Upon hearing the news of the appearance of the thief's trace, the officers and soldiers immediately became nervous, and most of the governors insisted on staying on the flanks and not returning, and the generals had no choice; In the end, Zhang Yong, Xu Tai and others had to order three hundred soldiers to be sent to protect Song Nan's safety, and at the same time bring the necessary supplies, but these three hundred soldiers were sent back by Song Nan intact, because the target was too large and it was not easy to hide his whereabouts.

When night came, in order to avoid being watched and exposed, Song Nan ordered that a bonfire should not be lit at night, he suspected that it was precisely because the night bonfire of the flank team along the way exposed the direction and whereabouts of the advance, in this dark mountain, as long as there is no mountain peak to obstruct it, a bonfire is enough for people within a radius of ten miles to see.

It's not that I didn't think about this before, but I originally hoped that the thieves would flee from the wind and be driven to the west to flee, so as to fall into the eyes and ears of Jiang Bin's army from the east, and now it seems that the thieves took the initiative to attack, and it seems that they don't plan to escape.

In order to better turn from light to darkness, Song Nan also took the risk of making a decision, taking advantage of the darkness to lead everyone down the southern slope and get out of the mountainside route. This move was quite risky, walking on the snow-covered mountains at night, and one careless person would be killed or injured, but Song Nan decided to do it anyway. More than 100 people were connected by ropes, and they walked for most of the night by the faint reflection of the snow, and many soldiers stepped on the air several times and fell into the snow-covered rock chasm, and all of them were saved by ropes.

In the second half of the night, everyone went down to the south slope one by one, exhausted, and found a pine forest to camp and rest, because they could not light a bonfire, the cold in the second half of the night almost made everyone stiff, but all the soldiers saw that the governor did not complain, and there was nothing to say.

After dawn, when they could finally light a bonfire, everyone boiled hot water and boiled a few large bowls of dry food and minced meat, and then they recovered; Song Nan was gracious and asked everyone to take a nap around the bonfire for another hour, and then began to assign tasks.

"The goal of the hundred-man team is still too big, from now on, it will be divided into three, set off a quarter of an hour apart, mark and contact each other on the snow, once you encounter the enemy, don't act rashly, immediately hide your whereabouts and come back to report, understand?"

"At the behest of the Grand Governor." Everyone extinguished the bonfire and divided into three teams, Wang Yong led thirty people to open the way, Song Nan led thirty people to follow, Li Daniu took forty people to carry tents, dry food, charcoal cakes and other baggage to follow in the end.

It was still a fine day in the morning, but soon after the departure, the sky was overcast again, and after a while the snowflakes and freezing rain crackled down, and the three teams could still see each other at first, but now they could not see at all.

Song Nan led people to carefully identify the footprints and signs left by Wang Yong and others, trying to ensure that they did not fall too far, but the rain and snow were too big, and after a while, all the traces of the snow-capped mountains were swept away, Song Nan knew that he could not break blindly, and the valley gradually rose, which indicated that he had reached the foot of another mountain, and it would be a big trouble if he lost his way if he walked indiscriminately, so he ordered to stay where he was and wait. Fortunately, half an hour later, Li Daniu in the rear arrived with forty personal guards, and finally they did not get lost.

In view of the inability to get in touch with Wang Yong and the fact that the sky was also very dark, Song Nan ordered someone to find a shelter from the wind and set up camp temporarily; After traveling for several hours, I don't know how far I have gone, but at least I can conclude that the thief must have lost his whereabouts, and it is still successful in terms of turning from light to darkness.

The blizzard lasted for more than an hour, and when it stopped, the sky was gradually darkening, standing at the bottom of the hillside, the layers of rocks and pine trees wrapped in front of him were like tombs, and there was no trace of any figure, and Wang Yong and the others naturally did not know where to go.

Song Nan was anxious, but he knew that he couldn't rush to look for it, and when he was about to order someone to clean the snow under the cliff and camp on the spot for the night, he suddenly heard a rumbling sound; Song Nan and everyone hurriedly went to the top of the cliff to take a look, the sound was endless, but they still couldn't see any movement.

"Did you hear that? What is the sound? Avalanche? Song Nan asked.

"My lord, it seems to be the sound of a fire bolt being fired." One of the guards listened with his eyes wide open and his ears beckoned.

Song Nan was taken aback, and hurriedly ordered: "You take twenty brothers with me to take a look, and the rest are on strict guard." ”

The guards hurriedly beckoned twenty guards to follow Song Nan and climbed up the slope, but fortunately, the mountain was not very steep, and everyone soon climbed up a mountain beam, and the rumbling sound was clearer, but soon calmed down. The sound was heard so well that it was on another mountain beam diagonally above.

Song Nan and the others walked around the mountain beam, found another slope that could be climbed, and quickly climbed up, and after a meal, they saw a figure flashing on the mountain beam.

"Who? Password! ”

"Kill the thief and make a meritorious service!"

"Ah, it's my brother, Lord Wang, it's the Metropolitan Governor who has come up."

Wang Yong poked his head out on the mountain beam, saw Song Nan and others, and said happily: "My lord, it turned out to be you." ”

Everyone climbed up the mountain beam, only to see more than a dozen black figures lying horizontally and vertically on the mountain beam, blood flowing all over the ground, seeping into the snow and suddenly conspicuous.

Song Nan hurriedly asked about the situation, and Wang Yong said: "When the wind and snow are heavy, we can't see you when we look back, so we plan to turn back to look for you, but we lost our way, turned around and came to this mountain beam, and found that there was a small cave here, and there was fire in it; We rushed in to see that these guys were roasting in the cave to avoid the wind and snow, so we didn't stop killing them. ”

Song Nan nodded, stretched out his feet and flipped over a corpse, only to see that the thief's hair was unkempt like a wild man, his hair and beard were tangled together and he couldn't see his appearance clearly, and he was wearing a black thing I don't know what it was.

"These people have arrived in this field and do not plan to go out of the mountains to surrender, they are really innocent; Is there a live mouth? ”

Wang Yong said: "There are two, one was hit through the stomach by an iron egg, and the other was hit in the thigh, and they were still panting." ”

Song Nan ordered people to go down the mountain immediately and let the brothers below climb up, this mountain beam is sheltered from the wind, and standing here you can look down on the valley when you came, if the weather is fine, if there is fire and movement in the valley, you should have an unobstructed view; Looking at the traces of the artificially carved bunker on the mountain beam, Song Nan knew that this must be a lookout post for the thieves.

After cleaning up the corpses of the dead thieves, Wang Yong took Song Nan to the south of the mountain beam and walked dozens of steps, only to see a low cave mouth exposed, with a small bonfire burning inside, and a simple fence made of tree branches on the edge of the cave entrance, which seemed to be used to block the entrance of the cave to prevent people from seeing the fire.

Song Nan bent down and drilled into the low cave entrance, the inside was quite wide, the top of the cave more than one zhang high, although it was not too deep, only twenty or thirty steps, but it was absolutely no problem to hide and hundreds of people in eighty.

Two black figures lay motionless in a pile of grass, not knowing whether they were dead or alive; Several guards stood on the side and guarded, Song Nan approached, squinted at the two people on the ground, and a guard brought a small stool made of a tree stump for Song Nan to sit down.

The guards turned the two over and dragged them in front of Song Nan, who couldn't see their faces clearly, only saw their dirty faces, closed eyes, trembling bodies, and blood slowly oozing from their bodies.

"Open your eyes and play dead? In front of you is the brave crown of the Ming Dynasty, the governor of the thieves and horses, Lord Song. Wang Yong shouted.

The two thieves shook their bodies, but they still didn't want to open their eyes, Wang Yong wanted to wait for another drink, Song Nan waved his hand and said: "Don't scare them, come here, take medicine to give them a drink, and bandage their wounds." ”

Several guards stepped forward and stripped the thieves' clothes, revealing their dirty and smelly bodies, took gold sore medicine and applied them to them, bandaged their wounds with strips of cloth, and poured Sanqi pills with soju; The two men were at the mercy of others from beginning to end, but they did not speak.

After the bandaging was completed, Song Nan smiled and said: "Okay, the two of them are not injured in the vital situation, after the bleeding is stopped, there should be no worries about their lives, come to someone, and then help the two of them trim their faces and shave their hair, it is really a sin, hiding in the mountains to suffer this crime, becoming a person is not a ghost or a ghost, hey!" ”

The guards stepped forward with daggers, shaved off the messy beards on their faces, cut off the messy hair on their heads, and washed their faces with melted snow, revealing two young and handsome faces.

Song Nan sighed: "It turned out to be two handsome offspring, if you see it at first glance, you think it is a scholar who is studying." Hungry two? Someone brought the beef jerky, and gave the two of them a few pieces of bread. ”

The guards did as they said, a few beef jerkys and a few pastries were brought over, Song Nan took it personally, baked by the bonfire, and after a while, the meat was fragrant, the face was attractive, and the two thieves rolled their throats again, and they couldn't be calm anymore, their eyes opened, staring directly at the food in Song Nan's hand.

"Eat." Song Nan handed it over with a smile.

The two of them glanced at each other, and almost at the same time quickly reached out to grab the food, and immediately devoured it, the hot beef and dough could not stop them from devouring wildly, and the two of them sizzled their mouths hotly, but they refused to waste half a point.

The guards were amused by their greedy eating, but the smile on Song Nan's face slowly disappeared, and his face gradually turned cold.