Liu Zhixian also felt a headache for this matter, he also understood that what Gao Huaiyuan said was indeed the truth, now the lake thieves are rampant, if they are allowed to go on like this, he, the county magistrate, will definitely cause a big loss to the people, and after the lake thieves sit big, he can hardly guarantee that he will not end up with a poor punishment, which is a big disadvantage for the future career!

But if you want to suppress the bandits, you need someone to have money and food supplies, and he has no place to solve this matter, which makes him feel quite embarrassed, and now he hears that Gao Huaiyuan has a way, so he hurriedly asked: "What is the clever plan of the county lieutenant Gao, you might as well say it quickly!" ”

"It's not that hard to do! This kind of thing is not only the matter of our Daye County, but also the matter of the lake thieves on the side of the Ezhou prefect, and Ezhou is now busy with the affairs before the army, and it must not be able to draw people to encircle and suppress the lake pirates, as long as the adults report this matter to the prefect to know, please send someone to suppress it, if the state government can't send people, it is natural to give the adults an explanation, the adults might as well let the state government send some money and food, and we Daye County sent people to do this, so the money and food matter is inconvenient to solve?

As for the manpower, it is easy to say, there are a lot of township warriors in the twelve townships now, this time only twenty people came to each township, let each township have dozens of township bravery, it is enough to deal with the lake pirates, the lower officials are willing to stay in Nushan Township, personally lead the troops to exterminate the lake thieves, as for the matter of money and food, I am afraid that it will be troublesome adults! If it doesn't work anymore, this time we can also ask the big families in Nushan Township to gather some money and food, and it can also be used for military supplies, I think this is also for them, they should not be stingy!

I don't know if you think it's feasible for you to do this? Gao Huaiyuan then said his way.

Liu Zhixian is also a person who has been walking in the officialdom for a long time, and after listening to it, he immediately understood what Gao Huaiyuan meant, and after summing it up, he immediately said: "Gao County Lieutenant is young and promising, this kind of method did not come to my mind, I think this matter is feasible, so I will do it according to your method first, and I will hand it over to you to deal with, I will return to the county seat, and send someone to report this matter to the prefect, please let him decide!" As for the matter of mobilizing manpower, you can handle it at your discretion, and I am not as good as you in the matter of marching and fighting, and it is more appropriate for you to handle this matter with full authority! ”

Although Liu Zhixian is not a clean official, he still has self-knowledge, knows what to let who do, at least in the matter of moving knives and guns, he never points fingers at Gao Huaiyuan, which can be regarded as Gao Huaiyuan's luck, otherwise, if he encounters something and does not know how to pretend to understand, his job as a county lieutenant will be difficult to do!

After the two decided on this matter, Liu Zhixian got up in a sedan chair and returned to the city, handed over all the things here to Gao Huaiyuan for disposal, and also completed the examination of the body here, leaving a detailed record, and then returned to the city to assist Liu Zhixian to report to the prefect of Ezhou, so that Gao Huaiyuan became the first person in charge here.

However, Gao Huaiyuan still didn't come up with a good way to deal with the lake thieves in Niangzi Lake, so he first arranged for archers and villagers to help the people of Jinjia Village bury the bodies of the people who were killed and help them take care of the aftermath.

In these two days, because they are not regular soldiers, there are naturally no tents and other materials to use, and Gao Huaiyuan can't let so many people lie down and sleep in the world, so he temporarily borrowed the houses of some people in Jinjia Village in the village, temporarily resettled these township brave archers, and sent people to recruit local Li Zheng, senior and others in Nushan Township to prepare food for these township brave archers, and solve everyone's food problem first.

In two days, Gao Huaiyuan sent the leaders of the bow and arrow societies of each township to return to their hometowns, and informed the heads of the townships to organize the township warriors of the bow and arrow societies in the township, and transferred them to Nushan Township today, and at the same time returned to Liu Zhi County, the county seat of Daye, which was not bad, and sent people from the county treasury to send a batch of grain to Nushan Township for Gao Huaiyuan's use, which finally temporarily solved Gao Huaiyuan's urgent need.

When doing these things, Gao Huaiyuan also ordered Zhou Jun to send someone from Crouching Tiger Village to transfer Zhao Tong's capable personnel, this time the bandits are not simple, just rely on the township warriors of the township bow and arrow society who have just been organized, Gao Huaiyuan is not very relieved, the real elite can only be regarded as his Crouching Tiger Village's subordinates, in addition, the fifty archers under the county government Guo Liang and the township warriors of the Gaojiazhuang Bow and Arrow Society can serve as the main force, and the rest of the township warriors are undertrained and can only be used as auxiliaries, so that First set up a temporary team, make some preparations in advance for the next step of launching into the water to suppress bandits, and by the way, let his subordinates in Crouching Tiger Village also accept the tempering of actual combat again.

It is impossible for such a movement to be completely secret, and the lake thieves are active in this area all the year round, and there will be a lot of eyeliner to find out the news for them, Gao Huaiyuan simply began to make a big fanfare, one is to knock on the mountain and shock the tiger, let these lake thieves first restrain their traces, do not continue to commit crimes continuously, and the other is to let the local people see the determination of the government this time, and try to win the hearts of the people as much as possible for the next action.

But for how to deal with these haunting lake thieves on Niangzi Lake, Gao Huaiyuan is still a little at a loss, speaking of Niangzi Lake is not too big, but if you do the math, it is still not small, Niangzi Lake is more than 100 miles long from east to west, and the widest from north to south is also dozens of miles, the lake surface is hundreds of thousands of acres, the entire basin area is thousands of miles, and there are many harbors along the coast, and there are many places for lake thieves to hide. It's certainly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

What's more difficult is that the lake pirates are very familiar with the terrain here, and they are good at making boats, coming and going freely on the lake, although these villagers under their command are also natives of Daye County, everyone is familiar with the water, but after all, most of the people do not live in the area of Niangzi Lake, although they have the advantage of people, but they are completely at a disadvantage in terms of geographical advantages.

After receiving Gao Huaiyuan's order, Zhou Hao soon rushed over with a group of young Zhuang Ding, and Zhao Tong even brought more than a dozen well-trained dogs to cooperate with Gao Huaiyuan's anti-bandit operation.

Speaking of Zhao Tong's hound team, over the past year, Gao Huaiyuan has invested a lot of money, sent people from all directions to collect all kinds of fierce dogs back for domestication, and at the same time selected smart and fierce dogs from the original dogs for breeding, a batch of paparazzi have been born before the Spring Festival last year, and this time Zhao Tong brought this batch of hounds, which is the selected good dogs, and these dogs are all urinating to accept Zhao Tong's strict training, and it is no longer comparable to ordinary dogs. Although the ferocity is far less than the Tibetan mastiff, the world's best fierce dog, but compared to the average dog, it can be regarded as too powerful, whether it is tracking, attacking, lurking, sneak attack, and guarding, they all have their own strengths, and they are terrible, ordinary people want to get close to them, and they can't do it without a little courage, even if Gao Huaiyuan sees a large group of such guys, he is also a little stunned!

Speaking of these hunting dogs, Zhao Tong took them into the mountains for training a few days ago, and they also encountered a wolf pack, but a group of dogs against a group of wolves did not fall behind, and finally drove away the wolves and won a big victory, which really made Gao Huaiyuan happy.

So this time the bandit Gao Huaiyuan asked Zhao Tong to bring a group to help in the war, presumably it can also play a certain role, the arrival of these dogs is very new for the villagers, many people take things to tease these dogs, but the hounds turn a blind eye at all, not the owner gave them something, they don't even look at it, only eat the food given by the owner, so that many people are surprised.

When Zhou Hao and others arrived, the affairs of Jinjia Village were basically dealt with, Gao Huaiyuan saw that the village here was too small, not suitable for stationing too many people, so he led the troops to move to the south of Nushan Township in an abandoned temple not far from the lake, which is said to be a temple built in the Tang Dynasty, but after years of war, the incense gradually fell down, and the officials of the Song Dynasty court advocated Taoism, and the temple was not prosperous, so no one took care of it all the year round, and it became an abandoned temple.

Fortunately, there are still some houses in the monastery that have not collapsed and can still be temporarily inhabited, so Gao Huaiyuan set up this place as the command headquarters of the bandits, and also used it as a barracks, which solved the problem of their location and reduced the harassment of the local people.

After being busy with these things, Gao Huaiyuan really had time to sit down and think carefully about how to suppress the bandits, this kind of thing he still trusted these people around him, so he summoned Zhou Hao, Jia Qi, Zhou Jun, Xing Zhutou, Guo Liang and others to his residence to discuss how to deal with the lake thieves.

"Don't hide it, this time things are much more tricky than before, these lake thieves have existed in this area for a long time, but all along, they can't be completely cleared, five years ago, the Ezhou water army also sent a battalion of water army, in the Niangzi Lake to search for them, but in the end they were not able to completely solve them, just suppressed their momentum, now if we come to encircle and suppress these lake thieves, there is no good way to do it!" Xing Zhutou, as an old head snake on the land of Daye County, first expressed his opinion on this matter, and there was some helplessness in his words.

"Xing Zhutou don't weaken our morale first, you had no way to deal with those lake thieves before, not necessarily the county lieutenant Gao can't deal with them, with the county lieutenant Gao, who are we afraid of!" Guo Liang immediately retorted to Xing Zhutou, as if he was patting Gao Huaiyuan's sycophants.

"Guo Liangxiu wants to say this! What Xing Zhutou said is reasonable, this time the matter is really tricky, I don't have a very good way to deal with those lake thieves at the moment, so I called you over to discuss together, find a good way to clean them up, although things are not easy to do, but we must also do it, otherwise, I am really sorry for the people who were harmed by the lake thieves! It can only make those lake thieves more unscrupulous and rampant in the future! Therefore, no matter how difficult it is, we can't back down this time, the solution is to rely on people to come up with, no matter how powerful they are, they are just a gang of bandits, and the people's hearts are standing on our side, I don't believe that we can't deal with them! Gao Huaiyuan stopped their argument and said to everyone.

"Big ...... My lord! At the moment, the lake pirates are infested in the lake, and it is not a solution for us to stay on the shore like this, the first thing we have to solve is the problem of boats, otherwise, we don't even have boats, even if we stand on the shore and see the lake pirates, there is no way! In a small way, it's better to raise ships first! Then go into the water to search for the lake pirates, find their lair, and then send troops to destroy them in one fell swoop! Zhou Hao, who was standing on the side, said that he almost called Gao Huaiyuan the eldest brother in public, but fortunately, he temporarily changed his words and became an adult.

Gao Huaiyuan nodded: "That's right, it's not okay to deal with lake pirates without boats, write down this matter first, and I'll talk to the Lizheng and elders here when I go back, there are many fishing villages nearby, let's borrow some fishing boats to use them first!" ”

"I'm afraid that it will not be possible to have a fishing boat alone, although most of these people on our hands know water, but driving a boat is another matter, water warfare is different from land warfare, and I am afraid it will not be possible if you don't have a good hand to control the boat! It's better to call in a large number of fishermen to help, otherwise, we are still no match for the water pirates! Judge on the side shook his head and said.

Gao Huaiyuan thought about it, he wanted to come and go freely in the lake, he couldn't have a boat alone, he had to have someone to drive the boat, otherwise it would be in vain! So he made a note of the matter and prepared to postpone it.

"The matter of boats and people is not too much of a problem, this time the lake thieves slaughtered the people of Jinjia Village, the news has spread in this area, the people can be said to hate their move, the people's will is the biggest advantage for us, but at the moment our problem is, how to find this gang of water thieves, and then wipe them out, at least they must be killed almost to be considered a success, lest we leave, they will come back again! The key question is how to find them in the first place! Gao Huaiyuan said what he had been pondering for the past few days.

After listening to Gao Huaiyuan's question, everyone immediately spoke separately and put forward their ideas, Zhou Hao simply requisitioned a large number of fishing boats and searched the lake in a net-like manner until he found the lair of the water thief, and Xing Zhutou shook his head and disagreed with his approach, and wanted to offer a reward for exposing the location of the lake thief, while Guo Liang proposed to send a group of people dressed as fishermen to go to the lake to find out the whereabouts of the thief.

Gao Huaiyuan sat there, frowning with Jia Qi and listening to everyone discuss this matter, frowning and sometimes nodding and sometimes shaking his head, and finally interrupted everyone's discussion, and said: "I think that the method of searching the lake in a large area will not work first, we have limited manpower, and the lake of Niangzi Lake is very large, after hundreds of people are sprinkled in, it is nothing at all, and such a large-scale search, even if we meet a thief, the thief has already died, or hidden, not to touch us, in the end we can only work in vain." It is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and even if it is the Chinese New Year, it may not be possible to search the entire lake area, so this method will not work!

For the reward that Xing Zhutou said, it is more feasible, there are many fishermen around the lake area, maybe someone knows the hiding place of the thief, under the heavy reward, there may be some gains, this method is more feasible, it is worth a try!

As for sending people to go down to the lake as fishermen to explore, it is also a method, but it has a certain degree of danger, if you encounter lake pirates, the people sent will be in danger if they do not respond in time! It works, but it's up to you to do it!

At the moment, we don't have a better way, so let's do it for the time being, and if we want to deal with this gang of water thieves immediately in a short time, I'm afraid it's not an easy thing, so let's talk about it first!

Zhou Jun, you will go to Nushan Township on behalf of me, and find me the lizheng, household head, and elder in this area, and I am also inquiring about the old people who are most familiar with the situation in the lake in this area, if you can invite a few, you can also find some to come over!

Xing Zhutou, you and the priest together, write some reward notices, I will first take out 200 yuan as a reward, and anyone who can provide a hiding place for the water thief and verify it is true, will give a heavy reward!

As for the current manpower here, first divide two teams, Guo Liang arranged for two people to lead a team each, Zhao Tong you also cooperate, take a few hunting dogs along the shore of Niangzi Lake, patrol on the shore, and check along the coast as much as possible to see if you can find some traces of water thieves!

Now that we are in the light and the water thieves are in the dark, let's pay more attention to the situation and collect as much information about the thieves as possible, and then we will discuss how to deal with it! ”

Gao Huaiyuan began to arrange this matter separately, although he was not able to discuss how to solve the lake piracy, but let his people take action first, otherwise they would sit here and think of a way, it is not a way to solve the problem, and then push it first!

After everyone listened to the order, they immediately began to go down and get busy, and the people assigned by Gao Huaiyuan immediately began to leave the temple according to Gao Huaiyuan's instructions and acted separately.

Gao Huaiyuan gathered the heads of the bow and arrow societies in each township together and assigned them to them, because Dong Qiang's performance was quite outstanding this time, so Gao Huaiyuan specially named Dong Qiang to stay by his side and use it as a deputy, and the heads of other townships obeyed Guo Liang's command at any time.

Guo Liang divided the archers into two groups, and Zhao Tong also arranged for the hounds brought this time to bring the two groups of archers with them, and searched along the lake shore to both sides, and the entire anti-bandit operation was officially launched.

And the rest of the people, Gao Huaiyuan, brought Guo Liang, Dong Qiang and other heads of the society and organized them together, otherwise, with their current cooperation, once they encounter organized thieves, they are likely to suffer a big loss!

And Dong Qiang suddenly found Gao Huaiyuan at night, entered the door and hugged Gao Huaiyuan and said, "Lord County Lieutenant!" The little ones are not talented, but there are some ways to solve those water thieves as soon as possible! ……”