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The soldiers under Lu Cheng were veterans for many years, and many of them even participated in the battle against the Later Jin, but the quality of the soldiers was difficult to meet Lu Cheng's requirements.

After more than a month of training, the training was finally on the right track, and Lu Cheng didn't have to worry too much.

But Lu Cheng didn't relax because of this, but became even busier.

It is definitely not an easy task to lead a team of thousands of people. The logistics support alone is a big problem.

Although Xiong Tingbi is there, the food and salary issued by the court is barely enough to feed these soldiers.

But if you want to train the soldiers well, you will spend a lot of money.

Not starving to death and having enough to eat are two concepts, and weapons and armor must also be replaced.

Especially after the training intensity increased, the consumption of food and grass became faster.

Lu Cheng spent almost all of the more than 2,000 taels of silver, and even with the food and grass allocated by the court, it was only enough to sustain for more than two months.

Lu Cheng never lived off his savings, and he started to prepare for this in advance.

During the training process, Lu Cheng temporarily divided the soldiers into four categories:

Special soldiers: the most elite soldiers trained for the purpose of special operations. The conditions are not yet met, and it is still only in conception.

First-class soldiers: the best reconnaissance team, intelligence personnel, elite cavalry, etc.

Second-class soldiers: ordinary infantry, doctors and craftsmen with certain skills.

Third-class soldiers: general logistics soldiers.

At present, there are nearly 500 logistics soldiers in Lu Cheng's 1,200 men, and they also undergo certain training, but at most they can play a certain role in defending the city, or they are responsible for cleaning the battlefield and handling various sundries.

More than 700 soldiers were basically trained according to the standards of second-class soldiers. In addition to the normal salary of one tael and five coins issued by the court, Lu Cheng also prepared to subsidize them with 5 coins of silver per person, and there were additional rewards for excellent training.

From these more than 700 people, Lu Cheng selected 80 people who could ride horses and trained them in riding skills, shooting speed, horse combat, reconnaissance and other tasks.

It was not that Lu Cheng did not want to train more cavalry, but that there was really not enough money for cavalry training.

Therefore, after Lu Cheng trained the cavalry to a certain extent and let them develop certain reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance capabilities, he personally led these cavalry to conduct reconnaissance everywhere, looking for caravans from the Ming Dynasty to the Later Jin Dynasty.

In fact, the reason why Nurhaci was able to start his career was not only because some generals in Liaodong raised the enemy and respected themselves, but also because of those bold smugglers. Especially many merchants in Shanxi Province.

After the Later Jin established the Qing Dynasty, it directly named 8 merchants in Shanxi Province as the 8 Great Imperial Merchants.

At the beginning, those Shanxi merchants only provided various materials for the border troops of the Ming Dynasty. But the Ming Dynasty did not attach much importance to border defense, and the border troops were always poor. Their weapons and equipment could not be replaced frequently, which naturally could not satisfy the appetite of the Shanxi merchants.

Therefore, the Shanxi merchants began to focus on the outside of the Great Wall, selling various military supplies such as salt, iron, and grain that were expressly prohibited by the court to the Mongolian tribes and the Jurchens, and even providing the customs with various intelligence about the Great Wall.

In return, the Later Jin regime exchanged various supplies such as ginseng, deer antlers, and animal skins, as well as valuable items looted from the Central Plains.

The place where the Later Jin started was in a poor mountain and bad water, and the reason why it was able to accumulate so many weapons and supplies was all thanks to those merchants.

Moreover, most of those merchants also bribed the border army generals, colluded with the grassland tribes, and established a stable trade route so that they could transport various contraband materials.

Lu Cheng would naturally not let go of such merchants, and had already sent people to explore their trade routes and observe their trading patterns.

After the cavalry team started training, Lu Cheng also immediately began to select targets and prepare for a side job.

On this day, Lu Cheng greeted Xiong Jinglue in advance, saying that he would take the team to conduct a long-distance march training. Xiong Tingbi heard it, but he didn't take it too seriously, and nodded in agreement.

After that, Lu Cheng took 50 cavalrymen and 300 infantrymen, brought enough dry food and supplies, and left Liaoyang lightly and headed north.

After leaving the city for 20 or 30 miles, two cavalrymen came towards them in front. When they got close, they immediately turned over and dismounted.

"Sir, the caravan has arrived in the north of Gaojia Village and is expected to arrive at the ambush site we have selected this evening."

"Very good, continue tracking, don't expose your tracks."

"Yes."

Then, Lu Cheng waved his hand:

"Everyone, pay attention, speed up!"

At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, Lu Cheng led his troops to a relatively suitable forest for ambushes and arranged ambushes.

Afterwards, Lu Cheng took a few people to investigate the situation in person.

This time, the caravan targeted had a large number of people. There were more than 30 cavalrymen in the escort team alone, all of whom were equipped with swords and bows and arrows, wearing leather armor, more than 100 infantrymen with swords and guns, and many horsemen driving carriages, etc., with a total of more than 200 people.

The escorted goods, mules and horses lined up in a long queue, with large and small carts, piled up full.

As early as a few days ago, the cavalry team sent by Lu Cheng had already targeted this caravan and followed it from a distance.

The reason why Lu Cheng had not taken action was that he was looking for the right time and place.

Faced with such an armed caravan, if you want to eat it all, you must make a plan.

In the evening, the caravan came to the forest where Lu Cheng was ambushing, but they set up camp on the plain two or three miles away from the forest, and sent a small team of cavalry to the forest to check the situation.

Fortunately, Lu Cheng's men were well hidden, and the other party only did a routine check and found nothing unusual.

After the other party set up camp, they also surrounded a circle with carriages and horses, arranged a simple defensive position, and arranged patrol and defense personnel.

Obviously, this caravan was well-trained and highly aware of prevention.

Lu Cheng was not in a hurry to take action, and waited for this caravan to make a fire and cook, and began to rest.

Lu Cheng's soldiers were hiding in the distance, eating the dry food prepared in advance, drinking water, without making any sound, and not starting a fire.

Until the second half of the night, most people in the caravan camp had rested, and those on duty were also beginning to feel a little tired. Lu Cheng then ordered to wake up all the rested soldiers, stretch their hands and feet, and quietly move towards the caravan's station.

More than 60 cavalrymen were on standby outside, and 300 infantrymen went around in three directions to surround the entire camp.

After approaching the camp, everyone bent their bodies and approached carefully.

Lu Cheng, Ding Xiu, and Ding Xian each led hundreds of people. After entering the range of the bow and arrow, Lu Cheng immediately drew his bow and arrow and shot.

After this period of training, Lu Cheng's archery skills have improved greatly. In the battle of foot, he can really hit whatever he points to.

With a "swoosh", a guard on guard was shot through the chest by an arrow. The guard next to him immediately noticed the situation and wanted to shout, but Lu Cheng's second feather arrow had already been shot out.

Almost at the same time, soldiers from three directions fired three rounds of arrow rain, and the caravan camp was in chaos. The caravan guards who were still sleeping hurriedly got up to find weapons and organize resistance.

At this time, Lu Cheng had also arrived near the camp. He took out a pack of dynamite from the package he was carrying, lit the fuse, and threw it at the truck used by the caravan for defense.

With a loud bang, the tightly surrounded carriage defense formation was immediately blown open.

In the other two directions, Ding Xiu and Ding Xian also threw a pack of dynamite each, blowing a hole in the guards' defense circle.

Then, Lu Cheng led his troops to rush up.

After several rounds of arrow rain and the attack of the dynamite pack, the enemy had already suffered casualties of thirty or forty people.

It was the second half of the night, and the caravan guards had just slept soundly. They suddenly woke up at this moment. Before they had time to organize an effective resistance, Lu Cheng had already led his men to rush in.

Afterwards, Lu Cheng led his men to the place where the horses were tied, controlled the enemy's horses, and killed the gathered enemies.

Immediately afterwards, Ding Xiu and Ding Xian also led their men to attack.

This was a very successful night attack. By dawn, the entire caravan had been completely wiped out. Those who wanted to escape were easily shot and killed by the cavalry outside.

All the bodies were piled up together, their clothes were stripped off, all their belongings were taken away, and they were burned.

Afterwards, Lu Cheng quickly asked people to clean up the battlefield, collect all the supplies, and drive away with the carriages and horses.

Along the way, Lu Cheng asked people to roughly count the harvest this time.

The gold and silver treasures harvested this time were not much, adding up to more than 1,000 taels, mainly various supplies, winter cotton clothes, salt, tea, refined iron, grain, etc., are all the most needed supplies in Liaodong.

Those cotton clothes alone are enough for Lu Cheng to give one or two to each of his soldiers.

In addition to these supplies, there are also 70 to 80 vehicles for transporting supplies, more than 90 mules and horses, and 40 war horses. This does not include those destroyed in the battle.

This is simply a wave of fat, instantly solved

It solved Lu Cheng's predicament of lack of money, food and supplies, and he didn't even have to worry about winter anymore.

Sure enough, a business without capital is the fastest way to get rich.

Of course, if you really count it strictly, it is not without cost. At least a dozen of Lu Cheng's soldiers died, twenty or thirty were injured, and they also needed to pay pensions to the fallen soldiers.

Of course, this time the pension could not be as much as one hundred taels.

On the way back, all the soldiers were extremely excited. With such a large amount of supplies, they didn't have to starve or freeze this winter, and they could even have a good New Year...