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

It took Baiquan's team two full hours to enter Tiemabao.

First came more than three hundred horses, followed by cattle, sheep, hay carts, and more than four hundred herdsmen and their families. The old people sat on the backs of the oxen, the children hid in sheepskins, and the women tied all the pots, felt tents, and milk buckets they could carry to the carts.

They did not abandon White Spring Ranch.

Anato only moved the wintering people into Iron Horse Fortress, leaving two hundred riders and young herdsmen to continue guarding the pastures. Later, White Spring raised horses, Iron Horse Fortress made armor, Black Stone Fortress guarded the southern route, and Wild Dog Gully received refugees, and the four places were finally able to feed each other.

This team almost didn't make it to Iron Horse Fort.

As I passed the North Slope at dawn, more than fifty guards from Yanmaji blocked my way. They had copper bells hanging from their waists and claimed that they would take a 10% cut from every horse that passed through Yanmaji, and that women and children would also have to pay a fee per person.

Anato gave them a horse.

The guard leader complained that there weren't enough men, and then pointed to the young women in the group.

"Keep ten more."

Anato asked, "You choose for yourself?"

The leader dismounted with a smile and walked up to a shepherdess holding a milk bucket. The moment his hand touched her chest, Anato's lasso was already wrapped around his neck.

The dark horse charged forward.

The leader was dragged for several dozen feet, his face chafed raw on the frozen ground. As the other guards drew their swords, the felt cloth on the oxcart was simultaneously lifted, revealing fifty White Spring riders carrying hidden bows inside.

The first volley of arrows felled twelve men.

Instead of fleeing, the guards from Yanmaji rushed towards the middle of the herd. They knew that the herdsmen cared most about their horses, and that if they could scatter the horses, Anato wouldn't have time to kill anyone.

Five people cut the ropes.

Just as the three hundred-odd horses were about to gallop wildly, the lead mare suddenly stopped. A twelve-year-old shepherd boy hugged the mare's neck and blew a circling sound with his White Spring Wolf Whistle. The herd circled the boy, thus trapping the charging guards in the middle.

The shepherdesses jumped off the wagon, and lassos, milk buckets, and grass-cutting knives rained down on the enemy.

The woman whose breasts were just touched is the most ruthless.

She smashed a man's nose with a milk bucket, then climbed on top of him and cut off his ears with a dagger.

"One will be handed over as a gift, the other as a gift!"

The guard leader was still alive when Anado dragged him to the back of the column. Of the remaining men, thirty-three died, seventeen were captured, and only a few escaped back to Yanmaji on fast horses.

When Su Wan arrived with the Black Stone Fort convoy, she saw the herdsmen taking copper bells from the waist of the corpse.

She recognized the salt-carrying horse on the bell, and she also recognized the group of people's knives.

In the past, whenever the purchasing carts from Heishibao passed through Yanmaji, they would give Qian Shouyi silver. She had come here with her father before, but she never imagined that one day she would be able to cut the copper bell off a dead man's waist.

Su Wan did not follow the migration group into the fort.

She changed into one of the men's grey robes, took a copper bell and two girls who could speak business, and headed to Yanma Market.

Anato went to find Chen Mu as soon as she entered.

Chen Mu, however, was inside the medical tent.

Lin Qinghe cut open the cloth on the back of his foot; the wound was covered in blood and soot. Each time she washed it, Chen Mu's forehead would be covered in a layer of cold sweat.

"I'll keep you still for three days."

"Defending the fortress doesn't count as moving."

"Jumping off the roof doesn't count?"

"It fell down."

Lin Qinghe looked up at him.

Chen Mu changed his tune: "I won't drop it next time."

Anato, who was outside the tent, burst out laughing.

She lifted the curtain and came in, throwing a blood-stained piece of white cloth onto Chen Mu's lap.

"I drove away five hundred Blacktooth Riders for you, and you want half the fodder?"

"point."

"You're still so greedy even while lying down?"

"Feed the horses even while lying down."

Anato leaned closer, her nose almost touching his face.

"And what about me?"

"You eat more than a horse."

Anato bit his lower lip.

The smell of blood quickly dissipated.

She took the bite and withdrew, licking the blood from her lips with her tongue. She turned to Lin Qinghe and smiled, "Your medicine tastes too bitter, so I'll change the flavor for him."

Lin Qinghe neither blushed nor did she give in.

She pressed the cloth soaked in medicine to Chen Mu's mouth.

"It's even harder now."

Anato laughed as she left the medical tent.

Chen Mu took off the bandage and saw Lin Qinghe still bending down to wrap her feet.

She was born in the Year of the Wolf.

"I saw it."

"Aren't you angry?"

Lin Qinghe tightened the last knot.

"I just want you to stay out of my sight."

As she finished speaking and packed her medicine box, her ears turned redder than the stove fire.

Lu Shuangyi was more seriously injured.

She had twelve stitches in her left rib wound, and her nose bridge was also split by Han Jiu Kui. Instead of lying in the medical tent, she sat in the training ground wearing a wide robe, watching the 140 newly armored riders learn to mount their horses.

Some people, wearing heavy armor for the first time, fell off to the other side before even getting their feet into the stirrups. Lu Shuangyi raised her hand and lashed out with her whip.

"Go again."

The man fell five times, but finally managed to sit up on the sixth time.

Lu Shuangyi then tossed him a piece of dried meat.

The area outside the training ground was crowded with children who came to watch the spectacle.

Whenever someone fell from their horse, they laughed loudly; when someone sat back down, they applauded together. A little boy who had lost his father stared at the heavy armor for a long time, and when no one was looking, he crawled under the horse's belly, trying to touch the camouflage pattern on the armor.

The warhorse suddenly raised its hoof.

Lu Shuangyi leaped off the low stool and scooped the child into her arms. A horse's hoof scraped against her back, and blood seeped from her newly stitched left ribs again.

The child was so frightened that he cried.

Lu Shuangyi didn't scold him, but instead took off her small wristband and put it on his arm.

"You can ride it when you grow up to be that big."

"How long will it take?"

"You'll be full soon."

The child ran back to the crowd, clutching the wristband.

Lu Shuangyi sat down again, her face even paler than before. Looking at the children, she suddenly understood why Chen Mu had preferred to have the stove workers make pots and shovels first, even if it meant making fewer knives.

They're not just fighting for the next battle.

We also need to give these children the opportunity to grow up to the age where they can wear armor.

When Chen Mu arrived at the training ground leaning on her wooden cane, she was dividing the 140 people into 14 teams.

"Lin Qinghe let you out?"

"I walked there myself."

"That's sneaking out."

Lu Shuangyi made room for him on a low stool. The two sat shoulder to shoulder, watching Xinqi jog slowly along the fortress wall.

She suddenly asked, "Did Anado bite you?"

Chen Mu still had bloodstains on his lower lip, so denying it was useless.

"Born of the wolf."

Lu Shuangyi nodded.

"If she gets any closer next time, I'll stop her with my gun."

"Your gun is for killing people."

"So she will stop."

Chen Mu turned to look at her.

Lu Shuangyi remained staring at the training ground, her cracked nose and pale face showing no hint of amusement. Chen Mu reached out to straighten her loosened rib padding.

She stiffened for a moment, but did not flinch.

"pain?"

Your hands are too cold.

"It gets hot sitting by the stove for too long."

"Then sit for a while longer."

Su Wan didn't enter the fort until evening.

She brought back the last batch of silver chests, medicines, and 120 military households from Blackstone Fortress, along with more than 70 children scattered along the way. Some of these children's fathers died at the North Gate, while others died at the Frozen River and Crow's Neck. Their mothers dared not live alone in the wilderness and could only follow the caravan.

Su Wan did not go to the medical tent.

She first cleared out the old Han family's brick courtyard and converted it into a large room that could sleep two hundred people. She took apart all the cotton cloth in the silver chest and sewed quilts for the children. The seven girls who had been released from the courtyard refused to leave and followed her to boil water and cook.

She found Chen Mu at the drill ground after the last child had finished eating.

Among those seventy-odd children, there was a girl who kept clutching a broken wooden bowl.

Su Wan offered her a new bowl, but she refused. The girl's father had died in battle at the North Gate, and before leaving the city, he had used this bowl to serve her his last meal. So Su Wan had a blacksmith forge an iron rim to cover the crack, and then branded a small pan mark on the bottom of the bowl.

The girl, holding the repaired bowl, called her "Aunt Su" for the first time.

Su Wan was stunned for a long time.

She used to be most afraid of people mentioning Chen Mu, afraid that people would say she had made a mistake in choosing him and marrying the wrong person. Now, none of the children in the compound ask her whose fiancé she is, and no one waits to see how much she regrets it.

All they knew was that she had brought the blankets and hot meals.

This feeling of being needed is more real than begging Chen Mu to turn back.

Chen Mu asked, "How much silver is left?"

"Enough to kill two thousand people."

"Don't say anything unlucky."

"That's enough to feed two thousand people."

Su Wan tossed an old Han family book into the brazier beside her, without letting him see it.

"I burned all the debts I owed to the Han family."

"Don't bring this kind of thing in front of me again."

"Know."

She looked at the new cavalry in black armor on the training ground.

"With the population growing, relying solely on scrambling for food can only sustain us temporarily, not indefinitely."

Chen Mu also knew.

Iron Horse Fort has grain, White Spring has grass, and three iron furnaces can be used to forge armor, but there's nowhere to continuously exchange for silver and salt. Once the thirty-two granaries are emptied, even the largest pot is just an empty pot.

Su Wan took out a copper bell from her sleeve.

The bell is engraved with a horse carrying salt.

"When Baiquan's group arrived today, more than fifty people tried to rob horses and women on the north slope. Anado killed thirty and captured seventeen."

"Where did they come from?"

"Yanma Market".

The Salt and Horse Market was located 25 li southwest of Bailang Pass, and was the largest trading center for horses and salt outside the pass. A large market was held on the 6th, 16th, and 26th of each month. Northern herders brought horses and hides, while southern merchants brought salt, cloth, and tea. The Han family did not directly manage the shops; they only allowed Qian Shouyi to collect protection money and passing horses.

Today is the fifteenth.

The market will open tomorrow, and at least five hundred horses and hundreds of carts of goods will enter.

Lu Shuangyi asked, "How many guards?"

"Qian Shouyi had three hundred men, and Han Wanshan also released two hundred cavalry."

"They can fight."

Su Wan shook her head.

"There were still several hundred merchants and herdsmen in the market. We set fire to the gate and stormed it, and all the salt, horses, and people fled. Seizing an empty piece of land was useless."

Chen Mu looked at her.

"Do you have a solution?"

"My father used to buy supplies for Heishibao and took me to the salt and horse market. I knew the widow who sold tea and Old Hu who managed the horse stables."

"You want to go in?"

"I've already been inside."

Su Wan spread her hands.

There was a fresh cut on the palm of my hand.

She didn't enter the fort until evening because she had gone to Yanmaji in the afternoon.

After separating from the migrating group, she changed into the clothes of a merchant's wife and took two girls to the market. Her palm was cut while rummaging through the manure gate.

"There's a manure gate behind the horse pen on the east side; Old Hu will open it tomorrow morning."

"Businessmen all hate Qian Shouyi, but they only recognize one thing."

"What?"

Who wins?

Su Wan gripped her bleeding hand tightly.

"You lead your men and storm in."

"I let them stay."

This time, she finally stopped standing behind Chen Mu waiting for the result and instead personally pushed open the most difficult door for him.

Chen Mu stood up.

Lin Qinghe and Lu Shuangyi both looked at his feet.

Anato blew the wolf whistle from the other end of the training ground.

One hundred and forty new black-armored cavalrymen finally completed the first lap, and not a single one fell off their horses.

Chen Mu leaned on his wooden cane, gazing towards the direction of Bailang Pass.

"Go to Yanma Market tomorrow morning."

"I want money, salt, horses, and men."