Chapter 396: What Is to Be Done

Fortunately, there was not much farm work that needed to be done during this period; otherwise, it would have had a huge impact on their production and planting, and now most of the various construction sites were going to be shut down.

All the Soldiers were assembled, waiting for orders at any time to prepare for departure, and all the garrison troops had also prepared their Weapons, ready to go to the front line at any time, because they were facing a super-large tribe like the Suiren, so they did not dare to be careless at all; if any mistake occurred, they would have no hope left.

Although they had sent Xuanyuan away, it was still not easy for them to deal with the Suiren alone, especially when the defectors from the Suiren were brought to Huaxia and revealed the approximate combat strength of the current Suiren; according to the guesses of those people, at least a force of twenty thousand would come to attack, and they would not be surprised even if thirty thousand came.

Now the entire Huaxia had only a few thousand Soldiers, and that was counting the garrison troops; their population growth was high, mainly because there were many in the new generation, and they had enough food sources to support so many newborns, but these children of the new generation had no combat strength to speak of, and Baifeng could not bear to let them go to the battlefield to die and cut off the future of Huaxia.

Because Baifeng also did not know which city the Suiren would attack, and the strength of the New City was too weak, Baifeng thought of having people lure the main force of the Suiren to the Old City, letting them think that Huaxia only had this one city, thereby ensuring the safety of the New City.

At the same time, their military factory also began to exert great effort, and Arrows began to be delivered continuously, then moved to the city walls, inside which stones were piled up everywhere.

The Gunpowder factory also completely opened up production; originally, this Gunpowder workshop was operated by Baifeng alone, but later he discovered that there was really no need to put himself at risk for the sake of secrecy, as Gunpowder was different from other things—as long as there was a spark, there was absolutely no possibility of his own survival.

Later, he tried to separate the raw materials for production, then had different Workers mix them, perform granulation, and do the filling; it had developed to the present scale, which was quite large, but whether there was really no leakage, Baifeng could not be sure, so the Workers he chose were all congenitally somewhat mentally disabled, and they were fully capable of simple grinding and mixing.

Actually, Baifeng had a more suitable method, but it was too cruel after all; he could not bring himself to do it to his own tribesmen, and it was also not suitable to do it to them; he could only wait for an opportunity, and as long as he caught suitable candidates, he could just cut off their tongues, as mutes always keep secrets.

Although they did not intend to conduct a frontal ground battle and mainly focused on defending the city, they could not just wait in the city for the enemy to find them; someone had to go and lure the enemy over, and at the same time, scout how many troops the enemy had dispatched.

The Soldiers obeyed military orders unconditionally; after randomly drawing one hundred people, they formed the Vanguard Team, traveled light, and began to run in the direction of the Suiren.

And several Village chiefs of the Suiren finally found the traces of Huaxia; they followed the tracks of the Huaxia patrol Soldiers and found a house where they were temporarily stationed; looking at the signs of life inside, it was from the last few days, and they were like people who had discovered a savior, not caring at all that they had not eaten for a long time, and they continued to search without stopping.

The Huaxia Soldiers walked along the road they had already cleared; this road was fast and level, and there was no need to go in circles, allowing them to reach the border at the fastest speed.

When they had been on the road for more than a day, they immediately noticed something wrong, because there were several Suiren people in the forest who were not hiding their tracks at all, searching openly in the forest, but looking at their appearance, they were extremely exhausted, and their clothes were not enough to cover their bodies, and the Weapons they held were worse than holding nothing, unable to cause any harm to them.

Because this team of theirs was meant to be discovered by the Suiren, they did not intend to sneak up on these people and assassinate them, but instead loudly scolded those few Suiren people: "Hey, what are you few doing in the territory of our Huaxia? Leave quickly, or we will attack!"

After saying that, they shot an Arrow directly into the tree beside them; unexpectedly, these few Suiren people did not run at all, but instead cheered with their weak voices, which left the Huaxia people confused, looking at each other—could there be an ambush nearby? But that was completely impossible!

They saw those few Suiren people drop their Weapons and walk slowly toward them; the Huaxia Soldiers were not panicked, as unarmed savages posed no threat to them.

When they were very close, one Suiren person lowered his head and said: "We few are all Village chiefs of the Suiren border villages; we have always received help from Huaxia in the past, which allowed us to successfully live until today. But now the Suiren have assembled a large army, preparing to attack Huaxia; they already have nearly ten thousand people stationed at the border, the Leader leading the troops is named Lanzai, and the Tribal Chief Baoxi is right behind, bringing more Soldiers to catch up."

Then he caught his breath and said in an increasingly weak voice: "We all wanted to leave the Suiren and come to live in Huaxia, but before we could run, the Suiren Soldiers had already arrived; we only had time to dispose of the things you gave us to avoid them noticing any problems. But there should be a few villages that left with your Soldiers, right?"

"Lanzai thought they were slaughtered by you and then burned clean with a fire, so he guessed that there were traitors among us who tipped you off; hehe, he guessed right, we are all traitors, it's just a pity that it's too late."

Seeing that these few people were very weak, the Soldiers immediately had people bring Dry Rations and water, wanting them to eat a little before talking, because they knew what they were saying was true and there was no problem, so they had to help.

But those few people pushed them away in unison and said it was not needed, then smiled bitterly and stated their reason: "Lanzai thinks we are traitors, so he wants us to kill a Huaxia Soldier within three days to prove ourselves; otherwise, he will kill everyone in our few villages."

The Huaxia Soldier's expression became grave after hearing this; although he would help these people, it did not mean he would trade the lives of his own people, so he asked: "Then what do you plan to do? Do you really intend to take your broken axes and kill us to save people?"

Several people hurriedly waved their hands to explain: "No, no, we have already thought of a countermeasure, but it is already the second day, and I am afraid Lanzai will act in advance, so I hope you can go over early to help those villagers; as soon as they have a chance, they will flee to Huaxia."