Guo Ziyi said very reasonable, since ancient times there is a saying, called only a thousand days to be a thief, there is no thousand days to prevent thieves, thieves can stare at you every day, looking for you to relax when it is impossible to guard the thief every day, let alone be cautious at all times, there is always a time to relax, so the pressure to prevent thieves is too great.

The problem of horse thieves in Xiazhou City can not be dealt with by means of anti-thief methods, you must know that the dispatch of four or five thousand soldiers and horses, the military consumption of one day is very large, and if it continues for a long time, not only the officers and soldiers are exhausted, but the military pressure of the imperial court is also very great, and there are many trade routes in Xiazhou City, and each trade road has branches, and the longest stretches for hundreds of miles.

Defending a trade road of several hundred miles, the pressure of four or five thousand soldiers and horses is already very great, not to mention that there are many trade roads, so the practical significance of fortification everywhere is not great, and the consequence of dispersing troops is to be broken by horse thieves, resulting in the loss of Tang soldiers, and this method of patrolling and guarding everywhere has indeed been adopted before, and the result is that because of the lack of troops, often a small group of Datang soldiers and horses will be defeated by the horse thieves who are suddenly concentrated, thus causing great losses.

Even if the imperial court transferred Lao Guo over, the situation did not get much better, after all, dealing with the elusive horse thieves is different from large-scale offensive and defensive warfare, and many strategies in the military books are not used at all, at least, all the formations are in vain, because the horse thieves will not have a hard time with the officers and soldiers, and if they see the large-scale officials in formation, they will have fled a long time ago.

Lao Guo also designed to let the elite Tang soldiers and horses sneak into Qiwu Mountain at night, and then, during the day, let the big caravan pass through the trade road normally, and prepare to suddenly attack when the horse thief came out to plunder, so as to defeat the horse thief, but it was in vain to try several times, and the horse thief didn't take the bait at all, maybe he had already learned the news! At least, that's what Lao Guo doubts.

As for quietly hiding the elite soldiers and horses in the caravan, this method has also been used, and it hardly worked, either it was recognized, or it was watching the horse thieves run away, after all, there could not be many horses in the caravan, otherwise, they would be suspected, and a large number of elite soldiers hidden in the commodity boxes could only participate in the battle as infantry, and the infantry could not catch up with the horse thieves on horseback, and a small number of cavalry did not dare to chase at all, and could only watch them run away.

In the final analysis, these failures are still not good enough in the intelligence work, among the Tang Dynasty soldiers and local Tang officials, there are horse thieves' internal responses, and in the horse thieves' internal responses, there is no internal response of the Tang Dynasty officers and soldiers, so that the horse thieves know the Tang Dynasty soldiers and horses, but the Tang Dynasty soldiers know very little about the situation of the horse thieves, so how can they win the battle?

Lao Guo has been in the army for so many years, how can he not understand such a simple truth, so he quickly thought of trying his best to break into the interior of the horse thief, so as to obtain the true situation of the horse thief, and understand from the horse thief that there are those people in the Tang Dynasty who have collusion with the horse thief, only in this way can the horse thief disaster here be fundamentally solved.

However, the idea is beautiful, but when it is really implemented, there are great difficulties, first of all, it is very important to choose people, not everyone can be undercover, there must be enough psychological quality and political quality, but also people nearby, in order to gain the trust of the horse thief, in addition, the confidentiality work must be done well, once the matter of choosing an undercover agent should be known by the horse thief, the undercover agent is a sheep.

But Guo Ziyi is a newcomer, and he doesn't know who to trust, and he doesn't know who to talk to, in case the official who is consulted is Neiying, or a big mouth, then there is a possibility of serious leaks, and if he doesn't ask local officials for help, Guo Ziyi himself How to select qualified internal candidates, I don't know the local people, or I can't figure out the specific situation of the local soldiers.

In this way, Lao Guo can only gamble, the bet is right, everyone is happy, if the bet is wrong, then it can only be considered unlucky, and for the success rate, Lao Guo is ready to engage in a few more groups of internal responses, each group should be independent of each other, and they do not know each other's existence, so that even if one of the groups should be exposed, the rest of the groups should still be able to continue to explore the news.

Guo Ziyi chose a total of three officials and asked them to recommend two people each, and then Lao Guo personally checked the checks, but let these three officials keep it strictly secret, and at the same time, all three officials considered themselves the only ones to ensure absolute confidentiality.

After choosing the undercover agent, it is to consider how to send the undercover agent into the horse thief, this step Lao Guo took a lot of hard work, and finally sent the undercover agent into the horse thief, among them, three people are responsible for breaking into the horse thief, and the other three are responsible for responding, that is, to become a hunter and woodcutter, enter Qiwu Mountain to hunt and chop wood, and then quietly get the information back.

The three undercover agents entered different mountains of Qiwu Mountain, and after adapting to it for a period of time, it was theoretically time to send back the news, but more than a month has passed, and only one undercover agent has sent back the news, and the remaining two undercover agents have no news at all, whether they are exposed, or they have no opportunity to send information, or they have not found any valuable information, in short, the other two undercover agents are missing, and the partners who cooperate with them return empty-handed every day.

And the last remaining undercover agent, although he can send back information once in three or five days, is all inconsequential and trivial and has no value.

After all, this undercover agent has just broken into the horse thief, and has not been mixed into the core leadership, so it is natural that he can't get important information, but Lao Guo also has another layer of worry, he is worried that this undercover agent will not be recognized, the horse thief deliberately walked some worthless news, in short, Lao Guo's heart is ten thousand uneasy.

It is precisely because he does not have much confidence in the undercover strategy that Lao Guo ran to the capital before the Chinese New Year, wanting Li An to invent more powerful weapons, so that he can have a better chance of winning when fighting horse thieves, and with more powerful weapons, he can use the least number of troops to fight against more horse thieves.

The thing that made Li An feel helpless the most was that Lao Guo had been here for several months, and he didn't figure out how many horse thieves there were, this is very fatal, and if he can't figure out the strength of the other party, he can't know himself and the enemy, and there is no way to formulate corresponding countermeasures, and even if he wants the court to increase his troops, he can't find a suitable excuse, and he can't even figure out the number of thieves, how many soldiers and horses should the court add to it?

What's worse is that the local big and small officials don't work hard, they all like to play haha, and even, some officials have backstage in the capital, and Lao Guo can't punish him if he wants to, so as not to fail to govern people, but instead of being pitted, it will be very bad.

The undercover operation did not go well, the local officials were not very cooperative, and a few people colluded with the horse thieves, these circumstances combined, so that Guo Ziyi was very big, he was very worried that he could not complete the important task of exterminating the horse thieves, of course, Lao Guo will not give up, as long as there is a glimmer of hope, Lao Guo will do his best to complete his task and solve the scourge of horse thieves in Qiwu Mountain.

If it really doesn't work, Lao Guo has thought about it, and it's a big deal that he will go to Wu Mountain alone, negotiate with the leader of the horse thieves, and win this battle of thieves with the spirit of not entering the tiger's den and winning the tiger.

Of course, Ang Li is also here to help now, he naturally won't let Lao Guo take risks alone, and he is not optimistic about Lao Guo going up the mountain alone to pick up the leader of the horse thieves, because this is too risky, and the slightest accident will fall into a situation from which he will never recover.

Li Ang is a newcomer, and his understanding of the horse thief is still in other people's narratives, and he naturally does not know much about the real situation of the horse thief.

Xiazhou City is not big, it is not small, the population in the city has exceeded 10,000, this is the main city of Xiazhou, and it is also the largest city, the population of the remaining four counties is only a few thousand people, the population of the whole state is only more than 6,000 households, according to a household of five people, the population is only 30,000 people, it is a state and county with a small population, but it is not too little.

There are more than 10,000 people in the state city, which is already a lot, and there are practitioners from all walks of life, among them, the number of businessmen doing business is very large, there are merchants from the Tang Dynasty, there are also merchants from the north, and merchants from the Western Regions, so many merchants gather in Xiazhou City, making it more and more wealthy.

But wealth is destined to be a matter of a few, for the vast majority of poor people in Xiazhou, their lives have improved very little, only a little improvement, but businessmen have made a fortune, this serious gap between the rich and the poor, is the root cause of the horse thief turmoil in Xiazhou.

Since you're new to the city and you can't figure anything out, you might as well walk around and maybe get some clues.

There are also bustling commercial streets in Xiazhou City, and if you don't take a look, isn't it equivalent to coming in vain, but if you look at it in an official uniform, the pomp will be too big, and it will alarm too many people, so Ang Lee thinks it's more reliable to go out in disguise.

However, for the sake of safety, even if you go out in disguise, you must bring a few guards to avoid threats to your personal safety.

Horse thieves are active in the area of Qiwu Mountain, occasionally appear in Wushui, Wuding River and other areas, basically will not appear in Xiazhou City, even if there are horse thieves in the city, it is also a small number of non-combatants, there is not much threat, although the horse thieves are fierce, but the state and county are their forbidden areas, they have ten dares not to go to the county and the state city to be presumptuous, even, close to the state city within thirty miles, they dare to come.

"Li Shilang wants to travel in disguise, it's too dangerous, I'll send the best guards to follow behind, so it's safer."

Guo Ziyi heard that Li Ang was going to secretly go to the street to play, and she was a little worried, so she asked for protection.

Li An shook his head and said, "No need, it's in the state city, if there is any danger, it is enough for me to bring two guards." ”

When Guo Ziyi heard this, he did not object, but just told Li An that he would send soldiers to patrol the city, and in case of danger, let Li An send a signal, so that the soldiers under his command could arrive at the scene in the shortest possible time, so as to ensure Li An's safety.

There is almost no nightlife in Xiazhou City, although it can be regarded as the cancellation of the night ban, but the city gate at night is closed, and ordinary people are not allowed to enter and exit freely, but the people in the city are allowed to move around at will, and for the vast majority of the people, the night is the time to sleep, and only a few restaurants and green buildings that are open at night are all nightlife, but these areas are a minority, and the nightlife has not formed a scale, after all, there are only more than 10,000 people here, It is incomparable with Chang'an City, which has a population of several million, and many of the in-demand goods in Chang'an City cannot be seen in this kind of situation at all.

Li An is not a local at first glance, and if he comes out at night when there is very little traffic, it is easier to arouse suspicion, so in order not to attract attention, Li An can only choose to go out during the day to hang out, and learn about the customs of Xiazhou City by the way.

On the first day of arriving in Xiazhou City, Li An needed to rest, so he stayed at his residence and didn't go anywhere, but by the way, he met with several local officials and had a polite conversation with them, which was regarded as a contact relationship.

And early on the morning of the second day, Ang Lee selected two guards and asked them to travel in disguise, but they needed to keep a certain distance from Ang Lee, so that the target was smaller.

"Hanlu is really heroic when she wears men's clothes! It's okay to be a female general. ”

Li An looked at Li Hanlu, who had already changed his clothes, and said.

"Female general, when I was in the tribe, didn't I always be?"

Li Hanlu opened his mouth and said.

Li An smiled and said: "That's the same, how did I forget about this, my Hanlu has always been a female general, come, put your beard on, so that you will be more handsome." ”

As he spoke, he put the fake beard he had prepared on the top of Li Hanlu's lips.

Li Hanlu gently picked up the mirror and looked at it, quite satisfied with her appearance.

"If you are born a man, your wife should be like this, I don't know how many little ladies in the boudoir will be killed!"

Li An looked at Li Hanlu in the mirror and said praisefully.

Li Hanlu was praised, so she was naturally quite happy, gave Li An a fragrant kiss, and then the two quietly left through the back door together, which was more able to hide people's eyes and ears and not be easy to find.

Anyway, Li An felt that around the house where he lived, there must be eyes watching, local officials, and maybe horse thieves, and it would not be wrong to dodge.

After going out, the two guards who came out of the main gate were already waiting for Li An in front, and when they saw Li An coming over, one of them continued to move forward, and the other stood on the principle, ready to follow Li An, so that they could carry out all-round protection.

The most prosperous commercial road in Xiazhou City is not far from the residence where Li An lives, and it is enough to walk for a moment, and it will be able to reach it quickly.

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