After consultations among the working groups in the base areas, it was decided that Li Wenfei would lead two companies and one platoon of the Volunteers to start the work first, and after the situation had been initially cleared up, the other two companies would rush to the rendezvous and carry out their work.

The destination is the Jieshouji of Chenzhou Mansion in Henan, where two warriors are from this place and some relatives live here. In addition, according to their introduction, there is a large family here, the family is very rich, owns only 10,000 acres of land, and usually oppresses the good in the township, acts recklessly, and causes complaints. At the beginning, they made a Boxer Rebellion because their meager family property was robbed and repaid by usury. Therefore, if this family can be taken and his land can be divided, not only can the volunteers occupy a stronghold, but also have to obtain a large amount of supplies and the support of the local people.

After consulting with Chen Zhao, the person in charge of the administration, Li Wenfei believed that the situation in this area was suitable for carrying out work, and of course he could not just listen to the words of these two fighters, but still had to conduct a detailed investigation before taking action, but he could bring the troops first.

At the same time as the volunteers set out, the Jinan government received a message that a bandit force sent a message to a village belonging to Jinan Prefecture, demanding that the village pay them 1,000 catties of rice, 50 catties of salt, 10 pigs, 10 sheep, 20 chickens, 50 taels of silver, and 100 pieces of cloth within 10 days, otherwise the village would be washed in blood.

This village is located about 20 kilometers southeast of Jinan City, called Beiya Village, with 385 households and a population of more than 1,600 people, which is a very large village in this area. It is the place where land reform was carried out earlier in Jinan, and there are several large households in the village, but at the time of land reform, these households are very interested in handing over the land, and these households are not too bad in the township on weekdays, so there is no trial, but it is handled according to the [land reform system], and there is no violence. Just a month ago, the village had become a villager and militia group made up of its own people.

According to the East China government, the administrative organs are only down to the township level, and the village committee is elected from among all the members of the village, but it is under the management of the township government and directs the work. However, due to the large scale of Beiya Village, it is also the seat of the local township government, which is composed of 2 crossers and 8 locals. And there is a platoon of troops, which is responsible for the security of the township government, and the maintenance of local order, and also directs the militia training.

It turned out that after the Qing court ended the suppression of chaos on the Shandong border, the border pressure of the Jinan garrison was also greatly reduced, so the garrison army was also adjusted, with the first regiment responsible for garrisoning Jinan Mansion, the second regiment responsible for garrisoning Dongchang Mansion and Linqingzhou, and the third regiment responsible for garrisoning Wuding Mansion, and the garrison headquarters were all located in Fuzhou City, and the army was divided into platoon and company units and stationed in various counties and townships outside the city to maintain stability in various localities. And the platoon commander stationed in Beiya Village is Jiang Haidong.

This time, it was proposed to the village committee by a villager from Beiya Village, Sun Xianlu. The village committee did not slack off and immediately responded to the township government.

According to the introduction of the village committee, the robbers' cottage is located in the Wohu Mountain, more than 10 kilometers west of Beiya Village, nearly 10 years, almost every year after the autumn harvest, they will send people to the village to ask for food and property, it has basically become a practice, but because of the payment of food and property, the robbers of Wohu Mountain really do not disturb the village, although they usually come to fight the autumn wind, but it is also within the range that the village can bear, and basically will not cause any harm to the village, so the villagers also basically recognize the result of spending money to buy peace.

However, in the past, a few wealthy households in the village came forward to organize and prepare, and they also took the lead, but now the fields of these rich families have been divided, and a lot of real estate and property have also been collected, so of course they cannot come out again, so the whole village at this time looks at the township government, and even the person in charge of the village committee suggested to the township government that it is better to share the whole village according to the list issued by the robbers, and it will be finished when they are all gathered and given to them. Since the land reform, except for a few wealthy families, the burden of the rest of the families has been lightened, and this year's income has also increased significantly.

But this request will obviously not be accepted by the traverser, the township government's two traversers named Ding Chao and Tan Zong, respectively appointed as the chief and deputy, after listening to the village chief's suggestion, the two immediately first severely criticized the village chief, saying that the East China government is not a Qing court, absolutely can not compromise with the strongman, and also has the ability to protect every village, so that they can rest assured.

Of course, the two didn't just talk big, so they immediately found Jiang Haidong, the platoon commander of the garrison, to negotiate how to deal with these bandits. Jiang Haidong has been mixed in the rivers and lakes in the end, and he understands what is going on when he hears it, but he has been in the People's Army for a year and a half, and he knows that the People's Army will never compromise with the strongman, on the contrary, it will definitely eliminate this group of thieves, and the People's Army also has this ability, and at the same time, he also silently mourned for this group of strongmen in his heart.

And Jiang Haidong had experience in the end, so he asked to immediately send soldiers to find the messenger for questioning, because this person was Guan Jian's figure, and asked the village chief about the messenger and what was his relationship with this group of strongmen.

According to the village chief's introduction, this messenger named Sun Xianlu has a lot of background, it turns out that he was originally a homesteader in the village, his family has more than 40 acres of land, has three sons and a daughter, only one is an adult, during the land reform, the composition of their family was classified as a rich middle peasant, so he did not take his land, nor did he give his family more land, of course, in the distribution of property and grain confiscated from the rich households, his family also shared, on the whole, his family's living standard should be less than the above, more than the lower level of well-off.

However, it is said that he has a nephew who is a small leader in this gang of strongmen, so in recent years, he has been responsible for sending messages to the village and submitting a list of strongmen, and once the village has collected all the money and food, he will also contact the strongmen to collect it. In addition, not only Beiya Village, but also 3 or 4 nearby villages are also responsible for Sun Xianlu to spread the word and contact, and even on two occasions, someone was kidnapped by the strongman, and Sun Xianlu also came forward to negotiate at both ends and paid money to ransom people.

Of course, every time he handles this kind of thing, Sun Xianlu will get a certain amount of handling fees, so although his family's land is not much, his life is very good. And because he can speak well to the strongmen in Wohu Mountain, over time he has become a quite influential figure in this area, and even the rich and rich have to be polite to him.

After the soldiers of the People's Army took Sun Xianlu to the township government, they saw that Sun Xianlu had been so frightened that his face turned pale and his whole body trembled. He has been acting as an intermediary for so many years, and he has some insight, knowing that overseas Chinese are not as incompetent as the officials of the Qing court, and what they do in Jinan City has already spread all over the surrounding villages, so Sun Xianlu also estimated that overseas Chinese will not agree to it nine times out of ten, so he also persuaded the strongman who contacted him not to provoke overseas Chinese, so as not to get into trouble. But the visitors did not listen to Sun Xianlu's advice, and insisted on asking the village for food and property.

After handing over the list of strongmen to the village committee, Sun Xianlu was also restless at home, not knowing what overseas Chinese would do with him, and after being taken to the township government by the soldiers, Sun Xianlu immediately knelt down to Ding Chao and Tan Zong and kowtowed again and again.

Seeing this, Ding Chao and Tan Zong did not scare him, but asked him about the situation of this group of strongmen. At this time, Sun Xianlu didn't dare to hide it anymore, and told everything he knew.

It turns out that the origin of this group of strongmen in Wohu Mountain is not small, with a history of more than 50 years, and it is the third generation, it can be said that it is second to none in the green forest in Shandong. At first, this group of strongmen did not fall into the grass in Crouching Tiger Mountain, but established a cottage in the Taishan area at the junction of Jinan Mansion and Tai'an Mansion, and the first generation of big leaders was called Lin Huaiyuan, who is said to be the remnants of the White Lotus Sect, but at this time it has nothing to do with the White Lotus Sect. Now Lin Huaiyuan has died, the position of the big leader passed to his son Lin Shenwang, after more than 50 years of development, now the number of soldiers in the cottage is more than 1,000 people, and Lin Shenwang has three sons, the eldest son Lin Weizheng, the second son Lin Weixin, now they are all adults, and respectively in Wohu Mountain, Jiuru Mountain to establish a sub-village, each sub-village is more than 200 people;

As for how Sun Xianlu got in touch with the strongman of Wohu Mountain, it turned out that Sun Xianlu had an uncle and brother in the neighboring village of Daogou Village, although he did not have much contact, but he still moved around a little during the New Year's holidays, just about 10 years ago, Sun Xianlu's brother offended the squire in the village, and was killed by the family, and the husband and wife were both persecuted to death, and Sun Xianlu's nephew gathered more than a dozen people in the village, set a fire at night, and burned down the squire's house, and the family was also burned to death, but they couldn't stay in the village anymore, so they went to Wohu Mountain to join this group of strongmen, and after two years, because Sun Xianlu's nephew could dare to fight, he was promoted to a small leader。

And one night, Sun Xianlu's nephew came to Beiya Village to find Sun Xianlu, it turned out that they had kidnapped the son of a landlord in the village, and asked Sun Xianlu to send a message to ask for ransom. Sun Xianlu only then knew the whereabouts of his nephew, so he helped him pass the word, and it was very smooth to redeem the landlord's son, and the landlord also gave Sun Xianlu 5 taels of silver as a reward, and then Sun Xianlu's nephew came again, and gave Sun Xianlu 10 taels of silver, asking him to help take care of his parents' graves.

At the end of the year, Sun Xianlu's nephew came to him again, this time making a list of goods and food, saying that as long as he handed over all the things, he would not come to disturb the village, and several landlords in the village also thought that it was not bad to break the wealth and avoid disasters in this way. So in this way, Sun Xianlu gradually took on the role of a middleman, and developed from his own village to several nearby villages.