Brian Clark is not stupid—on the contrary, he’s quite smart (at least in his own opinion). The assembly of troops meant he had a mission. He looked around; apart from his own fifty-man squad, no one else was assembling or even showing signs of it. He instantly judged that the scale of the disturbance wasn’t large, or that other units responsible for suppression had already set out.

　　After stepping out, he took a bamboo slip from the soldier who had lifted the tent flap. There were some characters written on the slip, beautiful in form but hard to write. He knew this script was called seal script.

　　The messenger handed over the bamboo slip and ran off without a word, which left Brian Clark quite frustrated. Was literacy so widespread in this era that basic officers could only read orders from bamboo slips? At the very least, shouldn’t he have said what to do? He couldn’t even read seal script!

　　Not knowing what to do, Brian Clark really wanted to just stand there and do nothing. As the saying goes, the more you do, the more mistakes you make; do less, make fewer mistakes; do nothing, make no mistakes. But in the Qin army, would that just get him killed more easily? Seeing that no higher-ranking officer was coming to give orders, he looked around at the soldiers standing in formation and led them into a jog. Anyway, moving was better than standing still—what exactly to do could be figured out later.

　　The roads in the camp were designed for simplicity, so troops could quickly gather or assemble—no winding paths here. The squad, confused, just followed their squad leader, jogging without knowing why.

　　He was anxious. Jogging along, Brian Clark felt very anxious; he had no idea what he was supposed to do. When he heard the bugle again, he felt like he should slap himself.

　　“I’m out of my mind! Since it’s a prisoner riot, of course we’re supposed to suppress it!”

　　Now that he’d finally figured it out, the muddle-headed fool stopped running aimlessly. He wondered if he’d be executed for the delay, so with a loud shout, he sprinted at full speed.

　　After running hard for about fifteen minutes, Brian Clark saw more and more squads converging from all directions. He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking uncertainly, “At least I didn’t run to the wrong place. I shouldn’t get beheaded now, right?”

　　The view ahead gradually opened up, noisy sounds kept coming, and the air carried a strong scent of dust and sand.

　　What did Brian Clark see?

　　He saw a sky full of yellow haze, countless figures brawling like madmen, and the assembled soldiers just waiting on the outskirts, looking on with disdain as the prisoners of war… if he wasn’t mistaken, were brawling?

　　Compared to the chaos ahead, the Qin army at this moment displayed their usual discipline. They stood in formation with long spears, armored officers pacing back and forth along the lines.

　　“Halt!”

　　Mimicking a parrot, Brian Clark gave the order and felt a bit embarrassed. His men, after the run, were still breathing steadily, but him? He was a little out of breath.

　　“Maybe I should exercise more? Not for appearances, but to stay alive!”

Chapter 0007: The Charge Stance

　　So what’s the current state of history?

　　Has the Qin army swept across the Six States and unified the Central Plains?

　　Has King Zheng of Qin, suspecting that the title “king” could no longer express his military achievements, become “Emperor”—a title surpassing the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors—on the advice of Li Si and other ministers?

　　Blue sky, white clouds, green grass—he couldn’t say what place in later times this was. Probably somewhere in the northwest of Qin?

　　Brian Clark knew none of this. All he knew was that the dust-filled area ahead was in chaos, and the energy of the brawling crowd was as if they were facing their father’s killer, fighting with all their might.

　　There were no towering trees in sight, only some short, sparsely-leaved trees whose names he didn’t know. Maybe because the area was sparsely populated, the grass was very dense, about as tall as a person.

　　Can you imagine what kind of scene it was, with countless figures brawling? It was almost like a bizarre play, especially with nearly a thousand Qin soldiers continuously assembling.

　　The grass was trampled in all sorts of ways. When one person fell, several others would pounce, riding on top and pounding fists onto heads. Once the fallen lost the ability to move, those who had just teamed up would go mad again, hitting anyone nearby.

　　While the fighting raged ahead, the Qin soldiers—including Brian Clark’s squad—stood in formation, doing nothing but watching, which was a bit bizarre.

　　He wasn’t a “regular” Qin soldier—sometimes he couldn’t even understand the orders. Most of the time, he was just glad to be a minor officer; otherwise, he really wouldn’t know what to do.

　　A modern civilian who’d traveled back in time—what would he know about military orders… especially ancient ones? It was just weird, wasn’t it?

　　The sound of hooves—“dadada, dadada”—was barely audible amid the shouts and screams. If Brian Clark hadn’t liked to look around, he wouldn’t have noticed a dozen or so riders galloping this way.

　　As they drew closer, he watched even more intently. To be honest, this was the first time since his transmigration that he’d seen cavalry. Driven by curiosity, he paid extra attention to the riders’ gear, and sure enough, he noticed there were no stirrups, and the saddles weren’t the kind he was familiar with. In fact, calling them saddles was a stretch—they were more like coarse hemp blankets, with no wood or metal parts at all, just simply tied to the horse’s back as padding.