Why doesn’t everyone ride horses? Because equipping every bandit with a horse would be far too expensive... The horses you use to charge into battle are all specially trained—they’re not the same as ordinary riding horses. Plus, saddles and horseshoes need to be regularly maintained by the local leatherworkers and blacksmiths in nearby villages, which is a real hassle. If you’re a bandit gang on the scale of the Water Margin outlaws, maybe you could afford it, but in a typical small stronghold, having twenty or thirty horses is already impressive. Like in those TV dramas... where a hundred-person bandit gang all charges out on horseback—that’s absolute nonsense. If you had that level of professional operation, you might as well switch careers and become a horse dealer; it’d be more profitable than being a bandit.

But I digress... Let’s get back to the main topic.

At the hour of Shen, Mark Smith led the cavalry to the village entrance first. He looked around and didn’t see a single person; there wasn’t even a wisp of cooking smoke rising from the village.

Seeing such an unusual scene, Mark Smith naturally felt uneasy: “Heh... are they trying to pull an empty city ruse on me?”

But Mark Smith wasn’t Sima Yi—he wouldn’t turn tail and run just because he overthought things. He simply waited at the village entrance for a short while, and once the twenty-some men on foot arrived, he gave the order for five lackeys to go into the village and scout ahead.

These were five bandits, not regular soldiers. When bandits carry out orders, they have to size up the situation... They knew full well that if there was an ambush in the village, they’d be cannon fodder—dying for nothing. So they scouted with extreme caution, moving hesitantly and dragging their feet.

After about the time it takes to burn one stick of incense (roughly half an hour), those five guys were still wandering around the village entrance, having only broken into and checked about a dozen houses.

Mark Smith was getting bored sitting on his horse, and finally lost his patience: “Enough! Stop searching! All of you, get into the village—grab whatever you see! Whoever grabs the most gets the biggest share!”

As soon as he said this, everyone—especially those five who’d gone in first—seemed to get a shot of adrenaline, surging into the village and starting a wild looting spree.

The plundering went on for quite a while, and these guys nearly emptied the village’s grain stores and valuables from the villagers’ homes. Of the twenty who’d come on horseback, all but the chieftain Mark Smith had dismounted, because the backs of those nineteen horses were now loaded down with heavy goods... The bandits all wore satisfied grins, and even the two lackeys who’d been scared off by Henry Clark yesterday had forgotten their original purpose for coming today.

Mark Smith thought to himself, “Maybe the villagers were so scared they all ran off into the mountains to hide, figuring that if we took their money and food, we wouldn’t do anything else to them.”

Having reached this conclusion, he stopped worrying about this “empty city ruse.”

But just then...

“Chief——!” came a hoarse shout from the road outside the village.

Soon, a bandit, covered in dust and with his clothes scorched all over, came scrambling and crawling up to Mark Smith, his voice choked with tears: “Chief! Bad news! Our... our stronghold’s been wiped out! You’d better go back and see for yourself!”

“What?” Mark Smith was shocked, then his anger flared as he shouted, “What happened?”

“Hah... hah...” The lackey was out of breath from running. He gasped a couple of times, then continued, “Not long after you left, a man named Henry Clark and another named Samuel Bennett showed up at the stronghold gate, shouting that they were here to take your life... The brothers saw there were only two of them, so they opened the gate and went out, planning to capture them and hand them over to you for a thousand cuts. But those two were incredibly skilled fighters—the brothers were no match, and many were killed or wounded. They even set fire to the stronghold. I barely escaped with my life to report to you...”

“Outrageous!” Mark Smith didn’t even let the lackey finish before roaring orders to those around him, “Men! Back to the stronghold with me! Leave the loot on the horses for now—we’ll come back for it later!”

This time, the bandits really listened, because they were truly anxious... Their home had been taken over—how could they not be? Not only would they lose their hidden valuables, but if the stronghold was burned down, where would they go?

So, Mark Smith took the lead, spurring his horse and galloping back toward the stronghold.

The remaining forty-some bandits left the loot on the horses or on the ground and hurriedly started running back along the road.

The two places weren’t exactly close, but not too far either. After a short while, Mark Smith saw thick smoke rising in the sky ahead. Instantly, his anger boiled over and he became ruthless, determined not to let those surnamed Huang and Sun get away.

However, when he charged back to the stronghold, he discovered... this so-called “fire” was just a pile of firewood burning in the middle of the stronghold—the walls and buildings hadn’t caught fire at all.

Looking closer, he saw ten corpses lying scattered inside the gate—all his own men.

In that instant, a thought flashed through his mind: “I only left ten men in the stronghold, so that guy who just reported to me was... Damn!”

Mark Smith realized he’d been tricked, quickly turned his horse around, and raced back toward Nanyuan Village...

…………

Today’s “switching homes” plan was devised together by Samuel Bennett and Henry Clark.

First, early this morning, while the bandits were still sleeping in, the villagers of Nanyuan had already left the village as a group.