Once the plague spreads, the consequences are very serious, so in any era, it is extremely important to prevent the occurrence of the plague, and to strangle the plague in the cradle before it occurs, this is the most correct and only feasible way.

Therefore, in the ruins of the old White City, where there are many corpses of horse thieves, a pit must be dug and the corpses of these horse thieves must be disposed of in time, otherwise it will be troublesome to produce a plague.

And digging a big pit is a very tiring physical work, at the moment there are so many horse thieves surrendered, naturally to make good use of them, let them be responsible for digging the pit, can greatly reduce the physical consumption of the soldiers, it is easier to control these just surrendered horse thieves, if the soldiers are responsible for digging, after being tired, the control of these surrendered horse thieves will naturally weaken.

It is possible to dig a large pit, or you can choose to dig a few more, as long as you can bury the corpses of all the horse thieves in it, and in the end it is decided to let the surrendered horse thieves dig a few more pits.

This is because there are many surrendered horse thieves, if only one pit is dug, it will cause nest workers, several large pits are dug together, you can maximize the use of the surrendered horse thieves, so that all horse thieves are involved in the action of digging pits, so that the progress of digging pits is much faster.

However, this request also caused panic among the horse thieves, who were very worried that after they had dug the pit, they would be buried together with the officers and soldiers in front of them, if this was the case, it would be too bad, it would really be a hole for themselves!

However, they are now lambs to the slaughter, and even if the final outcome is to be buried alive by the officers and soldiers, they can only obey temporarily, because resistance means dying faster, and being buried alive is only the inner guess of some horse thieves, and such a thing may not really happen.

Because of the fear in his heart, he naturally did not work hard enough, and the speed of digging the pit was very slow, and in addition, there were some horse thieves who always wanted to run away and escape from the control of the officers and soldiers.

In response to this situation, Lao Guo sent many officers and soldiers to carry out profound ideological education on these horse thieves, telling these guys that the Tang Empire has a royal law, and what kind of crime they commit must be punished accordingly, and if it is a meritorious service, the punishment can be reduced, and tell all the horse thieves who surrendered in public that killing the tall scar-faced horse thief is a great achievement, and will not be punished by the imperial court, and at most they will be free after some education, and probably tell these horse thieves how much punishment they will receive later, so that these horse thieves have psychological preparation, At the same time, it can also dispel their doubts and let them know that they will not be buried alive, so that they can work harder.

The officers and soldiers who went to pursue the horse thief more than ten miles away soon returned, and they did not find any trace of the horse thief, but they did find traces of the horse thief staying in the ravine, but the direction of the horse thief's escape could not be determined, so naturally it was impossible to pursue, and moreover, it was dark and the terrain was unfamiliar, and the officers and soldiers did not dare to risk going around to reconnoitre, if they were ambushed, it would be troublesome.

"Why, the horse thieves have escaped."

Lao Guo looked a little unhappy.

"Yes, General, there are only leftover bones in the ravine, and there are many broken wine jars, the bonfire has been completely extinguished, but the residual heat is still there, the horse thieves should have just left, but it is too dark to judge where the horse thieves have fled, but these surrendered horse thieves must know where their lair is, it is better to let them lead the way!"

The subordinate spoke.

"You can think of a question, can't the fleeing horse thief think of it? They will not regret the lair, they will definitely go somewhere else, our army is not strong enough, so we will camp here for the time being, and after the main force arrives tomorrow, it will not be too late to divide the troops to go to a few of the horse thieves' lair. ”

Lao Guo said calmly, and then, let the soldiers bring the surrendered horse thieves one by one, he had to make a surprise interrogation overnight, so that these surrendered horse thieves could honestly confess, so that they could figure out the horse thieves' lair, as well as the real strength of the horse thieves, in addition, whether anyone colluded with the court officials, these are the focus of the review.

And one by one, the trial is naturally to prevent when there are many people, these horse thieves dare not speak casually, or say that it is not the truth, one by one, these horse thieves in order to make meritorious service and reduce the punishment, they will naturally say everything they know, and after the words of many horse thieves confirm each other, they can get the most correct answer.

Lao Guo's trick really worked, most of the horse thieves in order to reduce their punishment, all honestly confessed, only a few horse thieves refused to tell the truth, always hidden, for these horse thieves, for example, to double the punishment.

Because most of the horse thieves who surrendered were ordinary little people, they were not too clear about many secrets of the horse thieves' leadership class, so about the collusion between the Tang officials and the horse thieves, these horse thieves were not clear, and for the location of the horse thieves' dens, how many nests there were, almost all the horse thieves truthfully explained, although the number of horse thieves, although they are not too clear, but the approximate number is still clear, and this is also explained.

After figuring out some basic information, Lao Guo felt that it was necessary to act in advance, in case the horse thief escaped, sending someone to destroy the letters that had been exchanged would bring great difficulty to finding the traitor, and as long as he could get the letters, he could follow the vine and wipe out the moths in Xiazhou.

There is more than one nest of horse thieves in the battle of Qiwu Mountain, at least a dozen, but the most core lair is naturally only one, and the letters exchanged must be in this core lair.

In addition, through the surprise review of these horse thieves, Lao Guo learned that the number of horse thieves is close to a thousand, even if it is a one-time loss of five or six hundred, but at least four or five hundred horse thieves remain, however, these four or five hundred horse thieves are not the main force, they are scattered and deployed, and they will not be gathered together in a short period of time, so when Lao Guo sends soldiers and horses to raid the main lair of horse thieves, there is no need for too many soldiers and horses, and there are not many soldiers and horses brought by him, and there are enough troops to stabilize the ruins of Baicheng here. There is a limit to what can be mobilized.

"The two of you lead two hundred cavalry, plus a few horse thieves to lead the way, run overnight to attack the horse thief's main camp, control where as soon as possible, block the horse thief's main camp, tomorrow afternoon, Ben will go over in person, go!"

Lao Guo opened his mouth and ordered.

In fact, if you divide a few more troops and raid different nests, you can achieve greater results, and the horse thieves who may escape are too panicked and have no time to rule all the nest companions, so when the officers and soldiers go to raid immediately, these horse thieves are likely not ready, and the results can be imagined.

However, after all, there is a bit of chaos here in Baicheng, and now it is night, if the troops are fully dispatched, there will be very few soldiers and horses left, so it is easy to deter horse thieves, and the soldiers come overnight, the consumption of physical strength and energy is very large, if you continue to fight, you will be very tired, and even suffer losses, and leave more soldiers and horses here, one is to better deter the surrendered horse thieves, prevent them from taking risks, on the other hand, it can also let the officers and soldiers take turns to sleep, even if it is only for two hours, That's better than not sleeping all night, only when you have a good rest, can you fight better, if you don't have enough rest, your combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

There were more than 50 soldiers and horses who were left behind on the way, and as long as there was no major problem with these soldiers, they would find a way to continue to advance, and it was true, but after half an hour, twenty soldiers returned to the team, and it was obvious that there would continue to be soldiers returning.

After Lao Guo interrogated dozens of horse thieves, his body felt tired for a while, so he asked his subordinates to continue to review, and he himself went to hang out on the city wall, he already had the old problem of insomnia, and the older he gets, the more serious the insomnia, at this moment, he really can't sleep, after all, so many surrendered horse thieves are here, and there are more than a dozen horse thieves in the mountains and four or five hundred horse thieves have not been eliminated, so, how can he sleep.

Regardless of whether you can sleep or not, it's always good to close your eyes and recuperate, and after Lao Guo wandered around the city wall for a while, he used his weapon to support the ground and closed his eyes to recuperate.

The leader of the horse thieves who escaped ran all the way, and at first he planned to flee back to the lair, but if he thought about it carefully, the officers and soldiers had set up an ambush, maybe someone had surrendered to the officers and soldiers, so that all the nests were not safe, especially the main camp was the most unsafe, after all, the horse thieves who went out this time were near the main camp, and they all knew where the main camp was. After collecting more remaining soldiers and horses, he made the next step, but not long after leaving, the leader of the horse thieves began to feel sorry for all kinds of treasures and money in the main camp, these are the precious wealth he has worked hard to accumulate, if it is given to the officers and soldiers, he will be distressed and dripping blood, so he hurriedly sent a few horse thieves to the main camp, so that these horse thieves and the horse thieves who stayed in the camp quickly transferred these wealth with horses, and did not let these hard-won wealth fall into the hands of the officers and soldiers.

And when he was about to arrive at a camp, the leader of the horse thieves thought that the letters between himself and his intelligence officers were still in the boxes of the main camp, if these things were found by the officers and soldiers, then the intelligence system he had worked so hard to build in Xiazhou City would be completely finished, and in addition, some officials who had interests with him would also be dug up, so the situation would be even worse.

However, the last time the horse thieves were sent to burn the letters, it was obviously a little too late, and the officers and soldiers were moving quickly, and they had already reached the main den of the horse thieves before the arrival of this group of horse thieves, and encountered some of the horse thieves and treasures that had not yet had time to be transferred.

The officers and soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were not polite, captured more than a dozen horse thieves, and seized all the items in the horse thieves' lair, and then completely besieged this place, and built a number of arrow towers overnight to prevent the horse thieves from gathering the surrounding soldiers and horses to attack the main camp.

From midnight to dawn, in fact, it was not long, only two or three hours, and the conflict lasted for a long time, so this time was even shorter.

However, even in such a short period of time, many of the horse thieves who surrendered have dug enough pits to bury the corpses of the dead horse thieves.

The light is not good at night, and the fireworks in the city are also very large, so the main thing is to dig pits, and by the daytime, the fires in the city have basically been extinguished, and the smoke is much less, so naturally it is time to bury people.

However, a horse thief who is tired for two hours always needs to rest and eat something before he can continue his work, and the dead horses in the city are undoubtedly the best food.

Whether it is a Tang soldier or a horse thief who has surrendered, this morning's ration is destined to be a dead horse in the city.

The soldiers and the surrendered horse thieves each carried enough horses from the city to eat in the open space outside the city, and then began to make breakfast.

In fact, some horses have already been roasted, and they don't need to be made at all, just tear them off and eat them, while for horse meat that has not been roasted, you can only light a bonfire, cut the horse meat, and slowly roast the meat and eat it.

Lao Guo, who didn't sleep all night, also ate horse meat, and he had to share weal and woe with the officers and soldiers under his command, so that the soldiers under his command could support him more.

"Such a big piece of meat, when will it be cooked, cut into thin slices and grilled again, give them some daggers."

Lao Guo saw the horse thief roasting a whole horse leg on the bonfire, and said angrily.

This really can't be blamed on the stupidity of the horse thieves, because they are surrendered horse thieves, and they have no weapons in their hands, and even this whole horse leg is still begged by the officers and soldiers to chop it off, otherwise the whole horse can only be roasted and eaten.

And if you barbecue meat like this, you will either delay time, or you will get sick from eating raw meat, no matter which case it is, it is a situation that Lao Guo does not want to see, and let the officers and soldiers be responsible for cutting the meat for the surrendered horse thief, which will naturally cause dissatisfaction among the officers and soldiers, and it is difficult to do it finely, so the best way is to give the horse thief some daggers, and let the horse thief himself be responsible for cutting the horse meat, so that the cut horse meat is thin enough to be roasted more easily.

As for whether the horse thief will resist after he has a dagger in his hand, Lao Guo is not worried, it is just a dagger, and it does not have much power at all, and there are more officers and soldiers guarding the horse thieves than horse thieves, and these horse thieves have a small number of daggers, which cannot cause the slightest damage to the officers and soldiers.

These daggers were quickly distributed to horse thieves so that they could better handle horse meat, and since the daggers were given, it was natural to give them a time to roast and eat meat, so that they could not be too delayed.

"Give you two sticks of incense time, you have to work after eating, now start the timer."

Lao Guo personally ordered.

This order was given both to the surrendered horse thieves and to his own soldiers, and the two sides were equal in terms of meal time.