“d.a.m.n it!”
Pulling out the arrow that was shot into the shoulder of a Royal Army soldier, Han Yuan said, “d.a.m.n! How dare they are! They must wanna die. General, do you want me to teach them a lesson? I’ll cut off some heads at first!”
I stopped him hurriedly, “No, don’t be impulsive! We are not here to fight with them. Xiao Li, go to negotiate with them!”
“Yes!”
Xiao Li was careful, which made me really relieved. Riding a horse, Xiao Li, along with dozens of barbarian foot soldiers, moved towards those barbarians. Xiao Li then said something to them, and those barbarians immediately stopped attacking. After our foot soldiers screamed something for a while, they immediately relaxed. Xiao Li smiled and pointed to the transport vehicle behind us and said something. The other party was dubious. Soon after, an old man came, poking on a bag on the transport vehicle with a stone dagger, and then white rice suddenly flowed out. The eyes of the old barbarian instantly got wet. This feeling of hunger was like a man who had been living in the wild and had not seen female for decades saw a group of naked and beautiful girls.
Xiao Li pointed to me again, and the old barbarian walked towards me with a stone dagger and then said something. A foot soldier next to me explained, “Commander, he asked if you can give him a small bag of rice first. His granddaughter is ill, and she can’t eat the poor Shouliang Yam Rhizome. If his granddaughter can eat millet porridge, maybe she could live…”
I nodded, “Give him. But ask him to call for the barbarian tribal leaders here to meet us. We have to explain to them earlier, otherwise, our efforts would be in vain.”
Xiao Li nodded and smiled, “Yes, I get it. Commander, please wait quietly for good news. How about encamp in the valley ahead? Maybe we couldn’t march forward today.”
“Well!”
…
We moved into the valley and encamped in the open land. I didn’t worry about barbarians’ sneak attack, because even though they attacked us suddenly, they couldn’t defeat our Royal Army, ten thousand soldiers with good equipment. It was no exaggeration to say that our four thousand barbarian foot soldiers could rout the whole barbarian tribe and wouldn’t even suffer great loss.
After the Royal Army settled in, the last light of the setting sun disappeared from the mountains. The Royal Army’s camp was surrounded by torches and lots of sparks were also swaying in the distance. Finally, all barbarian leaders, 14 leaders, came here. There were 14 barbarian tribes in the mountains, but they fought each other and never lived in peace. However, this time, the strong military and material resources of the Royal Army made them tempted.
In the tent situated at the center of the army camp, I sat in the seat of the chief general and ordered soldiers to light up all candlelight around. The lamp oil was burning in the crane lamps produced by the Empire, and its light shone on barbarian leaders’ faces. Most of these leaders were the old. It was said that they were only 40 – 50 years old but looked like 80 years old. It must be related to their living conditions.
Looking at the 14 tribal leaders, I stood up and greeted them with a fist salute, a kind of the imperial etiquette. Then I laughed and said, “My name is Li Xiaoyao, the commander of the Royal Army. We are from Tian Ling Empire. I believe you have known our purpose of this visit.”
When the foot soldier next to me was translating my words, one of the barbarian leaders stood up and said in less standard mandarin, “General, we understand your intentions, but we wonder if our tribes will be killed after we arriving the Tian Ling City, just like some tribes before?”
I shook my head, “Absolutely not!”
The leader said, “You humans… really want to teach us how to plow and sow?”
I said, “Yes, how did you live before?”
The leader looked awkward and said, “We…we migrated with the seeds…”
“Migrated with the seeds?” I was shocked, not understanding it at all.
Xiao Li smiled and explained, “Commander, they mean that the barbarian doesn’t know how to sow, so they can only rove around as a nomad following the seeds of the plant. For example, there is a big field of grain on the mountain, but after the fall, the seeds of the grain float down the mountain with the wind, and they grow up there. The barbarian could only migrate down the mountain with the grain field. Year after year, they have no place to settle down. The worst thing is that if the grain seeds float into the river or the rocky area, the barbarian has to find new life support. Many people were starved to death because of that. Moreover, the barbarian’s bow and arrow production process and the arrow design accuracy are extremely poor. Even though their strength is enormous, they cannot hunt much prey, but sometimes they are even bullied by prey instead.”
I was surprised, “Being bullied by the prey, what’s going on?”
With eyes getting wet, the tribal leader said, “There are more than 50,000 people in the tribe, relying on a large field of Shouliang Yam Rhizome land to live, but just half a month ago, a group of fire-breathing monsters came from the Endless Land of the south. They trampled our Shouliang Yam Rhizome land, destroyed our last reliance, and the warriors sent by the tribe were killed by this group of monsters…”