In order to expand the source of food, the people of Huangzhushan have already begun to go up the mountain to pick wild fruits and dig wild vegetables under the leadership of Liu Bagou and others, and also organize people to hunt and fish.

However, the food obtained through these methods is undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for the thousands of people in Huangzhushan.

As a last resort, everyone in Huangzhushan also began to cut back on food and clothing, except for those young adults who need to do heavy physical labor, others have already begun to eat less.

However, even so, the people of Huangzhushan could not support the autumn harvest a month later.

There is even a more important problem, that is, during the busy summer, although a lot of land was cleared at that time, the grain grown after the autumn harvest was enough to eat at least 500 years until next year's summer harvest.

But now that there are nearly 500 more people from Shuilongzhai who have come to Chengcheng, the food that was originally enough after the autumn harvest has become insufficient again.

That is to say, even if the 1,000 people in Huangzhushan have survived this month and supported the autumn harvest, they still do not have enough food during the period from the autumn harvest to the summer harvest next year.

Whether it is near or far, the thousand people in Huangzhushan are not enough to eat!

For this reason, Liu Bagou, Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren discussed and even quarreled every day, and the focus of the quarrel was whether to go out to collect grain, especially whether to attack Fengjiazhuang.

Previously, Huang Xueren, who wholeheartedly supported the attack on Fengjiazhuang, sent a few people to sneak out of the mountain, evade the officers and soldiers who set up cards at various intersections, and ran to Fengjiazhuang outside the mountain and several other villages that might have a large amount of grain to spy on the military situation.

And successfully brought back important information!

"Now it is certain that there is grain in Fengjiazhuang, and there is a lot of it, but our people have seen with their own eyes that the granary in Fengjiazhuang is full of grain, if we can grab the grain in the granary of Fengjiazhuang, even if there is no harvest in the autumn harvest, it will be enough for us to support until next summer!" Huang Xueren, as always, persuaded everyone to attack Fengjiazhuang.

At this time, Li Xuan asked: "Besides Fengjiazhuang, aren't there other villages, and are there many grains stored in those places?" ”

Naturally, there is no only one village outside the mountain, Fengjiazhuang, and there are many other villages.

But at this time, Huang Xueren shook his head lightly and said: "Our people have also gone to several other villages that are more suitable to start, but these villages are ordinary villages, not just an industry like Fengjiazhuang, although there is food in other villages, but it is too scattered, and there is not much." ”

"We also got the news that the Ming army outside the mountain was requisitioning grain from nearby villages, and most of the grain in those villages was collected by the Ming army, and now outside the mountain, in addition to Fengjiazhuang, it is estimated that only Longhua Town, where the Ming army gathered, has a large amount of grain!"

"This Longhua Town is a little troublesome!" Li Xuan frowned slightly, if there were many concerns about attacking Fengjiazhuang, then Longhua Town was not an existence that they could provoke at all.

Why?

Don't because Longhua Town is close to the mountains, it has become an important camp for officers and soldiers since the summer, and there are at least five or six hundred officers and soldiers stationed in it, and these officers and soldiers are also officers and soldiers of the regular guard station transferred from the nearby state capital, and the officers and soldiers who defeated Fang Dongquan and his party at that time are this officers and soldiers.

If the people of Huangzhushan want to go out of the mountain to 'collect grain', it would be fortunate that most of the officers and soldiers did not meet this army, and they dared to take the initiative to provoke them to go to Longhua Town to find death.

"Fengjiazhuang is too close to Longhua Town, if we go to attack Fengjiazhuang, the Ming army will not take half a day's effort to know, and then we will be in danger!" Fang Dongquan has always been firmly opposed to attacking Fengjiazhuang, because he knows better than anyone the danger of rashly attacking Fengjiazhuang.

This is not to say how strong Fengjiazhuang's own defense force is, but because Fengjiazhuang is too close to Longhua Town, and more importantly, if you want to go to Fengjiazhuang, you have to pass through Longhua Town, and it is basically impossible to sneak to Fengjiazhuang without knowing the officers and soldiers.

At the beginning, Fang Dongquan met a large number of officers and soldiers on the way to Fengjiazhuang.

Fang Dongquan's worries Li Xuan naturally knew, but he still said quietly: "If we go to attack a few other villages, can we get enough grain to support us until the summer harvest?" ”

"Unlikely!" Huang Xueren replied without hesitation: "After all, the food we need is not a small amount, even if we collect all the food in those villages, it will not be enough for us to eat, and if we do this, it will really hinder the prestige of Your Majesty's Holy Monarch!" ”

Hearing this, Li Xuan glanced at Huang Xueren more, this person would even consider whether the grain harvest would affect his reputation.

But he also understands this, whether it is Huangzhushan or Shuilongzhai before, you say they are bandits, in fact, they are all bandits, and they are people, and they are not out to rob the robbery, they are all honest farmers, farming and working on weekdays.

But when it's time to go out and raid, they turn into bandits and robbers.

But bandits also have their own ethics, for example, they know that rabbits don't eat the grass next to the nest, so they basically won't rob some small villages near the mountains, and the mountain people are also quite friendly to the hunters who enter the mountains, because these bandits in the mountains also need to obtain supplies from the outside world through these people, especially broken promises, iron tools, etc.

Secondly, these mountain people living on the edge of the mountains are all miserable, they can't eat enough, and there will be surplus food and silver for them to rob.

Even in some villages outside the mountains, they generally do not do it easily, and even if they do, they usually only plunder a part of the grain, leaving them with a living ration, which is somewhat similar to paying protection money.

Although the protection fee is a little smaller, it will be there every year, but if you take all their rations, these people will have to starve to death or flee.

These people are running away or dying, who are they going to rob next year?

"According to you, don't we have any other way but to attack Fengjiazhuang?" At this time, Qian Mengjiu, who has rarely spoken in this kind of court discussion, also spoke:

"But attacking Fengjiazhuang is so dangerous, does General Huang dare to guarantee that we will be able to succeed? Even if it succeeds, how many brothers will not be able to come back alive by then? ”

Huang Xueren said: "I naturally have a way! ”