Chapter 50: The Fat Man's Army, Every Single Move Aimed Right There!

The blacksmith workshop of the Beiping Garrison had recently become the liveliest place in the entire encampment.

The furnace fires burned a blazing red, casting a glossy, oily sheen over the blacksmiths' bronze-hued skin. The bellows huffed and puffed, sending sparks flying in all directions, while the air was thick with the scorching, sultry scent of mixed coal dust and iron rust.

Fan Tong put one hand on his hip, while holding a newly forged javelin in the other, weighing it in his hand. The shaft was made of hard wood, and the tip was made of quenched refined steel featuring a triangular armor-piercing design. A small tuft of red feathers was bound to the tail to stabilize its flight trajectory.

"Not bad, this is the exact feel," Fan Tong grinned with satisfaction. "Throw this thing out, and every hit makes a bloody crater."

Nearby, another group of blacksmiths was rushing to manufacture a batch of compact flying axes. The blade edges were polished to a mirror-like shine that could reflect a person's silhouette, and the overall design was exceptionally refined, making it easy to throw.

Fan Tong had reorganized the Vanguard Battalion.

Those burly, thick-waisted fellows with poor accuracy were all assigned to the Javelin Battalion. They did not need to aim; they only needed to hurl hundreds of javelins out like a rainstorm toward the enemy formation before charging!

Meanwhile, those who were agile in movement but slightly lacking in physical strength were assigned to the Flying Axe Battalion. In close-quarters melee, they would use these lethal pieces of iron to greet the enemies' faces and necks.

As for the rest, they remained the absolute core of the Vanguard Battalion: the heavy armored infantry. The entire unit was re-equipped with uniform black heavy armor, each man holding a half-body tower shield, while their weapons remained those simple and brutal spiked clubs and heavy battleaxes.

Fangs, sharp claws, and an indestructible shell.

What Fan Tong wanted to forge was a true monster of war.

On this day, the sky was high and the clouds were sparse, yet the drill grounds of the Vanguard Battalion were permeated with a stern and murderous aura.

Xu Da, Lan Yu, Fu Youde, and a gathering of top-tier generals from the Beiping Garrison had all arrived. Having heard that Fan Tong's "cook battalion" had concocted some new tricks, they had come specifically to inspect them.

When they laid eyes on the formation of the Vanguard Battalion, even these veteran generals who had crawled through mountains of corpses and seas of blood could not help but twitch their eyelids in unison.

Over a thousand soldiers, clad in pitch-black heavy armor, stood silently in the center of the drill ground like a dark forest of steel. The formation was as neat as if it had been cut with a knife, straight horizontally and vertically, without a single shred of deviation.

Fan Tong puffed out his signature large belly, stood at the very front of the formation, and roared out a military salute at the top of his lungs. His resonant voice made the entire drill ground hum.

"Atte—ntion!"

"Swish!"

Over a thousand men moved in uniform synchronization, the sound of their heels slamming together resembling a thunderclap.

"All officers and soldiers of the Vanguard Battalion, request Marshal Xu to conduct the inspection!"

Xu Da's face was as calm as water, revealing neither joy nor anger, as he only gave a slight nod. "Begin."

"Yes!"

"Right—dress!"

"Eyes—front!"

"Forward—march!"

"Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!"

The heavy and orderly sound of footsteps felt as though every single step was treading directly upon everyone's heartstrings. That overwhelming, mountain-toppling momentum left people breathless.

Lan Yu's eyes, which always carried a trace of defiant arrogance, were now wide as saucers. He couldn't help but nudge Fu Youde beside him with his elbow, lowering his voice. "What the hell kind of soul-stealing soup did this fat man feed these pup soldiers? This spirit and vigor is even more terrifying than the Imperial Guard in the capital camp!"

Fu Youde did not speak, but the solemn look in his eyes said it all.

With the formation march concluded, the next item on the agenda was combat skill drills.

First was the shield formation.

"Raise shields!"

"Bang!"

Hundreds of tower shields were raised simultaneously, forming an impenetrable wall of steel in front of them.

"Release arrows!"

At the command, the soldiers of the archer battalion loosed a dense volley of arrows toward the shield formation.

A flurry of "clanging" noises echoed as the arrows struck the tower shields, achieving nothing other than splashing a series of sparks. A few arrows even rebounded off the curved surface of the shields, flying back crookedly.

Lan Yu clicked his tongue in wonder at the sight. "Good grief, isn't this just an iron turtle shell? Who could possibly crack this open?"

Even the corners of Xu Da's mouth twitched upward for a rare moment.

However, when the subsequent combat drill began, the expressions on all the generals' faces turned bizarre.

Two Vanguard Battalion soldiers wearing protective gear engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

There were no fancy moves, no probing back and forth.

One of the soldiers lowered his stance and charged forward, completely ignoring the wooden club swung by his opponent. He took the blow squarely on his shoulder, while simultaneously thrusting his short club with an extremely tricky angle straight toward his opponent's... crotch.

"Aaargh—!"

The struck soldier let out a shrill, miserable scream, clutched his lower body, and collapsed, curling up on the ground like a boiled shrimp.

The entire drill ground instantly fell into a dead silence.

The gazes of all the generals subconsciously shifted toward Fan Tong, looking at him as if he were a monster.

Lan Yu's face turned flushed red; he wanted to laugh but dared not, until he finally couldn't hold it in and let out a snort of laughter, immediately covering it up with a fit of coughing. Coughing all the while, he cursed under his breath, "Damn it! What... what kind of damned fighting style is this? It's downright vicious!"

Fu Youde's mouth twitched frantically as well. Having spent half a lifetime on horseback, he had seen men who didn't care about their lives and men utterly devoid of fear of death, but this was genuinely his first time seeing tactics that aimed exclusively for the below-the-belt regions.

This wasn't fighting a war anymore; this was digging up someone's ancestral graves!

Xu Da's face was as dark as the bottom of a wok. As he watched the Vanguard Battalion soldiers on the field continue their drill—employing low blows, plucking peaches, and all sorts of other insidious and vicious moves one after another—they beat their opponents to the point of crying for their parents.

The stunning imagery of the iron torrent from moments before was instantly shattered to pieces.

Once the inspection ended, Xu Da called Fan Tong aside alone. Staring at him for a long time, he finally squeezed a sentence through his teeth. "You taught them this?"

Fan Tong puffed out his chest with an expression of utter righteousness. "Reporting to Marshal Xu! On the battlefield, between life and death, there is no talk of chivalry! Any trick that kills the enemy the fastest is a good trick!"

Xu Da was choked speechless for a long time by this crooked logic of his. In the end, he let out a long sigh, patted Fan Tong on the shoulder, and gave him a complex look.

"You... are truly something."

With that, he turned and walked away, his retreating figure carrying a trace of an unspeakable desolation.

Time flew by, and the fifth year of Hongwu arrived.

The peace on the grassland was merely the tranquility before the storm. The atmosphere of a major war grew increasingly intense within the Beiping Garrison.

That night, Wu Mang sneaked into Fan Tong's tent like a thief.

"Chief Fan! Chief Fan!" he lowered his voice, his face carrying a mysterious excitement. "I've dug up top-secret intelligence! Marshal Xu is preparing to assemble a massive army for a northern expedition! I heard there will be a full one hundred and fifty thousand troops advancing along three separate routes!"

Fan Tong was chewing on a steamed bun alongside a small dish of pickles. Hearing this, he didn't even lift his eyelids, speaking lazily, "Is that so? Then your pay for this month will be counted as an intelligence fee; you won't be collecting it."

"Don't be like that, Chief Fan!" Wu Mang immediately pulled a mournful face. "I risked my neck to get this intelligence for you!"

Too lazy to bother with him, Fan Tong was already calculating in his mind.

He summoned Zhu Di and Bao Nianfeng and instructed them, "Get the brothers moving. Make more jerky, sharpen up the javelins and flying axes, and inspect the armor once more. Looks like we're going out to pillage again."

Bao Nianfeng excitedly licked his lips; his large battleaxe hadn't tasted blood in a long time.

Zhu Di appeared much calmer, merely nodding silently, though a trace of an unnoticeable flame flickered in his eyes.

The real test was about to arrive.

Just as Fan Tong was making intensive preparations, a messenger lifted the tent flap, strode inside, and fell to one single knee.

"Battalion Commander Fan, Marshal Xu has issued an order commanding you to proceed immediately to the marshal's tent to attend the military conference!"

Fan Tong stuffed the last bite of the steamed bun into his mouth, stood up, and patted the crumbs off his hands.

He knew that peaceful days had come to an end.

A storm sweeping across the entire Mobei was about to unfold.