Although there are many bandits in the mountainous areas north of Runing Prefecture, the two bandits Li Yaozi and Lei Ying are the most powerful. Among them, Li Yaozi's power is stronger than Lei Ying's power.

In the past days, because life was still acceptable, these two bandits were basically not in the water. However, now that everyone's life is hard, there is some friction between the two sides.

During the friction process, Lei Ying, which is relatively weak, always suffers more or less losses. Moreover, Li Yaozi, who has the upper hand, has become more aggressive. Therefore, this is also one of the reasons why Lei Ying wants to surrender to Wu Shigong.

For these bandits, taking Wu Shigong's reputation, they did not dare to provoke the caravans escorted by Wu Shigong's army. In addition, Wu Shigong's army was also quite aware of it. On this trade route, they only escorted salt goods, not other goods. They also left a bite of food for these bandits.

However, as the bandits' lives became more and more difficult, they robbed caravans more and more frequently. Because they were robbed more and more, fewer caravans passing through this trade route were also less and less, which formed a vicious cycle. The benefits of these bandits became less and less.

As Li Yaozi became more and more powerful among these bandits, his ambitions also expanded, and he turned his attention to the only caravan escorted by Wu Shigong's army, who was still on this business road.

In Li Yaozi's heart, although Wu Shigong's reputation remains a little, there is not much left. Because it has been more than half a year since Wu Shigong's massacre of the Holy Spirit and causing trouble to the people. Weiming has a shelf life. It also requires continuous watering of blood to keep fresh.

Li Yaozi estimated that his strength would definitely not be able to fight against Wu Shigong's car and horses directly. But as long as he is in the mountainous area of ​​Runing Mansion, with this home court advantage, Wu Shigong can't do anything to him.

So, when the caravan escorted by Wu Shigong's army passed by this time, Li Yaozi and more than 500 subordinates built a barrier with tree trunks and stones to block the road, and intercepted the caravan escorted by Wu Shigong's army.

The officer leading the caravan this time was Qian Qi. During the smooth escort process, Qian Qi was a little nervous when he encountered a bandit robber for the first time. So he shouted loudly: "Which leader is blocking the road ahead? We are Wu Qianhu's caravan. Are there any misunderstandings?"

Qian Qi's idea was: to report Wu Shigong's name. If Wu Shigong's name can be used to solve this problem smoothly, it would be the best result.

Unexpectedly, Li Yaozi, who was behind the obstacle, also shouted: "I also know that you are Lord Wu's caravan. But the mountain is really hard, so I ask Lord Wu to give me some food, leaving half of the salt. I, Li Yaozi, thank Lord Wu first!"

Although Li Yaozi came to rob the caravan escorted by Wu Shigong's army, he did not want to do anything. So he wanted to bargain. If the caravan was willing to leave 30% of the salt goods in the end, Li Yaozi would be satisfied. Of course, he could also find out Wu Shigong's bottom line through this robbery. If Wu Shigong surrendered this time, then the next robbery might also rob all the salt goods from the caravan escorted by Wu Shigong.

But after hearing Li Yaozi's words, Qian Qi was immediately furious. It seemed that these bandits knew their origin. They actually dared to slap flies on the tiger's head, so let them see how the tiger showed its power. He stopped Lu Yunhuan, who wanted to bargain with Li Yaozi, and immediately made a gesture to the officer behind him and prepared to fight.

Now among the officers under Wu Shigong, Qian Qi can steadily squeeze into the top ten. However, Qian Qi himself knew in his heart that among all the people who Wu Shigong brought out of the capital, his friendship with Wu Shigong was the weakest.

At that time, Qian Qi was in the Nancheng Military Affairs Office. Because of her father, Deputy Commander Qian, and Qian Qi performed well in military training, she was promoted to the position of Xiaoqi by Wu Shigong.

However, in the more than a year later, Qian Qi and Wu Shigong, the commander of the then military commander of the Military and Masjid, had no conversation and had no contact. However, when Wu Shigong left the Military and Masjid, Qian Qi could no longer survive in the Military and Masjid due to family reasons. Only then did he surrender to Wu Shigong.

After arriving at Qianhu, it was because Wu Shigong's other guards were unwilling to train these recruits in the queue, so Qian Qi was given the position of deputy leader of the recruits in the training.

By such a coincidence, Qian Qi took such a high position in the end. Therefore, Qian Qi himself knew that many of his officers who were from Wu Shigong's guards were not very convinced of their qualifications and abilities.

Therefore, Qian Qi wanted to make some contributions to block the mouths of those who questioned their abilities. So, when Li Yaozi and his bandits made the request for blackmail, Qian Qi did not say anything nonsense to Li Yaozi and the others, and immediately ordered his soldiers to prepare for battle.

After Qian Qi's order was sent, the soldiers began to line up and the musketeers began to load gunpowder bullets. This must have taken a while, a process. The soldiers' appearance of preparing to fight was also seen by bandits like Li Yaozi and others.

At this time, Li Yaozi hesitated. After all, he did not want to formally confront Wu Shigong, but just wanted to show his strength and take more benefits. If the two sides fought, the conflict would intensify. Once both sides were angry, they would be endless.

However, Li Yaozi did not give the order, and some of his bandits could not sit still. Seeing that the soldiers were about to prepare, some bandits took the initiative to take action. They stayed behind obstacles built by tree trunks and stones, and began to draw bows and shoot arrows.

With the first person shooting arrows, the others also shot arrows one after another. Qian Qi's soldiers did not retreat very far because they wanted to protect the caravan. The soldiers in the front row of the troops happened to be at the edge of the range of the bow and arrow.

However, the bows and arrows used by Li Yaozi and the bandits were also hunting bows for hunting, not military-style bows, so the range was relatively close and the power was relatively small. In addition, the bandits' desire to fight was also half-hearted, and some bandits holding bows and arrows did not join the bandits who shot archers.

Therefore, the dozens of arrows shot out of the scattered arrows injured four or five soldiers. Because these soldiers were all wearing beggar uniforms and protected by this piece of earth armor, no soldiers were shot to the vital point.

However, such an archery also caused chaos among the soldiers. It was only under the severe rebuke of Qian Qi and other officers that the soldiers retreated orderly beyond the range of the bow and arrow according to the training content.

At this time, the musketeers had loaded gunpowder bullets. They stepped forward to the front of the queue and fired a row of volleys under the command of the officers.

With the protection of obstacles built by tree trunks and stones, the row of volleys shot dead and injured five or six bandits. But in the same way, this also caused chaos among the bandits. When Li Yaozi saw that the battle had already begun, he made up his mind to start the fight.

At this time, the situation between the two sides of the battle was a bit subtle. Li Yaozi had many bandits, and was protected by obstacles, and he also had an advantage in the terrain.

Qian Qi's soldiers were small, but with the powerful weapon of musket, his soldiers had received good military training. However, Qian Qi's soldiers had to protect the caravan, and they didn't know if there were any ambushings from bandits on the mountains on both sides of the road, so they had to send some soldiers to protect both sides and rear wings of the caravan. Therefore, they were fighting with mercy.

In addition, if the caravan wants to move forward, it must move away this obstacle. However, under the threat of bandit bows and arrows, sending troops to rush forward will definitely cause great casualties. Therefore, Qian Qi did not give orders to the soldiers to charge forward. She just arranged the firing of the muskets.

Because of Qian Qi's soldiers and guns, Li Yaozi's bandits did not dare to break out of the obstacles and faced Qian Qi's soldiers directly. So, you only had a bow and arrow on both sides, and I was a stalemate.

It was not until the end that when Qian Qibing and his team were ready, they fired several shots at the obstacle in succession, and made a gap in the obstacle, and then Li Yaozi and the bandits scattered their birds and beasts.

In the later stalemate, Qian Qi's soldiers did not suffer any casualties, but Li Yaozi's bandits were killed and injured at most a dozen people, and did not suffer any fatal losses.

At this time, the sky was almost dark. Even if we could move out the obstacles, Qian Qi and the others were afraid that they would encounter ambushing by bandits in this dark night. After discussing with Lu Yunhuan, Qian Qi and the others decided to return to the Qianhu Fortress first, report Wu Shigong's situation, and then make the next plan.

After Wu Shigong learned the whole process in detail, he praised Qian Qi's actions. Wu Shigong mainly praised Qian Qi with two points: the first point is that Qian Qi dared to fight under the threat of bandits like Li Yaozi; the second point is that when the situation is unclear, Qian Qi has no impulse to withdraw his army and caravan back to Qianhushou Fortress, preserving his own vitality.

As for how to wipe out Li Yaozi's bandits, you can make plans and discuss plans with a firm mind, and there is no need to worry about anything. Li Yaozi's bandit village will not grow wings and fly away by itself.

After arranging the injured soldiers to take care of the wounded soldiers, Wu Shigong first sent someone to Lei Ying and asked him to send someone familiar with the road to Li Yaozi's village and to understand the structure and military strength of Li Yaozi's village.

Unexpectedly, Lei Ying personally brought some subordinates who were familiar with the situation to the Qianhu Fortress. When he learned that Wu Shigong wanted to wipe out Li Yaozi, Lei Ying welcomed him with both hands. If Li Yaozi's bandits were wiped out, then the entire mountainous area would be the dominant Lei Ying family, which was completely in line with Lei Ying's interests.

After Lei Ying and his men introduced the situation in detail, Wu Shigong discussed with leaders such as Xue Yongli, quickly formulated an action plan to wipe out Li Yaozi's village.

Then Wu Shigong asked Lu Yunhuan to report the case to the county government office and his Thousand Household Office respectively to ensure the legality of his bandit suppression operation.

Although Wu Shigong received a document from the superior yamen asking him to jointly suppress the bandits. However, Wu Shigong's bandit suppression operation was after all, after all, he went to Runing Mansion to suppress the bandits. If there was no legal reason, he was easily attacked. Especially when the current county magistrate is still Wu Shigong's enemy, Yu Zilian.

The reason why Wu Shigong suppressed bandits was: the businessmen in this county encountered bandits robbers on the trade route, so Wu Shigong helped the businessmen in this county cross the border to suppress bandits.

After doing all this, Wu Shigong brought five hundred soldiers and one hundred cavalry, and these soldiers brought more than one hundred muskets and all five of his own artillery. Under the leadership of Lei Ying and others, they rushed towards Li Yaozi's village.
Chapter completed!