Chapter 204: The Unshakable First Place

“Ding~ Congratulations to player ‘Daydreaming’ for leading troops to capture Yiwu City. Reward: 300 Merit.”

The generals led their troops back into the city after surrounding and wiping out the remaining Xiongnu soldiers, and the Intellect Brain’s reward notification rang in Mo Xiaobai’s ears.

Having entered the Instance for over ten days, he had finally obtained the first Merit reward.

At the same time, Luyu and A-Dai also received Merit notifications. A-Dai was entering an Instance for the first time and was not very clear about how hard Merit was to earn, but Fatty understood very well and immediately started making a fuss: “Oh my, just by following along, you can get 60 Merit without even going on the battlefield. A-Dai, you got a share too, right?”

“I got 60 myself, and Yang Zhi brought me 80, so that’s 140 in total.”

“Tsk tsk~ That’s freaking awesome, freaking awesome. No wonder before the Instance opened, many players said they wanted to do missions with you, bro. You really are a super thigh to hug.”

Fatty had experienced the Battle of Guandu and knew very well what the first Instance was like. As for the Yuan Shao Camp, aside from a minority like him who gained something, the other players didn’t even earn 100 Merit.

As for the Cao Cao Faction, Mo Xiaobai took the lion’s share, while other players drank some soup and did some scattered tasks; the ones who did well only had a bit over 200 Merit.

“Seems there is also a Merit Leaderboard?” A-Dai sorted out his information while opening the Merit ranking.

Very soon, he noticed that Mo Xiaobai’s name hung high in the first position on both leaderboards.

Up to this point, no one could shake it.

“Huaxia Region Instance Merit Value Leaderboard!”

“1: Great Han Dynasty – Daydreaming [5543]”

“2: Great Shang Dynasty – Du Diao Han Jiang [2941]”

“3: Great Tang Dynasty – Qixing Longyuan [2655]”

“4: Great Zhou Dynasty – Guming Diaoyu [2220]”

“5: Great Ming Dynasty – Yang Yang Yang [2122]”

“6: Great Qin Dynasty – Yimu Tianya [2099]”

“7: Great Song Dynasty – Zhan Lijue [1956]”

“8: Great Ming Dynasty – Shangshan Ruoshui [1710]”

“9: Great Zhou Dynasty – Handong Sanyue [1704]”

……

Fatty swept his eyes over the Merit ranking and clicked his tongue: “It’s no different from before the last Instance ended. It’s still these people behind you, bro.”

Mo Xiaobai also checked the ranking and saw that Qixing Longyuan and Yimu Tianya had climbed up quite a few spots, so he nodded with understanding: “There are no major changes, but the Great Tang and Great Qin Instances probably triggered Merit missions earlier, so those two rose quite fast.”

“Forget about them, anyway I, Grandpa Fatty, don’t expect to make it onto the regional ranking. Let’s put out the fire first, and then go to sleep immediately after.”

“Yeah, putting out the fire is urgent.”

Two thousand people, except for the soldiers on normal guard duty, all threw themselves into the fire-fighting ranks. Calling it putting out the fire, it was actually better to say they quickly isolated the houses and tents that hadn’t been affected. As for those that were already burning, Mo Xiaobai didn’t let his subordinate soldiers waste effort extinguishing them.

Rather than extinguishing them and then removing the ruins, it was better to let them burn clean for more peace of mind.

After busying back and forth, putting out fires and handling the battlefield, when the soldiers finished cleaning up, the belly of the fish on the horizon was already glowing slightly.

The others gradually went to sleep, but after sending a squad back to report the victory, Mo Xiaobai started messing around with a barbecue himself.

He had seen scenes even more tragic than this in his previous life, so Mo Xiaobai didn’t feel nauseous at all. At most, because he was used to Cheng Liya’s cooking, his own roasting was truly a bit hard to swallow.

When time slowly moved to noon, Li Ji and others woke up one after another. Mo Xiaobai immediately called all the civil and military officials to his side to discuss the next plan: “Next, we definitely have to go to the Western Regions, but the Troops and Horses have to wait for the subsequent Han Army to arrive before setting off. So I plan to first send a squad to disguise themselves as Han merchants and go ahead.”

“This method is feasible. Firstly, it can let Ban Chao know of our existence, and secondly, it can test which of those small countries are still contacting the Xiongnu,” said Liu Ye, who hadn’t shown his face much on the road, nodding to support sending people to scout the path first.

Guo Jia thought for a moment and also nodded: “It is feasible, but a detailed route needs to be formulated so that we can catch up. Furthermore, who does My Lord plan to send?”

“This trip to the Western Regions might not have many obvious dangers, but there are probably quite a few hidden dangers, so I don’t plan to hand this matter over to those Centurions down below. Gao Lan, Yang Zhi, you two have always been self-disciplined. I have to trouble you two to take a hard trip again.”

During the morning, Mo Xiaobai had nothing to do but ponder, so the plan and candidates were naturally decided long ago. After speaking, he said: “This time I brought porcelain, and also wine from Daming Village. Besides, you can lead some good horses. That is more than enough to disguise as a merchant caravan. You can even completely treat yourselves as traveling merchants, find some Arabia or other merchants heading to the Western Regions, and sell all the porcelain and wine without any problem.”

“I’m good at selling things. How about I go along?” Luyu jumped out with a sentence at this moment, his two small eyeballs spinning around.

Mo Xiaobai knew what Fatty was planning without even thinking, and immediately teased: “As long as you guarantee you won’t use the money earned from selling goods to buy yourself eight or ten Western Region beauties, I will agree to let you go along.”

Luyu laughed awkwardly twice and immediately guaranteed: “I’ll just look, just look.”

“Up to you, just remember not to mess things up. You can go to Shanshan State first, which is the Loulan you, Fatty, have been thinking about. See if you can contact Ban Chao there. Just tell him we are also in the Western Regions. After that, you can detour to Qiuci to inquire about the specific situation there. I’ll give you a few Wild Geese; send a message back immediately if there is news.”

After Mo Xiaobai finished speaking, a smile quickly hooked up at the corner of his mouth. Fatty completely didn’t understand what this smile meant, but Guo Jia, Li Ji, and the others all nodded with smiles.

Regarding Ban Chao’s deeds, Huaxia two thousand years later might not know much, but Guo Jia, Li Ji, and others were very familiar with them.

At this time, the places Ban Chao could slightly control were only Shanshan, Cheshi, and the countries on the Southern Route of the Silk Road. The countries in the north almost all had signs of colluding with the Xiongnu. And among them, the Qiuci was the most restless one. Although it didn’t dare to openly challenge the Great Han, it would always make some small moves.

If the merchant caravan went to Qiuci, they would definitely get a lot of useful news, but danger was also unavoidable.

Fatty still didn’t know that he was a sheep entering a wolf’s mouth, and was still happily fantasizing about the wonderful journey of “grape wine and luminous cups”.

Gao Lan and Yang Zhi looked calm; they knew their mission was nothing more than to act as forward scouts for the entire unit.

At dusk, when the carts and horses loaded with goods were all ready, a sixty-man merchant caravan set out from Yiwu City and quickly left by traveling west along the mountain road.

The merchant caravan left the city, and Mo Xiaobai could only quietly wait for the arrival of the subsequent Han Army.

However, what Mo Xiaobai didn’t know was that almost at the same time he captured Yiwu City, Dou Xian, far away at the Fortress, also issued the most important military order of this Instance.

The Han Army and the Southern Xiongnu forces all set out. The decisive battle with the Northern Xiongnu had begun!