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Chapter 45
Chapter 45 - Night Raid
October 20th, 181 A. D.
Today, Tong took Hua Shi, Bo Cai and 200 light cavalry to sortie out of the camp. It was to harass the Guo Dian army.
Guo Dian had finished his preparation ahead of time and already deployed. They were on their way to Tong's camp which they were expected to arrive in five days.
Meanwhile, 3, 000 soldiers of Liu Yan Army were marching from the North. They would make a detour, avoiding the Nan Pi City, and reach Anping County in 8 days.
Han Fu forces of 8, 000 men was dispatched from the south. They would arrive at Anping in 5 days.
On the contrary of the activities of their neighbors, Yuan family Army did not make any movement. Feng Ji sent a secret letter to Wen Chou to inform him about the change of plans, which made Wen Chou gritted his teeth in anger. That sinister fox had schemed something nasty again.
Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang also had returned with 3, 000 strong men. Alas, they were all bandits. The ordinary civilians refused to take part in this war and evacuated away.
Before Tong left with the cavalry, he put Zhang Bao in charge of the new recruits. He planned to use this group as a cannon fodders for the upcoming battle.
...
Tong looked at his HUD map and contemplated. It was about time that he should considered upgrading this feature, so he skimmed through the upgrading cost.
**********
10km Range - 10, 000 Lifespans
100km Range - 100, 000 Lifespans
1, 000km Range - 1, 000, 000 Lifespans
**********
Tong clicked his tongue. It was expensive as expected.
Tong swallowed his heart pain and bought the 10 Kilometers Range one, leaving him only 1, 185 lifespans remaining. He consoled himself that his lifespans would increase if he could kill enemy soldiers because he had his new passive skill.
His lifespans continued to reduce because Tong had been making a bullet every day since he had the firearm creation skill. He managed to gather 280 bullets on him right now. He also made a few extra pistols for spare parts and for the extra magazine clips.
With the HUD map radar upgraded, Tong could see a few changes. The map became bigger. A gigantic monitor of 2x2 meters map appeared in front of him, and more white dots and terrain layout appeared in the map.
Tong immediately shared the monitor with Hua Shi and had her keeping watch on the map for any changes.
Hua Shi wanted to complain, but she kept quiet and accepted her task.
Lately, she became more obedient toward Tong.
After the incident which Tong and Hua Shi had dual-cultivated together, Tong threatened her that if she stole kisses from him and made his mouth sore again, he would not let her sleep next time.
She didn't believe him and challenged him again in the next night, causing her to get forced into the dual-cultivation again. After Tong continued doing it till morning, she begged for his forgiveness because her body couldn't take it anymore.
Since that day on, she had never shown any antics or unruly behavior anymore, but her eyes still glittered with happiness. She could call herself his wife proudly now.
Although she dual-cultivated with Tong twice, she couldn't learn any of his skill. The system only limited one transaction a year, which Tong had already copied her [Sword Mastery] skill. So she had to wait for the next year if she wanted to copy a skill from Tong.
...
After a day and a half from traveling on horses, Tong and Hua Shi could notice a group of flashing white dots covering a part of the radar map.
Tong immediately highlighted all of them in red color, so he won't be mistaken them in the future. The task was done quicker than expected because Tong could crop the field in the map and highlighted them in batch.
Tong and his cavalry unit rested and hid themselves and the horses for the day. They would raid Guo Dian's camp at night.
็However, before Tong could rest and wait for the night, the obnoxious system gave him a terrible news.
[Heya! Buddy! It seems you are planning to abuse your godly skill again. ]
[This is no good. This is immoral. Even lord fifth would never agree on this. ]
[This lord system also cannot overlook this. ]
[For the sake of fairness, I will temporary disable one of your skill. ]
"WTF!! NO! Not that skill!"
[The skill "Plot Armor" is going to be disabled until the end of the year. ]
[However, I'm a fair system, so I'll double your reward in your next main quest. ]
[So, good luck! I will pressed "F" to pay you respect in your upcoming funeral!]
"..."
Tong broke into a cold sweat. He was screwed by the system again.
At first, he wanted to mimic a character from the dy**ty wa**ior game, and ended the battle with just him alone going around and killing the enemy soldiers without worrying of dangers. But the system had read his mind and nerfed him on the spot.
Tong bit his lower lip in bitterness. He looked at his men and thought of a new plan.
...
October 22nd, Night.
The 9, 000 men of Guo Dian didn't concern about anything. They expected this job to be quick and easy since their opponents were just a group of bandits. Meanwhile they had professional soldiers and proper weaponries. The disparity was just too high in their point of views.
Tong and his 200 men sneaked to south side of the camp. Because of the terrain and building indication in his radar map, Tong could guess where the grain and provision was stored.
The granaries were separated into many group throughout the camp to make it easy for distribution. There was no central provision camp like Tong had expected.
'Quite a reckless army. Without central provision management and depot guards, their provision will be emptied before their initial prediction. Soldiers will steal food and the officers will embezzle their stocks. This is a corrupted army. '
Without central provision management, their soldiers would embezzle and steal supplies from the army and the provision would be emptied faster. Guo Dian Army lacked discipline and training.
Tong was bemused. But it didn't matter since they had given him an easy target. One of the depots was right in front of him.
Tong gave his men the signal. All 200 men readied their torches, oil pots and their horses. They put feathers on their helmet so they can differentiate between friends and foes.
Hua Shi readied her compound bow. She would provide cover from the safe distance. With her passive skill [Bow Mastery] and the aim-assist from the bow, she could even hit a living target at a distance of a hundred meters away. However, her homing skill was still at level one which limited her range at 100 meters and she still couldn't reliably shooting at the range over 100 meters yet. It would take her sometimes before she could master the bow and her skill.
Tong swung his hand down, kicked his horse and galloped forward. All men followed suit without speaking a word.
...
...
"Hey, have your heard about Zhang Tong's wife? I heard she's a beauty."
"I've heard the rumor. She even has a nickname of "Goddess Hiha" or some sort."
"It's "Goddess Hua" you fool."
"Hahaha. Well, if she's called a goddess then she might be a beauty alright."
"Do you think we can taste her?"
"In your dream. How many of us do you think we have? What are the chances that we can get our hands on her first?"
"Right, before we can get to her, she'll be looser than your sister."
"You!!"
"BWAHAHAHAH!!"
"AHAHAHA!!"
The patrol guards were messing around and ignored their duty. They didn't even pay attention to the galloping sound coming to them. They thought it was just another patrol team or a scout team in the area.
Then shadow of several horses leaped over the shallow moat and small fences. They galloped past the men and threw pots and torches at the surrounding tents. One of the pot landed on one of the men and splashed the oil on him and his friends. Then a torch flied toward them.
Once the riders threw all their pots and torches, they made a sharp turn and galloped toward southeast, leaving burning tents and chaotic screaming soldiers behind.
The horsemen took out their repeated crossbow and started shooting at anything that moved in front of them. Within ten minutes, they emptied the bow clips.
Cries and wailing scream sounded out after the riders. The horsemen rushed toward the other fences and made their horse leaped over it again. They escaped and regrouped back with Hua Shi to stand by for supporting the next phrase of Tong's plan.
They retreated without wasting anymore time or continued wreaking havoc any further. They had already completed their objectives, which was to create chaos and dropped off a person in the camp.
The one that remained behind was Tong.
After Tong dismounted his horse and stole Guo Dian Army clothes to disguise himself. Then he used the confusion as a cover to sneak into the other provision depot. Once he got inside, he used his space inventory to store all of Guo Dian's provision and then left for the next target.
There were over twenty small grain depots in Guo Dian camp. Tong managed to steal a total of ten more depots before he mixed into the crowd of soldiers and sneaked away.
Tong slipped through the shades and used his map as a reference for avoiding unnecessary fight as he didn't want to role-play as Lu Bu or Rambo in this kind of situation.
Tong concentrated searching in the map. A yellow dot was a few hundred meters in front of him. That dot was none other than Sima Xin that Tong had made a special mark on this location.
The main reason Tong chose this tactic for creating a confusion and not followed through by killing and raiding because of this special person. He wanted to assassinate him before his main force and Guo Dian force came into contacts.
The existence of a 21st century sniper was the biggest threat to Tong. If Sima Xin managed to take down his precious generals like Bo Cai, Zhou Cang or even his uncles, then Tong would lose many trustworthy personals and it would cripple his forces.
Tong had to take Sima Xin out of the picture tonight!
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