Mythical Three Kingdoms

It seems I’ve actually made it to a second update, this must be the legendary rage-induced double release...

Hua Xiong chopped off Chang Xi’s head with one swipe of his sword, before turning to slash and kill all of Chang Xi’s so-called confidants in one fell swoop. When Chen Xi had sent him, she had informed him that among these leaders of Mount Tai, some were local tyrants, some were rangers forced into banditry, but Chang Xi was the only one who bore the title of banditry of Mount Tai, yet in reality, he was the governor of Xuzhou Donghai.

However, Hua Xiong naturally didn’t give the man a chance to reveal his own name. A third-rate character who was approached by an inner qi manifestation-level expert had his head chopped off without even getting to utter his last words.

As Chang Xi’s men were still clueless about what had just happened, Hua Xiong plunged his great sword into the ground and bellowed, ”Listen up, from now on, I am your boss!”

”To avenge our boss Chang...” A burly fellow with a big beard, as if only just realizing the situation, roared and charged at Hua Xiong, only to be sliced in half with a casual swing of Hua Xiong’s sword.

”Anyone else seeking revenge?” Hua Xiong asked with a sinister smile.

”No one? Good, listen to me, from now on, I’m your boss, my name is Hua Hu! Remember, Mount Tai is now our territory, anyone who dares to make noise, I’ll split them with my sword!” Hua Xiong bellowed ferociously, making the men directly in front of him experience a ringing in their ears and a blurring of their vision.

”Elder Hu! We pledge allegiance to Elder Hu!” Following Chen Xi’s plan, the plants who had been inserted in advance began shouting in unison after everyone was stunned, prompting others to follow suit. Soon, the mountainside erupted with echoing roars.

”Good, your boss will take you to rob other bandits. Tell me, where are the other thieves hiding?” Hua Xiong roared loudly.

From the chaotic answers, Hua Xiong got the gist and shouted, ”Move, back to our stronghold, call up the men, I’ll show you what real banditry is!”

After Hua Xiong returned to the stronghold, another massacre ensued. A group of bandits, with no one to command them and recklessly charging, was no match for an inner qi separation-level expert. Subsequently, he promoted his followers on a large scale, placing his plants in high positions, and essentially completed the reformation.

Hua Xiong took out the brocade bag written by Chen Xi from his chest. It contained no brilliant schemes, just orders to continue with whatever was planned. Having taken over a stronghold, it was now time to train the men according to what was written on the brocade bag.

Hua Xiong looked at the white cloth with some confusion. There were no precise training methods, only a goal and a piece of advice.

The goal was straightforward: train the men in your stronghold into fools; instruct them to do something, and their bodies should move before their brains react. The advice was not to treat them as humans, to create difficulties if there were none, and to train them mercilessly.

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Of course, in the end, to show his compassion for humanity, Chen Xi still added a sentence, ”I’m doing this to give the bandits a chance to repent and return to the right path, and to prevent the good people from becoming bandits. If they have become bandits and want to redeem themselves, maybe in other Feudal Lords’ territories, simply surrendering would suffice, but in my domain, they must understand the errors of their ways!”

Hua Xiong hardly understood any of the nonsense, but he knew the goal and the hint: training. Since the military advisor said the training should be harsh, then so be it. After all, they weren’t his soldiers, just some bandits, and if they died, they died.

Clearly, Chen Xi had greatly misjudged; his idea of harsh training was merely a casual remark, but to Hua Xiong, it meant truly harsh training. Since they were bandits, he didn’t see them as human beings. On the first day, over a hundred died…

By the second day, they started resembling an army; on the third day, some couldn’t bear it and were buried after being dragged out; on the fourth day, a mutiny occurred, and three to four hundred died. Hua Xiong rounded everyone up and continued the training. The military advisor had said to train for a month, then take them out to deal with the Bandits of Mount Tai, followed by a three-day rest before resuming training, cycling every six months.

Alright, after twenty days, Hua Xiong suddenly realized these bandits were more adept at formations than his own men. It was clear these guys didn’t understand formations, but as soon as Hua Xiong directed what to do here and there, all the bandits, as if infused with chicken blood, instantly adjusted and coordinated perfectly.

Moreover, he discovered that these guys apparently were no longer like those early days; no more fleeing today or tomorrow, nor causing trouble to rise up and kill Hua Xiong. During training, whatever Hua Xiong said, they did, without the slightest delay.

Since these guys were so obedient, Hua Xiong no longer continued his extremely inhumane training methods, such as carrying a 300-pound rock to climb a cliff, with no meal provided if not done in time. They were now provided enough food every day. For this, all the bandits were extremely grateful to Hua Xiong, making him feel very unnatural, and, unaccustomed to it, he let a few more benefits slip through his fingers to these bandits, like providing extra meals…

Chen Xi didn’t witness this scene. If he had, he surely would have convulsed. This was simply mass-producing Stockholm syndrome sufferers. However, it was a mix of errors that, using the wrong methods, still achieved the intended goal. It’s safe to say this would have met with humanitarian destruction if it happened in the twenty-first century…

Hua Xiong continued training in this manner. By now, he had trained the bandits so well that if there was a pit ahead and Hua Xiong said to fill it with men, someone would immediately jump in. It wasn’t out of respect or anything; they had been trained to react conditionally. Whatever Hua Xiong said didn’t go through their brains; their bodies simply obeyed, and the looming threat of death forcefully turned this group into elite troops.

To call them elite might be an exaggeration, but when it came to strict order and discipline, they were second to none, incomparable to ordinary troops. If Hua Xiong ordered a change in formation, they would do so even if there were knives in front. These men had been trained by Hua Xiong to rather mindlessly obey, and, under some psychological disorder inadvertently created by Hua Xiong, they instinctively supported him…

Chen Xi naturally did not know that due to a misunderstanding, Hua Xiong had rigorously trained the bandits into the most obedient and compliant troops of the era.

But even if he had known, there would have been nothing he could do. Although he was aware of the psychological disorder and knew how to mitigate it, he didn’t have the time or energy, nor was he so idle and bored as to fix such an issue. Who knew that these soldiers who supported Hua Xiong had trained in such a way? And besides, if corrected, wouldn’t that be damaging his own strength? In this era, who cared about such trivial matters? Providing food was already considered noble; at least Hua Xiong had reformed these bandits. From the perspective of both civilians and bandits, Hua Xiong did good deeds, so there was no need for correction.

”Yide, go to Mount Tai and find Zijian for me, have him capture Sunx Guan and bring him back. He dared to raid our grain supplies; I haven’t dealt with those Mountain Bandits and Thieves, and yet they had the audacity to provoke me,” Chen Xi said indignantly. He hadn’t bothered to deal with those mountain bandits, just let the facts compel them to come down and become common people. He didn’t expect Sunx Guan to be so impudent, daring to raid his grain supplies—eighty thousand bushels, no less. If he hadn’t sent troops to escort the shipment, it would have indeed been plundered by Sunx Guan.