Chapter 100 Opportunity
The Great Xia army finally stormed into the orc alliance's camp. Fires raged everywhere, and Rakshasa people were running around in disarray. Qin Mo had several orcs captured and interrogated. They learned that this morning, when the Great Xia army left the city, the orcs immediately began an orderly retreat. They divided their most elite warriors into countless groups and dispersed into the snowfield.
The old and weak orcs, along with a few unlucky ones, were chosen as rear guards to cover the younger orcs in the tribe, hoping they could escape the pursuit of the powerful warriors of the Great Xia.
The rumbling thunder in the sky never ceased, and the Great Shaman Blackhan continued his stubborn resistance, refusing to yield to the combined attacks of the two cultivators. He had to hold them off; the orcish elites hadn't fled far enough or dispersed enough, and he needed to persist for a while longer.
Qin Mo gathered his troops and then ordered most of them to plunder the orc camp, taking nothing that could be used for military merit. He himself led a team of high-level cultivators in pursuit of the orcs in the direction they had fled.
The rumbling thunder continued into the afternoon, and Qin Mo didn't return to the trading city until dark. With a "thud," a large cloth bag was thrown in front of Wu Shengze, and he collapsed onto the couch, letting Kaihime clean up the bloodstains and exhaustion all over his body.
The bloody fangs dazzled Wu Shengze's eyes, and he felt as if he had returned to the days when he fought alongside Qin Lan. Back then, the patriarch would often throw a handful of military merits at him, which he could exchange for a lot of "medicines" to obtain those slim chances of cultivation.
Qin Mo arrived at the wounded soldiers' camp. The stench of blood and alcohol assaulted his nostrils. All the military doctors and Japanese women were busy as bees. But unlike the wounded soldiers' camps of other armies, the cries of agony in the Daiyuan army's wounded soldiers' camp were only occasional, not constant throughout the night.
Whether they were soldiers from high-ranking officials or Japanese mercenaries, they all struggled to get up and salute Qin Mo, but Qin Mo stopped them.
"Kai, go help them too. They need more attentive care now," Qin Mo said softly to Kai-hime, then left the wounded soldiers' camp. He, who hadn't reacted much even when splitting people in two on the battlefield… was now experiencing a stirring in his heart, finding the atmosphere in the wounded soldiers' camp somewhat unbearable.
In two days, the Japanese army suffered nearly a thousand dead and more than two thousand wounded. Although most of them were Japanese warriors, their ferocity and madness still showed Qin Mo the cruelty of war. War was no longer a strategic game of imagination, but real blood and bones.
The bodies of all the fallen soldiers were collected and cremated. Qin Mo had no intention of building a mausoleum in Maimai City. With the current inconvenient transportation and the thousands of miles separating them, it was almost impossible to pay respects to their loved ones. So, he had no choice but to take their ashes back to Dayuan and Fusang.
Harukami Jiro was restless in the main tent, as were many other Japanese brigade commanders and squad leaders. It wasn't that they were uncomfortable with the chairs and benches inside the tent because they were used to kneeling, but rather that they were waiting for their subordinates' compensation.
After days of fighting, each of them had lost dozens of men. Haruhisa handed over the list of the dead last night and then waited in agonizing anticipation.
The military clerk came in first and distributed the booklets. "All brigade commanders and battalion officers, please check carefully to see if the compensation amounts are correct."
The clerk's face was icy, and his words were even colder, but Fusang Rao breathed a sigh of relief. He could finally give his subordinates an explanation, since the high-ranking military officer's pension was ridiculously high, almost unbelievable.
"Please wait a moment, everyone. The Crown Prince will be here shortly." The stern-faced quartermaster looked at the group of smiling Japanese brigade commanders and thought disdainfully, "Ten rolls of Songjiang cloth to buy your lives? Even if we send you to Japan, what good will it do?"
Unfortunately, this quartermaster was unaware of the enormous profits from maritime trade, and even less aware that in Japan, a roll of Matsue cloth could be exchanged for a wife. If he had known, he probably would have immediately requested a transfer to Japan to oversee the distribution of salaries.
Qin Mo and Wu Shengze entered the main tent, and the tent immediately fell silent. All the Japanese commanders straightened their backs and stared straight ahead. After Qin Mo sat down in the main seat, he slowly scanned the entire room, finally exuding a bit of authority.
"Was the compensation paid out properly?" Wu Shengze looked at Qin Mo, and after she nodded, he began to ask questions.
"Reporting to General Wu, the supplies have been distributed accurately." The quartermaster stood up, saluted, and replied.
"Very well, yesterday I asked you to recommend three brave and meritorious soldiers. Have you made any progress?" Wu Shengze's serious voice softened slightly as he asked Kaihime.
"Reporting to the General, three soldiers have been selected," Kaihime replied formally.
Apart from a force of over a thousand men, the Japanese warriors were organized into brigades, dispersed and trained under the command of larger armies. Commanders were temporarily appointed during wartime, hence the lack of high-ranking generals.
Since Kaihime's status underwent a subtle change, she has become the unsung leader of the Fusang warriors.
"Let them in!" Qin Mo finally spoke, her voice soft.
Two people stood up in the field. Judging from their uniforms, one was a brigade commander and the other was a squad leader, while the missing person appeared to be just an ordinary soldier.
When the soldier named Inoue Hideo arrived, Qin Mo said, "The army of Dayuan is fair in its rewards and punishments. No matter your status, if you make meritorious contributions, you will be richly rewarded. The three of you today are proof of that." Each of Qin Mo's sentences was translated into Japanese and read aloud by the translator.
"You will receive a reward of five rolls of silk..." The translator's words had barely faded when the usually ramrod-straight Japanese exchanged astonished glances. "Five rolls of silk? Are you sure it's not five rolls of Songjiang cloth?"
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