Although these former Nanzhao soldiers, who had been reduced to bandits, knew that there was a gap between their strength and that of the Tang Dynasty's soldiers, they felt that as long as they had more troops and horses and launched a surprise attack at night, it would not be difficult to win. The soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were also made of flesh and blood and needed to sleep and rest. If they launched a fierce surprise attack when most of the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were asleep, it would definitely be very effective. It was also very possible to wipe out all the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty.
Several leaders of the Shanze Clan had made up their minds. For the sake of the top-grade gems and to avenge their comrades, they must eliminate the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty. They had less than a thousand men under their command. If they wanted to be more confident, they needed to gather more men. However, they did not want to share the spoils with too many people. They felt that 2,000 people were enough. In this way, they could at least get half of the benefits. As for the man from the Deqin Clan who reported the news, they did not intend to share the benefits with him. They had a large number of brothers in their hands, but this man from the Deqin Clan came alone. How could they share the benefits with him?
Of course, the man from the Deqin Clan did not come alone. They also sent more than 100 elite men. At this time, they were hiding in the dark, ready to rush out and take advantage of the situation when the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty and the bandits were both injured. Their goal was the top-grade gems. As long as they could grab some of the top-grade gems, their task would be completed.
Of course, the Deqin Clan was not the only one who had this idea of fishing in troubled waters. The other five families also had this idea. Although these five families did not contact each other, they were all watching the caravan of the Angi Clan, so they could naturally discover each other's existence. They found that the Deqin Clan was in contact with the bandits, so they naturally guessed something. They also planned to fish in troubled waters. When the bandits and the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were both injured, they would suddenly rush out and rob the top-grade gems.
These people's ideas were actually quite good. However, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty and the Angi Clan were not fools. They escorted valuable treasures along the way, so how could they not be careful? If they were followed and still could not find out, then the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty would have lived in vain.
When they set off, only 450 of the 500 soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were in the team, and the other 50 were hidden in the dark. There were soldiers of the Tang Dynasty in the front and back of the team. They were responsible for opening the way and covering the rear, so they could naturally find out a lot of things.
Because the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty who were hiding in the dark had magical tools like binoculars in their hands, it was easier for them to observe the movements of the trackers and carry out anti-tracking to find out the identity and conspiracy of the trackers, so that they could be prepared for defense.
Even the meeting between the Deqin Clan's men and the leader of the bandits was monitored by the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty's spies were hiding a few miles away, so they could clearly see their meeting with the help of binoculars. They also understood that these people were going to cooperate with the bandits to launch a surprise attack on the caravan of the Tang Dynasty and the Angi Clan, and finally achieve their goal of robbing the top-grade gems. After some investigation, the Tang Dynasty's spies also found out the number of people on the other side.
Since they already knew the conspiracy and strength of these people, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty would naturally be prepared to not let these people's conspiracy succeed. They would even set up traps to eliminate these people in one fell swoop to show the great strength of the Tang Dynasty.
"There are actually two or three thousand people. That's a lot of people!"
After listening to the spy's report, the young general of the Tang Dynasty seemed to be a little hesitant. He only had five hundred men under his command. Although he was not very afraid in the face of five enemies, it would be difficult for him to reduce the casualties. It would not be good if he suffered heavy losses after defeating the enemy. These soldiers were his brothers. If he lost too many of them, he would not feel very comfortable. Everyone wanted to make a contribution, but he was unwilling to risk losing the lives of many of his brothers.
But the current situation was already like this. If he wanted to retreat and led his men back to the stone city of the Angi family, he would inevitably be ridiculed by his peers in the future. Moreover, since the bandits had been prepared, it would not be easy for him to retreat with the goods. Unless he was willing to give up the goods, he would also suffer heavy losses if he was attacked when he retreated. Who knew if these bandits had gone crazy? If these bandits charged at him regardless of their lives, he would definitely lose a lot of his soldiers. With the strength of two thousand bandits, as long as they suddenly charged at him, at least half of his soldiers would be lost. If he threw away the goods, he would not be able to explain it to Ang Lee. Therefore, he had no way out. The best way was to pretend that he did not know about it, and then set a trap when they camped to lure the bandits to rob them at night. Then, he would use the ambush to severely injure the bandits and survive this crisis.
In order to prevent the news from leaking out, they did not discuss with the Angi family and did not tell them their plans. In the eyes of the Tang soldiers, there must be some enemy spies among the 300 people of the Angi family. If they told their plans to the Angi family, they would definitely leak the information. At that time, once the enemy was prepared, it would be the Tang soldiers who would suffer. In a war, although strength was important, intelligence was even more important. There was a big difference between being prepared and being unprepared. If they were prepared, they could greatly reduce the losses, but if they were unprepared, they were likely to suffer heavy losses.
In the evening, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty and the Angi family had set up camp early. The location of the camp was conducive to defense, which was the usual practice of the Tang dynasty soldiers. They did not deliberately choose a camp that was not conducive to defense in order to lure the enemy. The better the location was, the more advantageous it would be for the soldiers of the Tang dynasty when the battle started. If they deliberately chose a location that was not conducive to defense, once the enemy launched a surprise attack, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty would lose a lot of strength. At the same time, if they were too obvious in luring the enemy, it would be easy to arouse the enemy's vigilance. If they set up camp according to the previous rules, it would be easy to dispel the enemy's vigilance, which was conducive to the goal of luring the enemy.
According to the agreement at the time of departure, the camp of the Tang dynasty soldiers and the camp of the Angi family were separated, but they were very close, almost nailed together. As long as the Angi family was in danger, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty's camp would quickly reinforce them, thus ensuring the safety of the Angi family's goods.
The reason why the camps were separated was to prevent conflicts. The two troops carried a lot of goods. Once they were completely mixed together and the goods were mixed up, it would be troublesome. At that time, no one could explain clearly. The living habits of the soldiers of the Tang dynasty and the Angi family were different, so there would also be conflicts when they were mixed together.
After setting up the camp, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty set up the camp according to the usual specifications of the camp. The positions of the tents remained unchanged, and the supply wagons were all placed at the outermost area, acting as the barracks. In order to strengthen the defense, simple arrow towers were built at the four corners of the camp and at the gate. Among them, there were two arrow towers on the left and right of the gate, and there was one arrow tower at each corner of the camp. There were a total of six defensive arrow towers.
The defensive camp formed by the combination of six simple arrow towers and supply wagons was enough to resist the attack of ordinary bandits. This was the regular deployment of the soldiers of the Tang dynasty in the field camps. It was a very defensive deployment. Of course, the strength of this defensive method was related to the number of people guarding it. If there were too few people guarding it, it could not exert much power. For example, each arrow tower had a soldier, and three to five soldiers were assigned to patrol, while the rest of the soldiers were all asleep in the tents. In this way, the defense was very weak. Once it was suddenly attacked by the enemy, the consequences would be very serious.
After setting up the camp, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty locked the camp and did not allow the people of the Angi family to enter the Tang dynasty's camp at will. The two camps were only a hundred steps away from each other. When they looked up, they could see the various activities of the soldiers of the Tang dynasty in the camp. It was not a problem for them to understand some basic situation.
Because they intended to lure the enemy, the soldiers of the Tang dynasty disguised themselves as usual. They only inadvertently completed the deployment quietly. Ten soldiers were deployed in all six arrow towers, but only two soldiers were standing there, while the other eight were squatting down. There were no beds in the tents, but they were full of soldiers with weapons. Naturally, the soldiers patrolling inside the camp could not change much. There were still only twelve soldiers patrolling back and forth in the camp in groups of three. There were also six soldiers inside and outside the gate of the camp, who were responsible for guarding the gate and preventing outsiders from entering the Tang dynasty's camp at will.
From the outside, the Great Tang only had thirty men defending the camp. This force was just enough to deal with the threat of small to medium sized enemies. If there were only fifty enemies charging at them, these thirty soldiers would be enough to hold them off. Even if there were one hundred bandits, these thirty soldiers would be able to rely on the terrain to hold them off. If there were three hundred enemies, these thirty soldiers would be able to hold them off for a period of time and give the soldiers in the camp an early warning, allowing them to prepare for battle. If there were even more cavalry, these thirty soldiers would clearly not be enough to deal with them.
In addition to the soldiers of the Tang dynasty in the camp who were preparing closely, the fifty spies outside the camp were also preparing. They cooperated with each other on the periphery and could play the role of a surprise force. They could catch the enemy off guard and cause heavy losses.
Since the Tang dynasty's camp was set up, they had been monitored. Not only were there spies outside monitoring them, but there were also pairs of eyes in the Angi family's camp staring at these soldiers of the Tang dynasty. There were at least a dozen enemy spies among the more than three hundred soldiers of the Angi family. The head of the Angi family might know all this, but he certainly did not know who were the enemy spies. If he could figure out who were the spies, he would not be so passive.
Three miles away from the Tang dynasty's camp, five or six bandit leaders gathered together to discuss something. They were all the most powerful bandit leaders in the area. Half of them were born bandits, and several of them were former Nanzhao generals who were forced to become bandits. Their goal was the same, that was, to destroy the soldiers of the Tang dynasty, rob the top-grade gems, and then leave this damn place to continue being bandits elsewhere.
They carefully explored the Tang dynasty's camp from the periphery. In order to avoid being discovered, they did not dare to get too close and could only observe from a few hundred steps away. As a result, they naturally could not see the details of the interior. For example, they did not notice that the Tang dynasty had secretly hidden some soldiers in the arrow towers. After all, before most of the soldiers went to rest, the Tang dynasty's camp was chaotic with soldiers coming and going everywhere. It was impossible to carefully monitor any position. If more than a dozen soldiers climbed up the arrow towers and seven or eight came down, ordinary people would not notice. If they kept going up and down, it would be even harder to count them clearly. Especially when the arrow towers were being assembled, the soldiers frequently went up and down. Leaving a few more people in the arrow towers could completely hide them from the eyes of the outside arrows.
After nightfall, more than a dozen bonfires were set up in the Tang dynasty's camp. Twelve soldiers patrolling the camp were responsible for maintaining these bonfires. For better lighting, these bonfires were not placed on the ground but suspended in an iron pot. In this way, the light could shine over a wider area, so fewer bonfires could be achieved and better lighting effect could be achieved.
"There are only 30 guards in the Tang dynasty's camp. In the second half of the night, as long as we launch a surprise attack from multiple directions, we will definitely be able to wipe them all out."
"That's right. The Tang Army only has 30 guards, while we have 300 cavalrymen. If we rush in and kill these 30 guards first, the rest of the soldiers won't have time to react and can only be slaughtered by us."
"That's right. In the second half of the night, we will move our main force forward as much as possible. The cavalrymen will be able to break into the Tang dynasty's camp in the blink of an eye, and it won't take long for the infantry to follow up."
"The 300 cavalrymen can only rush in from the main gate. The rest of our brothers can charge in from all sides. The 12 archers on the enemy's arrow towers are troublesome. However, even if they are all sharpshooters, they can't kill many of our people. When the time comes to charge in, all of our brothers will have to fight with their lives on the line. Whoever dares to retreat will be killed directly. We have many times the advantage in numbers, so losing dozens of our brothers is nothing."
"We can't just focus on the Tang dynasty's camp. Don't forget that there is still the Angi family's camp. We also need to divide some troops to deal with them."
"Those people are just a motley crew. They are not as good as us! I think we should divide 50 people from each family and surround the Angi family's camp first. After we wipe out the Tang Army's camp, we will come back to deal with them. They can't run away anyway. "
"Okay, it's settled. Everyone should start preparing immediately. We will launch a surprise attack in the middle of the night. Everyone has agreed that no one is allowed to retreat during the charge, and no one is allowed to snatch the best gems. After the enemy is eliminated, we will share the gems together."
A group of bandit leaders gathered together and talked at once. They had made up their minds to sneak attack the Tang dynasty's camp and plunder this batch of precious best gems.
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