Chapter 61: Hunting Wolves on the Move

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  Along the north branch of Bailong River, on the left bank is the surging Bailong River, and on the right ridge are the majestic and continuous Mashan Mountains. This is the only way from Bailing City to Liu City.

  In September, the eagles fly and in October, the horses get fat. It is during this time when the autumn grass is lush and it is the best season to pasture the horses. Liao Dong Ji Du Wei, Bai Lang Cheng Shou Ma Han, led more than 50 riders, galloping on this rugged and uneven horse head mountain road.

  Ma Xian's trip was not to visit Liu Cheng to meet Wudai Wang and Lou Fan, although the two kings had sent envoys twice to invite him. Ma Xian had just stationed in Xin City, with a thousand threads and a million trivial matters to attend to, his brain was aching from processing them all. Even Tian Yu, this young man who was as fierce as a dragon and tiger, almost got sick from exhaustion, and really couldn't spare the time. In fact, not only the Western Liaoning Wudai, but also the Eastern Liaoning vassal state Xianbei chieftain Juyi, the Western Liaoning Xianbei chieftain Suliguo, Mijia, and even the Eastern Liaoning vassal state Wudai King Su Bonyan, all sent envoys to congratulate him and competed with each other to invite Ma Xian. Ma Xian's travel schedule was already booked until next year.

  Maintaining good relations with the powerful tribes to the west of Bailu Castle, including neighboring ones, is a necessary condition for the survival, development and growth of Bailu Castle. Of course, if there's any tribe that doesn't know what's good for them and refuses an offer of wine, Ma Han won't mind teaching them a lesson by making them drink three hundred li away, such as the Hegan City Khan Wu Yan's Uyan Tribe... It's just that the time hasn't come yet. The Uyan Tribe is nursing its wounds, while the Hangou Tribe is building up its strength; sooner or later, there will be a big clash between them.

  Ma Xun's purpose for this trip is quite strange - to exterminate wolves!

  October is the time when late autumn and early winter alternate, and herdsmen need to store enough dry fodder at this time, which is a guarantee for livestock to survive the long cold winter. The Han Gou Department has now become a semi-pastoral and semi-agricultural tribe, still with a large number of cattle and horses, requiring a large amount of fodder. The 3,000 stones of fodder promised by Gong Sun Du, along with Tian Yu from Bai Lang Town (Bai Lang Town is at the same level as the county, with a town head), are still on their way to Xiangping for a job transfer, and temporarily cannot be relied upon. Everything still has to rely on self-reliance first.

  Just when the whole city was competing with the sky, at the critical moment of rushing to collect fodder, a disturbing news suddenly came: a large number of wolf packs appeared in the northern foot of White Wolf Mountain to Ma Shou Mountain, successively attacking dozens of grass-collecting herdsmen, and even invading some herdsmen's tents, causing casualties and massive death of cattle and sheep.

  Bailu Mountain has always had tigers and wolves roaming, but the number is not large, and it is rare to see them in groups like this. This has exceeded threat and become a disaster.

  Ma Xun learned about it and initially took measures to dispatch 300 cavalrymen to surround the wolves. However, wolves are extremely cunning animals, and no matter how many people you send out, they won't reveal their tracks. The wolf-hunting team tracked for five days and finally discovered the wolf pack's trail, but unfortunately, the war horses were startled and refused to move forward, resulting in a failed pursuit and a return without success.

  Seeing that the large-scale wolf-killing operation was ineffective, Ma Xian again adopted Tian Yu's suggestion and posted a notice outside the east and west city gates to recruit professional hunters to form a wolf-hunting team. The government provided rice and rewards were given in exchange for wolf skins. In western Liaoning, there were many brave hunters with experience in killing tigers and wolves. After the notice was issued, more than 30 people responded, over half of whom were foreigners. They formed two teams to hunt wolves. As a result, only less than ten people returned after three days, while the rest became wolf dung.

  The wolf pack is so rampant that it has seriously affected the normal production and life of Bailing City, people are worried, and herdsmen dare not go out within a radius of ten miles around Bailing City. If this continues, it will be a disaster, if this major calamity is not solved, the storage of fodder for this winter will be severely affected.

  Ma Xun decided to take matters into his own hands. Of course, he wouldn't carry a bow and ride a fine horse to hunt wolves - this wasn't hunting, but delivery. His first priority was gathering intelligence and gaining experience.

  Ma Hu had marked all the places where wolf packs had appeared since their emergence with red dots, and then connected them into lines to find out the regular pattern of wolf pack activities. Then he inquired about those hunters who had escaped from the wolves' mouths, trying to understand as much as possible about the wolves' habits, numbers, attack methods, etc.

  When Ma Xian had done his homework, had a plan in mind and was ready to carry out the extermination plan, an unexpected situation triggered Ma Xian's northern hunting action ahead of schedule.

  Yesterday, the guards at both the east and west gates reported a special situation: the wanted poster for Wolf Hunter had been torn down, and what's more, it was done by the same person twice.

  Those who generally want to hunt wolves for rewards will not tear down the wanted list. If someone dares to do so, there is only one possibility - the other party guarantees with their chest that they have taken care of all these targets.

  When they heard the news, even Tan Nu and Wu Zhui widened their eyes. In their minds, there was only one person who could do this and dare to do it - their city guardian, the "Khunbukh" of the grasslands, Ma Han. When did such a reckless guy appear, daring to challenge the wolf pack, no, to challenge the city guardian?

  Ma Xun immediately made a decision: "No matter who this person is, whether he has enough power to support him in doing so, just for his audacity, I will do my best to save his life. Make preparations, tomorrow we'll attack - Exterminate the Wolf!"

  ……

  On the mountain path, a silver arrow swiftly galloped, with two bows hung on both sides of the saddle. One was the legendary magic pupil bow that only Kunbu Tulu could use, and the other was a five-stone bow newly made by the bow craftsman Meng Yuan. This five-stone bow was Ma Han's special bow for hunting and killing ferocious wolves, he had tried it before and found that he could shoot thousands of arrows in succession without his hand trembling. According to intelligence, there were only about three hundred ferocious wolves in total, he wanted to see if these ferocious wolves could withstand the sweep of his human machine gun.

  This time, along with Ma Xian's expedition were Tang Nu and fifty of the best archers from the White Wolf Cavalry. The predecessor to the White Wolf Cavalry was the Han Go cavalry. When Ma Xian became the Riding Colonel and led the defense of White Wolf Castle, his cavalry transformed from a volunteer force into a regular army. First, they had to shed their tribal identity, then set up a camp outside the city called "White Wolf Camp", and the cavalry came to be known as the White Wolf Cavalry.

  Bai Lang Heng Qi contains two meanings: one is the fierce cavalry of the White Wolf Camp; the other is the cavalry of General Ma Xun defending the White Wolf City. It not only shows the lord's belonging, but also embodies the spirit of being fierce and brave. As Tian Yu said, it is "the city bestowed by heaven, the army bestowed by heaven, and the name bestowed by heaven."

  Fifty cavalry, not too many or too few, enough to avoid scaring off the wolf pack, but also not easily counterattacked. Ma Xun learned from his previous lesson of sending 300 cavalry to hunt wolves and this time had the war horses undergo adaptation training with live wolves locked in cages beforehand, to prevent a repeat of the embarrassing situation where the war horses were frightened away by the white wolves during the battle.

  More than 50 riders marched northward at an extremely fast speed, with Tang Nu and the other riders tightening their heartstrings. Except for the 20 riders who were guarding the city, the remaining 30 riders were dispatched five miles away to scout in three directions - front, back, and right - with all their might, ensuring they wouldn't be ambushed by a pack of wolves. As for the left side, it was the rolling White Wolf River, which was obvious at a glance, so there was no need to investigate.

  Compared to the caution and tension of the White Wolf riders, Ma Hong was very relaxed. He had already activated the thermal detector on his right thumb, which could detect any red gathering points within a kilometer radius. As long as he had a one-kilometer warning, Ma Hong was confident that he could react in time and deploy according to plan - this was his killer move to wipe out the wolves.

  Tan Nu and the others were thinking about how to wipe out the wolf pack, while Ma Huan was more concerned with whether the appearance of these wolves was natural or man-made. During this time, he had already inquired from local people that there were wolves in the area from White Wolf Mountain to Horse Head Mountain, but large-scale appearances had not been heard of for decades. However, on the vast grasslands north of Liu City, there would occasionally be wolf packs gathering together. Combining this with the starting and ending points of the road at Ma Shou Mountain, some things couldn't help but raise suspicions.

  Ma Xun narrowed his eyes, raised his head and looked northward. It seemed that some people were not willing to give up, and couldn't bear to see others doing well...

  Just then, the scout in front suddenly reported back that he had found something unusual. In the northeast direction, across a mountain peak, it seemed to be faintly heard the sound of wolf howls. However, because the sound was too weak, it was impossible to tell whether it was a few wolves or a pack of wolves. A few wolves were normal in this White Wolf River basin, and there were some tigers and wolves in the mountains, but a pack of wolves had a completely different meaning...

  Ma Xun didn't say a word, and immediately urged his horse to move forward. When he arrived at the location where the scout had heard an unusual sound, he raised his hand and took a look, his eyes widening in surprise. He quickly stretched out his left hand to zoom in on the screen. On the nail of his right thumb, there were dense red dots, which formed a concentric circle and converged towards the center. What was strange was that no matter how the surrounding red dots attacked, the central red dot remained unaffected. Instead, the surrounding red dots gradually stopped moving, their color slowly fading away, until they disappeared from the screen - this phenomenon only occurred when life had passed away and heat had dissipated.

  Ma Xun was shocked, this central red dot was undoubtedly a person. Could it be that he too was using the method he was about to use? But this method wasn't something ordinary people could use, if one didn't have an iron arm and a stone arm, they wouldn't be able to pull it off either.

  At this moment, Ma Yuan had a strong interest in this man, and immediately raised his whip to point northeast: "Go in that direction, listen to my orders."

  At the sound of an order, fifty white wolf cavalry quickly gathered, closely following behind Castle Guard Ma, slanting into a mountain path between two mountains, rolling up a swirling cloud of yellow dust, and galloping away.