Although many people knew that Hewu was operating quite well under the support of Fangtou Wangshi, when he really saw it, there was still a different kind of emotion that he couldn't help but press.

Located at the corner of the river, this dock wall is already in a superior geographical position, easy to defend and difficult to attack. And the dock wall itself is also built quite grand, the wall is not an ordinary bamboo and wood fence, layers of rammed earth, the four corners are made of boulders as the backbone pillars, up to more than zhang, it appears to be strong and solid, a huge area is encircled, and it has a wide space that can accommodate at least more than 10,000 people.

There are some rivers and lakes around the dock wall, which are half used for water diversion and flood discharge, and half for city defense fortifications. Coupled with some arrow towers made of giant trees, the surrounding area of more than a dozen hectares of land is surrounded and defended, and agricultural and grain crops such as grasses are planted on these lands, and of course, there is no lack of neatly trimmed mulberry forests.

Those Hebei people who wandered here to peep saw this scene of prosperity, and the envy and jealousy in their hearts couldn't help but breed.

Especially those who already looked down on the rogue bandits, seeing that this dock wall was so solid and strong, even far more than their respective family businesses for several generations, there was a sense of urgency.

"That has been frugal for a long time and has not done production, and has plagued the countryside for more than ten years. The southerners came from afar, did not judge the morality of the villagers, and actually helped such murderers to create such a profound township industry, which is completely disregarding the hopes of our Hebei people and other people, so that this villager thief has grown to the ground! After a long time, no one will be able to control the thief, and the country will be completely corrupted! ”

Originally, everyone was still a little apprehensive about colluding with Ma Qiunan to capture and plunder, but when they saw that Hewu was so powerful, they couldn't help but find justification for their actions.

Perhaps there is no difference between them and Xiang Jian in essence, even if some villagers who pride themselves on benevolence and righteousness can't help but occasionally make cameo appearances in bandits and plunder, but there is no doubt that in the Hebei bandit circle, Xiang Jian, an old bandit, can also be called infamous and infamous.

Therefore, it is really unacceptable that Wang Shi is so vigorously supporting a bandit like Xiang Jian. And their act of colluding with the people naturally has a layer of maintaining the righteousness of the village, and such vicious and immoral thieves must not be allowed to override the heads of the villagers!

However, in addition, these people also have a lot of private plans in their hearts, and after patrolling around the crane dock for a long time, they also privately discussed with their families and subordinates: "From the location of this crane dock, it can be known that the southerners are weak riders, but the ability to operate is far beyond the reach of Zhao Guo." Even a prodigal murderer like Xiang Jian can protect him to create this foundation. In this war, regardless of the victory or defeat of the north and the south for the time being, we and other villagers must hold on to it, focusing on eliminating the villagers, and then the family business will be the most important, regardless of the country. ”

On the one hand, Shi Zhao's rule for many years is difficult to eliminate, and he does not think that the southerners can really defeat Shi Zhao in Hebei, and on the other hand, they are impressed by the strong background of the southerners in terms of management, and want to use them for their own use to help the family business.

In any respect, Xiang Jian is an object that must be eradicated, warning the southerners not to ignore their hometown. But it can only limit the war to Hewu, and it is enough to hurt the minions of the southerners, but if it hits its roots, it is a mortal enemy, and it is difficult to have room for cooperation in the future.

The forces of all parties have this consensus, so when the news is passed on to Ma Qiu, it is naturally inevitable to delete and process, not only to strengthen Ma Qiu's intention to send troops to plunder, but also to let him not lose his awe and not expand the war wantonly. The grasp of proportion in this is really painstaking for them.

Ma Qiu is naturally not a marionette in the hands of these people, and has his own opinions and judgments, so he doesn't attach too much importance to the letters and reports delivered by these people. He was more concerned about their attitude, so he quickly made the decision to send troops, and sent more than a thousand elite cavalry to go straight to Hewu under the guidance of these leading parties.

The distance between Hewu and Yecheng is not far away, and if you really ride the extreme march, you can reach it in one day. It is precisely because of such a close distance, coupled with the uncompromising confrontation between the north and the south, that the various forces wandering between the two places have the value of existing as a buffer. They can't affect the overall situation, but they have great interference power in the outcome of a certain war.

Therefore, even if Ma Qiu has more than 10,000 troops and occupies an absolute advantage in the field battle, he still cannot ignore the bias of these people's positions. This is a group of wall-riding factions who have not achieved enough things and have more than enough failures, coupled with the various restraint policies imposed by Xie Ai, the head guard, so that Ma Qiu cannot kill these people.

The frequent hunting of the scouts this time also made Ma Qiu realize that this state could not be sustained, and the longer the Nanren existed in Hebei, the faster the prestige of the early years of the Qianguo Kingdom would be worn out, and it would also make him fall into a more passive situation.

He obviously has the absolute initiative and can arbitrarily carry out surprise attacks against the southerners, but because of these wall-riding factions as the eyes and ears of the southerners, all his actions will be invisible and futile in front of the southerners.

In particular, the Nanren has abundant resources and goods, and he has been building up and strengthening his own field combat capabilities, and in the long run, his advantages will gradually be leveled, and then he will fall into an absolute disadvantage.

Therefore, in this battle, his greatest intention was not to inflict much trauma on the southerners, but to completely destroy the tacit understanding between these rural forces and the southerners.

When more than 1,000 cavalry were dispatched, Ma Qiu did not stop there, but continued to gather his troops and organized nearly 5,000 cavalry. This is already the limit of the force he can use at the moment, because the current Yecheng does not even have basic city defense, once he mobilizes more controllable forces, Yedi itself will have great turmoil.

Hewu is just a false move used by Ma Qiu to attract attention, and this follow-up five thousand horsemen is where his real killing move lies.

He believed that Xie Ai would never use his capital to buy the villagers and clean up his scouts for no reason, and there would definitely be some killing tricks behind it. But no matter what kind of trickery there is, it must be implemented in the end to a real confrontation.

Compared with important towns such as Fangtou and Liyang, Hewu is just a problem of scabies, but because it is a typical example of the existence of the rural forces in this realm, the situation of the war will inevitably involve the mood of the scattered forces around it. Before there is a final result in the Hewu War, those people will not have the heart to be used by the southerners anymore and serve as eyes and ears.

Without the constraints of these forces, Ma Qiu's field strength could be fully exerted without any scruples and carry out surprise attacks against the southerners. If the situation goes well, he will also be able to take advantage of the fact that the southerners are too busy to take care of themselves, and carry out a more thorough reorganization of those rural forces.

There are many twists and turns, which really annoys Ma Qiu, and he hopes that the two sides can win in a dignified formation, but he also understands that this is just a delusion. No matter how stupid the southerners are, they can't hit long with a short blow. And although his own military strength is not weak, but the responsibility on his body is also heavy, and the defense of Yecheng alone has made him restrained and dare not defend himself.

In this regard, the help that Heavenly King Shi Hu can provide to him is also limited, because although the Nanren are powerful at the moment, because they are trapped by themselves, it is not the external trouble that Shi Zhao needs to solve most urgently.

Liaodi Xianbei and other Hu tribes, if they don't make a quick decision, will grow stronger and stronger, directly threatening Shi Zhao's rear, so that Shi Zhao will be trapped for a long time and unable to take care of the whole thing, and will not be able to concentrate all his strength to go south to fight with the Jin people for national fortunes, and will become weaker and weaker in this north-south pull attrition, and eventually collapse.

Therefore, although Ma Qiu has already made a report to Xiangguo, he also knows very well in his heart that he can only rely on his own military strength in this battle, on the one hand, it is impossible for the army between Yu and Ping to return to the south, and on the other hand, the army of Xiangguo's headquarters cannot be easily withdrawn, after all, the king has not been in power for a long time, and Xiangguo still needs to ensure that there are enough troops to deter him.

After the follow-up team was assembled, Ma Qiu was not in a hurry to determine the offensive target and put it into battle, the previous defeat of Yecheng had made him quite in awe of Xie Ai, so although he had regained the initiative, he also subconsciously put himself in a position of re-attack, that is, he was worried that once the military force was involved, he would be incapable of dealing with Xie Ai's tricks.

A few hours after the forward thousands of people left Yecheng, Ma Qiu also personally led the army to move slowly, and dispersed the scouts again, on the one hand, patrolling around Fangtou, and on the other hand, he did not ignore the dynamics of Liyang.

He knows how to use Hewu as a trick to attract attention, and Xie Ai can naturally do the same. If the movements of Hewu, including the entire Fangtou, were a means for his people to cover up their eyes, then Liyang would be the most likely force to cooperate and launch an attack.

Being able to force himself so cautiously and not daring to enter lightly, this Xie Ai has to say that he is indeed a great character.

Ma Qiuxing is in the slow and current team, there is no lack of self-deprecation in his heart, Xie Ai became famous last year, and his life experience in Hebei is no longer a secret. Regarding Ma Qiu's defeat at the hands of Liangtu Yi Confucianism, Shi Hu's generals also ridiculed it. Sometimes Ma Qiuzhen couldn't help but want to abdicate and make way for Xian, so that those who laughed at him could feel how difficult this Xie Ai was.

Previously, scouts were cleared in large numbers, and it will take some time to roll them out again before they can be interwoven into a large network of ears and eyes that can provide instant feedback. Ma Qiu is also not lacking in patience, and does not compete for a while, and soon after leaving the Yecheng camp, he was temporarily stationed in Yuye, waiting for feedback from all sides.

Before dawn the next day, the first military information was transmitted back, not to find out the movement of the Nanren army, but the attack in the direction of Hewu was frustrated, and the more than 1,000 elite cavalry launched an attack immediately after arriving at Hewu, but the strength of Hewu's defense was beyond imagination, and it completely repelled several attacks. Moreover, in the course of the offensive, those rural forces only waited and watched, and did not cooperate at all.

After receiving this military information, Ma Qiu's anger in his heart can be imagined, and he immediately summoned another henchman general and ordered him to lead 2,000 troops to rush to help, and at the same time instructed his generals not to rush to attack, but to use it as a pressure formation to drive those villagers to attack.

At the same time, Ma Qiu was also thinking in his heart, just a crane dock, he was able to resist the siege of thousands of his soldiers, whether he was suspicious and suspicious, and thought of Xie Ai too complicated, or was there indeed a hidden secret, but he hadn't seen it yet?