Four days later, Liao Ping and Tan Zhang's 2,000 men and horses from Jinpo Town came from the east and joined Song Nan in the valley, and the number increased, but it did not bring the slightest benefit to the march of the troops, and the discharge dragged on for a long time, and the movement became slower.

However, time is not a problem in Song Nan's plan, the focus is on searching and driving along the way, the thieves are somewhere on this ancient road, and the most important thing is not to pass by them. When everyone didn't enter the mountain, they always thought that the thieves had 5,000 men and horses, which should be a big goal, but in fact, when they entered the mountain, they knew that if the 5,000 men and horses were hidden between the mountains and valleys, they would not be able to see it at all, and Song Nan himself was a little unconfident.

In order not to make a mistake, the army had to send a dozen squads, risking great risks to climb over the peaks on both sides, using each other as beacons to form a search belt. The so-called risk is not only the danger of climbing and traveling in a difficult place, but also the risk of being attacked by fierce beasts in the mountains and the risk of encountering hidden thieves.

In such a situation, it is not more than seven or eight miles in a day, and the road of the long mountains, if it is at this speed, it will take at least a month to walk; Fortunately, Jiang Bin's soldiers and horses west of Taihang are moving in the opposite direction, which can save at least half of the time.

The climate in the mountains is unimaginable, and from the day of departure, snow and hail will fall every day, and in this weather, the difficulty of the march can be imagined; Enduring the wind and snow during the day and the danger of falling into the cliff at any time, and at night he had to endure the pain of cold to the bone marrow, and he had to beware of the attack of the mountain wolves who dared to approach, Song Nan also secretly admired in his heart that the thief soldiers could survive in the mountains, and they hid for nearly two months without showing their heads.

On November 17, the tenth day after the army entered the mountain, according to the accompanying medicine farmers, the army had already entered the center of the mountain range, and the journey was also a third of the way, just when Song Nan was worried that he had missed the trace of the thief soldiers, several squads that were searching in parallel on the south side suddenly sent a message.

Although the parallel search teams are far apart, according to the agreement, they must keep in touch with each other every day, and every night when camping, they will light a bonfire in a conspicuous place, and when they see each other, they will be safe; If they encounter an enemy trail, they will fire flaming arrows to notify each other and quickly relay the message to the group.

But last night, a team marching on the mountainside on the north side of the mountain did not light a bonfire to report safety as agreed, nor did it send out fireworks and arrows to sound the alarm, and the two neighboring teams on the top of the mountain and in the valley did not hear from them all night, because the sky was dark and the mountain was steep, and only someone was sent to search for it in the morning.

As a result, the corpses of twenty squad soldiers were found in a snowy valley on the mountainside, and the corpses were blurred and mutilated, and frozen hard. When the news was transmitted back to the brigade, Song Nan immediately ordered the army to stop advancing, and Wang Yong rushed to the scene with the personal guard battalion fire team.

At noon, everyone finally crossed the mountain peak and arrived at the scene, and the waiting team flag officer introduced the situation to Song Nan.

"Governor, there are packs of wolf hoof prints scattered around here, and we suspect that this team was suddenly attacked by the wolves in the evening when it was dark, and all of them were killed by the wolves before they could call the police. You see, the entrails have been hollowed out, which is the characteristic of wolf attacks. ”

Song Nan looked at the scene carefully for a while, got up and frowned: "What are the equipment of the search team?" ”

The flag officer said: "General Xu Tai personally set rations for us; Each person has a long knife, a short bow, and a pot of arrows; In addition, each person has 20 charcoal cakes, 5 catties of dry meat shops, and 10 catties of dry food. The flag officer is equipped with five fireworks. ”

Song Nan nodded and said, "It's enough for you for more than ten days, and General Xu's ration is very sufficient." Ten days have passed, how many supplies do you have left? ”

The flag officer said: "Each of the subordinate teams still has five charcoal cakes left, a few dry food from the butcher's shop, and only a few bows and arrows to drive away the beasts that approach at night." ”

"In other words, your supplies can last a few days, right?" Song Nan frowned and asked.

The flag officer was puzzled, nodded and said, "There will be no problem in five days." ”

Song Nan pointed to the bloody corpse and said, "Why didn't I find their remaining materials on the corpse, dried meat, dried noodles, biscuits, grain, and even charcoal cakes." ”

The flag officer was stunned for a moment, and said in amazement: "This subordinate didn't pay attention, only paid attention to check the blades and arrows, maybe they were scattered in the snow." ”

Song Nan said in a low voice: "I searched for everything within the radius of the circle, and found me." ”

All the relatives and guards agreed and scattered around, carefully searching along the hillside, but half an hour passed, and the hillside within a radius of one or two miles was searched, and no charcoal cake or dry food bag was found.

Song Nan's brows furrowed even tighter, and he led people to walk slowly around the snow valley, and suddenly waved his hand and clenched his fist and said, "Stop." ”

Wang Yong and the others hurriedly stopped, and Song Nan sighed and said, "As I expected, Wang Yong, what do you see it is?" ”

Wang Yong looked intently, only to see the outline of a few pine branches exposed in the snow, and with a long knife, he picked one up, took it in his hand and shook off the snow on it, as if it was a rough round thing woven with pine branches and pine needles.

Wang Yong was puzzled and asked, "My lord, what is this?" ”

Song Nan frowned and said, "These twenty brothers were not attacked by wolves and died, but they were suddenly attacked and all died. ”

Wang Yong was not stupid and asked: "Is it because of the lost charcoal cake and the dry food of the butcher's shop?" The wolves don't go to eat dry food and charcoal cakes, they must have taken it after the thieves attacked it. ”

Song Nan nodded and said: "That's right, for the thieves, what they need most now is to keep warm and hungry, although there is a suspicion of revealing their whereabouts, but it is also worth taking a risk; They deliberately did not use their blades and arrows to create the illusion that they were being attacked by wolves; There are already a lot of wolves in the mountains, and after people die, the wolves will come to eat them, just to cover their tracks. ”

Wang Yong raised the thing in his hand and said, "Then what is this thing?" ”

Song Nan said: "I've been thinking about what kind of attack will make them unable to even send out the alarm, it must be a sudden attack without warning; On such a hillside, against the backdrop of snow, it should not be so easy. They didn't have time to light the bonfire, which means that it wasn't a night attack, so how could they attack so suddenly in broad daylight? ”

Wang Yong said: "Yes, how can it? ”

Song Nan pointed to the woven round pine branch and said: "This is their method, the only way is to hide under the snow, this must be the cover they use to cover the snow cave, these thieves have already dug the snow cave and hid in it, waiting for the arrival of this group of soldiers, and then take advantage of their unpreparedness to kill all of them, and then pretend to be attacked by wolves." ”

Wang Yong didn't say a word, he ordered someone to take a spear and sweep the snow in front of him, and the loose snow fell down last night, and sure enough, he found a snow cave that was more than one person deep, and found a lot of snow covers in the surrounding snow.

Song Nan's words are not wrong at all, hiding in it and covering it with a lid can prevent the snow from being buried, and you can always spy on the situation outside.

After it was determined that it was the thieves who were killed by the raid, the surrounding atmosphere suddenly became tense, and Wang Yong immediately ordered people to go down to the realm, since the thieves could ambush them on the road, they obviously ate the route of travel, that is, every move of the army may be under their watch.

Song Nan didn't expect that the thieves had been hiding in the mountains for two months, and they had adapted to the situation in the mountains so quickly, and they had also learned to raid based on the terrain; Song Nan believed that the thief's lair was almost there, and perhaps between the gray mountains in front of him, there were eyes secretly peeping this way.

"Immediately withdraw all the squads, inform Xu Tai to move forward cautiously, and soon encounter the thieves, beware of the thieves ambushing." Song Nansen ordered.

Wang Yong said: "My lord, we have to rush back before dark, bury the bodies of these brothers and leave." ”

Song Nan shook his head and said, "Let's not go." ”

Wang Yong was stunned and said, "My lord, why don't you leave?" ”

Song Nan said: "The side of the brigade can't be without ears and eyes, and besides, I also want to see the traces of the thieves, the thieves will not stop, and they will hunt the flank squad, now we have to turn from light to dark, it is best to catch the live mouth and find their camp, so that we can wave the army and go straight to the attack." ”

Wang Yong said: "My lord, this matter can be done in a humble position, you must sit in the army, and you must not be in danger; After all, the enemy is in sight, and we are in danger. ”

Song Nan patted Wang Yong's shoulder and said, "Dangerous? What dangers have we not experienced? Scared of these thieves? Don't worry, our 100 guards musket battalion has enough ammunition, as long as we don't alarm all the thieves, a small group of thieves is not to be afraid. ”

Wang Yong knew that persuasion was useless, so Song Nan liked to do it himself, and if Song Nan left, once he found that a large number of thieves would have no good way to deal with it, he would no longer insist.