The Tyrant of the Great Qian Dynasty: Not only will I refuse to arrange a marriage alliance, but I w

The envoy of the Great Qian Dynasty, carrying gifts that would tempt any grassland tribe, traveled upstream to the tribes.

Su Zhe did not sit idly in the camp waiting for news.

For him, diplomatic goodwill always needs the sharpest blade as its backing.

He summoned Cao Zhang, the commander of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.

He was a general with a dark complexion and a wiry build, whose eyes, when opened and closed, revealed a sharpness like that of a hawk.

The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, a light cavalry force renowned for its mobility and ferocity, was a sharp blade ready to be drawn at any moment under his command.

"Cao Zhang".

Su Zhe's voice rang out in the command tent, without any unnecessary pleasantries, getting straight to the point.

"From this moment forward, I decree that within a radius of a hundred miles of this Green Wolf River Valley, no other voice shall be heard, nor shall any other flag be seen."

This order was both domineering and bloody.

Upon hearing this, Cao Zhang's eyes gleamed with excitement. He knelt on one knee, his voice booming like a bell:

"Your humble servant obeys! I guarantee that not even a prairie wolf capable of relaying messages will escape this area!"

With the order given, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, a ferocious beast that had not yet fully revealed its fangs in the Battle of the Capital, was finally released from its cage.

The thousands of Tiger and Leopard Cavalry soldiers did not assemble in a large-scale formation, but instead dispersed into the vast grasslands in small groups of a hundred men each.

They were equipped with specially made light armor, carried powerful crossbows, had curved swords at their waists, and had a quiver of arrows hanging beside their saddles.

Each squad is led by the most experienced scout.

A one-sided hunting game targeting the northern barbarian scouts has officially begun.

……

About thirty miles from the Daqian camp, behind a grassy slope, a small team of five Northern Barbarian scouts was carefully lying in ambush.

They lay prone in the waist-high grass, only their eyes showing, staring intently at the distant, sprawling camp.

The smoke rising from the camp and the faint aroma of meat carried on the wind made them both greedy and wary.

The lead scout captain, experienced in his field, lowered his voice and said to his companion:

"These southerners are too careless! They actually made a fire and set up camp on our territory, and even dared to barbecue! Don't they know this will give them away?"

"Boss, should we send someone back to report the situation here to the centurion?" a young scout asked.

The captain shook his head, a sly glint in his eyes.

"No rush. Let's wait and see what they're up to. This is such a big piece of meat; maybe we can get even more credit from it."

They thought they were perfectly hidden; the grassland was their home, and the grass was their best cover.

Unbeknownst to them, in a low-lying area to their side and rear, a small squad of a hundred Tiger and Leopard Cavalrymen had already silently completed their encirclement, like ghosts.

The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry soldiers moved in perfect unison, without making a single unnecessary sound.

They didn't even ride horses; instead, they led their warhorses and, using the terrain as cover, gradually tightened the encirclement.

When the northern barbarian scout captain, driven by his animalistic instincts, felt uneasy and looked back, he saw hundreds of dark crossbow bolts already aimed at them.

"enemy……"

He only had time to let out a horrified scream before his voice was drowned out by the dense whooshing sound of air being torn apart.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—!"

Hundreds of crossbow bolts formed a deadly rain of arrows, covering the small area from three directions.

The five northern barbarian scouts didn't even have a chance to draw their swords before they were riddled with arrows.

The centurion of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry made a gesture.

Several soldiers stepped forward, examined the bodies, delivered the final blow, and then used their short blades to cut off their left ears and put them into leather pouches at their waists.

This is proof of my military achievements.

The entire process, from discovery to annihilation and then to cleaning up the battlefield, took no more than fifteen minutes.

Then, without pausing for a moment, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry squad quickly mounted their horses and disappeared into the depths of the grassland to search for their next prey.

……

Similar scenes are playing out across the vast grasslands surrounding the Green Wolf River Valley.

Northern barbarian scouts typically operate in groups of three to five, moving loosely and relying on personal experience and familiarity with the terrain.

They faced the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, a disciplined force that operated in units ten times larger than their archers and was equipped with powerful crossbows whose range and power far surpassed that of bows and arrows.

This is a complete and utter defeat.

The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry's small-group combat tactics were executed flawlessly.

Using communications soldiers and pre-arranged signals, they coordinated with each other across a vast area, forming an invisible network.

Any northern barbarian scout who falls into the net has only one fate—death.

In just one day.

The reconnaissance network established by the Northern Barbarian King's court on the outskirts of the Green Wolf River Valley was torn to shreds.

The Northern Barbarian general in charge of commanding the scouts, Commander Hudu, quickly realized something was wrong.

Of the nearly one hundred scout teams he sent out, more than 80% have disappeared without a trace.

His knowledge of the movements of the main force of the Great Qian Dynasty became completely blank.

They became blind and deaf.

"This is outrageous!"

Enraged, Hudu kicked over the table in front of him.

He couldn't believe that his prized "grassland wolf eyes" had been gouged out in a single day.

"What kind of sorcery did these southerners use?"

He couldn't understand it, but he knew he had to get his revenge.

In a fit of anger, he made a decision.

He assembled a force of one thousand elite cavalrymen, which he personally led, to prepare for a large-scale sweep of the outskirts of the Green Wolf Valley.

He wanted to use his superior numbers to find and eliminate the "Great Qian Hunters" hiding in the bushes.

……

News of the Northern Barbarian thousand-man unit's deployment was quickly discovered by the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry's scouts and promptly relayed back to Commander Cao Zhang.

"General, the northern barbarians have dispatched a thousand-strong unit, and they are sweeping towards our area!"

Upon hearing this news, Cao Zhang not only showed no sign of nervousness, but instead burst into laughter.

"A thousand people? Perfect timing! I was just worried these rats were hiding too well and hard to find, and they've actually come to us in a bunch!"

He spread out the map, ran his finger across it, and stared intently.

"Pass on my order: have the seventh and eighth squads go to this location, act as if they've been discovered, and lead them towards the 'One Line Sky' valley."

He pointed to an extremely narrow valley on the map, with steep walls on both sides, which was a natural and excellent ambush location.

"All other squads, assemble on both sides of 'The Narrow Pass.' I'd like to invite Commander Hudu for a good drink!"

A clever trap was quickly laid.

Two squads of a hundred men each from the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry deliberately exposed their presence on the plains as bait.

They briefly clashed with Hudu's thousand-man squad, firing several volleys of arrows before turning their horses around and fleeing towards the "One Line Sky" valley.

Hudu saw that these southern cavalrymen were well-equipped but few in number, and assumed they were the enemy's main force, so he was overjoyed.

"Chase them! Don't let them get away!"

He ordered the entire army to pursue, plunging headlong into the death trap that had been prepared for him.

When a thousand northern barbarian cavalrymen all rushed into the narrow valley, an unexpected event occurred.

The entrance and exit of the valley were suddenly blocked by countless boulders and wooden stakes that had rolled down.

A chill ran down Hudu's spine, and he reined in his horse.

He looked up and saw that the cliffs on both sides of the valley were now filled with a dark mass of Daqian cavalry.

The soldiers, positioned high above, had all their crossbows aimed at the bottom of the valley.

Cao Zhang appeared at the highest point of the cliff, looking down at the panicked Northern Barbarian cavalry at the bottom of the valley, a cruel smile on his face.

"Release the arrows!"

With his command.

Hundreds of Tiger and Leopard Cavalrymen launched an attack simultaneously.

Arrows rained down from the sky like a black storm.

The high vantage point made the northern barbarian cavalrymen in the valley into easy targets, all huddled together.

They couldn't even raise their shields to block, because the arrows were coming down from above their heads.

Screams and the mournful neighing of warhorses echoed through the narrow valley, forming a symphony of death.

This was a massacre with no suspense whatsoever.

A brilliant ambush wiped out the elite Northern Barbarian search team with almost zero casualties.

Commander Hudu, riddled with dozens of arrows, fell into a pool of blood, his eyes wide open in death.

……

The complete victory in this scout battle allowed Su Zhe to gain complete control of the battlefield information.

On his sand table, the markers representing enemy reconnaissance units were removed one by one.

His own army of 100,000 seemed to have vanished into thin air on the grassland, completely disappearing from the enemy's sight.

Just as the scouting campaign was in full swing, the envoy sent to the upstream tribes returned.

He not only brought back several ambiguous replies from tribal leaders, but also a piece of news that greatly interested Su Zhe.

"Your Majesty," the envoy knelt on one knee, his expression tinged with excitement, "the tribal chiefs, after drinking, inadvertently revealed that an ancient legend circulates within their tribes."

"They said that beyond the Langjuxu Mountains to the north, there is a place called the 'Sacred Land of Eternal Heaven'."

"There lies the burial place of heroes and chieftains throughout the history of the grasslands, and also hides a secret concerning the fate of the entire grasslands."