Chapter 174: The Bandits Appear

After finishing his words, the military commander cast a somewhat disdainful glance at the "young master," likely looking down upon him from the bottom of his heart! After all, in his view, marching and fighting wars required years of hands-on experience, not just reading a few books. So many scholarly opinions amounted to nothing more than empty talk on paper. Had there not been that famous historical precedent of Zhao Kuo!

Due to severe droughts, harvests over the past two years had been extremely poor, and the imperial court's taxes were crushing. Compounding this, unscrupulous aristocratic families and corrupt merchants colluded to drive up grain prices. Coupled with the rampant spread of plagues, the common people lived in utter misery. Driven by desperation, countless individuals—young and old, strong and weak alike—took to the mountains to become bandits. The governors of various provinces such as Qingzhou, Jizhou, Bingzhou, Yanzhou, and Youzhou were either dim-witted and incompetent, utterly incapable of suppressing bandits with martial force or pacifying the populace with civil measures, or they were willing in spirit but lacking in ability. With orders from above failing to be carried out below and officials paying lip service while acting otherwise, they were entirely powerless to eradicate the bandits. Moreover, while the bandit groups varied in size—some numbering only a few dozen, others hundreds or even thousands—the authorities remained completely helpless against them. Some bandits rode horses, striking swiftly and vanishing just as quickly; others hid deep within familiar mountains where finding them required more time and energy than could be spared; and still others lived as "great hermits hidden in the mundane world," blending right in with ordinary citizens so that one could never simply lump them all together and eradicate them with a single stroke.

The young master said nothing more, turned his horse around, and rode back to his original position. The military commander then resumed issuing orders, dividing the troops into three contingents: one to lead the advance, one in the center to protect the horses, and one to guard the rear, ordering them to dash through the canyon at top speed. Having given his orders, the commander dug his heels into the flanks of his mount and charged fiercely into the nearby canyon, followed closely by the rest. However, Zhang Xuan noticed that the aforementioned young master made no move at all, merely shaking his head gently.

The moment the commander and his men rushed into the canyon, a deafening roar echoed through the air. Pulling his horse to a halt and looking down from the cliffs above, Zhang Xuan saw numerous thick tree trunks and gigantic boulders tumbling down from both sides of the precipice.

"Not good, fall back!" the young master shouted, his face draining of color as the reality struck him.

"Aah!" Shrieks of agony pierced the air. In the blink of an eye, the soldiers and horses at the front were crushed beneath the tumbling timber and boulders. Some were torn limb from limb, while others were instantly battered beyond recognition—a truly horrifying sight. The soldiers in the rear scrambled backward in panic, though many were still struck and injured by flying branches and falling stones. By this time, the military commander and the rear guard had been separated by the barrier of wood and stone, trapped on opposite ends.

Suddenly, an unidentified voice cried out, "Look! There are bandits on the mountainside! Run for your lives!" The remaining soldiers looked up toward the mid-slope, and sure enough, figures were visible there, armed with sabers, spears, bows, arrows, and even heavy clubs. Abandoning all concern for the horses in the face of such chaos, the surviving troops broke into a disorderly rout, fleeing like a tidal wave. At this moment, the young master shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hold your ground! These are nothing more than a mob of rabble! All of you, come back and clear the stones so we can regroup with General Tian and launch a counterattack! Anyone who disobeys this order will be executed on the spot!" Yet, not a single soldier paid him the slightest heed.

Just then, a burst of loud, mocking laughter erupted from the hillside, causing all the fleeing soldiers to freeze in their tracks. "Ha-ha-ha! Listen up, you wretches outside the canyon! Consider yourselves lucky today. Grandfather here is feeling merciful and will spare your lives. Get out of our sight at once! If any of you dare to set foot inside this canyon again, I will make sure every last one of you dies right here!" With that, the bandits laughed uproariously and retreated into the distance.

Silence descended upon the canyon once more, thick with the stench of blood. The groans of wounded soldiers and injured horses made the entire valley feel exceptionally eerie and desolate.

Zhang Xuan raised his head to survey the scene in the canyon. Realizing that no one was paying attention to them at the moment, Nie Zheng and the others crawled stealthily over to where Zhang Xuan was stationed. Shi Qian leaned in and whispered, "Brother Xuan, are we just going to watch like this? Shouldn't we get a piece of the action? Those horses are all top-quality breeds!"

"Let's wait and see for now! Consider it a show. Since we're just watching, we have nothing to lose anyway. If an opportunity arises to make a haul, we'll grab it! If not, so be it! But Shi Qian, do you actually know anything about horses?" Zhang Xuan kept his eyes fixed forward.

"I know a thing or two, a thing or two." Noticing the contemptuous glares from the others, Shi Qian quickly added, "Alright, fine! Actually, I just noticed how much these people treasured the horses and insisted on keeping them protected in the center, so I figured they must be decent mounts!"

In truth, Zhang Xuan was quite interested in those horses. After all, warhorses were exceptionally precious commodities in this era. Being able to train a cavalry unit with them would turn them into an invaluable asset, and if he could train them into a fierce wolf-like cavalry force, that would be legendary! The combat effectiveness of cavalry compared to infantry was not a simple ratio of one to several. Furthermore, without exceptionally favorable terrain, attempting to encircle and destroy cavalry with infantry was nothing more than throwing eggs against a rock. Of course, if your infantry mastered Xu Ning's hooked-镰 spear technique, deployed hook-镰 spears paired with man-catchers, and hid in the shadows to launch surprise attacks, that would certainly be viable—after all, that was precisely how Huyan Zhuo's chained cavalry formation was broken. For now, however, Zhang Xuan was merely entertaining the thought. Bringing them back to the camp and feeding them would require a massive expenditure. Whether he could afford that burden was a major question, and besides, there was no space in the camp to train a cavalry unit! After all, every inch of land was needed for growing crops; training cavalry during the winter alone would be far too extravagant!