In the human society full of cunning, some things need to be kept strictly confidential in advance, and only when the confidentiality work is done in place, the thing can be done in the end, if the secret is leaked in advance, the matter is likely to fail, and even will cause extremely serious consequences.

For example, when the officials arrest the lawless, they must suddenly arrest the lawless when they are defenseless, so that the success rate can be guaranteed, and if the news is spread in advance, the lawbreaker will have already fled when he goes to arrest him.

If someone is promoted to the certificate before the promotion, he hypes himself and tells everyone that he is about to develop, then, the biggest possibility is that this person's promotion and transfer certificate will become a bubble, because there will be many people who will harm you and prevent you from doing this, even if this person usually looks very close and friendly to you, it will stab you in the back at a critical time.

Therefore, there is a famous saying since ancient times, called the heart of defense is indispensable, any person needs to be guarded against, even the dearest and most loved person is no exception, and even the person next to the pillow may not necessarily be reliable.

Therefore, if Lao Guo wants to dig out the officials and officials who have colluded with the horse thieves in Xiazhou and dispose of them, the secrecy work must be done well, and these moths must not let them know that they are targeted by Lao Guo, otherwise, they will definitely find a way to deal with it, and even unite to make Lao Guo stumbling, the worst case is to collude with the favored ministers of the imperial court, and through the means of blame, Lao Guo An is accused of collaborating with the enemy, which is troublesome.

And this kind of thing has not happened, many officials who were originally responsible for anti-corruption, but in the end because of the framing of their colleagues, they inexplicably became corrupt officials, and then were disposed of by the faint king, this is really unjust, but this kind of thing is difficult to avoid, such a thing will happen in any era, even if Ming Jun is in power, it is easy to cut off the head of the Qing official as a corrupt official when he is negligent, this is the power of the protection of officials and officials, when a group of corrupt officials try their best to frame a clear official who wants to investigate them, It often succeeds.

At this time, the officialdom of Datang is not too stinky, but it is not too good, corruption is still very common, and there are almost no officials who are not greedy at all.

Of course, it is normal for people to gamble and be greedy, but if you are greedy too much, you will damage the major interests of the Tang Empire for the sake of greedy money, this cannot be forgiven, and it must be severely punished.

For example, some officials take more of the benefits that do not belong to them, which can only be regarded as taking a small advantage, which is nothing, but some officials are too greedy, and even, in order to get a lot of money, they choose to collude with horse thieves, this is really excessive, and if they collude with other places and sell Datang's intelligence to obtain money, it is a very serious act of treason, and the consequences will be even more serious.

For officials who collude with horse thieves, Lao Guo feels that these people must not be let go, otherwise, the horse thieves will never be exterminated, and Li An also has the same view, feeling that these moths must be eliminated, otherwise, it is not enough to deter more officials, if officials and officials collude with these evil forces, then what will become of the whole world.

Lao Guo naturally understood this truth, nodded, and warned the soldiers who came back from delivering the news that they must not tell anyone about the letter, so as to avoid the leakage of the news.

The main lair of the horse thief is more than thirty miles away from the ruins of the old White City, which is not very far, and if you go on horseback, it will be within half an hour, but if the road is rough, the time may have to be delayed a little more, and the size of the team will also affect the speed of travel.

Lao Guo and Li An each led a hundred guards, a total of 200 cavalry, to the horse thief's main lair, ready to go to see the situation there in person, among them, letters are the most important.

The soldiers who were in charge of leading the way were the soldiers who had just returned to deliver the message, and most of the horse thieves who surrendered stayed where they were, guarded by four or five hundred soldiers, and they could not turn the sky.

Li Hanlu was a little tired, so she didn't follow Li An, and went to rest in the tent alone.

At first, the road was relatively smooth, but then it became a little difficult to walk, but luckily everyone was on horseback, and if you were to ride in a car, you would probably be able to turn people upside down.

After all, this is a mountainous area, the ground is uneven is a very normal phenomenon, only through the human force to open up the road, the road surface can be flat, the mountain paths are winding, and even need to climb high and low, it is very rugged and difficult.

And only in this way can it be concealed enough to meet the natural conditions that a horse thief's lair should have, even the capital of an empire must consider the defensive nature of the terrain, and the horse thief's lair must naturally consider these.

It's just that the capital doesn't have to consider concealment, and there is no possibility of concealment, and the nest of the horse thief is different, it is necessary to consider the concealment of the location, once the nest is exposed, it will bring disaster to the horse thief.

Lao Guo and his thousands of soldiers and horses have wandered around the Qiwu Mountain for many days, but they have never found any nests of horse thieves, which is enough to show the cunning of these horse thieves and the concealment of these horse thieves' nests.

Along the way, Lao Guo had to admire, and told Li An that the main camp of the horse thieves was too hidden, no wonder he had not found it for many days, and if no one led the way, he would not have found the main camp of the horse thieves anyway.

After flipping through a mountain peak that is not too high, Li An and Lao Guo have already seen the horse thief's lair in the distance, but instead of finding the horse thief's house, they saw the Datang banner there, that is, the two hundred soldiers who set off last night, it is the existence of these soldiers, so that Li An can know that the horse thief's lair is below, if these soldiers and flags are not there, the horse thief's lair is really not easy to see, and the surrounding dense trees cover the house, even when the leaves fall in winter, the same is true.

"It turns out that the horse thief's lair is here, which is really easy for the old man to find!"

Lao Guo saw that his soldiers were below, and spoke.

Li An had already stopped his horse, looked at the surrounding scenery, and nodded: "These horse thieves are really shrewd enough, this is indeed a good place, no one leads the way, it is almost impossible to find out, even if you send more scouts, it is useless." ”

On the highest peaks, there are also many trees, and they are all tall trees, at the moment, these trees do not have leaves, but as long as it is summer and autumn, these trees will be lush, and it is definitely very pleasant to stand under such trees to enjoy the shade.

"Qiwu Mountain is the hope of Xiazhou, it is a pity to let the horse thieves spoil it, whether Xiazhou will become a desert in the future, Qiwu Mountain is very critical."

Li An said with a sigh.

"Xiazhou will become a desert, what does Li Shilang mean?"

Lao Guo asked.

Li An opened his mouth and explained: "Lao Guo didn't find that there are already many places in Xiazhou that are dry land that can't grow crops, if it continues, there will be more places that will become emperors who don't grow an inch of grass, and the whole Xiazhou is in danger of becoming a desert, if so, Xiazhou will no longer be Xiazhou, and Qiwu Mountain can block the invasion of the desert, as long as Qiwu Mountain is here, it will be difficult for the desert to cross here, so as not to invade more places in Xiazhou." ”

This is not what Li An said, Qiwu Mountain is a mountain, there are a lot of plants and trees on it, and these are necessary to prevent and control the desert, if there are no trees and turf, the desert will become more and more serious, and even eventually swallow the entire Xia Prefecture.

The role of trees and turf in the management of the desert is obvious, the method used in the later generations to control the desert is to plant trees and grass, the use of trees and turf to fix the desert, so that the desert is not easy to flow at will, and after having trees, the climate will be improved, the rainfall will increase appropriately, and with rainfall, trees and turf will grow more luxuriant, so as to become an environmentally friendly land of fish and rice step by step.

The use of plant afforestation to eliminate deserts, this has been a lot of successful cases in later generations, there are some not too big deserts, that is, after people planted trees to eliminate the desert, as long as a group of people are determined to destroy the desert, there is no desert that cannot be eliminated.

And this exterminated desert is the desert here in Xiazhou, maybe in the era of the Tang Dynasty, the environment of Xiazhou is not a desert, but in the future generations after a thousand years, Xiazhou is a desert, and it is a not small desert, the name is the Mu Us Desert, this desert is artificially eliminated, at least most of it has been eliminated, and soon this place will become a forest area without desert.

In the process of controlling the desert, many people have paid great hardships, and even, many people have dedicated their entire lives to the desert, and have planted trees in the desert since they were just adults, until they died, they have never left the desert, and they have never left the cause of desertification control that they love, which can be said to be very moving.

When the Xiazhou desert was governed in later generations, the conditions were already very bad, and in the era of the Tang Dynasty, the ecological environment of Xiazhou was not bad, and most places could still cultivate land, although the scenery of Qiwu Mountain regressed greatly, but there were still quite a lot of trees and weeds, this favorable condition determined that it would be much easier to govern the desert at this time, if it was to wait until the later generations completely became a desert to govern, it would be too difficult, and the cost to be paid would also increase many times.

There has always been a lot of controversy about the degradation of a beautiful forest into a desert, whether it is a human factor or a natural factor, some people think that it is the destruction of the forest caused by man-made desertification, and some people think that it is the change of natural climate that causes the forest to become a desert, and man does not play much of a role, and some people feel that there are both situations, and natural change is one of the reasons, and the destruction of forests by man cannot be ignored.

The fact that the desert was planted and conquered step by step from later generations seems to prove that the impact of human factors on the environment is great, and since artificial afforestation can eliminate the desert, then artificial deforestation can naturally cause desertification of the land.

The cost of controlling desertification before it has yet to take place is minimal, which is much better than treating it after a hundred years and a thousand years.

And Li Anxin also has a bold idea, he thinks that it is completely possible to let the surrendered horse thieves govern the land around Qiwu Mountain, let them be responsible for afforestation, and eliminate the desertified land step by step, which can be described as killing multiple birds with one stone, not only does not need to spend money to hire people, but also gives the horse thief a chance to reform himself.

Although there is a certain degree of difficulty in this practice, and horse thieves who are indulgent and hardworking may not be willing to obediently obey, as long as supervision is in place and the distribution of benefits is in place, there is still not much of a problem.

Moreover, afforestation is not about planting trees indiscriminately, it is necessary to carry out planned tree planting actions, for example, according to the different land conditions, choose different trees to be planted, the land has been very desertified areas, to plant poplar forests and cacti and other extremely drought-tolerant plants, and in the hinterland of the Qiwu Mountain, where the degree of drought is okay, you can plant more cash crops, than if trees and dried fruit trees are completely feasible.

When the time comes, the fruits of these fruit trees can obtain a lot of economic benefits, and a part of these economic benefits can be used as the reward of these horse thieves.

As long as he unswervingly implements this action and allows the horse thieves to develop the habit of labor step by step, Li Ang believes that after a few years, these horse thieves who have become accustomed to work will gradually become real farmers, no different from ordinary farmers.

After telling Lao Guo what he was thinking, Li Ang waited for Lao Guo's response.

"To let these surrendered horse thieves plant trees around Qiwu Mountain, although Li Shilang's idea is good, but if the horse thieves want to escape, it is too convenient, and these horse thieves have never done such a job, I am afraid that they will be very uncomfortable, if the management is not strict, it is difficult to avoid escaping."

Lao Guo said.

After so many years in the border pass, Lao Guo's eyes are bright and bright, especially for the situation of horse thieves, his heart is like a mirror, he knows that horse thieves are some outlaws, and they are contaminated with a large number of vices, and these vices are difficult to change. You will become a part of your body, and when you return to society, you will be able to become a normal person.