Dong Hu and the three of them went out to explore the road this time, which was extremely difficult. It was the height of summer, when the vegetation was luxuriant, and there were bushes of thorns and vines along the way, and there were places in the direction where even wild beasts could not squeeze through, so they had to use the machetes they carried with them to cut their way, and in this way, they actually cut down the four machetes they carried. What's even worse is that because it has been a few years, Rao is Dong Hu has a super strong memory, and he only remembers the general direction. Most of the time, they could only follow the faintly visible beast path, but they still repeatedly took the wrong path, and even walked a few times, only to find that the road was suddenly interrupted at the cliff. Dong Hu, who opened the road in front, was blocked by his vision and almost fell off the cliff under surprise. In some places, they couldn't go around because of the broken rocks, so they had to take the risk of climbing over the past, but fortunately they brought the climbing rope given by Ouyang Xuan this time. As for the lack of water and the infestation of poisonous insects and beasts along the way, it can only be regarded as a trivial matter, after all, the three of them have been hunting in the mountains since they were young, and they have a strong ability to survive and cope with dangers in the wild. It took four days for the three of them to explore the road to the plain under the mountain, and another day to return.

Although the trip was only five days, the three of them lost a lot of weight, and the degree of hard work can be seen. So much so that when they returned to Liuliba, Dong Hu and the three of them were already withered and exhausted. As for the yellow artemisia, it is harvested on a hillside near the plain. Due to the stony desert terrain on the slopes here, trees cannot grow at all, but clumps of artemisia grass grow in the cracks of the stones. Dong Hu and others had been arranged by Lu De to look for artemisia grass, and saw that the artemisia grass here was similar but different from Liuliba, so they picked some back on the return trip. The artemisia grass in Liuliba is green, and the artemisia grass here is green with egg yolk, and there is an obvious pungent odor. Ouyang Xuan listened to the three of them, and while instructing Dong Hu and the others to go back to recuperate, he sent someone to squeeze out the juice of the artemisia grass he had picked back for Yu Zhu to take.

On the second day, the person who took care of Yu Zhu reported with a happy face that Yu Zhu's condition had improved significantly after taking Artemisia annua juice, but his body had been weak for a long time and he still couldn't get out of bed. In the end, he said again that there was not much yellow artemisia left that Dong Hu had brought back. While they were talking, Huang Dagen hurriedly walked into the house, and when he saw that there were others in the house, he said to Ouyang Xuan: "Brother Xuan, the mountain bandits from Wanjiaping are coming towards Liuliba." Ouyang Xuan immediately asked people to invite Lu Dezhi and Cao Ergou to discuss the matter, and then opened everyone and asked Huang Dagen about the situation of the mountain bandits.

Because of the urgency of the military situation, the deliberations were brief and efficient. The only people who participated in the discussion were Ouyang Xuan, Huang Dagen, Cao Ergou, Lu Dezhi, plus Yang Xiucai, who was recording on the side, but there were only five people. The rest of the personnel Ouyang didn't want to be alarmed, on the one hand, he was sure about fighting off the bandits, on the other hand, he was now in ruins, and the industrial and mining construction projects could not be easily stopped, and more importantly, he did not want to let the panic spread in the cottage.

Huang Dagen gave a briefing on the situation of the incoming bandits detected by the secret outpost. This time, there were about 50 bandits, half of whom were crossbowmen, and the rest were sword and shield bearers and spearmen. When the mountain bandits had just left Wanjiaping and marched into the deep mountains, they were discovered by the secret sentry of Liuliba. The dark sentry observed all the way, until the mountain bandits turned onto the mountain road leading to Chaoliuliba, and then they quickly ran back to report the news. Because the mountain bandits walked unhurriedly, and they stopped and stopped, it was estimated that it would take half an hour to reach the gate of Liuliba Village.

Rude Zhiqiang held back his inner horror and proposed to gather all the people to defend the village, and replace them with agricultural tools if they were not enough; Cao Ergou geared up and proposed to convene the guards and teaching teams to guard the village; Huang Dagen saw that Ouyang Xuan was silent about the proposal of the two, and knew that he was dissatisfied with the proposal of the two, so he proposed that the teaching team guard the village, the guard team ambushed, and waited for the opportunity to bombard it with grenades. Ouyang Xuan did not agree to use the grenade, because there were still four days before the time requested by the mountain bandits, and this time the mountain bandits only came with more than 50 people, and they did not bring siege weapons. He judged that the main purpose of the bandits' visit was to warn Liuliba and threaten the cottage to pay its "taxes" on time. Ouyang Xuan estimated that the mountain bandits would not achieve their goal this time, so they would invade on a large scale. He didn't want to expose his hole cards too early, he wanted to use a grenade to catch the bandit off guard and give him a head-on blow.

At that moment, it was agreed that Cao Ergou would draw 50 people from the teaching team to guard the village, put the big shield on the wall of the wall, if the mountain bandits came to attack, they would shoot bows and arrows and throw stones from afar, and stab with spears when they were near. Huang Dagen chose 20 people to ambush him, and when the mountain bandits were defeated and retreated, he stopped and killed them. As for the rest of the cottage, they work normally. When the mountain bandits come to attack, they don't hit the bell or call the police, they just need to close the gate of the village.

When the mountain bandits of Wanjiaping walked slowly to the walled gate, they were surprised to find that only a few days later, a new walled wall was built in Liuliba. The people on the wall hid behind the fence and the big shield, standing neatly and neatly, faintly and faintly in array. Doubts are doubts, the leader of the mountain bandits did not think deeply, he only had the purpose of this trip in his mind - taxes. Learning from the government's style, he sent two minions with shields to shout, so that the people of Liuliba obediently obeyed. As soon as they shouted two sentences, dense stones and arrows flew from the wall, smashing the shields and slamming them, so frightened that they fled back. Although the two minions were protected by shields, their legs were still hit by a few solid stones, and they were now wailing in pain with their smashed legs.

This mountain bandit leader is used to being arrogant in this mountain, where is he willing to suffer? In a fit of rage, he commanded the mountain bandits to attack in formation, some of them were protected by shields, some of them were released from behind, and some of them were ready to climb the wall. Although the mountain bandit crossbowmen stood under the wall, they were numerous, and the strength and accuracy of shooting feathered arrows were very sufficient, and for a time the archers and militia on the wall were suppressed, and they could only find gaps to counterattack, and their arrows and stones were also very inaccurate. On the other hand, the mountain bandits not only had many bows and even a few strong crossbows, and the arrows they shot could penetrate the wooden shield on the wall, but fortunately, the crossbow arrows only caused minor injuries to two militiamen through the wooden shield. Taking advantage of the fact that the wall was suppressed, more than a dozen mountain bandits saw the opportunity and threw out the hooked rope to climb up. The militia at the head of the village did not have long knives, seeing that the mountain bandits were about to climb up, some of the timid were ready to turn around and run away, but fortunately Cao Ergou drank his position behind, and risked the arrow to stab a mountain bandit who climbed up the wall of the village with a spear, and ordered the militia to use a spear to stab through the gap between the two shields, so as to block the first wave of the mountain bandits' attack.

After experiencing the initial panic, the militia of Liulizhai stabilized their position under the command of Cao Ergou, and became more and more confident the more they fought. The bandits then launched several waves of attacks, all of which were blocked. Not only did they not climb the wall, but more than a dozen people were killed or wounded, and their morale became more and more low. On the Liuliba side, only a few people were slightly injured.

Seeing that he could not attack for a long time, and his personnel were getting more and more tired, he knew that this would only become more and more disadvantageous, so he prepared to retreat. When the mountain bandits were helping the wounded and carrying the corpses to prepare to retreat, they suddenly heard shouts of killing in the rear village, and it turned out that the militia on the wall had rushed out of the gate of the village to kill. In fact, according to Ouyang Xuan's idea, the militia only needed to stick to the wall, but Cao Ergou saw that the mountain bandits were in decline, so he commanded his militia to run in three rows, holding shields in the front row and spears in the back two rows. When the broken bandits saw this, they let go of their arrows and rejected them with shields and spears, but they could not withstand the condescending impact, and in an instant several people were pierced by spears and fell to the ground and let out heart-rending screams, and the rest of the mountain bandits were terrified and left their wounded and ran back along the road they came.