Chapter 725: The Hunter Son Speculate About the Khan

Then why does the Western Great Steppe, did not attack the Central Great Steppe?

It is because the Western Great Steppe has been attacked by the Western Zhou soldiers and they are very united when it is about that neighbour of them on the west

They know how to prioritize the matter. the last time they let an invading army from the west enter the Steppe, how many tribes were killed and how many innocent people lost their fathers and mothers and sons and daughters?

It even reached the Central Great Steppe

Those soldiers of the Western Zhou, they captured the men to make them slaves of the people of Western Zhou and take the daughter to become some dancing girls. The boys are also tortured so that they could brag about how superior they are compared to the "barbarian" tribes to their east.

The Central Great Steppe also did not lay their hands on the Western Great Steppe because they also knows what would happen if that shield of the west were to break down.

At least in this matter, the people of the Great Steppe is very united on. This is the difference between the tribes of this world Great Steppe and Aeryon world Great Steppe

They are quiet united against those empires around them

And as for the recent years, every tribe on the western Steppe could see that Western Zhou is about to fall into chaos.

Some of them are waiting for them to erupt in chaos and ride toward the west and plunder the cities and raided their towns.

Raiding among their tribes are not as profitable as raiding those sheep.

All of this goes to show that the Central Great Steppe probably did not know yet that there is a unifier that is about to arise in the Southern Great Steppe.

At most they probably thought Aeryon as just another overlord.

And that is also probably the one thing that the Khan wanted the other parts of the Steppe to know.

By the time the Khan unifies the Southern Great Steppe, all the others would fall like dominoes

Of course, all of this is just Kultai conjecture and he did not know whether the Khan really is thinking like this

If the Khan ambition truly lies more than just conquering the Southern Great steppe, then he would inevitably rides toward the central great steppe.

But that could only be done once the Khan manage to unify the Southern Great Steppe

Kultai shook his head

"If I am right, I am not late in joining" What Kultai fears the most is that all the battles are fought and there is no longer any battle to fight

The mindset of those people or in a warrior culture could not be understood by those people who are not born under it.

No, it is not simply because Kultai was born in a warrior culture that he has this kind of mindset

It is because he himself has great ambition

He wanted fame and fortune, he wanted his name to be sung a hundred years from now, and his story be told on the fire pits when winter came and the whole tribe huddles together

If the Khan stopped fighting it means there is no battle to fight.

And if there is no battle to be fought, how could his ambition be fulfilled?

Kultai believe that the Khan would not stop so he did not believe that he is joining the military late.

The military of the Khan is just starting. He did not think he is wrong.

If the final battle of the Khan is simply to defeat the east, defeat the Esbizuk, then the Khan did not need to do all of this reforms and all of this measure and changes he is doing in the molarity right now

Why bother continuing strengthening your army and reforming your army if not for some other enemies?

Why bother learning about siege methods and the way to attack city walls?

Even if the Khan did not attack the central great steppe, then the Khan would surely attack Yan or Western Zhou.

Siege weapons are useless in the steppe.

Because most settlements of the Steppe could be moved.

And there is no walls.

Those that have walls are mostly wooden walls and this could only be found in some large tribe.

There is also those who located their tribes around defensive structure like some ravines near a stone formation or near valleys or on top of a hill with twisting networks of routes inside the valley

As for the palace of the Khan, the walls and the palace itself is a symbol of power.

If the Khan wanted to escape from the palace, it would be easy as there is many ways.

The Steppe is vast and a Khan running away from their settlement is not something that would demoralize the army of the Steppe.

It is different if the ruler run in battle or retreated hastily. But running from a place or a tent is nothing. It is the method most used by the rulers in the Steppe

Because they could always come back

Kultai shakes his head

"I am thinking ahead of myself. This should not be my concern. This is the concern of the Grand Chancellor and the Khan. Right now I only need to focus to kill enemies" he thought to himself.

Kultai look around the barracks.

The barracks that he is in has a stone packed earth perimeter. There is also some that is with packed earth

There is wooden gates.

And there is several large yurts.

There is even some wooden building, stables, weapons sheds, and horse yards

The training ground is full of people fighting against each other.

There is even a supervisors to make sure that the fight would not escalate to killing.

The training ground also have archer range for both archers and cavalry archers.

Cavalry archers had to train in riding a horse through the routes and shoot the arrows on strawman or objects that is placed as targets as their horses’ gallops and sauntered.

Every three moons there would be a competition between the different generals’ armies competing for the best cavalry archer and archer of the army and the winner would be rewarded

And then there is the grain and fodder storage.

As for the stone from the Yan Wall, most of them is concentrated on the important structure

Of course, if the barrack sat at a safe zone, a place that is not considered too far from other allied forces, most of them would not use stone and uses the soil

As for the accommodation for the soldiers, most of them sleep in large communal yurts.

Some of these military ger could accommodate to fifteen to thirty men.

Sometime even more depending on its size and purpose

Kultai walk around and he also saw some structure.

There are some structures which made it easy to move.

And then there is also some permanent building that are mainly for things that benefit from protection from weather fire.

Military records, weapons, armours , arrows, food and these kind of military supplies.

Some of them are put in these building while some of them are easily moved for easy deployment.

This is near the capital city and just outside of it and it is not that large.

The purpose and the way this camp is decided differs based on the generals that leads them

Different places means different kind of placement and different kind of priorities.

The Khan is said to teach his generals to act according to circumstances and while cautious and stable approach is the orthodox approach, he also said that those who could not adapt to circumstances would lose.

From the veterans boasting, those who follows Belarion set their camps and their military barrack differently

Their items are easily moved because Belarion is always on the move.

His method is breaking fast.

And Belarion Noyan is known for breaking through the enemy formation and taking the heads of the leader, disrupting the formation and breaking the morale of the enemy

If the enemy bunched up and use defensive measure, Belarion Noyan would be the one charging in the front and cutting heads.

Those who fought under Burchu Noyan and Mukhulai Noyan have different ways of setting up their barracks.

Something are quite the same but depending on the generals and the general subordinate, different placements of things would occur

Neigh! A horse neighing brings Kultai back to the present and he was startled a bit

"Kultai!" someone shouted and Kultai look toward the direction of that person and it was his fellow soldier.

Kultai smiles and wave and then continue looking around. He did not realize that he already arrive at the horse yards.

Different campaigns have different size of horse yard. Kultai never had gone on a campaign with the Khan army yet. And he is excited to go

And he did not know how big the horse yard in such a campaign would be but even now, the horse yard in his barrack, is enormous. At least based on the standard he have; this is an enormous horse yard.

This military district area without horses would be wrong. If there is one thing that the Steppe is not lacking, it is horse.

And just in this horse yard alone, there is hundreds of horses

He could see some of the horse doctors examine the horses.

Some of these horse doctors were actually Ashana. Some of them are horse doctors of Yan

These horse doctor of Yan also have different specialties. Different breeds of horses might have different ailments.

Kultai has a horse that has been with him since young and he would also sometimes send his horse to the horse doctor to check for his horse health

There is the shed filled with hay, watering troughs, saddles racks, farriers, breeding yards, and training circles

The Khan elite cavalry uses several horses per warrior. So a one thousand cavalrymen could require several thousand horses when remounts and spare animals are included

Though, that has never been used that much.

This is just the boasting of the veterans. Such method would only be used if they are conquering faraway lands.

But the fact that the Khan is preparing to use such method, isn’t that evident of his ambition to soar further than just the Southern Great Steppe?

It is for this reason that the military district could occupy a surprisingly a large part of the barrack

Kultai never seen the barracks in the city but it would also probably be big too

Kultai sets himself a standard. He wanted to be like those elite guards.

The Khan personal guards did not live in ordinary barracks. He had seen them before he joined the army. The personal guards of the Khan live in a stone compound outside the Palace.

Some called it the Black Wolf Compound. It is because their banner is a black wolf painted on a white cloth.

Kultai did not take long before he finally went out of the barracks, there is procedure to it and he shows his identifications and then he went out

Now, it is the calm season. There is no war. there has been mostly peace since the large campaign in the west

But everyone could tell this is the calm before the storm

When the war started, he wanted to secure his place.

That is why he is memorizing all of this information. He does not know if he could meet the Khan.

But he wanted the opportunity to meet the Khan. And if he somehow got that opportunity and could not show his talent, then he would be mad at himself

All of this preparation is simply him trying to be ready so that when the opportunity comes, he would not squander it

He memorized all kinds of things like the Khan did not have twenty to thirty thousand warriors sitting permanently inside the capital

The capital has permanent garrison, around four thousands to five thousand garrison guards, then there is the Khan personal guards, several hundred elite warriors, fully armoured, and are all powerful in their rights

Then there is the rotating state troops and there is the tribal contingents. Chiefs usually brings their warriors with them when the Khan summon them

The Steppe military system was not completely abolished but the khan have permanent military presence on all the tribes that pledge allegiance or subdued by him

Kultai only smiles and then with a last look at the barrack he headed toward the city

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