To lure Longxiang Jiatuo down the mountain for a duel between commanders, Sun Mingke had not deployed his three thousand troops. He had brought only a hundred-odd men to form up at the foot of the mountain, leaving the rest concealed in the distant woods.
After listening for a while, he felt that the young man's insults lacked color and bite. But he had studied martial arts on Taiyi Mountain since childhood and was not particularly versed in such coarse skills himself. He thought it over for a while, decided he would do even worse than his subordinate if he went up, and could only sigh. I ought to ask Brother Wang Chong for some pointers.
Hmm, but he's a scholar too, very refined. I'm afraid he's probably just like me-not much good at a battle of insults.
Sun Mingke was worrying that they would fail to curse Longxiang Jiatuo into coming out when he heard someone shouting on the mountain. Before long, several hundred men came down, led by a towering, powerfully built commander whose red hair grew in a tangled mass like weeds. He carried a great saber with an extremely broad blade and cursed from horseback, "Where did you little thieves come from, daring to seek death on Cloud-Gathering Mountain?"
Several men immediately paled and cried, "That's Gajuli, the twelfth of Shi Lushan's adopted sons! Commander, summon the army at once so we can surround and kill him!"
Most of the men Sun Mingke had recruited in Ciyang, Dongshun, and Bayuan Prefectures had lived in Ba Prefecture all their lives. Afraid that others would discover his true strength, Shi Lushan forbade commoners from moving away and merchant caravans from coming and going. He also frequently sent people to trumpet the prowess of his thirteen adopted sons, so