More than a dozen horses quickly rushed near the camp.
Long jumped off the horse, strode up to Xu Chen with excitement, knelt down on one knee, clasped his fists, and said loudly: "Your Majesty, the Witch King, fortunately you have fulfilled your destiny. We defeated the barbarians and brought back all the prisoners!"
However, Xu Chen did not step forward to help him up as before, but nodded calmly and said: "Get up, why have you been gone for so long?"
Long was stunned for a moment, and the excitement on his face quickly disappeared. He stood up awkwardly and said: "Because there are two barbarians..."
Xu Chen turned a blind eye to his embarrassment and said, "I remember I only asked you to conquer the nearby barbarians. Why did you disobey the military order?"
Long was at a loss for a moment and didn't know how to answer.
Lei stood nearby and reminded seriously: "His Majesty the Witch King's order is to conquer the barbarians ten miles away. You have not obeyed His Majesty the Witch King's military order. This is a violation of military discipline and you will be punished!"
Behind the dragon, a group of Imperial Guards who got off their horses with equally excited expressions were all numb. Some people couldn't help but loudly said: "We went to defeat another barbarian. We didn't slack off, and we didn't fail. Moga will be punished!"
"Yeah, we won the battle and we can't be punished!" A group of forbidden soldiers became unconvinced and started to stir.
Long looked back with an ugly face and yelled a few words. After suppressing a group of forbidden troops, he turned back, looked at Xu Chen and said with a fevered face: "Your Majesty the Witch King, I, I was just after defeating the barbarians not far away.
Then I learned that there was another barbarian tribe nearby, and there were a lot of them. I thought that digging salt and building roads would require a lot of manpower, so I took them there!"
"Since this is a military operation outside of orders, why don't you send someone back to report it?" Xu Chen asked in a majestic voice.
"I just think it's not far away. We can defeat them soon. Besides, arranging for people to come back will take a lot of time..." Long explained nervously, his voice getting lower and lower, like a child who had done something wrong.
"It will indeed take some time to report back, but this is no reason. We haven't received any news in the four days since you arrived, because we don't know the specific situation and are afraid that you will be in danger. Vice Commander Lei is already preparing to lead you again.
People are looking for you. As a commander, you should know the importance of military orders and discipline. If the Imperial Guards under your command do not obey military orders and act randomly, and act independently after being sent out, and there is no news for several days, what would you think?
"Xu Chen asked again.
Long was even more embarrassed. He lowered his head and clasped his fists in shame and said, "Your Majesty the Witch King, I was wrong. I should not have acted without obeying the military orders!"
Xu Chen nodded slightly and said: "It's good to know your mistake. The victory or defeat in the battle is not important. The important thing is to obey the orders. If all the tribes' hunter teams do not obey the orders of the royal city, how will they fight in the future? Starting from the royal city
I have said that our main task this time is to conquer the barbarians here and find the salt mines. There is no need to add any extraneous details. What's more, the military discipline of the Forbidden Army is stricter. As the commander, you should abide by military discipline and obey orders, but you took the lead in disobeying my orders.
, his unauthorized actions caused instability in the military morale in the camp, and he should be punished, do you have any objection?"
"I was wrong and I am willing to accept any punishment." Long quickly lowered his head and admitted his mistake like a child who had done something wrong.
Although the group of forbidden soldiers behind them were suppressed by the dragon, they clearly felt aggrieved and started to become a little commotion again, with many people muttering in low voices to retort.
At this time, dozens of barbarian men and women escorted by the Forbidden Army and Hunters were filing down the valley. They were all very excited and noisy at first, but when they saw that the atmosphere in the camp was a little different, their voices soon became quieter.
, and then gathered tens of meters away to watch nervously at a loss.
"The first rule of the discipline of the Forbidden Army is to obey orders absolutely. Anyone who violates disciplines and military orders will be punished. Although your idea is good, it cannot last long. If it happens once, it will happen a second time and a third time. If it continues, it will happen again."
Go on, what's the use of military orders and military discipline? The last time you led troops to conquer the Tage tribe, it was because of the long distance. I also authorized you to be fully responsible for military operations. You can make temporary arrangements for military operations according to the situation. But this time
Different, before departure, I warned you that these Forbidden Forces are coming out to study and experience for the first time, so you must ensure their safety. If there are casualties among the Forbidden Forces due to your command, you will be fully responsible. Now that you are back, then
Please report the action carefully, I want to know the details!"
"yes!"
Long quickly clasped his fists, and then recounted the trip in detail with shame and nervousness.
The content is similar to what Xu Chen speculated.
On the first morning, Long led his people to a nearby tribe and launched a surprise attack. A small tribe of dozens of people had no resistance at all. The imperial army and hunters conquered it without any damage, but seven or eight people were injured.
After that, they all surrendered under the loud persuasion of the barbarians brought here.
Then when interrogating and selecting prisoners, Long asked about the situation nearby. The local barbarians said that there was another tribe nearby a day's journey away. Long was also happy to see the hunter, and didn't think much about it at all, or even thought about it at all.
He wanted to send someone back to inform Xu Chen, so he took a group of strong prisoners and led the troops over the mountains and ridges straight towards the target.
The target tribe has hundreds of people. It can only be considered a very small tribe on the northwest coast of Wulong River. However, in this primeval forest, this tribe is not small, and its strength is almost the same as that of the barbarian tribe near the salt mine.
Precisely because of their equal strength, the two tribes had many conflicts before, and neither could do anything to the other.
However, even if this tribe has some strength, it is not enough to face dozens of heavily armed and carefully trained Pakistani imperial guards and hunters.
Long also launched an attack in the evening. The opponent was unprepared and unprepared. More than ten people were killed or injured and finally conquered.
There is nothing to say about the battle process, it is a simple batch.
But Long and others discovered a good thing locally, which turned out to be tung tree.
Xu Chen has been mobilizing various tribes to search for and harvest tung oil over the years, and everyone is familiar with it. However, there are not many around the Gonghuo Basin, and they are relatively scattered. Only two to three hundred kilograms of tung oil can be harvested every year, and only a few dozen kilograms of tung oil can be squeezed.
.
This little bit of tung oil is a drop in the bucket for the growing demand.
Three coats of paint on a small boat will take several kilograms, while a large boat with thirty people will need more than ten kilograms of paint.
It has been three years since he built the first boat, but Xu Chen did not build a second batch of boats on a large scale because there is too little tung oil and cannot be completely anti-corrosion treated with tung oil. The life of a boat is only
It would take two or three years, and it would also require a lot of manpower and material resources, which he simply could not afford, so the tribes basically still relied on rafts to communicate.
Rafts are so cheap. You can make several rafts in half a day. If they get soaked, you can just throw them away and build them again. This saves time, effort and worry.
But since ancient times, there are no good products. Rafts are cheap, but they can only meet the simple transportation requirements in the dry season of autumn and winter, and are not of great use. For the increasingly frequent exchanges between Pakistan and the two sides of the Wulong River, which are developing rapidly, rafts are definitely the best choice.
It cannot keep up with the times and needs to be updated as soon as possible into a strong, spacious wooden ship with a larger load capacity.
There were patches of tung trees growing near the target barbarians. Long and a group of forbidden troops couldn't describe how many there were there. They could only say that they were everywhere on the hillsides around the big lake.
This sudden good news suddenly made Xu Chen feel happy.
He was disobedient, but this harvest was exciting. It was far more practical than conquering a barbarian tribe and adding a group of workers to build roads and mines.
However, although there are many tung trees in the local area, it is also the harvesting season, but Long also knows that it takes a lot of time to go out to conquer another tribe, so he does not dare to delay for too long, and lets him go from the hillside near the barbarians.
After picking some, they hurried back to the camp, preparing to give Xu Chen the good news of double happiness, and maybe even get a reward.
But he didn't expect that as soon as he arrived at the camp and before he had time to report the good news, he was greeted with a slap in the face and a show of force.
After following Xu Chen for seven or eight years, Xu Chen saved his life in the first place. Coupled with Xu Chen's special identity and status, in Long's heart, Xu Chen is almost like a god, full of respect and awe. Therefore, for Long
Xu Chen's severe questioning and reprimand did not show the slightest complaint or resistance, expressing his willingness to accept the punishment.
However, when Xu Chen saw a group of dark-skinned, short, unkempt and unkempt barbarians wearing furs, driven by the Forbidden Army and the hunter team, using some animal skins to dump all the tung trees they brought in the center of the camp, he felt very unhappy.
It will soon disappear without a trace.
To punish Long for disobeying military orders, he just wanted to give him a small beating.
For this kind of primitive wild man who has just got rid of the raw material and the blood, Long He Lei and others have actually done a good enough job.
On weekdays, whether in the tribe or near the royal city, whenever you have free time, you can see men gathering together to wrestle and fight, which is both entertainment and competition.
Primitive wild men are born to fight.
Since they were born, they have shouldered the great mission of protecting the tribe and hunting for food.
In fact, the life of every primitive man is truly a life of fighting.
Starting from knowing how to pick up a stick, you learn fighting skills.
Fighting with wild beasts in the wild, fighting with companions in the tribe for mating rights, fighting with neighboring tribes for territorial expansion, and fighting with women at night.
The blood of fighting flows in their veins. They live for fighting and die for fighting. With spears in their left hands and sticks in their right hands, they fight for the survival of the tribe in this life.
Although in recent years, with the development of agriculture and textiles, all tribes are gradually getting rid of the primitive living conditions of hunger and cold, the wildness has not weakened much with this change.
Because once a habit is formed, it will last a lifetime.
Fighting is a barbaric habit that is deeply rooted in the genes of all primitive men. It will not fade much with the passage of time. The final reason for the change is not the living environment, but the aging and inability to do it.
Therefore, Xu Chen did not want to strictly manage these hunters.
It is impossible to prevent them from fighting, and it is even more impossible to expect them to be completely obedient.
In addition to using military discipline to slowly eliminate the wild nature in them, the training is more managed by the title of Xu Chen Witch King and the prestige formed by the divine halo.
But prestige is not a long-term solution after all. Military order and discipline are ultimately the long-term means to transform these primitive people.
Long just bumped into Xu Chen's gun this time. He took this opportunity to give a small warning to create a kind of pressure in the hearts of these young Imperial Guards, so that they can be more disciplined, obey military orders, and develop a more strict attitude.