Chapter 528

Bai Lang took refuge in a small city, while CaoCao was fighting the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans. This Yellow Turban army was the same one that had killed Liu Dai and Bao Xin. CaoCao had fought several battles and won none. Hearing that Bai Lang had lost Bing Province and was wandering nearby, the six great generals currently in Cao's camp—the Xiahou brothers, the Cao family brothers, plus LiDian and Yue Jin—came to advise him, "Bai Lang, Bai Yuzhu, is a warrior of the world, fierce and unstoppable. If you, my lord, use this man as a general, the Yellow Turbans can be broken."

However, there was a problem: Bai Lang's current rank was not below CaoCao's. CaoCao was currently the Administrator of Dong Commandery, while Bai Lang had been the Governor of Bing Province before his defeat. Although this was a strategy of two tigers fighting, used to provoke a great battle between Bai Lang and Yuan Shao, if CaoCao were to employ Bai Lang, what would the hierarchy be? Actually, this was the least of their worries, because Bai Lang had not brought the official seal of the Governor of Bing Province when he fled, so in a sense, he was no longer an official.

Because not only the Governor of Bing Province, he had not brought any of his official seals. What CaoCao should be concerned about was whether Bai Lang would accept his recruitment, not some hierarchy issue. Bai Lang was not prepared to join the future Prime Minister Cao, although this Prime Minister had not yet slaughtered Xuzhou and thus had not yet walked down that path, but Bai Lang still did not intend to join him. There was no other reason; he just didn't want to.

Bai Lang was a wandering knight, a person who walked his own path. Perhaps he could live quite well under CaoCao—after all, CaoCao and Yuan Shao were very reckless fellows in their youth and were childhood friends—but who knew what would happen afterward?

CaoCao immediately sent Chen Gong to see Bai Lang to express his intention to recruit him. When Bai Lang saw CaoCao's letter, he only smiled, "How can a defeated general speak of courage? Now I am just borrowing a city to spend the rest of my life." Such words were impossibly fake; even if the listener were a low-intelligence fellow like ZhangFei or Lu Bu, they would never believe it. You, a world-renowned brave general, merely lost after fighting many with few; how could you be "disheartened"? One must know that although Bai Lang was defeated by Yuan Shao, he had killed more than his fair share, and the blow he dealt to Yuan Shao's military strength was not small.

Bai Lang's words were a rejection of CaoCao's recruitment. Currently, Bai Lang occupied Yuanwu, and raising his three hundred cavalry here was not a problem, not to mention he had brought many cattle and sheep. Bai Lang distributed the cattle to the local people, which also won him the hearts of the masses. Bai Lang was rough and generous, and because of his wandering knight habits, he could win the life-and-death loyalty of wandering knights; he sympathized with his soldiers, so he could win their life-and-death loyalty; as for governing without disturbing the people, that was hard to win the people's life-and-death loyalty for.

Among Bai Lang's three hundred soldiers, there were few civil officials; they were all warriors. So this fellow simply threw the rations into the treasury and let the soldiers take them as they pleased. His military discipline was also quite loose; apart from strictly forbidding the disturbance of the people, there was nothing else. Although he did not restrict military orders, there was not a single person who did not obey Bai Lang's orders, all because Bai Lang was the first to charge and his courage was outstanding.

Although CaoCao did not obtain Bai Lang's service, in the Battle of Shouyang, he still relied on higher military quality to defeat the Qingzhou army, subsequently pursuing them all the way to Jibei and accepting the surrender of over a million Qingzhou Yellow Turbans. CaoCao's power grew greatly. After occupying Yan Province, he then occupied half of Qing Province. With the merit of pacifying the Yellow Turbans, CaoCao was promoted to General Who Pacifies the East and Governor of Yan Province. CaoCao had the appearance of someone who got things done; after occupying such a large territory, he also did what he should do.

Yan Province was in the heart of the world, so wise men and fierce generals from all directions came to join him. In Yuanwu, Bai Lang also heard the names of many strategists and generals joining CaoCao. "Oh, it's Gou Huo." Bai Lang secretly laughed. Actually, that was Xun Yu, Xun Wenruo. In the past, many people were illiterate and misread the two characters as 'Gou Huo', so his nephew Xun You, Xun Gongda, also became 'Gou You'... Later, there were ChengYu, Guo Jia, and others.

As for the generals, there were Yu Jin and Dian Wei. This 'Ancient E'lai' made Bai Lang quite interested, and he really wanted to measure his martial arts. It was said that this man was over a zhang tall, his waist ten spans around, and he held twin halberds weighing eighty catties. He was a first-class foot-combat general. Now Dian Wei was the commander of CaoCao's personal guards. Bai Lang wanted to laugh whenever he thought of the 1.6-meter CaoCao standing next to the 2.5-meter Dian Wei.

In this world, there were many warriors with extraordinary height and strength. Bai Lang had seen several in his battles, almost all of them strong men in the army. From this, Bai Lang also thought of the generals of the time. He was also a person who had read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so of course, he knew that among these generals, there were wise generals like Zhou Yu, and great generals like GuanYu and Zhang Liao, who could lead large armies; generals like Lu Bu were peerless mounted generals, unstoppable when leading Bing Province cavalry to charge; and then there was Bai Lang himself, who was just a 'fighting general'.

Bai Lang's positioning of himself was quite accurate. He did not have the "talent" or patience to lead a large army; what he did was just use his rare martial courage to forcefully break through enemy formations. Was this not the duty of a fighting general? When it came to the ability to lead an army, Bai Lang pessimistically believed that he might not even be as good as ZhangFei.

Currently, LiuBei was still in Pingyuan, attached to Gongsun Zan and contending with Yuan Shao. It was just that Gongsun Zan had been defeated several times by Yuan Shao and was currently lying low. LiuBei was in a bit of trouble; if Gongsun Zan did not step up, he might have to face Yuan Shao directly. So he should be like an ant on a hot pan right now.

If Bai Lang wanted to join LiuBei, it would be a thousand miles away, so forget it. Now Lu Bu had gone to join Yuan Shao. He was originally with Yuan Shu, but because his military discipline was corrupt and he plundered the countryside, he was rejected by Yuan Shu, so he went to join Yuan Shao. It was just that Bai Lang had not arrived yet when he fought Yuan Shao, so the three battles between Bai Lang and Lu Bu had not happened.

Bai Lang rested and recuperated here. After all the tossing and turning, he could be considered stable for a while. Attacking Chang'an again was obviously unlikely; he only had three hundred cavalry now and could not break through Hangu Pass and Tong Pass. Now it seemed that even if he broke through, so what? This world was truly in chaos.

Even rescuing the Emperor and the ministers was useless; the Emperor of the Great Han was left with only a name. To hold the Emperor to command the lords, one had to have troops and land oneself. For someone like Bai Lang, forget it. Moreover, Bai Lang felt this was truly too troublesome. Restoring the Han Dynasty should be something that makes one feel refreshed, not something troublesome to death.

Bai Lang stayed in Yuanwu, but the envoys were endless, and even Yuan Shao, who had defeated him, sent envoys to try to recruit him again. Of course, the most frequent visitors were CaoCao's envoys. The great generals of Cao's camp, especially the Xiahou brothers, had all been here, just to win over Bai Lang.

This time, even Dian Wei came. He was indeed a super strong man, two and a half meters tall. Bai Lang was delighted to see a hunter and immediately proposed a martial arts competition, "You are extremely strong, and Lord Cao calls you the Ancient E'lai. I am also good at foot combat; why don't we compare notes?" After speaking, Bai Lang took Dian Wei directly to the martial arts field.

This time, the Xiahou brothers came. These two could be considered fierce generals, so of course, they were very interested in this. They had also competed with Bai Lang before; indeed, it took both of them together to fight Bai Lang, but they were still at a complete disadvantage. Dian Wei's twin iron halberds against Bai Lang's Cloud-Water Spear, neither side wearing armor.

Dian Wei's twin iron halberds smashed down overhead, the sound of the wind extremely fierce, yet Bai Lang saw that he had not used his full strength. Bai Lang also wanted to test Dian Wei's strength, so he raised his long spear to block.