Chapter 721: Begging

The Xuan-Da Viceroy couldn't refuse Bai Lang's face and gave him two hundred or so infantry and cavalry, and Bai Lang took these people to the Datong drill ground to inspect their martial arts. "The Xuan-Da strategic town, and it turns out to be a bunch of trash?" Bai Lang sat on the reviewing stand, watching the infantry and cavalry perform, and the level of these people was indeed unbearable to look at. "Is this old man trying to give me a hard time? If so, watch how I beat this old thief to death!" This was actually blaming the Viceroy wrongly. In this day and age, the troops of Xuan-Da hadn't been carefully selected and trained by Qi Jiguang, so of course, they were in this state.

The ones who could truly fight were the personal guards under the various generals, and there were also some camp units with real soldiers and real pay. The soldiers the Viceroy allocated to Bai Lang were already the ones selected from the remaining Xuan-Da garrisons who were still passable. Bai Lang naturally understood the logic behind it. He scouted around, and sure enough, there were no Songshan disciples, no Five Mountain disciples, and no Shaolin disciples in the army. It seemed these people would rather mix in gangs than fight for a career in the army.

Bai Lang directly supplemented the military pay and food for these soldiers first, and those guys were so grateful—the regular Xuan-Da soldiers were fine, but there were plenty of military households in other garrisons who couldn't survive. After that, it was time for training. Bai Lang still remembered a set of relatively simple Qi Gong that went from the outside to the inside that he had once used in the Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty, and he made some slight modifications and taught it to them.

This person also took out his own silver to buy wine and meat to feed these soldiers every day—practicing this martial art, one couldn't do it without eating meat and drinking wine. Although Bai Lang was anxious to go outside the pass to play, he could still suppress this emotion and practice the troops first. And the spies sent out by the Jin Yi Guard also reported a lot of information. As an Innate Expert, Bai Lang could attend the meetings, but as the Datong Prefect, he was a bit short.

This was a meeting between the Xuan-Da Viceroy, the Regional Commander, and the Governor, about Altan Khan's movements and the situation of the Bansheng City—the Jin Yi Guard spies had disguised themselves as merchants more than once and gone to Bansheng City to trade. The reason why the Great Ming hadn't moved against Bansheng City until now was probably because the local government and generals had contributed a lot to it; this smuggling back and forth was all money. "It seems the Emperor is also preparing for mutual trade, so taking Bansheng City would be a perfect place for mutual trade." This was Bai Lang's opinion.

Bai Lang was quite familiar with Bansheng City; this was Yunzhong Commandery. Back in the late Han and Three Kingdoms period, he had also galloped here. He didn't expect that after more than a thousand years, this place would no longer belong to the Han family. On this day, Bai Lang was drinking in plain clothes in Datong City—he basically left the yamen to his deputy to manage, and he hadn't even held a court session in over a month since taking office. Anyway, trying cases was the business of the Datong County Magistrate. Seeing a few nuns—wearing veils—begging for alms.

Bai Lang recognized one of them, and he also recognized the woman in secular clothes walking not far from the nuns. Wasn't this little Master Yilin and Qu Feiyan? Of course, there were a few others who should be their fellow sisters. "Eh? What are they doing in Datong?" Bai Lang was quite surprised. These little nuns weren't practicing in Hengshan, Hebei; running to Datong, was this considered traveling ten thousand miles? In the practice of ascetic monks, there was indeed a saying of traveling on foot, but it was extremely rare for nuns to travel on foot.

Bai Lang gave the small change to the waiter and walked downstairs toward the nuns, "Junior Sister Yilin, little girl Qu Feiyan." Bai Lang's words weren't very loud, but the two of them heard them clearly. Those Hengshan disciples turned their heads and looked, and they all put their hands together in greeting. People outside the world didn't need to value secular status, so they didn't need to call Bai Lang "Old Master," but just call him "Senior Brother Bai." "Why did you come to Datong?" Bai Lang was quite curious.

"Practice." The leader wasn't Yilin, but the senior sister of the Yi generation, Yihe. They accepted Bai Lang's hospitality and sat down at a tea stall—if he had invited them to a restaurant, they certainly wouldn't have accepted. It turned out that it was time for ascetic practice. Hengshan intended to branch out and wanted to build a few nunneries in other places—the ones sent out were these disciples who didn't have "parents" at home.

"This is simple. I will donate some money in Datong, and then find local gentry and kind people to let them also donate, and just build a nunnery in a good place outside Datong Prefecture." For Datong Prefect Bai Lang, this was simply a matter of lifting a finger. Yilin and the others also thanked him. Qu Feiyan looked a bit depressed, but Black Wood Cliff had already been destroyed. "By the way, have the Five Mountain Sword Sects also disbanded?" Bai Lang asked.

Yihe nodded, "Disbanded." It was very decisive, it seemed there was really no hope. Seeing these junior sisters, Bai Lang was in a good mood. They had places to go anyway, so they didn't need Bai Lang's attention. He just proposed to give one thousand taels of silver to Yihe, and at the same time called the Vice Prefect and said a word. After that, this person immediately became a lackey and quickly called the yamen runners to start working. In one word, the entire Datong Prefecture started to move, which made those Hengshan junior sisters stunned.

"The County Magistrate is still a local lord, and I, a dignified fourth-rank Prefect, naturally have infinite power in Datong!" Bai Lang didn't care at all.

The next day, Bai Lang arrived at the drill ground, "Beat the drums! Gather the troops!" he shouted to his personal guards. The big drums sounded, and the infantry and cavalry of Bai Lang's unit, who were already arranged in the nearby military camp, quickly put on their armor and ran to the drill ground to line up. "Today, let's go make a profit! Follow me to the outside of the pass to raid for grass and grain!" Bai Lang said very calmly. Although these guys had been training for almost a month, they still gasped, completely unable to gather a majestic military spirit.

"If I don't take them out to fight, they will really be useless." Bai Lang thought. Forcing these guys to follow him out, Bai Lang also went to the yamen to get a suit of mail armor, put on a phoenix-winged helmet, rode a warhorse, and prepared to leave the city—thanks to the Datong military town, Bai Lang could own three horses himself, and he could also requisition enough large carts to carry food, grass, and arrows with him out of the city. Neither the Viceroy nor the Regional Commander could stop him, nor did they want to—who would dare to stop such a fierce general?

Besides, the Emperor putting Bai Lang in Datong wasn't just expecting this civil official to perform the duties of a military general and sweep the Mongols outside the pass? The Cabinet was probably thinking the same thing. This peerless fierce general going outside the pass could at least reduce the pressure on the Datong direction, and it would be even better to shift this pressure to the Mongols. Bai Lang naturally wouldn't let them down. He still wanted to be ennobled by military merit, first get a title of Minister of War, and then get a title of the Three Young Masters of the Crown Prince... That would be a second-rank title.

By then, the reappearance of the Young Guardian Bai in the Jianghu would be very interesting, "I still like the title of Young Guardian; I don't want the title of Grand Guardian yet." Bai Lang was still thinking when he left the city, while on the city tower behind him, several military generals were watching. He also had the Regional Commander seeing him off behind him. This Bai Lang's bear-tiger body and his majestic aura were even above the Regional Commander. If the two stood together, they would definitely see Bai Lang as a military general and the Regional Commander as a civil official. ===== CHAPTER 722 =====