The speed of the procession was very fast, and it was about to reach the Lushui River valley in front of them, although the horse thieves were very tired, but at the thought of being able to camp and rest after crossing the river valley, their bodies were not so tired, and they all seemed quite energetic.

"There's the Lushui Valley ahead, foal, remember any trees in this valley?"

One-Eye asked.

The foal smiled and said, "How can you forget this?" There is a very large old locust tree in the river valley, which is estimated to be at least two thousand years old, and it is simply a sacred tree! The leafy ones, not to mention how tall they are. ”

These are naturally not nonsense, they are specially told to him by the big foal, what can be encountered along the way, what the terrain is like, what special signs are there, he will tell his brother, so that his brother knows where he has gone, how far away from the Lushui River Valley, I didn't expect that at this time, it actually played such a big role.

The foal didn't know if One-Eye had walked through the Lushui Valley, but if he did, he would have known what was going on inside, so that he would be able to trust One-Eye and stop suspecting him if he said that there was a large locust tree that was more than a thousand years old, and that the big locust tree was not far from the western entrance of the valley, so that when the horse thieves entered the valley and saw the big locust tree, they would definitely be able to believe the foal's words even more, and thus further relax their vigilance.

Although this team of horse thieves is more like a transport team, however, every horse thief has a weapon in his hand, more than 100 people, and there are also more powerful elite horse thieves, the strength of these elite horse thieves is not weaker than the officers and soldiers, if they are determined to resist, it will cause great damage to the officers and soldiers, so it is necessary to weaken their vigilance as much as possible, but also to make them tired enough, so that they completely lose the ability and will to resist, and become prisoners of the officers and soldiers intact.

One-eyed listened to the pony's words, his brows suddenly stretched a lot, he walked through this river valley, although he was just passing by in a hurry, but some iconic trees in the road, he still had some impressions, so, as soon as he heard about the old locust tree, he immediately thought of the huge tree in the river valley, and suddenly believed in one-eyed more, and felt that the pony did not lie to him, maybe everything the pony said was true, but he was just thinking about it, thinking of such a situation, one-eye was naturally relieved, The brow will naturally be relaxed all at once.

Well, all the horse thieves have no psychological burden, no one suspects that the foal is the internal response of the official army, and everyone chooses to believe in the foal, and it is unconditional belief, without the slightest suspicion.

Due to the early departure, when they were about to arrive at the Lushui River Valley, the group behind was left far behind, at least fifteen miles away from the front team, and the contact was basically broken, which was still on the basis of the continuous pursuit of the team behind.

In the Lushui River valley not far away, more than 1,000 officers and soldiers were ready for all-out battle, they were ambushed on both sides of the valley, using temporary camouflage facilities to hide themselves, not to show the slightest flaw, and their hiding was obviously very successful, the many horse thieves who recklessly entered the valley, did not find that there were officers and soldiers in ambush nearby, they did not have any defense along the way, they walked very quickly, and they entered the pocket of the ambush of officers and soldiers very smoothly.

Li An is drinking tea from a high place, standing in a high position, you can look down on the entire river valley, and because of the camouflage net laid in front of you, so, the people below can't see Li An, just like you can hide in the woods and see every move in the open space outside, but the people in the open space outside can't see you hiding in the woods, Li An is looking down through the camouflage net, and in the eyes of the people below, the camouflage net in the distance is ordinary dead leaves and stones, and you can't see anything else at all.

"Haha! More than 100 people came, and they were in a hurry! The formation is completely scattered, and it looks like a rabble! ”

Li An said.

"Horse thieves are naturally a rabble, but are there really treasures in so many chests? Just this gang of horse thieves, can they plunder so much? Xiazhou is quite poor and weak, where did they get so much treasure? ”

Lao Guo frowned and said.

In his opinion, the economic conditions of Xiazhou are not very good, it can be said that it is a very poor local city, but these horse thieves who are active here can accumulate such a huge wealth in a few years, which naturally makes Lao Guo quite surprised, he can't understand why these horse thieves can plunder so much wealth, and who they plundered from.

Li An sighed: "Xiazhou is indeed poor, but the merchants in Xiazhou are not poor, most of the people are poor, but there are many rich people!" ”

In Li An's view, Xiazhou is a place that has suffered a certain amount of damage to the environment and there are not many employment opportunities, so it naturally gives people a very poor feeling, but Xiazhou is a very important hub connecting the capital of the Tang Dynasty and the northern grassland, and many businessmen are optimistic about this place and invest here.

Although the existence of horse thieves makes these merchants miserable, and even leads to the bankruptcy of many businessmen, the group of merchants is huge, and some businessmen have suffered heavy losses and choose to leave Xiazhou and go elsewhere to make a living, but soon there will be new businessmen who do not believe in evil, so as to pour into Xiazhou to do business, so that the merchants who come and go provide enough fat sheep for the horse thieves, so that the horse thieves can accumulate huge wealth in a short time.

This is like some shops in later generations, a businessman spends money to renovate and settle in, and has to pay rent, but soon finds that there is no business at all, and it is not profitable at all, so he chooses to leave, but soon, there will be new businessmen to settle in the store, continue to do business, and then leave, just like that, a shop that is in a very bad position can bring batch after batch of financial resources to the homeowner, and the loss is always those businessmen who want to try.

The businessmen of Datang are naturally no exception, if they don't come to Xiazhou to do business in person, how can they understand the power of the horse thieves in Xiazhou, and how can they prove that they will be so unlucky if they don't experience the reality of the goods being robbed, in any society, they will always support the bold, starve to the timid, and there are many opportunities where there are many horse thieves, after all, the profits are there, as long as you can avoid the horse thieves, you can get very rich profits.

A group of merchants who tried to leave with heavy losses, and soon a new group of merchants came to Xiazhou, these merchants passed through Xiazhou back and forth, bringing a huge source of wealth to the horse thieves, and because of the hype and could not find their goods, many merchants gave up after a little try, and they quietly left Xiazhou, as if they had never been here.

In ancient society, the social status of merchants was the lowest, which determined their lowliness and humility, and their property was robbed by horse thieves, even if they complained to the government, under normal circumstances, it could not be resolved, and it was impossible to recover it.

At most, the government will express its stance that it will send troops into the mountains to suppress the thieves in order to appease these merchants, but even if the thieves are successful, these spoils of war are also the imperial court and the officers and soldiers, and even have to be handed over to the treasury, as for returning to the merchants, this is something that is unimaginable, and no businessman dares to have such extravagant hopes, so many of them don't even bother to complain, and when they are sad, they leave quietly and give up their positions to the merchants behind.

"The merchants of Xia Zhou are so rich?"

Lao Guo frowned, looking very surprised, obviously this was something he didn't expect, but how many valuable treasures were in these boxes, only after seeing them would he know. I haven't seen it, and no one knows how many.

"General, the horse thief has already come in, is it time to attack?"

A lieutenant asked.

"Don't worry, the fish have bitten the hook, do you still care about this moment? Wait a little longer, when they all come in, you won't be able to escape one of them, remember, as long as the horse thief doesn't resist, don't kill anyone easily, it's better to capture them all alive, hahaha! ”

Lao Guo opened his mouth and smiled, although the voice was relatively loud, it was still a little far away from the horse thieves, so the horse thieves couldn't hear it at all.

At this moment, whether it is the officers and soldiers in ambush or the horse thieves who are marching in the river valley, they all seem relatively relaxed, the reason why the officers and soldiers feel relaxed is because the opponent's strength is too weak, and the horse thieves feel relaxed because they are not clear about the danger they will face, and they do not know that there are officers and soldiers in ambush nearby.

But there is one person who is very nervous, that is the foal, he knows that there are officers and soldiers on both sides of the valley in ambush, but where are the officers and soldiers, will they accidentally hurt him when they fight, these are all very worried about him, he is most afraid that the officers and soldiers will suddenly come with ten thousand arrows, so that his life is in danger, this is not a joke.

Although he was nervous, the foal still couldn't be seen, and he continued to pretend to be happy, so that others thought he was very normal, he looked around, but every time he looked around, he would introduce these big trees and big rocks to the horse thieves next to him that he had seen them many years ago, so as to dispel the suspicions of the horse thieves.

Because the officers and soldiers were well hidden, no matter how carefully the foal observed, he could not find the hiding place of the officers and soldiers, just as he could never find his brother's figure, but he knew very well in his heart that a large number of officers and soldiers were lying in ambush nearby, and they might suddenly rush at any time, so he had to be extremely careful and must try his best to avoid being injured by the officers and soldiers who suddenly rushed out.

Of course, the little pony's worries seem to be a little redundant, Li An has already issued an order, so that the soldiers should not use force first, they can surround the horse thieves first, as long as the horse thieves are obedient enough, he will not embarrass these horse thieves, and will let them live, but these horse thieves must be properly reformed through labor, and these horse thieves who are full of vices will be transformed into standard qualified young people, so that they can return to society well and be a useful person to society.

"Almost, it's time to do it."

Li An saw most of the horse thieves enter the ambush circle and spoke.

Lao Guo nodded and motioned for his lieutenant to give an order.

"Bang ......"

A very harsh sound suddenly sounded, this was the signal of the attack, the soldiers Li An rushed out of the ambush, directly approached the marching horse thieves, surrounded them, and all the bows and crossbows and arrows were aimed at these horse thieves.

The horse thieves who were on the march, where could they have thought of such a situation, they were all frightened and stupid for a while, and before they could figure out what was happening, they were already completely surrounded by officers and soldiers, in this case, the resistance seemed to have lost any meaning, because their resistance would not have the slightest effect, and they seemed to have no other way but to surrender.

"There are ambushes, there are ambushes."

The foal pretended to panic and quickly lay on the ground, he saw a large number of crossbows around him, he was afraid that the crossbows would shoot at him, so he quickly fell down.

The rest of the thieves were also surprised, they were all so frightened that they didn't have time to think about whether the foal was a spy or not, their minds seemed to have stagnated and fell into a state of downtime.

"Horse thieves, listen, you have been surrounded, everyone immediately lay down their arms and surrender, otherwise, they will be killed."

One of the Don military lieutenants shouted loudly.

This is a very stern warning, if the horse thieves refuse to surrender, they can really kill these horse thieves, and they will not be soft on their responsibility.

The horse thieves had long been frightened, where did they still have the courage to resist, the surroundings were already completely surrounded, and the weapons in their hands had not yet had time to be taken out, and they could hardly talk about putting down their weapons, because they had no weapons in their hands at all.

"First team, second team, up."

The lieutenant ordered loudly.

Suddenly, the two groups of officers and soldiers began to move forward step by step, approaching the horse thief who was still in terror.

"We're running out, let's surrender!"

A horse thief who didn't want to die, spoke.

"Surrender! Surrender! We had no choice but to surrender. ”

More horse thieves were frightened and looked extremely panicked, and all they could think of was surrender.

At this moment, the heaviest mood is One-Eye, he is so frightened that his soul is about to fly, this is the second time he has been captured, and he is still a small head, he is really worried that he will be executed by officers and soldiers, he still doesn't want to die? It can be said that no horse thief wants to die, everyone wants to live, and they don't want to die.

"Pony, this is a good thing you did!"

One-Eyed said hatefully.

Although there is no evidence, his instincts at the moment tell him that this matter has nothing to do with the foal. It must be that the foal has long been bought by the officers and soldiers, along the way, he felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't say what went wrong, but now the situation is obvious, this foal can get a lot of prey in a short time every time he camps along the way, which is very unusual, at this moment, it seems that it should be prepared for them by the officers and soldiers, he went out to hunt, in fact, he connected with the officers and soldiers to determine the next plan.