Water Margin: The Tale of Li Erlang of Guankou

Chapter 197: Establishing Authority at the Military Academy with the Butcher's Knife, Implement

The sky broke.

A faint ray of dawn struggled to pierce the thin fog that shrouded Yuncheng County.

The faint stench of blood from yesterday's trial bench lingered in the air, mingling with the fresh scent of earth and morning dew. Far from being eerie, it gave rise to a majestic atmosphere of breaking down the old and establishing the new, of all things reviving.

Li Hanxiao personally hung a huge plaque with five gilded characters reading "Military and Political Academy" above the vermilion gate of the former Wang family mansion. The copper nails on the gate still bore the marks of yesterday's forced entry, but now they would witness a battle sharper than swords.

Inside the gate was once the extravagant five-courtyard mansion of the wealthy Wang, but now all its luxurious furnishings had been removed. The artificial hill had been leveled, the pond filled in, and the valuable calligraphy and paintings rolled up and stored away. In their place was a flat earthen playground and rows of simple tables and chairs made of rough logs.

Hundreds of powerful young men, forcibly "invited," stood in the empty and desolate courtyard. Their fine silks and satins clashed horribly with the shabby surroundings. Their young, pale faces were etched with an arrogant sense of being offended, as well as an undisguised fear and unease. They were like a flock of peacocks stripped of their magnificent plumage, herded into a sheepfold next to a slaughterhouse, whispering amongst themselves, exchanging their panic and disdain with self-righteous glances and hushed voices.

Li Hanxiao, dressed in a black martial arts outfit, without armor, only a three-foot-long green sword hanging at his waist, slowly stepped onto the three-foot-high platform that had been temporarily built with newly felled logs.

His gaze was like lightning, slowly sweeping over the young and unruly faces below the stage. His face was expressionless, as calm as a bottomless ancient well.

"Gentlemen, I'm sure you all harbor some resentment."

His voice was soft, even gentle, yet it was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, instantly drowning out all the noise and clamor. The entire courtyard fell silent in an instant.

“I, Li Hanxiao, am ruthless. I ransacked your homes and wiped out your families. I also forcibly brought you here under the guise of seeking education, but in reality, you are my hostages.”

“You all resent that Liangshan is a bandit, a traitor to the court, while you are all respectable young men from noble families who disdain to associate with us.”

Below the stage, a suppressed commotion rippled through the crowd. Many wore expressions that said, "At least you have some self-awareness," and some even wore a sneer of disdain.

Li Hanxiao suddenly changed the subject, and that cold smile once again appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"But I don't care about any of that."

"Today, as this military academy begins its new semester, I will only speak on three things."

"First, from this day forward, you are no longer anyone's young master or son of anyone else. You have only one identity—students of the Liangshan Martial Arts Academy!"

"Secondly, here, there is no gold or silver, no family background, only rules! The rules of Liangshan!"

"third……"

"Fuck your motherfucker!"

A rough and discordant voice, like a piercing scream, abruptly interrupted Li Hanxiao's words.

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw a tall, fat man, round like a ball of flesh, wearing a gold-embroidered brocade robe, his face flushed, his neck stiff, squeezing out from the crowd. His face was full of fat, and his small eyes were filled with spoiled arrogance.

"Who do you think you are! A bandit leader who rules over a mountain, daring to point fingers at us here!"

This fat man was the eldest son of the Zhang family, a wealthy family in the south of the city. He usually acted arrogantly in Yuncheng, relying on his family's power and his rudimentary sumo wrestling skills. Seeing that Li Hanxiao didn't have many guards around him, he was the first to jump out, wanting to show off his power in front of his companions.

His shout caused an uproar in the audience, like a powder keg being ignited.

"Exactly! There are so many of us, what are we afraid of him for!"

"He wouldn't dare kill us all, would he?!"

"The law does not punish the masses! If he dares to lay a finger on us, my father will lead a group to raze this lousy military academy to the ground!"

A group of pampered young masters, relying on their numbers and family background, started making a ruckus, and the scene became chaotic.

Li Han smiled as he looked at the faces below the stage, which were flushed with excitement, but his expression remained calm, without even a twitch of his eyebrows.

He even smiled and gently waved to the fat man at the head of the group.

"You, come up here."

The fat man was taken aback, then puffed out his chest and raised his head, thinking that Li Hanxiao was intimidated by his imposing manner and was about to admit defeat to him in public. He was extremely pleased with himself and actually swaggered up to the platform.

"Kid, what do you want? You want to fight me one-on-one?" He patted his belly, which was as big as a water tank, making a muffled "thump thump" sound, with a provocative look on his face. "Let me tell you, I studied sumo wrestling for a few years. Three or five big men can't even get close to me!"

"A one-on-one duel?" Li Han smiled even more broadly upon hearing this. "Sure."

He turned his head and nodded slightly to the fierce-looking man standing not far below the stage, who was like an iron tower and carried a giant sword on his shoulder.

"Bao Xu".

"exist!"

Bao Xu, the "Death God," responded in a deep voice, taking a step that shook the yellow earth beneath his feet.

He didn't even glance at the fat man, casually took a sharp ox-ear knife he usually used to cut meat from his waist, and threw it at the fat man's feet with a "clang". The tip of the knife was embedded three-tenths of an inch into the ground and was still trembling.

"Pick it up."

Bao Xu's voice was hoarse and cold, devoid of any emotion, as if it were a death warrant coming from the deepest hell.

Looking at Bao Xu's fierce appearance, his arms thicker than his own thighs, and then at the terrifying giant sword taller than himself, gleaming with a cold, eerie light, a chill instantly ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

The arrogance on his face vanished instantly, like a flame extinguished by a bucket of ice water.

"I...I..." he stammered, his legs already trembling uncontrollably.

“I said, pick it up.” Bao Xu repeated, his eyes flashing with a fierce, blood-red light, like two burning will-o’-the-wisps, making the fat man not even have the courage to meet his gaze.

"You...you're bullying the weak! If you're so capable...if you're so capable, then don't use weapons!" The fat man was still making a last, ridiculous struggle, his voice already trembling with tears.

Bao Xu grinned, a smile more hideous than that of a demon.

He actually planted the massive door-sized sword into the ground in front of him with a loud thud; the enormous blade almost completely obscured his entire body.

"it is good."

After he finished speaking, his body suddenly swayed.

To everyone's astonishment, his massive body moved like a ghost, instantly covering several meters and appearing in front of the fat man.

The fat man felt a blur before his eyes, and a strong smell of blood rushed towards him. Before he could react, a huge, iron-like hand had already grabbed his fat neck with lightning speed, lifting his massive body, which weighed over two hundred pounds, off the ground.

"Crack!"

A sharp, teeth-grinding cracking sound could be clearly heard in the deathly silent courtyard.

The fat man's expression of terror froze instantly, and his massive body slumped down limply as if his bones had been removed.

Bao Xu casually tossed his still-open head, which was filled with disbelief, onto the ground. The head rolled a few times before coming to rest right at the feet of the group of spoiled young men below the stage.

The entire venue was deathly silent.

You could hear a pin drop.

In that instant, all the rich and powerful young men lost all color in their faces, turning ashen and trembling like leaves in the wind. A few of the more timid ones even rolled their eyes back, their legs gave way, and they collapsed to the ground, a foul stench emanating from beneath them.

Li Hanxiao slowly walked down from the platform, walked to the still warm corpse, bent down, and picked up the blood-stained bull-ear dagger.

He gently poked at the unseeing head with the tip of his knife, then raised his head and swept his gaze once more over the faces below the stage, contorted with extreme fear.

Where was I?

"Oh, right, the third thing."

His voice remained calm, yet it sent a chill down everyone's spine.

"This is the military academy, but it is also a military camp!"

"In the army, there are seven prohibitions and fifty-four executions! Today, I will have someone explain them to you one by one."

"From this day forward, anyone who disobeys this order will be treated like this!"

"I'll only say this once, and this is a one-time exception. If anyone dares to attack again without warning, don't blame me, Li Hanxiao, for not giving you a heads-up!"

The audience was completely silent, as quiet as a cicada in winter.

No one dared to make a sound.

Several days later.

The military academy's courses officially began.

However, this course shocked all the sons of powerful families, and they even felt that they had been insulted like never before.

There were no Four Books and Five Classics, no writings by sages, and no poems or songs about romance and nature.

There are only three main subjects.

First, basic arithmetic and science.

The recruited scholars served as teaching assistants, teaching the most basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as some strange things they called "physics" and "chemistry."

"This brat is going too far! We are sons of noble families, how can we learn the tricks of merchants and philistines!" A young man who usually prided himself on being refined felt greatly insulted when he saw the crooked Arabic numerals on the blackboard. He immediately threw the charcoal pencil in his hand to the ground.

Li Hanxiao, who happened to be passing by, heard this and came in. He picked up a charcoal pencil and started doing calculations quickly on another blackboard.

"What muzzle velocity and elevation angle are needed for a cannon to hit an enemy tower 500 paces away? This is physics. What is the ratio of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal in gunpowder to maximize its power? This is chemistry."

"A thousand-strong army marching thirty li a day, how much food and fodder do they consume? How much armor and weapons are worn out? How many arrows are used up? How should logistics and supplies be allocated to ensure that the army has no worries about food and fodder for half a month? This is arithmetic!"

Li Hanxiao turned around, looked at the dumbfounded young man, and said coldly, "If you can't even figure this out, what are you talking about, strategizing and winning battles from afar? It's nothing but empty talk and self-deception!"

Once again, everyone fell silent, as if frozen in fear.

Secondly, military drills and physical training.

Lin Chong, nicknamed "Leopard Head," personally served as the chief instructor. This former instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Guards unleashed all his strictness and ruthlessness on this group of frail young masters.

Every day before dawn, they would be awakened by icy well water, carrying sandbags weighing twenty pounds each, and running for a full ten miles. Upon returning, they wouldn't even have a chance to catch their breath before standing at attention under the scorching sun for two hours at a time. If they moved even slightly, Lin Chong's oil-soaked leather whip would lash them mercilessly, leaving a bloody welt.

On the first day, more than half of the people vomited so badly they were dizzy and collapsed on the ground like dead dogs.

Lin Chong simply watched coldly and said to the soldiers beside him, "Drag him out and starve him for a day."

Thirdly, there is "The General Trend of the World and the Investigation of Things to Gain Knowledge," taught personally by Li Hanxiao.

In the first lesson, Li Hanxiao hung a huge map on the wall, depicting all sorts of strangely shaped land and sea.