Across the Water Margin: Officials of Ximen

Hu Sanniang looked at the bandit leader on the ground, snorted heavily, and said nonchalantly, "It's just that this bastard is incompetent! If he can walk under my hands for a few rounds, I might hear what you said It seems like this kind of thieves can kill as many as they come. If the officials want to tear down the stronghold of the thieves, it's not too difficult.

You mother-in-law know how to kill, kill, kill!They don't know how to outwit them, they just want to kill them head-to-head.If I hadn't met officials in this life, I'm afraid I would still be unable to escape the fate of being caught by Lin Chong when he chased and killed Song Jiang in Zhujiazhuang!Official Ximen Qing muttered to himself.

Considering Hu Sanniang's broad mind and strong arms, although Ximenqing secretly slandered in his heart, he smiled and said to Hu Sanniang: "There is a lady here, why should I be afraid of a few bandits..."

When the two were talking, Jiao Ting took someone to check carefully, and after confirming that he, Shi Wengong and Hu Sanniang had struck too hard, and no one was left alive, he said to Ximen Qing: "Brother, I'm sorry, brother struck a little harder. Son, these thieves are too easy to kill!"

Brother Jiao Ting, even a bandit who has been killed can't stand up to you beheading someone!

"It's okay, I'll go to the front to find a village and find out the truth about the bandits on the Dead Tree Mountain before making any plans." Ximen Qing said Jiaoting.

Everyone made up their minds not to stay here any longer, they rode forward together and left the woods.

Ximen Qing and the others walked through several forests and drove forward for a few miles. Suddenly, a field appeared in front of them, and there was a small village beside the field.

There was already a cluster of red clouds hanging in the sky, Ximenqing discussed with Shi Wengong: "It's getting late today, and we don't know when we will meet the inn ahead, so we have to go to this mountain village to spend the night. It's also a good time to ask the villagers for news about the thief. .”

Shi Wengong replied: "What Brother Ximen said is very true. I will stay here tonight. It's just that I killed many thieves just now. I don't know if there are any thieves around here. We must be careful."

Jiao Ting said beside Ximen Qing: "Brothers have a good rest tonight, brother, I will watch the night, there will be no problem."

Ximen Qing replied: "How can I let you work hard alone, brother? Let's go to the village first and discuss it later."

Everyone came to the village on horseback, dismounted one after another, and led the horses into the village.

When the dogs in the village smelled the stranger, they barked wildly one after another.

As soon as Ximen Qing and others approached a thatched cottage, they saw a big yellow dog jumping out of the corner.The yellow dog bared its teeth and stared at Ximen Qing and the others, trying to bite.

Suddenly, the yellow dog didn't know whether it smelled the bloody smell of Jiao Ting and Shi Wengong, or was frightened by the murderous aura of Ximen Qing and the others.

With the escape of the yellow dog, the village became much quieter, and the dogs in other corners stopped barking too much, as if they were connected with the big yellow dog.

Ximen Qing and Shi Wengong looked at each other, and they both frowned, sensing that the atmosphere in the village was not right.

The village still smelled of cooking smoke, but there was no one there.Just now the dogs in the village were barking so violently, the people in the village should know that outsiders have entered the village, why no one came out to look around?

Ximen Qing, Hu Sanniang, Shi Wengong, and Jiao Ting all walked to an open space in the village, sat down by a big stone mill, and asked his subordinates to knock on doors from door to door, looking for people in the village to come out and talk.

Ximen Qing's servants and Shi Wengong's confidantes all dispersed and scattered into the village.After a while, someone returned to report.

According to their report, the doors of many houses in this village were left open, but there was no one in the house.In some kitchens, the fire was still burning and meals were being cooked, but no one responded.

As soon as Ximen Qing heard the reports from the servants, he understood a little bit.From the looks of it, the people in the village ran away in a hurry before they entered the village.They must have discovered that their group came on horseback early on, and they regarded themselves as robbers on the dead tree mountain.

Ximen Qing thought to himself, today I have experienced the feeling of a devil entering the village.

Chapter 136 The Second Village Lord's Sneak Attack

Ximenqing is very helpless now. The people in the village don’t know which hills they have hidden on. How can I find them? I can’t turn a tweeter out of thin air and call out to the surrounding hills: “Folks, don’t be afraid. ! We are not bandits!"

……

Just when Ximen Qing and the others were helpless, one of Shi Wengong's confidantes reported that he had found an old woman with handicapped legs and feet in a thatched cottage.Ximen Qing was overjoyed when he heard the words, stood up together with Shi Wengong and others, followed Shi Wengong's confidant and walked into the alley between several houses.

Ximen Qing followed Shi Wengong's confidant to the outside of a thatched cottage. Before he opened the courtyard door, he heard an old voice in the courtyard saying: "Da Huang, why are you so disobedient? I told you to hide Go to the mountain, why don't you go, but stay with me, my old lady? If the king on the dead tree mountain comes down, what will you do if you stay? Aren't you reduced to the king's lunch? But you Today is good luck, the person who came to the village is not the king on the mountain, you can still bask in the sun with my old lady tomorrow~"

Shi Wengong first pushed open the courtyard door and walked in.Ximen Qing followed Shi Wengong into the courtyard.Looking up, there was an old woman sitting in the yard, and at her feet, a yellow dog was watching them vigilantly as they walked into the yard.That yellow dog is exactly the big yellow dog I saw at the entrance of the village just now.

Seeing Shi Wengong, Ximen Qing and the others, the old woman asked, "Where are the guests coming from? This place is not very peaceful. There are a group of strong men on the mountain who are only robbing passing merchants and pedestrians. It is better for the guests to leave as soon as possible!"

Ximen Qing and Shi Wengong went forward to salute together, and after thanking the old lady for her reminder, they asked her about the bandits on Dry Tree Mountain.It's a pity that this old woman has limited mobility, and she rarely walks outside, and she knows very little about the robbers on the mountain.

The old woman only knew that a group of robbers came up the mountain two years ago. I heard that there were hundreds of them.This group of bandits robbed houses everywhere and slaughtered several villages down the mountain that dared to resist them in the past two years.

Seeing that the villages in the eight neighboring villages could not compete with these robbers, those rich families fled the dead tree mountain one after another.The village where Ximenqing and the others came is called Liujiazhuang, and there is a big family in the village, Taigong Liu, who also fled to Gaotang Prefecture.Now in Liujiazhuang, there are only some poor people left, and they don't know where to escape.

In order to survive, the people left in the village had to arrange people to stand guard far outside the village. When they saw strangers approaching the village, they would let the villagers flee to the mountains and wait until the robbers ransacked the village and left the village. Villagers will come back to the village.

It is said that the remaining poor families in the nearby villages did this.As long as they can save one life, the peasants are still stubbornly struggling to survive on this land.Not for anything else, just because after leaving this homeland, they lost the land they depended on for survival.

Therefore, although the robbers on the mountain went down from time to time to loot, there are still many villages at the foot of the mountain.

When Hu Sanniang heard what the old woman said, she couldn't help but jumped up, holding two knives in her hand, she told Ximen Qing that she would go up the mountain overnight to wipe out these robbers and thieves who were harming the village.

Jiao Ting was also standing by the wall, rubbing his fists, with a resentful expression on his face.

When the old woman heard Hu Sanniang's words, she was very frightened, and tried to persuade Hu Sanniang not to provoke the king on the mountain.She was afraid that Ximen Qing and the others were weak, and if they failed to fight the tiger, they would be wounded by the tiger instead, and they would fall into the thief's den on the Dry Tree Mountain, taking their lives in vain.

The old woman was even more afraid that Ximenqing and others would offend the queen on the mountain, and as soon as they left, the king on the mountain turned his anger on this Liujiazhuang and razed it to the ground.

At this time, the old lady didn't know that Ximen Qing and the others had killed dozens of robbers and thieves on the way today.If she knew, she might not dare to sit here and talk with Ximen Qing and the others.

When Ximen Qing and the others were talking to the old woman, a few bold villagers didn't hear the fire and looting in the village, so they quietly went back to the village to inquire, and found that Ximen Qing and the others were not strong men on the mountain.

Knowing that it was a false alarm, these villagers returned to the mountain to report, and the villagers hiding in the mountains returned to the village in twos and threes.

Seeing that the villagers had returned, Ximen Qing and Shi Wengong found a few villagers who were more eloquent and asked them about the thieves on Dry Tree Mountain.But these villagers don't know the situation on the mountain except that there are many bandits, they like to burn, kill and loot everywhere, and the leader is called "Sangmenshen".

Ximen Qing and the others discussed it. Since bandits took over Kushu Mountain, these villagers dare not go up the mountain. It is difficult to ask the truth about the bandits on the mountain from their mouths.It seems that I can only rest here for a day, and then try to go up the mountain tomorrow to catch the two bandits alive.

At this time, Hu Sanniang gradually understood Ximen Qing's purpose in letting her live.It turns out that I, the official, also want to get rid of the group of thieves on the dead tree mountain!If there is someone alive, it will be much easier to find the bandit's copycat lair.Hu Sanniang was ashamed and excited at the same time, holding the handle of the knife tightly, standing silently behind Ximen Qing.

Because Liu Taigong's family fled, his house became an empty house that no one lived in.The villagers saw that Ximenqing and his party were from a wealthy family, so they asked Ximenqing to stay overnight in the best Mr. Liu's house in the village.

After Ximen Qing and others moved into Mr. Liu's house, they were not careless and arranged for Jiao Ting to take two people to watch at the village gate first. Shi Wengong proposed that he should replace Jiao Ting to keep watch in the middle of the night, so that Ximen Qing and his wife would not be allowed to watch at night.Ximenqing couldn't compete with Shi Wengong, so he had to give up and let Jiao Ting and Shi Wengong take turns to keep watch at night.

What Ximenqing didn't expect was that the bandit they were looking for had already slammed into the door by himself.

On a hill more than a mile away from Liujiazhuang, a large group of bandits gathered in darkness.These bandits have already looted two surrounding villages today, and they all carry a lot of looted property on their backs.

A bandit looked at the Liu Family Village at the foot of the mountain, and asked the tall bandit standing in front: "Second village master, the little ones have already robbed two villages today, and this is a lot of gains. Now we have to go overnight to rob Is it the little Liu Family Village at the foot of the mountain?"

The tall bandit said: "The thieves in these villages are faster than rabbits when they see the master! They ransacked two villages today, but they didn't catch a single person! You are really angry! Master, I said If you want to catch a few thieves and birds for elder brother and let him practice swords, how can you return empty-handed? Today, you will sneak attack on Liujiazhuang in the dark, you must catch more living people for me!"

Chapter 137 The Mountain Village Night Battle

Ximen Qing and Hu Sanniang were still chatting in the house, and before going to bed, they heard a burst of noisy voices coming from the direction of the village entrance.The two grabbed their double knives and left the room.At this time, a servant who was following Jiao Ting's night watch ran in to report to Ximen Qing that a group of thieves were about to rush into the village entrance, and Jiao Ting was intercepting them.

How did these bandits come so fast?It stands to reason that the bandits who blocked him at dusk today were all killed, and the bandits on Dead Tree Mountain would not be able to find out about it until tomorrow.

By tomorrow, my group has already left this Liujiazhuang, and maybe they have all gone to the Dry Tree Mountain instead, where will the bandits find their traces!

But these bandits caught up just after nightfall, this is so weird!

Filled with doubts, Ximen Qing pulled out the Snowflake Iron Yanling Saber, and rushed out first.Hu Sanniang also followed behind him holding the sun and moon swords.Shi Wengong didn't bring a long gun on this trip, so he put a simple knife on the long handle, and took a few confidants to kill him.

Outside Liujiazhuang, the tall figure of the second village owner of Kushushan stood under a big locust tree outside the village entrance, surrounded by dozens of confidantes.In front of him, more than a hundred robbers swarmed together and rushed towards the village entrance of Liujiazhuang like a mountain torrent.