Three Kingdoms: A Million Soldiers Grown from the Fields

Chapter 97 Ghosts and Gods! (Blushing with embarrassment at being urged to update, I added an extra 4k words.)

The county government office of Lüsi is separated by only one wall.

The spacious mansion was bustling with people, and the sounds of clinking glasses and exchanging toasts filled the air.

Zhang Xian's cheeks were slightly flushed, not from drinking, but from the cold wind and snow.

Dozens of low tables and chairs were arranged in rows in the main hall, from the head of the main seat all the way to the doorway.

Lamb, venison, and other delicacies were continuously served under Zhang's guidance.

All seven powerful families of Lüsi arrived, with hundreds of servants and attendants crowding inside and outside the mansion.

During the banquet, Zhang Xian frequently raised his glass, and the heads of the seven powerful families all accompanied him with smiles. Every time Zhang Xian raised his glass, they would drink a full glass of wine.

The city gate tower had already made them realize the new county magistrate's toughness. Although they were resentful, they could only endure it for the time being.

However, most powerful figures were not truly afraid of Zhang Xian.

They have been running the business in Lüqi for generations, and the entire Lüqi county can be said to be dominated by seven powerful families. Whether the new county magistrate wants to amass wealth or get things done, he will inevitably have to go through them.

In Luqi City, the yamen runners and clerks were all from various families. In the outskirts of Luqi, the village elders' pavilions were also full of people from various families. The newcomers had to be given some face, otherwise, they could bring the entire Luqi County to a standstill in less than a day.

With the banquet halfway through, the wine and food plentiful, it was time to inquire about the new county magistrate's opinion.

The seven family heads exchanged glances. At the behest of the He and Xu families, Wu Chang, the head of the Wu family, slowly rose and bowed.

"Your Excellency has come from afar, weary from your journey. I, an old man, dare to offer you a toast on behalf of the elders of Luyi."

Zhang Xian smiled slightly but did not raise his cup: "Master Wu, you are too kind. I am new here and hope you will all give me your guidance."

He waved his hand, and the hundred riders who had accompanied him day and night rose to take their leave, as they had almost finished eating.

In an instant, the banquet hall was mostly empty.

Seeing this, Xu Ji, the head of the Xu family, quickly replied, "Your Excellency is too kind. We are merely uncouth country folk, how could we dare to instruct you? However..." He deliberately paused, "Lüqi is located in a remote area, and its people are rough and unruly. Many of its customs differ from those of the Central Plains. I wonder if Your Excellency has any special plans upon assuming office?"

The hall fell silent immediately, and all eyes were on Zhang Xian.

Zhang Xian gently swirled the wine cup, the amber liquid rippling in the glass. He took a light sniff and suddenly sighed, "The aroma of this wine is rather weak."

The family heads were taken aback, all somewhat puzzled.

He Jin, the head of the He family, immediately understood, clapped his hands, and laughed, "Your Excellency is indeed a refined gentleman! This wine is from last year's brew and is indeed lacking in finesse. My old family home has several jars of thirty-year-old aged wine, which I will send to the county office tomorrow."

Zhang Xian tapped the table lightly with his fingertips, a half-smile playing on his lips: "Master He, you are too kind. I am not a connoisseur of wine, so it would be a pity to give you that wine."

"Hahaha, how could that be? Fine wine and beautiful women are the perfect complement to a hero. It is truly an honor for Luqi to welcome a hero like the County Lord. Since the He family has gifted us with fine wine, then the Xu family must also present us with beautiful women to make it a truly wonderful occasion."

Xu Ji clapped his hands and laughed as he replied, but the meaning in his eyes was quite obvious.

That's enough. You can stay in your county magistrate position. We'll give you all the benefits we're entitled to. The benefits aren't that great. Do you really want to make it like Luoyang?
"Indeed, indeed! My family also possesses a fine sword, which should be worthy of a hero!"

“I recently acquired a magnificent Akhal-Teke horse, which has greatly benefited that foreign merchant. So I'm giving it to the county magistrate!”

"."

When the heads of the He and Xu families spoke up, some of the powerful and influential families who hadn't yet realized what was happening understood. They realized that the newly appointed county magistrate was asking for favors, so they quickly expressed their opinions.

"Well, there's no rush. The fine wine and food have only just been served. Please be patient and have a few more drinks with me."

Zhang Xian smiled and raised his glass again.

Seeing this, the heads of the powerful families could not refuse the county magistrate, so they all raised their cups and drank to their hearts' content.

The heads of the He and Xu families exchanged a glance, both sensing from their eyes that Zhang Xian was not someone to be trifled with.

Neither overt nor covert gifts worked. What does this person really want?
Want something tougher?

Let's get tough!

Having understood each other's intentions for years, they raised their glasses, their long sleeves falling to cover their faces, and they turned their heads to signal to the person next to them.

Those who accompanied the host to the banquet were all longtime right-hand men. They understood immediately and quietly left the table while toasting each other.

Zhang Xian, with his sharp eyes, naturally noticed it, but he didn't care much. This banquet was a trap, and it was a matter of who would lose their composure first.

Look, now there are people who can't hold their temper.

He gently curved the corners of his mouth, and after being seated for so long, he finally drank his first glass of wine.

He put down his wine glass, glanced outside, and chuckled softly, "Looks like this snow is finally going to stop."

Wu Chang, seemingly unfazed, chuckled and said, "Yes, this snow has been falling for days; it should stop soon. Otherwise, my old house would collapse under its weight, haha."

He Jin's hand clenched tightly in his sleeve.

Is the old man in the Wu family senile? How can he accept such a statement?!

These words, while ostensibly directed at Xue, were clearly a warning to them!
What, the Wu family has already made a statement?!
Xu Ji's face darkened completely. He stopped speaking and his gaze increasingly turned towards the doorway.

The room fell silent, and a tense atmosphere began to build.

After a long while, seeing that no one had responded,

Wu Chang, the head of the Wu family, chuckled dryly a few times: "Hehe...hehe, well, about this snow."

Before he could finish speaking, he heard hurried footsteps approaching from outside the room.

A soldier from Taoyuan rushed into the banquet hall, knelt down, clasped his hands in greeting, and urgently said, "Lord! Smoke is rising from the beacon towers outside the city; there must be enemy activity!"

Zhang Xian smiled, tapping the wine cup in his hand against the table with a clattering sound.

Xu Ji chuckled and rose to greet him respectfully, saying, "Your Excellency is newly arrived and may not be familiar with the details of Lüqi's situation."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Xian, who was sitting at the head of the table, raised his hand.

"Alright, Patriarch Xu, there's no need to say any more. They're just a bunch of petty thieves from the mountains."

Zhang Xian raised an eyebrow and looked at Xu Ji: Or does Patriarch Xu mean that the Five Peaks Mountain bandits are so fierce that ordinary people cannot deal with them?
"."

Xu Ji sat back down with a cold expression.

it is good!
very good!

Zhang Xian, is it? I'd like to see just what you're capable of!
The Xu family and the He family have been exchanging goods and services. For many years, the He family has been illegally seizing iron from mines, while the Xu family has been using it to forge weapons. The two powerful families have joined forces with the Black Mountain bandits, the northern barbarians, and the Xianbei to sell weapons, salt, and iron. They have countless strongmen under their command. The bandits on Wufeng Mountain are the ones they have been raising, just to deal with ungrateful people like you!

Zhang Xian slowly stood up and swayed his body from side to side to relax his muscles and bones.

"Your Excellency has arrived!"

"The subordinate is here."

Han Ji appeared out of nowhere and bowed respectfully.

"Please take good care of everyone. I'm going to stretch my body."

"Yes." Han Ji's lips curled into a smile.

Mountain bandits of Wufeng Mountain? A bunch of worthless idiots!

Zhang Xian descended from the main seat and walked towards the main hall entrance.

At the doorway, he suddenly placed his hand on the door frame and glanced back at Xu Ji.

"By the way, Patriarch Xu, I must personally have a drink with you when I return."

Shuzi!

Xu Ji was seething with anger, but he still smiled and nodded, "I will wait for the county magistrate."

Zhang Xian turned his head: "Zhao Shi!"

"Be humble!"

"Lead 130 swordsmen to protect the left and right sides; we cannot allow any harm to the heads of the various families!"

"Defend with your life!"

"Huang Zhong!"

"Be humble!"

"Let's don armor and fight to our hearts' content!"

"Haha, I can't wait!"

A short while later, two heavily armored soldiers and three horses rode out of the mansion one after another.

A man held a heavy, dark halberd; his armor was thick and heavy, and his warhorse was also fully armored.

The other man had a belt around his waist and was also fully armored, but his armor was much thinner than the man in front of him.

But compared to the man in front, the longbow on this man's saddle was even more terrifying. The bow was as thick as a child's arm and longer than a person!
The heads of the families at the banquet were stunned, including Xu Ji and He Jin.

What do you mean?
Just the two of them?
Just the two of them?!?
Are they crazy?
Many of those present knew that the beacon fires were most likely the work of the He and Xu families.

Those thieves on Five Peaks Mountain are no ordinary thieves. What was Zhang Xian thinking? Was he deliberately courting death?
All the powerful figures turned to look at the person in the upper seat.

But the county magistrate, Lüqi, greeted them with a smile as if nothing had happened.

He even raised his glass and invited them to drink together.

They're all lunatics! These three are all lunatics!
For a moment, the hearts of the He and Xu family heads pounded wildly!
He tried to leave several times, but was stopped by the guards outside the door, who said that a thief had broken in and might harm his health.

The powerful servants in the mansion initially seemed inclined to force their way in, but unexpectedly, these armored soldiers drew their swords and attacked people without saying a word, which suddenly made everyone tremble with fear.

Alright, now it's not three lunatics anymore, everyone who came is a fucking lunatic!

Outside the county town.

Two riders surged out, and in the distance, the black smoke from the beacon towers stretched like pillars for miles around.

Zhang Xian pulled down the side of the armored man and said.

"Hansheng, you're just lobbing from the outside, get in the line!"

"Rest assured, my lord, I am aware of the dangers!"

Zhang Xian nodded: "Then I'll head over first!"

Having said that, he stopped suppressing the speed of his warhorse, and all the sub-amplifications from his riding skills took effect.

In a short time, they pulled Huang Zhong, who was traveling at full speed, away by more than ten meters, then tens of meters, hundreds of meters, and then hundreds of meters!

"Good horse, hurry up and keep up! We already missed one round last time, this time we must see it with our own eyes!"

Huang Zhong spurred his horse, and after one horse stopped, he switched to another. After the two horses were exchanged, Huang Zhong ended up following Zhang Xian a mile or two behind.

The beacon towers stand guard over the mountains.

The four or five hundred bandits, all wrapped in fur coats, were surprisingly well-organized.

The two leaders frequently looked toward the smoke column on the beacon tower.

"How so?"

one of them asked.

The other person shook his head: "We haven't received a reply yet. We'll wait a while. If we still don't get a reply, we'll try harassing the surrounding villages."

"What's the point of all this? Making me wait to go down the mountain in this freezing weather, sigh..."

"Perhaps the new magistrate has offended the patriarch; otherwise, the patriarch would not have made me wait here so rashly."

"It's so annoying. Why did the magistrate have to come at this time of year?"

"Chief! Something's happened! People are coming!"

On the beacon tower, several bandits looked into the distance and shouted down.

They themselves lit the beacon tower!

The surrounding guards had vanished, leaving only a few spears lying beneath the beacon tower.

"How many people?!"

"One rider!"

"Huh? How much?" the person who had just complained asked in surprise.

"One rider! Just one rider! So fast!" the bandits on the platform shouted quickly.

"Ha, have you lost your mind?! Men! Get ready!" The bandit leader grinned from the crowd below.
"Time to eat meat!!"

"Oh!"

Hundreds of men drew their swords and laughed, completely disregarding this so-called lone rider.

No matter how useful a person is, whether he comes here to negotiate or to back down, he is destined to die here, thus giving the head of the family in the county town an excuse to act.

Although they haven't done this much in recent years, it still happens quite often, and they've long been very familiar with it.

The black horse galloped freely, white mist billowing from both sides of its mouth, like a war chariot starting with a roar.

On horseback, Zhang Xian had already spotted the bandits gathered below the beacon tower, and a bright smile appeared on his lips.

Holding the Overlord Halberd in one hand, he patted the black horse's neck with the other, the armor plates of his gauntlets clashing against the armor plates of the horse's coat, making a rustling sound.

"Good horse, time to charge!"

"Hissing sound—!"

With a long neigh, the warhorse's hooves quickened, and the horse galloped even faster.

One mile, three hundred meters, two hundred meters
It moved with lightning speed, like a black lightning bolt.

Zhang Xian had already brandished his Overlord Halberd.

Among the bandits, the two leaders' expressions changed, and they were about to shout loudly when they saw the black lightning bolt approaching.

"I am Zhang Zixu of Changshan! You all!"

"Suffer death!!!"

The Overlord Halberd sliced ​​through the snow, its cold blade flashing, and several bandits who blocked its path were instantly separated from their bodies.

A jet of blood gushed up ten feet high, then turned into blood flowers that scattered in all directions.

Before the bandits could react, the black-clad riders had already entered the fray. The black horse knocked several men away, and the black halberds flew through the air, blood raining down.

Two bandit leaders below the beacon tower were alarmed and shouted, "Surround and kill! Surround and kill! Don't let him escape!"

The bandits mustered their strength and charged forward, shouting as they surrounded the group.

Zhang Xian was not afraid at all. The force of his Overlord Halberd grew heavier with each strike. Each of his blows took the lives of several people, and their deaths were gruesome, with bodies torn in two or heads separated from their bodies.

While chopping, he also stuffed something into his mouth under the mask, the chewing sounds never stopping, just like a cannibalistic demon from a folk tale.

"Hahaha, that's great! Come on! Again!"

The stench of blood awakens the most primal violent desires within people.

Within moments, dozens of the hundreds of bandits had fallen. Their weapons were all of high quality, but they were helpless against the heavy armor that was so thick that it was almost impossible to find any gaps.

The man was completely unprepared, and no matter how much they slashed and stabbed him, sparks flew one after another, but no blood flowed out.

"Goblin! Goblin!"

The prolonged attacks proved ineffective, and more and more of the bandits fell. Finally, one of the bandits could no longer hold out.

They cried out and yelled, as if they were the victims.

The warhorses were surrounded, but the bandits' morale had also plummeted.

On horseback, Zhang Xian swung his sword in a wide arc, clearing a gap in the space beneath the horse.

With no room for his horse to charge, he simply stopped riding it altogether.

He flipped down, wielding his halberd with both hands, and charged into the crowd, his blade flashing one after another, creating an impenetrable barrier around them.

Snowflakes turned into blood flowers, and ice pellets turned into chunks of flesh.

There are people here.

Like a ghost or a god!

"Run! Run! This isn't human! This isn't human at all!"

"Run! Who dares to run!"

Zhang Xianchao headed in the direction of the sound, leaving behind a trail of blood and flesh!
"Waaaaah, I surrender! I surrender!"

"Stop killing! Stop killing!"

The blood soaked through the armor, turning the original black armor into blood armor.

Zhang Xian charged into the enemy ranks, slaughtering his way through them. No matter how many men were in front of him, none could survive his Overlord Halberd. With another swing, the Overlord Halberd missed its mark.

Looking up, I realized that they had been slaughtered.

He turned around, ready to start another round, but saw a group of bandits kneeling in the snow, kowtowing repeatedly.

With the halberd's end planted deep in the snow, Zhang Xian shouted, "Who is the bandit leader!"

A long neighing of horses followed.

Huang Zhong arrived on horseback from afar.

Seeing the blood-soaked scene and the bandits kneeling in disarray, he beat his chest and stamped his feet, even slapping the head of his horse...

"Too late again! Damn horse!"

Suddenly, a man emerged from the bandits and shot an arrow. The four-stone bow, only half-drawn, still held immense power, and the arrow flew out and pierced the man's back with a thud.

"Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time." Putting down his longbow, Huang Zhong let out a long sigh.

"One more question! Who is the ringleader?"

Zhang Xian roared again.

One of the bandits, trembling, pointed to the man who had been shot: "That is the chieftain."

(End of this chapter)