Chapter Twelve: The Good Man's Reward

  As soon as Li Chong's voice fell, these Yellow Turban bandits immediately made a noise, and some of them were so ferocious that they revealed their murderous intentions, with their hands on the hilts of their swords. If not for Guan Hai standing beside Li Chong, they would have probably rushed up to hack him to pieces.

  "What's wrong?" Li Chong sneered, "Do you think I'm wrong? You're not even what you used to be. A few hundred million people can't even beat the imperial court's tens of thousands of troops. They were chased away with their tails between their legs, nowhere to hide. Now, you can't even get a decent meal. Am I wrong?"

  Li Chong's words were like a needle, piercing the hearts of these Yellow Turban soldiers. They had been at war with the imperial court for so long, and yet they had never gained the upper hand. Even Zhang Jiao and his two brothers had met with untimely deaths. Ah! Why was it that they always ended up defeated? These men couldn't help but wonder.

  "I'm telling you, it's because you're a bunch of rabble, all you know is to flee and plunder. You don't have any of the qualities that a soldier should have, you're not even worthy of being called soldiers." Li said, pointing at the crowd with his hand.

  Li Chong's words are absolutely right. These men are all hot-blooded Han people, otherwise they wouldn't dare to raise their knives and rebel. They are not afraid of death, but their military training is almost zero.

  Seeing the reactions of everyone, Li Chong suddenly sighed and said in a low voice: "Today I'm not talking to you about military discipline or victory and defeat, but to tell you a fact. You should know that there is no more food stored in the mountain stronghold, so we have to go and plunder, but don't think that just because you're well-prepared it will be easy to succeed without anyone dying. The enemy's army is much stronger than yours, you must be prepared to die on the battlefield."

  "Who says we're afraid of death?" someone in the crowd shouted out at once.

  "Good!" Li Chong clapped his hands and pointed at the speaker, asking: "You're not afraid of death, but have you ever run away?"

  This man's face immediately showed a look of shame. Who among them has never run away, although most of the time they were running together.

  Without waiting for the man to respond, Li Chong continued: "I won't talk about grand principles with you, like 'the blue sky has died and the yellow sky should rise', it's all nonsense. I also won't say things like 'for the country, for the people, to save the masses'. What I want to tell you is that if we don't get grain today, none of you, including your wives and children, will survive, you'll all starve to death."

  Having said that, Li Zhong swung his sleeve and shouted: "Depart!"

  Guan Yu set out first with some men to cut off Cao Cao's rear, while Liao Hua led the remaining troops in a slightly later pursuit. Li Tong and Taishi Ci brought up the rear of the army.

  After Li Chong's words, the mental state of these people improved a lot. Everyone deliberately restrained themselves and at least did not whisper to each other during the march, and the team formation was maintained fairly well.

  Tai Shi Zi frowned and said: "Be careful, your words have awakened them, but these people may harbor resentment towards you."

  Li Chong smiled treacherously and said in a low voice, "Don't worry, now they have a ready-made scapegoat. By the time they've finished looting food, they'll be supporting me before I can even react!"

  Tai Shi Zi revealed a sudden realization and gave Li Chong a thumbs up.

  Arriving at the border of Donglai, Li Chong called Liao Hua to stop and set up a roadblock on the road, rushing to rest. Li Chong also didn't forget to contact Guan Hai, calling Liao Hua over to arrange for a temporary rest.

  In less than an hour, Liao Hua came over with a big laugh to report that Li Chong's plan was going very smoothly. The grain transport team of the Mi family was already within the surveillance range and would definitely arrive here around 5 pm.

  But Li Zhong still did not dare to be careless, and successively sent out scouts, and also required Liao Hua to keep in touch with Guan Hai at all times, only then could he calm down and wait.

  Ma Fang rode his horse, holding a spear and walking at the front of the team. At this moment, he felt a bit bored. When he was young, he didn't like reading books, but he liked martial arts. By the time he was 16 or 17 years old, he had already become one of the top masters in Xuzhou City. He thought that his martial arts skills were not inferior to those of some ancient famous generals.

  This is not a fantasy of Xiaoyao Jianghu, in fact, Xuzhou really doesn't have any extremely powerful generals, without comparison, it's hard to tell the difference in martial arts.

  In the Three Kingdoms era, information was lagging behind, and Lü Bu, a peerless fierce general, had some reputation in Qiang Hu for one generation. However, when he arrived in Central Plains, who knew that Lü Bu was just an ordinary person? This led to the situation where second-rate generals like Pan Feng and Fa Zheng went to their deaths at the Battle of Tiger Trap Pass. Later on, everyone knew that Lü Bu's martial arts were the best in the world, so no one dared to go to their deaths anymore.

  Zhoa Yun, Guan Yu and others were the same. After one battle they became famous and their names shook the world. Now all the brave generals are not showing off their skills, waiting for the struggle among the lords to make a name for themselves in the world.

  Mao Fang had a smooth and uneventful journey, feeling rather bored. He secretly hoped for some bandits to appear so he could loosen up his muscles. This way, his status at home would increase significantly, letting his older brother see that he wasn't useless either.

  Just as Miao Fang was indulging in wild fancies, a loud shout suddenly came from behind. Miao Fang hastily reined in his warhorse and turned around to look.

  When Miao Fang arrived at the rear of the enemy, flames were already soaring into the sky not far away, and vague figures appeared under the cover of the flames.

  "What's going on?" Mu Fang asked in a low voice, and suddenly a bad premonition rose up in his heart. Mu Fang had hoped to encounter bandits, not an enemy who was unknown in depth and well-trained. In fact, Mu Fang was not a bold person, his character was a bit timid and afraid of the strong, otherwise he would not have surrendered to Sun Quan later.

  Just as his subordinates were about to respond, a sudden commotion was heard from the front. Mei Fang hastily instructed: "Hold your positions, prepare your bows and arrows, don't make any rash moves, I'll go take a look."

  Having said that, Zou Fang turned his horse's head and rushed towards the noisy place. When he got closer, he found that there were also people blocking the road ahead.

  A twenty-foot-wide official road was blocked by a group of strong men, with more than fifty people, each with a tall and sturdy build, revealing a fierce glow on their faces. Behind these tall and strong men were torches that shone like stars, the light of which was still moving, no need to ask, this must be an ambush.

  Suddenly a loud and powerful voice shouted: "Quickly leave behind the grain, spare your lives, otherwise you will be slaughtered to the last man."

  Meng Fang didn't have the heart to listen to the bandit's shouting, and carefully calculated in her mind that there were more than 200 thieves who had cut off their own retreat, and more than 50 thieves in front of them. Judging from the number of torches, there were at least 200-300 ambushers, adding up to a total of around 500 people.

  At a disadvantage in terms of military strength, Zou Fang only felt that his scalp was a bit numb.

  His own team was sandwiched between the enemy's front and rear, and once a melee broke out, they would definitely be at a disadvantage. Even if he could kill his way out of the encirclement, what about food? What about these men under him?

  Meng Fang's mind turned, and he suddenly thought of an idea. Although they were at a disadvantage in terms of military strength, his own martial arts skills were exceptional! As long as he himself led the charge to the front line and engaged in single combat, capturing one of the bandit leaders wouldn't be difficult with his own martial arts skills.

  Thinking of this, Miao Fang spurred his horse forward and shouted loudly: "You bandits who block the road, relying on your numerical superiority to win is no skill at all. Does your leader have the guts? Come and fight a decisive battle with Xu Zhou's Miao Zi Fang. If you can defeat Miao Zi Fang and take the steel spear from his hands, I will present the grain on the cart with both hands..."

  Mao Fang finished speaking and stared at the movements in the enemy's formation. To his surprise, these bandits had indeed fallen for his provocation, and three bandit leaders emerged from the crowd.

  It turned out to be Li Zhong, Taishi Ci and Liao Hua. Li Zhong was worried about how to lure out Mi Fang, but unexpectedly Mi Fang came to him on his own initiative. He didn't know what Mi Fang was thinking, and he couldn't help but feel overjoyed.

  Tai Shi Zi felt somewhat surprised and whispered with a smile: "Zi Hui, didn't you agree with Mian Fang already? Why is he being so cooperative?"

  Li Chong also laughed and said: "How would I know? Brother Tai Shi, it's up to you. Just catch him and we'll know why."