The whole mountain is my hunting ground.

Chapter 1797 The "Brilliant Plan" Cracked by Tiger and Leopard

Chapter 1797 The "Brilliant Plan" Cracked by Tiger and Leopard

Zhang Yuanmin's words instantly drew the attention of everyone present.

Last year, Zhao Jun and his two companions got to know the Shao family because Zhang Yuanmin found Shao Jun in the mountains.

As the only son of the Shao family for four generations, Shao Jun was treated like a precious gem by the Shao family and the entire Shao clan. When Zhang Yuanmin brought Shao Jun back, everyone on the Shao family side was extremely enthusiastic towards him.

Based on this, today, after hearing Zhao Jun say that Zhang Yuanmin is the second-in-command of the Zhao family gang, these people have given Zhang Yuanmin a higher opinion of him.

After all, these members of the Shao family gang did not have a very high social status, and four of the eight people present were not even at the second level of the martial arts.

But to their surprise, Zhao Jiabang's second-in-command was actually a strategist, which made him a high-level talent in the gang.

Seeing the surprised expressions on the faces of the Shao family members, Zhang Yuanmin smiled and winked at Zhao Jun, meaning that Zhao Jun, as the leader, should ask him for advice, so that he could show that he was a capable strategist.

"Brother." Zhao Jun first gave Zhang Yuanmin a warning look, meaning you should say what you should say, and definitely don't say what you shouldn't say. This tiger from Lao Yingou is not like others, so don't say anything discouraging or discouraging.

Upon receiving Zhao Jun's gaze, Zhang Yuanmin was taken aback. He couldn't understand why such a catchy and morale-boosting phrase as "holding a hand and pinching" was so disliked by Zhao Jun.

However, he always listened to Zhao Jun. Although he was somewhat unwilling, when Zhao Jun said, "Brother, what brilliant plan do you have? Tell Master Shao and the others," Zhang Yuanmin put down his chopsticks, smiled at Shao Tianpeng, who was now in charge of the Shao family gang, and said, "Old Master Shao, you may not know, but our family has been a family of strategists for generations..."

When Zhang Yuanmin first came, he mentioned his father, but Shao Tianpeng didn't recognize him. When he mentioned his grandfather's name, Shao Tianpeng's grandfather only said he remembered the name, but couldn't recall any other specific details.

It was precisely because Shao Tianpeng couldn't remember that Zhang Yuanmin was able to lavish praise on his family.

"Huh?" To Zhang Yuanmin's surprise, as soon as he finished speaking, Shao Tianpeng asked, "Isn't your grandfather Zhang Er'er?"

"Ah!" Zhang Yuanmin responded subconsciously, then heard Shao Tianpeng ask, "Your father's nickname is Big Fur Coat?"

"Ah..." Zhang Yuanmin was a little confused. In his memory, this old man Shao should not know his father.

But Zhang Yuanmin may have forgotten that his whole family were extraordinary people. His grandfather, trying to save face, gave his only sheepskin coat to the midwife, which resulted in his grandfather freezing to death the winter his father was born.

The year after his grandfather froze to death, the Shao family, with the financial assistance of Wang Dabazhang, moved away from Shibagangzi.

When Shao Tianpeng left home, he was still young, but when he returned to the Yong'an Forest Area last time, he saw many old people again and recalled the death of Zhang Er'er back then.

Zhang Er'er is Zhang Yuanmin's grandfather. Zhang Er'er is both his name and nickname.

At Zhao Jun's house, "Er'er" seemed dazed. Although Zhang Er'er was skillful and capable, in Shao Tianpeng's limited impression of him, he was just an honest, hardworking man who had nothing to do with being a strategist.

At this moment, Zhang Yuanmin realized that things were not going well, so he quickly got straight to the point and said, "When my father was wandering the world in his early years, he devised a clever plan called 'fishing for a tiger with a cow.'"

Upon hearing Zhang Yuanmin's words, the Zhao family gang members exchanged strange glances, because Zhao Youcai had already thoroughly outmaneuvered this tactic.

But Zhang Yuanmin didn't think so. He felt that his father's move was in line with military strategy and was profound and sophisticated.

So Zhang Yuanmin, the shortest of the fifteen people at the table, gestured with his hand and said with a smile, "This trick is also known as 'inviting the enemy into the urn.' We can find an old ox, send it into the ditch, and then select skilled marksmen to ambush on both sides..."

As Zhang Yuanmin finished speaking, he noticed that not only did the Zhao family members look strange, but the Shao family members also looked increasingly odd.

Only Xie Chen echoed Zhang Yuanmin's words, saying, "My brother Zhang's move is really effective!"

As soon as Xie Chen finished speaking, Xu Shanhe glanced at him and then asked Zhang Yuanmin, "Master Zhang, do you know Yang Linsen from our back village?"

"Who? Yang Linsen?" Zhang Yuanmin was taken aback and said, "I don't know him."

At this moment, Shao Yunjin gently nudged Shao Tianpeng with his only remaining hand, then pointed at Zhang Yuanmin and said, "He knows Huang Guijia."

When Shao Yunjin mentioned Huang Guijia, he was referring to Song Lan.

Zhang Yuanmin had originally intended to mention Zhao, the head of the family, who was notorious for his cunning and manipulative ways, but when Shao Yunjin brought up Song Lan, he immediately fell silent. Others might not know, but Song Lan was well aware of her father's embarrassing stories.

Although Shao Yunjin is almost ninety, he is not senile at all. It's just that Xu Shanhe mentioned Yang Linsen just now, which led the old man astray.

At this moment, he realized something was wrong. Zhang Yuanmin kept saying that using sheep to catch leopards was a family skill, which meant it had nothing to do with Yang Linsen or Song Lan.

Seeing that things were not going well, Zhao Jun glanced at Zhang Yuanmin and then helped him change the subject, asking Xu Shanhe, "Second Master Xu, what does Yang Linsen do?"

“He’s from the village behind us, and he’s a hunter, and he’s pretty good at it,” Xu Shanhe said. “At first, when the villages around us organized people to hunt tigers, he came up with this idea: we should use an old ox to lure the tiger, and then we could ambush it from the side.”

After he finished speaking, Old Man Niao said that wouldn't work. If they did it that way, they'd be throwing away a cow for every cow they sent. Yang Linsen stubbornly insisted that this method would definitely work.

The village chief of the back village was his uncle, and since his uncle listened to his nephew, he instigated the three villages to follow his nephew's instructions. Old Man Niao objected, saying that the method used in Wudaogou hadn't worked.

After speaking at length, Xu Shanhe paused to catch his breath. Zhao Jinhui asked, puzzled, "Wudaogou? Why does this place sound so familiar?"

He joined the Zhao family gang relatively late and had only heard a few stories about the Zhao family father and son going to Wudaogou to fight tigers, so it's normal that he didn't realize it at the time.

“Wudaogou isn’t far from here,” Xu Shanhe replied to Zhao Jinhui, then continued the previous topic, saying, “Yang Linsen’s wife and Lao Niaozi’s wife are both from Han Songbaozi in Wudaogou. There used to be a tiger problem there, and then there was this Zhang Shazi who came up with a trick, using an old ox to lure the tiger, so people could lie in ambush nearby… Hmm?”

At this point, Xu Shanhe seemed to realize something. He suddenly looked up at Zhang Yuanmin sitting opposite him, but Zhang Yuanmin had already lowered his face and was using his chopsticks to shovel food into his mouth.

Zhang Yuanmin lowered his head in time, and the light bulbs weren't very bright these days, which successfully hid his blushing face.

Thinking back to what he had just said about his family's generations of strategists and their ingenious plan of using an ox to lure a tiger, Zhang Yuanmin wanted to slap himself to death.

Xu Shanhe was the simple-minded type. At that moment, he wanted to ask Zhang Yuanmin, "Master Zhang, you seem to have the same surname, right?" Fortunately, his brother Xu Shanchuan knew his personality and quickly kicked Xu Shanhe under the table.

"Master Xu, seeing Zhao Jun's signal, Wang Qiang quickly came to Zhang Yuanmin's rescue and asked Xu Shanhe, "So you didn't use that trick later?"

“We used it!” Xu Shanhe sighed. “Yang Linsen is a stubborn man. He and a few other guys from his village went and took the whole ox. But what happened? The tiger didn’t take the ox; it took the tiger instead.”

"Huh?" The Zhao family gang members were shocked to hear this, and Zhang Yuanmin, who felt his face was no longer hot, also raised his head.

"I don't know how it happened," Xu Shanhe said. "The three gunners all hid, about seven or eight meters away from Lao Niu. And the people between each other were only about three or four meters apart, less than four meters."

When they saw the old ox bellowing and pulling at the rope tied to the tree as if it was about to run away, the three men knew the tiger was coming, and they raised their guns to aim. Unexpectedly, while they were aiming, the two men heard Yang Linsen let out a "roar," and when they turned around to look for Yang Linsen, he was nowhere to be found.

The two men quickly fired their guns, but they weren't intimidated by the tiger. It was August, and it hadn't rained for half a month, so there were no footprints or anything on the ground. The two men hurriedly went down the mountain to call for help. But after everyone had rushed off, they couldn't find Yang Linsen anywhere.

"Is this big claw really that strange?" Li Ruhai exclaimed in surprise. Lin Youli then said, "It's not that strange. Later, a knowledgeable person from the Armed Forces Department came and said that doing it like that is pure nonsense."

Upon hearing Lin Youli's words, Zhang Yuanmin was instantly stunned. He never imagined that his family's ancestral ingenious plan would be considered utter nonsense by a discerning person. What, then, were the ingenious plans he had been so proud of?

“How can it be nonsense?” Xie Chen asked on behalf of Zhang Yuanmin, then muttered under his breath, “I feel like it can work.”

"What can it possibly achieve?" Xu Shanhe chimed in, "They said that using a cow to lure a tiger is just because they think the tiger can smell the cow, right?"

Xie Chen nodded subconsciously, then heard Xu Shanhe continue, "Why didn't he consider that a tiger can smell both cows and humans?"

After saying this, Xu Shanhe paused for a moment, then said sarcastically, "That tiger isn't stupid either. If it senses that people are lying in ambush, it'll deal with them first."

Hearing Xu Shanhe's words, Zhao Jun and the others suddenly realized. No one had thought about it this way before, but now that they had the answer, looking back, it made perfect sense.

The smell of oil, sweat, and tobacco on a person is unique. If a tiger can smell a cow, how could it not smell a human?

At this moment, Zhao Jun was thinking about something else entirely. He recalled how Zhao Youcai had used a sheep to lure a leopard last year. He figured the leopard had also sensed Zhao Youcai's presence, but it lacked the tiger's fearless nature and therefore hadn't dared to attack him.

But the leopard also turned the tables and tricked Zhao Youcai out of two sheep.

Looking back now, those two lambs really did die unjustly.

At this moment, Shao Tianpeng asked Zhao Jun, "Zhao Jun, would you mind telling us how you plan to deal with this tiger?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Jun was somewhat perplexed. Since tigers don't eat dead prey, his previous plans to use poles, explosives, or ground-launched guns would be useless.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jun asked Shao Tianpeng, "Brother Shao, you guys aren't after the materials on that tiger; you're only going into Laoyingou to carry clubs. So, can't you all go in together with guns, go in together, and come out together, without getting separated?"

Zhao Jun wasn't offering advice, because he knew that what he was saying was something the Shao family gang could also think of. Since the Shao family gang had invited him, there must be a reason.

Sure enough, Shao Tianpeng shook his head and said, "No, even if the group doesn't disperse, some will go to the back or the side. That tiger can't be lying in wait anywhere; it might suddenly jump out and grab someone."

"Yeah," Shao Zhiqiang responded, "That's how our Ermanzi was carried off by that tiger."

As he spoke, Shao Zhiqiang tapped the table with his finger and said, "That was the day I saw Shi Long. We were just about to carry him out when the tiger jumped out and took him away by Er Manzi. By the time we realized what was happening, the tiger was gone."

“Yeah, that was fast.” Xu Shanhe chimed in, “I’ve had my gun with the safety on the whole time since I entered the mountain. As soon as Ermanzi yelled, I didn’t even have time to lift my gun before the tiger was gone.”

Hearing Shao Zhiqiang's words, Zhao Jun recalled the time last year when he and Zhao Youcai returned from Wudaogou. Zhao Youcai went to the market to drink corn porridge and listened to the old lady at the stall reminisce about the past.

It is said that in the past, tigers were rampant in the mountains, preying on people and leaving the mountains littered with bones and reeking of stench.

It's likely that somewhere in the old ditch, there are several skeletons that tigers have devoured.

At this moment, Wang Qiang secretly winked at Zhao Jun, meaning that if all else fails, we should invite the Tiger-Slaying King.

Zhao Jun failed to grasp the deeper meaning in Shao Tianpeng's eyes and asked, "Brother Shao, people around here are saying that... Old Yin Gou is evil. What's that all about?"

“That mountain is on the back and side, and the temperature is low in the mountains,” Shao Tianpeng said. “I estimate that the ice in the ditches and ponds will only melt completely in the next couple of days. If you’re going tomorrow, you’ll all need to wear light cotton-padded jackets and trousers.”

As soon as Shao Tianpeng finished speaking, Shao Zhiqiang asked Zhao Jun, "Zhao Jun, I'll find you some thin cotton-padded jackets and trousers tomorrow, so you can all change into them."

As he spoke, Shao Zhiqiang glanced at Zhao Jinhui. Everyone else was easy to deal with, but what about this chubby kid?

These days, fat people are a rare sight!

"No need, Uncle Shao," Zhao Jun said. "We brought our own thin cotton-padded jackets and trousers."

Zhao Jun said this because he had expected it. The same was true of Dashagang in the Yong'an Forest Area, and Dashagang was even more bizarre, with ice still remaining in the ditches and ponds in June.

Zhao Jun's ability to foresee these things was seen by the Shao family as a sign of insight and competence.

At this moment, Shao Tianpeng continued the previous topic, saying, "It's cold in those mountains, and it's also gloomy. It's creepy as soon as you go in. I feel that if you're nervous, you're more likely to get into trouble."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Jun did not think that was the reason. He immediately said to Shao Tianpeng, "Master Shao, arrange for a few tough guys to follow me tomorrow. I'll go into the mountains first and take a look."

Hearing Zhao Jun's words, everyone was somewhat surprised. If the tiger was so strange, how could this Zhao Jun still dare to go into the mountains? It seems that the Tiger Subduer General's reputation is indeed well-deserved.

……

While Zhao Jun and his men were eating and drinking at the Shao family's house, the food at the Yong'an Zhao family's house was also served. Zhao Youcai sat down and invited Li Dayong and the others to come to the table and pour wine.

They had just sat down when they heard dogs barking coming from the backyard.

Wang Meilan craned her neck to look out the window and saw her son-in-law, Zhou Jianjun, riding his bicycle toward the house.

"Oh my, Jianjun is here!" Wang Meilan hurriedly went out to greet him.

Today is Sunday, and the forest farm is closed, so Zhou Jianjun rode his bicycle from home.

Zhou Jianjun's special trip must have been for a reason. But Zhao Youcai didn't take it seriously, because his family was wealthy, and money could solve 99% of problems in the forest area.

A short while later, Wang Meilan brought Zhou Jianjun in. Zhou Jianjun greeted the elders, and then Zhao Youcai called him over to sit down.

Now that the time has come, we have to eat.

Zhou Jianjun, who was sitting down at the table, immediately noticed that the Zhao family members were not there, and hurriedly asked Zhao Youcai, "Dad, did Xiaojun take people out?"

"Ah!" Zhao Youcai didn't hide anything from his son-in-law and immediately said, "They went to Lingnan."

"When did you leave?" Zhou Jianjun asked. "What did you go to do?"

“They said they went to chase away the big claws, right?” As soon as Zhao Youcai said this, Zhou Jianjun slapped his thigh and said, “Why bother chasing away big claws in Lingnan? My brother has the ability; it would be much better if he chased away those big claws in our forest area!”

(End of this chapter)