Chapter 48: The Čarlan Cavalry

“By the way, how is your brother?”

Li Xiao thought of the girl’s brother again, the seriously injured teenager rescued from the cellar.

About the same age as himself, only a bit thinner.

If he hadn’t seen this girl, Li Xiao would have almost forgotten about him; mainly because there had been too many things to do these past few days.

“Not too good.”

Erya shook her head gently. Thinking of her brother still in a coma with a high fever, her face was full of worry.

“My family elders have already treated my brother’s injuries, but he still faints from time to time now,” Erya said sadly.

Except for her sister married far away in Western Xia, she only had her brother left as family now.

She didn’t want to lose her brother.

But the teenager’s injury was too severe.

“Take me to see him!” Li Xiao said.

Because battles were frequent in the Northern Border, herdsmen often got injured, so they were not laymen in treating external injuries.

Li Xiao believed that the elders of the Wei family could treat the wound for the girl’s brother.

But the problem was, they couldn’t treat the infection!

“My home is over there.” The girl nodded slightly, pointing to a tent in the distance.

That was where she and her brother lived now.

There weren’t enough houses in Hexi Fortress, so people from Sanhe Fortress and Hou Village could only live in tents temporarily.

After entering, Li Xiao found it was really simple inside. Besides some daily necessities brought back from Sanhe Fortress, there was just a bed paved with a sheepskin mattress.

A teenager was lying on it.

About the same age as Li Xiao, thin in build, haggard in complexion, obviously tormented severely by the injury.

Li Xiao stepped forward and touched his forehead; it was still very hot.

Although the rotting flesh of the wound had been cleaned, the inflammation in the body had not disappeared.

“What is his name?”

Li Xiao lifted the clothes on the teenager’s chest and observed his wound again.

“My brother’s name is Wei Xuan.” Erya said.

Li Xiao suddenly found it interesting and looked at the girl with amusement: “Your brother’s name is quite refined.”

Although on the surface he was praising her brother, the girl felt this guy was actually laughing at her.

Saying her name was rustic.

Fine!

She admitted herself that the name Erya indeed wasn’t very refined.

After all, the Han people of the Northern Border were a bunch of rough folks; there were basically no literati or refined scholars.

The name Wei Xuan was given by her grandfather when he went to Western Xia on business years ago and hired a local teacher, spending quite a bit of money.

The girl naturally didn’t have this treatment.

Meeting Li Xiao’s half-smiling gaze, the girl’s eyes slowly widened. Glaring at Li Xiao, she puffed up her cheeks and said: “You are not allowed to laugh.”

“Why can’t I laugh?” Li Xiao asked with a chuckle.

“You~ you, anyway, you are just not allowed to laugh.”

The girl said puffing up her cheeks, very cute.

Only now did she realize how bad this guy in front of her was!

Li Xiao shook his head gently: “Alright, I won’t laugh.”

“However, if you want a nicer name, I can help.”

“Li Xiao, I named myself.”

Listening to Li Xiao’s words, Erya pursed her lips and muttered: “I don’t want it!”

“Look at your brother first! His injury is quite serious.”

Li Xiao smiled gently, no longer teasing the girl, but looked at the teenager on the sheepskin.

The number of Han people in Western Liao wasn’t large. For Li Xiao, every Han person was a help, let alone a teenager.

“The wound treatment is okay; it looks like it was done by an experienced doctor,” Li Xiao said softly.

Erya nodded gently: “En, it was treated by my Fifth Grandpa. In our Sanhe Fortress, anyone suffering external injuries would seek him for treatment.”

“But your Fifth Grandpa could only treat the rotting flesh outside the wound, but couldn’t clear the inside cleanly,” Li Xiao said.

“This is also the reason for your brother’s persistent high fever.”

“Then what to do?”

Hearing Li Xiao say this, Erya panicked immediately.

Thinking that her brother might die, all other thoughts vanished instantly, leaving only grief and anxiety.

She looked at Li Xiao with misty and moist eyes.

“Hard to say, but he won’t necessarily die.” Li Xiao shook his head gently.

Second Uncle’s injury was even more severe than Wei Xuan’s and had dragged on longer.

But in the past two days, under large doses of allicin, the situation seemed to have improved a bit.

He had even woken up this morning, talked for a while before falling asleep again.

So this proved that the allicin Li Xiao made was successful and had certain bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects.

Li Xiao prepared to administer allicin to Wei Xuan as well.

“Really? Can you really cure my brother?”

Hearing Li Xiao’s words, the girl’s face was instantly full of hope, and the tears in her eyes stopped abruptly.

“Let’s try!”

“But I need to prepare some things first.” Li Xiao said softly, not making promises too fully.

In the evening, Li Xiao came over again, holding a small cloth bag in his hand.

“Go boil a bowl of warm water,” Li Xiao said to Erya.

Soon, he poured out half of the yellow powder from the cloth bag into the warm water and fed it to Wei Xuan.

Then he handed the cloth bag to Erya and said: “After an hour (two hours), feed him the other half bag too.”

Although she didn’t know what this was, Erya subconsciously chose to believe Li Xiao.

After all, he was the one who saved the people of Sanhe Fortress, and there was no reason to harm their siblings.

“Okay.”

Erya gripped the cloth bag tightly in her hand, followed Li Xiao out of the tent, and watched him mount his horse.

“I’ll come again tomorrow.” After speaking, Li Xiao turned and left directly.

The girl stood outside the tent, staring blankly, watching Li Xiao’s back disappear before slowly turning around.

For the next few days, Hexi Fortress was calm and tranquil.

And the news of the four-fortress coalition eliminating Aslan’s tribe also spread quickly in Jin Prefecture.

Upon learning this news, the many Han fortresses and villages were all invigorated.

No one expected that Aslan’s tribe, one of the three powerful Karluk tribes in Jin Prefecture, was completely wiped out just like that.

Simply unbelievable.

Not only the Han people of the Nine Forts and Eighteen Villages, but also the various Karluk tribes and other nomadic tribes in Jin Prefecture were all shocked by this news.

Like a shot of cardiotonic, it instantly made the hearts of those who were originally wavering firm.

Turns out the Karluks were not as powerful as imagined.

The Battle of the Northern Mountains might have just been a coincidence.

Thus, the resistance of the various fortresses and nomadic tribes in Jin Prefecture instantly became tenacious, and no one mentioned surrendering to the Karluks anymore.

In the following days, the Karluk offensive made no progress.

After all, even the Karluks themselves fell into doubt: could they still win this uprising?

It could be said that the annihilation of Aslan’s tribe had a huge impact on the entire war situation.

For a period of time after that, the situation in Jin Prefecture fell into a strange balance, with no news coming out.

Until this day, a nomadic cavalry unit suddenly appeared southwest of Ta Village.

“Master, we have arrived in Jin Prefecture.”

“Ahead is a Han tribe.”

On a high slope, a group of nomadic men stood on high ground looking into the distance.

Two scouts quickly rushed in front of them, respectfully reporting their reconnaissance results to a scarred man in the very center.

“A Han tribe?”

The scarred man scoffed lightly and shook his head.

Seeming somewhat disdainful of Han people.

“Indeed the Han style, actually built a circle of earthen walls to enclose themselves.” A young man beside him laughed.

Immediately after, a strong man’s voice rang out: “That only shows that the Han people’s guts are as small as mice. Encountering enemies, they only hide, daring not to rush up and draw swords to fight.”

“That’s right, aren’t Han people just a bunch of mice on the grassland!”

“Hahahaha~”

“If Han people dared to fight the Karluks, the Garrison Commissioner wouldn’t have needed to deploy our Čarlan tribe all the way here to suppress the rebellion.”

The group ridiculed the Han people unscrupulously, completely not taking them seriously.

After all, Han people were famous for their endurance, valuing peace in everything.

But among nomadic peoples who believed in the survival of the fittest, so-called harmony was just a synonym for weakness.

“This Han tribe looks quite wealthy, actually having so many cattle and sheep,” a strong man of the Čarlan tribe suddenly said.

Then he turned to look at the scarred man, who was the chief of the Čarlan tribe, Nierdu.

“Chief, the Khitans conscripted us to fight the Karluks, but gave nothing, relying entirely on our own supplies.”

“On this journey, the brothers have eaten only jerky; we all want to eat some fresh mutton.”

This time, the Čarlan tribe was required to travel light, and supplies could only rely on the jerky, miscellaneous grains, and horse milk they brought themselves.

They originally thought of robbing the Karluks’ cattle and sheep, but now seeing the Han people’s cattle and sheep was the same.

“Robbing Karluk sheep is robbing; robbing Han sheep is also robbing; there’s no difference.”

“Chief, let’s do it!”

“The brothers want to eat sheep.”

“It would be best to conquer this Han tribe, snatch all the women inside, enjoy ourselves for a few days first, and then go fight the Karluks.”

“That’s right, we came to help the Han people fight the Karluks. Letting them bleed a little to reward us is only right.”

These Čarlan cavalrymen discussed excitedly, feeling more and more that this was a good idea.

Rob this Han tribe first.

However, Chief Nierdu didn’t act blindly but looked at his slave, the person who went to scout the path, and asked.

“How many people does this Han tribe have?”

The slave thought for a moment and answered: “Including women and children, about eight hundred people.”

Eight hundred people, not many and not few, just the scale of an ordinary nomadic tribe.

But the Čarlan tribe was a large tribe under the Yinshan Governor-General’s Office.

Just for this expedition, five hundred cavalrymen were dispatched.

“Xia’erda~”

Nierdu turned to look at his son.

With increasing age, he felt more and more powerless and began preparing to train his son to take over.

And Xia’erda was the most outstanding of all his sons.

“Confident in taking down this Han tribe?”

Hearing his father’s words, excitement immediately appeared on the young Xia’erda’s face.

“Yes~”

“Father, please give me two hundred men. Before sunset, I will definitely take down this Han tribe.”

Looking at his son, young as a tiger, Nierdu nodded with satisfaction.

“Go!”

(End of this chapter)