I want to embrace the moon for nine days

Chapter 71 Twilight in Sihe Mountain Col

The recent snowfalls in Xueling County have not been heavy, but the snow in the mountains melts very slowly. After several snowfalls are added together, the mountains have turned white.

The trees, rocks, and wasteland seemed to have turned into a uniform dark tone against the contrast of the snow.

Mottled in black and white, orderly in chaos, distinct in layers yet revealing a hazy sense of beauty, the huge mountains are like an ink painting.

At dusk, Jin Liancheng led the way, and Su Hanshan and others followed them to a mountain col. When they looked up and looked into the distance, what they saw was such a beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers.

However, the Black Seven Thieves' stronghold was not set up in the distant mountains, but was set up in this mountain col.

The so-called mountain col is an area with gentle terrain between the roots of mountains.

The mountain col where they are currently is is a thousand acres in size, and there is a small river flowing from the mountains next to it, and the river is already frozen.

There are hundreds of low-rise houses on both sides of the river bank. There are many stones half on the bank and half in the water. There are some flat wooden sticks scattered on the stones. It is obvious that the villagers will wash clothes here in the summer. .

At first glance, Su Hanshan felt that this place did not look like a village occupied by big bandits. It was just an ordinary mountain village.

Walking into the village, old trees with copper bells, cowsheds and sheep pens are everywhere with traces of the villagers' life. The paths are winding among them. There are no gravels deliberately paved or the land is compacted, but they have been trampled and trampled by people all year round. path out.

But after taking a closer look, he discovered something was wrong.

Although these houses are very old, many of the doors and windows are made of newly replaced wooden boards, which are shaved flat and nailed tightly.

There are some tattered wooden doors, curtains, and long stools under the corner, discarded there. The traces left on many wooden boards are not signs of wear, but marks of being broken by knives and axes, and they are stained with blood.

Moreover, the people living in these houses are extremely alert. Even in some houses, thunderous snoring can be heard from a distance. As long as the sound of their group of people moving around comes closer, the snoring will disappear immediately.

There were many people peeking between the gaps in the door panels, and seeing Jin Liancheng leading the way, they were not all reassured and went back to sleep.

In addition, the further you go deeper into the village, the more majestic, taller and newer the houses you see.

The walls are made of rocks mixed with paste from the mountains. The walls are one foot thick. Every three steps, there is a thick tree trunk standing among the rocks, acting as a pillar to support the roof.

But the roof of such a grand house is not covered with tiles, but with a large number of thick animal skins and tent cloth. There are large stones on the ridge, and there are large and small stones in all directions, tied to the cloth and animal skins. corners to prevent them from being blown up by the wind.

"Why did you find a village in a mountain col to live in?"

Su Hanshan deliberately talked to Jin Liancheng, "Wouldn't it be more secluded and trouble-free to live in some caves in the mountains? If you don't think it's impressive enough, you can find a dense forest and hide in it. It can also block the wind. You only need to build some wooden houses and wooden buildings. That’s enough.”

Jin Liancheng twirled the cigarette stick in his hand: "If you live on the mountain, if someone wants to attack, you can go up from the foot of the mountain and circle around the peak. When the time comes, the people in the caves and the stockade will want to evacuate or run away." , but it’s difficult.”

"After all, we are not locals, and the mountainous terrain is unlikely to be as familiar to the locals."

"And living in this mountain col, although it is not connected in all directions, at least it has a wide field of vision and many roads. If someone is attacking, it will be easy to detect it. When the time comes, they will disperse and evacuate. The government will never have that many troops to be able to attack such a large area. The place is all fenced, and ambushes can be set up in the mountains."

Su Hanshan smiled and said: "I'm going to take the liberty of telling you, why do you seem to be ready to flee?"

"Xueling County is not Shanyang County. If you want to settle down here, you will definitely not be able to rely on your old vision. You must have some fallback options."

Jin Liancheng didn't feel dissatisfied, but felt proud. He pointed to the mountains in the distance on three sides with his cigarette pole and said, "Escape is escape, but it is not a retreat. We have hidden food, oil and salt in many hidden places in the mountains." , cloth, torches, pots, bowls and swords, each brother only knows one location. After fleeing, they each find their own place to hide. After a while, they can naturally contact each other and reunite."

In this way, even if the government really calls on experts, mobilizes manpower, climbs mountains and wades to find this place to attack, it is afraid that it will not achieve any results, or even miss the target time and time again, wasting energy and materials.

Su Hanshan felt even more afraid of these bandits and said: "It turns out there are so many things to pay attention to when choosing a mountain village as a place to stay. I need to be taught something."

"It's not easy to choose this village." Jin Liancheng said with emotion, "First of all, among all the surrounding mountain villages, we need to find a place that is the most remote and least likely to be taken care of by the government. The scale should not be too small and it should be convenient for us to transform. We must also eliminate the possibility of these villagers going out to spread news.”

"There are more than 200 households of villagers here. When we first came, we killed a lot of them. We thought that killing chickens to scare monkeys was enough to make them obedient. Under our command, they dug earth and moved rocks, built new houses, and modified the villages. Unexpectedly, these gangs There are many tough people among the mountain people who always try to escape at night."

"We killed one group after another, and in the end there were thirty or forty households left. Although they seemed to be obedient and helped with some hard work, after the work was done, they did not dare to stay any longer, so we got rid of them all. .”

When Su Hanshan heard this, his heart filled with murderous intent, but his face tensed up and remained calm.

At this time, the performance of Li Erhu and his group was more natural and showed no flaws.

Although they were a little shocked by the cruelty of these people, they had seen too many human tragedies on their way to escape. Just hearing such news was not enough to make them emotional.

When Su Hanshan caught a glimpse of their reactions, his heart moved slightly, and he learned the details of their manners from them.

Jin Liancheng was still there sighing: "If this were our hometown, with our reputation as the Seven Black Thieves, we could at least pick out dozens of young men from here and take them into the village, and the others would be more obedient."

"So, we have changed places, so we can't rely on the old vision."

At this time, everyone was approaching the deepest part of the village.

An eight-foot tall man with messy hair hanging over his shoulders and slightly white temples walked out of the tallest stone-walled house, walked through the courtyard, and pushed open the thick wooden fence that was nearly two feet high and was like a city gate.

"Third brother, you are back."

Listening to his name and looking at his appearance, this person should be the second in charge of the Black Seven Thieves, Chen Zuen.

Jin Liancheng held up his hands to Su Hanshan, left their side, walked over a dozen steps, and whispered: "I've been out for a while, has anyone come?"

"Another group came, they were the men of One-Eye Toutuo. There were only a dozen of them in total. Old One-Eye lost his life more than half a year ago. The village of two hundred men was completely destroyed. The remaining dozen are all It’s a worthless thing.”

Chen Zuen was a little dissatisfied, "We people on Shanyang Green Forest Road have really declined too much in the past three years."

"Back then, our family alone was able to gather enough candidates, and we still had plenty to spare. Now, we have called on more than a dozen groups of people to come over, but we can't even get six useful ones."

"I think there won't be anyone useful in the future. Let He Yanmang take over for the missing one."

Jin Liancheng immediately said: "No."

"Tsk!"

Chen Zuen frowned, "I know you have some grievances with the old man in Hejiazhai. Isn't that old man gone? We still have the overall situation first."

Jin Liancheng said quickly: "I am just for the overall situation. This kid He Yanmang is somewhat powerful, but after all, in terms of internal strength alone, he has not yet reached the Qi Sea. If we really let him set up the formation, I am afraid that it will add flaws to the formation. "

Chen Zuen came to his senses and said, "You have found Tan Ying and the others. Didn't the flag envoy say before that their village is empty? Now that you have found them, why didn't you bring them here?"

Chen Zuen also met Tan Ying many times. He looked over at Su Hanshan, but he didn't see Tan Ying there.

"Their village is either empty or overturned. The boy who was sent out before probably didn't notice the newly buried corpse next to the village because of the snow."

Jin Liancheng gently turned his cigarette stick and said, "The one carrying the sword is the new head of Kuangshi Village, Tie Jiangliu. His kung fu should be slightly better than Tan Ying's. I think he is much more suitable than He Yanmang."

(End of this chapter)