The sun climbed to the middle of the sky, and the cooking smoke never ceased. A thousand Tlaxcalan Bowmen squatted and sat outside the relay station, noisily eating lunch. They had only just been formed into an army and had trekked here from the two southern counties; their bearing and discipline were only about the level of the kingdom's trained Militia.
However, after the extraordinarily brutal Eastern Expedition, the strictly obedient military farming at Shuigu City, the long and uneasy migration of a thousand li, and the hard, exhausting garrison farming and roadbuilding in the kingdom's south... this camp of Tlaxcalan Bowmen, who had finally begun to get ahead, had already had every trace of tribal resistance ground away. They had become docile and obedient, a kingdom army that could be put to use.
"Mm!... They know awe, they obey orders. They're all fine little eagle chicks!..."
Woodpecker E-Zhuo finished his Tortilla in two bites, then shouldered the battle flag and made a circuit among the bowmen under him. And wherever he appeared, the Tlaxcalan Bowmen would immediately stop eating and respectfully bow their heads to him.
E-Zhuo looked carefully. In the simple eyes of these bowmen, there was not only fear and submission, but also an obvious spark! That spark was just like the army serfs E-Zhuo had seen before: an urgent yearning to win military merit, to be granted fields and slaves, to change the fate of themselves and their families! And for that goal, killing and being killed were nothing more than commonplace to these warlike tribes, who had long grown used to life and death, used to sacrifice.
"Fields granted for military merit... the only way out for the surrendered tribes, to climb the kingdom's high mountain..."
E-Zhuo pondered, his gaze shifting slightly downward. In this