And I guessed that it was highly unlikely to encounter enemy anti-reconnaissance outposts on the ring mountain.
This "circle" was too large in diameter. Although the enemy had a hundred thousand troops, they could not spread out such a large reconnaissance net. If I were the enemy's main general, I wouldn't need to send scouts. I would just concentrate my forces and surround Er Qi City. With your multiple routes coming, I would defend with one, and with absolute superiority in numbers, I would defeat each arriving force.
This tactic could be called waiting for a rabbit at a stump, and although it was somewhat clumsy, it was the most reasonable strategy.
Bing Bing flew back to the artillery camp. After marking my location, I started circling along the ridge. The first round was a rapid reconnaissance to see how many troops had arrived. I discovered six outposts, and within the vision of the Qi-sensing technique, I found nine friendly forces of different scales, all hiding below the mountain and not daring to come up easily. Most of them were cavalry, but their numbers were not large; some had only a few hundred riders, and the largest had only three to four thousand troops.
The underworld imperial court had over ten million troops, but due to the vast territory, they could only be dispersed for defense. Er Qi City was the heartland of the imperial court and never expected to be suddenly attacked by a hundred thousand rebels. Therefore, the surrounding defense forces were relatively weak.
During the second round of the Mad Storm Ring Mountain, I stopped intermittently and met with the sentinels at the outposts. I revealed my identity as a grim reaper and asked them to report the strength of the arriving reinforcement troops. There were no G98 firearms, only small cold weapon corps.
During the third round, all twelve teams arrived at the outskirts of the ring mountain. The last team to arrive was the largest, with seven thousand troops: three thousand cavalry, three thousand infantry, and one thousand artillery units. However, these were purely underworld artillery, heavy firearms similar to the "Fuyuan Da Jiang Jun" cannons of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It felt like it would be difficult to even get them up the mountain, and their range was insufficient to fire across the mountain, rendering them basically useless.
I instructed all the sentinels to return and pass on the order: no one was to act without my command, otherwise, it would be like the Calabash Brothers saving their grandpa.
Returning to the marked location, I used addition on the ground to calculate. A total of twenty-five thousand troops had arrived, of which sixteen thousand were cavalry, forming the majority.
I returned to the woods of our artillery camp, borrowed a notebook from Little Slave, and drew a map of the distribution and strength of each arriving reinforcement force on a blank page.
"How many troops are there inside Er Qi City?" I asked Zheng Baobao. Although I could bring Er Qi City into the vision of the Qi-sensing technique in certain areas of the ridge line, the soldiers and civilians were mixed, making it difficult to discern the number of troops. Zheng Baobao had just come from there, so she would surely know.
"Twenty thousand, five thousand cavalry, fifteen thousand infantry," Zheng Baobao replied. "In the first engagement, they suffered minor losses, and later the rebels surrounded but did not attack, so the numbers should be roughly the same."
No wonder the rebels were so brazen and did not set up anti-reconnaissance outposts. It was truly unnecessary. They must have had a clear understanding of the deployment of the surrounding imperial forces and knew that within a few hundred miles, the imperial forces combined did not exceed fifty thousand. They had a hundred thousand, and they appeared to be well-equipped. It made sense; a troop that could fight its way into the heartland of the imperial army must be, at least, an elite force among the rebels, if not a special operations unit like Fan Wujiu's Xuan Jia cavalry.
"Brother, how do you plan to fight?" Bing Bing asked me.
I tried to construct tactics on the map and iterated through several attempts, but none were successful. At best, I could achieve mutual destruction, but that was not what we wanted.
It was a pity that Dai Lu was not here. I wondered if her professional command knowledge could offer me some guidance.
"If Lord Wu devises a strategy that requires the cooperation of Er Qi City, I can rush in and relay the orders, placing them under your command," Zheng Baobao said, indirectly urging me to come up with a plan quickly. The King of Hell was waiting inside to be rescued, and crucially, I had told the other eleven forces not to go to their rescue.
I was also at a loss. I reached for my pocket to take out a cigarette, but only an empty box remained. I had come in a hurry and had not replenished my supply.
Fortunately, Bing Bing had brought me half a pack. I lit one and took a deep drag, watching the flickering tip of the cigarette. I had an idea.