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nChapter 289 – News and Merchant

nZhao Hai didn’t pay attention to West Wonder King’s tent, but if he did, he would certainly be shocked by the ability of these Beastmen Prophets.

nThese prophets have unexpectedly prophecized that ‘north’ is salvation. And Zhao Hai understood what this meant, it meant that West Wonder King should support Wales in taking back Herculean Bull’s main camp. In this way, West Wonder King wouldn’t be dealt with en-route, thus he would be absolutely safe.

nIt was a pity, however, that West Wonder King’s thoughts didn’t coincide with Zhao Hai’s. His brain was now full with the idea of siding with the Fighting Bull chieftain, so how could he possibly thought of giving aid to the Herculean Bull clan.

nWhat Zhao Hai is observing right now were the actions of the Fighting Bull Cavalry. The cavalry, holding torches in their hands, were performing a carpet search all around West Wonder King’s camp. Of course, it was for sure that they wouldn’t find anything.

nThe entire night had been restless, only when dawn came did the various troops return to the camp. Naturally they didn’t have any leads, this made the entire camp develop a very tense atmosphere.

nNaturally, Zhao Hai’s group, who were behaving inside their camp the whole time were forgotten by the beastmen. This did not mean that they were looked down upon by the beastmen, but seeing that Zhao Hai seemed to not be a powerful person, he would naturally be ignored.

nBelluk sent someone to check on Zhao Hai, but they only checked for a moment, because at the time of the accident, Zhao Hai’s group were eating in their camp. A lot of beastmen have seen them, therefore it would be impossible for them to be the culprits.

nIn the next two days, the mood inside the camp isn’t only of anxiety, but also of sadness. They have lost more than 5,000 young and capable men. These Fighting Bulls have their own families and some of them were even living near Zhao Hai’s camp, seeing that their family members were missing, this made their family members sad.

nFor Zhao Hai, he didn’t regret his actions. For their own sake, he must only do so. There was a saying: Just do, never regret. In Zhao Hai’s mind, there is no good or evil in war, only victory and defeat.

nWith Zhao Hai being low-key, West Wonder King didn’t have time to take notice of him. He wanted to side with the Fighting Bulls, but it’s clearly not the time for that yet. After preparing for winter, he plans to announce his decision to side with the Fighting Bull chieftain. After all, the Herculean Bulls have just been defeated, if he immediately went forward to rely on the Fighting Bull clan, then it wouldn’t be good for him image.

nJust at this time, the sad atmosphere had been diluted a little because of a certain matter. And that certain matter is the arrival of Zhao Hai’s grain convoy.

nZhao Hai’s grain convoy came at a very timely moment since the camp’s atmosphere is very bad. With the convoy’s arrival, the sad atmosphere surrounding the camp have been cleared, the people’s live seem to become a bit calmer.

nUnfortunately, because of the recent incident, there was no way for the Fighting Bulls to collect plants and magic beasts. Zhao Hai can only trade with Argali, this time Zhao Hai did not want wool products, he wanted to exchange the whole shipment with 1,500 heads of Argali.

nAt the same time, in front of the beastmen, Zhao Hai handed a stack of papers to the undead1. The beastmen couldn’t help but to be excited because they knew what those stacks of paper were, those were the requests of things that they made Zhao Hai purchase.

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nAfter the grain convoy left, Zhao Hai had managed to restore the beastman camp to calmness. People were foraging grass, you could also hear occasional laughter in the surroundings.

nThis made Zhao Hai very surprised. He looked at the beastman camp and then turned to Laura, “Laura why are they laughing? They just lost 5,000 people recently. Don’t they feel sad?”

nLaura looked at these beastmen, she sighed and said, “Perhaps they got used to it. I heard that in the beastman prairie, wars are very common. They do it to compete for slaves, compete for territory, compete for women, they will have wars. You can say that there are wars everyday in the beastmen prairie. You can see that idea from the defeat of the Herculean Bulls, it had caused quite the sensation among the cow-headed race. But can you see whether or not the other beastman races were affected? No, because for the beastmen, that kind of situation happens very often.”

nZhao Hai sighed and then stayed silent, he turned to go back inside the tent also followed by Meg2. In the tent Zhao Hai turned to Laura and said, “I think that Brother Wales will soon find his fellow clansmen, we need to prepare grain for their consumption. Right, how many requests from this camp can we meet?”

nZhao Hai promised the beastmen of this camp to help them buy some things. There were some requests which were similar, so Zhao Hai made Laura help with the statistics of the orders and then look if they have enough from what they brought from Casa City.”

nLaura had known how to do all of these calculations mentally since she used to do this before, so naturally it would come familiar and easy. Therefore she smiled and replied, “It would be enough, but I do not think that we should give the items to them in one go. This may cause suspicions, from what I see, how about we give them a tenth of the total quantity? This would not only help ship items easily, it would also consume less space in the grain convoy.” Zhao Hai nodded to show his consent.

nZhao Hai didn’t idle about, he immediately sent a letter to Wales that the princesses were rescued and that his people were now saved so Wales would not worry. He also added the matter about West Wonder King preparing a trap, to make Wales completely lose trust in West Wonder King.

nAfter completing all of these, Zhao Hai patiently waited for Wales’ reply. He must determine Wales’ condition and determine if Wales needed aid for anything.

nWales’ reply quickly arrived, along with the letter, there were also six space bags brought. This time, besides grain, there were several things that Wales urgently needed, at the same time Wales also told Zhao Hai about the situation with the Mastiff tribe.

nThis time, the Herculean Bulls have suffered such a huge defeat. To understand, the Herculean Bulls used to have a number of more than one million clansmen and their troops have reached three hundred thousand. Now the Herculean Bulls have fled, their numbers have been reduced to half a million clansmen, but they still have troops of over two hundred thousand.

nThis is because during the Fighting Bull’s attack on the Herculean Bulls, the Herculean Bulls didn’t have a central command to coordinate them therefore they were quickly defeated. And in the process of being routed, those younger can run faster while the old and weak could not catch up.

nNow these half million people came for refuge inside the Mastiff tribe, fortunately, there would be Herculean Bulls joining the group from time to time. Now, even though the Herculean Bulls have suffered such a defeat, they still have kept their fighting strength, they still have the ability to fight it out.

nAfter Wales returned to the Herculean Bulls, he immediately took over the position of chieftain without question. He also took out Gasol’s weapon and told the tribe that he had already executed Gasol on charges of treason against the tribe.

nBut most important thing is that he brought grain with him. These life-saving grains stabilized the will of the people. One could say that these grains were crucial to him being able to take the position of chieftain.

nAt the same time, Wales also told Zhao Hai about the news that Zhao Hai’s magic peach juice and life water fully healed their tribe’s Supreme elder. Not only did it heal his wound, it also pushed him towards a breakthrough and also having to the brink of another breakthrough towards the next level. If he were able to breakthrough successfully, his strength would undoubtedly soar.

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nNaturally, this breakthrough didn’t mean that he would level up from 9th to 10th rank, that would be impossible. The 9th rank is divided into nine layers, the elder used to be 9th rank 3rd layer. And after this, he may possibly become 9th rank 5th layer, about two consecutive breakthroughs, which in the 9th rank is considered to be a miracle.

nZhao Hai didn’t think that the magic peach juice as well as the life water would have this effect, this made him very surprised. But with this breakthrough, Wales can now arrange a plan for his counter attack.

nZhao Hai quickly prepared all of Wales’ needs and delivered those to him. This time he used 5 space bags to store grain while the remaining bag was used to store some living materials.

nBusy day, Zhao Hai’s convoy have just arrived for the third time in West Wonder King’s camp. This time, in addition to food, they also brought a lot of the items requested by the Fighting Bulls. Because of this, Zhao Hai’s standing inside West Wonder King’s camp improved by a lot, he had become one of the most popular here.

nDue of this popularity, Zhao Hai had managed to get some news about the Fighting Bull clan. He is specifically concerned about news regarding West Wonder King and the Fighting Bull chieftain. West Wonder King already exhibited his motive to hire himself to the Fighting Bull chieftain, but he didn’t explicitly say so, he has not sent someone to contact the Fighting Bull clan, hence in the camp, some sensed fear, they don’t know what their future holds.

nIt was this sense of fear that the people at West Wonder King’s camp made sure to pay special attention to the Fighting Bull chieftain. They were afraid of being attacked by the Fighting Bull chieftain.

nBut they also know that it would also be unlikely, because at this time, they need to forage for grass in order to prepare for winter. The Fighting Bull chieftain also needs to forage, moreover, he needs to forage for many more people.

nIn addition, winter is not generally a time where beastmen dispatch troops. Amongst the beastmen, aside a few races, few would choose to dispatch troops in the winter. However the sense of fear still exists, therefore inside the camp, plenty of rumors are in circulation regarding the Fighting Bull chieftain, both genuine and fake, it was very hard to tell them apart.

nHowever, Zhao hai had reached two conclusions from looking at these genuine and fake rumors. First, the Fighting Bulls reduced all remaining Herculean Bulls into slaves, a total number reaching an astonishing three hundred thousand. Second, the human who cooperated with the Fighting Bulls was already not in the Fighting bull clan. Regarding this human’s whereabouts there were two opinions. First, the human was really expelled by the Fighting bulls, and the second is that the human was killed by the Fighting Bull chieftain, Zhao Hai is partial towards the first opinion.

nNo matter which opinion it is, it became very clear that currently, the Fighting Bull clan did not have any helpers. If there were gonna be helpers inside the Fighting Bull clan, the success rate of Wales’ counter-attack would drop.

nZhao Hai immediately told Wales about the information he had obtained, he hoped that Wales would attack as soon as possible. Due to it being winter, if they were to attack during this season, their time would be tight because war preparation isn’t simple.

nAlthough rumors were flying everywhere in West Wonder King’s camp, overall, the general mood is positive. Especially because Zhao Hai had sent them grain, it made the camp’s winter food sufficient, although they lost 5,000 people, people still wore smiles on their faces.

nNow Zhao Hai had stayed inside West Wonder King’s camp for about 20 days, in ten days he would have to leave. At this moment another convoy arrived at West Wonder King’s camp.

nThis convoy already had established a cooperation with West Wonder King, this time they did not deliver grain to West Wonder King but instead they delivered living materials.

nDifferent from Zhao Hai’s amateurish mercantilism, these merchants who delivered commodity goods were genuine traders. Even though true merchants wouldn’t be eager to trade during the winter, they still would like to trade grain. But delivering grain during this time isn’t wise, they would be raided too easily, and going back would be similarly unsafe, moreover, big tribes would prepare grain in the two months following winter therefore transporting grain to the prairie this time is a pretty huge risk, and beastmen would surely find reasons to undercut the price.

nSo during these times, prairie merchants would bring with them living materials. These were items essential to living in the prairie, therefore these products’ prices would never be undercut. For the small tribes, however, these things were not as attractive as grain,

nThe people of the caravan didn’t think that inside West Wonder King’s camp there would be another merchant group, but this group unexpectedly focused on trading grain.

nThe head merchant of the convoy had tried contacting Zhao Hai twice, but Zhao Hai seems to not like coming in contact with them. He did not criticize Zhao Hai, however, because through his connections in West Wonder King’s camp, he understood who Zhao Hai was.

nThe merchant was startled when he heard of the facts, he did not think that Zhao Hai had managed to supply more than ten million jin of grain to West Wonder King. This number, for a merchant, is not a small number, this fact made him more careful of Zhao Hai.

nZhao Hai was also very concerned about this merchant. The merchant said that he is an Aksu Empire citizen, named Bell, but he is not a Purcell Duchy citizen. He said he arrived to beastmen prairie through Ikisa Family territory.

nRegarding the Ikisa Family, Laura had some knowledge about them. This is a family in the west of Purcell Duchy, its neighbor. Moreover, their territory also neighbored the beastman prairie, which became another passage for humans to smuggle goods towards the prairie.

nAnd this Bell, is the Iksa family’s most famed grain and commodity merchant. But Laura didn’t know that this Bell was in cooperation with West Wonder King.

n1 I am in the assumption here that the undead were in their “not undead look” form.

n2 Meg the eternal background character. One mention per two chapters.

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