nycdaug Chapter 125: Doing a Side Job
Chapter 125: Doing a Side Job
Although the soldiers under Lu Cheng were all veterans with many years of experience, and many of them had even participated in the battle against the Later Jin, the quality of the soldiers was really difficult to meet Lu Cheng's requirements.
After more than a month of training, the training finally got on track and Lu Cheng no longer had to worry too much.
But Lu Cheng did not become idle because of this, instead he became even busier.
It is definitely not an easy task to lead a team of thousands of people. The logistics support alone is a big problem.
Although Xiong Tingbi was there, the food and wages provided by the court were barely enough to feed these soldiers.
But if you want to train your soldiers well, it will cost a lot of money.
Not starving to death and having enough to eat are two different concepts, and weapons and armor also need to be replaced.
Especially after the training intensity increases, food and grass are consumed faster.
Lu Cheng had almost spent all of the more than two thousand taels of silver, and even with the food and fodder allocated by the court, it was only enough to last for more than two months.
Lu Cheng would never live off his savings and started making preparations in advance.
During the training process, Lu Cheng temporarily divided the soldiers into four categories:
Special Soldier: The most elite soldiers trained for special operations. Currently, the conditions are not met and it is only in conception.
Private First Class: The best reconnaissance team, intelligence personnel, elite cavalry, etc.
Private: Ordinary infantry, doctors and craftsmen with certain skills.
Private Third Class: General logistics service.
Currently, among the 500 men under Lu Cheng, nearly are logistics soldiers. They have also received certain training, but at most they can play a certain role in defending the city, or be responsible for cleaning the battlefield and handling various miscellaneous items.
More than 5 combat soldiers were basically trained according to the standards of second-class soldiers. In addition to the normal salary of one tael and five cents of silver issued by the court, Lu Cheng also planned to subsidize them with cents of silver per person, and there would be additional rewards for those with excellent training.
From these more than 700 people, Lu Cheng selected who could ride horses and trained them in riding skills, shooting speed, mounted combat, reconnaissance and other tasks.
It’s not that Lu Cheng doesn’t want to train more cavalry, but that he really doesn’t have that much money for cavalry training.
Therefore, after Lu Cheng had trained the cavalry and enabled them to develop certain reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance capabilities, he personally led these cavalry to conduct reconnaissance and search for caravans from the Ming Dynasty to the Later Jin Dynasty.
In fact, the reason why Nurhaci was able to rise to power was not only because of the support of some generals in Liaodong, but also because of those daring smugglers, especially many merchants in Jin Province.
After the Later Jin Dynasty established the Qing Dynasty, it directly named eight merchants from Shanxi Province as the Eight Imperial Merchants.
At the beginning, the Shanxi merchants only provided various materials for the border troops of the Ming Dynasty. However, the Ming Dynasty did not attach much importance to border defense, and the border troops were always very poor. The weapons and equipment could not be replaced frequently, so they naturally could not satisfy the appetite of the Shanxi merchants.
Therefore, Shanxi merchants began to turn their attention to the areas outside the Great Wall, selling various military supplies such as salt, iron, and grain that were expressly prohibited by the imperial court to various Mongolian tribes and the Jurchens, and even providing various intelligence about the Ming Dynasty to the Great Wall.
In return, the Later Jin regime exchanged various materials such as ginseng, deer antlers, animal skins, and valuables looted from the Central Plains.
The place where the Later Jin Dynasty was founded was located in a poor and barren area. The reason why it was able to accumulate so many weapons and supplies was all thanks to those merchants.
Moreover, most of those merchants bribed the border army generals, colluded with various grassland tribes, and established stable trade routes so that they could transport various contraband materials.
Lu Cheng would naturally not let go of such businessmen, and had long since sent people to explore their business routes, observe their transaction patterns, and so on.
After the cavalry squad started training, Lu Cheng immediately began to select targets and prepare to start a side job.
On this day, Lu Cheng informed Xiong Jinglüe in advance that he would lead the team to conduct a long-distance march training. Xiong Tingbi did not take it too seriously and nodded in agreement.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng took 50 cavalrymen and 300 infantrymen, brought enough dry food and supplies, left Liaoyang and headed north.
After leaving the city for twenty or thirty miles, two cavalrymen came towards them from the front. When they got close, they immediately dismounted.
"Sir, the merchant caravan has arrived to the north of Gaojia Village and is expected to reach the ambush site we have chosen this evening."
"Very good, continue tracking and don't expose your tracks."
"Yes."
Then, Lu Cheng waved his hand: "Everyone, pay attention, speed up!"
At around three or four in the afternoon, Lu Cheng led his troops to a forest that was relatively suitable for an ambush and arranged the ambush.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng took a few people to investigate the situation in person.
The caravan targeted this time had quite a few people. There were more than thirty cavalrymen in the escort team alone, each of them equipped with a sword and bow and arrow, and wearing leather armor. There were also more than a hundred infantrymen armed with swords and guns, as well as many coachmen, etc. The total number of people was more than two hundred.
The mules and horses escorting the goods formed a long queue, and the large and small carts were piled high.
As early as a few days ago, the cavalry team sent by Lu Cheng had already set their sights on this caravan and followed it from a distance.
The reason why Lu Cheng has not taken action yet is that he is looking for the right time and place.
Faced with such an armed caravan, a good plan must be made if you want to swallow it all.
In the evening, the caravan arrived near the forest where Lu Cheng was ambushing, but set up camp on the plain two or three miles away from the forest, and sent a small team of cavalry into the forest to check the situation.
Fortunately, Lu Cheng's men hid well, and the other party just conducted a routine check and found nothing unusual.
After the other side set up camp, they used carriages and horses to form a circle, set up a simple defensive position, and arranged patrol and defense personnel.
It was obvious that this caravan was well-trained and highly defensive.
Lu Cheng was not in a hurry to take action. He waited for the caravan to make a fire, cook, and start to rest.
The soldiers under Lu Cheng were hiding in the distance, eating the dry food prepared in advance and drinking water. They did not make any noise, nor did they start a fire.
It was not until the second half of the night that most people in the caravan camp had rested, and those on duty began to feel a little tired. Lu Cheng then gave orders to wake up all the rested soldiers, stretch their arms and legs, and quietly move towards the caravan's camp.
More than sixty cavalrymen were on standby at the periphery, and three hundred infantrymen surrounded the entire camp in three directions.
After approaching the camp, everyone bent their bodies and approached cautiously.
Lu Cheng, Ding Xiu and Ding Xian each led hundreds of people. After entering the range of bows and arrows, Lu Cheng immediately drew his bow and arrow and started shooting.
After this period of training, Lu Cheng's archery skills improved greatly, and when fighting on foot, he could now truly hit whatever he pointed at.
With a "swoosh" sound, a guard on duty was shot through the chest by an arrow. The guard next to him immediately noticed the situation and wanted to shout, but Lu Cheng's second feather arrow had already been shot out.
Almost at the same time, soldiers from three directions fired three rounds of arrows together, and the caravan camp was suddenly in chaos. The caravan guards who were still sleeping hurriedly got up, looked for weapons, and organized resistance.
At this time, Lu Cheng had also arrived near the camp. He took out a pack of explosives from the package he was carrying, lit the fuse, and threw it at the truck that the caravan was using for defense.
There was a loud bang, and a hole was immediately blown open in the tightly surrounded carriage defense formation.
In the other two directions, Ding Xiu and Ding Xian each threw out a pack of explosives, blasting a hole in the guard team's defense circle.
Immediately afterwards, Lu Cheng led his troops to rush forward.
After several rounds of arrow rain and the attack of explosive packs, the enemy had already suffered thirty or forty casualties.
It was the late night and the caravan guards were sleeping soundly. They were suddenly awakened. Before they could organize an effective resistance, Lu Cheng had already led his men to rush in.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng led his men to the place where the horses were tied, controlled the enemy's horses, and killed the gathering enemies.
Immediately afterwards, Ding Xiu and Ding Xian also led their men to attack.
This was a very successful night raid. By dawn, the entire caravan had been wiped out. Those who tried to escape were easily shot dead by the cavalry outside.
All the bodies were piled up together, their clothes were stripped off, all their belongings were taken away, and then they were burned.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng quickly ordered people to clean up the battlefield, collect all the supplies, and drive away in carriages and horses.
Along the way, Lu Cheng asked someone to roughly count the harvest.
The gold, silver and other valuables harvested this time were not much, adding up to only more than one thousand taels. Most of them were various supplies, such as winter cotton-padded clothes, salt, tea, refined iron, grain, etc., which were the most needed supplies in Liaodong.
Those cotton-padded jackets alone were enough for Lu Cheng to give one or two to each of his soldiers.
In addition to these supplies, there were also 70 to 80 carts for transporting supplies, more than 90 mules and horses, and 40 war horses. This did not include those that were damaged in the battle.
This was a huge bonanza, instantly resolving Lu Cheng's predicament of lack of money, food and supplies, and he no longer had to worry about surviving the winter.
Sure enough, a business with no capital is the fastest way to get rich.
Of course, if you really count it, it is not without cost. At least a dozen of Lu Cheng's soldiers died, twenty or thirty were injured, and they also needed to pay pensions to the fallen soldiers.
Of course, the pension this time cannot be as much as one hundred taels.
On the way back, all the soldiers were extremely excited. With such a large amount of supplies, they would not have to suffer from hunger and cold this winter, and they could even have a good New Year...