To the Raider’s Camp

Gaia 1st year,1st month, 20th day.

At the military camp school, fifty militia had been assembled in their teams. Standing on the temporarily erected platform, Ouyang Shuo began the pre-battle mobilization.

“Soldiers, I, the Lord of Shanhai Village, am addressing you! Five days ago, a raider’s camp was found within our territory! They are our enemies. There are a number of them and they are well equipped! We have fewer soldiers and our weapons are not as good. If you are afraid, stand up now, and you won't have to go.

“My soldiers, remember this! Since the moment you entered the barracks, you were no longer farmers tied to the earth, you severed your ties to your past! Who are you? You are the specially selected warriors of Shanhai, and the mission of soldiers is to defend their territory! Now, the villagers are looking at you, their children are watching you! Will you be worms or dragons, it all depends on this battle! Are you afraid!?”

“Not afraid!” All of the militia shouted back together, none of them were cowards.

“Do you have the confidence to win?”

“We have!”

“Very good! We shall begin!”

Under the leadership of General Shi, the militia left the barracks in an orderly manner. In four days’ time, the militia team had not only been fully recruited, but all of them had also been brought to the max rank of 10. Ouyang Shuo had also gone out with them to train, and his level had also reached 14.

Just this morning, the soldiers who were responsible for monitoring the raider’s camp had relayed some information. Today, early in the morning, the two leaders of the raiders had taken twelve elite raiders and twenty ordinary raiders and led them out to go plundering. All of a sudden, the forces of the raider’s camp were cut in half. Faced with such a good opportunity, Ouyang Shuo naturally wasn’t going to let it go. Immediately, he called together the full militia, and went to the raider’s camp straightaway.

Of course, even with so many people gone, the raider’s camp was still comparable in strength to the militia team. In order to reduce his casualties, Ouyang Shuo knew that he would have to use some tactics. He planned to have San Gouzi lead a militia squad, pretending to be migrants, and lure some of the raiders out of the camp. The rest of the militia would wait in ambush by a small hill three kilometers from the camp.

Half an hour later, the militia reached the ambush site, quickly moving into position. Ouyang Shuo waved San Gouzi forwards, patted his shoulder, and said, “Don’t get close enough to be chased down by their cavalry! Remember, don’t get too close, they can see everyone who approaches within a thousand meters.”

San Gouzi was one of the fastest and most clever of the militia. At this time, not only was he not afraid, but was very excited. “Sire, rest assured. At being a bait, I am great at it, heh heh!”

Ouyang Shuo kicked him, smiled, and said, “Brat, see if you can do it, get out of here!”

San Gouzi gave him a big smile before setting off with the other nine disguised militia. They first had to make a big detour off to the side, and then pretend to be coming from the opposite direction so it looked they were coming out of the wild. Otherwise, it would be too easy to reveal their origins. The bandits could survive in the wilderness, and therefore they would not be suckered out easily. Planning for the attack while thinking the enemy leader was a fool, that would be really stupid.

Twenty minutes later, San Gouzi’s squad came within a thousand meters of the raider’s camp, and entered the field of vision of the sentry on duty. The sentry looked at the small group of displaced people, and did not think much of it. He quickly went down to report that there was a line of ten small fat sheep that had walked into their hands, not far from the camp.

The camp’s great leader was busy enjoying a woman, and hearing that it was only ten people, he impatiently snapped, “Go away. This is not worth my time. Tell Zhao Liu to go deal with them.”

That Zhao Liu was an elite raider, and after receiving the order, looked very excited. He led four other raiders on horseback and they rode out of the camp.

San Gouzi was clever, getting just within range of the raider’s camp before stopping a thousand meters out. Pretending to recognize what the camp really was, with panicked looks, the whole squad turned and ran.

Zhao Liu, seeing the frightened appearance of the small mob, laughed. Not only did he not race to catch up quickly, but he slowed down, unhurriedly catching up to San Gouzi. He was ready to play a game of cat and mouse, and get his fun out of this group of fragile victims.

Soon enough, the two groups of people became visible to Ouyang Shuo. He could see the joking expression on Zhao Liu’s face, and thought to himself, You bastard who thinks he controls life and death, you will pay for your arrogance with your blood.

When the raiders were a hundred meters from the hillside, the militia rushed out of hiding as they sprang their ambush. Everyone was in a unified formation, both hands on their javelins as they rushed together and threw it to the raiders.

General Shi was standing off to the side, bow and arrow in his hand, Shou! General Shi’s arrow shot Zhao Liu down off his horse. The raiders had no time to react before they were pierced by the militia’s 40 javelins like hedgehogs.

With their first battle victory naturally came a surge of morale. Ouyang Shuo arranged Lin Yi to take some people and clean up the booty, and make sure all of the raiders were dead.

Because everyone used their javelins directly against the raiders, only one of the five horses was wounded. In addition to the horses, the most useful loot were the five bows. Ouyang Shuo took a look at their stats.

Name: Ordinary Horse (black iron level)

Weight: 50 kg

Speed: 30 km / day

Consumption: 3 units of grain / day

Evaluation: This barely qualifies as a warhorse.

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Name: Ordinary Wooden Bow (black iron level)

Length: 1.2 meters

Range: 150 meters

Evaluation: A single stave shortbow made of Manchurian Ash Wood, with deer tendons for a bow string. Don’t hope for a lot of power out of it.

Ouyang Shuo immediately arranged for the five horses to be brought back to the village by two militiamen. The five bows were quickly passed to the five sergeants. Unfortunately, except for Lin Yi and Zhang Daniu, who both knew basic archery, none of the others had ever touched a bow before.

Quickly cleaning up the battlefield, Shuo’s force did not dawdle and immediately went straight to the base camp. Ouyang Shuo took full advantage of the fact that the camp did not have time to react before their attack arrived. With his timing, the balance of strength had been tilted. There had been twenty elite raiders. Twelve had left, five had already died, what were left in the camp had at most 3 elite raiders, they would not cause much concerns anymore.

Before the fight, Ouyang Shuo quietly told General Shi to let Lin Yi deal with the raider camp leader after the fighting started. General’s Shi’s main duty was to use his bow and kill any surviving elites, then cover the militia during the fight, to cut down on the number of casualties.

Three hundred meters from the camp, General Shi, riding on his horse, took his bow and directly shot down the two sentries. Taking the opportunity, Ouyang Shuo ordered the larger force to move forward quickly, rushing into the raider’s camp. Finding outsiders rushing into their camp before they could gather together, the people inside immediately panicked.

General Shi rushed to the front, simply a humanoid killing machine, no one could oppose him. Stimulated by his example, the morale of the militia reached a peak. With General Shi leading them, they had no fear of the ordinary bandits. In contrast, reeling under the sudden attack on their camp and General’s Shi’s unstoppable aura, the bandits’ morale plummeted.

At that point, the bandit lieutenant finally got his armor on, and carrying a big axe, rushed out into the fighting. Lin Yi took one look at him, without further orders from Ouyang Shuo, directly charged up to the raider and engaged him.

The two were fairly evenly matched, but one had an axe, and the other was dancing with a spear. It was the old saying, an inch of reach is an inch closer to death. Seeing the two fighting, it was obvious to see what the ending would be. In less than twenty rounds, Lin Yi seized on a flaw in the other’s form, and as fast as lightning pierced the big raider through the center of his chest.

Seeing their leader slain by Lin Yi, the other bandits tried to break off from the fighting, scatter, and flee. Unfortunately, the camp was not large, and there was nowhere to run. The sergeants along with their squads hunted them down one by one and killed them. As for the three elite raiders, they had long been killed by General Shi.

The fighting started quickly and ended quickly. After the battle, the militia team had two seriously injured, and 12 slightly injured. Fortunately, no one had died. The two who were seriously injured, even if healed, could probably never fight on the battlefield again. Ouyang Shuo could only reluctantly arrange for them to retire. The twelve who had minor injuries, after applying some metal-laceration medicine, and a few days of rest, they would be fine.

Through the destruction of the raider’s camp, Ouyang Shuo’s level rose like a rocket directly to 18. He took the opportunity to look at his own stats.

Name: Qiyue Wuyi

Title: Celebrity (Good impression on historical figures +10%)

Territory: Shanhai Village

Merit: 1300/1600

Title: 3rd class Viscount

Occupation: General (sub-occupation)

Level: 18 (652100/723860)

Reputation: Well known (1200/10000)

Body Structure: 18

Comprehension: 20

Luck: 5

Charm: 8

Command: 26

Force: 8

Intelligence: 8

Political: 26

Talent: Locked

Technique: None

Skills: Intermediate Collection, Basic Shipbuilding, Basic Diplomacy, Basic Assessment, Basic Weapons Proficiency, Basic Riding, Basic Marksmanship, Basic Archery

Mount: Poor Horse (bronze)

Equipment: Poor Iron Spear(bronze), Ring of Courage (black iron rank)

While Shuo was looking at his stats, General Shi directed the clean-up of the battlefield. In the game, NPC’s would not resurrect, and their bodies would not stick around very long.

Usually when an NPC died, their body would stay around an hour or so. During this time period, if someone were to take care of the corpse, they could be buried in a cemetery. Otherwise, their fate would be the same as these bodies, eventually turning all white and disappearing. This reflected a user-friendly design in the game. Otherwise, with thousands of the slain after a war in the late game, it would be pretty gory.

With the capture of the raider’s camp, the amount of plunder seized was plentiful, but he didn’t have the statistics at the moment. The other thing in the camp was the number of women and children, who Ouyang Shuo prepared to bring back to his village. There were 32 women and 3 children, total number of 35.

These women and children were basically kidnapped by the raiders and taken to serve them. These people could not only quickly supplement his territory’s population, but also improve the structure of the population to a certain extent.

In the early days of the system, most of the incoming immigrants were men. The system logically ruled that for the migrants, naturally the more powerful adult men would be able to survive more easily. Most of the elderly, weak women, and children could not survive the wilderness.

As for bringing these women back to the village, it wasn’t to force them to marry and have children. Ouyang Shuo was not going to intervene in such matters, everything would be determined by the villagers themselves. As a lord, what he could do was ensure that they were not discriminated against in his lands, while also making sure of their personal safety and freedom.

*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

*[12.47 to 13.07]: don't ask me about the tree sap