Chapter 59 Imperial Guard Xu Nian

"Big Brother, government soldiers have come down the mountain, and there are nearly a thousand of them!" shouted a middle-aged man with a four-inch-long goatee under his lower lip, dressed in a loose sable-skin jacket. This man was none other than the Burrowing Dragon Liu Wen, one of the Seven Dragons of the Three Mountains.

To put it nicely, he was called the Burrowing Dragon; to put it bluntly, he was like a loach, which meant he was slippery and hard to pin down. Among the Seven Dragons, he was the only one with some brains, usually acting as the strategizing advisor.

"Government soldiers are here! Come with me to take a look!" said a bald, burly man with a booming voice inside the main hall, his tone carrying a hint of panic. No matter what, when bandits encountered soldiers, they naturally lost three tenths of their momentum right from the start.

This burly man had a bald head shaped like a giant ball and was sitting on a crude, oversized chair in the center, which was cushioned with a tiger skin.

On the wall behind him hung a large vertical scroll depicting a soaring dragon standing atop a high peak, clutching a giant boulder of the summit in its claws while fiercely overlooking the mountain below.

"You lawless bandits and vulgar wretches! You'd better come down the mountain and surrender. Otherwise, if your grandpa storms up the mountain, don't blame your grandpa for slaughtering every living chicken and dog on this Crouching Dragon Mountain!" Outside the stockade gate, Xu Nian shouted in a ruffian-like manner. His current appearance was no better than that of these bandits.

"Hit!" With a flick, Xu Nian loosed an arrow that struck right behind the stockade watchtower, and the soldiers behind him began to hoot and jeer as well.

"How bold!" Li Que watched Xu Nian's arrogant demeanor, his anger flaring up instantly.

"Bring me my wolf-tooth club, assemble the men, and I'll go meet this arrogant wretch!" Li Que roared furiously at a few lackeys behind him.

If it were elite troops, Li Que would naturally know when to prudently back down, but what were these things before him? Although there were about a thousand of them, they didn't even have a single suit of armor. They were probably ragtag miscellaneous soldiers from some obscure corner!

Nowadays, bandits also had to size up their opponents. Border troops, represented by the Four Garrison Generals, guarded the borders year-round, so their combat effectiveness went without saying.

The imperial guards were the Son of Heaven's personal troops, and their personnel and equipment were absolutely top-tier. They just lacked a bit of the killing aura of the battlefield, having experienced fewer major campaigns than the border troops. If these troops came, bandits would flee far away upon seeing them.

However, the general garrison troops in various provinces were quite different. Aside from a small fraction of elite units, the rest—upon seeing powerful bandits—would not necessarily fear them.

Among the garrison troops in various provinces, the phenomenon of falsely reporting troop numbers was quite common. If a full complement of a thousand men actually had six or seven hundred, that was still considered decent. Some bold and greedy superior officers dared to report a mere three hundred men as a thousand just to pocket the rations for a thousand.

Moreover, most garrison troops couldn't even afford equipment; they either lacked armor or still used phased-out gear. Officials with greater boldness in remote areas even dared to sell military equipment to nearby bandits.

Under this general environment, when a thousand ragtag soldiers who looked like nothing more than third-rate troops came to provoke you, could Li Que possibly be afraid of them?

Although Li Que also only had a thousand men, his thousand men were not completely unarmored; at least half of them had armor. Of course, this was merely leather or paper armor. As for iron armor, throughout the entire stronghold, only Li Que himself possessed a suit.

Furthermore, during his many years of occupying the mountain as king, Li Que had even managed to put together a cavalry unit. Although it was only a hundred men strong and the horses were nothing special, it still counted as cavalry!

"Dirty official, taste your grandpa's club!" Emerging from the stockade gate, Li Que wasted no words and swung his club directly downward at his head.

Being able to build a stronghold up to a thousand-strong scale, while far inferior to the fierce bandits of Liangshan, still barely placed him in the middle tier of the Great Cang bandit world. Therefore, Li Que possessed some genuine skill—neither too high nor too low, just barely stepping into the standard of the super-first-rate.

As for the other members of the Seven Dragons, they were quite mediocre: two were upper-tier intermediate, and the rest were merely making up the numbers with second-rate martial prowess, not worth mentioning.

"Hahaha, what a fine bandit! Taste your Grandpa Xu's might!" Xu Nian showed no panic; he spurred his horse forward, raised his long spear, and met the attack.

The act had to be performed convincingly to lure the enemy into a trap, so a fight was absolutely necessary. Retreating directly without a fight would achieve no effect whatsoever.

"Dirty official, you're utterly arrogant! Take this club!" Since Li Que dared to use a wolf-tooth club, he naturally possessed brute strength. Furthermore, coming from a poor background, he had no chance to learn exquisite club techniques and mostly relied on basic moves. In combat, he relied entirely on his raw strength to suppress his enemies.

"Such formidable might!" Taking the opponent's blow head-on, Xu Nian could not help but take a few steps back, marveling inwardly. He had indeed underestimated this bandit chieftain.

Xu Nian was the strongest among the three imperial guard captains this time. The martial prowess of the other two reached the upper-first-rate, with a basic martial arts rating of around eighty-seven or eighty-eight, whereas he had already entered the super-first-rate, ranking even higher than this bandit chieftain with a basic martial arts rating of ninety-one.

However, even though his basic martial arts rating was slightly higher, at their level, this slight difference meant very little. Moreover, taking Li Que's strongest point—his brute strength—head-on, it was naturally impossible for him to gain any advantage!

"Hahaha, dirty official, now you know your grandpa's might, don't you?" Repelling Xu Nian with a single club strike, Li Que could not help laughing arrogantly.

"Hmph, ignorant wretch! Take this spear, you brute!" Xu Nian surged forward, thrusting his long spear straight at Li Que's two large eyeballs.

"Down!" Xu Nian's move startled Li Que into immediately swinging his wolf-tooth club to bat away the incoming spear point. The eyes were extremely vulnerable, and Xu Nian's attack was truly vicious.

"You wretched official! If I, the Soaring Sky King, do not kill you today, I will never vent the hatred in my heart!" Li Que shouted angrily. He then exerted all his strength, bombarding Xu Nian with one club strike after another from all directions.

"Brothers, the enemy general is fierce and violent! Let's temporarily withdraw and come back another day to take these wretches' lives!" Xu Nian roared at his subordinate soldiers.

Just now, the two had exchanged over thirty blows. Xu Nian had been holding back his true strength, not striking with full force, but instead remaining in a state of passive defense.

Seeing that the timing was just right, he immediately decided he didn't want to endure this grievance any longer. Leading his soldiers, he made a beeline back the way they came.

"Wretched official, my Crouching Dragon Mountain is not a place you can come and go as you please! Leave your life behind!" Li Que roared furiously, leading his lackeys in direct pursuit.