Chapter 117
Subaru gathered all the bandits leaders together into a hall. They had been in the Eagle camp for long time and the reason was to fight against Lion town. Subaru was aware that there were dissidents within the leaders so he was planning to use this opportunity to weaken their forces.
“All of you know that I have gathered everyone to Eagle camp to solve out the threat from the Lion town! About 20 years ago Xiao Zhan Tian had come and wanted to kill us for good. But we stuck together and taught him a lesson. Now, his son Xiao Yu is trying to do the same. He wants to destroy us all! Can we stand still? Will we stand still? NO! We won’t! We will defeat them as we did 20 years ago. But this time we will thoroughly destroy the Lion town. We will prove with our actions that we are the masters of this land!"
Subaru agitated the bandit leaders in the hall. Their blood was boiling when they heard Subaru talk about victor of bandits over Xiao Zhan Tian! Now, it was time to payback Xiao Yu! However, this time they would destroy the Lion town for good!
In reality, most of them thought that they would just be victorious over Xiao Yu and go back to their previous business.
However, Subaru wasn’t the leader from 20 years ago! He was ambitious and intelligent and was set on unifying the northwest! He had plans all along but he hadn’t got the opportunity until now to plant the stage to conquer the land.
Xiao Yu’s appearance was the opportunity that Subaru was waiting for. He knew that he couldn’t miss this chance or he would regret it for lifetime.
“I have thought for some time! There would be no morale when there are no rewards! I want to implement a reward method to encourage our troops in this march to destroy the Lino town! We will contribute money… All of us into a fund. The soldiers with meritorious service would get rewards for each head that they cut off, for each feat that they accomplish. As the initiator of this alliance I would be donating the biggest piece to the fund! But I won’t take rewards even if I my troops are the bravest on the battlefield. The rewards would be shared within you and your troops! Is that good?” Subaru introduced this reward system to improve morale and combat efficiency of the bandits.
The other leaders looked at Subaru as if he was a saint. Subaru was going to contribute the most amount of money while he wouldn’t take a gold coin out of the fund! There was chance for the others to earn through this crusade!
Almost everyone secretly nodded as it was a viable solution. Otherwise, one group after other would try to shirk from the battle to save strength. This may lead to failure in destroying the Lion town. However, according to Subaru’s proposition the ones who stayed behind wouldn’t earn even a single coin.
The proposition sounded fair and reasonable. The bandits would fight more to get more rewards. The ones who wanted to save their strength wouldn’t get the money.
But Xiao Yu was able to see through Subaru’s plan which was to weaken the strength of other bandit groups.
On the surface Subaru’s action seemed very selfless as he wasn’t going to get rewards. But in fact he was going to get everything. Subaru was already looking at that money as his own. Sooner or later he would get the money anyway.
Subaru had the greatest number of troops. So he would be ahead in all possible outcomes. Actually, the more others wanted to get rewards the more the chance they would die in battle. At face value, it seemed that Subaru didn’t have much of troops. But Xiao Yu was aware that Subaru was planning to lower the strength of the bandit groups through this plan.
Moreover, Subaru was aware that Xiao Yu was strong. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to beat Carrie’s army of 2000 troops. Subaru believed that a lot of troops would be needed to consume Xiao Yu’s strength. So he was going to use the bandit leaders who opposed him to fight Xiao Yu and weaken them at the same time.
At the end of the war, all the other groups would be weakened while Subaru would still keep his power. At the same time he would use these bandits to weaken Xiao Yu’s strength and kill Xiao Yu. He was killing two birds with one stone.
In addition to Xiao Yu no other leader seemed to see through Subaru’s purpose. They thought that Subaru was planning to destroy Xiao Yu at all costs. There were few who felt that something fishy was going on but they couldn’t see through the details. They saw that Subaru was going to donate the biggest chunk of money and would have the most number of troops on the ground so it didn’t seem that much of a problem.
There was a solemn expression on Subaru’s face as he saw that the bandit leaders were supportive of his proposition: “There may be some who think that I would use other bandit groups as cannon fodder. That’s why there is another proposition. This time, any group that goes to attack the Lion town must keep half of their troops within the Eagle camp! You all have to be strong after the battle! We have to have enough strength to protect our homes too! Moreover, whoever wants to act as the pioneers then they would be rewarded too! We will reward you enough to make up for your losses in case even if your troops don’t have too many great contributions. Recently, few small bandit groups voluntarily joined our Eagle bandits. I didn’t force any of them. Moreover, after we finish Lion town then all the groups will scatter back to their camps and go back to usual business."
Subaru sweet talked them to relieve the leaders out of their doubts.
He was offering them to keep half their troops in the Eagle camp. Moreover, if a lot of their troops died in the battle then Subaru would be giving them out compensations. Was there any better policy than this?
Most of the leaders thought that Subaru was going all out to defeat Lion town and eliminate them from the map for good. Even the people who had joined Lightning Bao couldn’t help but doubt themselves. Wasn’t Subaru going to swallow their troops? Was it only looking so on the surface? Was Subaru planning to deal with Lion town all along? If it is so, then why would they take the risk to kill Subaru?
Xiao Yu sneered as he listened to Subaru.
Why would others keep half of their troops? Why would they do that? It was all for Subaru!
Subaru wanted to weaken the bandit groups by dividing them. He would be the most dominant strength by the time if they were able to come back. Subaru knew that its possible that some bandit groups may just get eliminated by the end of the war while another may not get any damage at all which would stay as a huge threat to himself. Because of this, he had come up with this solution.
In addition, Xiao Yu believed that Subaru would send a.s.sa.s.sins during the battle to find right opportunities to kill the leaders who were opposing him. After all, there were way too many possibility of death on the battlefield. Not every death could be Subaru’s plan. Moreover, after those leaders died in the battle the other remaining half of their troops would logically belong to Subaru.
In addition, the rewards for the troops that would lead the charge was to increase the combat effectiveness of the bandits. It was a good way to hit Lion town hard while a.s.suring the bandit leaders that Subaru would compensate them with money if they lost their troops. None of the leaders took the initiative to ask Subaru, why don’t you charge on first?
Subaru’s plan was perfect and vicious as he was using gold to satisfy the greed of the bandit leaders. Xiao Yu couldn’t help but praise Subaru too. The leaders were excited as they were waiting for the battle to happen as soon as possible.
At the end of the discussion they decided to use 30,000 troops to attack Lion town at first stage. Subaru added 2,000,000 gold coins to the fund while other slightly larger groups gave 500,000 gold coins. The medium-sized bandit groups added 200,000 gold coins while small bandit groups added 100,000 gold coins to the fund.
Small bandit groups were paying almost all their wealth to the fund. But they had decided to take the risk as there was a great opportunity to earn back few times more.
Few complained that they were paying almost all their wealth but others came out to refute them. They were told that they could earn more if they showed great feats on the battlefield. IF they didn’t want to fight or pay then they should get out of the Eagle camp.
More than a reward system it was a gamble which aroused the greed of the bandits. It was like a group of people came out to put all their money in a basket. The ones who stayed alive at the end would take it all. Moreover, there were many greedy leaders who were extremely eager to earn that money. Small or medium-sized bandit groups could get their own money back and they could even earn millions of gold coins if they were successful in battles.
Subaru smiled as he saw that his plan was succeeding. Xiao Yu sighed as he knew that all the money would get back into Subaru’s own pockets.