In addition to Ma Yunjiu and the more than 20 people in the cavalry team, Zhuangzili sent two villagers to lead the way on horseback. The miner sat on the horse of one of the villagers.
After walking about three or four miles, Ma Yunjiu frowned.
This is not the same road as the one he walked last time when he explored the road. It is not the road from Lingqiu County to Dongshan Railway Station.
However, he was speechless and decided in his heart that as soon as he found something was wrong, he would immediately lead the cavalry away.
After the horse galloped for almost seven or eight miles, the villagers leading the way stopped. One of the villagers said: "Chief Ma, in front is the official road leading to the Dongshan Iron Field. Let's wait here for the other party to come back from the Dongshan Iron Field."
Ma Yunjiu took a look at the surrounding environment. They were behind a small hill. The view leading to the official road was very wide. The distance between the hill and the official road was less than one mile, which was exactly the distance at which the horse's speed could be increased to the fastest speed.
"This place is good, let's just go here." Ma Yunjiu nodded. Even he would be hard-pressed to find a more suitable place to hide than here, especially at such a suitable distance from the official road.
It took a lot of effort for the Xu family to find this place.
Not knowing when the waiting people would arrive, Ma Yunjiu and the cavalry team got off their horses and simply fed them some of the concentrate they had brought to build up their horse power.
Ma Yunjiu found a clean place to sit down and said to a subordinate next to him: "Go and bring that miner over."
"Yes." The horse bandit turned and walked towards the miner who was thrown on the ground.
Two villagers from the Xu family had been standing by the miner's side, worried that the miner would escape.
It wasn't that he was afraid that the other party would really run away, but that he was afraid that Liu Heng, who was coming back from Dongshan, would see him running away and guess that there was an ambush on the road.
When the horse bandits came to call people over for questioning, the two villagers did not stop them.
As soon as the miner who was brought saw Ma Yunjiu, he immediately fell to his knees on the ground and begged: "Good man, please spare my life. Please let me go!"
Following all the way here, even if you don’t know the identity of Ma Yunjiu and others, you can see the appearance of these people, with a fierce and vicious look, and weapons on their bodies. You can imagine what they are doing, even if you can’t guess who Ma Yunjiu and others are. Horse bandits can also be known as ruthless bandits who kill without batting an eye.
"Answer my questions honestly, and I will protect your life. Otherwise, I will take your life now." Ma Yunjiu raised his eyebrows with a fierce expression on his face.
"Yes, yes, yes, I don't dare to hide it, I don't dare to hide it." The miner was so frightened that he knelt down and kowtowed.
"Let me ask you," Ma Yunjiu said, "Where does the road ahead lead to?"
"What way?" The miner was stunned.
Ever since he was thrown off his horse, he had been so full of fear that he didn't even notice where he was. Moreover, he had been behind the hill and could not see the official road on the other side of the hill.
"Take him over and have a look." Ma Yunjiu ordered the horse bandit beside him, "Don't let the two villagers of the Xu family notice."
The horse bandit nodded, lifted the miner who was kneeling on the ground, came to the top of the mountain, and said in a rough voice: "Look clearly, where is this place?"
The miner carefully looked around and said hurriedly: "This is the road from Dongshan to Hutou Village. Yes, it is that road. I walked through it when I was transporting refined iron to Hutou Village."
The horse bandit slipped the man back again and whispered: "Ma Tou, something is wrong. This road leads to Hutou Village. I am afraid it is the lair of a group of bandits."
When the Xu family found Shi Yunhu through Li Weiming, they only said that the person they wanted to kill was the owner of the iron farm. Shi Yunhu and Ma Yunjiu did not think about bandits at all.
After all, bandits are doing business without capital, so how can they open an iron yard and make a legitimate living?
Ma Yunjiu looked at the miners in front of him and asked, "Where is Hutou Village? What does it do?"
"Our employer's territory, no, it's the former employer's territory." The miner said cautiously.
"Your former boss Liu Heng is a bandit leader?"
Ma Yunjiu immediately grasped the key point of the miner's words. Only the bandits and grassroots in the mountains would use the term "turf".
The miner hesitated for a moment, glanced secretly at the two villagers in the distance, and said in a low voice: "Good man, I don't dare to lie to you. My former employer is indeed a bandit leader, and he also fought with the garrison camp not long ago. In one battle, just in the iron field battle, dozens of officers and soldiers were killed. The younger one also heard that more people died in Hutou Village, and when the officers and soldiers returned to the county town, they pulled a full cartload of heads."
"So the bandits in Hutou Village were wiped out by the army."
As soon as he finished speaking, Ma Yunjiu felt that something was wrong again. The bandits in Hutou Village really had to be wiped out. How could that man named Liu Heng go to the Dongshan Ironyard to see the new furnace being opened? He should just run away now.
The miner said: "The bandits in Hutou Village are fine. The ones who died are all those who went to suppress the bandits. I heard someone said that those who died in Hutou Village were all thugs from the Xujia Iron Works."
Hearing this, the horse bandit next to him said angrily: "His grandma, this Xu family has no good intentions. Such a group of strong men actually asked us to kill them. They are asking our brothers to die. Ma Tou, why don't we go back to Daliang Mountain?" , anyway, after getting one hundred taels of silver, I understand that the Xu family will not dare to go to Daliang Mountain to find us."
Ma Yunjiu also thought about going back. A garrison camp has at least two thousand households. Even if they are on empty wages, there will always be seven or eight hundred people. With so many people, the bandits killed a lot of people, and many people were killed and injured. It shows that the bandits in Hutou Village are not easy to deal with. At least their Daliang Mountain village cannot defeat nearly a thousand officers and soldiers.
"How many bandits are there in Hutou Village?" Ma Yunjiu asked.
The miner said: "It used to be said to be five to six hundred. After the defeat of the official army, it was reported that there were thousands of bandits on the Hutou Village. I don't know how many there are specifically."
"Good boy, who are the officers and soldiers in Lingqiu? The garrison camp in Lingqiu can only have a thousand people at most!" The horse bandit next to him took a breath.
Ma Yunjiu frowned.
Their original bandit army only had two thousand people, and only six or seven hundred of them could actually fight. If the thousand bandits from Hutou Village could fight, they would be stronger than their original bandit army. No wonder they could defeat Lingqiu. Guard the camp.
Seeing that Ma Yunjiu was silent, the horse bandit on the side said again: "Ma Tou, you can't stay in Lingqiu. This is a place of right and wrong, and Liu Heng is a pit of fire. Whoever touches him will die."
"Not necessarily." Ma Yunjiu said, "No matter how many bandits there are in Hutou Village, he can't take them all to the Iron Field. As long as he doesn't bring many people with him, we still have a chance."
The Xu family paid two hundred taels of silver for killing Liu Heng, half of the deposit was paid, and as long as he killed the person, he could get the other half. Ma Yunjiu was unwilling to give up just like that.
I have to meet Liu Heng once and make sure there is no chance of killing him before he is willing to accept it.
One hundred taels of silver is not a small amount. Many of the soldiers and servants of the frontier generals only have more than one tael of silver per month. One hundred taels is enough to save for several years.
He believed that he could lead the cavalry to break out from the siege of the army. Facing the bandits, he had the confidence to kill the leader of Hutou Village and then lead the cavalry to escape.
