In the Northern Garrison Camp, the scorching sun baked the yellow sand of the drill ground until it was burning hot.
A gust of northwest wind blew past, carrying fine bits of sand that stung people's faces.
Xu Zhan ran bare-chested from Xu Qinghuan's quarters back to the camp.
He had hurried all the way, not even taking the time to grab a drink of water.
Kicking open the door, Xu Zhan hauled out a wooden board half the height of a man.
He walked to the very center of the drill ground, slammed the board heavily into the yellow sand, and then grabbed a piece of charred charcoal nearby.
With bold, flying strokes, he wrote several large characters on the board.
"Light Cavalry Raid Camp Selection."
The characters were crooked and scrawled, revealing a bandit-like wildness.
Hearing the commotion, the surrounding soldiers gathered around in twos and threes.
These veteran soldiers were bored out of their minds. Seeing the words on the wooden sign, the crowd immediately exploded.
A veteran soldier missing half an ear squeezed to the very front.
He shouted loudly, "Second Master! What's this Raid Camp all about? Where are we going to scavenge?"
"Where we're going is none of your business!" Xu Zhan casually tossed the black charcoal aside and clapped the dust off his hands. "It's a far place, and the work is rough."
The veteran didn't care at all about where they were going. These men lived with their heads tied to their waistbands.
They had long since stopped caring about life and death.
Another dark-faced man also strained his voice and shouted, "Then how much military pay will we get?"
Xu Zhan grinned broadly, holding up three fingers.
"Three times the usual!"
A roar of excitement instantly erupted from the crowd.
The dark-faced man pressed on, "Will we get enough to eat? Can we eat meat until our bellies burst?"
"The fastest runners get rewarded with meat! Meat every day!"
Hearing these words, the eyes of these impoverished border soldiers lit up.
Life on the steppe was hard, and the Northern Garrison was even poorer.
Usually, even a bowl of sheep kidney soup was treated as a treasure. Who could resist such a temptation?
Xu Zhan lifted his foot and stepped on the crossbar at the bottom of the wooden sign.
"Let me make the rules clear first."
The surroundings immediately quieted down, all eyes fixed on Xu Zhan's face.
"To get into this Raid Camp, you have to run fast."
Xu Zhan pointed to the sand dunes in the distance.
"Each person will carry twenty pounds of iron armor or sandbags."
"Mount up and ride north for thirty miles!"
"I'll be chasing you from behind!"
"Anyone I catch up to midway will be immediately eliminated and told to scram."
"Only those who aren't caught and reach the finish line will get to hold a bowl of meat!"
A moment of silence fell over the crowd.
Army selections typically tested proficiency in archery and horseback riding, as well as physical strength.
Who ever heard of selecting elites based on who ran the fastest?
A burly, heavily built man stepped forward.
He was all muscle, his arms thicker than an average person's thighs.
This man was Niu Dali, a renowned fierce warrior from the infantry battalion.
Niu Dali's face was full of defiance.
"Lord Xu, we serve in the army to fight the Helian with real swords and spears!"
He patted his rock-hard chest.
"You're making us practice running away?"
"This isn't training soldiers; this is clearly training rabbits!"
"If word of this gets out, won't the other battalions laugh at us for being deserters?"
A few men around him joined in the jeering.
Xu Zhan didn't rush to refute them. Instead, he let out a sharp whistle.
At the edge of the drill ground, a personal guard immediately led over a jujube-red horse.
Xu Zhan stepped into the stirrup and, with a motion like a fierce tiger pouncing on its prey, neatly swung himself onto the horse.
He casually unhooked a half-stone light bow from the side of the saddle and clamped his legs hard against the horse's belly.
"Neigh—"
The jujube-red horse let out a long whinny of pain, reared up on its hind legs, and shot forward like an arrow from a bowstring!
Yellow sand was kicked up over ten feet high by the hooves as the jujube-red horse galloped wildly along the edge of the drill ground at breakneck speed.
Passing the archery range near the camp gate, Xu Zhan suddenly leaned low over the violently bouncing horse's back.
Using only his teeth, he forcibly yanked three feathered arrows from the quiver hanging on his chest!
He held two horizontally between his teeth and smoothly nocked the third onto the bowstring.
Without a right hand to pull the string, Xu Zhan used his remaining left arm to grip the bow handle and push forward, while his teeth bit down hard on the arrow's nock and the bowstring.
With the jolting of the horse, he jerked his head back sharply!
Full draw, release!
Without taking any time to aim!
Thrum!
Immediately after, with lightning speed, he took the second and third arrows from his mouth, nocked them, and released the string!
Thrum! Thrum!
Three sharp, piercing sounds almost merged into one!
The crowd hurriedly turned to look. Over a hundred paces away, three scarecrow targets stood motionless.
The next moment, the three feathered arrows struck almost simultaneously!
One dead center in the heart!
One through the throat!
The third nailed right in the middle of a scarecrow's face!
The fletchings were still trembling violently.
The entire drill ground was dead silent.
Niu Dali stood with his mouth wide open, unable to utter a single word.
The men who had been jeering just moments ago now all shrank their necks.
To be able to train one's mounted archery to such a level with only one arm—was this even human?
Xu Zhan pulled the reins, the warhorse's front hooves reared high, and it stopped steadily right in front of the wooden sign.
Xu Zhan tossed the light bow onto the horse's back and looked down at Niu Dali from above.
"Running fast is so you can stay alive, run back, and chop off the heads of those barbarians!"
"If you really clashed head-on with the Helian heavy cavalry on the steppe, you infantrymen wouldn't even be able to withstand the charge of their warhorses."
"Running away isn't shameful."
"Dying without even getting your money's worth—now that's what you call stupid!"
The veteran soldiers understood completely.
This meant breaking up into smaller units to act as bandits in Helian territory.
Who could outrun those barbarians who grew up on horseback?
If they didn't train their legs well, going in would be a death sentence.
The veteran missing an ear was the first to react. He shoved Niu Dali aside.
He headed straight for the nearby weapons rack.
"This Raid Camp, I'm definitely joining!"
The veteran grabbed a light bow and tucked a short-handled curved sword into the back of his waistband.
With him taking the lead.
The others quickly caught on.
They swarmed toward the weapons rack like a hive of bees.
"Leave a light bow for me!"
"This cavalry saber is mine!"
"Don't snatch! Whoever snatches, I'll chop them!"
Niu Dali, who had been complaining just a moment ago, was now frantic.
With his broad shoulders and thick waist, he simply barged past several people and snatched a heavy sandbag.
He tied it to his leg and ran toward the stables, terrified that if he was late, he wouldn't get a share of the meat.
Watching the chaotic scene, Xu Zhan laughed heartily.
As long as he could force out this fierce bravery, this raiding squad could become a sharp, piercing knife.
Just then.
From the high platform on the other side of the drill ground.
Two figures walked down.
It was none other than Xu Qinghuan and Li Sheng, who was following behind her.
Seeing the Imperial Envoy appear, the soldiers quickly reined in their unruly behavior.
Xu Qinghuan walked up to the wooden sign and glanced at the line of words Xu Zhan had written.
Facing the dozens of men who had already lined up.
"Your Centurion has set the rules for running away."
"I am here to add three ironclad laws."
The men below all pricked up their ears.
Xu Qinghuan held up her first finger.
"First, do not be greedy for battle!"
"The rule of scavenging is to take advantage and run."
"Even if the enemy only has ten men left, even if they all look old, weak, sick, or disabled, if you can't take them down within the time it takes an incense stick to burn, retreat immediately. Absolutely no lingering in battle."
She held up her second finger.
"Second, do not covet wealth!"
"No matter how much gold, silver, jewelry, silk, or spices you loot, if it exceeds the weight your horse can carry, discard it immediately!"
"If anyone slows down the team for a few gold ingots and drags down the whole squad, I, Xu Qinghuan, will use his head to sacrifice to the flag."
As these two rules were spoken.
The soldiers below looked at each other and remained silent.
They understood better than anyone the deadly consequences of being greedy for wealth.
Xu Qinghuan held up a third finger.
"Third..."
She emphasized her tone.
"Do not salvage goods that cannot be taken away."
"Whether it is our cattle, sheep, warhorses, or even rations."
"If we are surrounded by a large enemy force,"
"run if you can, and do not fight over those worldly possessions."
As soon as she finished speaking.
Xu Zhan's thick eyebrows shot up, and he immediately voiced his objection.
"This rule won't do!"
Xu Zhan took a step forward.
"We go out to forage and raid, bringing back loot with great difficulty."
"Are we supposed to throw it all away just because we encounter some barbarian pursuers?"
"Wouldn't our entire trip be in vain then?"
The soldiers below deeply agreed. There was no reason to hand over the meat they had risked their lives to snatch.
Xu Qinghuan met Xu Zhan's gaze without stepping back an inch.
"Second Brother, you've calculated the cost wrong."
Xu Zhan was stunned.
"What did I calculate wrong?"
"Why would we give away the goods we can't save?"
Xu Qinghuan flipped her palm and made a downward chopping motion.
"Burn everything we cannot take!"
"If we can't take the grain, set it on fire."
"If we can't take the live cattle and sheep, slaughter them on the spot, drain their blood, and leave them on the steppe to feed the wolves."
"If we can't take the warhorses, kill them all right there."
"The Helian people won't get a single strand of wool from the things we discard."
"The essence of a raiding camp is not how much we bring back."
"It is how much we cost the enemy."
"Burn their winter rations, kill their reserve warhorses."
"Let them starve in the wind and snow."
"Make it impossible for them to organize even a single decent southward invasion this winter."
"That is also a victory!"
Xu Zhan was dumbfounded.
The group of battle-hardened veteran rogues below were also dumbfounded. They originally thought going to the steppe was just about robbing things.
They never expected this eldest miss to be so ruthless.
This would cause the Helian tribe to suffer a massive loss!
Xu Zhan pondered over these words for a moment.
"Brilliant!"
"We'll do exactly as you say, little sister!"
"If we can't take it, we'll destroy it all!"
The eyes of the soldiers all lit up. When it came to burning, killing, and pillaging.
These border troops, accustomed to hard lives, were experts at it.
"What great spirit!" A loud, resonant voice came from outside the camp gate.
Commander Tie Lanshan strode into the drill ground, accompanied by a skinny, elderly man at his side.
This old man had a hunched back, skin as black as charcoal, and a face full of wrinkles.
He was blind in his left eye, and his right eye was half open and half closed.
Tie Lanshan walked up to Xu Qinghuan and nodded in greeting.
He pointed to the skinny old man beside him.
"Lord Xu's guerrilla tactics,"
"are indeed an ingenious strategy against the barbarians."
"However, to survive on the steppe, running fast is not enough; you also need a good pair of eyes."
Tie Lanshan pushed the skinny old man forward.
"This old fellow is called Old Wu."
"He has been a night scout for twenty years."
"Every ridge and river trench on this steppe is stored in his head."
Tie Lanshan patted Old Wu heavily on the shoulder.
"Which way the wind blows on the steppe, how many days old the hoofprints on the ground are,"
"and even whether there is the smell of mutton from the Helian people in the air,"
"he only needs to take a sniff with his nose to figure it out with near-perfect accuracy."
Old Wu grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth, and cupped his hands toward Xu Zhan and Xu Qinghuan.
"Greetings, Centurion Xu. Greetings, Lord Xu."
Xu Zhan was overjoyed.
Night scouts were the elite reconnaissance troops in the border army.
With such a veteran leading the way, the raiding camp would be like a tiger with wings.
