When Leng Qingtang entered the main tent, Lang Mucha was talking to the soldiers in non-standard mandarin.

Seeing the Master, the woman immediately knelt on one knee and greeted him with the noblest formality of Tujia.

Leng Qingtang helped her stand up, smiling gently.

"Madam, stand up quickly. Lang Army had a hard journey to Yunnan. Just dispense with the etiquette in the military camp."

People of Tujia were pure and simple. As long as someone treated them kindly, they would recognize him as a good person.

Leng Qingtang’s respect for her touched the woman so much, her eyes shining brightly,

"Master, please forgive me for being late. Before we set off, the marine fleet sent supplies to us and His Highness Min asked us to escort the supplies over when we arrived at Yunnan."

"Unexpectedly, we encountered two groups of Bo Ku soldiers besieging us to intercept the supplies on the way, but in the end, they were repelled severely by our people. It was a joy to think about it."

Leng Qingtang echoed with a smile,

"Bo Ku people always do things stealthily. I was also attacked by them at night on the way to Yunnan. It is impossible for them to defeat our army by conspiracy and trickery!"

He motioned to Madam Lang to take a seat, but she shook her head decisively with a solemn expression,

"I just heard from the generals when I was waiting for you that you encountered unknown smoke when the troops were about to take Xuede City and there was no way to treat the injured?"

Leng Qingtang frowned and nodded slowly,

"It was all my fault. I was too impatient, so the soldiers suffered."

Lang Mucha patted her chest with her hands and smiled,

"Master, you don't have to blame yourself. We Lang Family is a native family of Southern Jiang. We know the poisons well in this place. Let me go to see the injured and then I'll know what kind of poison the smoke is."

It was great naturally.

Leng Qingtang secretly rejoiced that the imperial court had successfully recruited Lang Army. Most of the soldiers from Central Plains were ignorant of the natural conditions and social customs of Southern Jiang. With the help of Lang Mucha at this time, they had the most reliable guide undoubtedly.

Lang Mucha went to the camp for the injured personally to check their symptoms and then inquired about the characteristics of the poison. After thinking for a while, she said,

"It should be Kylin Smoke."

Leng Qingtang pressed his lips, looking confused,

"What's Kylin Smoke?"

"Smoke concocted with five poisons of the mandala, intoxicating acacia, strophanthin, toad-frog, and thin-legs spider."

"When the smoke disperses, five colors will mix, looking like the mane of the legendary beast Kylin, hence it is called ‘Kylin Smoke’. Poisoned patients will have different symptoms because of their physical differences."

Leng Qingtang listened carefully, thinking and saying,

"I have never heard of three poisonous raw materials of the five you mentioned just now. No wonder that the antidotes prepared by the Eastern Depot for self-defense were useless and many soldiers were poisoned."

Lang Mucha sighed sympathetically,

"Only the herbs unique to the hot places of Southern Jiang can detoxify Kylin Smoke."

Back to the main tent, Lang Mucha said a few detoxifying herbs and asked the military doctor to write them down.

Leng Qingtang heard from the side that one of the indispensable herbs turned out to be Wutoucao.

"Wutoucao?"

This name was not strange to Leng Qingtang.

He immediately recalled that when Concubine Yu was pregnant, 38 main wells in the capital were poisoned. The poison used by Wan Li was just Wutoucao!

"Isn't Wutoucao a kind of poisonous herb?"

Leng Qingtang looked at Lang Mucha, frowning in confusion.

Lang Mucha said calmly,

"Everything has its vanquisher. We can combat poison with poison sometimes. Master, it's better to let Lang Army take action right now, as they know the places where herbs grow nearby."

There was strength in numbers.

Getting approved, Lang Army sent thousands of soldiers to take action and all of them acted swiftly. Within half a day, they gained all the herbal medicines to restrain Kylin Smoke, but there was not much Wutoucao.

Madam Lang searched the herbs repeatedly, kicked the bamboo basket with anger, and pointed at the soldiers, scolding,

"Useless! Wutoucao is so important! Why did you find so little of them?"

The soldiers all knelt on the ground, trembled, and replied,

"Madam, there was only so much Wutoucao on Baili Land."

Madam Lang suddenly became even more furious and slapped the back of a soldier,

"As*hole, Wutoucao is hygrophilous and heatproof. Baili Land is not suitable for its growth at all. Why didn't you go to Qingjian Slope and Luanyun Crossing?"

The soldiers were so aggrieved. They looked at each other and then bowed their heads,

"Madam, please forgive us. We went to those two places at the beginning, but we didn't see Wutoucao at all. There were traces of footsteps of people and horses. Some others must have gathered Wutoucao before us. As a last resort, we had to go to Baili Land, and it took a long time for us to find these back."

"..."

Lang Mucha's eyes widened at the moment. She lost her mind and whispered,

"Oh, how could that happen..."

Leng Qingtang turned the jade ring on his thumb slowly and his eyes narrowed resentfully.

"The enemy is cunning. Knowing that we were in urgent need of Wutoucao, they gathered all the Wutoucao nearby deliberately."

Lang Mucha gritted her teeth eagerly and struck the air with her fist.

"Master, let me lead the guys into Xuede City. I guarantee that we will take the city for you in two hours!"

People with a straightforward disposition always spoke bluntly. She didn't expect that her words would offend others.

In the tent, people hissed. The generals of the Northwest Army and Central Army sneered and shook their heads.

All of them had fought north and south and made great contributions to Da Yi and they looked down upon the Lang Tribe with Tujia origins.

Seeing Lang Mucha boasted like this, Xue Feng, the Hussar General of Yanyi Army crossed his strong arms and raised his chest, squinting at the calm woman with slight contempt in his eyes,

"Ha-ha, Madam Lang, you can really bring luck to our country. Xuede City, which we have been unable to gain, seems so easy to capture for you. In this case, we will wait here and look forward to the good news from you, Madam."

Lang Mucha blinked at him in doubt, feeling puzzled.

Leng Qingtang's handsome face turned cold. He waved to the general, and said neutrally,

"Don't talk about it now. The current defeat of our army diminished our morale, so we shouldn't fight again at this time. Why don't we think about where we can find more Wutoucao?"

Lang Mucha's eyes shone. She stepped to the table, her fingertips sweeping back and forth on the map.

"Everyone, please look here. This is called 'Huangquan Ridge' and its downstream connects with 'Ruochuan River'. It is in the west of the Yunnan-Guangzhou border."

"If we set off now at top speed, we can get there at night. Crossing Ruochuan River and walking east of Huangquan Ridge, we'll arrive at a place where Wutoucao is everywhere in this season!"

Hearing this, Leng Qingtang was overjoyed and immediately allowed 2,000 soldiers of Lang Army to set off according to Lang Mucha's words with two hundred guards of the seventh team of the Eastern Depot and a military doctor.

...

In the middle of the night, a full moon rose from the back of the straight mountain range, glowing red. The water vapor around Huangquan Ridge was hazy, making people feel uncomfortable and sticky.

The seventh captain Shi Lei led his team to stop by the bank of Ruochuan River. For convenience, they lighted torches on the bank.

Taking advantage of the burning flames, Shi Lei looked into the distance.

Ruochuan River flowed gently, and there were rocky beaches on both sides of the river where no grass grew.

The source of the river curved back into the col of Huangquan Ridge, and people couldn't see it.

Before the departure, Madam Lang had explained that although the river was named "Ruochuan" (Ruo meant weak in English), the water in it rose rapidly in the rainy season, which couldn't be neglected.

It was July, and Southern Jiang had been rainy. The team must be cautious since they were there at night.

Shi Lei observed the surrounding environment repeatedly and saw that the water of Ruochuan River was obviously lower than the critical line of the rocky beach and the height difference between them was very large. From this, he guessed that the river water was not too deep at this time.

But Shi Lei still asked the general of Lang Army on his side prudently,

"After passing Ruochuan River, we can find Wutoucao in the east of the ridge, right?"

Holding high the torch, the general raised his head and looked around carefully, nodding to affirm,

"Yes."

Shi Lei shook the rein with one hand and shouted,

"Keep pace with me! Follow me to across the river!"

The soldiers rode down the rocky beach. The sound of hoofs' trampling on the gravel was mixed with the sound of torches burning, breaking the silence of the night.

Ruochuan River was wide, but the water was not very deep. When the horses arrived in the middle of the river, only half the horses' legs were submerged in it.

The wind continued to blow from Huangquan Ridge, and the peculiar smell faintly filled in the wind made Shi Lei's slightly relaxed nerves suddenly tighten.

The smell was...

Suddenly a terrifying thought flashed in his mind, and then a loud bang from the ridge rang out, making the earth tremble and the mountains sway.

Then the flood rushed downstream arbitrarily like a ferocious beast, rushing into Ruochuan River with a roar, which slammed Da Yi Army with rocks and broken logs.

"Da*n it. Go back to the shore..."

Shi Lei's shouts were swallowed by the water in an instant.

The people of Da Yi would never have imagined that after Bo Ku had defeated Da Yi's troops with poisonous smoke, they expected that their enemy would find a way to detoxify Kylin smoke sooner or later.

So they took action in advance to destroy the two places north of Bo Ku where Wutoucao grew, and then they sent people to reach Huangquan Ridge first to build a water storage project quietly in the upper reaches of Ruochuan River and bury ground artillery on both banks of the middle and lower reaches.

Then the time was right when the people of Da Yi rushed to Huangquan Ridge as they thought. When Da Yi's soldiers entered Ruochuan River, Bo Ku Army ignited the explosives and destroyed the water storage project on the upper reaches.

Suddenly, the backwater rolled turbulently, dispersing the people of Da Yi.

When it stopped, there were countless floating bodies in the river, most of whom died of choking on river water after they were hit dizzy by heavy rocks.

Survivals struggled to go ashore, feeling dizzy.

The people of Bo Ku lay in ambush among the mountains, waiting for an opportunity and pulling the fuse of the ground artillery.

Cannons exploded one after another, and blood splashed everywhere. At the same time, arrows attacked the people of Da Yi violently without letup like a strong rain in the air.

Soldiers in Lang Army were brave and savage. Seeing their companions suffer from sneak attacks and die or get injured, they raised their weapons in grief, facing the artillery fire and the rain of arrows.

People fell down in rows. There were dense arrows inserted into their bodies, like hedgehogs. It was impossible to identify their looks and body shapes.

Just at this moment, across the riverbank, the eastern sky was glowing red with the light of the fire.

The Bo Ku Army should have burned the east of Huangquan Ridge. They would never let the people of Da Yi take away any Wutoucao.

...

The sky was bright. Leng Qingtang stepped back and forth in the tent with his hands crossed behind, his face looking cold.

Outside the tent, the seventh captain knelt on the ground with his head dropped, in a mess.

Bo Ku Army became more and more arrogant. Knowing that Da Yi had lost the battle at Huangquan Ridge and failed to get Wutoucao, they sent people to the periphery of Da Yi's camp to scold them with vicious words, seeming to intend to force Da Yi to fight a war with them again. It wasn't until noon that they hurried back for unknown reasons.

Leng Qingtang looked so sulky, but he refused to fight.

He was not afraid, but he didn't have the prescription to restrain Kylin Smoke. A rash fight would only cause more sacrifices.

A soldier walked quickly into the tent. After bowing to Leng Qingtang and the other generals, he reported in an excited voice,

"Master, a trade caravan is outside, and the leader asked to meet you."

"A trade caravan?"

Leng Qingtang stopped with cold eyes,

"How can there be a trade caravan during the war? Aren't they afraid of death? Have you ever asked them why they have to see me?"

The soldier nodded,

"They said they brought Wutoucao here which was badly needed by us."

Shi Lei.