Chapter Ninety: Emblems on the Fangs
“Young Master, many noble families have appeared in the trading city. Not long after you left, the news reached Ulan City. A large number of nobles and even the various imperial guards have sent their elites to the trading city to hunt for the rich military merits.”
Wu Shengze was pleased with Qin Mo's progress in the trading city. Qin Mo had been away for nearly a month and had brought back the fangs of four orc generals and one warlord. Such achievements on his first battlefield experience made Wu Shengze feel proud.
Kaihime was tidying Qin Mo's hair from behind. His hair, black and straight after his bath, was glossy and she styled it into a beautiful shape in her hands. She pursed her lips, feeling that this was what she should be doing. Since Qin Mo left, she didn't know what else to do besides cultivate.
"What's the deal with that Marquis of Huyang?" Qin Mo asked Wu Shengze casually, recalling the unpleasant incident. Was a marquis a big deal? No, since they had already offended him, it was better to find out.
"They're all lowlifes. They rely on their connections with the Wang family to collude with those noble families to do shady things and bully those rootless nobles."
"Which Wang family? The Wang family of Wang Renbi?" Qin Mo was curious when she thought of Wang Renbi. After losing the battle against her, he was not summoned back by the Wang family. He didn't seem to care about losing face at all.
"It's that heir of the Duke of Wuwei. He's quite cunning. On the surface, he leads people out of the city to hunt, but secretly he instructs the Marquis of Huyang to seize the area of the orcish tribe's northern camp. The nobles and weak soldiers who pass by are all exploited by him."
Wu Shengze looked at Wang Renbi with disgust, thinking he was a disgrace to the nobility.
"Kai, warm two jugs of wine, Uncle Wu and I will have a drink."
Kaihime scurried to the kitchen and had Qin Mo's personal cook start the fire. Soon, the food and wine were served.
"Uncle Wu, you've worked hard while I was away." Qin Mo raised his glass and toasted the veteran general. He could understand how much trouble it was to manage more than 10,000 hot-tempered soldiers under his command.
Wu Shengze was overjoyed. The Crown Prince had changed over the past year, becoming more cheerful and pragmatic, and showing even greater respect for his old brothers. His own abilities were also remarkable; the lineage of Prince Heng had a worthy successor.
Qin Mo and Wu Shengze toasted each other and then began to inquire about the movements of the orcs. When they encountered something they didn't understand, they humbly asked for clarification, and Wu Shengze answered them one by one.
The orcs set up camps on three sides, not to encircle the trading city's external communication routes as Qin Mo had imagined. In the vast snowfield, they couldn't cut off messengers and powerful individuals. This was primarily due to the differences between their tribes.
The southern camp belonged to the Twilight Hammer Clan, the western camp to the Thunder King Clan, and the northern camp to the Blackrock Clan. They were not subordinate to each other; each clan led several other clans and a large number of Rakshasa people. Even now, a steady stream of Rakshasa and orcs continued to gather there.
After hearing this, Qin Mo sighed, "So it was the Imperial Army leading a bunch of puppet troops and collaborators! Is this model suitable for my overseas expansion project?"
"How strong are they? Do they have any weaknesses?"
"Well... Young Master, neither the orcs nor the Rakshasa are skilled in military formations, especially the orcs. But... their combat strength is actually quite high." Wu Shengze was a little embarrassed. He and his fellow veterans often boasted about themselves, making the orcs seem worthless.
"See, how is it not low?" Qin Mo knew in his heart that if the orcs were all incompetent, the Great Xia would have wiped them out long ago.
Wu Shengze explained it to Qin Mo in detail. It turned out that the nobles had formed many hunting teams and, taking advantage of the orcs' unstable foothold, had initially hunted down quite a few orcs.
However, ever since the orcs became aware of the danger, the private armies of the Great Xia nobles have been unable to accomplish anything significant, and have instead been killed several times in retaliation.
"The orcs have a strong sense of danger. In their secure camps, it's difficult for us to find opportunities to fight. Following the young master's suggestion, we focused on attacking their reinforcements, and that yielded some good results."
"Now, all the private hunting armies are following our example and ambushing the orc reinforcements, which has made it difficult for us to achieve any major victories for a long time." Wu Shengze was very unhappy with these private armies that didn't follow the rules and were trying to steal credit, but he was helpless. They were all friendly forces and would soon be fighting together. How could the main force take all the credit?
"Didn't the orc warriors make a move?" Qin Mo didn't believe that the orc warriors would allow the noble private army to exchange their fangs for military merits.
"Therefore, we need a strong person to oversee things. Now both sides have reached a tacit understanding: if there is a strong orc escort and we also have a strong person overseeing things, then we will only make a brief attempt and then go our separate ways; otherwise, it will be a one-sided massacre. The Marquis of Huyang is just using this name to make money. Has he fought with any of the other side's strong people? Has anyone seen him do so?"
Qin Mo fell into deep thought. The orc tribes were numerous, and in this situation, each tribe had to rely on others to arrive safely. This inadvertently strengthened the power of the orcish forces. What would happen if all the tribes were unified, like Genghis Khan? Qin Mo dared not even imagine.
“Young Master, both the Twilight Hammer Clan in the south and the Black Stone Clan in the north have powerful experts at the Great Witch Realm. It’s just that we don’t know if they will come this time. So I think Zhao Qirui is also observing and letting us hunt is to test the strength of the orcs.” Wu Shengze thought for a moment and then expressed his guess.
If Zhao Qirui were to harden his heart and personally lead the attack, there was a high chance he could defeat or even annihilate one of the three tribes. However, if the enemy sent two great shamans who witnessed the destruction of their tribe, Zhao Qirui was unsure if he could withstand their desperate fighting. Furthermore, no reinforcements from the Great Xia had yet arrived, so the General Who Conquers the North also needed to proceed with caution.
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