That night, Ishihara and his party returned to the old village of Black Tiger Village and told Ma Gai what they had seen today.

Although Ma Gai was a little surprised, he was not surprised in his heart, after all, he knew much more than Ishihara, and naturally, he could guess more than Ishihara.

The question is, what to do with this new cottage?

On the second day of the first month of August, Ma Gai was in the old village of Heihu Village, and in the big house where Yang Tong once discussed major matters with everyone and held a banquet, he discussed countermeasures with Ishihara, He Feng, and Yang Kang, and Ishihara's companions Xu Bai, Wang Ping, and Chen Gui were also fortunate to observe.

Because of some ulterior reasons, Ma Gai's crusade against the Ying bandits this time can be described as a remarkable achievement, and what is even more incredible is that in the case of great results, the casualties of nearly 1,000 officers and soldiers under his command are not large, and so far they have only lost less than 100 people.

And now, half of the officers and soldiers of this army are led by the head catcher Shi Che, and they are still stationed in the camp at the bottom of the mountain, while the remaining half are stationed in the old village of the Black Tiger Village with Ma Gai, and in terms of troops, they are fully capable of launching an offensive against the cottage located on the top of the mountain.

But this is only from the point of view of military strength alone, if objective factors are added, neither Ma Gai nor everyone here is very sure.

The problem is that the cottage is located on the main peak of this mountain, and the mountain road is dangerous on the way, and it is almost impossible to let the officers and soldiers kill the top of the mountain in one go, after all, their army of thieves, in the final analysis, can only be a group of county soldiers composed of county soldiers, village warriors, and rangers, unless a group of people are recruited, the tactics of crowds are adopted, and a strong attack is launched at the cost of casualties, otherwise, the bandits on the opposite side hold the high ground, which is really very tricky.

With this in mind, Ishihara suggested to Ma Gaidao: "County lieutenant, can you report to the county and ask the county magistrate to recruit some more people?" ”

Ma Gai shook his head when he heard this, frowned and said, "I'm afraid it's difficult." …… The autumn harvest in September is approaching, and I think it will be difficult for the county to draw out any manpower, even if it is from our side, I am afraid that a group of people will be left in September......"

Ishihara's expression froze: "In other words, we only have one month left?" ”

Ma Gai nodded slightly: "That's probably it." ”

The next day, with Ma Gai's permission, Ishihara, He Feng, and Yang Kang, three catchers, tried to lead people to attack the top of the mountain.

In front of the new Black Tiger Village located on the top of the mountain and the old Black Tiger Village located halfway up the mountain, in the mountain forest with a straight line distance of nearly ten miles, hundreds of officers and soldiers of the thief army started a tug-of-war with an unknown number of bandits.

Although there are a lot of crossbows on the side of the officers and soldiers, but unfortunately, the bandits of the Black Tiger Village also captured a batch of bows and crossbows when they repelled the officers and soldiers in the first two times, although the wooden crossbows they made were extremely poor and almost could not hit the officers and soldiers, but because the area was full of trees, it was difficult for the officers and soldiers to kill the mountain bandits, so the two sides did not make much difference.

After attacking for five or six days in this way, Ishihara couldn't hold it back, and together with Xu Bai, Wang Ping, and Chen Gui, he selected a hundred elites and tried to attack the mountain in one go.

But unfortunately, there are also brave bandits in the Black Tiger Village on the top of the mountain, such as Chen Mo, Wang Qing, Niu Heng, Chu Yan, etc., which are all warriors who ordinary people can't get close to, even Chu Jiao, Zhang Feng, Ma Hong and other original Qizhai village owners, are all fierce people who lick blood from the knife edge, these people in order to defend the last cottage on the top of the mountain, repelled the attacks of Ishihara and others again and again, so that Ishihara and others tried six or seven times, but they were repelled every time, and even killed more than 30 people for this.

The failure to attack the mountain many times made the officers and soldiers of the thieves, who were originally in high morale, a little frustrated.

In this way, the two sides spent September.

Just as Ma Gai said at the beginning, some of the villagers asked to leave and prepared to return to their townships to help with the autumn harvest.

After learning of this, Ishihara, Yang Dang and other catchers found Ma Gai and begged: "County Lieutenant, please give me some more time, we will definitely be able to conquer that cottage!" ”

At the request of Ishihara, Yang Kang and others, Ma Gai, with his majesty as a county lieutenant, rejected the requests of those village warriors who wanted to leave, and ordered all his subordinates to continue attacking the mountain.

But in fact, Margai himself knew very well that it would be difficult for them to make any progress in this battle.

Others may not know, but he knows very well that the credit he has won so far for the thieves army is really only due to them. No!

In fact, there is also the secret help of Black Tiger Village!

To put it bluntly, it was Yang Tong of the Black Tiger Village who secretly provided him with the opportunity to attack the remaining cottages, so that both sides could profit from it - Ma Gai got the credit for breaking the remaining cottages, and Yang Tong got the conditions for annexing the remaining cottages.

Even the old village of Black Tiger Village was deliberately given to him by Yang Tong's group.

However, the new cottage on the top of the mountain is the last place of refuge for Yang Tong and the others, and no matter how you think about it, you know that Yang Tong and the bandits under his command will definitely defend it desperately.

At the time when the morale of the officers and soldiers of the thieves was high, Ishihara, Yang Dang and others failed to break through the cottage, and now, the morale of the officers and soldiers of the thieves army was low because of the long-term battle without the slightest progress, and Ishihara, Yang Dang and others were able to achieve better results?

Come to think of it, you know it's impossible.

But in order to avoid suspicion, it can also be said that it is because of weakness, Ma Gai still agreed to the insistence of Ishihara, Yang Dang and others.

And the fact is just as he expected, the two sides were deadlocked until October, Ishihara, Yang Dang and others still failed to break through the cottage, seeing that late autumn has arrived and winter is approaching, probably everyone in the thief army no longer has the luxury of being able to break through the cottage this year.

Of course, judging from the results, the results of the thief army led by Ma Gai this time have been brilliant enough.

At least Liu Bi, the county magistrate of Kunyang County, and Lu Kuang, the president of the Luye Freemasonry, were very satisfied with this.

Especially Liu Bi, as early as the beginning of September, he had already sent someone to the county to send good news, informing the county that he had eliminated several Ying bandits in Kunyang County, and Yingchuan County also sent someone to reward Kunyang County, Liu Bi as the county commander and Ma Gai as the county lieutenant.

In the last few days of October, snow began to fall and the weather cooled down rapidly.

Although Ishihara was bent on completely exterminating Yingshan Tiger Yang Tong and his gang and avenging his dead companions, the officers and soldiers who couldn't stop him from begging the thief army gradually became homesick and homesick, coupled with the weather, he finally gave up.

However, through the siege and attack of the bandits in the past two months, he also realized a little weakness of the bandit soldiers - for example, this bandit army lacked an elite army that could be used to attack the fortifications.

He believes that this is the biggest reason why they failed to break through the cottage on the top of the mountain in the end.

He suggested to Ma Gai: "County Lieutenant, if we want to break this cottage in the coming year, we must train an elite for it. ”

His words are not untargeted, nor are they by any means shirking responsibility.

After all, the thief army under the command of Ma Gai is a good soldier and soldier, but in fact, it is composed of county soldiers, township warriors, rangers and others. Hey! At best, this group of people can only fight a good fight, and if the situation is not in their favor, this group will definitely turn around and flee immediately.

It's okay to rely on these to fight the little thieves, but if you want to attack a brave and commanding bandit like Yang Tong and his gang, Ishihara thinks it's not enough.

Therefore, according to his idea, it is best to directly invite the army to come to encircle and suppress, but he also understands that the county commander Liu Bi and the county lieutenant Ma Gai do not want to make everyone know about the appearance of a giant in Kunyang County, which leads to being questioned by the county, so he put forward the plan of rights and interests, that is, Kunyang County trains an elite army that dares to kill and fight.

Margai thought about it and didn't refuse.

In November, the weather cooled rapidly, and the officers and soldiers who had surrounded and suppressed the Yingshan group for several months finally retreated under the leadership of Ma Gai.

They emptied everything that could be removed from the old village of Black Tiger Village, burned the old village to the ground, and then slowly retreated.

After learning of this, in the new village of Black Tiger Village, which is located on the top of the mountain, Yang Tong ordered to reward the group of criminals, and ordered the gang to take out all the remaining wine and food in the village as a celebration.

However, as a strong reinforcement to help the Black Tiger Village tide over the difficulties, Chen Zu was very uninteresting and led his brothers to leave before the celebration of the Black Tiger Village.

Even, when Chu Jiao, Zhang Feng and others asked him the reason in surprise, Chen Zu said unceremoniously: "I'm afraid that I will end up like Xu He and the three of them, and I will be cut off by someone while drinking!" ”

I have to say that the atmosphere at that time was really stiff, and Chu Jiao and Zhang Feng looked at each other.

Although they also speculated, after the Kunyang officers and soldiers retreated, Yang Tong might really attack Chen Zu, and also achieve the goal of unifying the eastern part of Yingshan.

In fact, Yang Tong, Guo Da and others are indeed preparing.

On the ninth day of November, the snow fell heavily, and in order to make up for the loss of food in the past two months, the leaders of the new village of Heihu Village - to be precise - should be the main village - led their men down the mountain, according to the old rules, some of them kept the point and looted the caravans passing along the way to collect money for buying roads, while some went straight to the villages under the mountain, so that those villages could repay the debts they 'owed' to the cottage, with chickens, ducks, grain and other things.

In view of the fact that this looting model has been implemented for a long time, no one dares to resist, and the caravans passing by along the way are sighing "why are these guys here again", while honestly giving some money, and villages such as Fengcun also honestly donate poultry and food.

The bandits of the Black Tiger Village easily got a lot of supplies enough to survive the winter without much effort and without killing anyone.

During this period when the bandits were busy preparing supplies for the winter, Zhao Yu drew a map of the mountains in the east of Yingshan in the house belonging to him and Jingnu in the main village.

The marks on the map, the circles represent the villages he intends to build, and the thick lines represent the passages in the mountains that he intends to repair.

And at this moment, Guo Da suddenly came to visit, and saw Zhao Yu meticulously drawing the mountain map, he said with a smile: "I just said to the boss that the most dedicated person in the whole cottage is Ah Hu, you see ......."

Zhao Yu smiled slightly.

Of course, he has to do his best, after all, these will be his inheritance in the future, if he is not satisfied, who will do his best for him?

While smiling, Zhao Yu asked Guo Dadao: "Brother Guo Da, is this ready to attack Chen Zu?" ”

"Hmm!" Guo Da has long regarded Zhao Yu as a brother, so naturally there is no need to hide it.

Getting Guo Da's affirmation, Zhao Yu laughed secretly in his heart, laughing at Yang Tong for being so impatient, obviously Chen Zu had just helped him Black Tiger Village to repel the Kunyang officers and soldiers, but that Yang Tong was good, and he turned his head and was ready to attack Chen Zu.

But that's fine, after Yang Tong defeats Chen Zu, annexes his bandits, and completely unifies the eastern part of Yingshan, he can finally attack Yang Tong.