Chapter Forty-Four Ambush

  The ominous premonition was immediately confirmed, and Bao Er was carried into the main hall on the back of a man. Sha Luo saw this and his forehead instantly bulged with blue veins. He strode forward, grabbed Bao Er from the man's back, grasped Bao Er's collar with both hands, and shouted: "Why have you come back alone? Where is Shan Zi? Where is your young leader?"

  He was trembling all over his body, he was a brave warrior, but he was most afraid of the big-headed leader, he cried out loud before speaking, and burst into tears!

  Sha Luo's head spun and he stumbled backward, his mouth trembling as he asked: "Zhan Er, what...what happened to him? Is it..." As a bandit, with one foot in the coffin and one foot out, he was always on the verge of death. He himself was a notorious bandit leader, how could he not know this? But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to say the words.

  Who dares to say that Sha Luo died in battle? Moreover, he didn't even confirm whether Sha Luo was dead or not. When he rushed into the forest to capture people, before he could see Sha Luo, he was beaten until his pants were wet with urine. Whether Sha Luo is dead or not is unknown, but he himself almost died!

  "Shao Touling has been captured by the Han soldiers, and may have already been taken to the county town!" Bao Zhen said cautiously, fearing to provoke Da Touling's anger again.

  "Thank goodness," exclaimed Sharo, letting out a sigh of relief. As long as his son wasn't dead, he would definitely be able to rescue him. Getting up from the ground, Sharo asked, "Was it the Fuping army that took him away? The Fuping army is really weak. Those soldiers won't exert themselves unless they're fighting at their own doorstep. How could they possibly go all out just for a small batch of raw iron?"

  He dared not speak the truth, not because he was dishonest, but because anyone in his shoes would also dare not speak the truth. What else could he say? Could he say that more than 20 of them were defeated by five Han soldiers and escaped with just him?

  "Originally, we had already seized the iron ore, but I don't know why the Fuping army went crazy and mobilized their entire force. More than 200 of them attacked our twenty or so men, and we were outnumbered. The young leader ordered me to break through and report back, but he himself was captured!" He fell to the ground, wailing loudly, "Great Leader, we must act immediately and rescue the young leader!"

  "Over 200 people? I remember that the Fuping army didn't have enough soldiers, only over a hundred. Did they recruit new soldiers recently?" But before he could think more about it, he rushed out and shouted: "Tell the brothers to follow me, we're going to rescue Young Master! Hurry up, let's set off immediately!"

  He grabbed his specially made large bow and quiver, and rushed out of the main hall first. Bao Er hurriedly jumped up and followed behind him.

  The entire bandit gang in the valley received the order, and they were all shocked. The young leader was caught, which was really terrifying. Who could have captured the young leader? With his skills, he couldn't be defeated in a fight, and he could escape if he wanted to. In the past, even the Xiongnu people couldn't catch up with him. Only a few rascals were left to guard the fort, while the rest of the bandits rushed out of the valley to follow Zha Luo to rescue their leader.

  On the edge of the forest, Wu Danzi was riding on a big tree trunk, looking far away, while Jing Qi was standing under the tree. At this time, it wasn't too late yet, and by rights, bandits wouldn't come so quickly, at least not for another hour or so. But to be on the safe side, they had been waiting here early to scout out the enemy's situation.

  Just as Zhang was gazing out, he suddenly saw a massive dust storm rising in the distance, and the ground began to shake violently. A large group of cavalrymen were charging towards them from afar, numbering over a hundred!

  "Wu Danzi bowed his head and said: 'Jing Qi, hurry back and report the news, a large group of bandits is coming!'"

  Jing Qi responded with a sound, turned around and ran into the woods. When he arrived at Li Qin's hiding place, he said: "What's wrong, bandits are coming, dust is flying everywhere, I estimate there are over a hundred people!"

  Li Qin nodded and said: "Brothers, cover all the horse's mouths, quickly!"

  Jia Yu asked instead: "Take a closer look, did they bring spare horses?"

  Jing Qi was taken aback and shook his head: "I didn't see clearly, Wu Danzi didn't say that, so it should be that he didn't bring a spare horse!"

  Jia Xi snorted, smiling: "If they didn't bring spare horses, then this time they're in trouble!" With a leisurely expression, as if everything was under his control, he sat on the ground without moving, not helping the soldiers take care of the horses.

  But the soldiers were all very tense, and Li Qin was no exception. He covered the black horse's mouth with both hands, fearing that the horse would be startled and whinny loudly. All it took was one sound, and they would all be done for!

  Wu Danzi exerted himself to climb up the big tree, hiding among the branches, and even tucked in his collar. As a thief by trade, he was most skilled at this sort of thing. Just as he had finished hiding, a large band of robbers arrived.

  The bandit who had escaped earlier was leading the way in front, and when they reached the edge of the forest, he spoke loudly to an older bandit, recounting what had happened. It was likely that this older bandit was the leader of the group at Pig's Gorge.

  Several robbers dismounted and entered the forest, examined the carts loaded with raw iron, and after exiting the forest reported to each other before leaving.

  He spurred his horse on again, thinking to himself: "It seems that the Han soldiers have not discovered the carts carrying iron, otherwise they would have taken them away long ago. This shows that the Han soldiers are in a hurry to return. Therefore, I should not waste time on the road and should rush straight to the county town. First block one of the city gates, shoot fire arrows into the city, create momentum, scare the county magistrate, and then negotiate terms to rescue my son."

  Thinking of launching a fire arrow, he patted the custom-made large bow on his back, this time it all relied on it.

  When the robbers had run far away, Wu Danzi dared to get down and ran into the forest, saw Li Qin and called out: "What's long, checked clearly, a total of 138, all equipped with curved knives, all have leather shields, bows and arrows are complete, better than our government soldiers' equipment. I think their leader is about sixty years old, actually equipped with an iron bow, I didn't see it wrong, must be an iron bow!"

  Li Qinxin thought: "Iron bow, what a great force! Can a person over 60 years old pull it open?" He said: "How can bandits be worthy of the iron bow? Who did he rob?" After the danger passed, he relaxed his grip on the horse's mouth, and the soldiers also let out a sigh of relief.

  Jia San stood up and said, "Iron-tube bow, a flashy but useless thing. This kind of bow is hard to draw, in the heat of battle, how many times can you draw it, shoot out several arrows? When aiming, don't waste energy adjusting the string! With this skill, others would have shot several arrows already! The bandit leader uses this kind of bow, obviously he's just a brute who only knows how to use force, an old scoundrel, not worth bothering with!"

  Li Qin asked: "Do they have spare horses?"

  Wu Danzi shook his head and said, "I haven't seen anyone with an entourage, they all came alone on horseback."

  Li QIN smiled and said: "This is good. Brothers out of the forest, we rush to the bandit's home, replace heaven with justice, and eliminate harm for the people!"

  Everyone is delighted, usually they are the ones who rob others, but this time they can go and rob the robbers, go to the robbers' home, not only eliminating evil for the people, but also gaining benefits and fame. The most wonderful thing is that there's no danger at all, it's like hitting an empty nest, what could be better than this under the sky!

  Shen Yi laughed and said, "I, old Shen, have been a thief for half my life, always being scolded by the common people. Today I can finally do something good for the people and be praised, it's really not easy! Old Wu, what do you think?"

  Wu Xiaosan was so excited that he couldn't say anything and could only smile foolishly.

  Everyone led their horses out of the forest, and they all mounted up. This time there were enough horses to go around, with each person getting one and still having some left over - even more comfortable than the bandits, with spare horses on hand. Following the hoof prints left behind by the bandits, they set off together towards the front.

  The robbers were familiar with the road and ran at a natural speed. Li QIN and his party had horseshoe prints to follow, but none of them had been to the valley before. The closer they got to the robbers' lair, the more difficult the road became, so their running speed was not particularly fast. It wasn't until the moon was overhead that they finally arrived at the valley.

  The terrain near the Hog Stock Gorge is relatively complex, with many high and low small hills, which is not conducive to cavalry battles. This also means that if the government troops want to attack here, they will not be able to launch a surprise attack, but can only open up their formation and advance slowly, lacking suddenness. Moreover, the bandits are fierce and cruel, so the possibility of annihilating them is naturally small. However, this is usually the case, but tonight is an exception.

  Li QIN rode his horse up a small hill, and under the moonlight, he looked around and saw that the Huzi Gorge really resembled a pig's buttocks. The two semi-circular hills were like the pig's two buttock cheeks. The bandits' lair was probably between the two hills, in the valley resembling the cleft of the pig's buttocks. Outside the valley, there was a semicircular small hill, which was like the pig's tail and served as a natural barrier, somewhat like a city wall. At the exit of the circular small hill, there was also a small river, just like a moat, adding another layer of protection outside the barrier.

  Li Qin narrowed his eyes and looked for a while, then turned to Jia Yu behind him and said: "Brother-in-law, this place is indeed easy to defend and hard to attack, it can be said that one man can hold the pass, and ten thousand men cannot open it. Even if it's empty inside, there will still be some strong thieves guarding it, after all, this is their lair. Do you want to send someone to sneak closer and take a look first?" He deliberately wanted to send Wu Danzi over to take a look first.

  Jia Yu said: "It's usually like that when we part ways, but it doesn't matter tonight. There's no need to sneak around, let's just go in boldly."

  Li Qindao said: "Let's pretend to be robbers and launch a surprise attack?"

  Jia Xun nodded and said: "Yes, that's what I mean. We..."

  At this time, everyone had climbed up the small hill, and Feng Cheng couldn't help but say: "This is absolutely impossible. This is the stronghold of the bandits, they must be guarding it tightly, how could we possibly sneak in?"

  Everyone looked at Feng Cheng with disdain in their eyes, thinking: "This guy is really annoying, he's been worrying about this and that all the way, his courage is so small, yet he talks nonsense a lot."

  Li Qin was very patient and didn't look down on Feng Cheng, he said: "Feng Shizhong is worried about. But precisely because this is the stronghold of the bandits, they usually guard it tightly, like pretending to be one of their own people, I think it's never happened before..."

  One of the Han soldiers couldn't help but feel a bit resentful towards Feng Cheng, feeling that he had lost face for them in front of the other two. This Han soldier said: "Indeed, it has never happened before, and I've never heard of the Zhu Xian Gorge being besieged, at least not in these past few years."

  Li QIN nodded and smiled: "This brother said it well. Because they have never experienced being impersonated, so they must not be able to keep it. Alright, I'll take charge of this matter, Feng Shilong doesn't need to say more."

  As he spoke, he dismounted and grabbed a handful of mud from the ground, smearing it on his face, saying: "Let's disguise ourselves so that the bandits won't recognize us later and take revenge."

  Jia Yu praised: "Still, Ah Qian thought it through thoroughly, I didn't even think of this move."

  The soldiers all dismounted and smeared mud on their faces, Xiao Chao did the same, and he even smeared more, making himself look like a little black ghost.

  Li QIN said: "Wu Danzi, you can speak Hu language, go and lure the enemy first!"

  Wu Danzi responded with a sound, thinking: "It's me again, it seems I'm just destined to be a bait for the enemy!"

  The crowd mounted their horses again, without any concealment, and galloped away. The sound of horseshoes echoed outside the valley immediately.

  ——

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