four hundred miles, and yet we haven't been able to catch up. Do you think the scout ahead of us lied?"
After hearing what Cao Yong said, Lu Zifeng did not speak. It was not that he did not want to speak, but he felt that what Cao Yong said was possible. As a captain, he had no background and was promoted to captain just because he had made a few small contributions during this period. He could not be compared with that guy Situ Yi. The scout also knew that if he made contributions in chasing the Tatars today, promotions would be a small matter, and he would probably get more rewards. In order to please Situ Yi, he let himself take a road where there were no Tatars at all. Wouldn't all the credit go to Situ Yi?
Of course, this is just a guess for now and cannot be accurate, so he has made a decision and is ready to chase forward. If he can't find any trace of the Tatars, then he will chase in the direction of Situ Yi.
Half an hour later, Lu Zifeng led two thousand cavalrymen and ran towards the north.
An hour later, they met scouts who had come out earlier. They learned from the scouts that there was a Tatar military camp thirty miles ahead, with about 20,000 people.
Lu Zifeng laughed when he heard this. It seemed that the scout had good intentions! He was planning to get himself and others into the Tatars' lair!
Lu Zifeng sighed in his heart. There are always people like this at any time. He didn't know who was secretly harming him and making his two thousand cavalrymen face nearly 20,000 Tatar troops.
However, despite his thoughts, Lu Zifeng decided to go forward and take a look. When he was about ten miles away from the Tatar camp, Lu Zifeng found a small forest and took two thousand cavalrymen to hide in it. It was midday and the weather was hot, so the forest would be a little cooler. Now was not the right time to confront the Tatars. He could only wait. If he rushed forward with his small force, it would be like hitting a rock with an egg. It would be better to wait until night to launch a surprise attack.
Lu Zifeng sent out scouts to continue monitoring the Tatar camp's every move.
It was not until evening that scouts came back and said that the Tatars were breaking camp and seemed to be preparing to escape.
Cao Yong and Liu Can were surprised and said, "Captain, I think those Tatars are preparing to escape. They must have heard that the Marshal had captured the air force camp, and they are afraid."
Hearing this, Lu Zifeng glanced at Cao Yong and the other two, then said to the scout, "Go ahead and explore. If you find anything, come back and let me know."
Lu Zifeng suspected that those people had discovered his whereabouts, otherwise they would not have broken camp and left in the middle of the night. Then it was interesting what the Tatars did. Were they trying to lure him into a trap?
Lu Zifeng took out the map and looked at it. There was only one main road ahead, but looking at here, Lu Zifeng knew that there was another road here, but this road was too difficult to walk on. This was the road that the Lu family took to escape at that time. At that time, they took people to walk on the mountain road to avoid being chased by the Tatars.
Although this road is difficult to travel, it is much closer. After thinking about it, Lu Zifeng decided to take his two thousand soldiers and horses through the mountain road, so that he could also stop the ambush Tatars in front.
However, in order to intercept the ambush of these 20,000 Tatars, they need to march quickly, otherwise they will not be able to catch up. However, Lu Zifeng still decided to take the risk.
He arranged for Liu Can to follow the Tatars with 500 men, while he himself took the remaining 1,500 men into the mountains, and ran over the mountain roads to get ahead of the Tatars.
Lu Zifeng and his men did not dare to stay. They rode horses when they could, and led the horses when they could not. Finally, they came out of the forest at dawn the next day and came to the place where Lu Zifeng killed the Tatars on the way to escape. The mountain road here was not wide, and there were hillsides on both sides. He planned to ambush here to prevent the Tatars from escaping.
According to the scouts, the Tatars are still a hundred miles away from here. Lu Zifeng ordered everyone to eat something quickly. The Tatars each have a horse and are quite fast. It is estimated that they will arrive here in one or two hours. By then, it will be a tough battle and time is running out.
First, he assigned a group of people to dig a deep trench ten feet deep at the narrowest intersection, and then asked some soldiers to find large stones from the mountains on both sides and place them on both sides of the valley. He would then lead his men to hide in the mountains and forests, and then launch a fierce attack, which should be able to leave behind many Tatars.
Half an hour later, everything was arranged and everyone was hiding on both sides of the hillside.
Sure enough, in less than an hour, Tatars came riding over. Lu Zifeng knew that these people were the vanguard, about a thousand people.
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