"What?! In the mouths of the border-army generals, our tribute horse caravan is a band of rebel riders colluding with the Tatars? They've already conscripted men from the Jianzhou tribes and made a great achievement of guarding the border and suppressing the Tatars?"
The cold night wind blew over the hills of Hetu Ala, making every Jurchen chieftain present feel a chill from the depths of his heart. The fierce beast of the sun and moon had unconsciously stretched out a finger, and when its claw fell, it was like a mountain toppling down from the heavens. And the closer one got to the Border Wall, the greater the force that beast could mobilize, and the more dangerous and unpredictable it became. Even a mere Assistant Regional Military Commissioner from a garrison inside the passes could bring a life-or-death crisis upon a tribute horse caravan that had crossed thousands of li of northern land and was feared by every tribe along the way.
"Two hundred elite border troops, nearly a thousand tribal Battle-Ready Serfs, just a few dozen li to the west. Li Wenbin, Assistant Regional Military Commissioner of Tieling Guard? I think I've heard of this Tieling Li clan. Their ancestors were sinicized Joseon Jurchens, a family that passed down its status through military merit, but I've never dealt with them."
Ali, Assistant Regional Commander of Harman Guard, had his brows tightly knitted, his expression rather uneasy. As for Fucha Tulu, chieftain of the Neyin Tribe, that went without saying: his face was ugly to the extreme, and even his voice trembled a little. As one of the Jianzhou tribes that had lived through the Chenghua plowing of the royal court, he knew the ways of Great Ming's border army all too well.
"White-headed Mountain God! How did we