Since they had decided to attack Mt. Guan to lure the Mt. Dingyuan bandits out of their lair, they would have to quietly sneak into the valley in case their movements were discovered.
The Zong Consortium had spies all over the Northwest. Fortress 178 was planning to eliminate the bandits in the valley first in case they caused any trouble to the forward operating base when the real war began.
Zhang Xiaoman believed it would be harder to take Mt. Guan, but Ren Xiaosu did not think so. That was because some of the bandits had already died in the terrible earthquake when Yan Liuyuan's curse hit them. He was guessing those bandits must have come from Mt. Guan.
At that time, they were in the vicinity of Mt. Kaolei, and the nearest bandit lairs were at Mt. Tangwang and Mt. Guan. However, the bandits at Mt. Tangwang had already been recruited by Wang Congyang. So the only possibility was that those bandits were from Mt. Guan.
