Chapter 135 The Three Elders of Huayin

It was raining heavily in the night.

It is possible that the rain fell earlier in the Lantian Valley, causing mountain torrents to gather.

Since nightfall, the Ba River has been rushing violently, and the sound of waves is endless.

The disturbed black bear couldn't sleep. His hearing sense became more and more acute, and he couldn't stand being disturbed when falling asleep.

Even when he used white mana to nourish his body and strengthen his control, he could fall asleep whenever he wanted, but after falling asleep, he would still be awakened by noise.

Unable to sleep, he put on a straw raincoat and a hat, and walked into the newly built wooden shed where equipment was stored in sandals.

With a wave of his hand, twelve Taoist servants appeared in the straw hut wearing the robes, uniforms, hair scarves, uniforms and socks in front of him.

Summoning twelve people at once had already made his arms feel a little sore.

Then there were another twelve, followed by the third batch of twelve Taoist servants, and then there were scattered Taoist soldiers and servants.

Looking at the more than fifty Taoist soldiers and servants, it seemed that each one required a portion of his attention to control. Black Bear felt upset. He raised his hand and only left a dozen of them. He immediately felt much more relieved.

His breathing became heavy. He took two breaths, took out a sweet magic berry and put it in his mouth to restore his strength.

I have accumulated ninety-four points of black magic power during this period. Should I strengthen a team of Taoist soldiers, or strengthen another powerful Taoist soldier of Lu Bu's level?

There is a second level of Taoist servants and a third level of Taoist soldiers. Lu Bu is at the sixth level of divine generals. One more level would probably be his limit.

As Black Bear pondered, the text on the card changed again, changing to something he thought was more appropriate; just like how the original Black Servant and Black Warrior turned into Taoist Servant and Taoist Soldier.

Now there are seven levels, including recruit, private, corporal, sergeant and staff sergeant, as well as knight and cavalry commander.

In this way, the level is very obvious.

As he was thinking, he raised his hand and poured white mana into the armor rack on the side. Soon, the armor refined by the white mana disappeared and turned into a card.

He also controlled the corporal-level Gao Shun to take off his leather armor and put on this set of gilded bright light armor, while investing eight points of black mana to upgrade it.

Then he refined the leather armor, leather helmet, leather shoes and iron halberd, and began to arm the nine new recruits; he used eighteen points of mana to strengthen him into a second-level private, and then used thirty-six points of black mana to strengthen him into a third-level corporal.

I had wanted to combine a ten-man team card with Gao Shun, but it turned out that three of them had command talent or riding talent, so I made changes immediately, summoned three new recruits, and strengthened them to the third-level corporal level.

Combined with the Gaoshun card, a ten-man team card is formed.

He was a little hesitant holding the ten-man team card in his hand. He didn't like the sore feeling in his arms every time he summoned someone, as if he was using his arms to pull the opponent out of a swamp.

Although it doesn't hurt, the feeling of soreness and sleepiness is very uncomfortable.

He gritted his teeth and threw the card, and Gao Shun's ten-man team immediately appeared. It was a pity that there was no explosion of white smoke, otherwise it would have been a classic special effect from Journey to the West.

Contrary to expectations, summoning a team of ten seemed to put the same strain on his arm as summoning a single card; a team of ten was a fixed unit, and the mental strain it brought him was the same as a single card.

Strengthening a level 6 knight, Lu Bu, uses sixty-three points of black mana and a Yin-dried horse of fifteen points of black mana.

Gao Shun's ten-man team had 15 points for a fourth-level sergeant and 63 points for nine third-level minors.

It's exactly the same, both have 78 points of black mana; it takes about four months to accumulate three ten-man teams, or three Lu Bu-level knights.

In terms of strategic deterrence, Lu Bu is still stronger. After all, people in high positions are more afraid of Lu Bu, who has strong individual combat power, and are afraid of being assassinated.

But when it comes to attacking and breaking the enemy's formation, Gao Shun's team of ten people can act as a commando, take the lead in breaking the enemy's formation and tearing apart the enemy's formation.

Especially for the upcoming siege of Huayin, with Gao Shun in charge nearby, this group of Taoist soldiers will be able to coordinate more stably.

There is also the long-range attack capability of the Taoist soldiers, which has been tested on Lu Bu. Lu Bu can be controlled to operate bows, crossbows, and javelins.

The crossbow and bed crossbow have fixed trajectories and can accurately control the shooting angle and direction; the deviation of the spear is not large, but with Lu Bu's great strength, it can be thrown nearly a hundred steps, which is no different from a humanoid bed crossbow.

So don't expect to be able to accurately project at long distances. As for bows and arrows, the deviation is even greater and has no practical significance.

You can control the Taoist soldiers to hold the crossbow and shoot flatly or at a fixed angle in a certain direction, but due to the trajectory of the crossbow, there will inevitably be deviations.

Therefore, if Taoist soldiers holding crossbows want to cause huge damage, they have to aim at the face from close range and shoot.

The Taoist soldier's hands were steady, and his mentality was so stable that it was hard to describe.

If the crossbow's trajectory can be stable, the precise killing distance will be longer.

But there is no point in studying this aspect now. As long as we build a good team to break the enemy's formation and defeat the enemy in the decisive battle, there is no need to study any close-range sniping tactics.

After recalling the extra low-level puppets and leaving behind Gao Shun's team of ten and Yuan Shu's team of six, Black Bear returned to the house. He had no idea how long the rain would last or how much impact Tongguan would have.

After he lay down, he was still disturbed by the sound of the flood. Black Bear summoned out two handfuls of goose down, rubbed them together, and made them into earplugs. The world immediately became quiet.

The sound of roosters crowing came into the ears one after another, and the black bear woke up naturally.

Seeing that Zhen Mi was still sleeping, he got up and dressed himself, and two goose down earplugs fell to the ground. Black Bear glanced at them and thought about it. The two earplugs disappeared and turned into goose down cards again.

I raised my hand out of curiosity, and the card turned into new velvet again.

With this curiosity, the black bear pinched a piece of fine goose down and brought it to the fish oil lamp. The goose down burned and immediately lost its connection with him.

Then he rubbed the burnt goose down residue with his thumb and felt very disappointed.

Originally, I was thinking of purifying saltpeter, sulfur and other alchemy materials, and then combining them with charcoal powder to make some palm mines.

Then use white mana to refine it, so that you will have the palm thunder spell that can be used repeatedly.

Now it seems that even after being refined, it is still disposable.

It simply means that after use, the white mana will be precipitated into mana crystals, which will be used to upgrade the Utopia land card.

But if I could accumulate enough white mana to refine a super small volcano...

There is also the hot spring card, which is something that permanently changes the terrain. I don’t know what will happen if I use it while standing at the highest point of Mount Li.

Amid the sound of roosters crowing, Black Bear walked out of the house and saw that the sky was bright, the clouds were sparse, and the air was particularly cool and fresh.

Take a deep breath and feel refreshed.

Lu Bu had arrived with his Yin Gan horse. Black Bear put on the leather helmet in his hand, grabbed the bronze handrail of Gaoqiao's saddle and jumped onto the horse.

Without a second thought, he rode off as usual.

The horses' hooves left slightly sunken hoof prints on the soft mud, but not much mud splashed up. Perhaps after repeated trampling, the muddy water was fully stirred and formed into a mud soup.

As we walked out of the camp, the sound of horse hooves became crisp as they stepped onto the track.

After the rain in the middle of the night, the road was drained smoothly, and the surface layer of fine sand and gravel had already been compacted very firmly.

When horse hooves stepped on it, there was no mud, no dust, but there was a rustling sound.

As the black bear and Lu Bu quickly went away.

Under the wooden shed, Yuan Shu's team of six dissipated when they were eight miles away; Gao Shun's team of ten dissipated collectively when they were about twenty miles away, turning into cards and slowly flying towards the black bear.

No matter how slow it is, it is still faster than a black bear riding a horse.

The eastern part of Mount Li at this moment, Tongguan.

After a hearty meal, each hundred-man team pushed their carts out of the camp, carrying green bamboo cut near Lantian and simple siege equipment.

Nanshan is the Qinling Mountains, and green bamboo is also produced in the north of the Qinling Mountains; but the climate here is not as humid and warm as that in the southern part of the Qinling Mountains, so the green bamboo grows slowly and is not as tall and strong as the green bamboo in the south.

But slowness also has its advantages, which is that the wood is finer and tougher.

Two hundred-man knight teams from the Zhonglei Camp had set out first, slowly moving eastward along the highly permeable road.

The wooden beacon towers near the river bank burned one after another, and the county soldiers guarding the towers retreated one after another; seven or eight beacon towers in the southern mountainous area were also lit up at the same time, with both beacon fires and wolf smoke.

Zhang Ding, the commander of the Zhonglei Camp, led the team ahead. Looking back at the more than 200 knights at the rear, he suddenly became full of energy and vigor.

Even if he stayed in Jiangdong and fought hard for his whole life, he would never be able to command a cavalry unit, let alone lead a team alone.

Some of the people living near Chidao led their families to continue fleeing eastward, while those who were willing to stay and wait and see gathered together.

The elders from several villages near the Chidao were sitting in ox carts or deer carts, and some were riding donkeys. More than a dozen elders gathered by the side of the Chidao and waited anxiously.

As long as the Tiger Tooth Army still considers itself to be the government army, it will not kill the local elders on the side of the road.

The man nominated by the three elders had gray hair and beard and was thin. He stepped forward with a cane and stopped Zhang Ding: "Excuse me, General, what's the matter?"

Zhang Ding reached out and took out a scroll of silk from his harness, handed it to his fellow soldiers, and patiently told the three elders: "The people of Hongnong rebelled against the court. My general was ordered by the Inspector General of the Imperial Guards and the Minister of the Court to send troops to fight against the rebels!"

The three elders spread out the silk book and saw that it was stamped with the seal of the Inspector of the Imperial Capital. It was indeed an order to suppress the bandits issued by the Inspector of the Imperial Capital's office.

The three elders passed the order to the other elders, looking up at Zhang Ding with pitiful eyes: "General, I heard that the county has welcomed a new Sili, who is said to be the eldest son of the former Sili Xiaowei, Lord Benchu. How can this be considered as betrayal of the court?"

Zhang Ding looked down at the other party with a half-smile: "Don't bother our army anymore. There will definitely be a big war between Tongguan and Huayin this year. Take the villagers to Huashan to escape. If it's too late, there will be no good place to stay."

The three elders nodded tremblingly, but when they lowered their heads they suddenly bumped into Zhang Dingma's neck.

The horse was frightened and raised its front hooves, almost knocking Zhang Ding over. Zhang Ding's personal soldiers had no time to react.

When the horse's hooves landed, the front hooves just stepped on the backs of the three old men. Suddenly, their heads suddenly raised up and they spat out blood.

Three of the other three elders jumped out and drew their daggers to stab Zhang Ding's personal soldiers. The personal soldiers lacked experience in fighting and retreated in panic.

Seeing this, Zhang Ding rode forward and knocked one of the three elders away. He raised his lance in his right hand and stabbed another one. The last elder was stabbed in the neck by a spear from the knight behind him who reacted quickly.

This knight was experienced in fighting and had a cruel heart. He just held on to his lance, trying to control his opponent from falling, as if he was treating this as a game.

The three elders who were knocked over by Zhang Ding's horse were captured and punched several times. They were carried in front of Zhang Ding, still with a ferocious look on their faces, shouting and cursing: "The traitors who are causing chaos in the country actually come to harm our villagers!"

The other three elders were so frightened that they knelt on the ground, fearing that they would be implicated.

Zhang Ding looked at the other person, shook his head slightly and sighed, then turned his head and instructed: "Kill this old villain with bad intentions, hand him over to the three elders present, and announce this to the nearby villagers."

"Bah! You white goose thief, you shall not die well!"

While he was yelling and cursing, he was stabbed to death by a wounded soldier with a knife in the chest. He drew his knife, stepped on the man's shoulder and began to chop the back of his neck repeatedly.

Zhang Ding's neck hurt from watching this. He felt very embarrassed and turned to look at the elite knights behind him.

The man dismounted nimbly, and as he walked over, he pulled out the beheading knife from his calf leather boots, stepped forward and grabbed the hair of the three elders who participated in the assassination, and stabbed the knife with his other hand and slashed it across the gap between the bones.

He easily removed the head and threw it to the novice, then continued to remove the head.

After a few breaths, the four elders who participated in the assassination were beheaded.

Zhang Ding saw that several of the three kneeling elders were trembling violently. He didn't know whether they were born timid or were complicit in the conspiracy, but he didn't dare to start.

He just looked at them for a few times. Zhang Ding looked at the injured soldiers he had selected from the Nieyang family with resentment: "Go find a military doctor."

"Yes."

The injured soldier didn't dare to explain anything. He held the reins and covered the wound on his arm and stepped back. The other soldiers dragged away the decapitated body.

The path was wet and blood oozed out quickly, dyeing a large area red.

After clearing the way, Zhang Ding lightly kicked the horse's belly and said, "Go!"

The entire team continued to move forward. When the military doctor in the rear passed by, he drove closer in his vehicle and took out a peach from his wooden box and handed it to the wounded soldier: "Sign."

The military doctor's assistant took out a roll of brand new bamboo slips and spread it out. The injured soldier took a pen and wrote his name before eating the peach viciously.

For every peach he eats, he will owe a head in his military record.

But if you don't eat the peach, you will definitely miss the war.

At this moment in Huayin County, some men who fled from Xinfeng and Zheng County and had their heads forcibly shaved in Tongguan were as anxious as ants on a hot pan.

Out of fear of the Qingzhou soldiers and the Barber General, these people tried every means to leave the city, but the city gates were already closed.

The people outside the city were also unable to enter Huayin for refuge. They had to either gather at Yang's manor to seek shelter, or continue to move eastward, or flee south to Huashan.

Some women in the city first cut their hair to make wigs for their male relatives who had shaved their heads; soon other women also began to cut their hair and make crude wigs to earn money.

The market was in chaos.

Captain Liu Kai had no time to take care of the city. He put pressure on the county officials to mobilize the civilians in the city to defend the city. At the same time, he sent several waves of messengers to the rear to ask for help and emergency.

(End of this chapter)