The gray clouds moved slowly in the sky, the sun was dim, and the weather was cold, giving people a sense of desolation and desolation. The trees and grass are already a little yellow, and the leaves are falling, indicating that it is autumn.

Li Yinghongzuo rode a snow-white war horse, standing on a small hill, raising his eyes to look at the dense forest in the distance, and between his eyebrows, he looked a little anxious. And behind her, Wu Hongyan and Han Xiurong also stood side by side.

At the bottom of the hillside, there is a sandwich mountain avenue between the two mountains, about several miles long, but the road is quite wide, and the narrowest part is also three or four zhang, and behind the hills on both sides, three thousand elite soldiers are waiting for the battle.

At this moment, in the distant woods that began to wither and yellow, the magpies suddenly screamed in fright, and flew around in panic, breaking the silence in the mountain forest.

Li Yinghong's eyebrows raised, and he turned back to Wu Hongyan and Han Xiurong and said, "It seems that it is here." Before the words fell, I saw smoke and dust rising up, and a dense sound of horses' hooves also sounded rapidly, and a cavalry army was galloping towards the side of the mountain road. So Li Yinghong turned the horse's head and immediately led Wu Hongya and Han Xiurong to gallop down from the mountain.

This cavalry army is the horse thief who has caused a lot of trouble to Daijun in the past two years.

After Gao Yuan left Daijun, Daijun not only garrisoned Hongshangsai to prevent the Qin army from attacking, but also to find the whereabouts of this group of horse thieves and encircle and suppress the horse thieves. And also organized men and horses to escort the caravan, planning to give the horse thief a head-on attack when the horse thief attacked the caravan, and along the way, find the horse thief's hole, and wipe out the horse thief.

However, this horse thief is also very cunning, not only the means are ferocious, the whereabouts are difficult to determine, and the news is quite accurate, for the caravan escorted by the army, the horse thief will never shoot, but the army can not escort the caravan too far, can only be in the buffer zone of Daijun and the Xiongnu for the caravan to escort, once into the territory of the Xiongnu, the army can no longer advance, can no longer stay here, can only retreat to Yanmen Pass.

But after the caravan finished its business in the various parts of the grassland, it still had to turn back, and on the way back to Yanmen Pass, the horse thief appeared again. And the horse thieves robbed not only the caravans, but also the residents scattered outside the Yanmen Pass, although the villages outside the Yanmen Pass are built with walls, but the residents can not always hide in the walls, always have to go out of the village to farm, graze, hunt, trade. Therefore, horse thieves will always succeed.

Moreover, the horse thieves were also full cavalry, extremely fast, and would send spies for each raid, and as soon as they found that an army was coming, they immediately threw away the looted goods and dispersed and retreated. Therefore, there were several sorties of substitute troops, but they all came up empty.

In the face of such a horse thief, Li Yinghong also felt a little helpless.

But at this moment, Zhao Xuan found a clue. It turned out that the transactions of the various departments of the grassland were basically barter, so the caravans that went to the grassland to do business would not bring much gold and copper coins. After the horse thief steals the goods, he must buy them for cash. Moreover, if the horse thieves want to survive, they need a lot of food, but food is a material that is strictly forbidden to be traded with foreign countries in Daijun, and there is not much food to be grabbed from the caravan, so they must be purchased separately. Whether it is to cash out the looted property or buy grain, it can only be done in the market around Yanmen Pass.

Although the horse thieves have a lot of internal responses in Yanmen Pass, they can help them sell dirt and buy food on their behalf, but there are traces of this. So Zhao Xuan asked the Jinyi guards to track down from this direction, so the Jinyi guards first made a detailed count of several batches of commodities and materials transported to the grassland, and also made a lot of secret codes that only the interior knew, and after the caravan was robbed, they searched in the market around Yanmen Pass, and as a result, they immediately found a lot of items that should have been robbed by horse thieves.

So Jin Yiwei immediately followed these clues and found three merchants who helped the gang of horse thieves sell dirt and supply them with food and supplies. And Zhao Xuan was not in a hurry to arrest the three merchants, but ordered Jin Yiwei to find out the identities of the three merchants first, and find out how they traded with the horse thieves before making a decision.

After some open investigation and covert visits, it turned out that these three merchants were all local tyrants in Daijun in the past, and when Gao Yuan first entered Daijun, there was a fierce conflict with the local powerful forces in Daijun, and the powerful even formed an army and launched an incident in an attempt to drive away the plateau. However, of course, Haoqiang's army was not the opponent of the regular army led by Gao Yuan, and as a result, Haoqiang's army was defeated, and several powerful Haoqiang such as the Zhao family and the Ma family were wiped out, and a considerable part of Haoqiang was hit hard, and even lost all their property and became ordinary peasants.

These three merchants had all participated in the powerful army, and although they were lucky enough to escape the disaster and save their lives, all the property and land of their families were confiscated by the Daijun government, and they could only rely on farming to make a living. In just over a year, these three people abandoned agriculture and business almost at the same time, and soon developed, although it did not reach the previous level, it was far more than the life of an ordinary peasant household.

After examining the business process of these three men for more than a year, it can be found that the items they sold are basically the same as the items robbed by horse thieves, and the selling prices are usually two to three percent lower than the market price, and at the same time, the three of them also regularly buy large quantities of grain, pig iron, bronze, cloth and other items. However, all three merchants traded with the horse thieves alone, and did not seem to know about each other.

At this point in the investigation, the truth is basically clear, so Zhao Xuan reported the situation to Li Yinghong. After Li Yinghong heard this, he couldn't help but be surprised and happy, he didn't expect that he had been looking for a few months on the grassland, but he found nothing, and Zhao Xuan actually found clues in the Daijun area. It seems how correct Gao Yuan's decision to form an intelligence agency like Jinyiwei was in the first place.

So Li Yinghong also immediately ordered Zhao Xuan to arrest the three businessmen immediately and interrogate them.

But Zhao Xuanjian, don't be in a hurry to catch these three merchants, and wait until they are trading with the horse thief, and then arrest them, so that you can directly catch the horse thief's personnel, so as not to cut off the clues.

Li Yinghong also accepted Zhao Xuan's Jianyì, and after waiting for a few days, when a merchant was trading with horse thieves, Jin Yiwei and the army intervened and captured seventeen horse thieves in one fell swoop. Two other businessmen were immediately arrested.

After the review of Jin Yiwei, Li Yinghong only then knew that this group of horse thieves really had a heavy relationship with the powerful forces that were suppressed by the plateau, and there were two leaders of the horse thieves, one was called Zhao Ping, and the other was called Ma Yu, who was the son of the local tycoon Zhao family and the Ma family in the original county, although the Zhao and Ma families were wiped out at that time, but there were still a few people who escaped, in addition to Zhao Ping and Ma Yu, there was also a Zhao family's younger brother named Zhao Xin.

At the beginning, they only had more than 100 people and more than 30 horses, and they only dared to rob some small villages or small caravans, and hid in the mountains and forests outside Yanmen Pass.

But more than a year later, Zhao Xin didn't know what way to go, got a large amount of gold, and used this gold to buy a large number of horses and weapons, and pulled a lot of other suppressed heroes, as a result, the horse thieves' ranks expanded, and the assembly was also well-equipped, so he also dared to attack large villages or caravans.

And Zhao Xin actively ran around the Daijun area, contacted other powerful people, and claimed that he had now received the support of the Qin State, and the Qin State provided gold, and was ordered to infiltrate the Daijun to organize the army, and integrate the powerful forces, and wait until the time when the Qin State attacked the Daijun, and then launched an action to help the Qin army defeat the plateau, and promised that after the Qin army occupied the Daijun, not only could the past status of the powerful people be restored, but also depending on the size of the merit, they could also be knighted and crowned.

Zhao Xin's words really moved some of the former heroes, so they also gathered a lot of people, but before the Qin army did not attack Daijun, they first fully supported the horse thieves led by Zhao Ping and Ma Yu, so some people inquired about the news for the horse thieves, provided the actions of the team, and some people paid the responsibility to take over the dirty and provide food and materials for the horse thieves. Of course, some powerful brothers were also recruited to join the horse thieves.

With the support of the heroes, the development of the horse thieves is also very fast, robbed several caravans in a row, and broke through several villages, grabbed a lot of supplies, but also attracted a lot of people to join, in just one year, the number of people has expanded to nearly two thousand people, the horse assembly is also very complete, and in the Yanmen Pass outside the northwest of about 200 miles of mountainous areas to establish three holes, so that the horse thieves are hidden, so that even if one of the holes is broken or exposed, the other two holes can retreat in time.

After listening to the confession of the captured horse thief, Li Yinghong and Zhao Xuan were also taken aback, it turned out that Jinyi Wei had discovered the intelligence point set up by the Qin State in Daijun, but according to Gao Yuan's requirements, they were not arrested immediately, but they were just monitored, and they were prepared to transmit false news to the Qin State through the intelligence point of the Qin State when necessary. But I didn't expect that the Qin State actually established a second intelligence point in Daijun, and the scale was obviously larger than the first intelligence point, and an army was formed, if there was really a battle between the Qin Dynasty, Haoqiang and the horse thieves should join forces again and launch a rebellion in Daijun, and the consequences would indeed be very strict, but so many people have been arrested, so it is impossible to keep this intelligence point. And if you don't do it, I'm afraid these heroes will run away first, or the dog will jump over the wall in a hurry and start a rebellion in a desperate way. However, between these two intelligence points, it seems that they are not known, and they do not violate Gao Yuan's original intention of retaining the intelligence points of the Qin State.

So Li Yinghong immediately ordered Zhao Xuan to immediately organize the army to arrest all these heroes confessed by the horse thieves, and then interrogate them one by one to completely eliminate this intelligence point. And he led the men and horses to exterminate the horse thieves.