An arrow that was like a flying fairy from the sky not only killed Shen Laoqi, but also made all the minions in Hutou Village stunned on the spot. It also caught the officers and soldiers off guard, making it difficult to react for a while. Only Suo Chao, who had been staring ahead, turned around suddenly after seeing this astonishing scene. His eyes suddenly fell on Sun Tu, who lowered his bow not far behind him.
Although he felt that the bow in Sun Tu's hand looked a little strange, Suo Chao's first reaction at this time was to take the opportunity to defeat the enemy, and immediately shouted: "The thief chief congratulates you, brothers, break through the thief's nest in one fell swoop, kill!" !" As soon as the words came out, he took the lead to fly forward, and the long ax in his hand was flying up and down to protect his body from being hurt by the enemy's arrows.
This loud shout immediately woke up a group of officers and soldiers. They all let go of their courage, shouted, and rushed forward to kill. Even the country soldiers, after knowing that the leader of the thieves was killed, their confidence doubled, and they rushed forward. Followed and killed him.
In sharp contrast to the situation of the officers and soldiers with high morale, is the performance of the bandits in the village. When they saw with their own eyes that their leader Shen Laoqi was suddenly shot dead by a flying arrow, and the officers and soldiers took the opportunity to cover up the killing, these fierce guys suddenly felt as if they had lost their souls and didn't know what to do.
Especially at this time, everyone was surprised to find that at some point, the leader of their own village, Du Hu, had disappeared. As a result, these bandits were leaderless and became a piece of loose sand. Seeing the officers and soldiers rushing over to attack them, they were unable to form any defense. Some people even retreated in panic.
The situation on the battlefield often changes in an instant, with one ebbing and the other ebbing. The thieves and bandits who could have been able to block the offensive of the government and army completely collapsed at this moment. They no longer had the intention to stop the enemy, and they only had the thought of turning around and running for their lives. More than two hundred people ran towards the stronghold like headless flies.
This naturally increased the confidence of the officers and soldiers to attack. In the blink of an eye, they rushed through the village gate and entered the village. They waved their weapons and waved at the bandits who only had their backs turned towards them. . Suo Chao swung the Xuanhua ax in his hand and chopped down three thieves who were unable to resist. Then he shouted loudly: "Kneel down and be bound to avoid death. If you resist stubbornly, you will not be killed!"
The soldiers of the Daming Mansion who rushed in with him also shouted loudly in the same manner. After killing several people in a row, the thieves who had already lost their will to resist were so frightened that they dropped their weapons and knelt down.
In fact, if these people kept struggling with the thought of death, they might really be able to cause considerable casualties to the officers and soldiers who desperately entered the village. However, once the soldiers on the battlefield lost their unified command, they completely lost their fighting spirit and had no choice but to surrender.
At this time, the military superiority of the government and army was completely revealed. While everyone rushed to tie up the kneeling thieves on the spot, they could also detach some people to rush towards various parts of the mountain stronghold to capture and eliminate the remaining thieves. The Juyi Hall in front and the residences in the mountain stronghold behind were all They rushed straight into it and turned it upside down. Those thieves who had been lucky enough to hide in it were also killed or driven out one after another.
For a moment, begging for mercy and screams resounded throughout Hutou Village. A few sergeants were the most clever and quickly ran to the open space in front of Juyi Hall. With a few blows of the ax, they destroyed the flagpole standing there. It was cut off, causing the tiger-headed flag tied to it to fall to the ground.
With the fall of the flag representing Hutou Village, the mountain bandit that had been in Yuncheng County for ten years and had caused a lot of trouble was finally completely wiped out. The sergeants and minzhuang who saw this scene cheered heartily, completely drowning out the screams of the bandits.
Although Sun Tu was smiling, his eyes were flickering. A question that was easily ignored by everyone in this era suddenly arose in his mind -
When the leader of the thieves was hit by an arrow and fell down, the battle had actually come to an end. And this may be a common problem among all armies in this era, including the official army of the Song Dynasty. Once something happens to the general, whether he is killed or injured, as long as he cannot command the battle, even if there are thousands of troops, everything will change in the blink of an eye. It forms a ball of loose sand, allowing the enemy to be easily destroyed.
Therefore, in Sun Tu's view, the war at this time is still full of surprises, and often an inconspicuous variable can determine the outcome of the war. This is really undesirable.
But then, he smiled self-consciously, what did he, a common man who runs a hotel, want to do with this? That is something that the people in power, those generals who hold military power, should think about. Now I just want to protect myself.
Presumably after this battle between thieves and thieves, he has performed well, so Liu Yuan can't look for opportunities to deal with him anymore, right? And Jijiazhuang and so on, should be finished here, right
At this time, he heard several soldiers excitedly running to Suo Chao to report: "General, we just found dozens of boxes and cages from the room at the back, and the ones inside were used as birthday cards. property!"
"Okay! Take out all the things for me and send them down the mountain later!" Upon hearing this, Suo Chao's last trace of uneasiness finally subsided. He was ordered to come here just to regain the birthday card. Now that the things are recovered, he can give an explanation to Mr. Liang.
After receiving the order, the sergeants hurried back to get busy. But not long after, in addition to bringing back the dozens of boxes and cages, they also brought back the body of a middle-aged man with wide eyes and no breath: "General, this was also found in the room. Look, He looks like he died not long ago."
"Huh?" Suo Chao felt strange and stepped forward to take a closer look at the corpse: "He wasn't killed by you? Did he commit suicide?"
All the soldiers shook their heads: "We didn't kill him. He was already a corpse when we found him. And there were no weapons around the body. He was killed by someone."
"Come and take a look, can you recognize anyone?" Suo Chao was even more surprised and hurriedly called to Minzhuang and the officers who were guarding the prisoners.
Lei Heng looked over and exclaimed as soon as he saw it: "Isn't this Ji Yang, the owner of the Ji family village?"
Sun Tu was stunned when he heard this, but he quickly guessed the inside story: "He should have been killed by the thieves here!" He did not say the last half of the sentence directly. In his opinion, the corpse looked a little sluggish, obviously Life was not good in the village. He must have turned against Du Hu, or even became a prisoner!
Song Jiang also came up at this time, and after taking a few glances at the corpse, he came to a similar conclusion. And when they heard what he said, everyone took a breath of cold air. Isn't this a typical black man eating the black man? Obviously, it was Du Hu who decisively attacked Ji Yang, his former collaborator, after discovering that Jijiazhuang was no longer of use value.
But then, a thought came to everyone's mind: "By the way, where is Du Hu, the main criminal here? Where has he gone?"
Suo Chao immediately shouted: "Come here, has anyone seen the main criminal Du Hu? Gather everyone together, including the corpses, no one is left behind!"
The sergeants hurriedly took action. After a lot of work, all the corpses were gathered together and asked to be identified by the prisoners, but they could not find the leader of the village. Afterwards, everyone searched everywhere, but there was no trace of Du Hu's whereabouts. He seemed to have suddenly disappeared just before his defeat.
"How is this possible!" Suo Chao's face was full of disbelief. He raised his face and ordered: "Everyone, go and search carefully for me. No corner can be missed. There are also back mountains, go and search for me too!"
This order soon came to fruition. Someone came to report that a hook rope was found on the cliff at the back of the mountain. Obviously, someone saw that the situation was not good and escaped from here.
After hearing the news, Suo Chao brought his people here. Looking at the cliffs of dozens of feet and the darkening sky outside, he could only exhale angrily: "This bastard can run fast enough. But no matter what the world, There is no place for him anymore, the government will catch you one day!"
Although the main culprit who robbed the birthday card was escaped, it was finally a great achievement to wipe out the Hutou Village and recapture the birthday card. For Suo Chao, the most important thing now is to quickly send the things to Bianliang, Tokyo.
After the second watch, the officers and soldiers finally slowly withdrew from Xishan Hill. Before leaving, they set a fire and completely burned the Hutou Village, which was already riddled with holes in the fire. In this case, if someone wants to stop here, I'm afraid it won't be that simple...