Chapter 474: Ambush
Sun Family Ravine lay about six miles south of Pingyang Prefecture city.
Commander Li Huai was fleeing in utter disarray, having abandoned his armor in a desperate retreat.
Just a short while ago, he had engaged in battle with Wang Jiayin's forces.
It wasn't Wang Jiayin's main army that had come to Pingyang Prefecture, but a detachment of ten thousand led by Zhang Xianzhong, known as the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp. There were no elderly, infirm, women, or children among them—almost all were battle-ready soldiers.
The reason was simple: all the elderly, infirm, women, and children had been left behind in Hequ County during their breakout from the government encirclement. Imperial Censor Wu Shen was now dispatching these thirty thousand refugees to Gao Family Village.
Gao Family Village was about to happily welcome yet another large group of rather promising labor reform prisoners!
On the rebel side, freed from the burden of elderly, sick, and disabled dependents, and no longer shackled by the need for supply lines, they suddenly became much more nimble. Where before they could only cover about nine miles a day, now they easily marched twenty to thirty miles, or even more, effortlessly achieving “military miracles” like hundred-li forced marches.
Commander Li Huai had only eight hundred soldiers, none of them elite. Pitched against ten thousand young, able-bodied rebels, it was an unwinnable fight. In a blink, his forces were utterly routed and incapacitated, leaving him with no thought but a desperate escape.
“Through Sun Family Ravine, then another six miles, and we'll be back in Pingyang Prefecture! Run, run!” Li Huai's subordinates cried out, frantically pushing and shoving their way through the narrow ravine as they rushed forward.
The two hundred men had formed a pocket formation, effectively enclosing the ravine's exit.
Two hundred smoothbore rifles were aimed precisely at the ravine's mouth.
The militia waited in silent anticipation.
Only the clamor of desperate men grew closer. Soon, figures flickered at the ravine's exit, and Commander Li Huai, his hair disheveled, stumbled out in a wretched state, leading a few hundred routed soldiers. As they ran, some cast terrified glances behind them before turning back to run for their lives.
Several hundred meters behind them, Zhang Xianzhong, the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp, his face a menacing mask of flesh, was fiercely pursuing with his army, laughing heartily as he chased. “You damned cowardly officials, don't run! Turn around and fight! Hahaha!”
“Once I get my hands on you, and then break through Pingyang Prefecture, I'll slaughter every single one of you bastards.”
Chasing and loudly threatening, it was truly behavior befitting a bandit chief; an ordinary person wouldn't engage in such over-the-top antics.
Li Huai had truly suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck. With only eight hundred understrength men, he faced a monstrous figure like Zhang Xianzhong, the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp. His legs churning like a whirlwind, he burst out of the Sun Family Ravine exit. Ahead lay a patch of woods, and without a second thought, he plunged into it with a few trusted guards.
He had hoped to use the cover of the woods to escape, but he hadn't expected that as soon as he entered, several figures would dart out from both sides, tackling him and his guards to the ground.
Li Huai's heart sank with a thud. He thought to himself, *Damn, I've fallen into a rebel ambush. This is it, I'm dead.*
However, he immediately heard a young yet steady voice beside him: “Commander Li, don't be afraid. I'm a government soldier, here to reinforce you.”
Li Huai: “Ah!”
He looked closely, only then realizing that the people who had tackled him and his group were all dressed as government soldiers. Their uniforms and armor were distinct and bright, unlike the haphazardly dressed and undisciplined rebels. This brought him some relief. “Which unit are you from?”
The young man said, “My name is Shi Jian, a centurion under Wang Cheng'en, the Shaanxi Grand General.”
Li Huai first let out a sigh of relief, but immediately became nervous again. “A centurion? So you only have a hundred soldiers, right?”
“Don't worry! I'm currently assisting the Grand General in transporting troops, so I have more than a hundred men at my disposal.”
Li Huai was overjoyed. “How many do you have, then?”
Shi Jian: “Two hundred.”
Li Huai: “Pfft!”
What good are two hundred men?
He almost roared that sentence aloud.
Shi Jian, however, smiled. “Commander Li, don't worry. Just signal your men to stop here in the woods, then watch our show.”
Hearing him speak with such certainty and seeing his air of assured victory, Li Huai was somewhat skeptical. *Does this fellow really have a plan? But what can two hundred men possibly do? Oh, there's no time to think so deeply about it now. If I truly just fled all the way back to Pingyang Prefecture, I'd still be held accountable afterward. If I can just block a wave of rebels here, push them back temporarily, my report won't look so terrible.*
Li Huai gritted his teeth. “Very well!”
At this moment, people were still pursuing them from behind and would catch up soon. Li Huai had no way to signal his own men; he could only plant his banner, preventing his commander's standard from fleeing miserably forward.
Some soldiers were still fleeing forward, ignoring the commander's banner, but others instinctively gathered around it.
Of course, the rebels also charged towards the banner!
From a distance, Zhang Xianzhong, the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp, saw Li Huai's commander's banner had stopped in a patch of woods, no longer fleeing. The banner's tip extended above the treetops, and many government soldiers were converging in that direction.
He couldn't help but laugh loudly. “Li Huai, aren't you running anymore? Do you really think you can make a final stand against me in this little patch of woods? Hahaha, your grandpa has come to take your dog's life.”
The rebels strode forward, charging towards the woods.
Of course, they weren't entirely foolish. They understood the principle that woods were prone to ambushes, and as they rushed towards them, they were mentally prepared for enemy ambushers to suddenly charge out.
But what happened next...
No one charged out of the woods. Only a volley of bullets erupted.
“Fire!”
At Wang Er's command, the Gao Family Village Militia opened fire!
Only a hundred men fired first.
“Bang bang bang bang!”
A burst of gunfire rang out, and a dozen or so rebels at the forefront immediately fell.
Zhang Xianzhong, the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp, paused, momentarily stunned, then burst into laughter. “I thought Li Huai had some brilliant strategy! Turns out it's just a hundred or so arquebuses?”
Although his naked eye couldn't discern where the arquebusiers were hiding, by merely listening to the sound, he could roughly determine that the other side had only about a hundred arquebuses; the scattered gunfire made it obvious.
“Don't be afraid... Charge!”
No sooner had Zhang Xianzhong, the Eight Great Kings of the South Camp, finished speaking, than “bang bang bang bang,” the second round of fire erupted.
Another hundred or so arquebuses fired, and a large swathe of rebels fell again.
The mouth of Sun Family Ravine was never very wide, and not many rebels could surge out of it at once. With these two rounds of gunfire, quite a few of the charging rebels had already fallen, and their momentum instantly weakened considerably.
The rebels behind them were suddenly a little bewildered!
In that brief moment of their bewilderment, the Gao Family Village Militia was frantically reloading.
The hundred arquebusiers who had fired first had taken less than thirty seconds to complete their reloading and raised their weapons once more.
“Bang bang bang bang!”
Another hundred arquebuses fired...
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