"Hutou Village is so lawless. Are you treating me, Deng Gui and the Inspection Department as if they are nothing?"
Deng Gui stared at the corpses lying scattered on the dirt road, his face as gloomy as if it was about to rain, and he tried his best to control his emotions and not roar.
In addition to the wounds caused by arrows and knives during the fight, the throats of four of the corpses were cut open by sharp knives, and blood splattered on the surrounding grass and trees; from here you can see the tiger's head
The thieves who came down the mountain from the village had all robbed property, but they did not let go of the injured, and specially repaired the wounds.
Deng Gui usually indulged in drinking and debauchery, leaving all the hunting and robberies to the people below to deal with. But if something happened in Tongbai Mountain, he had no way to shift the responsibility to the capital and the provincial level below.
.
In the past month, Hutou Village has twice broken the tacit understanding between the major mountain villages and the wealthy families in the past few years, and openly gathered a large number of thieves to rob and kill businessmen on the walking road, and they were so brutal that no one was left alive. All this is called him
How not to gnash your teeth?
This is not just a slap in Deng Gui's face, it's not just a matter of not taking him seriously as an inspector.
What's important about his face? What's more painful is that if the stubborn bandits entrenched in Hutouling cannot be dealt with as soon as possible, he will not have a good life in Huaiyuan, and the state and county will hold him accountable at any time.
However, the road to Hutou Ridge is blocked and dangerous, and there are more than 200 ferocious thieves guarding it. It is far impossible to attack it with more than 100 soldiers from the Inspection Department alone.
Chen Shi, the governor of the state, decided to leave Wang Zhen in the Huaiyuan military camp a few months ago. In order to prevent assassins from visiting, Deng Gui had not slept well for several days, but he did not expect that the bandits in the mountains who had been honest for several years would also become drunk as if they had taken aphrodisiacs.
Coming out to stir up the muddy water really made him feel like his head was getting bigger. He looked at Xu Wujiang and Deputy Chief Tang Tiande: "What should we do about this matter? What do you think?"
Xu Wujiang and Deputy Chief Tang Tiande stood beside Deng Gui. Looking at the death of the caravan guards in the past few days, their brows were wrinkled like mountains, and they felt a headache secretly.
The gangsters are not Jing. Perhaps Deng Gui, as the patrol envoy, has to bear the biggest crime of dereliction of duty, and his official position may be lost. However, as local children, especially the Xu and Tang families, many children rely on this road to make a living.
, it is absolutely impossible to have the thought of gloating after seeing this scene.
However, when Deng Gui asked them for their suggestions, they remained silent.
The place where the crime occurred was not far from the Huaiyuan military camp, and Xu Huai also ran over to see the scene.
This is a horse team coming from Luzhou, heading towards Dengzhou, selling Yanghao brushes and Luzhou paper produced in Luzhou. They crossed the Baijian River at dawn and headed west along the horse road, but they were not far away from the Huaiyuan Army.
Less than twenty miles away from the village, they were ambushed by bandits from Hutou Village.
When they came over, six or seven thousand kilograms of merchandise had been carried into the mountains by the bandits.
There were more than forty people in the cavalry and the accompanying businessmen. The armed guards did their job well and immediately organized manpower to hold off the thieves. Most of the businessmen and cavalrymen and the stewards were able to escape to the Huaiyuan military camp to report the news, but the ten men behind the throne were able to escape.
Everyone was killed and no one was left alive.
Of course, what thieves do is not so much silencing them as it is killing people to establish their authority.
Just like the robbery that happened near Yushan Station half a month ago, many of the people who escaped recognized the face of Chen Zixiao, the second master of Hutou Village.
Tang Tiande, Xu Wujiang and others all looked ugly, but when Deng Gui asked them to give advice, there was no response. Xu Huai quickly figured out what was going on.
No matter why Hutou Village suddenly changed its style and became so active and ferocious, one thing is for sure. With more than a hundred soldiers from the Inspection Department alone, it may not be enough to go deep into the North Ridge of Tongbai Mountain to eliminate this stubborn bandit. Stuffed between teeth.
Normally speaking, if the bandits are stubborn and the inspection department is unable to suppress them, they should ask the prefectures and counties to send troops; if the prefectures and counties are incompetent, they should report to the imperial court so that the stationed imperial troops can be mobilized to exterminate the big bandits.
This is the responsibility that the government should bear.
The problem is that Tang Tiande and Xu Wujiang knew very well how strong the combat effectiveness of the county sword archers, the Xiang army (state soldiers) under the jurisdiction of the state's military and horse supervision department, and the patrol soldiers were.
If we were in a plain area with easy terrain, better-equipped state soldiers, county sword archers, and local soldiers transferred from other patrol villages might be able to rely on their strength in numbers to encircle and suppress the bandits.
However, it was necessary to go deep into a remote place. How effective these soldiers and horses could be was tested many times before the Huaiyuan Inspection Department was forced to recruit local soldiers due to the situation.
As a result, not to mention the side soldiers, the stationed imperial troops were useless, not to mention causing nuisance to the local area, and even worse, they killed good people and took credit for their merits.
The only plan now is to convene the chiefs of the big surnames to discuss, gather the well-trained Zhuangke Zhuangding and other village soldiers controlled by the big surnames, and march into Hutou Ridge together.
But why did Tang Tiande and Xu Wujiang take the initiative to mention this matter?
Deng Gui himself was smart. He could have directly sent people to invite Xu Wufu, the head of the Xu family, and Tang Huide, the head of the Tang family, to come to the inspection department to discuss the matter. Deng Gui informed the county magistrate Cheng Lunying, who would come forward to convene the matter. More appropriate.
These parent officials are usually aloof and shout about everything. Now when something happens, even if the local government is willing to help, but if they don't show some attitude, how can they be expected to think about the good of the local government and be less exploitative?
Besides, if you really want to take over Hutou Village, even if all the major surnames spare no effort to join forces, it will definitely not be an easy task. Otherwise, it would be impossible to "peacefully coexist" with those copycat forces in the past few years.
Deng Gui lost his temper and saw that Tang Tiande, Xu Wujiang and others remained silent, knowing that he did not have the ability to ask local forces to actively come forward to cooperate.
But this time, several business travelers from Luzhou, Shouzhou and others died. It was impossible to randomly catch a few thieves, kill them and fool them. At the moment, we could only send people to Biyang to report the Hutou Village thieves. The soldiers started killing again.
…………
…………
Hutou Village twice killed and robbed passing merchants. Xu Huai did not think that this was purely a coincidence with Wang Zhen staying in the Huaiyuan Army Village.
However, no matter how suspicious he was, he was neither capable of killing Hutou Ridge alone, nor could people like Deng Gui listen to his advice; he even had no way to escape and go to investigate near Hutou Ridge.
There is actually nothing he can do about the current situation.
Returning to the military camp, Xu Wujiang was called by Deng Gui to discuss matters; Xu Xin'an had been officially selected by Deng Gui as a sentinel of the Inspection Department because of his skill and agility. At this time, he was also sent out together with other sentinels. Inquire for information.
Xu Huai hadn't formally applied for the army yet, so he returned to the army camp to see Wang Zhen and Cheng Yi playing chess in the courtyard. There were two soldiers guarding the courtyard. It was inconvenient to talk, so he went back to the courtyard to get a gun and bow, and left. Practice after going to the willow forest.
The situation became tense. In addition to regular inspections, the troops in the military camp were sent out to inquire for information. The left-behind personnel were also caught by Deng Gui and taken to the school grounds for training. The pond in the north of the military camp and the willow forest were all empty. There was nothing there. silhouette.
Xu Huai tied the quiver on his right waist, stood up with the bow, took the arrow in his right hand and fixed his eyes on the willow tree forty steps away. He had used broken bricks to draw a bull's-eye the size of a silver pick on the tree.
The true trajectory of the arrow as it leaves the string is to snake forward, not straight forward.
He holds the bow in his left hand, and the arrow shaft needs to be placed on the bow arm from the left side. Only in this way, after all aspects of the movements are in place, can it be ensured that the arrow will snake quickly after leaving the string and hit the target in the same direction as the eyes holding the bow.
The target is consistent.
He didn't know these principles in the past. He always thought that when taking an arrow with his right hand, it would be the fastest to shoot the arrow from the right side to the bow arm; but he didn't expect that the arrow he shot would always deflect to one side.
At this time, after Lu Xiong's guidance, many principles became clear to him, and he had the foundation of his previous muscles and bones. Once he corrected it, the effect would be very obvious.
"Duo!"
An arrow hit the willow tree forty steps away steadily, and the arrow feathers were buzzing. Xu Huai kept holding his hand, and the second arrow had already been taken off the string.
This is a standard rapid fire shot.
The chain of arrows requires the front arrow to hit the target, and the back arrow to follow. The faster the two arrows connect, the more likely it is to overwhelm the opponent.
Xu Huai used the methods taught by Lu Xiong to take arrows, nod the arrows, and open the string in a large way. He shot the second and third arrows with the arrows in place, and they all accurately hit the bullseye the size of a silver ingot. However, on the fourth arrow, in order to ensure
The speed could be matched, but the muscles of the arms tightened uncontrollably, and the arrow cluster finally missed the target by several inches and hit the tree...
Xu Huai put down his long bow, looked at the fourth arrow that missed the target, saw Lu Xiong walking into the willow forest, and said: "As expected, I still can't make four arrows in a row!"
There are three variations of Fu Mang's fist, whip and hammer. If you can use them continuously, you can be said to be a master of fists and kicks. The standards for practicing swordsmanship and spears are similar. If you want to call yourself a master of swordsmanship, you must keep breathing to block and block.
He blocked three arrows in succession with the chop technique.
Therefore, if you want to surpass the level of ordinary masters in archery, you must shoot four arrows in a row without interruption, so as to force the so-called master-level enemies into a panic.
Of course, this standard does not make much sense in actual combat.
The so-called master on the battlefield does not rely on heavy armor, strong shields, or the robes beside him. Even if he has three heads and six arms, he cannot simultaneously deflect arrows shot from all directions.
Xu Huai was more testing his level of cultivation.
"..." Lu Xiong couldn't help but slap his forehead and said with a wry smile, "Do you know how long it takes for the masters of archery in the army to practice hard to reach your level? Do you think there really is the legendary Nine Lianzhu in this world?"
"..." Xu Huai laughed, but he didn't think he was too greedy.
After recovering his sanity, with the guidance and teachings of people like Lu Xiong, Xu Huaineng's fists, feet, swords, guns and archery skills were greatly improved in more than a month. This was similar to the fact that he had grown up in Tongbai Mountain for more than ten years and had not interrupted his basic skills for a day.
The practice is related to the naturally strong bones and long muscles.
However, at this time, he has almost tapped out all his potential.
In the future, he will have to be like other warriors and can only rely on years of hard work to achieve further improvement.
This is where he feels a little regretful.
"Hutou Village went on a killing spree during the two robberies. What do you think?" Lu Xiong almost stopped trying to challenge Xu Huai's confidence. It was usually inconvenient for him to leave the military camp. Now he came here, mainly to find
Xu Huai inquired about the details of today's robbery and murder case on the horse trail.
Xu Huai told Lu Xiong everything he saw at the scene today:
"In addition to the killings in these two robberies, I also heard that Hutou Village's exploitation of surrounding villages has suddenly doubled. One village refused to comply. Five days ago, the second head of Hutou Village, Chen Zixiao,
, he personally led dozens of thieves, forced them in, and kidnapped a dozen women and children back to Hutouling to serve as meat tickets, and ordered their clansmen to pay for redemption. Uncle Seventeen and the others actually got the news, but they thought it was not as bad as they imagined.
It was serious, so I hid it and did not report it to Deng Gui; and no one in this village dared to come to the Inspection Department to complain and ask for help..."
The victim did not dare to offend the extremely vicious robbers and did not report the case to the inspection department or the county. Xu Wujiang and the others took the initiative to report to Deng Gui. Aren't they looking for trouble for themselves?
Even Deng Gui may not have been kept in the dark; it was more likely that he was pretending to be deaf and dumb.
If you can't see it, you can pretend it didn't happen; this is the logic of low-level officials.
However, there was Luzhou on the horse trail today, and a businessman from Shouzhou was killed. He couldn't hide it, so Deng Gui became really worried.
Lu Xiong didn't know how to comment on this kind of thing. He sighed softly and changed the topic and asked: "The bandits in Hutou Village are restless. If the assassins sent by Cai Qing are instigating it behind the scenes, why do you think they are like this?"