On the mountain path below Yangjuan Ridge, Liu Tie led the cavalry team forward at a trot along the narrow road.
Guan Xiaorou rarely rode horses. Her riding skill was not even as good as Tang Xiaobei’s. Several times during sharp turns on the mountain road, she nearly crashed into rocks.
But Guan Xiaorou still tried hard to control her warhorse and stayed close behind the cavalry team.
Fortunately, the fog was thick, the mountain path was narrow with many bends, so Liu Tie’s group could not go fast. Otherwise, Guan Xiaorou really would not have been able to keep up.
When they were still three li from Yangjuan Ridge, a burst of firelight suddenly appeared to the left front.
Liu Tie’s face changed instantly.
He had delivered goods to the county office many times before and was very familiar with the surrounding terrain.
Although the fog made the firelight flicker in and out, Liu Tie knew clearly that the place on fire was Yangjuan Ridge!
“Madam, Yangjuan Ridge is on fire. They must already be fighting. You follow slowly from behind. I will take the men ahead first!”
Liu Tie turned and shouted to Guan Xiaorou, then gave the order, “Fang Zhou, take one squad to protect Madam. Everyone else, follow me!”
With that, without waiting for a reply, he led his men to speed up.
But this section of the mountain road was too narrow and uneven. Liu Tie’s group could not really gallop.
Their speed was only a little faster than before.
Instead, two escort guards, affected by the thick fog and poor visibility, rushed off the mountain path during a turn.
Fortunately, below this section of the road were farmland and not cliffs. Otherwise, those two escort guards would have been finished.
Because of the delay caused by those two escort guards, Liu Tie not only failed to shake off Guan Xiaorou, but even had to stop and wait for her…
Liu Tie slapped his thigh in frustration but did not dare take risks anymore. He ordered the team to slow down and proceed carefully.
Guan Xiaorou looked up at the distant firelight. Her heart was also extremely anxious, but she did not dare urge Liu Tie.
In another direction, Master Chen stood with his hands behind his back on a huge rock, watching the firelight with feelings completely opposite to those of Guan Xiaorou and Liu Tie.
Because this entire operation was planned by him, and the idea to destroy the female workers’ heavy crossbow positions was also his.
A strategist spent his whole life mastering schemes and was extremely skilled at reading people’s hearts.
Before Master Chen stirred up the bandit trouble, Jinchuan was thriving. Nearly half the county’s people had found work in construction sites and factories under Jin Feng.
Not only could they feed themselves, but they could also support their families and help poor relatives.
With extra money in hand, they improved their lives.
Even those not working in Jin Feng’s sites or factories had gained some ways to earn.
In the past, if hunters caught large game like wild boars, they had to send it to the county office. Often several butchers had to pool money to buy it.
It was not that one butcher could not afford a wild boar, but too few people were willing to buy meat. A whole wild boar could not sell out in days.
Da Kang had no refrigerators, so unsold meat would spoil.
Even in the county office it was like that, let alone in villages and towns.
Village and town butchers and restaurants only dared to take small game like wild rabbits or pheasants.
Sometimes they could not even sell those and had to make them into smoked or air-dried meat for storage.
Now, when hunters caught wild boars, they no longer needed to go to the county office. If there was a Jin Feng factory nearby, they could send it straight there.
If no factory was nearby, they could sell directly to butchers in town.
Today, people’s lives across the county had improved. More people bought meat, so town butchers dared to take wild boars.
This was the change Jin Feng brought to Jinchuan!
Not to say everyone lived in peace and prosperity, but this year the number of people who died from cold and hunger had dropped by more than ninety percent compared to previous years.
Yet destruction is always easier than construction. After Master Chen’s actions, the prosperity Jin Feng created burst like bubbles, ruthlessly shattered.
In just a few days, the once thriving Jinchuan turned into a place of misery and chaos!
Countless bandits poured in like locusts. Wherever they passed, everything edible or usable was swept clean.
This was the power of a strategist!
Master Chen felt extremely proud of this plan.
Everything developed exactly according to his strategy, even smoother than planned.
Because even he had not expected so many common people to pretend to be bandits on their own initiative.
The powerful families sent Master Chen to plan everything in order to pressure Zhang Liang, force him to abandon bandit suppression, and hurry back to protect Jinchuan.
A few days ago, when Zhang Liang received news of the bandit trouble in Jinchuan, he indeed immediately gathered the Zhen Yuan Army and rushed back at full speed.
But just when the powerful families thought Master Chen’s plan had succeeded, Zhang Liang suddenly struck the bandits again.
Moreover, to retaliate, this time Zhang Liang went hard. He deliberately took a detour to attack two bandit strongholds in extremely rugged terrain.
Those two bandit strongholds had complex terrain, large numbers of bandits, and plenty of granaries. They were the places where the powerful families stored the most grain.
The powerful families and bandits never imagined that at such a time, Zhang Liang would still detour to attack them. They were caught completely off guard and the strongholds were directly overrun.
The powerful families suffered heavy losses. While cursing Zhang Liang as a madman just like Jin Feng, they quickly sent messages urging Master Chen to speed up progress in Jinchuan.
In fact, Zhang Liang was not mad. He had received a message from Jin Feng.
Since the powerful families would not let Jin Feng live well, Jin Feng would not let them live well either.
Knowing that Zhang Liang could not return to Jinchuan in a short time, Jin Feng simply told Zhang Liang to ignore Jinchuan for now and suppress as many bandits as possible.
When Master Chen received the message from the powerful families, in order to keep applying pressure, he hired a group of truly ruthless and valiant bandits. They gathered at Guazi Gully, and he personally led them, planning to overrun West River Bay in one go.
But who could have known that halfway there, they were blocked by the Tieguan Mountain female workers.
This unexpected twist even Master Chen had not anticipated.
Because Tieguan Mountain involved the soap formula, security was extremely tight. Master Chen had very little intelligence about it.
He only knew that Jin Feng’s soap factory was there, and the workers were all former “meat horses” from bandit lairs or slave girls bought from tooth shops.
He knew nothing else.
But Master Chen had not paid much attention.
Just a group of weak women, what was there to care about?
Besides making soap, what else could they do?
Yet reality slapped him in the face.
In order to defeat the textile factory women at next year’s spring sports meet, the Tieguan Mountain female workers had practised catapults and heavy crossbows until they were as skilled as the female escort guards. They completely sealed the mountain path tight.
Master Chen organised several charges, but all were beaten back by the female workers.
The bandits suffered heavy losses, while the female workers had not a single casualty.
Although Master Chen also brought catapults, his were the most primitive version Jin Feng used in Qingshui Valley. Their range was far inferior to the improved version used by the female workers, so he did not dare bring them out.
The valiant bandits were stubbornly blocked at Yangjuan Ridge by a group of delicate female workers.
To bypass Yangjuan Ridge would mean taking dozens more li of mountain roads.
Master Chen had no choice but to pause the attack. He waited until night fell and the fog grew thick enough, then launched another assault.
To reduce his own casualties, Master Chen had the main bandit force hide in the thick fog. Then he sent people carrying straw men to feint an attack.
Sure enough, the female workers fell for it. In their tension, they triggered the heavy crossbows and catapults.
Master Chen immediately ordered the bandits to charge to the front of the female workers’ formation before they could reload.
