Chapter 628: Fame

The next day, the carriage sent Daiyu, the staring Baoyu, and the three Spring girls to the Tianshui Earl Mansion. Exercising the body was always a good thing, so it didn't matter if Baoyu and Daiyu left for an hour or two. Besides, the Tianshui Earl Bai Lang was of the same age as Baoyu, and his few illegitimate younger siblings were even younger.

Arriving at the Tianshui Earl Mansion, Bai Lang ordered the gatekeeper to open the main gate and let the carriage in, leading them directly to the drill ground to practice martial arts. The carriage stopped outside the drill ground, and everyone got off the carriage with the help of maids and nannies. Looking around, they were startled.

The Tianshui Earl Bai Lang inherited the title, and he had two illegitimate younger brothers and two illegitimate younger sisters. The two younger brothers were seven and eight years old, and the two younger sisters were both six. At this time, they were all on the drill ground. The two little girls were also dressed in men's clothing, holding small bows and arrows and wooden swords and spears of reduced size, practicing martial arts step by step.

The two boys were bare-chested, moving and dancing stone locks to train their strength. Behind them were weapon racks, and the weapons on them were clearly their own.

Bai Lang exposed half of his shoulder and arm, sitting on a chair watching his "brothers" practice martial arts. "Bai Bao, Bai Biao, why do you have to have these names?" He was just saying this casually, but it was aimed at the old family servant beside him. "And this Bai Ying, Bai Xiao, why do you have to have these names? Are you planning to turn the Bai family into a zoo?"

Seeing Daiyu and the others arrive, Bai Lang also stood up to welcome them. Baoyu was stunned watching the two little sisters draw bows and arrows and shoot short arrows into the center of the target twenty steps away. He didn't expect such young girls to be able to draw bows and arrows, and shoot so accurately.

"It's just breathing to gather strength. Brother Jia, are you here today because you also want to practice martial arts and inherit the prestige of your ancestors?" Bai Lang asked knowing the answer. Baoyu, of course, wasn't here to suffer; he just felt sorry for Sister Lin. Daiyu's level of martial arts practice was not as good as the two six-year-old girls, Bai Ying and Bai Xiao. Bai Lang could only say that she was completely clumsy.

After Bai Lang took action and adjusted Daiyu's breathing, which had gone astray, the half-hour exercise was over. "If you haven't learned it yet, you can continue to come. If you have learned it, remember to practice it once every morning and evening. In this way, your body will be much better in half a year. If you can persist for a year, the weakness you were born with will be gone."

Unexpectedly, it didn't need to wait for the next day. Later that evening, there was a decree from the Ministry of War, ordering Bai Lang to go to the northern border to lead the troops, because it was heard that the northern Mongolians were going to go south to raid again. Among the Four Kings and Eight Dukes, the only King with military power was in the south, and among the Eight Dukes, the Rongguo and Ningguo Dukes were no longer military families. Now, it was Wang Ziteng, the Commander, who controlled the Jia family's old connections in the military.

Bai Lang accepted the decree, and that day he took eight servants, rode his horse out of the mansion, and ran toward the north with the military order.

Entering the border city, Bai Lang's main force was only two thousand, one of the Eight Generals in the city—although he inherited the title of Tianshui Earl, the old Tianshui Earl's main elite troops were divided into four parts, and he only led one of them, ranking among the Eight Generals with the other three.

Bai Lang was a super-rank official—those with titles were all super-rank officials, and he just said one sentence to the Commander-in-Chief, then took a hundred cavalry out of the camp to find the traces of the Mongolians. The Commander-in-Chief and the Prefect wanted to stop him, but if he didn't listen, it was hard to carry out military orders—the Emperor hadn't appointed a Governor yet, and the Commander-in-Chief had no right to deal with a great general without authorization.

Bai Lang put on his mountain-pattern armor, and the warhorse under his crotch had been replaced with a real northern horse. He also brought two spare ones. The weapons in his hands were naturally a long spear and a long-handled sword, as well as a one-handed iron mace inserted in the saddle. The cavalry behind him mostly carried three-eyed guns and long spears, and of course, some carried bows.

Bai Lang took a deep breath of cold air, "No matter how many years have passed, I am still galloping in the north. The opponents have changed one after another, but the result is still the nomadic Tartars from the Mongolian plateau..." He smiled at himself, then whistled and led the cavalry straight to the north.

The Mongolians at this time were weaker than any Tartars Bai Lang had ever met in the north. When he met a small number of Mongolians, Bai Lang would just whistle past them, too lazy to kill them. His goal was only one: the so-called Cossacks who killed the Mongolians until they only dared to go south, those sharp knives in the hands of the Tsar.

Bai Lang moved forward silently, and those cavalrymen didn't dare to disobey—when Bai Lang galloped on his horse, he was like a fierce tiger patrolling the mountains. Under the pressure of that momentum, no one dared to make a sound, and a burst of violent killing energy rose from his heart, and even the warhorse under his crotch began to have red eyes.

The corpses of Mongolians appeared before his eyes. It was an entire small tribe, and the people inside should have been killed, the women might have been plundered, and all the livestock were snatched away. "Wounds from sabers and long spears." Bai Lang rode past and just took a glance to see the weapons that killed them.

"I really haven't killed the so-called light cavalry Cossacks. These guys killed the Mongolians until their heads rolled, but it's a pity they couldn't beat the Polish Winged Hussars," Bai Lang thought. How could light cavalry block him? During the late Han and Three Kingdoms period, the Xiliang heavy cavalry, with both men and horses armored, were killed through by him, let alone mere Cossacks?

The Cossacks had settlements. The hooves of Bai Lang's cavalry shook the earth, and soon one after another, Cossacks wearing beautiful, brightly colored, tattered clothes poured out of those houses, "All bearded, damn it." Bai Lang was young at this moment, his beard hadn't grown yet, and seeing those Cossacks all with beards, he felt very unhappy.

The Cossacks were indeed excellent light cavalry and quickly formed ranks, while Bai Lang dismounted, ordered ten cavalrymen to act as horse stakes to gather the warhorses, and he himself changed to a fresh horse with the other cavalrymen. After finally checking the equipment on his body, he charged straight at the Cossacks who were waving their sabers and whistling.

The three-eyed gun was indeed more effective at scaring people and horses, and unless you were very lucky, it was hard to kill anyone. And the Cossack horses were well-trained, almost none of them were frightened by the sound of gunfire. And although the Cossacks were said to be light cavalry, their horses were larger and more heroic than the horses of Bai Lang's armored cavalry.

"The difference in horse breeds." Bai Lang raised his long spear and sword, dancing them left and right, and in the blink of an eye, he had killed five or six Cossacks who were charging at him. "So weak... In this era, such guys can defeat the Mongolians. The Xiongnu, Qiang, Xianbei, and Wuhuan were really unlucky. If it were this era, they would be invincible." Of course, Bai Lang didn't mention the Turks. ===== CHAPTER 629 =====