Chapter 394: The Planning of the Suiren Clan

Ever since Xuanyuan returned to his tribe, he stopped mentioning the idea of attacking Huaxia with the Suiren Clan. Later, even when the Suiren Clan sent people to negotiate with Xuanyuan, Xuanyuan refused them on the grounds of being busy dealing with the Lieshan Clan, without revealing a single thing about Huaxia's combat strength.

Baoxi could no longer restrain himself, because winter was about to arrive, and the population of his Suiren Clan was far too massive—nearly 140,000 people. How to feed them had become a major problem, which stemmed from his reckless expansion without considering the consequences. Although his elite troops were all eating until their mouths were oily, the ordinary people in the lower ranks were almost constantly starving.

The current Suiren Clan had reached a bottleneck in its expansion; the surrounding tribes had already been annexed, leaving only Huaxia, Xuanyuan, and other more distant tribes.

Not only was he unable to continue expanding, but signs of internal division were also gradually appearing. The smaller tribes on the periphery with looser management intended to break away from the Suiren Clan and form their own small tribes again, for the simple reason that the Suiren Clan could no longer guarantee their survival.

Baoxi made up his mind to probe Xuanyuan's thoughts one last time; if he was unwilling to attack Huaxia with him, he at least had to ensure that he would not stand on the same front as Huaxia.

Xuanyuan's reply to Baoxi was that Huaxia was too small and could not offer the price he wanted, so naturally, he would not help Huaxia fight the Suiren Clan. Likewise, Huaxia did not have enough appeal to make their two great tribes attack it together. He only needed to focus his energy on opposing the Lieshan Clan now; the wealth of the Lieshan Clan would be no less than that of Huaxia.

Although this reason was somewhat far-fetched, Baoxi accepted it; as long as it would not affect his actions, it was fine.

Once the plan was out, the entire Suiren Clan immediately entered a state of war, mobilizing 30,000 Soldiers to move toward Huaxia in batches. He felt that with Huaxia's capabilities, they would be unable to withstand such a large-scale operation, although the Suiren Clan itself would also suffer great losses—after all, Huaxia was not one of those ordinary small tribes; they were at least ten thousand people strong.

Their army first arrived at the small Villages on the border of Huaxia. Everyone in the Villages immediately became their vanguard, because their status was very low, so naturally, they had to be the ones to rush forward to die first.

Of course, before the main force arrived, news had already been sent to those Villages, telling them to be prepared.

The people who had long been receiving help from Huaxia were all unwilling to attack Huaxia, but now that the Huaxia patrol Soldiers had just left a few days ago, they had no way to send word.

Thus, they decided to flee the Suiren Clan and go live in Huaxia.

However, just as they had finished a full meal and eaten their fill of the stored grain, the clansmen who had gone out to patrol rushed back, their faces panicked, saying that the main force of the Suiren Clan was already coming this way and would arrive in less than half a day.

The Village Leader's expression was grim. They had originally thought this would be their last meal in the Suiren Clan, and then they would have a reason to take the intelligence and defect to Huaxia, but now it was already too late.

Without Huaxia Soldiers to lead the way, it was difficult for them to find their way to the city of Huaxia on their own, and they would easily be treated as enemies and surrounded and killed. Even if they ignored these problems, if they fled now and were discovered by the Suiren Clan, they would definitely face the pursuit of the main force, and the consequences would only be worse.

After careful consideration, they decided to stay for now and think of a way later, but the current trouble was to quickly destroy the evidence of Huaxia's help to them and become a poor Village that could not even get enough to eat.

They endured the pain and poured the Grass Seed into the river, leaving only a tiny portion. Meat was thrown away or kept as needed. Even the Hemp Cloth clothes some of them wore were torn off and thrown into the fire, and then they put on tattered animal skins again.

They pushed over the mud houses, threw the mud foundations into the river, and then used the fastest speed to break off tree branches to cover up the tattered shacks again. Where the mud foundations could be seen, they piled up fallen leaves to make everything look reasonable.

Most of the Villages that had received help from Huaxia chose this approach, because they had all discovered the approaching main force of the Suiren Clan.

However, a few Villages were lucky, because at this time, Huaxia Soldiers happened to be patrolling their location. After seeking the opinion of the Huaxia Soldiers, they chose to flee the Suiren Clan and join Huaxia without hesitation.

Then, under the command of the Huaxia Soldiers, they dismantled their houses. For those too far away to dismantle in time, they simply set them on fire. They took the grain if they had time, and if not, they burned it or scattered it in the wild. In any case, the Suiren Clan could not possibly pick it up grain by grain, and by next year, it would grow like ordinary Grass.

After cleaning up, the Huaxia Soldiers stopped patrolling and took these people back to the city along the nearest route to report this major news: the Suiren Clan had come to attack them. Although they had received some information, they were not too sure. Now that it was confirmed, they naturally had to prepare to enter a wartime state.

Baoxi's top general, Lanzai, led the first batch of 6,000 Soldiers, dividing them into several parts to station themselves at several Villages. However, after several of the Small Teams arrived, they were stunned: it was a mess, they could not find a single living person, and the ashes were still warm, which showed at a glance that it had just been burned. Everyone felt a sense of chaos in their hearts, thinking that Huaxia had already learned of their plan and had launched an attack in advance, wiping out some of their Villages here.

Thus, these Small Teams that were supposed to be stationed in the destroyed Villages set off again to find Lanzai's unit. They had no authority to make any decisions, and in this situation, it was already beyond their ability to judge.

The Village Lanzai arrived at had not fled; instead, they had handled everything and become a dilapidated Village on the verge of death. Because they had changed their clothes, they were now wearing animal skins that could barely cover their bodies, shivering in the cold wind; one could not tell at all that they had not had such a hard life before.

After Lanzai arrived, he immediately drove the people in the Village out. Some of his Leaders then occupied the few shacks; although they were very rotten, they were much better than camping outside in this weather.

The little food remaining in the Village was also requisitioned. Everyone was used to this; who hadn't experienced it? This was the privilege of the elite. If you wanted to avoid this situation, you needed to become the ruling class, the elite class, but the prerequisite for becoming an elite was that you could either bring an endless supply of grain to the tribe, or your combat strength could be so high that you were invincible on the battlefield. But if you were really capable of one of these, would you still be in this state?