Compared with the stability of eliminating the beast plague, the action to suppress the bandits is much more intense. Except for a few vicious people, most of the bandits who occupy the mountains are people who are swept away by the tide of the times, and they are not evil. Therefore, the tone set by Ouyang Xuan is that political offensive is the mainstay, supplemented by military strikes. As soon as the order to surrender was issued, many bandits either surrendered in groups or slipped down the mountain to surrender themselves. In the eyes of these bandits, firearms are simply a thunderbolt from the sky, and even the fierce Mongolian army cannot resist them, and if they resist hard, they will definitely be a dead end. Now the Thunderbolt army has said that surrendering now can reduce the punishment, and there is no life in his hands, so it is a big deal to serve several years of hard labor. I heard that although mining is hard, you can eat a round belly, which is no worse than licking blood from the knife edge and not having enough to eat. It is said that these bandits have inquired about the capture policy of the Perak Army.

There are still many bandits who are determined to resist to the end, and they refuse to surrender because they have done all the bad things, and their bodies are stained with the blood of the people, and even the blood of the Thunderbolt soldiers, knowing that if they surrender, they will not escape death. In fact, these recalcitrant bandits also secretly asked people to ask for a way out, in a vain hope of getting a way out, and even put forward the conditions for becoming officials. In their opinion, this is compared to fists and strength in this troubled era, and the court is not often recruited? Because the prisoner policy was the basic policy of the Perak Army, Ouyang Xuan submitted it to the military-political joint conference for discussion. At the meeting, quite a number of people suggested that in order to reduce the casualties of the Perak soldiers, they could be pardoned for their crimes, and even let them make meritorious contributions to the Mongol army. Ouyang Xuan resolutely opposed this opinion, in his opinion, if justice was not manifested, how could the Thunderbolt Army stand in the world. What's more, most of these stubborn bandits are grass on the wall, and for them betrayal is as simple as drinking water, and keeping them is a disaster.

Seeing that the Thunderbolt army was uncompromising, the bandits' attitude became more and more arrogant, and they even shouted slogans to make the entire western Sichuan chicken and dog uneasy. It's just that the mouth cannon can withstand the artillery, and under the thunderous blow of the Thunderbolt Army, these bandits have collapsed, and only two bandit dens remain. One is the Jiufeng Mountain guarded by Qin Mazi, and the other is the border between Jiading and the Void Hate Department called the Barbarian King Cave Canyon. The two places have a lot in common: they are located in steep alpine mountains, deep and densely forested valleys with only one entry and exit, and the rivers in the ravines are turbulent but navigable in some sections, and even rich in coal, iron, copper and nitrate. Of course, the biggest thing that these two places have in common is that they are extremely easy to defend and difficult to attack. So much so that the bandits in the Barbarian King's Cave declared that the Thunderbolt army was not impossible to attack, but it would take a hundred years.

The hubris of these bandits is not without reason. The mountain road here is not only steep and rugged, but more importantly, it is cold and lacks oxygen, and ordinary people are out of breath when they climb up, and they can't carry weight at all. Even if the Yibo warriors in the Perak army had amazing physical strength, they could only travel lightly to the mountain. Without artillery, with only muskets and grenades, there is simply no advantage in front of condescending bandits. The bandits who got stuck at the dangerous intersection even threw stones down while drinking and singing, causing the Thunderbolt to lose their troops. The Thunderbolts also tried to transport light artillery up the hill on ponies, but these bandits were not stupid, and immediately rolled down the dense stones, and for a time the stones flew on the narrow mountain path, splashing flesh and blood all over the place, and those who did not hit also fell off the cliff to avoid the flying rocks. The Thunderbolts had no choice but to shell from afar, but the light artillery had a limited range, and the effect of the artillery was really limited due to the thin air in the mountains due to the upward firing, and they could only gnaw shallow marks on the rock mass where the bandits were hiding. This made the bandits even more rampant, hiding behind rocks and shouting taunts at the Perak soldiers.

Seeing that the strong attack failed, Hou Xing and Yang Bangxian had to hold back the idea of a quick attack, and according to the order, they led a battalion to attack the Barbarian King Cave and Jiufeng Mountain respectively. Zan Wanshou and Huang Dagen were busy with affairs, and they really didn't have the energy to personally command and suppress the bandits, and the fact that they had to be busy was too much: "Autumn prevention" was of course also the top priority, and although the officials in charge of government affairs were in charge of the reclamation points, industrial construction, fortress and stronghold construction, river channel widening, and reclamation, they were also very busy. Zan Wanshou sent the deputy division commander Hou Xinglai to command the suppression of bandits, in addition to wanting to beat the slave owners of the Void Hate Department, he also wanted to quickly pacify the bandits, after all, this Barbarian King Cave was too close to Rune Town. Runetown was home to the industrial sites and arsenals that Ouyang Xuan had personally chosen. For the same reason, Huang Dagen was ready to let Dong Hu, the deputy division commander who was good at special operations, lead the army, but Yang Bangxian was desperate to clear out the bandits in Jiufeng Mountain. Huang Dagen considered that although Yang Bangxian was young, he was also brave and resourceful, and considering that Dong Hu's injuries had healed but still needed recuperation, so he allowed him to lead the army.

Although Ouyang Xuan sent a letter to tell Zan Wanshou and Huang Dagen that if they can't win a quick victory against the stubborn bandits, they can limit their range of activities to a certain area, as long as it does not have a big impact on production and life. Zan and Huang also agreed with Ouyang Xuan's opinion, knowing that this was sympathetic to the soldiers. According to historical records, in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, in order to capture the stone fort city of 500 Tibetan soldiers, the famous general Ge Shuhan lost nearly 10,000 elites, and the casualties were very heavy. Therefore, the two told Hou Xing and Yang Bangxian respectively that they only needed to build a fort to defend at the intersection of the necessary road to go down the mountain, and send heavy troops to curb the bandits from coming out. Although this bitter cold mountain is easy to defend and difficult to attack, there is also a lack of food and drink, as long as they can't grab something, they only need to stay up for a year and a half to make their faces yellow and thin, and they can be described as withered after two or three years. Although Hou Yang and the others carried out the order after receiving the order, they did not give up the desire for quick victory.

Before Yang Bangxian came to western Sichuan, he agreed with his father Yang Wen that he would go back after studying with his brother-in-law for a year. After coming to western Sichuan, what he saw and heard had a great impact on his three views, and he wrote to his father to beg him to stay for another two years, because he felt that there were too many things to learn, and his brother-in-law was simply a walking treasure, and he couldn't finish learning for a while. Now that the one-year contract is about to expire, Yang Wen has not replied to the letter, which makes him even more anxious. In Yang Bangxian's view, although he performed well in the Battle of the Three Crossings, he was not an independent leader of the troops after all, so it was inevitable that he would have a fly in the ointment. Banzhou's ability to stand tall in the face of strong enemies is inseparable from the great military exploits of the successive family heads. Yang's family style is both literary and martial, as the son of Banzhou, he will become the head of the family in the future, and carry forward the Yang family, so he naturally knows what military exploits mean. He wanted to get rid of the bandits before leaving, as a temporary gift to his brother-in-law and the Thunderbolts.

At this time, there were several bandits on Jiufeng Mountain who couldn't stand the bitter cold on the mountain, and sneaked down the mountain and were caught by the Thunderbolt army. According to these minions, there are still more than 200 bandits on the mountain, and there are enough weapons and equipment, so it is impossible to storm the mountain. In fact, the bandit leaders were eager for the Thunderbolt army to attack, on the one hand, it could boost morale, and on the other hand, even if it lost manpower, it could also reduce food consumption. Because the food on the mountain is insufficient, it can only ensure that the big and small leaders are fed. These little minions were so hungry that they couldn't stand it and ran away - down a beast path that few people knew about. Yang Bangxian's eyes lit up when he heard this, since he could go down the mountain, he must be able to go up the mountain, although Jiufeng Mountain was already full of ice and snow at this time.