Chapter 134 Scoring Twice

Fan Zhu chose to retreat in the face of the wildfire, which was understandable, but the retreat soon turned into a rout.

After all, there were no walkie-talkies, telephones, or other tools that could efficiently command the army in that era. A team of 20,000 people faced a raging fire.

From the moment the retreat order was issued, this team was no longer an army, they were a group of wild beasts eager to escape.

The crowd scrambled and pushed on the mountain path, and the wildfire behind them burned more and more fiercely. No one wanted to be swallowed by the wildfire.

So some people chose to go directly into the woods and escape from a place with few people.

After one person did it, others followed suit.

Soon these Vietnamese soldiers disappeared without a trace in the woods like a dragon returning to the sea and a monkey returning to the mountain.

The wildfire did not last too long, but a heavy rain fell two hours later.

Fan Zhu looked at the gradually extinguishing fire and asked his men to reorganize the troops. However, there were corpses everywhere in the mountains and forests. Some of them died in traps, some were killed by poisonous insects and beasts, some were beaten to death by their own people, and some were trampled to death, but no one was burned to death.

The generals of the Vietnamese army tried to gather the team, but only gathered 6,000 people in an afternoon, which was less than one-third of the number when they set out.

Fan Zhu picked up a stone and threw it hard at a deputy general next to him, but heard a bang, and the deputy general's head was blown.

This was certainly not Fan Zhu's innate supernatural power, but the scouts of the Guardian Army were trying to gather the generals of the Vietnamese army.

How could the scouts of the Guardian Army miss this opportunity?

As soon as the fire was extinguished, the scouts of the Guardian Army came out to look for valuable targets.

Shooting with rifled guns at a distance of 300 steps, anyway, the opponent's matchlock guns could not hit at all at this distance, and it had just rained heavily, so it was still a question whether those matchlock guns could be used.

As long as you fire one shot and run, the enemy will not be able to catch up.

The scouts of the Guards of the Church all held this mentality and decided to try their luck.

Fan Zhu, wearing a second-grade crimson general robe, naturally became the main target of the scouts.

Among these scouts, in addition to the Zhenla people selected from the Guards of the Church, there were also many Austrian hunters.

Hunting high-value targets is instinctive for hunters, and coupled with the church's popular science about Vietnam's military system and officer ranks all day long, Fan Zhu, a second-grade general, became the hunting target of many scouts.

The first reaction of the Vietnamese officers who were attacked was not to command a counterattack, but to pull a person with a lower rank than themselves to block in front.

Ordinary soldiers tried their best to find a reasonable reason to escape from the battlefield, for example.

"There is a monster!"

"The mountain god is angry!"

"The Buddha appeared!"

"The general is punished by heaven!"

"Go home and collect clothes in the afternoon!"

The remnants that Fan Zhu had finally gathered together were scattered, and the generals around him were holding a personal soldier or a low-level officer in their hands and were slowly evacuating.

Soon, gunshots were heard again from the burned forest, and blood burst out from the bodies of several Vietnamese soldiers.

Fan Zhu was a second-rank general in Vietnam after all, and he immediately stopped the soldiers.

"Come back, it's not a monster, it's those Zhenla people shooting us with guns, quick! Raise your guns and fight back."

At this time, Fan Zhu's personal soldiers drove back those soldiers who had not had time to escape with knives, gave them muskets, and asked them to shoot at the scouts of the Kompong Som.

Why didn't these personal soldiers of Fan Zhu use muskets to shoot at the scouts of the Guardian Army?

The answer is that the muskets of Vietnam during this period were mainly bought from the Qing Dynasty.

The military industry of the Qing Dynasty, you know, was very rough in workmanship, unstable in performance, and often misfired.

In order to weaken Vietnam's strength, the Qing Dynasty even deliberately tampered with the firearms sold to Vietnam, so Fan Zhu's personal soldiers had to use knives to force those temporarily captured strong men to use muskets to shoot at the scouts of the Guardian Army.

Of course, the scouts quickly retreated and reloaded to prepare for the next round of shooting, and two-thirds of the Vietnamese army's matchlock guns could not fire.

At a distance of 300 steps, even if they fired, the hit rate can be imagined.

After a round of shooting, not a single scout was hit. The loading of the old-style matchlock guns was not only troublesome but also slow.

Before the Vietnamese bird gunners finished loading, the second round of shooting by the scouts of the Guardian Army came over.

After three rounds, a large number of bird gunners had fallen.

A personal soldier suggested that the sword and card players charge once, but he couldn't find the general anyway.

Seeing that the big fish had quietly slipped away and the Vietnamese army was increasing in number, the scouts of the Guardian Army picked up their guns and retreated to the camp.

Seeing that those guys wearing Western military uniforms and shooting cold guns had left, the Vietnamese officers and soldiers cheered as if they had won a great victory.

At this time, General Fan Zhu, who had been missing before, suddenly appeared and began to slap each officer in the face one by one.

"A bunch of good-for-nothings, you can't even handle a few petty thieves! When we return to the country, I will kill all of you!"

"General, calm down, those monsters are too cunning, and they are not good for our Vietnamese army on this mountain, it's not a war crime." A deputy general said.

"Who proposed to take the Xiangshan Road? I'll chop off his head," Fan Zhu roared.

Someone whispered, "It was Deputy General Hu..."

"Bring him here, right here, I'm going to chop off his head!"

The man pointed to a corpse on the ground, "Deputy General Hu is right there, his head has been smashed."

Fan Zhu looked at Vice General Hu's body and spat.

"You're getting an advantage!"

Fan Zhu stood up and walked down the mountain, and then said to the deputy general next to him.

"Pass my general's orders to set up camp at the foot of the mountain. Tomorrow we will gather our troops and prepare to attack the city."

At this time, there were still 3,000 people around Fan Zhu, and the fleeing Vietnamese officers and soldiers were rushing back one after another when the fire was extinguished. After all, if the general died, their whole family would have to finish playing.

At night, Vietnamese troops continued to find the camp with torches. Of course, no one would admit that they had escaped. They only said that they did not hear the gunshots from behind, so they seemed to only follow the general's orders, so they stayed away from the battlefield.

In the middle of the night, most of the Vietnamese army had fallen asleep, and only a few sentries were breathing heavily against the big trees.

Suddenly, a fire broke out in the woods again

Fires were everywhere in the dark night, and the Vietnamese soldiers were awakened from their sleep by their companions. Some of them didn't even bother to put on their clothes, so they followed the large troops and ran to places where there was no fire.

"Damn Austrians, they are so cunning, I swear I will destroy them!"

In the early morning, Fan Zhu roared angrily as he looked at the camp that had been reduced to ruins.

After some counting, the number of soldiers around him was not less, but increased to 5,000. However, compared with the 30,000 when he first set out for the expedition, it was nothing to mention.

At this time, Fan Zhu had no way out. If he couldn't win and go back, what awaited him would be the confiscation of his family and the extermination of his clan.

Fan Zhu now not only wants to win, but also wants to win big! As for the lost soldiers, as long as they defeated Kampong Soun and brought back more strong men, he didn't care about such small things.

However, two fires caused heavy losses in his baggage, leaving only 800 muskets.

It would be difficult to attack Kampong Som with the five thousand men at this time, but soldiers could be had as much as they wanted in Chenla. He decided to go to Kampot first to replenish his troops.