The scout battles in the mountains were exceptionally dangerous.
Cheng Xu could not help feeling uneasy about the ten scouts he had sent out.
Among those ten, only Shi Jian had picked up some basic scouting experience while running with the salt smugglers, and even then he had only brought along two or three brothers who knew anything at all. The rest were complete beginners. The more Cheng Xu thought about it, the more he worried something would go wrong.
Especially that Flat Rabbit.
Please, for once in your life, do not turn a critical mission into a comedy show.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, four scouts returned. Not only were they alive, they were dragging along two prisoners, their faces full of pride like they had just won a championship.
Cheng Xu blinked.
"Oh? Looks like the rookies actually have the upper hand."
The four scouts stepped forward.
"Instructor He, we brought back two enemy scouts, hehe."
Cheng Xu immediately caught the wording. "Brought back."
If they were bragging, they would have said "we captured two enemies." People who wrote merit reports loved inflating their achievements. Cheng Xu himself had done enough of that in the past to understand the subtle difference.
He lowered his voice.
"Shi Jian caught them?"
"No." The four shook their heads. "Flat Rabbit caught them. He is still ahead. He told us to bring the prisoners back first."
Cheng Xu froze.
"What? Flat Rabbit did it?"
The four grinned.
"That guy's ears are incredible. In the forest, he can hear movement from really far away. We did not even notice anything before he already locked onto the enemy."
Cheng Xu fell silent for a moment.
Is he actually a rabbit or what.
But this was not the time to dwell on philosophical questions about species classification. Two prisoners stood right in front of him, which meant it was time for a proper interrogation.
After a round of whipping and beating that could generously be described as "enthusiastic persuasion," the two captives finally spilled everything.
Dahonglang had brought four detachments under Wang Zuogua, totaling over fifteen hundred men. They were lying in ambush on the ridge ahead to the right, waiting for the militia to enter the valley so they could rain rocks down and bury them alive.
Cheng Xu let out a strange chuckle.
"Good. Very good."
He raised his voice.
"All troops, prepare. Tonight, we raid that bastard Dahonglang."
In ancient times, people often suffered from poor nutrition, which led to night blindness. Night raids were rare because most soldiers could barely see after sunset.
But Gao Village's militia was different.
Li Dao Xuan paid great attention to their diet. They ate well, and not just well, but balanced. Sometimes he even crushed vitamin tablets into powder and had the cooks mix them into the food.
As a result, very few of these soldiers had night blindness.
They already had the advantage in the scout battle. If they did not capitalize on that with a night raid, it would be a waste of a perfectly good situation.
After full darkness fell, Cheng Xu quietly led his army out.
The moon hung high in the sky, but the dense forest blocked most of its light. The militia advanced silently under the canopy, their footsteps light, their movements controlled. The sentries on Dahonglang's ridge had no chance of spotting them.
After moving forward for a while, Cheng Xu encountered Shi Jian halfway up the slope.
"How is the situation ahead?" Cheng Xu asked in a low voice.
Shi Jian replied,
"We killed quite a few of their scouts. The rest are scared and have retreated back into their camp. They do not dare come out anymore."
Cheng Xu smirked.
"So the outer perimeter is ours now."
Shi Jian nodded.
"Where is Flat Rabbit?"
Shi Jian pointed uphill.
"He is further ahead. That guy's hearing is really something. In terrain like this, ears are more useful than eyes. The enemy scouts cannot get close to him at all."
He paused, then added with a strange expression,
"He is not some kind of rabbit spirit, is he?"
Cheng Xu snorted.
"If he were, Dao Xuan Tianzun would have dealt with him already. You think a demon could fool the Tianzun's divine sight?"
Shi Jian nodded.
"That makes sense."
Cheng Xu continued leading his troops up the slope.
Before long, they could see Dahonglang's "camp."
Calling it a camp was generous. It was more like a chaotic gathering of bandits huddled together for the night.
Dahonglang clearly had no understanding of proper military encampment.
A thousand-plus men were scattered randomly throughout the forest. A few groups patrolled as sentries, while the rest lay around in all directions, some sprawled on the ground, others sitting against trees.
A few of them even looked like classic wandering swordsmen, leaning against trunks with swords in their arms, wearing bamboo hats like they were posing for some dramatic Jianghu painting. If a transmigrator saw them, he would definitely drop a line like, "A lone shadow on the cold river, old friends of the Jianghu, why care if we have met before."
Cheng Xu almost laughed out loud.
He raised a hand, signaling the militia behind him to drop to the ground.
One thousand men immediately went still. Not a single unnecessary sound escaped them.
In terms of discipline, the militia outclassed these bandits by a ridiculous margin.
Cheng Xu gathered the ten centurion leaders and whispered instructions. A grin slowly spread across his face.
He waved his hand.
"Prepare to move."
At that very moment, Dahonglang was sitting under a large tree, his expression dark and irritated.
They had lost the scout battle. That meant their ambush had been exposed. Bai Family Fort's militia would never walk blindly into the valley now, which meant all his careful positioning had gone to waste.
He cursed loudly.
"Our scouts are all seasoned Jianghu fighters. How did you lose to a bunch of Bai Family Fort guards in the forest? Have you all been wasting your time in the Jianghu? Now we are completely blind outside the camp. We do not even know what the enemy is doing. How useless can you get?"
The squad leaders around him stood there obediently, taking the scolding with embarrassed expressions.
Normally, losing a battle could be excused. After all, they were bandits, not trained soldiers. Losing a direct confrontation could be explained away.
But this time, they had failed at their own specialty, sneaky underhanded tricks. That was just humiliating.
One squad leader muttered,
"When morning comes, we stop playing tricks and just fight them head on."
Dahonglang rolled his eyes.
"Fight my ass. We only have fifteen hundred men here. They have around a thousand. There is no guarantee we win. We wait for the eldest, second, and third brothers to converge from other directions. Then we surround them from all sides. That is how we ensure victory."
Just as he finished speaking, something cut through the air.
A dark object flew over the forest and landed near them with a dull thud.
It looked like a small club, with a burning fuse hissing on top.
The nearby squad leaders stared at it in confusion.
"What is that?"
Dahonglang did not hesitate for even a fraction of a second. He rolled sideways into the grass.
"Boom!"
The grenade exploded.
Metal fragments and iron pellets blasted outward in all directions. The squad leaders had not even processed what was happening before they were hit multiple times, their bodies going limp as they collapsed to the ground.
At the same time, explosions erupted all across the forest.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of blasts tore through the night.