Chapter 981: Firing the First Shot at the Cannibals
The advantages of rifles are obvious. This weapon is easy to operate, easy to use, and has obvious performance. The key is that as long as there are qualified steel and factories, it can be mass-produced at any time, and soldiers only need simple training to be pulled into the battlefield. For now, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a strategic weapon.
However, compared with rifles, Youye prefers shotguns.
Boom boom boom boom————
Youye, who had just learned how to shoot, fired a series of shotgun shells at the target, and then he jumped up excitedly.
"Oh, this is good, this is good, this gun has a thick barrel, big bullets, high power, high firing rate, and many bullets. If you use this thing to deal with those monsters, one person can fight three without any problem, and I feel that this is even simpler to use than that rifle. You only need to push and pull this wood to change the bullet. It's so convenient."
Youye said excitedly while holding the shotgun, obviously not expecting that this tribe could actually create such a weapon.
"Hehe, that's what the chief said. When this kind of gun was first made, the chief said it was a weapon specifically used to fight cannibal giant apes. The chief also said that this shotgun is very powerful. As long as it's not the two elephants in our tribe, other cattle and horses can all be knocked down with one shot. Even if it's their giant apes, the effect is probably similar.
"These guns haven't been used yet. When our soldiers are trained, we'll let them taste the enemy's blood.
"By the way, Uncle You, do you have a map of this place, and information about the enemy's camp, have you been there for reconnaissance before?" Qubing first introduced the origin of the shotgun, and then immediately asked about the map.
Maps are needed to fight a war, especially when fighting in an unfamiliar environment. How can you fight if you don't even know the geographical features?
"Yes, yes, yes. I have been here for almost four years. I have traveled almost everywhere. How could I not have drawn a map? And the team I led at the beginning was responsible for drawing maps. Come on, I will take you to see it. If you want, you can ask someone to copy a few copies and take them back. I will keep the originals." Youye responded immediately after hearing this. Maps are serious business, which is much more important than playing with guns.
So the two returned to Youye's residence. Youye did draw a map of the surrounding area, and the surveying team he led was the most professional surveying team in the Han tribe, so the map drawn was also relatively standard. They filled in the map according to the appearance of one square kilometer per grid. In other words, this map has horizontal and vertical coordinates, which makes it more precious.
The whole map was drawn on a whole piece of cowhide, and the lines on it were burned with a hot iron needle, like a branding iron painting, mainly to prevent the ink from falling off.
The map was drawn in great detail, with every mountain, every waterway, even the approximate height of each mountain, the width of each river, the depth of the water, whether it was navigable, etc., all marked in detail. Just the annotations of the names of various places would fill a whole book, and one had to refer to the annotations when looking at the map to get a more accurate understanding of the terrain on the map.
Qubing was overjoyed. He had originally planned to spend some time with scouts to conduct reconnaissance, or to take some local guides to participate in the operation, but no matter what, it would be very troublesome without a map.
If there were a guide to lead, it would not affect the completion of the mission, but it would affect the command, because command requires a sense of the overall situation. The Shen Ce Guards could not devote all their soldiers to every battle. According to the leader, they must act separately, so how the commander distributes the attack directions of each team is very important.
In order to get familiar with the local geographical conditions as soon as possible, Qubing decided to copy the map by hand. Drawing it by himself would definitely be more profound than just looking at it directly, which is very important for him as the commander-in-chief.
Youye was also helping out, mainly to give some supplements to Qubing. When he asked about the situation of a certain location on the map, Youye could immediately tell the local characteristics, and even what kind of changes would occur in each location in different seasons. Youye knew it all clearly. Qubing
was stunned when he listened to his explanation. It seemed that Youye was indeed familiar with this place. It was simply a living human map. If he made a battle plan in the future, it seemed that he had to ask Youye's opinion.
"Uncle You, the territory of this cannibal tribe doesn't look small. It actually occupies a large area. Are there so many of them?" Qubing asked puzzledly while drawing the map.
"The territory is indeed not small, covering a large area, but they are not densely distributed. They have no cities or towns. According to our Han tribe, their settlements can be called villages.
"This group of people do not know how to farm, and they rely on hunting, fishing and gathering for a living. However, the winter here is too long, at least six months. They cannot store so much food by hunting and gathering alone, so when winter comes, they can only eat people to survive. After such a long time, cannibalism has even become a custom of theirs. It is completely hopeless. Only those who have just been captured can be saved.
"Therefore, these cannibals still retain the traditions of the hunting period. There are not many people in each settlement, and the distance between them is large. In fact, a hunting ground is left for each village.
"They are good at making traps. There are traps everywhere in the gaps between each village. One is for daily hunting needs, and the other is to form a secret line of defense to prevent the enemy from invading or the escape of those they have captured. Many people could not accept the act of cannibalism and wanted to escape, but only a few could escape.
"In such a hungry situation, they had to escape in the wind and snow, and avoid traps along the way. Most people could not make it outside and died in the snow. Some were frozen to death, some were starved to death, and some fell into traps and could not escape. They died of hunger and cold. Not only that, but even their bodies were dragged back and eaten by the cannibal hunting teams. It was a horrible sight."
Qu Bing was stunned after hearing this, and asked in confusion, "Uncle You, why do you know so much about their situation?"
"Oh, there are many reasons. I have taken in people who escaped from there, and learned some of the situation from them. I also took people to scout through the gaps between those villages. Of course, I know their situation." You Ye said quite complacently.
Qu Bing nodded, pondered for a while and asked again, "Uncle You, how do you think this battle should be fought?"
"How to fight? To be honest, I don't know. If the enemy takes the initiative to attack, it's fine. If we take the initiative to attack them, we can only fight point by point, one village at a time. But I think this will be less efficient, because with the existence of those traps, our advancement speed will certainly not be very fast, and the enemy can take advantage of this time to run around.
"Another very important point is whether we should send troops to garrison the villages we have captured, that is, garrison. If we don't, it is very likely that as soon as we advance to the next village, other enemies will get around from the traps and get behind us. At that time, we will be surrounded, so ammunition and food supply will become a problem.
"If you send troops to garrison, our troops are too scarce. More than 2,000 soldiers, fighting and scattering along the way, when you are halfway through the battle, you will find that you have no soldiers to use.
"It is because I can't find a good way that I dare not take the initiative to attack their settlements. Otherwise, in the past four years, I would have killed them all, and it would not be your turn to come.
"But I have not been idle these years. Although I cannot take the initiative to attack their settlements, I have fought many battles with the cannibals outside, especially ambushing their outgoing teams or teams returning with prisoners. They are all our targets for ambush and sneak attacks. Even if we cannot completely wipe them out, we can inflict heavy damage on them, and they can't do anything to me."
Qubing asked Youye for advice on how to win in battles. Youye did not hesitate to tell him all his experiences and ideas, which once again made Qubing fall into deep thought.
After a while, Qubing asked again, "Uncle You, since you have led people to penetrate their tribe, are you familiar with it? Can you take me to scout inside again? I want to do some on-site scouting."
"No, don't go." Hearing Qubing's idea, Youye immediately dissuaded him in shock.
"Why?" Qubing asked in confusion.
"They have a lot of traps. Who knows how many years they have been digging traps on this land? Not only are there deep pits, but there are also many other traps, stacked one on top of the other. People who don't live there for a long time don't know the location of these traps at all. In addition, the wild animals hiding in the woods are very dangerous.
"If you must go in for reconnaissance, I suggest going in spring. In spring, the ice and snow melt and the temperature rises. Even if we are trapped in it, we will not be frozen to death so quickly. Another advantage is that when the snow melts, many traps will be exposed, and our danger will be much reduced.
"Summer is not suitable either. The weather here is either no rain or heavy rain. If we encounter a mountain torrent in a place full of traps, we will all be dead.
"Autumn is the same as winter. Autumn is full of fallen leaves, and winter is full of snow. These things will cover up most of the traces of traps. It is the most difficult season for in-depth reconnaissance.
"I have led a team in there once before. In order to keep the operation secret and avoid being discovered by the enemy, I only led more than 20 people. As a result, the large amount of fallen leaves in autumn covered the traps, which caused great trauma to us. There were pits, swamps, and falling rocks. We didn't even see the enemy, but we had already lost six people and injured three.
"Another key point is that the enemy will frequently patrol the traps, one to catch prey, and the other to repair the traps. We suffered nine casualties that time, and we were chased by a patrol team of more than 40 people from the enemy. As a result, we were not familiar with the terrain and had no idea where we could go and where we couldn't go. But the enemy knew the location of the traps and their speed did not slow down at all. The faster they chased, the more panicked our people became. Many people accidentally touched the traps while fleeing, and were captured alive by the enemy behind them.
"That time it was too dangerous. More than 20 people went in, but only eight of us, including me, escaped. I haven't told anyone in the camp about this until now. Since then, I have never thought about conducting in-depth reconnaissance. The only way to achieve some victory is to ambush their teams on the periphery."
You Ye talked about his experience with lingering fear, and dissuaded Qubing from conducting in-depth reconnaissance alone. Qubing frowned frequently after listening to him. After a while, he asked again, "Then, Uncle You, do you know the route the enemy takes every time he goes out? If you want to ambush the enemy who goes out, in which area will you usually ambush them?"
"Well, I do know this. The enemy's marching route is generally along those rivers. They also follow the principle of staying close to water sources when they travel long distances. This should be unchangeable. First, it guarantees the supply of fresh water. Second, they can hunt animals that drink water by the river. Third, if all else fails, they can go down to the river to fish. Fourth, in places with abundant water sources like the riverside, the vegetation is generally dense, which is convenient for finding fuel to start a fire or make tools.
"I have posted sentries at the locations of these rivers. If there are enemies in these areas, they will send one person to inform me, and the rest will continue to watch. Usually, they work in groups of three and rotate from time to time. This can not only ensure the safety of our camp and prevent the enemy from getting to our doorstep, but also make it convenient for us to get the news in advance and then ambush those enemies who go out." Youye explained.
Qubing's eyes lit up after hearing this. This is great. It turns out that Youye has already made arrangements. Then the next step will be easy. As long as he gets the news that the enemy is going out, he can immediately send out the trained soldiers to ambush the enemy, and complete the first phase of the battle plan mentioned by the leader.
"Uncle You, then can you take me to those outgoing passages to scout in a few days? It's a good opportunity for me to verify the map." Qubing asked again.
"That's no problem. Just tell me when you are going. "Youye didn't shirk his responsibility this time and agreed to it readily. As long as he was not allowed to enter the enemy's hinterland, he had nothing to fear.
Not to mention the well-armed and well-trained Shen Ce Guards, even the survivors hunting team led by Youye himself never failed to defeat them every time they ambushed the cannibals.
It took Qubing two days to copy a map of the nearby area, and it was enlarged and marked with many notes. Then he went back to the meeting and summoned the battalion and company commanders to the guard headquarters to copy the map together, and strive to get each company and even each platoon of the Shen Ce Guards to have a map, which would be convenient for him to command the operation.
When they copied the second map that day, Qubing took the map he copied and found Youye, and asked him to take him to the passages where the enemy entered and exited for field reconnaissance. This time, only a guard platoon directly under the Shen Ce Guards headquarters followed them. A total of more than 80 people set off together.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
