Li Cunliang got the news from the child Liu Jin and hurriedly took action. There were only the 1st Company of the 13th Battalion and the 1st Regiment Headquarters Guard Platoon on standby and a few brocade guards, so Li Cunliang took them all without hesitation and went straight to Jin Ziguan.

The mountains are high and the roads are far away, and the ravines are vertical and horizontal. After walking for most of the day, Li Cunliang, who was pampered and pampered, was already upset by the horses under his crotch. Those soldiers who had no horses to ride were even more sweaty, sticking out their tongues and panting.

"Young master, the little one can't do it!" Li Er, who was pulling the horse's tail, had a pale face and straight eyes. He staggered and stammered.

"Useless dog!" The anxious Li Cunliang scolded. He raised his whip and whipped it hard on the horse's buttocks. The horse was in pain, struggled to run, and brought Li Er, who was unguarded, to the ground.

"Young Master! Help ......" Before Li Er's words fell, his body had already slid rapidly along the slope of the mountain road, falling towards the abyss on the right.

When Li Cunliang heard the voice, his eyes glanced back, and he was suddenly shocked into a cold sweat. But others are on the horse, and they can't reach Li Er.

Seeing that the tragedy was about to happen, it was too late to say that it was too late, and a soldier sprang out of the marching column. He strode forward and stretched out the spear shaft in his hand to Li Er.

A miracle happened.

There was an iron hook in front of the spear shaft, and the tip of the hook grabbed Li Er's pants with one click, which immediately slowed down the sliding speed of his body. Li Er's life hangs by a thread, where can he care about showing his cheeks at this time. He shaved with his hands wide open, and luckily grabbed a small sapling with his right hand. The two points were stressed at the same time, and Li Er's body finally hung firmly on the edge of the cliff!

The soldiers didn't care about wiping their sweat, and rushed up, breaking their fingers, pulling their hair, pulling their ears, and pulling their pants, so they finally saved Li Er from the line of life and death.

"Young master, the villain almost won't see you......" Li Erhan knelt on the grass and twitched. I saw him burst into tears, his white buttocks exposed, and a fluffy horsetail grass in the gutter, which made the soldiers around him laugh.

"Fool, don't tie your pants yet!" Li Cunliang scolded.

When Li Er hurriedly fastened his trouser belt and began to giggle, he hit the master on the head again.

"Thank you for your lifesaver!"

Li Er finally came back to his senses and hurriedly thanked the soldier who saved his life. The soldier was shy. He muttered a few words, waved his hand vigorously, meaning that he didn't need to thank him, and hurriedly ran back to the marching column.

"You, out of the ranks, follow this prison army!" Li Cunliang asked the soldier to come to the horse by name. Only then did Li Cunliang notice that the soldier was not tall, his skin was dark, and he had a thick hemp rope wrapped around his waist.

"Your weapon is not a short spear for the Protectors!" Li Cun curiously pointed to the short spear with an iron hook in the soldier's hand and asked, "Is this the hook and sickle on the stage?" ”

"Hook and sickle?"

The shy soldier shook his head and denied it.

"The villain's village is called a white-pole gun."

"White pole guns?" Li Cunliang was taken aback. He stretched out his hand to ask for the white-pole gun, and appreciated this famous magic weapon in China. I saw that the barrel of the gun was unpainted, about one zhang long, with an iron hook at the head and an iron ring at the tail.

Li Cunliang played with the white pole gun and finally returned it to the soldier. Li Cunliang asked, why don't you use the standard short spear of the Protector Army, but use this white pole gun? What's the matter with the rope around your waist?

The company commander said that the thugs were hiding in the mountains. We slaughter thieves and go around the mountains every day. The white pole gun has an iron hook and an iron ring, which is easy to hook and hang before and after, and is a sharp weapon for climbing. So he asked me to take the rope with me, and when I came across a cliff, I went up to take the lead. ”

Li Cunliang nodded, and asked again: "Are you the white pole soldier of Shi Yan Qin Liangyu?" How did you get to the Protectors? ”

"The year before last, Zhang Xianzhong entered Sichuan, Zhang Ling the old general died in the battle of Zhuyiping, the old lady led our stone soldiers to rescue in a hurry, and the result was a big defeat, 30,000 people were lost, and the rest had to retreat to Chongqing. The old lady went to Chongqing to meet Shao Fu and asked for the requisition of local soldiers for emergency relief, Shao Fu Tui said, no money and no salary. The old lady was so angry that she cried and scolded: Men are not as good as women, Han people are not as good as natives, and officials are not as good as ordinary people!

Later, the thieves attacked Bazhou and Guangyuan, and the old lady led the army to withdraw to Zhongzhou. The villain was injured in Zhujiping, and the eldest brother was also separated, so he stayed in Chongqing to recuperate. Later, when the injury was healed, General Zhao recruited troops, and the villain joined the official army in order to eat and pay. The official army was defeated at the Xixi River, and the villain joined the Protector Army again. ”

The stone soldier opened the conversation, lost his shyness, and began to talk endlessly about the stone soldier and the old lady. Li Cunliang, a gentleman from the Beijing Division, became more and more silent the more he listened, and finally asked: "Since the Banzhou Rebellion, you Shi Yan have sent troops to fight everywhere, are there still men who can fight?" ”

When the stone soldier heard the question of the overseer, there was still some suspicion in his words, and he suddenly became arrogant: "Why not?" There are not tens of thousands of men in the stone, but thousands! Besides, the men, women, and children of all ages can go into battle to kill the enemy! The old lady once told us that if it weren't for the civil officials of the imperial court who love money and the military attachés who are afraid of death, the Ming Dynasty would not have ended up like it is today!

My uncle followed Qin Bangping and Qin Minping to Shenyang, and fought a bloody battle with the Eight Banners of the Tartars by the Hunhe River, and the Tartars attacked several times, all of which were defeated by our army. If it weren't for the mutiny of those officers and gunners, we would ......"

When the stone soldier said this, he suddenly became sad.

"Is your dad still there? Do you have any siblings at home? Li Cunliang asked softly.

"The villain's father is still here, and now he is guarding Xiangyang with the young master. My mother is old and stays in Shiyan. The two sisters are widowed, the two younger sisters are not married, and the villain is most worried about the eldest brother, but he doesn't know life and death......"

The young master in Shi Yanbing's mouth is naturally Qin Liangyu's son, Ma Xianglin, the consolation envoy of the Shizhu Propaganda Division. Li Cunliang was silent for a while, and then asked:

"I heard that your Tujia is widowed, and you can remarry......"

Li Cunliang's kindness was interrupted by Shi Yanbing: "Although the Ma family is a toast, it is not a Tujia!" The genealogy is clearly written, we are all descendants of General Fubo Ma Yuan! So our Ma family is Han, not barbarian! ”

Li Cunliang suddenly realized: "Oh, it turns out that you are the same as the Tianquan Gao family!" It's all Han toast!"

"Hey, Brother Ma, it turns out that you are Han!" Li Er, who was pulling the horse's tail, listened to what was being said in front of him and couldn't help but interject. Facing the life-saving benefactor, Li Er had the heart to help, so he asked: "The young master asked you, why didn't your sister and your sister get married?" If you lack a dowry of silver and two taels, just tell my brother that I will eat the court money anyway. There are no 100 taels of silver, but there are still 10 taels......"

"It's not that there is a lack of dowry. It's just that there are too many women and too few men! It's not easy to find a good man! The stone soldier told the truth with frustration and helplessness.

The three of them were pulling the family routine, and before they knew it, the time (three o'clock in the afternoon) had passed. The front comes to report, and it is close to the stone archway of the golden purple view of the front mountain.

"Go back and forth, don't stay, go directly to the Golden Purple Temple for dinner!" Li Cunliang finished giving the order, and then shouted at the soldiers, "This prison army is waiting for the bull noses to bring out a big bowl of sweat medicine!" ”

……

Jiang Dou followed behind the platoon leader, inhaling a puff of air into his nostrils from time to time.

The mountain road is narrow, turning left and right, and the flowers and green grass are struggling in the spring breeze, almost obscuring the road. The only thing that is somewhat discordant with this flourishing scene is the faint stench in the air. The stench lingered, like a miasma permeating the valley, everywhere.

"Corpse stench!" Ma Xun came to an unquestioning conclusion. The further you go, the more noticeable the stench is. At the end of the mountain road, you will come to a cliff that stands tall for a thousand feet. Climbing up the rocks, everyone suddenly found that there was a small cave on the cliff, but the entrance to the cave had been blocked by mud.

"The entrance to the cave is not blocked!" Jiang Dou covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and pointed to a small gap above the hole.

Jiang Dou's major discovery made Ma Xun shake his head. He bent forward, took a closer look at the dirt at the entrance of the cave, and then pointed to the paw prints left on the gap and said, "The thief is very delicate, and the entrance to the cave is tightly sealed. It's just that a wise man thinks a thousand times, and there will be a mistake. Thieves do not often enter the mountains, so they think that sealing their mouths with soil can destroy corpses and destroy traces. He didn't expect that there were wolves in the mountains, and human noses couldn't compare to wolf noses! ”

"Wolves!" Jiang Dou and a few soldiers quickly looked at each other, and their cold hairs stood up.

"What kind of wolf is there in broad daylight? What are you still doing? Put on your mask, let's go up and dig a cave! Ma Xun yelled and ordered.

An hour later, Jiang Dou and a few other soldiers followed Ma Xun back to Fujiqiao.

The hellish scene in the cave kept drilling into Jiang Dou's brain like that stench. human corpses and horse bones are piled up in stacks; Corpses and rotten flesh flowed all over the ground. According to the degree of decay and the knives, guns, clothing and ornaments left behind, even if the number of corpses has not been counted, everyone still agrees that this is Wang Gao and Wang Guangxing's group of missing local thugs.

However, the obvious mystery is: where did the gold and silver go? Was he taken away by the thieves who killed him? No way. Even people like Jiang Dou who are not smart enough know that this batch of gold and silver is nearby!

"Platoon commander, I think it's more important to find out where the gold and silver are buried! The battalion headquarters reported that this batch of gold and silver was more than 300,000 taels, and it was impossible to pull it too far, and it must be hidden nearby! ”

"In that case, you should take two people to stay here!" Ma Xun walked in his head without looking back.

"Then you do ......"

"I'll take the rest of the soldiers and go to the Golden Purple Temple to arrest people!"

"How do you know that it was the Taoist in the Golden Purple View who did it?"

"Did you know there was a rattan bridge here?" Ma Xun asked as he walked, walking like flying.

"I'm from Chengdu, how do I know ......?"

"Did you know there was a cave on the other side of the canyon?"

"As I said, I'm ...... Platoon commander," Jiang Dou suddenly shouted, "You mean this is done by locals?" ”

Ma Xun didn't answer or stop, just took the time to glance back at Jiang Dou.

"Jin Ziguan is the most suspicious recently!" Jiang Dou has already understood. But when he took off his eight-petal helmet and scratched his scalp, he immediately became embarrassed.

"Platoon leader, except for the old immortals in the Golden Purple Temple, they are all Taoists! Do we want to detain all those Taoists and send them to the battalion headquarters for interrogation? There are hundreds of Taoists in the Golden Purple Temple, and there are orders in the camp that are not allowed to ......."

"That's the dead man and dead horse in the cave in the camp!"

Ma Xun suddenly stopped, turned to Jiang Dou and said coldly: "The general is outside, and the military order is not subject to it!" The general's order is naturally the general's responsibility, and it's not your turn to worry! ”

Seeing that the platoon commander had misunderstood, Jiang Dou hurriedly explained that what he meant was to send someone down the mountain to send a letter for help while surrounding Jin Ziguan.

"Send a letter to report that this is natural!" Ma Xun immediately agreed to Jiang Dou's suggestion. However, he pondered for a moment, then shook his head and rejected the suggestion to surround the Taoist temple.

"There will be no more than ten people who will do this! Only besieged and not attacked, it was a good opportunity for those thieves to incite demagoguery! So we're out there, and it's dangerous! You must take advantage of their unpreparedness to immediately control all the Daoists, and then report slowly and wait for reinforcements! ”

"Platoon commander, how can you be sure that there are no more than ten thieves in the Golden Purple Temple?" A soldier asked.

"300,000 taels of gold and silver, more than 200 lives! In such a monstrous case, the fewer people who know about it, the better! Ma Xun replied confidently.