A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

On the twenty-second day after the new camp was established, the first group of people returned to their unit.

Not ten or eight, but sixty-four.

At dawn that day, sixty-four people lined up in front of the new camp. Some were on crutches, some had their arms in slings, and some walked with a limp, but they had all walked there by themselves; no one carried them.

Captain Pang was there to count the men. He stood at the front of the line, looking them over one by one. When he reached the thirtieth or so, he stopped in his tracks.

He was a soldier with two broken ribs who was carried into the wounded and sick camp in August. Lieutenant Pang had seen him once when he was carried in and thought he was going to be carried out.

"What's your name?"

"The captain's surname is Wu, and he is the sixth in his family."

"When were they carried in?"

"August 11th".

Lieutenant Pang didn't ask any more questions. He stood in front of the group for a long time before turning around and saying to the two centurions who followed behind, "Record their names and reassign them to their original units."

Cui Ting came to find Yang Hu in the afternoon with the booklet in his hand.

"On the 22nd, sixty-four returned to the unit." He placed the booklet on the table, his voice carrying an indescribable tone. "General, in my five years in the vanguard, the wounded soldiers' battalion has never had more than twenty soldiers return in a single month."

"What about the rest?"

"The rest..." Cui Ting turned a page, "There are still 311 severe cases left, with about 140 of them. According to the military doctor, they should be able to stand up within the year."

"Those nineteen with gangrene?"

"We sawed seventeen of them, and two of them couldn't hold on." Cui Ting paused. "Of those seventeen, eleven are now able to sit up and eat."

Yang Hu took the booklet and flipped through it page by page to the end.

After reading it, he spread out a piece of paper on the table and wrote a few lines.

"Put this up at the entrance of the new camp."

Cui Ting took it, but at first he didn't understand it. There was no heading, no signature, and no seal on the paper.

Cui Ting looked down at the paper.

The paper didn't have the format of a military order, only a few numbers: 573 entered the camp, 64 returned to their units within 22 days, 11 died, leaving 498. Below that, on a new line, it read: Starting this month, post this on the first and fifteenth of each month.

"This...this also needs to be posted?" Cui Ting was taken aback. "Eleven people died, and you still post that?"

"Put it on too."

"General, there's never been a precedent in the army for posting the number of dead at the camp gate. It makes the brothers feel uneasy..."

"They already knew," Yang Hu said. "They knew better than anyone who had been carried out of each tent, and who hadn't returned, even if there were a dozen or so people lying in one tent. Posting this wasn't to let them know how many had died, but to let them know that someone was counting them."

Cui Ting held the paper, stood there for a while, then turned and left.

Three days after that paper was posted, the atmosphere in the front camp changed somewhat.

First, the kitchen staff proactively increased the number of water-boiling pots from two to five. Next, the supply train found a batch of old cloth from somewhere, washed it clean, and delivered it to the new camp. Later, even people from the training camp carried their own water bags and took a long detour to the new well at the entrance of the new camp to fetch water for drinking.

Thirty men from Captain Pang's battalion volunteered to learn bandaging.

"The general's medical team only has 120 men," Captain Pang said without looking at him. "There are over 500 wounded and sick, and each person is responsible for four or five. They can't keep up. I've selected 30 nimble men from my own battalion to learn from. When the fighting starts, each battalion can hold its own for a while."

Yang Hu agreed.

These thirty men were chosen by Colonel Pang himself, and he was the one who asked for them. Twenty-two days ago on the slope, this man had asked him whether it was worth it to pull the wounded soldiers out of the water.

The next day, he divided the medical team into three groups, taking turns leading the thirty people. The first lesson wasn't about bandaging, but about washing hands.

The medicine from the northern route arrived on the twenty-seventh day.

It was six days later than usual.

Cui Ting personally led the team to open the boxes. When they opened the third box, his hand suddenly stopped, and he grabbed a handful of powdered medicine, rubbing it between his fingers for a long time.

Then he stood up and opened the boxes one by one. After opening all twelve boxes, he stood in the middle of the warehouse, his face frighteningly pale.

"General."

When Yang Hu arrived, Cui Ting was taking a pinch from each of the twelve boxes of medicine and spreading them out on the table in a row.

The twelve pinches of medicine were all the same color and of the same quality.

Good medicine.

Not a single grain of soil was mixed in.

The warehouse fell silent for a moment, save for the wind rattling the door. When Cui Ting spoke, his voice was dry.

"General, this is..."

"He found out."

Yang Hu reached out and rubbed his hand across the row of powdered medicine, leaving a fine layer of powder on his fingertip. He brought his finger to his nose to smell it, then held it up to the light and scattered the powder.

This is really good medicine. It's even better than the medicine distributed in Qingshikou.

"Over five months, the adulteration continued until it reached 60%, and overnight it was all replaced with good stuff," Yang Hu said. "He not only knew that someone was counting, but he also knew who was counting and from which day the counting began."

Sweat slowly seeped from Cui Ting's forehead.

"General, about those four booklets I brought..."

"He doesn't need to know it's you," Yang Hu said. "He only needs to know that the vanguard has a new general, and that this general is looking at the seventeen packets of medicine one by one on the table. That's enough for him."

"So what do we do now?"

"It's too late to do anything." Yang Hu wiped the powder off his fingers on the hem of his robe. "He switched the medicine with better ones, which is equivalent to erasing the debt from the first five months. If I take out those seventeen packets again later, he'll have a hundred things to say: The medicine is good, look for yourself, didn't your army doctor steal it?"

Cui Ting's face turned even paler.

"Those people who died during those five months from using medicine mixed with soil and whose wounds festered."

"It can't be checked anymore."

He spoke those three words very softly.

He stood in the warehouse for a while, then walked to the door and looked back at the twelve boxes of medicine.

"But these twelve boxes are good," he said. "That's enough."

Cui Ting was taken aback: "Enough of what?"

"Enough for five hundred people for three months," Yang Hu said. "Within three months, those who can stand will be able to stand up. As for the accounts, I've kept track of them; there's no rush."

On the twenty-ninth day, the Ministry of War's official document arrived.

Two days later than that batch of medicine, but they took the same northern route.

The document contained only one requirement: before winter, the vanguard camp outside the Great Wall must launch a campaign to wipe out the nomadic cavalry within eighty li north of Heishiliang, in order to deter their plans for autumn raids. A report of victory must be submitted within one month.

After reading the document, Cui Ting looked up.

"General, in the past five years, the vanguard has never sent out troops before winter."

Why?

"Before winter sets in, the grass withers, the horses get thin, and the men can't endure it," Cui Ting said. "More importantly, the barbarians' cavalry is most scattered at this time of year. They're here today, and they'll be running thirty miles tomorrow. The ones you can catch are small groups, but the ones you can't catch are the big ones. This trip will most likely be a wasted trip, but there will definitely be losses."

He put the document back on the table and lowered his voice.

"The wounded and sick battalion that the general just established is in dire need of attention right now. This trip will likely bring back another one or two hundred."

Yang Hu picked up the document and read it twice.

The paper was from the Ministry of War, the seal was from the Ministry of War, and the wording was impeccable.

He put the document back on the table and suddenly let out a very short laugh.

"General Choi."

"Your subordinate is here."

"Do you think this document and those twelve boxes of good medicine were written by the same person?"

Cui Ting opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Outside the tent, the faint sound of drawing water could be heard from the new camp. The well was dug by the wounded soldiers themselves, and cheers erupted on the hillside the day it yielded water. Now that it was cold and a thin layer of ice had formed around the well, people continued to draw water.

Yang Hu folded up the document and put it into his sleeve.

"Respond as instructed, with just four characters: 'Respectfully obeying Your Majesty's order.'"