Chapter 287- The truth is out
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
After the military reorganization, the entire Shanhai City military started to move.
The forces gathered up at the places where they were suppose to be; the generals went to receive their forces. Under the leadership of Baiqi, everything proceeded orderly and there wasn’t a hint of chaos.
Shanhai City’s many generals pretty much all joined in the Battle of Changping. As such, they had huge respect for Baiqi. Hence with him as the general, no one was unhappy.
The equipment made by the 4 military workshops were shipped to the 3 main camps. Ever since the large scale acquisition of resources, the Armory Division and Bow and Crossbow Division had started to produce large amounts of bows and armors.
Sent together with the equipment were large amounts of grain. It was quickly going to be winter and war would stop. This was the best time to train the troops, and naturally one needed to accumulate enough grain.
As the animal husbandry industry started to develop, the goods in the military, apart from grain, had large amounts of fish and meat. A large amount of goats and pigs were sent to each camp and reared. Among the fish, apart from seafood coming from Beihai City, there was a wide variety of freshwater fish from Xila Lake.
Apart from that, the Combat Logistics Division sent officials to go to the various tribes to buy Qingfu horses. The 3 divisions lacked around 5-6 thousand horses.
Ouyang Shuo temporarily didn’t want to make use of the Qingfu horses which were bred by the Jifeng Valley horse stables. During the winter, the livelihood of the various tribes would become very tough, and hence they would be willing to exchange horses for food.
The equipment that was replaced by the troops filled up the arsenal. Little aunt Lin Jing brought her mercenary team members to and fro for about 20 trips before being able to clear it out. It was estimated that all this equipment could be sold for 30 thousand gold, and was more than enough to settle the class change fees.
The price would be the elite equipment that the 4 workshops produced. To date they hadn’t sold any, and all the equipment produced was used internally. Hence, he was always teased by his allies.
The profits for the military industry would only come next year.
The extra gold from the sales were used by Ouyang Shuo to buy grain, buying tens of millions units and storing it in the granary in the west suburbs, solving the grain shortage.
Just as Shanhai City was reorganizing their army, an unusual change was happening in the wild lands.
Tian Qi Tribe, Kehan Tent
Kehan was looking weird and his face was unsettled. “Are you sure you saw it clearly?” Mengke’s body wasn’t as before. Even so, no one dared to be impudent in front of him.
“That person, even if he was turned to dust, I would recognize him.” The one who replied was a tall male with a face covered with a beard. When he spoke, his eyes were filled with hatred.
On closer look, this man was the original west region’s commander Lakhshen. Who would have expected that he was released by Mengke and had even went to complete a mission and report to Mengke.
The person Lakhshen recognized was Lin Yi, the man who designed and planned the wildfire operation and killed the young generals of the west region. Before that, the city north camp was south of the city protection river, and as such it was hard to see Lin Yi’s face.
After the city north camp took over the Tianfeng tribe area, Lin Yi’s face wasn’t a mystery anymore. If it weren’t that his troops were made to join in the Battle of Changping, he would have been exposed even earlier.
This could be blamed on the carelessness of Ouyang Shuo who didn’t expect Lakhshen to see the light of day.
In truth, not long after he was locked up, he was secretly released by Mengke. Mengke gave him a secret mission which was to check who attacked the west region of the town.
If he didn’t investigate this, Mengke was unable to rest easy.
Lakhshen was misled by Ouyang Shuo and went to check mainly on the raiders and west side tribes. However he didn’t expect that the enemy would come from the south.
Until the Shanhai City army took down Tianfeng tribe and established their position on the wild lands, this attracted his attention. He investigated and saw Lin Yi, the guy that destroyed his life.
Hence, the truth was revealed.
“So you mean the reason our Tianqi Tribe is in such a state is all because of them?” Mengke said coldly. He didn’t show any hatred, making him even more cold.
“Not only that, I think that the chaos and killing of the mid-sized tribes were done by them. Their goal was to aid in the destruction of the Tianfeng tribe. Probably even the destruction of the Tianling tribe had something to do with them. They are a pack of hungry wolves that had their eyes set on our tribe.” After a crisis, Lakhshen became more calm, only that he felt more devious and evil.
“Have you found out about their military strength?”
“Very strong. With their organization, just their two cavalry regiments have 5000 people, the same as our north region.” Talking about this, Lakhshen was a little dejected. “Not only that, they seem to be reorganizing their army. Although I couldn’t find anything more, their numbers will only increase. The horses they use are all our Qingfu horses, and their equipment is far better than ours.”
Mengke’s turned black. “So with our tribe, we can’t beat them?”
Lakhshen noticed his expression and shivered. It seemed like he remembered how the west region was destroyed. Lakhshen shook his head, trying to toss aside the random thoughts in his head, saying carefully, “Although I don’t want to admit it, it’s true. Apart from the city north camp, they also have troops inside Friendship City.”
“Hen, we can’t do it but don’t tell me we can’t do it even if we consolidate all the power of the tribes in the wild lands?” Mengke was really decisive, immediately thinking about getting help.
“But would the mid-sized tribes agree?” Lakhshen was doubtful, now was different from last time, as the 7 remaining tribes were guarding against Tianqi tribe.
Lakshen also heard that the Shanhai City people were going around buying Qingfu horses, and the tribes all welcomed them. Those guys were bought over by their grain, tea, and salt.
Mengke seem to have seen through Lakhshen’s heart. “You ah, don’t look down on those tribes. They might look like they are getting close to Shanhai City, but that’s because they don’t know their true colors. Once we tell them the intelligence we gathered, I assure you, they will agree. After all, who wants to be like Tianfeng tribe? Them competing with us is an internal battle, now Shanhai City is our common enemy. ” What Mengke didn’t want to tell Lakhshen was that he wanted to use this chance to make Tianqi tribe the core leader of the wild lands.
“Mengke is smart!” Lakhshen had to admit that it terms of reading people, he wasn’t on the same level as Mengke.
Mengke waved him off. “Getting help is only our 2nd option. Most importantly, we need to have a strong army. Such a long time has passed, and I think it’s time we rebuild the west region forces. Lakhshen, i hope you won’t let me down again.”
Lakhshen was emotional beyond words. At this point, he was conflicted, emotional, joyous, grateful, regretful, etc.
He could only respectfully kowtow three times and swore, “I will be loyal to the death to you, to repay your kindness!”
Mengke nodded; this was what he wanted. Recently, there was some unrest amongst the nobles of the tribes, so rebuilding the west region would naturally be given to someone that was totally loyal to him.
Everything was controlled in his hands.
What happened in the wild lands, Ouyang Shuo knew nothing about it.
Now, he was gathering all the directors and secretaries to coordinate the reorganization of the military. Ouyang Shuo met Song San, Wang Yuanfeng, Old Qian, and Zhao Youfang to discuss logistical matters.
The Military Affairs Division was in charge of the scouting squadron. With the help of the Rattlesnake mercenary group, the skill levels of the spies were totally different from previous days.
Scouts were split between infantry and cavalry scouts, both having different scouting missions.
The god machine unit was in charge of forming the engineer squadron, which included artisans in the territory, crossbowmen, and people who used the scaling ladder and other siege weapons.
With a major like Wang Yuanfeng who was familiar with all large-scale machinery and mechanics, Ouyang Shuo was at ease.
The Medical Department was in charge of the medical squadron. When the department was set up, deputy director old Qian had developed a medical squadron which was directly sent to the 3 divisions.
The Combat Logistics Division was in charge of forming the cooking squadron. They had to hire chefs from outside to undergo military training before being able to form up the cooking squadron.
