Chapter 133: The Tactics of the Naturalized Army

"You do not advocate for luxury and waste, yet General Zhang has brought out so much wine and meat for these barbarians?" Muller nodded and asked.

"General Muller, surely you realize that if we were to fight this war ourselves, the casualties by the time we reached victory would be immense. Now, we only need to spend a pittance of the supplies they deserve to buy them to fight for us. It is a very cost-effective trade; how could one call that luxury or waste?" Zhang Juntai said with a smile.

Looking at the noisy and chaotic camp of the Naturalized Army not far away, and then glancing at the Western Regions' camp, Muller shook his head helplessly at the contrast. Compared to the disorder and lack of discipline in the Naturalized Army, the orderly nature of the Western Regions' camp was clearly much more agreeable. Qilulin Muller picked up the tea in front of him, took a small sip, and then set it back on the table with a frown.

"Is the tea not to your liking, General Muller?" Zhang Juntai asked with a smile.

"General, do not take offense. I have lived in the Western Regions for decades, and my palate has changed. I simply cannot get used to this bitter, plain tea," Muller said with a bitter smile as he shook his head.

"Then why don't you try this, General Muller?" Zhang Juntai said, whispering a few words to a soldier nearby. Soon after, the soldier brought over several ceramic bottles with narrow necks and wide bellies.

Zhang Juntai picked up a bottle, casually bit the cork with his teeth, and pulled it out with force. He then took Muller's tea cup, poured the tea onto the ground, and filled the cup with a milky-brown liquid from the ceramic bottle. He emptied his own cup as well, poured a drink for himself, and set the bottle back on the table. He took a sip of the milk tea first, then gestured for Muller to do the same.

"General Muller, please taste this special drink our Governor prepared for our friends from the grasslands and see if it suits your palate," Zhang Juntai said.

Muller looked at the unknown liquid, which had a texture similar to the fermented milk of the grasslands, and then at Zhang Juntai, who had risked his own safety by sampling it first to prove it was not poisoned. With a hint of curiosity, he picked up the cup and took a sip. It tasted of fermented milk, mixed with the bitterness of the tea the Han people loved, and finished with the salty notes that the grassland people cherished most. He nodded immediately and said, "Is your Governor perhaps from the grasslands? Or someone deeply familiar with them?"

"General Muller, you jest. Our Governor grew up in the Central Plains. Before becoming the Governor of the Western Regions, he served under Xue Ju and had no contact with matters beyond the frontier. Even after taking his post, he has been so tied up with official business that he has never stepped foot on the grasslands. However, our Governor has never valued race or background when assessing his subordinates," Zhang Juntai said with a laugh.

Muller lowered his head in silence and took another drink of the milk tea.

Seeing that Muller did not immediately refuse, Zhang Juntai pressed further: "Moreover, once the Governor has conquered the vast grasslands, he will naturally need a great number of people to stabilize the region, both in the military and in the civil service. If General Muller is willing to truly join our army, your prospects will be limitless."

"Yet, so far, I have only seen a stalemate between your forces and the Turks; I have not seen any evidence that your army can secure a decisive victory. General Zhang, surely you wouldn't claim that defeating one ragtag army with another constitutes proof that you can defeat the Turks?" Muller said with a smile, pouring himself another cup of milk tea.

"Naturally, I would not tell you that this is the proof of our victory over the Turks. But what I will tell you is that regardless of who wins or loses, the nomadic tribes on the grasslands who refuse to submit to the imperial order will lose their ability to resist the Central Plains dynasty or surrounding regimes. Look at those in the Naturalized Army," Zhang Juntai said, pointing to the chaotic mass of soldiers nearby. Many were already drunk to the point of incompetence, and some had begun to brawl—a common occurrence on the grasslands. Neither Zhang nor Muller felt the need to intervene; after all, whether these soldiers lived to see tomorrow depended entirely on the movements of the Turks. There was no need to spend effort managing them.

"Look at those men. They are composed of the young and strong from various tribes that are unwilling to submit to the throne. These men represent almost all the youth of their tribes. For them, it does not matter that their tribes are under our control, as we ensure no one attacks their families. However, these men are destined to die on our road to conquering the grasslands; they must never return home alive. Since the moment they joined the army, their purpose has been to deplete the Turks' vitality. As a man of the grasslands yourself, you should know what it means for a tribe to lose all its young men, shouldn't you?"

"It means the tribe loses all ability to resist other tribes on the grasslands. They have no choice but to be annexed or enslaved by others. In short, their fate is extremely tragic," Muller said without hesitation. After all, the fallen Rouran tribe had already experienced exactly this.

"Exactly. So they cannot afford to lose. Once they are defeated, their tribes behind them will be exposed to the enemy's cruel claws. They have no choice but to fight with all their might to seize victory. This brings only one benefit: a vast number of grassland people will continuously throw their lives into the bottomless pit of this war. This is a fatal blow to both the grassland tribes and the Turks. Unlike the agrarian people of the Central Plains, the nomads take a long time to recover their population after a war. By leveraging this advantage, we only need two or three large-scale wars of attrition to crush the Turks," Zhang Juntai said calmly, as if, in his mouth, countless lives were as light and insignificant as a blade of grass.

"Is that why you formed this 'Naturalized Army'? As far as I know, you Han people have always valued reputation. If word of this gets out, it will not be good for Governor Li, will it?" Muller was a man who had seen great storms; he was naturally unmoved by the veiled threat in Zhang Juntai's words.

"That is even simpler. We Han people value reputation, but we also have a saying: 'Those who follow the Way receive much help; those who lose it, little.' Thus, 'Naturalized Army' is merely our official designation for them. To the outside world, we will explain this force simply as grassland mercenaries willing to help the Imperial Army. Everything mercenaries do is of their own volition; we have no direct command over them. How can we be held responsible for the actions of an army whose movements we cannot control? It is all just the way of the grasslands," Zhang Juntai said with a hearty laugh.

"And you are not afraid that I might spread the word about this?" Muller also said with a smile.

"Of course not," Zhang Juntai replied without hesitation.