In the open space outside the lobby, there were piles of various items used by the leader of the horse thieves, clothes, chairs, bed boards, and bedding, as well as the letters in the boxes, and of course, important letters were detained.

Several soldiers set these things on fire with torches, and a dozen or so surrendering horse thieves, including the foal, all stood in the open space and watched all this.

"You all see clearly, today we are burning the clothes and belongings of the leader of the horse thieves, and after we catch people, we will burn people, and anyone who is a horse thief and goes against the court will not end well."

A young general shouted loudly, with the intention of deterring these horse thieves.

After his subordinates deterred these horse thieves, Lao Guo appeared, looked at the horse thieves, and said: "There will be no good end to being a horse thief, you were horse thieves before, but you have never done any great evil, you must reform in the future, you want to be a new person, I will give you three choices, the first is to join our army, and our soldiers will exterminate the horse thieves together, and there will be rewards for meritorious service, the second is to go home to farm, and live honestly in the future, the third is to persuade your companions, you can persuade a person to surrender is a great achievement, you should think about it!" ”

After saying that, he looked at these horse thieves and waited for their choice.

"General, the villain wants to go home and farm."

"General, the villain is also going home to farm."

"So are the villains."

"The villain goes home and farms."

More than a dozen horse thieves replied one after another, but the answers were all the same, that is, they went home to farm, and none of them chose to join the officers and soldiers, and none of them were willing to persuade the horse thieves to surrender.

"Haha! All right! All of them had to go home and farm, and no one would go to persuade his companions to surrender, and persuade one to give him a consistent reward. ”

Lao Guo began to lure.

The foal hurriedly replied: "The general forgives the sin, the villain has been feeding the horses here, and it is not clear that the leader has other places to live, and they can't find anyone, so how to persuade them to surrender, besides, the villain is a horse feeder, and several people who are familiar with each other are here, and none of the other companions have said a few words." ”

"Haha! I can't find anyone, I can't speak, but your reason is quite valid, okay! Ben will be convinced, what about you? Is the same true? ”

Lao Guo asked with a smile.

"General, the villain and the foal are also fed to the horses, and they don't know where else to stay."

"The villain also feeds the horses."

"The villain is handicapped, and he is not welcomed, and he does not know where to live."

Everyone replied like this, most of them really didn't know, they were in charge of feeding the horses, and the situation within a radius of more than ten miles was clear, and it was not clear if it was far away.

Lao Guo nodded, and said: "Nian Zaier and the others are all poor people who were caught by horse thieves, and I won't embarrass you anymore, everyone will be given two catties of dried meat and a handful of copper coins, and they will all go home!" ”

After saying that, with a wave of his hand, he asked the horse thieves to receive the money and meat, and quickly left here.

"Thank you, General, thank you, General."

The horse thieves were all grateful and grateful to Lao Guo, and then, with dried meat and copper coins, lined up and left.

Looking at the back of the foal and their departure, Lao Guo's eyes were full of expectation, if he could really send the information back, he would be able to know the horse thief's every move.

After they left, the foal left in civilian clothes, and he had to follow the foal all the way to find the foal, but he couldn't follow it too closely to get caught in trouble.

There is no need to worry about losing one, as the foal will leave marks along the way, and if you look for these marks, you will be able to find the foal's trail and thus the thief's lair.

At the beginning, these horse thieves who left were a little worried, for fear that the officers and soldiers would chase after them from behind, but after walking for several miles, they found that the officers and soldiers did not chase them, so they were completely relieved.

At a fork in the road, more than a dozen people stopped.

"Why did the officers and soldiers let us go, wouldn't it be better to take our heads to the court to receive a reward."

The one-eyed horse thief said suspiciously.

"Could it be that we have other plans, but we don't have anything to plan for! I'm going home and farming right away, what can they get! ”

A horse thief said.

"Yes, yes, anyway, we're going to go home and farm, what's the matter? Maybe they really think we're innocent and let us go? ”

The pony thief hurriedly said.

One-eyed looked at everyone viciously and asked, "Are you really planning to go home and farm?" ”

"Otherwise, what else can it be, the encirclement and suppression of officers and soldiers are becoming more and more serious, if you continue to stay in the mountains, you will lose your life sooner or later, or go back to farming! Maybe it can save a small life. ”

"Yes! Oh, yes! The officers and soldiers are determined to be exterminated this time, staying in the mountains is a dead end, and they will find a living life after they go back! ”

Several horse thieves spoke.

After the officers and soldiers let them go, everyone went home to farm, so the officers and soldiers could not get anything, and it seemed that there was really no intention.

"Go back to farming, hmph, don't look at what has become of the land outside, even if you go back, there is no land to plant, and you can only starve to death when you go back."

One-eyed spoke.

"Then you have to go back and see first, if the land can't be planted, then think of other ways, you can always find a way to live."

The pony thief spoke.

One-eyed said: "You don't have to go back to see, I am very clear about the surrounding land situation, and I can't harvest much food for a year, besides, we have done horse thieves and we can't hide it, when the time comes, if something happens to your village, whose things are stolen, the first thing to be suspected is you, you will not be able to raise your head for the rest of your life after you go back, be a horse thief for a day, be a horse thief all your life, and want to live a normal life, it is simply wishful thinking, do you know how much the people of Xiazhou hate horse thieves?" After you go back, your Ye Niang will be implicated. ”

These words really shocked all the horse thieves, they naturally understand this truth, people who have been thieves will be discriminated against for the rest of their lives, and they will be the first to be suspected if something happens, this is simply not a human life, which is why people who have done bad things will continue to do bad things after they come out, because they are difficult to be accepted by this society, even if they do good things, it is difficult to be accepted, no one dares to patronize business, afraid of being pitted in case.

"Oops! What a thing! So what do we do? The world is so big, is there no place for us? ”

A horse thief said helplessly.

"So what do we do? Is there really no place for it? ”

Another horse thief said.

One-eyed said: "You have only one way out, that is, follow me, although the officers and soldiers are fighting day and night, but as long as the leader is still there, we still have hope, the leader will lead us on a road of freedom, we have to believe the leader, by the way, the leader once told me that if the officers and soldiers encircle and suppress too much, he will lead us out of Qiwu Mountain, to continue to wander in the mountains thousands of miles away." ”

These words, sure enough, moved a few horse thieves, so that these people are eager to try, they have become accustomed to the days of eating and drinking, going back to farming is bound to live a hard life, this is difficult for them to accept, and if you can really go to the mountains thousands of miles away, it seems to be a good way out.

As for being away from home and away from their relatives, they can't think about it so much, since they entered the group of horse thieves, they have cut off contact with their relatives in their hometown, and their feelings for their hometown are almost none.

"Is it really possible to get out of here? If so, I won't go back, and I'll follow the leader to another place and continue to wander. ”

The foal said happily.

One-Eyed said proudly, "Am I going to lie to you?" This is naturally true, you all follow me, and I guarantee that you can eat and drink spicy food in the future. ”

"Okay, I'm willing to continue following the leader."

"I'm willing, let's go on in another place."

The little horse thieves were all moved, they were very worried about real life, worried that if they were not recognized by their hometown, they would not be able to raise their heads for the rest of their lives, and follow the leader of the horse thieves to develop in other places, maybe it would be a happy day.

"Okay, great, the brothers follow the leader, it will definitely not be bad in the future, let's go, let's go find the leader."

One-Eye said happily.

If he went back alone to see the leader, he was worried about being suspected, and if a large group went back together, what everyone said could verify each other, and naturally he would be able to prove his innocence, and besides, these people had always been under his leadership, and they were his subordinates, if he didn't take these guys back, wouldn't he be the commander of the Chengguang Pole.

For the lair in the Qiwu Mountain, One-Eye basically knows that he is the brother of the leader when he started his family, and he is also the leader's henchman, so he naturally knows everything, at this moment, since the battle of the old Baicheng was lost, most of the lair locations must have been exposed, after all, there are many captured horse thieves, these horse thieves will not keep their mouths shut, and they will definitely reveal the location of these nests, and the main camp is leaked by the captured horse thieves.

But One-Eye is not an ordinary person, he knows a few abandoned hidden nests, these nests were built by the leader when they first started an incident, and then they were abandoned, and there are not many people who know these nests, so it is impossible for the captured ordinary horse thieves to confess these places, and at this moment, the leader of the horse thieves who has nowhere to hide must have taken these surviving horse thieves to these secret strongholds, he just needs to find them one by one.

By the time One-Eye and his party went to find the leader of the horse thieves, two thousand officers and soldiers had already captured several horse thieves' dens and captured them.

It's just that because the horse thieves got the news in advance, they all withdrew, and they also took away the best and most valuable things, leaving the officers and soldiers to seize some worthless items, but this is a big victory after all, so the officers and soldiers are still very happy, they are in accordance with the prior plan, selectively destroyed many horse thieves' nests, and then concentrated their forces in two more important nests, ready to wait for Lao Guo's next order.

Each nest was successfully destroyed, although there was no living force to eliminate the horse thieves, but Lao Guo was still quite happy when he heard the news, as long as he destroyed these nests and occupied several key points in Qiwu Mountain, he could deter the remaining horse thieves very well.

Now, the most important thing in front of us is to find out where the horse thief is hiding, secondly, to find out how many people are left in the horse thief, and thirdly, what is the next plan of the horse thief, and what are the plans.

In addition to the smashed horse thief's lair, the direction of the three retained nests generally presents a zigzag shape, and the distance between each two positions is about thirty miles.

And Lao Guo immediately thought of a problem, that is, after forcing the horse thieves to be in a hurry, these guys may leave Qiwu Mountain and go to other places to develop, if so, it will bring disaster to other places, he must try to avoid such a thing, and try his best to eliminate the horse thieves in Xiazhou.

Thousands of letters, most of which are of little value, have been burned, and there are hundreds of valuable letters left, all of which are correspondence between some people in Xiazhou and the leader of the horse thieves.

Judging from the content of the correspondence, many of these people are indeed inseparable from the officials in Xiazhou, and some even directly wrote out the positions of some officials, but the person who wrote the letter is not an official, but a confidant of an official, and what he said is relatively vague, and it seems that he is also guarding against this.

"Cui County Order, could it be Cui Dahai of Dejing County?"

When Li An saw a letter mentioning Cui County's order, he immediately thought of Cui Dahai, the county order of Dejing County, that is, the Cui fat man who was played by himself, this product is not a good person at first glance, but he didn't expect that he really colluded with the horse thief, so the leakage of his whereabouts, could it be this Cui Fat who did it? The intercepted letters did not say this, but Ang Lee already had speculation about it.

"The county order of Dejing County? It is very possible that there are only four counties in Xiazhou, and the county order surnamed Cui is only Cui Dahai of Dejing County, but I didn't expect the lord of a county to collude with horse thieves. ”

Lao Guo looked very angry, the county order is not a small official, if such a big official has dealings with horse thieves, it will be too easy for horse thieves to get some news.

"This time I went to Dejing County, I saw this Cui Dahai, he is a big fat man, and my whereabouts are very likely to be leaked by this Cui fat man, this guy is really bad, and he must be severely punished."

Li An said angrily.

Lao Guo nodded and said: "Cui Dahai can't set off any storms alone, judging from these letters, there are really a lot of people who collude with horse thieves!" I'm afraid that the scope of involvement is too wide, and I can't hold it down as a general. ”

Seeing Lao Guo say this, Li An smiled and said, "Lao Guo! I can't hold it back, let's find out some of the people who wrote these letters first, and then, after I return to Beijing, I will hand these letters directly to His Majesty, and let him do it himself, and see who dares to be presumptuous when the time comes. ”