This second conjecture was not mere baseless speculation, but a possibility Meng Zhao had deduced and analyzed from the intelligence he currently possessed.
According to Ji Rushuang, the Ji Clan branch of the Dan Chi Clan, though descended from the ancestral bloodline and thus a noble direct branch, did not have many members in the entire clan—fewer than fifty thousand in all. Their lives could not be called especially difficult, but neither were they easy; they were simply ordinary.
Of them, sixty to seventy percent were young and strong. Though they were far too weak compared with the entire Dan Chi Clan, if they gritted their teeth, it would not be impossible to field more than twenty thousand soldiers who dared to fight and kill, and were skilled in riding and archery.
These Dan Chi people had lived among black mountains and white waters since childhood, battling wild beasts and ferocious creatures. Even the women were incomparably hardy.
Only Ji Rushuang, because she was the daughter of a branch chieftain, had been raised with skin so fair and delicate.
Those who lived pampered lives were the same everywhere.
Certainly, Wang Xu had said that there were only twenty thousand Rebel Army soldiers within Hu Mountain. But that was merely what he had seen. If there truly were only a paltry twenty thousand men who dared to contemplate rebellion, then the person leading them had far too much nerve.
Thus, Meng Zhao was more inclined to believe that the Rebel Army's true numbers were far above twenty thousand, and that they had been operating and training for far more than a day or two. If the mountain strongholds and bandit lairs within Hu Mountain contained Rebel Army members, then the large and small gangs in the county and city might also