Chapter 1 The Feeling of a Large Army

The feeling of four hundred cavalry galloping versus fifteen hundred is completely different, and Zheng Fan deeply understood this.

The last time he came, he was a bit reckless, a bit excited, a bit unfamiliar, and a bit apprehensive, fearing the unexpected.

This time, his mentality was calm, calm enough to sit down, light a cigarette, and slowly choose his concubines.

In the age of cold weapons, cavalry could be used as leverage. The founding Marquis of Zhenbei breaking through five hundred thousand with thirty thousand was the ultimate demonstration of this leverage.

At the same time, differences in equipment can often manifest greatly in warfare.

Cui Liu Fort was supported by the Sixth Prince, who, for this army, for Zheng Fan, had practically emptied his coffers.

It could be said that Zheng Fan's fifteen hundred cavalry were extremely luxurious in terms of equipment. Moreover, the cost of raising a good horse was truly much more expensive than supporting a person. Even so, for this expedition, everyone in Cui Liu Fort had two horses each.

This was also why Blind Bei was too embarrassed to make further demands of the Sixth Prince. The man had really been generous enough; his so-called promise of "full support" was truly without a trace of exaggeration.

The army stopped again in front of the Qian border fortress.

This was Liang Cheng's command. Every time they entered Qian, it was like sneaking into someone's house to steal something; you had to first break through their anti-theft door.

You could choose not to break it, forcibly barging in was also an option, but it would alert the owner, who would then call the police.

In fact, in recent days, the big and small warlords of Yan had been causing havoc along the Qian border, but his own force was a bit too large, vastly different from those small warlords. To achieve the same element of surprise as last time, he still had to conceal his movements at the beginning.

The Jingnan Army of Yan had been inactive, and the troops of the Three Towns of Qian had been cowering.

Therefore, the warlords on the Yan border could only engage in skirmishes with the garrisons in the Qian fortresses, and the results of these skirmishes were often not so pleasant.

Breaking through a fortress wasn't actually that difficult, unless you stubbornly chose to bite off the biggest one, but the problem was that every time you took one down, you'd break several teeth in the process.

If it weren't for the orders of the Marquis of Jingnan driving them from behind, these warlords really wouldn't be willing to attack these fortresses, but to complete their missions, to earn merit, and to collect heads, they had no choice but to bite the bullet and go.

At this moment, in front of the Cui Liu Fort troops was a fortress of moderate size, its scale similar to the Chicken Fort that Zheng Fan had encountered the first time he came, probably with only a few dozen guards inside.

The last time he attacked a fortress, Zheng Fan and Liang Cheng had led more than a dozen barbarian soldiers in an intelligence battle against air, acting out a play for themselves for half a day.

Only to discover upon arrival that there was no one on the watchtower at all, and the people inside were busy doing business or waiting in line.

But that was when the two sides hadn't started fighting yet, when they were still in a state of prolonged peace. Nowadays, the border friction between the two sides had intensified, and even if the Qian border army was still lax, it was impossible for Zheng Fan to relive that wonderful feeling of entering a no-man's land.

Xue San dismounted and began to warm up, twisting his neck and wiggling his butt.

After a short while,

Xue San took a deep breath, smiled at Liang Cheng beside him and Zheng Fan behind him, squatted down,

"Whoosh!"

Xue San darted forward.

You could see a shadow moving in the night, but you couldn't hear the slightest sound, and after a while, you couldn't even see the shadow anymore, as if Xue San had completely disappeared.

"If we have the opportunity in the future, we can let San'er train reconnaissance soldiers or something," Zheng Fan said to Liang Cheng.

"Yes, sir, that's what I was thinking too."

But the conditions weren't ripe yet; it wasn't time to play with multi-arms coordination.

………

As an assassin, what he was best at was hiding himself. In this regard, Xue San was a professional. He came to the base of the fortress wall, and this old and rough outer wall was simply too easy for him.

His figure was like a gecko, quickly ascending, very simple, without any fancy moves, just astonishingly fast.

There were two Qian soldiers on the watchtower, one leaning against the wall, snoring, and the other leaning there, staring ahead and occasionally looking around.

Indeed, the border friction between the two sides had reached this point, and the Qian army's fortresses were finally starting to have some of the meaning of a military fortress.

However, even though the watchtower of this fortress was indeed playing a role, and the two men were indeed taking turns, with the other actually observing the surroundings without slacking off, when Xue San appeared behind that sentry, the sentry still didn't notice.

Xue San took out his dagger and adjusted his breathing. Life required a sense of ritual, which was reflected in the fact that even if you weren't eating steak but stewed lungs, you still had to have a knife and fork.

The dagger was delivered, without sound, without a cry, the sentry's mouth was covered, and blood was gurgling out of his neck.

As for the one who was sleeping, Xue San hesitated for a moment, and after slowly lowering the body of the sentry in his hand, he took a few steps back.

Kneeling, holding the dagger, adjusting his breathing,

You are the person I, Xue San, am going to kill,

Even if you're sleeping like a dead pig,

But I still want to give you respect,

Respecting one's prey is also respecting oneself.

Then, Xue San began to thrust, and the sleeping Qian soldier was also killed, killed without suspense.

You couldn't say that Xue San was crazy, it was just that he had really been suffocating since he went from the north to the south. The only time he had a chance to strike, he was badly beaten by the Great Hero Chen at the post station outside Yin City.

People, as long as they've been suffocating for too long, will become a little crazy.

Xue San silently went down from the ladder, still without making the slightest sound.

At the gate of the fortress, two Qian soldiers were sleeping in the wall recess, curled up in their bedding. Xue San walked over, to the middle of the two, he stretched out his hand, both hands holding a dagger.

He thought it would be cool to kill these two people at the same time in this way.

Too bad no one brought a camera, otherwise this scene could be captured in a series of shots.

Immediately, Xue San discovered an even more serious problem than not having a camera, his arms were a little short, not long enough to reach both of them.

Somewhat helpless,

Xue San could only first come to the bedding of the brother on the left, stab down with a dagger, and then walk to the brother on the other side, and stab down with another dagger.

All this made Xue San feel a little dull.

Xue San began to open the door, he even specially smeared some oil on the door shaft, and also used a dagger to wedge the door crack, so that the sound of opening the door was as small as possible.

In fact, Xue San could try to go inside in this assassin-like manner, and kill the remaining less than twenty Qian soldiers one by one.

But simply repeating in batches was not art.

Xue San took down the slingshot hanging on his waist, pinched a pellet, and shot it into the air in front of him.

Blind Bei's mental coverage couldn't be that large, but adding the distance the pellet shot out, it was about right.

Blind Bei, standing next to Zheng Fan, nodded and said:

"That's enough, my lord."

Zheng Fan turned his head and made a gesture to Zuo Jiqian behind him.

Zuo Jiqian excitedly led dozens of Zuo family soldiers without riding horses, and rushed directly to the fortress in front.

The gate of the fortress was wide open here, Xue San leaned against the wall, a blade of grass in his mouth.

Zuo Jiqian saw Xue San when he came over with his men.

"Pah."

Xue San spat out the blade of grass in his mouth, pointed inside, and then yawned.

Zuo Jiqian was a little startled by the dwarf's terrifying methods, but this was not the time to talk or curry favor, he immediately led his men into the fortress.

One side was fully armored and came on fiercely, the other side was still asleep, the battle, in fact, was a one-sided massacre.

But the Zuo family members began to cut off heads with great excitement, one head could almost be exchanged for a family member to be freed from slavery, which made them excited.

After a short while, Zheng Fan and others outside had already come over on horseback, everyone didn't go in, just waited outside.

When Zuo Jiqian and others came out, the Huo family members looked at the heads hanging around their waists, even in the night, they could see the red jealousy in their eyes.

Zuo Jiqian walked to the front of Zheng Fan's horse and knelt on one knee:

"Reporting to milord, the Qian soldiers in the fort have been completely annihilated."

Zheng Fan yawned, nodded, and said:

"Return to the ranks."

"Yes, sir!"

Immediately, Zheng Fan looked at Liang Cheng, Liang Cheng raised his hand and said:

"Let's go!"

The cavalry galloped again.

This was just an appetizer for tonight, even Xue San, who had struck, felt a little unsatisfied, and the other demon kings hadn't even warmed up.

Most importantly,

Prefect Zheng was very swollen today.

Liang Cheng was also swollen along with him, who was leading so many troops on an expedition for the first time in this world,

"It seems that tonight will be..."

This was originally just Liang Cheng talking to himself, because everyone was galloping on horseback, and the hooves were thundering, so the people next to him couldn't hear it.

But Blind's voice immediately rang in Liang Cheng's heart, and in the form of a roar:

"Shut up!"

………

On the city wall of Mianzhou City,

A man who was very fat, even comparable to Xu Wenzu in fatness, rested his fat belly on the crenel of the wall,

First sneered twice,

And then said:

"Damn it, can you believe that this city was actually broken by a small Yan garrison with three or four hundred cavalry before?"

The people behind the man were both in armor and in scholar's robes. Seeing the man angry, they dared not speak.

"Hoo... Ridiculous, extremely ridiculous, that old dog Yang deserves to be someone without balls, he actually didn't dare to order an attack, allowing those Yan dogs to run wild on my great Qian border!

Aaaah... Achoo!"

The man sneezed, and the waves of flesh on his body began to roll.

At this time, a scholar said with concern:

"The wind is strong on the city wall, for the sake of your precious body, let's go down first, Your Highness."

————

I took cold medicine and felt sleepy, this chapter is only 3k words, Long will try to write more tomorrow, good night.