After a round of not exciting battles, the heads-up between Cai Zhongguang of the Whirlwind team and Zhang Zhaoen of the Wind Chaser finally ended with Cai Zhongguang's complete victory.

Zhang Zhaoen, who has been cultivating for a few months, is not Cai Zhongguang's opponent who has always insisted on training, and he was picked off by Cai Zhongguang in three games.

Zhang Zhaoen, who was over, was extremely disappointed after the heads-up, and found a corner where no one was to grieve. And Cai Shanyuan and other children who are studying in Jinding Mountain, they are all cheering.

Some of the children in Jindingshan couldn't get used to their stinky fart, and kept pouring cold water on the side, saying that their injured husband had defeated Cai Zhongming. And Zhang Mengguang and Ma Xiangzhong are even more powerful than Mr., and Artemisia Peak is taking advantage of the absence of other leaders of Jinding Mountain to barely succeed here.

Cai Shanyuan and the others naturally refused to agree, and they said in unison that the big boss of Artemisia Peak was more powerful than the Whirlwind Team, and even Zhang Mengcheng was a teacher who worshiped Cai Zhongming.

As for Zhang Mengguang, the most powerful person in Jinding Mountain, he was lucky to win by luck just by playing a small trick, which is not something to brag about.

The nonsense of the children on both sides was forcefully stopped by Zhang Mengcheng before it caused a violent conflict. Although the injury has not yet recovered, it is not very difficult for Zhang Mengcheng to punish the student with a whip.

Cai Qixian didn't want Zhang Mengcheng to be too aggressive, so she stopped Zhang Mengcheng halfway through the punishment. However, this is not a good thing for the students in the cottage, and then she replaced Zhang Mengcheng for corporal punishment, so that all the punished students know the horror of the female general Artemisia.

After Zhang Mengcheng supervised the corporal punishment, he found Zhang Zhaoen, who had not yet recovered from depression, and said: "Don't care so much, there are not many people like Cai Zhongguang. And you're still recovering from training during this time, and it's normal that you can't beat others. ”

Zhang Zhaoen looked up at Zhang Mengcheng and asked quietly, "Fifteenth Uncle, you have defeated the Whirlwind Team at the top of Artemisia before. How much do you think he is different from the last time he competed with you? ”

Although Zhang Zhaoen's reaction was not as imposing as usual, his unyielding eyes showed that he was still the competitive tiger he was at the beginning.

Zhang Mengcheng recalled the previous scene and replied after weighing it: "It's certain that he is stronger than the original, but I can't say how much stronger he has become." Although I won the heads-up in the past, if it was on the battlefield, I would not be Cai Zhongguang's opponent. If that guy continues to get stronger, maybe even your ninth uncle will be able to restrain him. ”

After Zhang Zhaoen listened to Zhang Mengcheng's words, he fell silent. Zhang Mengcheng chose to leave at this time, because he knew his nephew and already knew that Huzi would definitely become stronger in the future.

A few days after Cai Zhongguang left, the people of Jindingshan found that Zhang Zhaoen's usual training was more. He had always only practiced swordsmanship before, but now Zhang Zhaoen has added a line gun practice.

In the days that followed, Zhang Mengcheng paid close attention to Hong Chengchou's "order to cut hair and avoid killing". and helped some fugitive thieves recently received in Jinding Cottage to be safely sent to Huanxian County to receive death free tickets. So that they can be truly pardoned in the legal sense.

Hong Chengchou's strategy to appease the thieves was quite effective, and on 23 August, Hong Chengchou even personally came to Huanxian to appease them. As soon as the refugees who were coerced by the thieves heard that the government had issued a "haircut and no killing order", they secretly looked for an opportunity to escape from the thieves' lair with their families.

By 25 September, there were more than 4,000 thieves and men who had received death free tickets in Huan County. After these people were pardoned, they returned to their hometown peacefully and began to live a peaceful life.

The thousands of people who could not go to Huanxian to get death tickets were gathered by Hong Chengchou and successively resettled in Dingbian Camp and Ningxia Guard. (Note 1)

At the same time as coercing the thieves, Hong Chengchou also sent the banner officials Bai Wenzhao and Guo Jinxiao to carry out counter-plots in the old nests of the thieves in the name of appeasement, so that the thieves could kill each other.

There was indeed a division among the thieves in the days that followed, but Bai Guangen, a branch of thieves flying from the sky, had secretly surrendered to the official army.

Under Hong Chengchou's planning, the strength of the thieves in the thief's nest was greatly reduced, and the time was gradually ripe for attack.

However, in the past month or so, Shaanxi's officers and troops have not been without nothing to do. Some of the remaining thieves in various places were wiped out by the official army. Zhang Mengjin, who had been training in the Jingbian camp for a period of time, attacked the thieves who fled to Ansai, Baoan and other places under the order of Dai Junen.

……

In a wilderness in Ansai County, the bodies of three thieves were covered in blood. Judging from the wounds on their bodies, they must have all been shot with bows and arrows by good marksmen. A young man, after removing the feathered arrows from them, pulled out his decapitation knife and was cutting off their heads.

"Hurry up, it's time for us to join the rest of the brothers." Zhou Shaoteng saw that Li Dan wanted to cut off his head, so he hurriedly stopped him and asked him to keep up with the team's actions as soon as possible.

Hearing Zhou Shaoteng's words, Li Dan sped up the speed of cutting the head. Since the last time the big boss said that he would go to the sentry cavalry team to exercise, Li Dan has been learning various things by Zhou Shaoteng and Fan Shunjiang for a while. For example, this outpost, he has seen how to completely destroy the opponent's sentry horse.

Although he failed to capture a tongue alive, the experienced Zhou Shaoteng had already judged the general direction of the thief and the distance between the thief and them from a few subtle traces.

Li Dan, who had completed the work, rode on his horse and followed Zhou Shaoteng to continue to move forward.

In general, a complete sentry cavalry team at Jinding Mountain has at least twenty people. However, when they go out to work, they do not all huddle together, but divide their forces again according to different situations. Like Zhou Shaoteng's outpost, he divided two more teams to move around.

This ambush of the rogue sentry cavalry was only completed by Zhou Shaoteng leading more than ten subordinates around him.

Seeing that Li Dan had already ridden to his side, Zhou Shaoteng opened his mouth and said to him: "We bumped into the thief sentry, and other brothers may also encounter it." Now that the time for the rendezvous is approaching, we should go to the rendezvous as soon as possible to see if the other brothers have found anything. ”

When Li Dan followed Zhou Shaoteng for several miles, they successfully arrived at the meeting point. Zhou Shaoteng did not rush over, but dismounted and made a little detour and learned a few bird calls.

After waiting for a signal from the other side, he beckoned his subordinates to come over with peace of mind.

Among the subordinates who came to converge, one of them did not gain much. The other team captured a rogue's sentry rider and brought back a head and two rogue's horses.

The captain of this Wu has been interrogating the thieves for a while, and the thieves are now very close to them. Moreover, the thieves' brigade has already set up camp and has no intention of acting again today.

Zhou Shaoteng looked at the captured thieves, and then turned to Li Dan and said, "Danzi take out those heads and let him recognize them." ”

Li Dan immediately put the three heads he had cut in front of the captive, and said to the thief: "Do you know the people here, reply honestly, otherwise you are good-looking." ”

The wound on the leg of the captured thief was still bleeding, and he covered his wound and replied: "I was with them, and I was separated before." The one with a scar on his eyebrows is the brother-in-law of Lu Bu, the big boss. ”

Li Dan looked at Zhou Shaoteng, and the other party nodded and motioned for him to continue.

"How many sentinels have been sent from your battalion, are there any other sentinels in the vicinity, and how often do you report back to the old battalion?"

Li Dan recalled the main points that Zhou Shaoteng and Fan Shunjiang said before, and he was slowly putting into practice what he had learned.

"There's no one else around here except the five of us. There should be three men five miles to the south, and they should continue to the southeast. We should have paid back once in an hour, and now we should have more than half an hour. ”

"How many people are there in the old camp of thieves, and what other leaders are there besides Xing Lu Bu?" ……

Under Li Dan's interrogation, the thief captive recruited everything he knew.

After that, Zhou Shaoteng asked a few more questions that Li Dan had forgotten, and rushed back to the area where the rear army was located with the prisoners. Zhang Mengjin and the others were resting in a ravine more than ten miles away, and there were more than 600 horse infantry around them.

"Big boss, most of the thieves have noticed that they are missing a few sentry riders. We must get the horsemen over as quickly as possible and block them in the camp. Although the thief camp was set up on the mountain, it was difficult for the horsemen to attack. However, there are not many thieves, and we should be able to stop them. ”

After Zhou Shaoteng reported the information he had detected, he expressed his judgment.

"Just rushed over with the cavalry, the thieves ran away, but it was second, I was afraid that we would be ambushed by the thieves."

Guan Zhiqing is not very supportive of blind pursuit, and his ideas are still relatively conservative.

Zhao Wankui did not remain silent because of Second Brother Guan's opposition, and he also supported an immediate attack.

"Otherwise, let's try it and divide into two teams. Most of the thieves are a rabble, and even if the front team does encounter an ambush, they can successfully break the siege with the help of the back team. ”

"If you are not afraid of 10,000, you are afraid of what happens, Cao Wenzhao was ambushed before, and many soldiers were killed and wounded. How long has it been since the two hundred soldiers in our camp were added, and if we couldn't rely on it during the war, our casualties might be even greater than the previous battle of the security guards. ”

Yu Baocheng also did not support a blind attack, Che Jibao was killed not long ago, and he didn't want his brothers to have another accident.

The opinions of the leaders of his subordinates were different, and Zhang Mengjin did not immediately express his position, but chose to continue to think. At this time, Fan Shunjiang, another leader of the sentry cavalry, also came back with the information he had sought.

Fan Shunjiang did not go out this time and did not engage the enemy, but successfully avoided the enemy's sentry horse, and found out the enemy situation in the other direction without anyone noticing. "The big boss, the other way of thieves is the subordinates of the king of one word. There were quite a few of them, and they were rushing in the direction of another gang of thieves. ”

Knowing that the two gangs of thieves were converging, Zhang Mengjin finally decided not to take the risk. Instead, he took his men and horses to stand still, intending to wait for the thieves to converge before making plans. Later, Zhang Mengjin sent some sentry cavalry to continue to monitor, while the officers and soldiers of the battalion began to eat and rest.

When the two thieves converged, it was already Wuxu time. And the sentry sent out by Zhang Mengjin also brought back the news that the thieves did not seem to plan to move the camp. However, Zhang Mengjin still did not agree to his subordinates' request to attack immediately, but asked them to wait until the time of the day before ordering his subordinates to quietly walk out of the camp.

PS: Note 1: The source of this time is Zheng Tianting's "Historical Materials of the Peasant Uprising in the Late Ming Dynasty", "The Ministry of War is entitled to Gong Bao and Punish Qu Kui and Other Things". In "Guoyu", "Huailing Liukou Always Record", "Suikou Jilu" and "Chongzhen Record", these appeasements are only vaguely mentioned in August, and it is easy for people to mistakenly think that the appeasement has been completed in August.