57 scratched his tongue

Li Zixiao sent Wei Hong to take on the role of scout, and rode out of the mountain one step ahead of the mountain, going to the vicinity of the land-broken temple to the west of Dengjiabaozi to investigate the movements of Scarface's gang of bandits.

Li Zixiao led a large army, and then found a villager as a guide, and under his leadership, rushed to Dengjiabaozi.

"The big boss, according to the situation of the Scarface gang of bandits I collected, in the past half a year, Scarface has committed crimes everywhere, attacked many villages, looted a lot of food, and at the same time stained the blood of many innocent people on his hands.

It is precisely because of his continuous looting that his subordinates have accumulated a lot of food and gathered more outlaws around him, at this time he has almost five or six hundred people under his command, and he himself claims to be a thousand people, dominating the mountainous area of Mangdang Mountain in the north of Yongcheng County.

His lair is dozens of kilometers away from us, and I don't know what kind of wind he smoked this time, and he actually came to find us trouble!

I don't know how many people Scarface brought over to trouble us this time, but he always had to leave some of his men to guard their lair, and I guess he could bring up to four hundred people this time. ”

At this time, Li Zixiao was riding on a horse, listening to Zhang Ergouzi next to him report about Scarface, the situation of this gang of bandits, and the more he listened to Li Zixiao's brows, the tighter he wrinkled.

And the horse that Li Zixiao was riding was the one he rewarded Zhou Dazhu before, this time Zhou Dazhu guarded the cottage and couldn't go down the mountain, so he gave his war horse to Li Zixiao to ride.

When the team first set off, everyone was still a little excited, after all, at this time, most of the people under Li Zixiao were recruits, and this was also their first time going down the mountain, so it was inevitable to be a little excited at first.

But when everyone actually got out of the mountain, everyone's mood became a little nervous, because it was only at this time that they knew that they might have to face more than twice as many enemies as they were.

Although they are still relatively confident in themselves now, after all, the number of people exceeds them by a lot, and some people can't help but feel a little drumming in their hearts whether they can win or not.

From Li Zixiao's cottage to Dengjiabaozi, it is not too far, but because the mountain road is not easy to walk, the marching speed is not very fast, and they have no baggage and materials to carry, otherwise the speed will be slower.

Li Zixiao did not swagger them down the official road this time, but found a villager in the village under the mountain who often went into the mountains to hunt as a guide for them, and found a mountain road that could also reach Dengjiabaozi.

The mountain road is close, but it is difficult to walk, so Li Zixiao and his team arrived in the area of Dengjiabaozi from the old nest, and the time taken was similar to that of them to take the official road, which took about a day's journey.

They set out in the afternoon, and through this period of practice, they began to walk much faster than usual, and when it was dark, they arrived at the area of Dengjiabaozi, which was less than fifteen miles away from the land temple to the west of Dengjiabaozi.

Seeing that it was getting late, Li Zixiao knew that it was a difficult thing for his subordinates to rush to the night.

Because most of these recruits under his command have night blindness, if they don't light torches, someone will be left behind if they are not careful, and where will they go to find someone in this black light.

So after seeing that the sky was dark, Li Zixiao had no choice but to beckon his subordinates to stop the march, and found a leeward place to stop on the spot.

In fact, most of Li Zixiao's recruits have temporary night blindness, mainly because they couldn't even eat before, and their bodies were seriously deficient in vitamin A.

And the fifty veterans under Li Zixiao basically have no night blindness, because they followed Li Zixiao to eat and drink well in the cottage during this time, saw a lot of oil and water, and their bodies were no longer deficient in vitamin A.

Now it is the middle of winter, Li Zixiao and their way to this road, what they saw was full of desolation, there was no vegetation, there were bare mountains everywhere, the frozen ground was extremely hard, and it was extremely easy to slip on the icy rugged mountain road.

Along the way, they saw that the bark of the trees in many places had been stripped of by the hungry people, and from time to time they could see some bones in the mountains that had been gnawed by wild beasts and only dry bones, which made people want to curse.

Those new recruits also silently watched the miserable scene along the way, and their hearts twitched from time to time, those wild beasts in the mountains in this winter could not catch food, and they actually came out to hunt and eat humans.

To tell the truth, this year is the most difficult year for the people in the eastern part of Henan, not only has they caught up with the great drought that they have not encountered in decades, but there has been almost no rain for the whole year, and all the grain in the fields has died.

When it was time for the autumn harvest, the grain in their fields was basically pitiful, and after paying the rent, they hardly had much grain left in their hands, which was not enough for the whole family of five or six to eat.

What's even more unbearable is that because of the autumn harvest of grain, those thieves also knew that this was a good time to loot grain everywhere, so they went out one after another, looting everywhere, and snatched the only remaining bit of grain in their hands.

Even when these peasants were not suffering from the war, their winter was not easy, and perhaps some large families still had surplus food, while the poor people at the bottom had to brave the cold to escape and beg for a living.

I didn't see that the entire territory of Henan is now almost full of homeless people, but I don't see the imperial court opening warehouses to release grain, let alone those landlords who regard money as more important than their lives.

Even if the imperial court opened a warehouse to release grain, it was looted by those officials all the way, and there was not one in ten, and there would not be much grain in the hands of the homeless people at all, this is the sorrow of the Ming farmers at this time!

Now that these people think about it carefully, fortunately Li Zixiao took them in, if it weren't for Li Zixiao, I'm afraid they wouldn't have survived this cold winter at all.

By this time, they will either freeze to death or starve to death, and perhaps they will be gnawed by wild dogs like these hungry people on the roadside!

It is simply impossible to expect the current imperial court, or those landlords and wealthy households, to give them grain, where can they eat enough every day as they do now.

Therefore, the new recruits, after seeing the miserable scenes along the road, were even more grateful to Li Zixiao.

In this winter, although there is no snow, the temperature is still very cold at night, although they are wearing cotton clothes sent down by the cottage, but they still can't completely resist the cold wind blowing at night.

Therefore, Li Zixiao had no choice but to order to camp in the wild, light a bonfire, and everyone gather together to keep warm and resist the cold wind, so that it would be much better, at least it would not freeze to death.

Probably because this was their first time going down the mountain, and they might die tomorrow, many of the new recruits couldn't sleep, and they were muttering in small circles what might happen tomorrow.

Zhang Ergouzi just gave full play to his expertise at this time, and as an old man, he bragged about it with a big grin, but it also comforted the hearts of these new recruits.

There were also a few old brothers, listening to them, they also came over to chat together, and they also talked about the fact that in the first few days, they sneaked into Liujiazhuang with only a dozen people and robbed a lot of food and weapons.

The recruits who listened to it all shouted in surprise, and they couldn't help but admire Li Zixiao's wit and bravery.

One of the big men named Gao Debiao heard Xingzhi, slammed his fist on the ground, and shouted: "Happy, our big boss is really powerful, brave and strategic."

What I admire most is this kind of person, when if I can have half of the big boss, I will be content!

Fortunately, Brother Ergou recruited people before, I want to stay outside for two days and I will be frozen to death if it is cold, so it is better to Bo Yibo, and I will go with Brother Ergou.

I didn't say it, from now on, my old Gao's life will be sold to our big boss! Damn, this world doesn't even give us poor people a way to live!

The year before last, I finally took my wife and traveled thousands of miles from my hometown in Huaiqing Mansion to Xiayi County, Guide Mansion to settle down.

Before I could let my mother live a better life for two days, I beat my mother to death because I collided with a young master of a local rich family, and I killed the young master of the rich family in a fit of anger, and then escaped.

Damn, my boss Gao just figured it out, if you want to live better in this world, you have to go up the mountain and fall into the grass, honest people are also the most bullied, honestly rely on earning some craft money, or farming can't survive! ”

"yes, you don't know I'm worse than you......"

"Who says it's not, this world is like this, what can be done."

"For a while, these recruits who were close together to keep warm, chatting with each other, and pouring bitter water outside." Li Zixiao closed his eyes beside him, listening to what they were muttering together.

"By the way, I said Brother Ergou, you tell us what is the origin of our big boss, not only can we read and write, but also lead troops to fight, no worse than those champions back then!"

"That's right, Brother Ergou, you can tell us about it."

Li Zixiao was lying on the ground, with his back to the guys who were gathered together to chat, but he was not asleep, he was also worried about tomorrow's things, and he couldn't help but feel ashamed when he heard the praise of the recruits behind him.

However, he didn't say anything, and sometimes it was a good idea to let his subordinates maintain a sense of worship and awe for him, so that at least he could ensure that the big boss had enough authority in this kind of team to lead the team.

Although Li Zixiao is confident that he will lead his subordinates to clean up Scarface's gang of poles, after all, there is a huge disparity in numbers, and he can't guarantee that it will be foolproof, so he has to think carefully about how to fight this battle once he starts.

"Okay, don't mutter, let Lao Tzu lie down and go to sleep quickly, I have to work tomorrow." Don't chirp anywhere!

Liu Chong, remember to change the sentry in the distance once an hour, don't sleep to death, listen to some movement, if anyone sleeps to death, don't blame me for knocking his military stick! ”

Li Zixiao turned over, saw that the group of guys were still muttering, and reprimanded coldly.

When a group of people heard this, they immediately dispersed, and they all got together in two or three, and they all lay on the ground, not daring to speak more.

But as soon as everyone lay down, they heard a whistle in the distance, and everyone got up again, and grabbed their respective guys with a nervous face.

Someone approached them and alarmed the outlying sentry posts, and after nightfall, Li Zixiao asked Liu Chong to take the twenty veterans of the supervision team to scatter around to serve as sentry posts, and they could see clearly at night.

Soon they saw Liu Zhong leading a man leading a horse to the front, and it turned out that Wei Hong had come back from inquiring about information.

"What's going on with Scarface over there in the Land Temple, is there any movement?" As soon as Li Zixiao saw Wei Hong, he asked him.

I saw Wei Hong smile, and then he pulled a person off the horse, and the guy fell heavily to the ground with a plop, and let out a muffled snort from his nose.

It turned out that his mouth was blocked by Wei Hong with a rag, and he also used a strip of cloth to strangle the back of his head, and the rag couldn't spit out if he wanted to.

"The big boss, fortunately, he didn't disgrace his life, and he captured a scar-faced subordinate for you, if you want to ask anything, you can interrogate him directly!" Wei Hong kicked the guy on the ground, and the guy who was hurting snorted a few more times.