Foreman Jiang's recruitment is going well, so there are so many refugees outside the city of Runing Mansion. The walls of the Runing camp and the army barracks were built quickly before the Chinese New Year.

With the completion of the construction of the barracks, the young men and orphans recruited by Wu Shigong from Beizhili and their families were relocated in batches from the fortress of Qianhusuo.

So in the days that followed, Wu Shigong threw himself on the training ground every day, training those recruits, and did not dare to relax at all. And Yang Goudan's blacksmith workshop is also working day and night to build firearms and weapons for those recruits.

With the reinforcement of the army led by Xue Yongli, with the cooperation of some bandits under Qian Qi and Lei Ying, Wu Shigong launched a war of extermination against Li Harizi's group of bandits.

In this extermination war, all the people from top to bottom are optimistic. Wu Shigong's army is composed of experienced military attaches and veterans, and has sharp weapons such as guns and artillery, plus in the previous process of suppressing bandits, Wu Shigong's army has almost achieved a brilliant record of zero deaths, so even Wu Shigong himself believes that as long as his army arrives, exterminate Li Harrier's group of bandits, it is not easy to capture?

But what I didn't expect was that Li Harrier, who had had the experience of confronting Wu Shigong's army once, would not fight Wu Shigong's army at all. They took advantage of their familiarity with the terrain, coupled with the fact that Li Harizi had been operating here for a long time, and there were many eyeliners among the mountain people, so after Wu Shigong's army got the news of Li Harizi's main bandit force several times, as long as they pounced on it, they always pounced. On the contrary, Li Harizi's bandits ambushed several times, causing Wu Shigong to lose more than a dozen soldiers.

For this kind of guerrilla warfare, the regular army like Wu Shigong fought very breathlessly. Moreover, it was a cold winter again, and they lived in tents and ate cold food on the mountains, so the morale of Wu Shigong's army quickly dropped.

After receiving the unfavorable news of the suppression of bandits, Wu Shigong was helpless, and was only able to bring the recruits who had been trained for more than a month and some of his personal guards to support the suppression of bandits in the northern mountainous areas.

Equivalent to the situation here of Wu Shigong, Li Harrier has high morale here. In a small mountain village in the mountains, in a secret foothold of Li Harrier, those bandit leaders were eating and drinking around Li Harrier.

A scar-faced leader lifted a sea bowl full of liquor to Li Harrier and said, "Big cabinet, what if this Wu madman bites us and doesn't let go?" Aren't you being led by the nose now? In another month or two, the cold wind on the mountain will blow them into ice lumps. What a pleasure we have with wine and meat! ”

Scarface's words caused a burst of laughter from the other bandits, and they all said, "That's it, let them eat our fart." ”；“ Big cabinet, after driving the madman Wu away, chop up the beast Thunder Dog. When the time comes, we will reign as kings in this mountainous area. ”……

Li Harrier smiled and made a downward posture with both hands, so that those leaders were quiet, and said, "This time, Lao Tzu is going to bite off a piece of meat from Wu Gou." After Wu Gou's people were driven away, Lao Tzu had already contacted a salt merchant from Yangzhou to supply us with salt. This time the brothers have worked hard, and when that time comes, I will let the brothers all make some money. ”

Li Harrier's words caused those leaders to cheer. After the voice was a little quieter, a relatively old leader reminded Li Harrier: "Big cabinet, there is news from outside the mountain, this time Madman Wu personally brought people to deal with us." ”

Li Harizi smashed the sea bowl in his hand to the ground and scolded: "Grandma! This Wu dog still dares to come, that's just right. After Lao Tzu caught him, he would skin him alive. ”

Then Li Harrier saw that the leaders were a little uncertain, and said: "Don't worry, there are so many brothers outside to inquire about the news, and the Wu dog can't even bite us a bird feather." ”

After listening to Li Harrier's words, the leaders regained their expressions and began to eat and drink again.

Because of the unfavorable battle against bandits, coupled with the increase in the number of frostbitten soldiers on the mountain, Xue Yongli withdrew the army to the cottage of Qian Qi to rest, waiting for Wu Shigong's reinforcements to arrive.

After the convergence, Wu Shigong did not take the liberty of taking the army to suppress the bandits again, he gathered all the military attaches and analyzed the problems encountered in the suppression of bandits in the previous period.

After Wu Shigong opened his mouth to ask, those military attachés complained one after another, and talked about many difficulties. Wu Shigong listened carefully and summed up the following three situations.

First of all, Li Harrier's bandits have a lot of eyeliner, and those eyeliners are mixed among the mountain people, and it is difficult to distinguish them. Some are even relatives of the mountain people, so it is difficult to keep the army's movements secret;

The second is that it is difficult to catch the main force of the Li Harrier bandits. On several occasions, the army did encounter Li Harrier's main force, but as soon as those bandits saw the army of bandits, they didn't fight at all, and they all turned around and ran. And in the process of escaping, those bandits tend to split into several ways, making it difficult for the army to catch up.

Because staring at the road, maybe this road is not the main force of the bandits, but just an outcast thrown by them. However, if the troops are divided to pursue, they are afraid that there will be an ambush set by the main force of bandits in front. So it's a dilemma.

Zuihou is that the conditions on this mountain are too poor, living in tents, eating cold food, and the soldiers are very prone to illness. But as long as the fire cooks, those bandits will immediately flee far away when they see the smoke of cooking.

When they arrived at Zuihou, those military attachés proposed whether to let go of Li Harizi's gang of bandits for the time being, anyway, they were also in the mountains, and there was not much threat to Wu Shigong. Even if they want to suppress the bandits, they will temporarily withdraw the army to the bottom of the mountain to rest and recuperate, and wait until the beginning of spring when the weather is warmer and they will come to suppress the bandits.

As soon as Wu Shigong heard the proposal of those military attachés, his anger came up. The existence of Li Harrier's gang of bandits not only dealt a blow to Wu Shigong's prestige in this area, but also the northern mountainous area of Runing Province was the sales area of Wu Shigong's salt goods, which was his most important source of income.

If he loses control of this area, in the future, what confidence will Wu Shigong have to negotiate with those Yangzhou salt merchants? Moreover, Li Harizi's gang of bandits is on the road between Runing Mansion and the fortress of Qianhusuo, and if this thorn is not removed, Wu Shigong will simply have trouble sleeping.

So Wu Shigong immediately ordered that no matter how long it was, no matter how much cost, no matter how many casualties there were, we must continue to exterminate Li Harizi's gang of bandits.

The bandits divided their troops, and they stared at the bandits all the way to chase. It's also better to be able to cut off one of the bandits' fingers than to let them escape. In this way, the accumulation of small amounts will also eliminate the main force of the bandits.

As for the difficult conditions, aren't the conditions when the bandits flee hard? The soldier didn't sleep, and the bandit didn't sleep; The soldiers ate cold food, and the bandits didn't eat cold food. Let's see who can spend it in the end. If the soldiers are afraid of hardship, then Wu Shigong does not raise old soldiers here.

There are also the eyeliner of those bandits, they can't be separated among the mountain people, so don't divide them. If they can't be caught, the entire mountain village will be killed. I don't need any evidence, just suspicion.

This is a bandit, not Bao Gong trying a case in Kaifeng Mansion.

Wu Shigong's roar made his military attachés silent. After the meeting, Wu Shigong immediately organized an army and marched into the mountainous area where Li Harrier was active again.

From the winter of the third year of Chongzhen to the spring of the fourth year of Chongzhen's suppression of bandits, Wu Shigong's army destroyed a total of 19 villages and slaughtered more than 2,000 mountain people. In the mouths of the common people, Wu Shigong won the nickname of "Wu Butcher". It can be said that Wu Shigong's reputation, in the mountainous area in the north of Runing Province, can completely make children stop crying at night.

Through such a crazy slaughter, Wu Shigong effectively prevented Li Harrier's eyeliner from reporting the news. Coupled with the allure of taking advantage of the strict armor protection system and monetary rewards, Wu Shigong's army gradually gained the upper hand at the news level.

Wu Shigong's army organized several large units to chase and attack the bandits of a certain road of division of troops, and wiped out the bandits of that road several times. In addition, Wu Shigong shouted to the bandits the slogan of surrendering to save their lives and killing only the first bandit. Under the disintegration of division, Li Harrier's bandits went down the mountain one after another to surrender to Wu Shigong. Arriving in Zuihou, Wu Shigong captured more than a thousand bandits.

And after the rope is tightened, even if Li Harrier wants to escape again, there is nowhere to escape. As Li Harrier's foothold became less and less, Li Harrier's life became more and more difficult. Eventually, Li Harrier was surrounded by Wu Shigong's army on several hills.

At this time, Wu Shigong had already returned to Runing Mansion because the situation of suppressing bandits had improved.