Chapter 478
Chapter 478
“Let’s rest, let’s rest…”
“Today was really tough. This is incredibly difficult work.”
“Yeah, yeah. Learning martial arts is truly a difficult thing.”
“There probably aren’t many people in the world as diligent as us. I think we should change our rules from now on. How about we train for fifteen minutes, then rest for three hours?”
“Three hours? Is that enough? Let’s just make it a clean four hours.”
“Alright. It’s settled then. Train for fifteen minutes, rest for four hours!”
“We really are working too hard.”
The ten beggars, not even fifteen minutes into their archery practice, were already preparing to lie down for a four-hour rest. Lying in the room, they once again began to boast. Gou Duhuan was on the verge of exploding with rage at their utter worthlessness. He had been a leader of men, a Military Champion. He had earned that by waking at the crack of dawn and sacrificing his sleep at night, pushing himself relentlessly. And what were these men doing, lazing about like this?
*If I had subordinates like you under my command, I would have killed you so long ago your corpses would be cold.*
Every one of Gou Duhuan’s brothers had been trained by him personally, each capable of taking on more than ten enemies. He had only two hundred men under his command, but they moved like the wind, sweeping across the land, unrivaled. Unable to stand the sight, Gou Duhuan immediately looked for a whip to beat them with.
*At this rate, you could train for a hundred years and still never be fit for a battlefield.*
Just then, Shen Lang and Ning Zheng walked out. The beggars paid them no mind, still lying on the floor, spouting nonsense without a hint of fear. This was because Shen Lang had always been too good to them. Other than forbidding them from relieving themselves wherever they pleased, he never disciplined them and would even join in their boasting every day. And Shen Lang’s boasts were hilarious enough to make one die of laughter.
In contrast, His Highness Ning Zheng never spoke or laughed carelessly, but being short and dark-skinned, he never got angry either, so no one saw any reason to fear him. After twenty years of wandering, they had all developed lazy dispositions. Having lost all fear, getting up to greet them was out of the question; they were too lazy to stand up in the first place.
“Master Shen, you’ve come? Your Highness, the Fifth Prince, you’ve come? We greet you, our two lords. But where has Female General Muyeol gone?”
“That’s right, we haven’t seen her for over two hours.”
“General Muyeol’s bottom is so round, its shape is absolutely first-class.”
***
As Gou Duhuan approached Shen Lang, his expression was somewhat strange. In his heart, he was grateful to Shen Lang for the grace of saving his life—and not just saving it, but giving him a new one. But Gou Duhuan didn't want to kneel before another, nor did he want to appear as if he were weeping with gratitude.
Perhaps this was a rebellious spirit. In the past, the Tuo Clan had made demands of him daily, forcing him to express his gratitude for their kindness dozens of times a day, telling him every day that he must devote his entire being to serving the Tuo Clan, making him swear allegiance to them. In truth, Tuo Yizhen was more loyal than anyone. After the Tuo Clan fell, no one forced him, yet he left the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion to protect Tuo Su'an, forsaking his freedom and his life to find a way to avenge the Tuo Clan. But now he was free, and he no longer wanted to act like a loyal dog. He was, after all, a man of unbending principle.
Shen Lang stepped forward and punched him once on the shoulder.
“Awake? You saved Xu Qianqian’s life once, so I owed you one. But you later tried to assassinate my father-in-law, so I punched you once. Have you slept with Tuo Su'an?”
*Huh? Why such an unpredictable question?*
Gou Duhuan shook his head.
“No.”
“Good. Just between us, that woman’s private parts are probably coated in poison. If you’d actually slept with her, your own might have rotted right off.”
Gou Duhuan was speechless, dumbfounded.
*Is… is this the Shen Lang whose wisdom is rumored to be almost demonic? Why does he sound like a girl who loves to talk nonsense?*
Gou Duhuan asked bluntly, “What do you want me to do?”
“How about becoming one of us from today on?”
Gou Duhuan nodded.
“Alright!”
“This is His Highness, the Fifth Prince, Ning Zheng.”
Gou Duhuan clasped his hands in a formal greeting.
“Greetings, Your Highness, the Fifth Prince.”
Ning Zheng, however, humbled himself, bowing ninety degrees with his hands clasped.
“It is a pleasure, Brother Tuo.”
In that instant, Gou Duhuan bowed again, even more formally.
“Greetings, Your Highness, the Fifth Prince. Greetings, Master Shen.”
He had always been like this. He would appear incomparably arrogant at first, but if others treated him with courtesy, he would return it tenfold.
“Tuo Yizhen, are you interested in becoming a Chiliarch in the Fifth Prince’s household?”
Tuo Yizhen had been a legendary Military Champion in the State of Yue at eighteen. Had he entered the bureaucracy normally, he would have risen to at least a fourth-rank military official, or even higher. Chiliarch was a trivial, low-level position for him.
“I accept.”
“Brother Tuo, are you willing to assist me in helping His Highness, the Fifth Prince, achieve the great feat of ascending the throne?”
Gou Duhuan was startled.
*His Highness, the Fifth Prince, is competing for the throne? How is that possible? No matter how we rack our brains, it seems impossible to succeed.*
But Shen Lang had given him a new life, and he was prepared to repay it with his own. At that moment, Gou Duhuan dropped to one knee.
“Your servant, Tuo Yizhen, greets my lord. So long as my lord does not forsake me, I shall never forsake my lord!”
That was Gou Duhuan’s promise. Once he pledged fealty, as long as the one he served did not betray him first, he would remain loyal for life.
*I, Gou Duhuan, will never be the first to betray!*
Shen Lang said, “Your Highness, congratulations. You have gained an invincible commander!”
Who, then, could be called an invincible commander? Big Dummy? No. He was an invincible vanguard. Qiu Yao'er? Ugh! She was too formidable, not to be considered for the time being. We speak only of normal people; heaven-sent freaks of nature and prodigies are exceptions. A so-called invincible commander is not necessarily one who has mastered the arts of war, nor is he supremely intelligent. Zhou Yu was an exceptionally outstanding man, but he was considered a virtuous general. An invincible commander is perhaps someone in the mold of Han Xin or Huo Qubing.
They could not only command troops from their camp but also charge into the enemy ranks and slaughter them. This type of commander had an innate sense, a natural instinct. It was as if they were born for the battlefield, inherently knowing how to inspire soldiers, train them, sniff out the enemy's location, and identify their weaknesses. And the most fearsome part was that this kind of person wasn't even forged through experience.
Did Marquis Guanjun, Huo Qubing, have such experience? Not at all. He had followed his maternal uncle Wei Qing and learned some military strategy, and then at seventeen, he led eight hundred cavalrymen deep into enemy territory, capturing and killing over two thousand Xiongnu. Among them were many high-ranking figures, including the Xiongnu Chanyu’s grand-uncle, Marquis Ziruohou, and the Chanyu’s uncle, Luogubi. At nineteen, Huo Qubing was appointed General of Agile Cavalry and led a large army to attack the Hexi region. Subsequently, he annihilated forty thousand enemies and captured over a hundred individuals, including Xiongnu kings, the Queen Mother, the Chanyu’s consort Yanzhi, princes, chancellors, and generals, achieving a feat that shook the world. At that time, he was nineteen, merely nineteen years old.
Gou Duhuan, or rather Tuo Yizhen, was probably that kind of genius. From a young age, he had studied battlefield martial arts and military strategy with the Tuo Clan and became a Military Champion at eighteen. At nineteen, he went to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion to study individual martial arts, classical studies, mathematics, and philosophy. After becoming the bandit Gou Duhuan, he led his two hundred-odd men across the eastern part of the State of Yue and the southeastern part of the State of Wu, moving like a phantom. Although the governments of Yue and the Governor of Tiannan Province never seriously attempted to encircle and suppress him, the authorities in Tianbei Province and southern Wu had launched over a dozen campaigns to quell Gou Duhuan, with the largest force numbering six to seven thousand men. Yet they couldn't even touch a hair on his head.
He and his two hundred-odd cavalrymen roamed the states of Wu and Yue as if it were their own backyard. While he was ostensibly a bandit, he never plundered from the common people nor brought harm to their lands, only striking at the rich and corrupt gentry. Moreover, his two hundred cavalrymen, though clearly bandits, strictly adhered to orders and refrained from what was forbidden. They possessed an extremely high sense of pride, and like Gou Duhuan, they treated money as insignificant. As such, they couldn't be called a band of robbers at all; they were more like an army or a mercenary group with a spiritual belief. Their belief was to enact justice on behalf of heaven.
Gou Duhuan spoke up.
“Your Highness, I have two hundred men under my command. I would like to summon them all.”
Ning Zheng replied, “Excellent! Then those two hundred cavalrymen shall all serve as your personal guard. I will not touch a single one.”
Gou Duhuan continued, “I will write a secret letter. Master Shen, please send someone to Daluo Island in the northeastern waters of the State of Yue. When they receive my token and the secret letter, they will immediately rush to the capital.”
*Daluo Island?*
Shen Lang knew of the place. It was indeed a desolate island, and it currently lay outside the maritime territories of both Yue and Wu. In modern Earth terms, it was in international waters. So that was where Gou Duhuan’s base was. No wonder the states of Wu and Yue couldn't find him, no matter how many men they deployed.
Once Gou Duhuan decided on something, he couldn't wait a single minute. He began to write the secret letter. Shen Lang couldn't recognize a single character he wrote. They were extremely strange, a script that did not exist in this world.
Shen Lang asked Gou Duhuan, “Did you create these characters yourself?”
“You’ll laugh if you see them.”
*He really created them himself? That’s incredible.*
Gou Duhuan muttered, “Our secret correspondence is not only exchanged using a script I created, but these characters are also a code. The letter must be deciphered after it’s received.”
Shen Lang and Ning Zheng were utterly astonished. That was a state-level method of maintaining secrecy. A band of mere two hundred bandits, using such a high level of security? Wasn't that like using an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken?