There were houses made of rammed earth walls everywhere under the snow slopes, arranged on the hillside, hundreds of them, and several miles apart. Li Xingzhou lay in the snow and said to Wei Li next to him: "There are at least two thousand people, right?"

Wei Li nodded: "We were also shocked when we met. If we do this, we will still not fight."

"You can't fight." Li Xingzhou shook his head, "This place is intertwined and open on all sides, so they can run away. We have to go deeper if we want to settle the houses. There are so many houses, which is a big trouble and will also alarm the enemy."

Wei Yubai also nodded in agreement and said, "And this place is very strange. I have been watching it for so long, but there are only elderly people, children and women, and I have never seen any young and strong people."

"Is that true?" Li Xingzhou looked carefully for a while, but couldn't see clearly from too far away. He would have known that he would have made a telescope.

He looked carefully for a while and it seemed that even the strength was done by women and children.

Several people slowly retreated to the top of the mountain. Wei Yubai turned his head and said to him: "Criminal, there are thousands of bandits in the Black Mountains. It should be a gathering place for each village. So in order to seize the power, many young and strong gathering points gathered in one place. It makes sense if there is no young and strong in this place."

Li Xingzhou nodded, and also felt that Wei Yubai's words were reasonable.

"Prince, do you want to grab a tongue and ask?" said Shen Lin.

"You are still scratching your tongue?" Li Xingzhou was curious.

"That's natural. Although we have never fought any big battles, we have fought with the Black Mountain bandits once or twice." Shen Lin said.

Li Xingzhou thought for a while: "Okay, do it when it gets dark, try not to let people discover it.

There is a livestock shed at the entrance of the village. Someone should be there to put the fodder at night. You can do it at that time and find a few good skills to avoid any trouble."

Chanlin nodded and went down to prepare.

In rural areas, hay or dried leaves are usually placed on the animals at night. On the one hand, the animals can eat them and sleep on the food that cannot be finished. On the other hand, it can absorb the thin and thick feces of animals and turn them into dry and easy-to-use fertilizers, also called manure production.

Therefore, people usually come to add some hay to the animals before going to bed. Once the person who adds hay reaches the entrance of the village, it will be convenient to grab his tongue.

The others walked around the village from the east mountain from the distance and camped five miles ahead.

Everyone ate dry food, did not make a fire, and kept waiting quietly. Fortunately, it didn't snow much since entering the mountain, and it was not as cold as they thought it would be.

In the middle of the night, Shen Lin brought his people back and caught an old man. The old man had something stuffed in his mouth and almost lost his anger.

"I won't die, right?" Wei Li asked.

"No." Shen Lin said as he asked someone to take out the stone stuffed in the old man's mouth, and he also had a mouthful of blood. He grabbed a handful of snow covering his face. The old man woke up and jumped up, and was pressed down again.

Chanlin began to interrogate, and the old man was obviously frightened and said whatever he asked.

Slowly everyone understood that this place was one of the largest bandits among the Black Mountain bandits, the old nest of the Black Leopard!

Wei Yubai also nodded: "It is indeed possible. Looking at those cave houses, you can hold two or three thousand people in a squeeze, and you can get a young and strong man with nearly a thousand people."

"Where is the Black Panther? Is he in the village?" Li Xingzhou continued to ask.

The old man shook his head: "I'm not here. Last twelve, the jade fox called them away and never came back!"

"Jade-faced Fox" Li Xingzhou recited this name.

"It seems that the Jade-faced Fox is probably the leader of the thief who gathers everyone. Do you know where the Jade-faced Fox's village is?"

"I know, right in the north, there is a fork in front of you, just walk along the north avenue."

The old man is very good at matching and says whatever he asks.

Li Xingzhou asked the guards to bring the pen and ink he had prepared early, of course, the pen was a quill pen, and then lit a candle and wrote down the locations of the Yu-faced Fox Village, Xiong Village, and other large and small villages he explained.

There are more than a dozen of them in total, but except for the Bear Village, Black Leopard Village, and the Fox Mountain City with Jade-faced Fox, there are all small villages and villages. According to his instructions, there are no more than fifty households.

This interrogation obtained a lot of useful information and found out the large number of bandit nests entrenched in the Taihang Mountains in one fell swoop. Although it was not clear whether the information was accurate, it was also a huge surprise.

But the next few people have different opinions on how to deal with this old man.

Wei Li felt that he was honest in his explanation and was very generous, so he should save his life.

Wei Yubai and Shen Lin believed that this person could not be kept. If he went back to report the news and attracted other people, their troops, which were already small, might be in a dilemma of attacks from front to back, and they could not afford such risks.

The old man seemed to understand what they were saying, knelt on the ground and kept kowtowing.

Faced with such a choice, Li Xingzhou was also in a dilemma at first.

But he was not an indecisive person. There were too many such lessons. Cao Cao was surrounded by Bi Chen, Liu Bang of the Chu-Han Covenant, and even modern times, military special forces airborne Afghanistan. When he landed, he met an old man with his grandson and herd sheep. The colonel was inexperienced. Because of his kindness, he only let them leave soon. In less than half an hour, they were surrounded by militias brought back by the old man. Almost all the troops were wiped out, and only one escaped by chance.

Human hearts are so chaotic and unpredictable.

This is another meaning of "Ciyi" in charge of soldiers

Excellent generals must bear the lives of thousands of subordinates, and must erase the unrealistic weakness and kindness in their hearts, because they must be responsible for the lives of every soldier under their command, rather than letting them die foolishly.

"You can deal with it and make it more neat." Li Xingzhou said in a deep voice to Shen Lin.

Shen Lin nodded, and the old man jumped up and wanted to cry and scold and resist, but was held down by Shen Lin and dragged it to the back of the hillside.

"You don't have to blame yourself so much. Anyone in this mountain has no life on his hands? You see, there are scars on his neck and face, so he must have done it." Wei Yubai comforted.

Li Xingzhou nodded and walked back to the hillside.

"What are you doing?" Wei Yubai asked.

"Since I'm judging his death, at least I have to watch him die so that I can have a clear conscience in the future." Li Xing smiled bitterly, then climbed over the hillside, Wei Li and many soldiers watched him leave, and Wei Yubai smiled and looked very good.

"Thank you, but I'm sorry." Li Xingzhou finally took action against the old man Dao Shenlin decisively. Obviously not the first time he did such a thing. I think it was because the Xiang army had never fought a war, but it was definitely not the first time he had a small-scale fight with the Black Mountain Bandits.

He suddenly understood what it means to "I would rather let others down than let others down."

When he returned with blood stains, the snowflakes reflected the moonlight, and the hillside was as bright as the moon. The soldiers were staring at him blankly, and then grinning and revealing their big white teeth.

Li Xingzhou waved his hand: "Smile, go to bed quickly, there is still a way to go tomorrow. I dare not take risks for everyone, so I will do the bad guys, and you will fight."

"Don't worry, your lord! We will never let you down." Wei Li clenched his fists and said.

In the following days, they walked carefully according to the map for four days, but there were still no guard posts along the way. On the morning of the fourth day, the scouts in front would come to report and found a larger village in the valley, and there were crowds of people and fireworks, which was speculated that there were many people.

Li Xingzhou took out a simple map and made a comparison, "If that's right, this is Hushan City. Put down the cannons and prepare for battle."

The artillery soldiers of the Shenji Camp began to remove the artillery from the mule's back and assemble it, and the musketeers began to check the ammunition and then fill it out.

When the scout talked about the terrain of the mountain city, there was a mountain road of about 200 meters. On the cliffs, only five or six people could pass side by side, and there were bandit sentries guarding it in the aisle.
Chapter completed!