The work of settling new residents was straightforward. Nearly half the people in Longcheng had done it before and could manage it blindfolded—they knew every step by heart. After all, this was practically all anyone had done for years, and most people had lived through the same process themselves, learning simply by watching.
The one difference was that Longcheng had short, relatively mild winters and no heating system. The newly built Baihu City, however, had hot-water pipes laid through every building.
This sent the newly arrived residents into a state of pure delight. In bitter cold like this, there was no farmwork to speak of anyway—back home they had spent their days lying around the house doing nothing, just trying to conserve food. And freezing while they were at it. They had never imagined that being carried off as captives would accidentally land them a comfortable life.
In weather like this, Baihu City wasn't going to send anyone out to farm either, so the men were assigned to the mines and the women joined construction crews for lighter work, or tended chickens and pigs. As long as there was money, construction would keep going, and construction always needed endless hands—which meant everyone had food to eat and wages to take home.
The Wolf Soldiers' operations continued without pause. Any settlement without high walls was their target. They swept through town after town, cutting off barbarian heads one by one. The terror drove more and more barbarians fleeing to the larger cities for refuge.
The Wolf Army had long since expanded to three battalions—three thousand men in total, fifteen hundred of them combat troops. For this campaign, two of the three battalions had been deployed.
Zhao Baihui's plan was to expand and train on the ground. Armor and weapons were being shipped in continuously, and eager young men from Longcheng, fired up with passion and signing up in droves, were being sent over in steady waves as well. For the sake of loyalty, the Wolf Army's expansion drew recruits only from within Longcheng's territory.
The total population of Longcheng was approaching one hundred thousand, and nearly ten thousand young men had enthusiastically volunteered. Wolf Soldier units were being split apart again and again, veterans paired with recruits, the expansion so rapid that the forges couldn't keep up with the demand for armor and weapons. The answer was simple: add workers to the steelworks, shelve every other production task that could be shelved, and pour everything into weapons and equipment.
Out on the plains, three thousand Wolf Soldiers crashed into an enemy force of twenty thousand like a tidal wave. The opposing army—ten thousand barbarians and ten thousand Han soldiers—was shattered in an instant.
In ancient warfare, an army typically broke when it had lost roughly a tenth of its strength. Two thousand dead out of twenty thousand and the formation would dissolve, every man turning to run. But this was different. All they could see was their own people falling without end, while the enemy seemed utterly beyond killing. Nothing destroys morale more completely than that. So they broke at the first touch.
"Han men are worthless after all! Brothers, kill them all!" Talim, the trusted general of Aguda, raised his curved saber and charged forward.
Two cavalry forces slammed into each other. It was no different from before—a completely one-sided slaughter. Then the barbarian cavalry broke as well.
"Run them down—kill the barbarians!" Ming Wu gave the order to pursue. The Wolf Soldiers went for the barbarians first, but if any Han man got in their way—well, that was his misfortune.
The carnage lasted a full day, most of the time spent in pursuit rather than pitched battle. Of the ten thousand barbarians, six thousand were killed or captured; the rest fled. The Han puppet soldiers lost hardly anyone—they simply ran. When the battlefield was cleared, the prisoners were put to work digging pits and burying the dead, after which the prisoners themselves were disposed of.
The master had said he wanted ten thousand barbarian heads, and they were still two thousand short. There was more work to be done.
The near-total destruction of Talim's ten thousand warriors stunned every other barbarian in the region. The other two generals, who had been roaming about searching for the Wolf Soldiers, immediately joined forces—and still feeling unsafe, finally withdrew into the walls of a nearby stronghold. They who had once been the ones outside the city were now the ones huddling inside it.
Talim's head and a letter were dispatched to the capital.
*You savage, crude, filthy barbarians—how dare you probe at the great and glorious civilization of Longcheng? Who gave you the nerve? As punishment for your presumption, we will take ten thousand heads as a lesson to your kind. Then let Aguda, that stupid swine, come in person to Longcheng and kowtow in apology before District Chief Zhao Jinyi. Let this serve as a warning to you wretched creatures: ants do not provoke dragons.*
"I'm furious! I'm absolutely furious! I will lead the army myself! I will tear them to pieces!"
Aguda raged and ripped the letter apart in his hands.
Back when he had still been beyond the frontier, he had held a certain awe of the imperial court—not for its strength, but for its sheer vastness and potential. But once he had entered the capital and made himself emperor, he had come to see that the court was nothing much at all. He, Aguda, was the most powerful man in the world. His confidence had reached heights it had never known before.
How, at such a moment, could he endure being called savage, swine, and ant? He would tear to pieces every last person who did not know how to show him respect. Tear them to shreds.
In Baihu City, Ming Xin sat warming herself by a fire, listening to reports from those around her. "Aguda must be out of his mind with rage," she said. "It probably won't be long before he comes himself."
"We should get ready. If he holes up in his city, we really won't have much of a chance to get at him."
Half a month later, the Wolf Soldiers' position was finally found—though in truth, they had deliberately exposed themselves. Aguda arrived beneath the walls of Baihu City at the head of eighty thousand troops.
When they saw with their own eyes the concrete ramparts, taller and more massive than the Great Wall itself, every man among them—Aguda included—was struck dumb.
"Y-Your Majesty," someone stammered, "walls that high—how are we supposed to get over them?"
Aguda's heart was hammering, but he kept his face steady. "There are gates, aren't there? We can—"
Boom.
The great city gate fell outward.
Fell?
What was happening? His army had barely arrived, and the gate had already fallen. Were they surrendering?
Then came the thunder of hooves. Cavalry surged out like a breaking wave and drove straight for the barbarian command tents at the center of the formation—five thousand Wolf Soldiers charging without hesitation into eighty thousand.
The barbarians gaped. Had these men lost their minds?
Then five thousand Wolf riders raised their crossbows as one, and a volley of bolts swept toward them like black clouds crushing down upon a city.