Early the next morning after taking the famous mountain city, Yazhou City came, and the messenger said that he had come to take over the famous mountain city on the order of Cao Zhizhou of Yazhou.

The envoy first told Ouyang Xuan that the Yazhou army was on the way, and boasted that the army was strict and victorious, so that the Mongolian army heard that the elite soldiers of the Yazhou army were coming, so they fled when they heard the news, so that the Thunderbolt army took advantage of it in vain.

This cheeky statement made Ouyang Xuan laugh, and the rest of the Thunderbolt Army also laughed.

Seeing that Ouyang Xuan didn't care, the messenger took out Cao Zhizhou's letter and handed it to Ouyang Xuan. Ouyang Xuan smiled and finished reading the letter, and then asked the messenger to drive away.

Cao Ergou was puzzled and asked what was going on. Ouyang Xuan told everyone the content of the letter, and before he could finish speaking, everyone burst into laughter again.

It turned out that Cao Zhizhou also knew that it was impossible to easily give up the territory he had won with his life, and this was won from the Mongols, and reporting to the imperial court must be a great achievement.

Therefore, in the letter, Cao Zhizhou first called Ouyang Xuan by the same tone as his boss addressed his subordinates, implying that he was just a small Yongkang county magistrate, and also said that he had a big backer in Lin'an, in order to use his power to suppress people to take back the famous mountain city and get the merit of defeating the Mongolian army.

He knew that the Thunderbolt Army had always been semi-independent, and had never participated in the affairs of officialdom, let alone obeyed orders.

By the afternoon, the so-called Yazhou

The "army" really arrived as promised. There are quite a few people, about 2,000 people. It's just that although there are many people, there are no them at all

The appearance of "elite soldiers". These Yazhou soldiers walked under the scorching sun for most of the day, the queue was scattered, the army was not in order, and the frail ones had already staggered.

The equipment was only bows and arrows, broadswords, spears and wooden shields, and there were no siege weapons. These soldiers were already thirsty, and when they saw the city gate closed, they kept insulting them, and said that if they did not open the door as soon as possible, the city would be destroyed, and some soldiers even fired arrows at the city, almost injuring the soldiers at the city.

This made Cao Ergou furious, and ordered the cannon to be fired——— but did not face the Yazhou soldiers. The huge roar suddenly made the soldiers under the city stop shouting and scolding, and they saw that the weeds and small trees next to them were blown up and flew all over the place, so they immediately restrained their arrogance and rushed along the original road towards Yazhou.

A day later, another messenger was sent from Yazhou. Ouyang Xuan's brows furrowed after reading the letter. It turned out that Cao Zhizhou knew about the Thunderbolt army caravan, and said that if he did not return the famous mountain city, he would not want to pass through Yazhou City.

In other words, Cao Zhizhou is not an amplification, the Southern Song Dynasty had a weak control over ethnic minority areas due to its weak military, and mostly adopted fetter management.

Lizhou manages many detainment states such as Diao, Yan, etc. However, Lizhou only governs one county of Hanyuan, and there are more people than Han people, and there are only a few hundred soldiers who can fight, and even Yazhou has to rely on Yazhou in terms of security and banditry.

Although the Thunderbolt caravan was not weak, it was impossible to force its way through the two states of Ria with its goods.

In addition to using the caravan as a bargaining chip, Cao Zhizhou also hinted to Ouyang Xuan that in order to make up for the cost of sending troops, the Thunderbolt army could act cheaply in the famous mountain city, which was actually telling Ouyang Xuan to plunder.

To say that although Cao Zhizhou's words are vicious, it is also the norm to raid the city in this era. In fact, in addition to the Mongols, most of the Song troops also plundered after capturing the city, because for most soldiers, the wealth and women after the city was broken were the biggest motivation for their lives.

For these acts, the generals who lead the troops often condone them in order to boost morale. The reason why Cao Zhizhou did this was because in his opinion, it was really not cost-effective for the Thunderbolt army to exchange a caravan for the richest city in Yazhou, for fear that Ouyang Xuan would not agree to this suggestion.

In fact, for Ouyang Xuan, the lives of hundreds of brothers in the caravan are much more valuable than the famous mountain city, not to mention that the caravan still has the materials and horses urgently needed by the Thunderbolt army, and more importantly, Ouyang Xuan learned from the letter sent back by Boss Qian that the caravan has established a stronghold in the Fan District and obtained stable material channels, which will be of great help to the future development of the Thunderbolt army.

After a moment of silence, Ouyang Xuan replied to the messenger, agreeing to exchange Mingshan City for the safe passage of the caravan, but if the caravan was damaged, it would be the thunderous wrath of the Thunderbolt army.

As for such a thing as looting his own city, Ouyang Xuan would never do it and would not tolerate others doing it. Of course, not looting does not mean that there is no harvest, at least there is a lot of property in the warehouse of the official mansion of Mingshan City, although the Mongols took some of it, but there are still a lot of silk, tea, and grain.

The property of wealthy families who had taken refuge with the Mongols was also confiscated. After Ouyang Xuan told Cao Ergou about the follow-up matters, he took the horses, prisoners of war and captured property to Baizhang City, accompanied by the naval army company and Zhou Jianshen's return camp.

The reason why he hurried back was that there were still a lot of things waiting for him to make a decision at home. Huang Dagen also had a secret report, saying that the Mongolian army in the direction of Chengdu had begun to assemble again, and it seemed that they were planning a major military operation again.

For this reason, he told Cao Ergou that once he escorted the caravan to Qiongzhou, he would immediately lead the field camp back to Chongqing City.

On the return trip, Ouyang Xuan and his entourage arrived at Baizhang City at noon because of the official road they walked, and there were horses and short horses left by Qian Lao Er carrying their baggage.

After resting for a while, Ouyang Xuan left Zhou Jianshen's Guizheng battalion to guard Baizhang City, while the Navy Company and the Teaching Company continued to follow him to Qiongzhou with horses.

The more than 400 prisoners of war of the newly annexed army stayed in Baizhang City to repair and strengthen the city defenses, and then they were sent to the mountains of Qiongzhou to open mines.

On the fifth day after Ouyang Xuan left, the caravan appeared outside the famous mountain city. After months of suffering, he finally saw his own people, which made the caravan rejoice.

Needless to say, Boss Qian listened to Qian Er talk about the marriage of Cao Ergou and Qian Yanmei on the way, and he was very relieved in his heart, the Qian clan has been deeply bound to the Thunderbolt Army since then, as long as they work hard, they don't have a future.

Li Gongzi and other squad leaders in the caravan were also very happy to see their former comrades. At the moment, the two sides are feasting and carnival, and the protagonist on the table is horse meat.

The people of the city were grateful to the Thunderbolts for driving out the Mongols and bringing food such as fruits and vegetables. Although Cao Ergou and the others already knew the general situation of the caravan's trip through the situation sent back by the messenger, they still sighed after listening to the detailed explanation of Boss Qian and others.

In the past few days waiting for the arrival of the caravan, he has been ordering people to scrape nitrate in the famous mountain city. Therefore, when Cao Ergou talked about the Thunderbolt army beating the Mongols with firearms, he inadvertently mentioned the problem of the lack of firearms, and this made Boss Qian take it, saying that there were a lot of coarse firearms in the goods brought back by the caravan.

With Ze Yan's full help, the caravan collected a lot of coarse fire nitrate when it hit the arrow furnace, and collected a lot of it when it stayed in Lizhou.

An even bigger surprise was that just two days before they returned from Lizhou, they learned from the local population that there was also a nearby nitrate mine.

Boss Qian sent Qian Bao to inspect with the villagers, and found that the reserves were quite large. Boss Qian had always kept in mind the items that Ouyang Xuan asked to procure, and he would miss this opportunity, so he immediately bought the mine from the locals with a lot of money, and retained the management personnel, preparing to recruit locals for large-scale mining.

Compared with the strategic materials such as fire and mercury purchased on this trip, horses are the biggest gain of this trip.

In addition to the four hundred war horses captured from the steppe tribes, the caravan also purchased more than three hundred mules and horses along the way.

The cost of buying these mules and horses and the people eating horses during their stay in Lizhou were really expensive, and even if the money boss ordered to save them, he also used the thousand taels of gold given by Ze Yang to the left.