Gao Huaiyuan never thought that Dong Qiang had dealt with lake thieves before, and when he asked about his life experience, he knew that Dong Qiang was also a person near Niangzi Lake, and his home was in the mountains near Niangzi Lake.

Therefore, Dong Qiang learned hunting with his father since he was a child, practiced a good archery, and later met an old Taoist who knew kung fu and passed on his kung fu, so he was a relatively good figure in the local area.

And Dong Qiang has a distant relative, who has had a good relationship since childhood, and in the first few years, because he offended Li Zheng, he was forced to go down to Niangzi Lake as a thief, and he once pulled Dong Qiang into the water to do businessless business together.

But Dong Qiang disdains to be a thief, or to be his hunter, but he has never broken off contact with this relative, so he knows more about lake pirates.

The two took completely different paths, Dong Qiang was later invited by Li Zheng to be the deputy head of the club because of the formation of the bow and arrow club in the township, responsible for training the township of the bow and arrow club, thinking that one day he could show his face and make a name for himself, so he personally ended up in the bow and arrow club competition organized by the county government and won the first place in archery.

But after hearing the news of the lake bandits' massacre of Jinjia Village, Dong Qiang's heart became active, especially after Gao Huaiyuan arrived in Jinjia Village, seeing so many innocent people killed by the lake bandits, he was very indignant in his heart, so he didn't want his relative to be mixed in the lake thieves anymore, the province did too much evil, and he was destroyed by the government in the future, which can be regarded as a friend's righteous anger, and he wanted to pull him at this time.

Therefore, Dong Qiang thought about it for a few days, and saw that Gao Huaiyuan, a young county lieutenant, was also a good person, very decent and valued him, so he made up his mind to say this.

"Why didn't you tell me about it sooner? It's really hard to find nowhere to step on the iron shoes, and it takes no effort to get it! The official promised you that as long as you can persuade your relative to oppose the water and help us exterminate the lake thieves in one fell swoop, the official will reward him and return him to an innocent body, and as long as you do this, the official sees that you have a good ability, so stay in the township and bend your talents, and turn back to find an errand for you in the county office, it is better than you continue to be a hunter in the mountains! Gao Huaiyuan said to Dong Qiang.

Dong Qiang hurriedly bowed down and thanked Gao Huaiyuan, this time he felt that he had finally not lost the old Dong family, and finally had a chance to get ahead, and immediately patted his chest and promised to contact his brother, persuade him to turn against the water, and help Gao Huaiyuan exterminate the lake thieves.

After Dong Qiang promised Gao Huaiyuan, he didn't dare to slack off, and soon returned home, and kept running to find the place where his relative often went ashore and settled, waited for two days, and finally guarded his relative.

And his brother is Ma San, who instigated Zhao Baiyu and Jiang Harrier to turn against each other.

It turns out that the water thieves in Niangzi Lake are not monolithic, originally these water thieves were not Jiang Harrier, originally a thief named Liang Baocheng was a big boss, but Jiang Harrier invested in them three years ago, and his kung fu was very good, and he was valued by this Liang Baocheng, and he was mentioned as the leader of the lake pirates.

And this Jiang Harrier is a very insidious guy, and he didn't plan to pull him down with just a small leader, so after becoming the leader, he began to form a gang among the thieves, and faintly formed his own power, and unknowingly took Liang Baocheng's position.

When Liang Baocheng found out, it was too late to get rid of Jiang Harrier, but he was killed by Jiang Harrier, and the second master surnamed Ping and Zhao Baiyu, the third master, were the subordinates who helped Jiang Harrier to take the position, originally both of them went into the water earlier than Jiang Harrier, but then Jiang Harrier's ability was greater than them, and his kung fu was better than them, and he raised more than a dozen hardcore subordinates in the thief group, and the two could only follow him to do things.

After Jiang Harrier sat on the top spot, he was a little arrogant, and no longer put Zhao Baiyu in his eyes, thinking that Zhao Baiyu was not only good at water, but also a reckless man who could only fight and kill, and was very unkind to Zhao Baiyu and Ping Er, in fact, it had already caused the dissatisfaction of Zhao Baiyu and Ping, this kind of thing is naturally not clear to outsiders, only people inside them know.

So after Dong Qiang persuaded Ma San, the situation of the lake thieves was all exposed in front of Gao Huaiyuan, and Gao Huaiyuan understood it clearly.

When he learned about such a secret among the lake thieves, Jia Qi had a plan, so he came up with an idea for Gao Huaiyuan, which was to use Ma San to sow discord between them, first let their gang of thieves split from the inside, first cause internal strife, and then take them down from the outside in one fell swoop.

Therefore, Gao Huaiyuan adopted Jia Qi's method, tightly sealed the news within the scope of a few people knowing, and ordered Dong Qiang to secretly contact Ma San, and brought Ma San to the shore to meet Gao Huaiyuan.

Gao Huaiyuan made a promise to Ma San in person, which made Ma San completely relieved.

Therefore, after Ma San returned to the thief's den, he began to fan the flames in Zhao Baiyu's ears, inciting Zhao Baiyu's dissatisfaction with Jiang Harrier, and gradually said that Zhao Baiyu had murderous intentions towards Jiang Harrier.

During this period of time, Gao Huaiyuan did not immediately attack these water thieves, but arranged them step by step, first transferred more than 200 villagers from various townships in the county, and Chen Bing was on the shore of the lake, and ordered Zhou Hao and others to train these villagers every day.

In addition, through the local Lizheng, the elder and others mobilized a large number of fishing boats in the fishing boats along the coast, as a bandit, and the mobilization of fishing boats as a whole was very smooth, the fishermen also heard about the matter of Jinjia Village, and they were very resentful of what the lake thieves did, they were all fishermen living on the shore of Niangzi Lake, and they felt a little bit of the same hatred for this matter, if they did not exterminate this gang of lake bandits, God knows when such a tragic thing in Jinjia Village fell on their heads, Therefore, when they heard that the government had requisitioned fishing boats to suppress the bandits, they put down their work and rushed to obey orders.

If it is placed in normal times, the government summons them to serve, and the fishermen are reluctant, but this time the government is clearly to stand up for the people, so the people will agree so readily to help the government suppress bandits, otherwise, I am afraid that it will be difficult for Gao Huaiyuan to get some boats!

And this time, many fishermen not only went out of the boat, but also sent people to work for the government, supporting the boat and steering the boat for Gao Huaiyuan's township soldiers, and for a time dozens of large and small fishing boats gathered on the edge of Niangzi Lake, which was quite considerable.

As for the money and food, after Liu Zhixian was allocated by Gao Huaiyuan, he immediately knew how to handle it, and after returning to the county, he quickly sorted out a detailed account of the Jinjiacun case, and sent someone to the Ezhou prefect quickly, asking the prefect to arrange it, and send troops to encircle and suppress the water thieves.

However, the prefect of this kind of big case could not sit idly by, so he sent it back to Daye County, ordered Daye County to dispose of it as appropriate, and kicked the ball back to Daye County, but the prefect did not burp in terms of money and food, and immediately allocated some money and grain, which was regarded as supporting Daye County's encirclement and suppression of bandits.

In addition, Gao Huaiyuan thought that in the name of doing things for the locals in the Liangzihu area, he knocked out a lot of money from those rich families to fund the military, and the problem of money and food was solved.

This time, whether it was the townspeople who came from various townships to suppress the bandits, or the fishermen who came to help, they ate and drank good food every day, and everyone had money to get, and this kind of treatment naturally made these people angry, and they vowed to exterminate the lake bandits.

But after doing these things, Gao Huaiyuan did not immediately send troops to find the lake bandits' den and confront them, but first launched a military training operation in Niangzi Lake.

This crackdown on bandits is different from the previous arrest of thieves, once the action is basically to solve the problem on the water, the battle on the ground is not a problem, this Gao Huai is far more clear than anyone else, if he boards the boat in such a chaotic manner and goes to the lake to suppress the bandits, he is afraid that not only can not solve the lake bandits, but will be defeated by the lake bandits, in that case, he, the official of the county lieutenant, will be regarded as the end, not to mention the loss of office, this reputation will be completely messed up.

And this is also about the lives of hundreds of people, Gao Huaiyuan naturally didn't dare to be careless, so the first step was to familiarize the villagers with water warfare.

Gao Huaiyuan has no experience in water warfare, although he knows water, but the water nature is not too high, that is, self-preservation, the kung fu that can be performed in the water is less than two percent on land, and the first time he commanded so many people in the water war, he is not very sure, considering that it is safe, he then went to the swamp mountain township, asked people to visit the vicinity, looking for people familiar with the method of water warfare to help, and at the same time selected the best people in the township to form a special team to fight in the water, a total of more than 100 people were selected, including both township warriors, There are also some local fishermen who specialize in launching their boats to protect their boats from underwater attacks by water thieves.

In addition, it is said that among the thieves there is a relatively large boat, which can carry dozens of people, compared with the largest boat in his hand, which can only hold more than 20 people.

The rest of the men were assigned to a specially designated fishing boat in groups of five or ten, so that the confusion would occur during the operation, so that these people could be familiar with the people who were driving the boat.

After some arrangement, a certain combat effectiveness was roughly initially formed, but fortunately, the vast majority of the southerners knew how to water, and they were not afraid of too much chaos when the battle began.

But after some searching, Gao Huaiyuan did not find someone who was good at commanding water warfare to help, and in the end he could only solve the problem on his own, so he could only brainstorm and train according to the methods of water warfare recorded in the books.

Water warfare in rivers and lakes was originally very exquisite, but regular water warfare did not play much role here, and their ships were not real warships, so after brainstorming, they also came up with a lot of tactics to deal with water thieves.

Gao Huaiyuan decided to make full use of the advantages of his own archers, reduce the time of the battle with the other party as much as possible, and use the things at hand, collected a lot of long pennies, installed iron hooks, and let the villagers put them on the boat for backup, and each boat was equipped with shield hands as much as possible to cover their archers, and at the same time on some slightly larger ships with more pikemen, and with slightly larger ships as the main force, to finally use the decisive battle with the water thieves, Initially build up a grasshopper fleet.

After completing these arrangements, he began to lead his troops to conduct drills in the lake in the past few days, inviting the local old fishermen to divide their troops into sparring exercises as imaginary enemies, which was also the way he could now improve his combat effectiveness as quickly as possible.

After several drills, the water battle drill finally began to look a little more presentable, and each ship began to be able to advance and retreat according to the dispatch and cooperate with each other, which also greatly enhanced Gao Huaiyuan's confidence.

The news that the township soldiers were practicing water warfare on the lake soon spread to the lair of the lake bandits through the ears and eyes of the lake bandits, so Jiang Harrier felt even more nervous, these days since he learned that the Daye County government sent troops to suppress it, Jiang Harrier was a little uneasy, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt annoyed with Zhao Baiyu, complaining that it was all the trouble caused by this guy, so that they could live a peaceful life all day long.

So Jiang Harrier's temper was also much worse, and when he saw Zhao Baiyu's gang from time to time, he was angry, and he opened his mouth to scold when he raised his hand, and the result was that Zhao Baiyu had a deeper resentment towards him, and his determination to kill him was much greater, so Zhao Baiyu also stepped up his actions and began to quietly gather forces among the lake bandits, in order to launch it on a later day and kill Jiang Harrier instead.

Jiang Harrier was originally a very alert person, but during this period of time, he focused on the affairs of the government, and he didn't notice the movements of his own people, neglected the monitoring of his subordinates, and sent people to cruise around the island every day to prevent being attacked by the townsmen of the government.

Gao Huaiyuan's original plan was half successful, at least he had succeeded in disturbing the lake bandits, and gradually divided them into two rows.

Thieves are thieves in the end, they are just a group of rabble gathered together for the sake of interests, once such a situation occurs, the cohesion is naturally much smaller, and Jiang Harrier strictly ordered that the thieves are not allowed to go ashore or go out to rob during this time, so that there is a lot of dissatisfaction among the subordinates who are used to being idle all day.

The leaders are okay to say, at least the women on the island who were captured by them can serve them, but the minions can't get a little fishy, so naturally some people will be dissatisfied, so under the pull of Zhao Baiyu, many thieves gradually fell to Zhao Baiyu and began to resent the grumpy Jiang Harrier.

This time, in the eyes of the thieves, Zhao Baiyu was not very wrong, he led people to slaughter the village, but he was also angry for his brothers, but he was beaten and scolded by Jiang Harrier, many people still sympathized with Zhao Baiyu from the heart, plus the discomfort on the island, they always felt that Jiang Harrier was too timid in this matter, and felt that with their strength and ability, even if the villagers came, they had nothing to fear, so this dissatisfaction began to accumulate more and more.

Since this incident happened on the island, only a few people like Ma San, who are responsible for going out to buy things and inquiring about the news, can go ashore on the island, so Gao Huaiyuan basically knows everything about the situation on the thief island.

The reason why he was not in a hurry to send troops to attack the lake bandits' lair was that they had the opportunity to make a mess themselves, and only in this way could he be sure to exterminate the lake bandits in one fell swoop.

Seeing that the weather is getting cooler day by day, gradually the villagers began to be a little impatient, although they came with the government to suppress the bandits, but in essence they were still a group of peasants, all day long so non-stop training on the water, and did not go to the thieves to fight, there was still something to do in the family, so the dissatisfaction began to breed, and gradually some people began to complain in private, thinking that this Gao County Lieutenant was not enough, the wind was heavy and the rain was small, and he didn't dare to go to the thieves and so on.

When this voice reached Gao Huaiyuan's ears, he looked at the weather, calculated the time, and said with a slight smile: "It seems that it is basically the time, if we wait any longer, I am afraid that if we don't wait for the start, our own hearts will be scattered!" Dong Qiang, is there any news from Ma San's side now? ”

Dong Qiang followed Gao Huaiyuan during this time, and gradually learned a lot about Gao Huaiyuan, knowing that Gao Huaiyuan was different from other officials, other officials all day long thinking about being promoted and making a fortune, while Gao Huaiyuan had his own industry, did not worry about spending money, never thought about how to harm the people, and scooped up oil and water for himself, and never put on an official show for these people under them, acted generously, and did not deduct food and salary at all, so he decided that Gao Huaiyuan was a good official, and he respected Gao Huaiyuan more and more.

"Back to the adult, Ma San's side is basically the same, and now Zhao Baiyu has hated Jiang Harrier to the bone, and for more than a month, the thieves have choked enough in the old nest, and many people have begun to be dissatisfied with Jiang Harrier, it can be said that everything is ready and only the east wind is owed!" Dong Qiang bowed down and replied to Gao Huaiyuan, he has been in contact with Ma San during this time, and he can be said to know everything about the things in the lake bandits, and he also feels that the heat should be about the same.

"Remember! Can't let Zhao Baiyu succeed in one fell swoop, it's best to let them do it themselves first, and then talk about it, and when they get into chaos, we can take advantage of the fisherman! Gao Huaiyuan sat on the couch and wiped a Liuyun scimitar, then returned the knife to the sheath, raised his hand and threw the knife to Dong Qiang, who was standing in front of him.