Li An only knew that the Gourd Valley was an uninhabited wasteland, but he didn't know that there were bandits around the Gourd Valley, which immediately aroused his strong interest. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"What you mean is that there were originally people living here, but the bandits often harassed them, and the people couldn't live anymore, so they left Hulu Valley, right?"

Ang Lee asked.

"Yes, General, there were originally hundreds of families in Hulu Valley, which was a relatively prosperous village, but fifteen years ago, a group of bandits suddenly appeared near Hulu Valley, and often harassed the village, making the people in the village uneasy, so they had to leave their homes, and since then, the villages in the valley have completely declined, and now, it is estimated that only the ruins remain."

Li An nodded thoughtfully and asked, "Since there are bandits near Hulu Valley, why didn't the imperial court send troops to encircle and suppress them, is it because there are a large number of bandits, or is there other reasons?" ”

"General Hui, no one can say clearly how many bandits there are here, and the bandits' nests are all in the mountains, it is extremely difficult to encircle and suppress, and the imperial court has also encircled and suppressed, but the results are not great, and there are a lot of soldiers and horses lost, so there is no way, so I can only let the people in the valley leave their homes."

Li An understood that the guide was telling the truth, the bandits hiding in the deep mountains, it is indeed very difficult to exterminate, and the bandits are still very familiar with the terrain in the mountains, so once the encirclement and suppression is launched, the bandits can use their familiarity with the terrain to launch a surprise attack on the official army, thus causing great losses to the encirclement and suppressing of the official army, which is also the most fundamental reason why the bandits occupy the mountain and cannot be completely eradicated since ancient times.

"Since ancient times, there may be bandits where there are mountains, but these bandits are very unlucky, I, Li An, are here, how can I let the bandits continue to be arrogant."

Li An smiled at the corner of his mouth, and he was already thinking about how to clean up this gang of bandits.

"General, it's not a lowly position, most of these bandits are barbarians from the south, and they are extremely tough by nature, and they are not easy to mess with."

The guide was a kind reminder.

"Big brother, it seems that he has encountered hard stubble, so it is better to sweep him first."

Li Kunxiong opened his mouth to interject.

Li An shook his head and said, "Let's keep it for now!" Aren't we going to train our troops? Train the soldiers first, and then use these bandits to train the recruits, killing two birds with one stone. ”

"What the eldest brother said is that he will use them to train his troops, haha!"

A group of people along the slope of 30 degrees, ran up to the valley mouth into the valley, here, Li An stopped to observe the surrounding terrain and environment, found that this valley is a treacherous place, as long as there are soldiers and horses to block the valley mouth, the people inside are trapped to death, of course, standing at the valley mouth can not see the situation in the valley, is there any other way out?

"The map isn't very clear, are there any other entrances and exits to the valley here?"

"General Hui, this valley is in a straight line, and there are naturally two exits, and between these two exits, there are three open spaces, one large and two small, which is a Jedi, although the local people are forced to leave, but the bandits will never dare to camp in it, because as long as the officers and soldiers block the two exits, they will not be able to run away."

"Jedi, Jedi is good! The people and bandits don't dare to stay here, it's cheap for us, haha! ”

Li Kunxiong laughed and quipped.

"Big brother, we have to train 3,000 troops here, but we don't have to worry about being besieged by bandits."

Li Feiyu obviously didn't take the bandits seriously.

Li An looked at everyone and said in high spirits: "When my three thousand soldiers and horses are trained, the first thing I have to do is to take these bandit sacrifice flags, go, and go inside." ”

The group rushed from the narrow valley mouth into the gourd valley, and first came to the first valley, where the area of the valley is not very large, but it is enough to have a radius of two miles, and there is no pressure to garrison hundreds of people and horses.

Since the valley here is in the easternmost part, it is also called the East Gourd Valley, referred to as the East Valley, the largest in the middle is called the Middle Valley, and the westernmost valley is naturally the West Valley.

The valley had not been inhabited for a long time, and the weeds and trees grew everywhere, and from time to time a flock of hares and pheasants could pop up, which made the people itch and shoot a few with bows and arrows.

"Big brother, the pheasants and hares here are big and fat, and they are really good! Ha ha! ”

Li Kunxiong held up a hare that had just been shot, his face full of excitement.

Li An also hunted a number of game, looked around, and said loudly: "The East Valley is just a small valley, and it has become a paradise for birds and beasts, and there are more birds and beasts in the Middle Valley. ”

"General, the valley is surrounded by mountain cliffs, and as long as there is a fire, all these weeds and trees will be turned to ashes, and it will not affect the mountains and forests outside."

Li An nodded again and again, and said: "That's right, the valley here is full of trees, if you don't need to burn it, then when will it be cleaned up, haha!" Let's go to the Midvale to have a look. ”

Along the passage on the west side of the East Valley, which is only one zhang wide, Li An led a group of people and horses into the larger Middle Valley, where the area is enough to have a radius of five or six miles, not to mention three thousand men and horses, even if there are more than 10,000 troops, it is enough to be stationed here and carry out training.

"Big brother, the weeds here are more lush than those in the East Valley, and it is estimated that they have become a paradise for birds and beasts."

"Big brother, there are still traces of ridges here, it seems that it used to be the people's fields, but now it is all covered by weeds."

Li Feiyu jumped off the war horse and found the traces of the ridge under his feet.

Li An dismounted and observed for a while, and it was already certain that this was indeed the trace of the ridge.

"General, there used to be 10,000 acres of fertile land here, and this ridge is indeed a ridge built by the people, and it is estimated that it will be used a lot?"

The guide knew the gourd brother well and introduced it seriously.

Li An nodded and asked, "Didn't you say that there are villages?" Ben couldn't see it. ”

Xiang Xiang looked around, pointed to the distance and said: "General, the village should be in that direction, it is summer at this time, and there are too many weeds, and it is estimated that they are all covered, so you can't see it at a glance." ”

"Let's go to the village."

Li An followed the direction pointed by the guide and rode over.

It wasn't until he was close enough to the village that Ang Lee could see the ruins of the ruins, weeds and trees obscuring the view, and climbing plants completely covering the ruins, making it difficult to spot.

Gently brushing aside the climbing vines, Li An saw the ruins of the original village, which used to be a paradise for the people, but now it has been abandoned like this because of the existence of bandits, which made Li An and others feel quite touched, and at the same time they are more firm in their belief that they must exterminate these bandits who plague the people and give the people a stable living environment.

The situation in the West Valley is similar to that in the East Valley, and there is a radius of two miles, and these three valleys are all excellent places for military training, and Li An felt very satisfied after his field inspection, and made up his mind to camp and train troops here.

Of course, the three valleys under him were still barren land, and within ten days, Ang Lee had to tidy up the place for the recruits who were about to enter the area.

When he was about to leave the Hulu Valley, Li An decided to mobilize the local people of Luzhou as soon as possible, completely clean up the Hulu Valley, and hire craftsmen to build a tall city pass at the east and west entrances of the Hulu Valley, so that only a small number of guards could be used to guard the mouth of the valley, so as to ensure the absolute safety of the recruits in the valley.

After returning to Luzhou City, Li An immediately wrote down the situation of the Hulu Valley that he had personally inspected, and asked the local officials in Luzhou to mobilize the people and build the Hulu Valley barracks within ten days.

After carefully reading Li An's analysis report, the Luzhou Assassin was greatly satisfied, and immediately conveyed the order, asking the officials to immediately mobilize the nearby craftsmen and people to go to the Hulu Valley to build a city pass, clean the ground in the valley, build a barracks, and make comprehensive preparations for welcoming new soldiers.

Of course, this is because the officials in Luzhou have long hated the bandits near the Hulu Valley, and these bandits have used the Hulu Valley as a buffer zone and have been in a tug of war with the officials and soldiers for many years, which has caused the officials and soldiers who went to suppress the bandits to suffer losses and affected their political achievements, and many officials have not been promoted, and their anger can be imagined.

As soon as Li An came to Luzhou, he chose to go to Hulu Valley to station, which naturally made these local officials very satisfied, which not only reduced the interference to them, but also deterred the bandits in the mountains, so that they could easily watch the fire from across the river, and it was of course essential to give Li An the necessary support, besides, Li An was sent by the emperor, and they did not dare not help, otherwise it would be a protest and a confrontation with the current emperor.

With the support of the Luzhou Assassin and the officials, the mobilization work proceeded very quickly, and hundreds of craftsmen and thousands of people in Luzhou City alone joined the team to go to the Hulu Valley.

In order to ensure the safety of these people, Li An sent the remaining 100 Longwu troops to escort them along the way, and Luzhou Assassin Shi even sent 500 people to assist the Longwu army to protect the people.

The construction of the Hulugu barracks is a big project, in order to ensure high efficiency and reduce the occurrence of nest workers, Luzhou Thorn Shi specially sent talents from all walks of life to group the recruited people.

The east and west cities are closed outside the valley and can be built at the same time, while the three valleys inside must first burn the weeds and trees inside with fire before they can be cleared and built, otherwise, these weeds and weeds alone will be enough for these people to toss.

After igniting the wild grass in the valley, the color of the sky changed due to the huge firelight, and the whole sky seemed to turn fiery red.

It took some time for the fire to burn, and until the fire was extinguished, the people and craftsmen were not allowed to enter the valley, and during this time, they all helped to build the checkpoints, and the checkpoints at the entrances and exits on both sides of the valley were established as soon as possible.

In the morning, the fires in the three valleys were lit one after another, but until the sun set, the fires in the valleys continued to burn, illuminating the entire sky clearly, and the people and craftsmen who were responsible for building the gates at night almost did not need to light torches, and they could work normally.

Listening to the crackling sound of wood, looking at the blazing firelight, and the builders of the Chengguan who still did not stop at night, Li An's mood was greatly relaxed, according to the current progress, within ten days, the construction of various facilities in the barracks could be completed, so that the newly recruited soldiers would have a comfortable environment and be able to start training as soon as possible.

"Big brother, according to the current progress, tomorrow afternoon, the fire should be extinguished, and when the time comes, thousands of craftsmen and people will pour into the valley, what a spectacular scene it will be!"

"As long as everything goes well, there will be no problem in building the barracks within ten days, and I hope the recruitment of troops will go so smoothly."

Ang Lee nodded and said.

"Eldest brother, Your Majesty asked us to come to Luzhou to recruit 3,000 troops, which is enough for the strength of an army, and we must give a domineering name, have you ever thought about it?"

Li Kunxiong asked.

Li An grinned: "When Your Majesty crowned me as General Pingnan, I had already thought that this newly recruited army would be called the 'Pingnan Army', and it would be played by Your Majesty, and Your Majesty readily agreed, but the eldest brother has been busy, so he didn't tell you the name of this army, and you didn't ask." ”

"Pingnanjun, this name is nice and domineering."

"Pingnan Army, pacify the southern barbarians, this name is good."

Li Kunxiong and Li Feiyu were very optimistic about this name, and felt that this name could reflect the momentum of this army to pacify the south.

Because he was not worried about the situation on the Hulu Valley, Li An never left the valley mouth, and together with the Longwu army under his command, he was stationed in the direction of the valley mouth of the Hulu Valley.

In the direction of Jiang'an County, Luzhou, Li Fei Shouyu and Zhang Erniu led ten soldiers of the Longwu Army, accompanied by five or six local officers, into a village, and posted notices to start recruiting troops.

Since they rarely saw outsiders, the people of the village looked more timid, especially after seeing the tolerance, and they were so frightened that they all hid back in their homes.

In order for these people to come and listen to the policy of recruiting new soldiers, the public had to ring the gong over and over again, shouting for all the villagers to come out.

Under the repeated calls of five or six people, the people hiding at home began to slowly leave their homes and gather at the entrance of the village.

There are more than 200 households in this village, with an average population of five or six people per household, and a total of more than 1,000 people, of which more than 200 are young and middle-aged people, and it should not be difficult to recruit dozens of qualified soldiers.

After the villagers were almost assembled, they simply informed the people of the conditions for conscription, as well as the requirements for conscription, military salaries, salaries, and meritorious service rewards, and persuaded the people to join the army enthusiastically, contribute to the imperial court, and seek fame for themselves.

The conditions offered were still quite tempting to the simple people in the mountains, but the mountain people seemed to have a natural sense of distrust of the imperial court, which was also caused by the imperial court's repeated distrust of the people, so although they were eager to try, no people still offered to join the army.

There were some seventeen or eighteen-year-old strong guys who wanted to sign up, but they were held down by the elders who reached out their hands, in short, half an hour passed, but no one stepped forward to sign up.

Such a situation made Lifei Shouyu very anxious, but he couldn't arrest people, only by letting the people join the army willingly. (To be continued.) )