If I made you cannon fodder, how did you manage to achieve your goal of conquering the wolf's l

The night was deep, and the wind and snow raged across the desolate plains beyond the Great Wall, emitting a mournful howl like that of a wild beast.

Grizzly Bear Ridge, Luoergou.

Located fifty miles northwest of Duanhebao, this place is a narrow strip of land nestled between two mountains and a valley. While the cliffs on either side aren't towering high, they are exceptionally steep and rugged due to years of wind and snow erosion. At the bottom of the valley is a perpetually dry riverbed, littered with pebbles of all sizes and hidden pits. Not to mention caravans, even the most skilled hunters avoid this place on ordinary days.

Xu Qingshan led fifty Zhenbei cavalrymen, like ghosts blending into the night, and silently arrived at the outskirts of Luoergou.

"Whoa—"

Xu Qingshan gently pulled the reins, and the warhorse stopped a mile from the valley entrance.

He dismounted, closed his eyes in the howling wind, and the "Four Fortresses Defense Map" that the system had rewarded him with appeared in his mind. This detailed three-dimensional sand table emitted a faint glow deep in his consciousness, reflecting in his mind every undulation of the terrain around Luoergou, the distribution of every rock, and even the blind spots that the wind direction might cause.

Xu Qingshan carefully examined the map and quickly discovered the hidden secrets of this perilous place.

Luoergou is not a dead valley that is completely open from beginning to end and has no changes.

Hidden in the middle of the western side of the canyon is a secret snow gully, thickly covered by snow. The gully is extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a few riders to pass side-by-side. If ambushed from above and blocked with powerful crossbows, it would be a natural meat grinder. At the eastern entrance of the canyon, the terrain abruptly rises, forming a precipitous slope. The edge of the slope appears solid, but in reality, several massive, heavily weathered rocks hang precariously. With a slight disturbance at the base, these boulders would tumble down, completely blocking any escape route to the south of the canyon.

Having thoroughly explored the terrain, Xu Qingshan suddenly opened his eyes.

"Everyone, dismount," he ordered in a low voice.

The fifty elite soldiers of the Zhenbei Army moved in perfect unison, without making a sound. They skillfully led their warhorses behind a huge, sheltered rock face, and used prepared soft cloths to firmly bind the horses' muzzles, preventing them from neighing in the wind and snow and revealing their location.

"Seventh Brother." Xu Qingshan turned his head.

"Here." Old Zhou Qi, carrying a knife, quietly stepped forward.

"Take ten brothers and the new armor-piercing crossbows Bai Zhi made. Go to the snow gully on the west side and ambush them. Remember, string all the crossbows and hide them close to the rock face. No one is to show their face without my order, and you must even slow down your breathing."

Zhou Laoqi grinned, his eyes gleaming with bloodthirsty excitement: "Centurion, rest assured, even with a knife to our throats, the brothers will not utter a sound."

"Xiao Qi!" Xu Qingshan looked at another scout with a thin build.

"Your subordinate is here!"

"You're the fastest runner, take two brothers to the eastern slope. Find the fulcrums of those overhanging boulders and drive wooden wedges in. As soon as you hear my signal arrow, push the boulders down immediately and completely block the southern passage of Luoergou."

"Yes, ma'am!" Xiao Qi stuffed several thick wooden wedges into his clothes and, as agile as a monkey, quickly disappeared into the dark cliff face with his tools.

After making the necessary arrangements, Xu Qingshan led the remaining main force of the Zhenbei cavalry, taking advantage of the cover of the wind and snow, and quietly climbed up to the highest rock crevices on both sides of Luoergou.

The biting wind, mixed with icy snowflakes, lashed mercilessly against the soldiers' leather armor. But the thirty-odd Zhenbei cavalrymen lay prone on the cold rocks, like lifeless sculptures, gazing down at the valley floor.

The long wait began.

About an hour later, an unusual sound finally came from the wind and snow.

That wasn't the sound of the wind, but the teeth-grinding creak of heavy wooden wheels grinding over a gravelly riverbed. Accompanied by the heavy breathing of mules and horses, the sound echoed dully through the empty canyon.

Xiao Qi, who was responsible for observing from a distance ahead, slid down half of the cliff face using a rope and made several specific hand gestures in Xu Qingshan's direction.

A convoy has entered the valley.

Xu Qingshan narrowed his eyes, his gaze piercing through the heavy snow like a sharp sword.

At the southern entrance of Luoergou, a large convoy slowly entered. More than twenty large mule carts, pulled by strong draft horses, struggled along the gravel road. Each cart was covered with thick waterproof safety felt and tightly bound together with thick hemp ropes.

Judging from the two extremely deep ruts left by the mule cart in the snow, the cargo on the cart was exceptionally heavy.

Three hundred sets of standard Daqian military armor forged from fine iron, plus two thousand heavy crossbow bolts quenched with steel—this terrifying weight was enough to cause an ordinary commercial carriage to fall apart.

"Centurion." Liu Ruyan, dressed in a close-fitting night outfit, moved silently like a light falling leaf to Xu Qingshan's side.

She had just taken advantage of the darkness and the gap in the people's vigilance to sneak to the edge of the valley to investigate, still clutching half a rough hemp rope with a red thread in her hand.

Liu Ruyan lowered her voice, her tone carrying a chilling edge: "I saw it clearly. Although those carts didn't have any merchant signs and were disguised as ordinary caravans, the few pieces of sealing rope left behind along the way were woven with the unique red thread mixed with rope from the Beicang warehouse in Yunzhou. The wheelbase and the style of the cart shafts were exactly the same; they were definitely standard transport vehicles specially used by the Beicang supply depot for transporting heavy military equipment."

Xu Qingshan nodded coldly.

With irrefutable evidence, Chen Huaiyi has completely exposed the weaknesses of the Daqian border army.

The convoy stopped in the heart of Luoergou. There were about forty or fifty guards escorting the convoy. They were all dressed in ordinary fur coats and straw hats to shield them from the wind, but the sharpness of their military background and the way they held their knives could not be concealed.

Instead of unloading the cargo immediately, they methodically deployed more than a dozen sentries, who were vigilantly scattered around the convoy at high points, some even carrying short crossbows to guard against surprise attacks.

Just then, from the north side of the canyon, which leads to the depths of the grassland, came a sudden burst of rapid and chaotic hoofbeats.

The sound of hooves was undisguised, wild, arrogant, and carried the fierce spirit unique to nomadic riders on the grasslands.

In the blink of an eye, more than a hundred steppe cavalrymen, clad in rough animal hide armor and wearing felt hats, surged into Luoergou like a black tide. They held burning torches in their hands, the firelight illuminating their greedy and fierce faces.

At the very front of this group, they were still carrying that old flag with a bird in flight.

"It's the Vulture Tribe." Zhou Laoqi lay behind a protruding rock not far away, gritting his teeth and cursing in a low voice. "We just slaughtered dozens of them outside Broken River Fortress during the day, and now so many troops are coming to make contact at night. These grassland scum are like weeds that can't be cut down."

The two sides met in the middle of the canyon.

Even though this wasn't the first transaction, and even though they had already secretly communicated, both parties were clearly wary of each other in this shady deal.

The Vulture Tribe's cavalry did not immediately approach to inspect the goods. They skillfully deployed their formation, drew their scimitars, and nocked their bows, subtly forming a semi-encirclement around the twenty-odd mule carts.

The Yunzhou guards escorting the wagons were equally fierce, drawing their weapons and glaring menacingly at the nomadic tribesmen with their backs to the wagons.

A leader of the Vulture Tribe spurred his horse forward, pulled a distinctive brass plaque from his robes, and tossed it onto the snow-covered ground. A middle-aged man who appeared to be in charge also stepped out from the escorting convoy, picked up the plaque, confirmed its authenticity, and then tossed over half of a jade pendant engraved with unique patterns.

Looking down at the dense crowd, Zhou Laoqi's thick eyebrows furrowed tightly.

He roughly estimated the troop strength of both sides. There were more than fifty guards escorting the wagon, and more than a hundred cavalrymen from the Vulture Tribe came to meet them. In total, there were nearly two hundred men.

On their side, there were only a mere fifty Zhenbei cavalrymen at most.

"Centurion..." Zhou Laoqi quietly moved to Xu Qingshan's side, swallowed hard, and his voice was hesitant and serious. "Fifty men against nearly two hundred of them? Even if we have the advantage of terrain, once they get bogged down, and the barbarian cavalry charges, our numbers will be nothing. Can we really afford to take this easy prey?"

Liu Ruyan also cast a worried glance. Although this batch of weapons was irrefutable evidence to bring down Chen Huaiyi, it would be too high a price to pay to lose all fifty elite troops they had just recruited in order to intercept them.

Facing an enemy several times their size, Xu Qingshan showed no sign of panic; instead, a chilling mockery emanated from the depths of his eyes.

"Who said I was going to fight with them?"

Xu Qingshan reached out and patted Zhou Laoqi's shoulder steadily, signaling him to calm down.

"Chen Huaiyi dared to risk his head to sell such a large batch of military equipment. Do you really think he would only send forty or fifty ordinary guards to escort the shipment? This is just bait to be used for reconnaissance and to deceive others. The main force that is really protecting this shipment has not yet shown up."

Zhou Laoqi was stunned for a moment, then realized what was happening and gasped.

As if to confirm Xu Qingshan's judgment, just as the Vulture Tribe and the escorting guards exchanged tokens and were about to put away their weapons and inspect the goods,

To the south of the canyon, the earth suddenly began to tremble violently and rhythmically.

"Rumble rumble rumble—"

The tremor was far more intense than the combined tremors of the twenty heavy mule carts and the hundred Vulture Cavalrymen from before.

At the southern entrance of Luoergou Valley, the howling wind and snow seemed to be forcibly torn apart by an invisible force.

Immediately afterwards, a large and menacing cavalry force, like a black torrent of iron, slowly surged into the canyon.

A full three hundred riders.

They did not raise any banners of the Great Qian Border Army, nor did they light any torches in the snowy night. Everyone, including the tall warhorses beneath them, was shrouded in heavy, dark robes, like three hundred grim reapers emerging from the underworld.

The black-clad cavalry's ranks were exceptionally disciplined; even as they marched across the rugged, rocky riverbed, their formation remained perfectly intact. That deep-seated discipline, and the imposing force of their warhorses' hooves shattering the ice, were qualities far beyond what ordinary guards or caravan escorts could possess.

Three hundred riders in black stopped a few dozen steps away from the mule caravan, forming an impenetrable black iron wall that completely blocked the south side of the canyon.

A chilling and murderous aura of military formation surged into the sky, even forcefully suppressing the biting wind in Luoergou.

The Vulture tribe leader, who had thought victory was assured, paled upon seeing the sudden appearance of the massive cavalry formation. The barbarian horses stamped their hooves uneasily and neighed, and the entire Vulture tribe's formation showed clear signs of turmoil and fear.

High up on the cliff, the Zhenbei cavalry soldiers, hidden among the crevices of the rocks, all paused for a moment.

Three hundred well-equipped and well-trained regular cavalrymen in black uniforms!

In addition to the more than one hundred Vulture Tribe cavalry and fifty guards from before.

The enemy numbered nearly five hundred! That's ten times the strength of the Zhenbei Army!

Liu Ruyan bit her lower lip hard to prevent herself from crying out. She turned to look at Xu Qingshan, her eyes filled with shock. If Xu Qingshan hadn't stopped them from attacking, all fifty of them would have been crushed into mincemeat by the black-clad cavalry that had suddenly appeared the moment they showed themselves.

Xu Qingshan looked down at the massive army formation that resembled a black iron wall. Instead of retreating, a cold and stern smile appeared on his chiseled face.

He slowly reached out and firmly gripped the hilt of the fine steel longsword at his waist.

"The main character has arrived."