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

They traveled for twelve days, identifying water by grass.

Over the course of twelve days, the scouts, following the method taught by the old man, discovered seven locations of sweet water. The old man accompanied them to identify the first three, while the sixty apprentices identified the last four themselves. Upon their return and verification, all four were found to be correct.

By the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, the number of people suffering from diarrhea had dropped from over 800 to 61.

In return, we received yogurt.

Liu Ye led her people eastward for three days, searching for two small tribes that had not yet migrated north. The first time she went, they closed the door; the second time, she only brought four people, carrying two bags of salt, and placed the salt outside the tent before sitting back twenty paces.

After sitting for half a day, the tent curtain was lifted.

The first batch they received in exchange was nineteen bags. The second batch was sixty bags, and the third batch came by the two tribes themselves, driving their oxen over.

On the ninth day of the fourth month, the barbarian envoys arrived. They came in nine riders.

The first eight riders wore leather armor, while the ninth rider wore no armor, but a dark robe with a silver-trimmed belt around his waist. The nine men stopped thirty paces outside the gate, and the one in the robe did not dismount.

Cui Ting went out to negotiate. When he returned, his face was pale.

"General, he refuses to dismount."

"What did you say?"

Cui Ting's lips moved, but he didn't say anything.

"To quote them verbatim."

"He said..." Cui Ting gritted his teeth, "He said, let that doctor come out."

The men in the tent stood up at the same time. Captain Pang's hand was already on his sword.

"General, this subordinate will lead men to drag him down."

"No need."

Yang Hu closed the water source booklet in his hand and stood up.

"Open the gate."

"General!"

"open."

He went out without armor or a sword. He was wearing the cotton robe that Lu Yan had made, with the cuffs tightly gathered.

The barbarian in the long robe watched him approach from his horse for a long time.

Then he spoke. He spoke in the Guannei dialect, which was quite stiff, but every word was clear.

"Are you the doctor? How old are you?"

"Yes. Twenty-five."

The man on horseback laughed. He turned back and said a few words in a foreign language to the eight riders behind him, and the eight men laughed along with him.

After laughing, he turned back.

"Our Khan has summoned forty-three tribes," he said. "The smallest tribe has three thousand tents, and the largest has twenty thousand. All the chiefs of the forty-three tribes have arrived. The youngest is forty-seven years old, and the oldest's grandson is older than you."

He pointed his riding whip to the south.

"Da Cheng sent you."

Yang Hu stood there, not responding to a single word.

"Are you a good fighter? How many men have you led before?"

"I know a little. I've handled 11,000 before."

"Over there, one department has more people than yours," the man said. "Are all the generals of your Great Cheng dynasty dead?"

Inside the gate, not a single one of the more than five thousand people who could hear made a sound.

Yang Hu raised his head and looked at the person on horseback.

"Did you come all this way to ask me how old I am?"

The man's smile faded.

"Let me take a look."

"What are you looking at?"

"See how many of you have left, see if you've run out of water, see how thin your horses are."

As he said this, his eyes kept glancing towards the gate.

Yang Hu stepped aside, making way for half a step.

"Come in and take a look."

The man was stunned. The eight riders behind him were also stunned.

"General!" Cui Ting called out in a low voice from behind.

"Let him in," Yang Hu said. "All nine riders, come in. Let them out after they've had their look."

The envoy sat on his horse for a long time before finally dismounting. Nine men led the horses, following Yang Hu from the gate all the way into the camp.

The first thing I saw was that pole.

The notice posted on the pole on the eighth day of the fourth month reads: 61 wounded and sick in the camp, 209 returning to the unit this month.

The messenger couldn't read Chinese characters, but he could count the tents of the wounded soldiers' camp. There were sixty tents, spaced far apart, with a small wooden stake about a foot high stuck in the outside of each tent.

"What is that?"

"Record when the fabric of this tent was changed."

Further ahead was the kitchen. Nine pots stood side by side, steam rising from them, and a line of people waited to get water.

The messenger stopped and looked for a while, not at the pot, but at the people in line. The people in line stood in neat rows, and no one cut in line or snatched anything.

Further ahead is the stable.

Seventeen hundred horses were tethered to four rows of posts. They weren't in great shape, but not a single one was lying down. The feeding troughs contained not only grass but also beans.

The messenger slowed his pace. He paused before the second row of posts, reached out and touched the neck of a horse, touching the spot where blood had been drawn last year.

The wound has healed, leaving only a thin scar.

He withdrew his hand without asking anything.

The last to arrive was the supply train.

The supply train was located at the easternmost edge of the camp, with rows and rows of wagons. People were collecting dried manure, mending wheels, and loading the wagons with the milk bags they had traded for.

There were more than forty people.

The messenger approached and stopped in his tracks.

He stood there, watching an old man carrying milk bags onto a cart.

The old man was about fifty years old, and one of his eyes was cloudy. The old man also saw him.

The two people were about ten steps apart, and neither of them moved.

After a long time, the old man put down the milk bag in his hand, bowed in the direction of the messenger, then turned around and continued to move his things.

The messenger's expression changed.

He turned his head, his voice completely different from before.

"He is...

"We caught them last year north of Heishiliang," Yang Hu said. "Eight hundred and thirty-nine of them. The sick were separated and released after they were cured. These forty-seven didn't leave."

"Why don't you leave?"

"Their unit has disbanded."

The messenger's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"Does the gentleman recognize him?"

The messenger did not answer, and Yang Hu did not ask any further questions.

The nine men walked from the supply train to the gate of the camp, and no one uttered a single word along the way.

Upon reaching the gate, the messenger mounted his horse.

After mounting his horse, he sat there, looking down at Yang Hu, but this time his gaze was different.

"Doctor," he said, "you let me in to scare me."

"no."

"What is that?"

"It's to tell the lord to go back and tell him what he saw truthfully," Yang Hu said. "The lord came here to count us. After he finishes counting, if he goes back and says that we have three thousand starving corpses left, will your Khan believe him? If he believes him, he will choose an inappropriate day to attack; if he doesn't believe him, he will ask you why you reported that number."

The messenger tightened his grip on the reins.

"What you saw yourself, sir: 61 wounded and sick, 209 returned to the ranks, 1,700 horses, and beans in the trough," Yang Hu said. "Take these numbers back with you, sir. The Khan will know what to do once he hears them."

"What should we do?"

"That's the Khan's business."

The messenger sat on his horse for a while longer.

"Doctor, let me tell you something," he suddenly said. "Forty-three departments have been gathered together for forty-seven days."

Yang Hu's eyes twitched.

"Why are you telling me this, sir?"

"Because you've already figured it out," the messenger said. "If you hadn't, you wouldn't have shown me your manger."

He turned his horse around.

After walking a dozen steps, he stopped and turned back.

"We have patients over there too," he said. "Three tents, with bare poles. Your scouts saw them."

"I saw it."

Do you know what that disease is?

"I don't know. Does the master know?"

The messenger remained silent on horseback for a long time.

"I don't know," he said. "The Khan's shaman said that it was the Eternal Heaven watching to see if we were sincere enough."

He switched the reins to the other hand.

"Forty-seven days," he repeated the number. "Doctor, calculate it and see if it's sincere enough."

After saying this, he spurred his horse and led the eight riders north.

Cui Ting stood inside the gate until the shadows of the nine riders disappeared before coming out.

"General, those two words he said before he left..."

"He wasn't insulting me," Yang Hu said, looking north. "He was asking me a question."