The Savage Wolf Licks Its Wounds and Expands in Blood
High Pointed Mountain, the Wolf Tribe's stronghold, was shrouded in an atmosphere of oppression and deep-seated hatred. Xueya was carried back unconscious. After Xueshou and the witch doctor's desperate efforts to save him, and after more than a month of rest, he was barely able to sit up, but his internal and emotional wounds were far from healed. Duyan and Shichui, the two remaining old leaders, were also seriously injured. The entire tribe was filled with the despondency of defeat and uncertainty about the future.
When Xueya was finally able to stand before his people, the once arrogant wolf king's eyes had lost their former arrogance, but instead held a sinister and deeply ingrained ferocity. He convened a general meeting of all the tribes, his voice hoarse, yet carrying a chilling calmness.
"Brothers," he looked around at the sparse, wounded remnants of his old troops, and a few elderly, weak, women, and children who remained, "We have been defeated, utterly defeated. Many brothers died outside Wild Boar Gully, killed in the ambush of the Fire Tribe." He paused, his chest heaving with emotion, forcing back the rising bloodshot taste in his mouth, "My Xueya was kicked to the ground like a dog by Jianshi. I will remember this grudge forever!"
He suddenly raised his voice, his eyes flashing with a crazed light. "But the Wolf Tribe is not dead! As long as we have a breath left, we will take revenge! The Fish Tribe is treacherous, the Fire Tribe is ruthless, they are both stronger than us! We hate them! But we must become stronger!"
"How do we become stronger?" Xueya's voice echoed through the cave. "Hide here licking our wounds and waiting to die? No! Wolves, even with broken legs, will still tear at each other with their teeth! We're outnumbered now, so we'll raid! We'll annex! We'll turn other tribes into our pawns!"
A targeted and brutal expansion plan, orchestrated by Xueya and executed by Xueshou, was swiftly launched.
Step One: Absorbing the Rootless. Xueshou personally led the remaining members of the old tribe who were still active to search for wanderers, lone hunters, and exiles who had broken away from the tribe in the forests and Huangye within five "High Pointed Mountain" zones surrounding High Peak. Most of these people lived in poverty and were either fierce or apathetic. The Wolf Tribe's fearsome reputation and the food and shelter they offered (or rather, a forced home) quickly attracted about a hundred of these emaciated but fierce-looking desperados. Although their fighting strength was far inferior to the former elite of the Wolf Tribe, their numbers filled the gap.
The second step: forced annexation of vassals. Next, Xueya turned his attention to a dozen or so small tribes, each with a population of around one hundred, that had long been extorted and exploited by the Wolf Tribe and were barely surviving. He sent Xueshou and Duyan, with a mixed force of old and new members, directly to their doorsteps, demanding that these tribes "join" the Wolf Tribe in their entirety.
Two tribes, unable to endure the hardship any longer, attempted to flee overnight. However, their every move was being watched closely by the Wolf Tribe's scouts. The fleeing groups were ambushed and surrounded by the Wolf Tribe warriors halfway through their journey.
"Kill! Leave no one alive!" Xueshou coldly ordered. This time, those charging at the forefront were the one hundred newly joined "hungry wolves." They needed a pledge of allegiance, they needed to see blood, they needed to be assimilated into true wolf cubs.
The rebels were swiftly cut down, their cries of agony particularly piercing in the night. The remaining elderly, women, and children (except for a few young women who were deliberately spared) were herded together. Xueya's order came, "Let the new brothers have some practice."
The butcher's knife was raised, and blood stained the earth. The hundred new recruits, initially trembling and numb, became frenzied and cruel under the leader's reprimands and demonstrations. When they stopped, covered in blood and with clouded eyes, they had completed their transformation from refugees to executioners. As a reward, the young women abducted from the two tribes were distributed among these new recruits according to their "merits," further binding them to the Wolf Tribe's war chariots.
The bloody suppression had the most direct deterrent effect. The remaining dozen or so small tribes, already struggling on the brink of survival, completely lost the courage to resist in the face of absolute force and cruel demonstration, and chose to "join." They were ordered to hand over all their weapons and most of their food. The able-bodied men of the tribes were forcibly incorporated into the Wolf Tribe's fighting force, while their elderly, weak, women, and children were gathered together as hostages and escorted back to the High Pointed Mountain camp by seventy relatively reliable warriors dispatched by Xueya.
Through this series of bloody and efficient mergers, the Wolf Tribe's strength expanded rapidly in a short period of time! Excluding the seventy people left to guard the hostages, Xueya's directly available combat personnel reached more than four hundred! Although more than three hundred of them were newly forcibly incorporated vassals with severely inadequate training and equipment, the numerical advantage had been re-established.
Xueya, now stronger than ever before, felt his hatred and ambition reignite. But he hadn't lost his mind; the shadows of the Fire Tribe and the Fish Tribe still loomed large.
"We can't go to the Fire Tribe for now," Xueya said to Xueshou and several leaders during their secret plot. "They just won a battle and are riding high on their momentum, plus they have those strange rattan armors. The Fish Tribe has large ships on the water; we'd be at a disadvantage in a direct confrontation."
His bloodshot eyes gazed northwest. "We're going over there! To the outskirts of the Horse Tribe! The closer we get to the downstream area, the richer the tribes are, with more cattle and sheep! Our purpose this time is twofold: first, to seize enough food and livestock to last through winter and into next spring; second, to use bloodshed and plunder to truly unite these four hundred-plus people! Let them taste the Tiantou, turning them into mad dogs who only know how to get meat by following the Wolf Tribe!"
With their target chosen, a raiding army of over four hundred men, personally led by Xueshou and commanded from the rear by Xueya, quietly departed from High Pointed Mountain, like a pack of hungry wolves that had grown their Liaoya again, and pounced on the relatively peaceful area to the northwest.
Their first target was a "Grass Tribe" that mainly relied on herding and cultivating a small amount of crops. The tribe had a population of about 500, with a considerable number of sheep and pigs, but only about 100 warriors. They had been at peace for a long time and were not vigilant.
One of the leaders suggested a night raid. Xueshou grinned maliciously, "A night raid? No, we'll show them the consequences of rebelling against the Wolf Tribe! We'll also show our new brothers how following the Wolf Tribe means feasting on meat and running rampant!"
At dawn the next day, just before daybreak, when people were at their most exhausted, the Wolf Tribe army, which had been lying in ambush outside the Grass Tribe camp, surged out like a flood bursting its banks at Xueshou's command! There were no complicated tactics, just the most brutal frontal charge and flanking maneuvers!
The Grass Tribe's sentries were cut down before they could even give a proper warning. The camp was thrown into chaos. The hastily assembled hundred or so warriors were quickly crushed in the face of an enemy ten times their size and rabid with bloodlust.
The rebels were killed on the spot. The surviving elderly and weak were driven together. Xueshou repeated his previous tactic: let the three hundred-odd new vassals do the work!
The massacre unfolded once again. Blood, screams, looting... By the time the sun had fully risen, the Grass Tribe had become a living hell. All the food had been looted, flocks of sheep and pigs had been driven out, and young women had been dragged away amidst their cries.
Having tasted the thrill of bloodshed and plunder for the first time, the three hundred new vassals' eyes began to redden. They panted heavily, and their gazes toward Xueshou were filled with fear, but also with a desire for more plunder.
"See that? Follow the Wolf Tribe, and you'll have endless meat to eat and endless loot to plunder!" Xueshou roared, standing before the mountain of looted supplies. "Let's go! Next tribe! We'll plunder them all!"
In the following period, the Wolf Tribe, this rearmed beast, launched a series of attacks on four tribes in the northwest that were similar in size to or slightly smaller than the Grass Tribe. Each attack was a swift raid, a brutal suppression, a merciless plunder, and a bloody baptism of blood for the newly vassal "warriors".
When this "triumphant" army, laden with grain, livestock, furs, and prisoners, finally turned back to High Pointed Mountain, the Wolf Tribe not only obtained abundant supplies enough to last until the following spring, but more importantly, the more than three hundred new vassals had been completely molded by blood and fire, plunder and indulgence into a new group of vicious thugs who had developed a morbid dependence on the Wolf Tribe.
Although the wolf den on High Pointed Mountain, having been forcibly expanded after suffering heavy losses, appears superficial and cruel, it cannot be denied that it has once again bared its sharp Liaoya and cast its greedy and bloodthirsty gaze further afield. Only this time, they have temporarily bypassed the southeastern region that holds such a deep place in their hearts.
The Fire Tribe and the Fish Tribe are unaware that the wolf with its broken spine is licking its wounds and beginning a new hunt in a more twisted and dangerous way.