By 11 AM in the morning, they’d finished clearing the entire battlefield.
The raider’s weapons and equipment were all collected, including the horses in the stables, the material stored in warehouses, and even various personal possessions in the dwellings were plundered clean.
Shuo really did need the money, he had 10 silver coins left only because Lin Yi hadn’t needed to use the barracks to class change. Encountering such a nice bit of plunder gave free rein to his miserly nature. Even if he had to dig three feet down into the soil, he wasn’t going to let a copper coin get away!
Shuo first called over Lin Yi and Zhang Daniu, telling them to take their men, the wounded, and the women, children, and goods they’d seized and escort them back to Shanhai Village. The wounded were to be handed over to Dr. Song for treatment, and the women and children placed under the guidance of clerk Gu Xiuwen. As for the resources, they would first go to Secretary of Material Reserves Cui Yingyu for a detailed breakdown, which he could look into after he returned.
After they departed with the goods and prisoners, Shuo immediately took the rest of the men back to the Raider Camp. Shuo had definitely not forgotten that a group of raiders had gone out and not returned yet. Without making a clean sweep, how could he be assured of eliminating the problem they poised?
Shuo made some quick calculations. In addition to himself and General Shi, there were 36 militia left behind. Given the size of the remaining raider force, there might be some difficulties.
That group of bandits had 12 elites! He would have to use some schemes. Oh, wrong choice of words, it was time to use some wisdom and tactics!
Shuo told the militia team to quickly take advantage of the the time they had and restore the camp to its original appearance. He was perfectly ready to give the returning raiders a feeling of safety, just before he used an urn to catch a turtle, trapping the bandits in their own camp.
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They had to wait until 6 PM, the usual time the bandits returned. His people had to stay in a tight group near the main gate and camp square; they had set their trap, and were getting more impatient as time passed. The gang of raiders finally returned, not only with their own numbers, but with a dozen kidnapped women herded in the center of their group. It seemed they had once again found and washed another unfortunate village with blood.
The gang of raiders rode right into the camp before they finally realized that something wasn't right. They hadn’t seen the sentries, and the camp was way too quiet. They finally figured out something was wrong, but even if they wanted to leave, it wasn’t that easy. They were unwilling to just run, they had to at least figure out what happened here. Moreover, their money and personal belongings were hidden in the camp!
The fools rushed in. Relying on their strength and tactics they had used in the past, the bandits drew their blades and moved into the camp, gathered together into formations, moving slowly forwards.
After entering, the raider’s second leader was also alert, trying to keep everyone together. Unfortunately for them, Shuo had cleaned the camp well, and on the surface, they didn’t find anything strange. Not believing it, he told his men to dismount, spread out, look around and see if they could find any clues.
And with that decision, the nightmare of the raiders began. Having lost the advantage of both horses and archery, they were picked off one by one. The militia stayed in their fighting units, surrounding smaller groups and eliminating them quickly. The raider’s leader was left for General Shi and Lin Yi to deal with, and naturally the general once again became a source of dread for the raiders .
Compared to the battle in the morning, this one had no suspense at all. In less than half an hour, all thirty-three bandits were eliminated. After the blood and fire of the morning’s fight, the militia had been exposed to the battlefield and adjusted mentally, becoming much more experienced in their mindset. In the battle, only four people were injured, none of those were serious injuries, and there were zero casualties. Shuo’s level also directly rose to 20.
Because it was already late, Shuo told his men to quickly sweep the battlefield. He himself came to the center of the camp, its Hall of Brotherhood. In the hall, a stone had risen from the ground. Shuo stepped forward and put his hand on the stone, system prompts began to sound.
“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wiyu for destroying a Basic Raider Camp! Please choose what you would like to do with the camp; Acquire it, Transfer it, or Destroy it?”
“I choose to destroy it!” Transfering it was impossible at this point, and there was no value in possessing it right now given his plans for his territory, so the only choice left was to destroy it.
“System Notification: Player Qiyue Wiyu has destroyed the Basic Raider Camp, randomly gaining access to 20% of camp’s building blueprints, and access to 20% of the camp’s building resources.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for gaining Stables building blueprints, Martial Arts Dojo building blueprints, 200 units of wood, and 80 units of stone.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for destroying a Basic Raider Camp. Special reward of 100 merit points and 200 reputation points!”
A white light swirled across the screen in a flash, and the whole camp disappeared. At the same time, the two building plans had appeared in his storage bag, while on the ground where the clubhouse used to be was now a pile of stacked wood and stones.
The sweep of the battlefield was much simpler than earlier, they only needed to salvage the raiders armor, weapons, and the twelve horses. Oh, and eleven women. Such a great thing, the raiders camp had actually contributed 46 people to Shanhai’s population, the equivalent of three days of immigrants!
As for the pile of wood and stone, at this moment Shuo had no resources for specialized storage of large equipment. He could only wait for tomorrow, and send people from the Material Reserves Division to arrange transporting it all back to Shanhai.
By the time they walked back to Shanhai with all their loot, it was already 8 PM. The villagers had spontaneously gathered to meet them, waiting for the return of the raider-slaying heroes.
“Hey, I heard that the lord directly destroyed those thieving raiders’ camp, he is magnificent!”
“I remember that the raiders used to loot our village, and now the lord has killed them all, cutting them down like radishes!”
“Our militia team was great, they did not bring shame to our Shanhai Village, they fought well!”
“Right, I heard that their boss was stabbed to death by Lieutenant Lin Yi!”
“Your information is out of date! Both leaders were killed by the lieutenant!
Because the time was late, Shuo had everyone disperse early. The militia handed their loads over to Material Reserves Division and was asked to return to the barracks. The eleven women were to be dealt with by Gu Xiuwen. Shuo didn’t stay for long either, he had some quick conversations with Cui Yingyu and Gu Xiuwen before logging off.
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Logging in the next day, he was eager to see all the spoils. He summoned Yingyu and Xiuwen to his office, and had them report on yesterday’s rewards.
Yingyu was very pleased, smiling as she said, “Big brother, I have to say, we had quite the bumper harvest last night. My division had to work late last night to calculate all the data.” She paused, directly hanging a bit to whet Shuo’s appetite before proceeding. “According to our calculations, yesterday’s two battles tallied up money of 32 gold coins, 76 silver coins, and 25 copper. There were 3,540 units of grain, and three building blueprints - a hospital, a tailor shop, and a weapons workshop. In addition, there was a special item, a Basic Soldier Token.
“As for weapons and armor: There were 22 horses, of which 2 were exquisite quality, and the rest ordinary.
There were 30 bows, with 2 basic composite bows, and 28 short bows along with a thousand arrows. One suit of ordinary iron scale armor, two sets of ordinary studded leather armor, 20 sets of ordinary leather armor, and 27 sets of poor leather armor. Thirty swords, one fine iron sword, 10 ordinary iron swords, and 19 poor iron swords. Thirty spears, of which one is fine, 10 ordinary, and 19 poor. Also, there is an exquisite axe and an exquisite iron spear.”
Although mentally prepared for the report, after listening to Yingyu detail everything, Shuo still had the feeling that he had struck the lottery.
The game rules set poor quality as the lowest level of bronze equipment; ordinary equipment was black iron level; the ones with fine prefix was silver-class equipment. And exquisite class that was gold level equipment.
Gold class equipment would be the mainstream equipment in the future for a long period of time. Between it and the highest tiers of God Level equipment, in the middle was separated only by the dark gold and platinum levels.
He could not wait to see the properties of the equipments. And oh yes, there was a Soldier Token. He had a feeling that this Basic Symbol Token was the biggest trophy this time around.
Before he had much time to ponder, Gu Xiuwen began his report. “Sire, I have some good news here.”
“What good news, don’t tell me, there were some special talents among the women from yesterday, right?” Shuo jokingly said.
His moment spoiled, Xiuwen made a face. “Sire’s guess is quite accurate! Yes, out of the two groups from yesterday, there are two special talents. In the morning batch there was an advanced chef, called Gu Sanniang, who cooked for the raiders. And there was one eighteen year old advanced tailor, called Mu Qingsi.”
That was another blockbuster, Shuo was almost happy enough to faint. An eighteen year old advanced tailor? This, this was just a wicked talent. With this kind of talent, coupled with Shanhai’s characteristics, promoting her to Master was just a matter of time. It was very possible she’d even reach the higher levels of the Grandmaster class, hehe!
“I would like to let them live in the Lord’s Manor for now. There is an empty room in the West Wing, have them live there. Let me deal with this batch of resources, then I will pay them a visit.” For such advanced talents, Shuo would more than happy to extend his hospitality and a level of courtesy!
“Noted!” Xiuwen nodded agreement.
“When Xiuwen is in charge of things, I am always rest assured!” Shuo turned to Yingyu, smiled, and said, “Yingyu, bring me to see our loot, I can wait no longer!”
The grain from the batch of resources had already been deposited into the granary, and Shuo had no interest in seeing it. The money, drawings, and various small objects were waiting on tables in the room, Shuo directly put them into his storage bag. The weapons and equipment were heaped up in the courtyard, the horses tied up in the square in front of his house.
Of the weapons and armor, Shuo took a composite bow, a fine iron sword, and that exquisite iron spear. The rest of the weapons and armor he was ready to award for meritorious service to the militia members.
Er Wazi was squatting at the edge of the courtyard, curious to see everything, touching this, touching that. Shuo knocked on his head, smiled, and said, “You are going to the barracks. Tell General Shi that I said for him to arrange people to take away the weapons and armor from here.”
Er Wazi smiled and trotted away, heading straight for the barracks.
*[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