After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

"Yes!" the generals said in unison.

Then, the hook-nosed deputy commander from the Yushui Thousand-Household Garrison grinned maliciously, clasped his hands in a heavy fist salute, and said, "Young Master Ning, rest assured! Our Yushui Guard will definitely avenge you and your esteemed guest for that arrow wound!"

His fists clenched loudly, and his words were forceful and resounding!

When this young scholar first arrived in Yushui, he and several other deputy commanders were quite dissatisfied and didn't believe the battle reports sent by the imperial court... Seven days, to be precise, one day, and they fucking wiped out Xiao Chun's two hundred elite troops! You're kidding me!

Still furious, he made a few sarcastic remarks at the banquet, saying things like Xiao Chun had been in and out of the garrison many times, but couldn't even last a round against him... Now it seems! His mother was right after all!

With Young Master Ning's skills, arrangements, and unpredictable methods... it's quite impressive that Xiao Chun, that scoundrel, could survive for seven or eight days under Young Master Ning's control!

Before even attacking the mountain, they've already breached the gate of Black Tiger Stronghold, the most troublesome stronghold that even instills fear in their soldiers... If they still can't defeat Black Tiger Stronghold this time, they might as well chop off my head and boil it in the river...

Such a person... no wonder his mother was entrusted with such an important task by Governor Gu... Governor Gu really knows how to recognize and appoint people!

With such feelings of pride and satisfaction, the man with the hooked nose, dressed in brown leather armor, turned around abruptly, bid farewell to the head of the household guards sent by Liu Datong, and went to relay orders with an excited expression.

The other two deputy commanders of the thousand-household garrisons also cheerfully said a few words like "Please wait a moment, young master" before hurrying after them.

According to the military decision made yesterday, the Yu Shui soldiers will lead the way, followed by the Jiu Lin soldiers, and the Ding Jiang soldiers will come last.

Every hundred zhang (approximately 33 meters) of ascent, the teams would take turns fighting, with the front team withdrawing to become the rear team, and the rear team taking over, in a continuous rotation. In this way, none of the guards suffered losses during the attack on the mountain.

When they finally reach the mountaintop and face the bandits head-on, the vanguard might suffer some losses, but at the same time, they will be able to kill more people and earn more bounty... so it won't be a loss.

Within each guard's formation, shield bearers were in front, followed by spearmen, then archers, and finally, well-armored household guards.

The bandits threw down logs and rolling stones, and the shield soldiers blocked them. After blocking them, the spearmen pried the logs and rolling stones from behind and pushed them aside, while the archers shot arrows to continuously clear the bandits' sentry posts along the mountain.

In order for the shield soldiers to withstand logs and rolling stones, Ningnan prepared more than a hundred pairs of spiked shoes for each guard's shield soldiers, for climbing mountains and holding off the last so-called Ma'er Slope.

"Black Tiger Mountain has only one path, and only one way down," Ning Nan declared during yesterday's military council, brandishing his arm and striking downwards with a decisive blow. "Today's natural barrier will be their doom tomorrow!"

After the muffled sound of the bugle, more than a thousand men from the Three Guards formed a formation and began to roar as they charged upwards!

Ning Nan, accompanied by more than twenty Imperial Guards, followed behind the three guards, his expression calm.

He had already ordered portraits of the three strong men to be drawn and distributed to each guard to help them identify themselves. He also instructed them not to kill innocent people indiscriminately. Each captain was also assigned two Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards), so there shouldn't be any major problems.

The mute kidnapped Sanzhuang. Judging from that time, it must have been because he saw Sanzhuang and Erlai ignite the gunpowder, which was too powerful, and the other party wanted to get the formula for this gunpowder... Ning Nan walked along the mountain path, pondering, and slowly exhaled.

At this point, the rumbling thunder that had been constantly emanating from the mountaintop had subsided considerably.

The gunpowder given to Old Man Xu and Li Xing was not much, and it was probably all used up. However, the Embroidered Uniform Guard obtained some from the Divine Machine Battalion in the capital. It was likely to misfire, but it was still usable, just less impressive.

Next to Li Xing's bamboo basket, a flint was tied with a thin rope. When the flint struck the ground, it would produce sparks, which served as a kind of safety measure to ignite the gunpowder.

Ning Nan looked up and saw wisps of black smoke rising from the mountaintop.

Black Tiger Stronghold... is on fire.

"Commander Xu has almost completely destroyed Black Tiger Stronghold," Qin Yuanyao said, pressing her hand on the embroidered spring knife at her waist, suppressing the joy in her eyes.

Ning Nan smiled and quickened her pace.

Thousands of garrison soldiers attacked the mountain, and some sentry posts at the foot of the mountain were destroyed in an overwhelming manner.

In addition, the chaos on the mountaintop, without command, made the defense of the mountain even more disorganized. The sentry posts set up along the mountain didn't even have time to push down a few logs before they were shot in the throat by the archers of the various guards.

The shield-bearers' spiked boots played a significant role; stepping into the mud, they would raise their shields together and stomp down hard when the logs came, making the mountain assault far less difficult than before.

Moreover, after the front troop loosened the soil, the soldiers behind them could walk more easily and were better able to hold off the front troop.

Some of the bolder bandits yelled "Waaaaah!" and charged with their axes, shouting "You dog soldiers!" to bolster their courage. But when the spear pierced their throats, blood gushed from their mouths, and they stared in disbelief as their heads were chopped off.

Headless corpses lay scattered on the ground, each with a clean break in their neck, and the blood that flowed out stained the yellowish-brown earth a deep black.

When Ning Nan walked through, he would suddenly feel that the soles of his shoes were a bit sticky. He would frown and had no choice but to rub the soles of his shoes in the sand pit in front of him to remove the sand that was stuck together with blood.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards are all bloodthirsty bastards; they've seen this kind of scene many times. Qin Yuanyao, in particular, sneered, "They wouldn't stick to each other if they walked around a bit more; they just had to stop and waste time."

Ning Nan shook her head indifferently, and instead asked her to order someone to blow a horn, two short and one long, to order the garrison soldiers who were getting more and more excited as they fought to wait a while and to straighten out their discipline and formation... They had only reached halfway up the mountain when their formation became somewhat chaotic.

Those in front were having a great time fighting, while those behind were extremely envious and all tried to push their way forward.

Just now, I saw a burly man among the bandits wearing armor and a helmet, wielding two axes and charging down, followed by more than a hundred fierce bandits.

In the past, the garrison troops might not have been completely routed and would have fled in disarray, but they would certainly have been held back and fought back and forth.

But this time, the hundred or so fierce bandits charging down the mountain were like sheep charging at a pack of wolves, and they were torn to shreds in an instant... Blood flowed everywhere.

"Young master, why did you stop?!" a Jinyiwei commander couldn't help but ask.

Qin Yuanyao was also somewhat puzzled. In warfare, the key is to strike while the iron is hot, then weaken and eventually exhaust the enemy. Taking advantage of this momentum to take down Black Tiger Stronghold is the right approach. Once the people on the mountain are organized, it will become much more difficult to attack them.

Ning Nan shook his head leisurely: "They're just getting carried away right now, we can still stop them. But if they really go berserk..." He pointed to the ox horn in the messenger's hand, "that thing will be useless."

He must be able to break out, but he must also be able to bring it back... His goal is not to wipe out the Black Tiger Stronghold, but to wipe out the Black Tiger Stronghold and find out the mastermind behind the assassination of Miss Zhu.

Compared to the latter, the former is merely an add-on.

"Secondly," Ning Nan raised an eyebrow towards the mountain and smiled, "we can't kill too many people... If we kill too many, the bandits might abandon their stronghold and just run away all over the mountains... We're still far from the summit, so if that happens, it'll be difficult to handle. We won't be able to stop them, and we won't be able to catch them..."

"Hmm... fantasy, you understand? Fantasy..." He looked at the female commander and the others and said, "We... um... need to fight, relax, fight again, relax again... that way, they will always have this fantasy of turning defeat into victory in their minds, and their hearts will be united. When their hearts are united, they will not run away... they will wait until we kill them and make them have nowhere to escape..."

Ning Nan's tone was kind and earnest, speaking slowly and deliberately, as if she were telling us, as adults, how we should educate children...

Qin Yuanyao and the other Imperial Guards stared blankly at the serious-looking young man... After a moment, Qin Yuanyao remembered that the people of Li Family Village often called him "Demon Ning"... She lowered her eyebrows and let out a deep breath.

"You're even more wicked than a demon..." The female commander's voice was unusually low and filled with emotion.

Just then, a deafening roar of shouts and cheers erupted from the mountaintop. The bandits were thunderously cheering, seemingly celebrating who had successfully repelled the government troops, forcing them to halt halfway up the mountain...