Border Soldier: My fiancée snatched credit and broke off the engagement, so I promptly became a marq

On the morning of the 16th, Yanmaji was crowded with people on all sides.

Northern herders drove their horses, while caravans from the south pulled salt carts. Stalls selling tea, cloth, knives, and women stretched from the east gate to the west gate.

The Han family's Black Mountain flag hangs above the gate.

He would take 10% of the profit from every horse that entered the gate, and keep two bags of salt from every cartload. If someone couldn't pay, Qian Shouyi would seize the horse and the goods; even a young woman could be used as collateral.

Su Wan drove three tea carts lined up outside the East Gate.

She changed into a gray cloth dress, her hair styled like a merchant's wife, and was accompanied only by seven girls who had been locked up by the old warehouse manager. The cart was loaded with genuine tea, but underneath were hidden short knives, black pots, and tattered cloths.

The gatekeeper recognized the old license plate from Black Stone Castle and reached out to touch Su Wan's face.

"With Registrar Su fallen, this beat-up car still dares to come?"

Su Wan did not dodge.

Only when that hand touched her chin did she pull out the hairpin and stab it into the back of the other person's hand.

The goalkeeper screamed in agony.

Seven girls simultaneously pulled out knives from under the car.

Before the twelve guards at the gate could react, blood was already seeping from their throats, abdomens, and groins. Su Wan snatched the gate knife, cut the drawbridge ropes, and the three tea carts crashed forward simultaneously.

The east gate was wide open.

"Black pot flag!"

Chen Mu led 140 newly armored cavalrymen out from behind the snow slope.

They practiced all night, but all they could do was follow the vanguard. Lu Shuangyi, whose wounds had not yet healed, still wore armor and rode in the first rank; Zhou Tie led fifty old black-clad heavy cavalrymen to press on both flanks.

One hundred and ninety riders simultaneously rammed into the east gate.

Qian Shouyi had already planted archers inside the gate.

The first volley of arrows fell from the roof, striking a dozen or so horses in the front row. One of the new heavy cavalrymen tried to rein in his horse, but Lu Shuangyi turned and slashed the reins with her sword.

"Charge in!"

A warhorse without reins can only move forward.

The rear guard followed closely, shoving all the hesitant men into the doorway. Heavy armor blocked most of the arrows, while the fallen horses filled the threshold. Chen Mu, unable to ride a fast horse, followed at the rear in a lightly armored cart, his left hand gripping a crossbow, his right arm still in a sling.

Su Wan pulled the tea cart open from inside the door.

The black-armored riders were like molten iron poured into the long street.

Qian Shouyi's three hundred guards had barely formed a battle formation when more than fifty of them were knocked down in the first volley. Spears snapped, and salt bags, tea baskets, and stalls flew into the air. Merchants scattered in panic, and the horses, startled, crashed through the fences, turning the entire salt and horse market into utter chaos.

The two hundred riders left behind by Han Wanshan arrived from the west field.

The commander shouted the Han family's banner, hoping the merchants would help block the road.

No one moved.

Su Wan had already climbed to the second floor of the teahouse and pushed down a wooden box that Qian Shouyi had used to collect protective silver. The box slammed open, revealing it full of bloodstained pieces of silver and the confiscated badges of various businesses.

"Those who help Qian Shouyi today will have all their goods go to the Han family!"

"Stand still, and the shop remains yours!"

This is more useful than asking them for help.

The merchants stopped fleeing and instead pulled down their shop doors, leaving the long street open to the cavalry on both sides. Several herdsmen whose daughters had been taken hostage even climbed onto the rooftops and used lassos to snatch the Han family cavalry.

Qian Shouyi came out of the North Courtyard.

He was clad in heavy armor with gold trim, and accompanied by eighty hired thugs. Seeing the east gate fall, he didn't rush to rescue Han Qi; instead, he ordered the southern horse stables to be opened.

"Drive all the horses away!"

"Nobody can take it!"

There are over six hundred warhorses waiting to be sold in the stables.

Once the wooden gate is opened, the herd of horses will scatter the entire market.

Anato was already standing on the fence of the horse stable.

She led 150 White Spring riders through the manure gate, first killing the gatekeeper, then releasing her own mare's steeds outside the pen. The startled herd, hearing the mare's neighing, did not rush towards the south gate, but instead crowded to the White Spring riders' side.

The herders' lassos fell one after another.

The horse that Qian Shouyi wanted to destroy was taken away by Anato in the blink of an eye.

"This is mine!" she shouted from the top of the wall.

Chen Mu responded from across half of the market.

"Share it in half!"

Anato laughed and cursed, then slashed down the desperate fugitive climbing the wall with her curved blade.

The Han family's two hundred cavalry have already clashed with the Black Pot Heavy Cavalry.

The western field was wider than the long street of Iron Horse Fortress, truly allowing heavy cavalry to form ranks. The Korean cavalry, with more experience, knocked more than twenty new black-armored riders off their horses in their first clash. A smelter who had only learned to mount a horse yesterday was pierced through the chest by a spear, his body hanging from the spear shaft and dragged for more than ten paces.

He clung to the gun barrel until his death.

His companion seized the opportunity and chopped off Han Qi's arm.

The new heavy cavalry began to learn to charge forward through the gaps left by the dead.

Zhou Tie led his veteran cavalry to cut in from the side, specifically targeting the spearmen of the Han cavalry. Lu Shuangyi, meanwhile, kept her eyes on the Han family captain, her white horse leaping over two fallen horses, her spear piercing the lower edge of the opponent's breastplate.

The captain gripped the spear shaft and slashed the white horse's neck with his sword.

Lu Shuangyi immediately abandoned her spear and dismounted, stepping over the fallen white horse to pounce on its side. Her waist knife first cut the reins, then severed the Achilles tendon. The captain, saddle and all, fell to the ground; before he could even raise his head, the waist knife had already cleaved into his face from behind.

The Han family flag has fallen.

Two hundred riders began to retreat towards the north courtyard.

Qian Shouyi, however, led his thugs towards the teahouse.

He realized that Su Wan was the one who could keep the businessmen in check.

Eighty men burst through the shop door and rushed up the wooden stairs. Seven girls guarded the top of the stairs, and two of them fell in the first wave. Su Wan's door knife was too heavy; she could only swing it three times before she couldn't lift it anymore.

Qian Shouyi stepped over the corpses to go upstairs.

"Those discarded women from the Zhao family dare to steal from my market?"

Su Wan retreated to the window.

"It's not yours."

Qian Shouyi brandished his knife.

Su Wan leaned back and climbed out of the second-floor window.

Downstairs is Chen Mu's light railcar.

She fell heavily into the car, and Chen Mu caught her lower back with his left hand as they both slammed against the car floor. Qian Shouyi chased after him to the window, but before he could even lean out, Chen Mu had already raised the crossbow hidden in the side of the car.

The crossbow bolt pierced Qian Shouyi's lower abdomen.

He fell from the second floor, his heavy armor shattering the tea table.

When Chen Mu got off the bus, Qian Shouyi still wanted to climb up.

"Do you know how much silver this episode produces in a year?"

"General Han can give you an official position!"

"I'll handle the cash register myself."

Chen Mu stepped on the end of the crossbow bolt.

The arrow pierced through Qian Shouyi's lower back.

Su Wan picked up the door knife, raised it above her head with both hands, and slashed at Qian Shouyi's neck. The first blow only broke through his armor, the second cleaved him halfway in, and the third blow finally sent his head rolling into the salt pile.

She gasped for breath for a long time before throwing the knife down.

"Is killing you enough, someone the Zhao family doesn't want?"

Qian Shouyi could no longer answer.

Upon seeing their master dead, the outlaws of the North Courtyard scattered and fled. The remaining Han family cavalry were also blocked by Anado from the direction of the horse stables, and in the end, only about seventy riders managed to break through the North Gate.

There's still a group of people who haven't surrendered.

Qian Shouyi's forty swordsmen, who were stationed in the salt warehouse, dragged out a dozen or so merchants and used them as hostages to block the entrance to the north courtyard. They didn't want to defend the market; they only wanted to escape with two chests of silver and twenty horses.

The leader of the bandits held his knife to the neck of the tea-selling widow and ordered Chen Mu to move aside.

Su Wan walked out of the crowd.

The widow was the one who opened the door for her last night.

"Release them, and you'll get the silver."

Su Wan had two girls carry over a wooden box. The lid was lifted, revealing it filled with loose silver. The swordsmen's eyes all fell on the box, and even their leader loosened his grip on his sword slightly.

The tea-selling widow suddenly lowered her head and bit his wrist, which was holding the knife.

The other merchants simultaneously fell to the sides.

Su Wan kicked over the wooden crate.

The silver rolled into the snow, and the forty swordsmen instinctively reached for it. The archers from Baiquan, waiting on the rooftop, simultaneously fired their arrows, felling more than twenty in the first volley. Chen Mu led the surrendered soldiers forward, giving the remaining men no second chance to take them hostage.

The tea-selling widow approached Su Wan, clutching her neck.

"Do you still want that old teahouse?"

Su Wan shook her head.

"From now on, this will be my tea shop."

The widow glanced at her and laughed.

"Then I'll guard it for you."

Before noon, the flag was changed at Yanmaji.

All twelve salt warehouses were opened, containing 260,000 catties of coarse salt, 7,000 catties of tea bricks, 400 bolts of cloth, and 18,000 taels of silver. Of the 647 horses in the stables, after deducting those trampled, those owned by merchants, and those belonging to the Qian and Han families, as well as those that were not owned, there were 486 horses remaining.

Chen Mu did not rob the merchant's goods.

Whoever's badge is in the silver box, they can take it back themselves. The protection silver that Qian Shouyi withheld was first distributed to the families of the killed, and then to the families of the eighty-nine Black Pot Cavalry and White Spring Cavalry who died in battle today.

The remaining silver wagons were transported to Iron Horse Fort.

More than seventy shops have reopened.

The first shops to open were the blacksmith shop and the butcher shop.

The forge workers at Iron Horse Fort displayed the freshly dismantled black-toothed armor at the entrance; one suit of armor could be exchanged for three horses or twenty cartloads of coal. The butcher skinned the fallen black horses and cooked them; all those who had fought that day were given a large piece of skin based on the soot on their chests.

Merchants only began to open their stalls after they saw that people were actually receiving armor, salt, and meat.

A cloth merchant from the south had already harnessed his cart and was preparing to flee. After circling around outside the market, he discovered that Han's scouts were guarding the north road, so he turned his cart back. In the past, Qian Shouyi would take 10% of the goods, and the Han family would take another 10%; now that no one was robbing his cloth under the Black Pot Banner, he naturally knew where to park his cart.

By evening, another twenty-seven new commercial vehicles had appeared outside Yanmaji.

The merchants were initially worried that Chen Mu would also take a cut of the horses, but he simply had a pot set up at the market entrance. Those who came to sell horses were first given a bowl of hot soup, and those willing to trade horses for armor or salt for grain could go directly to the pot to discuss the matter.

The first northern herdsman brought two horses and traded them for a black-toothed armor and three bags of rice.

The second merchant from the south exchanged ten cartloads of cloth for two thousand catties of salt.

Before evening, the long street was packed with people again.

The Han family's Black Mountain Flag was burned as a base in a pot, and the Black Pot Flag and the White Spring Flag were hung together at the market gate.

Lu Shuangyi, her ribs bandaged, sat by the stable. Lin Qinghe rushed over from Iron Horse Fortress to stop the wounded soldier's bleeding, while Anato was busy selecting the best stallions from over four hundred horses. Su Wan washed the blood off her face and stood back in front of the teahouse.

Chen Mu tossed Qian Shouyi's gold-edged heavy armor to Zhou Tie.

"It melted."

"Is Phnom Penh also going to be integrated?"

"Too ugly."

Zhou Tie carried the armor to find the furnace worker.

Er Gou poured salt into the large pot, for the first time he was willing to put enough salt in every bowl of meat soup. As he added the salt, he counted that there were now more than 1,100 people around who could wield knives, 680 who could ride horses, and more than 160 heavily armored cavalry.

There were even more people queuing in front of the pot.

The villages of Tiemabao, Heishibao, Baiquan Ranch, Yegougou, and Yanmaji together have more than 2,400 mouths to feed.

In Chapter 95, Chen Mu asks the blacksmith to forge a pot large enough to feed two thousand people.

The pot isn't even ready yet, and there are already 400 more people.

From the direction of Bailang Pass, the scouts sent by Han Wanshan watched the gate from afar and did not approach it again.

Chen Mu ladled out a bowl of salted meat soup and placed it in Su Wan's hand.

He served another bowl to Lu Shuangyi.

Lin Qinghe scooped the food from the pot herself, while Anato simply snatched Chen Mu's bowl away.

Five people stood under the newly hung black flag, watching carts of salt, horses, and cloth re-enter and exit the market.

Chen Mu had no official seal and was not appointed by anyone.

From this day forward, anyone outside White Wolf Pass who wants to buy horses, salt, or grain must first look at this pot.

Chen Mu looked at the gate in the distance.

"Han Wanshan has been hiding for long enough."

"Next time, go knock on his closed door."