October 27 is the deadline for recommending reserve candidates for the Liangshan Escort Team squad and captain. Gu Haotian arrived at the Juxian Hall early in the morning, and Wen Huanzhang and Xiao Jiasui also arrived early in the morning. I originally thought that the candidates recommended this time would be disrupted and the relevant battalions would not be very active, but what I didn't expect was that in addition to the pro-guard battalion and the teaching battalion, which were already relatively active, even the first and second infantry battalions, which had always been very effective, were also very generous, and more than 20 of the remaining more than 100 veterans were recommended.

"Su Sheng and Sun An, the two stingy ghosts, how can they be generous this time, but what conditions have they discussed with you?"

Gu Haotian still remembered the last time these two people were recruited, and thought that this time they must have asked for something so generous, so he asked.

"Originally, I poured some bitter water, but then I didn't mention anything, but I was very generous." Xiao Jiasui replied.

"Presumably it was Mr. Xiao who said something to them that opened these people's minds, otherwise they would have to gossip after all."

Wen Huanzhang knew the temperament of these two people, and guessed the reason at once.

Xiao Jiasui smiled and didn't say anything, but Gu Haotian and Wen Huanzhang both knew it in their hearts. The three of them were talking about the follow-up personnel allocation, but they heard a rush of footsteps outside the door, and then Ruan Xiaoer and two people hurriedly came in from outside the door.

"Little official, something happened to the Duan Jingzhu brothers' fleet!" Ruan Xiaoer said anxiously.

"Something happened to Duan Jingzhu!" When Gu Haotian heard this, he was stunned for a moment, and Wen and Xiao were also surprised.

"What's wrong?" The three of them looked at the three people in front of them in unison.

"I met these two brothers at the docks in the morning, and I heard them say that the fleet had encountered pirates and storms, and I didn't have time to ask anything else, so I hurried to bring them here. Listen to them. ”

Ruan Xiaoer couldn't explain clearly for a while, so he pushed the two people who reported the news out.

"Six days ago, our fleet arrived in the sea off Qingzhou, and it only took half a day to shore safely, but at this moment, three pirate ships suddenly came, Director Duan and Captain Gao each brought a boat to intercept us, even so, our fleet still had three ships snatched by pirates, and later because of the storm, both sides took shelter from the wind, but Director Duan and the three robbed ships were no longer heard."

"How many ships do you have left, and where are they now?" Gu Haotian asked anxiously.

"We still have nine merchant ships, and now they are parked in a small port at the entrance of Jishui, and the shopkeeper of Gu Tao is careful that our escort force is insufficient, and he is afraid that the seven or eight hundred good horses will have another accident on the way, so he ordered us to rush back to the manor day and night to ask for help."

The situation is urgent, and there is no room for delay, after Gu Haotian heard the situation, he didn't think much about it, and immediately gave an order.

"There are 200 sailors in the first battalion, 100 in the cavalry battalion, and Xiao Er, Qingyun, and Teng Jian personally lead the team, so these two brothers will lead the way, and they will set off immediately to bring the horses back safely."

But as soon as the order was issued, Gu Haotian thought about it and felt that it was wrong, seven or eight hundred war horses were too tempting for the outlaws, and the elite of the merchant ship was taken away by Duan Jingzhu, and the caravan was a weak woman in the bandit's den, and there was a possibility of being harmed at any time, so he adjusted the order again.

"Ling Qingyun, Teng Jian took fifty elites, one person and two horses, disguised officers and soldiers, and rushed over by land first."

Wen Huanzhang and Xiao Jiasui also had no objections, and immediately sent the military and political office to issue the transfer documents, and on the other hand, they went to the logistics office to get fifty pairs of leather armor, but they were found in the warehouse of Crouching Tiger Village that day, and now they are just used.

In just one pillar of incense, the cavalry battalion was full of neighing, and fifty elites, under the leadership of the two battalion commanders, whirlwind out. Immediately, the golden beach was also busy, and one by one the big boats sailed north, heading straight for Jishui.

In the Juxian Hall, Gu Haotian, Wen Huanzhang, Xiao Jiasui, Bian Xiang, Xiao Rang, Shi Qian and others sat around the table, everyone looked grim, and the atmosphere in the room was very dull. Duan Jingzhu and others encountered pirates and storms, and their whereabouts were unknown and their lives were uncertain, which was the first incident involving the life and death of the leader since the establishment of Liangshan Manor. What's more, Duan Jingzhu still has a secret to open up the trade route for buying horses in Liaodi, if something happens to him, the trade channel that he has finally opened will be cut off.

"Tell me all about what we're going to do next?" Gu Haotian looked around and said.

"I thought I had to check the origin of this group of pirates first, if the thieves' den was found, then the whereabouts of the Duan Jingzhu brothers, whether they were alive or dead, could be roughly clear, and on the coast of Jingdong Road, the most likely hiding place for the thieves' den was here."

Wen Huanzhang said, pointing to a place on a rudimentary map on the table.

Gu Haotian looked at the past, but it was a place off the coast of Dengzhou, which was the Miaodao archipelago on the Bohai Sea in the later generations.

"I agree with Mr. Wen's opinion, if the Duan Jingzhu brothers were not killed or captured by the pirates, and they also survived the storm, then the sea area where they were at the time was surrounded by the northwest wind, and the most likely place to reach is also here."

Xiao Jiasui's fingers drew a line on the map, and eventually pointed to the same place as Wen Huanzhang.

After listening to the opinions of Wen and Xiao, Gu Haotian also felt that the breakthrough of the matter was most likely to appear in Dengzhou, so he immediately issued an order to Shi Qian's intelligence department:

"The Intelligence Department mobilized all the forces at hand and divided into two groups, one group from the Jishui outlet to the coast in the direction of Victoria and Laizhou, and the other group went straight to Dengzhou. The two groups of personnel should focus on investigating and dealing with the horse trading places in various places, and the pirates have robbed hundreds of war horses at once, but the islands are completely useless, so they must be in a hurry to get rid of them, and careful investigation will definitely find something. ”

Immediately, some of the elites of Ruan Xiaoqi's third battalion of sailors and the third battalion of Maxian infantry were dispatched, together with more than 100 people from the personal guard battalion.

In a small port called the Three Forks River on the right bank of the Jishui estuary, there are eight or nine large boats docked in recent days, but the guys on board are very generous, and they buy a lot of food and forage in the collection every day, so that the people in this small collection have more or less made some money. However, after a few days of continuous large-scale purchases, the materials in the small set were quickly exhausted, especially there was a large shortage of forage, so some people with bright brains went to other places to buy forage and transported it to the Three Forks River for resale, so as to earn the difference. Gradually, the news that merchants in need of a large amount of forage in the Three Forks River spread more and more widely in the surrounding villages and towns.

In the port of the Three Forks River, as the current head of the fleet, Gu Tao can be said to be worried and sleepless in recent days, and he has been counting his fingers every day when Liangshan's men and horses will arrive. Seven or eight hundred horses and nine large ships, but there were only a guard force of less than twenty people, and there was not a single official guard, so that the hired boatmen and the herdsmen bought from Liaodi knew what role they could play in a critical time.

It was already the seventh day, Gu Tao silently calculated in his heart, a round trip between here and Liangshan, even the fastest ship would take more than ten days, even if his two messengers rushed to Liangshan at the fastest speed, then now the most reinforcements on the mountain will only arrive in Qizhou. And the information brought back by his subordinates these days has made him very uneasy, and there have been many strangers in the small collection recently, many of whom do not seem to be good, and even some of them have sneakily or blatantly spied on the docks.

This Gu Tao is the brother of Gu Haotian's generation, and because he is a few years older, he did not join the escort team, so compared to Gu Bo, he has also lost a lot of opportunities to get ahead. A few days ago, Duan Jingzhu led a team north to Liaodi, and he took the initiative to sign up to join the caravan with a few people from the Commercial Office.

At this moment, Gu Tao was standing in the cabin, looking at the unknown people coming and going on the dock, and couldn't help but sigh secretly, the horse's information was leaked after all! But the reinforcements would hold out for a few more days. He thought about it for a long time, and finally made up his mind, and secretly said to himself, I, Gu Tao, must not be a bad seed.

Let's say that in an unknown small inn by the port of the Three Forks River, more than ten fierce men have lived in the past two days, the first of whom is nearly forty years old and has red hair and yellow beard, but he is a strong man. And at this moment, he was sitting in front of the window, holding a wine glass, staring at a few merchant ships in the port with his eyes faintly, and secretly scheming in his heart that he was proud that the good fortune of the old man had made me pick up such a big bargain.

Who is this person, but it is Yanshun, the brocade-haired tiger who eats people's hearts and sobering soup in the Water Margin. When Yan Shun was originally from Laizhou, he was originally a dealer in the trade of sheep and horses, and when he negotiated a deal with a merchant on the underworld a few days ago, he wanted to eat black and make a profit, and he didn't want the other party to be good at stubble, so he not only did not get cheap but lost his capital. In order to escape from the government, a few days ago he took a group of men to rob a boat, preparing to go to Qingzhou Qingfeng Mountain to occupy the mountain as the king, but when the boat entered the water and went ashore to buy food, he heard that someone bought a large amount of forage. He was originally a horse and sheep trader, and immediately thought that there were a large number of livestock nearby, and if he robbed it, it could be used as the capital to build a cottage.

So after he had inquired clearly, he led his men down to the Three Forks, and after a few days of observation, he knew that this caravan was loaded with horses, and there were no men. The only trouble was that the shopkeeper of the merchant ship was more alert, and the anchorage of the ship was some distance from the dock, and if he wanted to attack, he had to take a ship to get there, and it would be difficult to succeed if he was accidentally detected by the merchant ship and fled to the sea. In the past two days, he tried in many ways, and finally subdued a few local splashes, so that they secretly contacted many ships, and only waited for the sunset tide tomorrow, when the remaining merchant ships were heavy and difficult to travel, and blocked the retreat at the back, and attacked the ships himself.

Thinking about the hundreds of good horses that were going to be in his hands, Yan Shun's eyes were blazing as if they were about to burst into flames.

"Gou Wu and Zhu San, how are they preparing?" He turned back and asked one of his subordinates.

"Don't worry, boss, it's all right."

"Humph! Let the brothers wake up and do it tomorrow night. He took a sip of the wine, got up, and walked out.

Seeing some boats suddenly appearing around and the increasing number of strangers on the dock, Gu Tao knew in his heart that a crisis was imminent. He immediately gathered a few henchmen, and after some deliberation, decided that when the tide rose after midnight, the fleet would rush to the sea to find another anchorage.

When the night wind was high and the moon was dark, and at midnight and noon, the tide level gradually rose, Gu Tao stood at the stern of the boat, and was about to give the order to set sail to the open sea, but saw the helmsman next to him suddenly said:

"Look, shopkeeper, there's a boat coming over there."

Gu Tao turned his head to look when he heard the sound, and sure enough, a small boat was gradually approaching the merchant ship in the dark sea, and then while the helmsmen were anxiously waiting, he aborted the order to stop sailing, and all the merchant ships returned to calm.