"Aguda! What is he saying?"

"Haha! I couldn’t understand the latter part of what he said. But the first part was a plea for help... He mistook our fleet for some Ming Dynasty’s Chieftain... Then, he claimed to be the Chieftain of the Ming Dynasty’s Harman Tribe, our ally, and requested reinforcements from us!..."

"...?! How could he mistake us for the Tribal Chief of the Ming Dynasty? Could it be that his vision is better than the Canine Descendants, and he saw this official seal?..."

"Ha! Zu, it’s probably because of our large ships! In this Great River, even those tribes with two to three thousand people couldn’t build such large ships! It’s said that only the Ming Dynasty in the South has such large ships!..."

Maha Agudah grinned widely, gripping the big hammer at his waist. With a hunter’s gaze, he stared at the six Shushu Jurchen Armored Cavalry before the fleet, lowering his voice like a lurking tiger or wolf.

"Zu! Send people ashore! The prey has come to us; how can we let it go? These are six fine warhorses and six sets of Southern Iron Armor! Didn’t you want a guide from the South? Capture this guy; he must know a lot!..."

Hearing this, Zuwaro’s eyes flickered as he assessed the Chief of the Harman Tribe holding up the Copper Seal, along with the five Cavalry that came after him. These cavalry wore a peculiar style of open-front half-body cloth iron armor.

He then looked towards the camp miles away, where the beast-like Shengshu Jurchen Tribe had broken the gate and was flooding inside in droves. The shouts and resistance from within the village were also starting to weaken. Meanwhile, the three attacking tribes have now divided their cavalry, forming a group of over eighty riders, carrying slightly smaller horse bows, cautiously advancing towards the riverbank.

"Aguda... Do you think we have a chance to repel these Shengshu Jurchen Tribes and save this village of hundreds?"

"...! Zu! There are eight to nine hundred tribes opposite, at least six hundred archers, and eighty cavalry! And this Harman Tribe’s village has already been breached!..."

Upon hearing Zuwaro’s question, Maha Agudah looked startled. This brother-in-law can be cautious and timid at times, but when he desires, his courage exceeds anyone’s!

"Mighty Chief Divine! At present, it’s like three hungry wolves in the forest have caught a fat deer by the riverbank. Another wolf by the river sees this and wants to join in for a share... Everyone will compare their strength and give up a portion of the prey for negotiation! There’s room for discussion!..."

"But if we want to monopolize this fat deer and leave them nothing, there’s no room for negotiation! We would need to fight like a fierce tiger, wrestling and biting with the three hungry wolves, leaving both sides bloodied, to drive them all away! Look at those wild wolves’ blood-red eyes; they aren’t easily driven away! They would fight us fiercely over this prey, not resting until death! Even if we kill half of them, it only reduces mouths to feed and increases the meat to eat!..."

"Chief Divine as witness! If we disembark and engage in a life-and-death struggle with these eight to nine hundred Wild Man tribes... The final victory is uncertain, but even just the charge of these eighty cavalry, whether we’re armored or not, would certainly take one life for another!"

"! Are these Wild Man Cavalry’s charges truly so formidable?..."

At this, Zuwaro was genuinely surprised. He looked afar at the massing Wild Man Jurchen Cavalry, each tall and strong, appearing disorderly without any discernible formation.

However, each Wild Man Jurchen Cavalry’s face was fiercely savage and bold, coldly staring towards the riverbank. They wore flat leather caps and used thick braids to shield their necks, with their bodies encased in thick furs and equipped with hard bows and arrows, carrying bone stone hammers for armor-piercing. The horses beneath them were the very tall Jurchen Mountain Horses, which, rider and mount combined, stood over two meters high. How would they appear when charging?

"Twenty, forty... Eighty Wild Man Cavalry?..."

Zuwaro furrowed his brows; he had never witnessed the charge of nearly a hundred cavalry. But seeing deep apprehension on Aguda’s usually fearless face allowed him to infer the intimidation of such a charge, undoubtedly terrifying! 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Hmm... Aguda, then let’s follow your suggestion, deal with these six cavalry first! However, don’t face them head-on, keep these people in check..."

Zuwaro’s expression shifted slightly, a smile creeping to his lips. He handed the Copper Seal to the tallest Hu Nu, then instructed.

"Hu Nu! You respond... like this..."

"Yes, Chieftain... Roar! We are the Manjing Guard Deputy Commander... Mang Achan Ah Hu! We’ll come ashore to rescue you now!..."

"Ah?! It’s actually the Manjing Guard Deputy Commander? Mang Achan Ah Hu? Mang Achan Tribe?..."

Upon hearing the response from the ship, Chief Ali of the Harman Tribe on the riverbank widened his eyes, truly incredulous.

"What? Does the Manjing Guard in the North still exist? Since the Nurgan Metropolitan Authority was disbanded, waves of Wild Men moving southward, haven’t all garrisons downstream of the Great River to the estuary been consecutively lost? Our Harman Guard should be the only tribe remaining in the North, holding on till the end, right? I haven’t seen the Manjing Guard offering tribute southward for over a decade. How did they suddenly emerge again with three large ships?..."

Chief of Harman’s expression showed hesitation, clearly sensing something amiss. He glanced at the armored warriors aboard the ship; the style of those armors looked peculiar. Only a few resembled the Ming Army’s open-front armor, while many were Cloth Armor. Stranger still, the studs on the Cloth Armor appeared yellow; could it be the costly and impractical Copper Armor?