Snowy night, two kilometers north of Xia City, at the mountain wall.

A team of about twenty people, keeping their heads down against the severe cold, continuously climbing up the slope.

"Commander, why did we come here instead of going on a hunting expedition?"

Chen Shang, holding a Barrier Blade and carrying a Strong Bow, looked at his father, Chen Ying, the leader, full of puzzlement in his eyes as he asked.

Although Chen Ying was his father, he was also the captain of the Iron Eagle Squad. When going out with the Hunting Team, he still had to be addressed as the captain—this was the rule.

"Let's stop for a moment, we're almost at the top of the slope, take a rest!"

Chen Ying turned around, looked at the team members who were full of confusion like Chen Shang, and halted the team, then after a moment of silence, he slowly spoke up:

"You all should be aware of the Rodent Tide event before the First Year, right?"

Chen Shang and the brothers He Yuanfeng and He Yuanluan, who were beside him, instantly wore heavier expressions upon hearing Chen Ying's words. They were all old members of the Chen Ye Camp and were personal witnesses of the Rodent Tide incident back then, so naturally, they remembered.

"I have read the Great Xia Calendar, and it mentioned that before the First Year of Great Xia, a Rodent Tide of several hundred heads appeared on the North Slope of the mountain wall. At that time, our camp was very weak and hard to deal with it. It was the Lord who discovered that the Teng Jiao Poison Sack could restrain the rodent swarm, and then led everyone to create a batch of Five-stone Bows. Eventually, everyone in the camp joined forces to drive away the rodents."

"I have also read the records in the Great Xia Calendar. It was rumored that during that event, Great Xia discovered the people of the Mirror Immortal Camp, and at that time, they merged with a small camp of only a few hundred people, seemingly called Chen Ye..."

The Great Xia Calendar, managed by Yue Feng, basically records every major event from the Earth Mound Period to the present. The Rodent Tide on the North Slope of the mountain wall was a threat to the survival of Great Xia at the time, so it was recorded clearly.

To make the people of Great Xia remember the hard times of the past and also to deepen Xia Hong, the lord's image in people's hearts, Xia Chuan required everyone in Great Xia to study this book—the Calendar—thoroughly.

Therefore, the incident of the Rodent Tide was known not only by Chen Shang and the two He brothers, who were three personal witnesses, but almost all members of the Iron Eagle Squad were aware too.

However, when a member mentioned the Chen Ye Camp recorded in the Calendar, his words suddenly paused, and he looked up at Captain Chen Ying.

The reactions of the others were similar. Upon hearing the words Chen Ye, they all looked up at Chen Ying and instantly understood in their hearts.

The Iron Eagle Squad was now an Intermediate Squad, and these people had been with Chen Ying for nearly two years, so they naturally knew something of Chen Ying's past.

Chen Ying was the former leader of the Chen Ye Camp, which means he was a personal witness of the Rodent Tide incident. After that incident, he brought several hundred people from the Chen Ye Camp and smoothly integrated them into Great Xia.

"Is the captain suggesting that the reason there was a Rodent Tide here that year is because of the existence of a silver mine? But in the past six months, at least six Advanced Hunting Teams including the Cloud Jiao and Long Wu have come to investigate this place but found nothing. There's no point in us coming here either, right?"

Chen Shang had already perceived his father's intention in bringing up this old matter again.

It wasn't really a secret that Chen Ying had been thinking about the North Slope of the mountain wall for the past two years. Especially after the Cold Element Festival at the beginning of the year, when Qiu Peng announced that anyone who directly discovers a silver mine can record 300 military achievements in the Camp Supply Department, and those providing clues about the silver mine could also record 30 military achievements. Since then, his father, Chen Ying, had been obsessed and would always come to the North Slope to search whenever he had free time.

Chen Shang sighed slightly, as he could actually understand why his father was so persistent.

Ultimately, it was for nobility!

Last year in Longyou, his father made quite notable achievements, besides accumulating 120 military achievements in the Hive Guard Battle. He also, with Bai Wuting, Lin Fan, and Lu He, used small fire torches to successfully lure out a Beast Tide at the Beehive, destroying the 2,300-plus Longyou Army personally led by Li Xuanling, the wife of the then Long Mountain leader.

If all the achievements of annihilating the 2,300-plus Longyou troops were counted on Chen Ying and the other three, it would have been enough for all four to be ennobled simultaneously.

However, such a great achievement couldn't just be attributed to the four of them. Although their direct efforts were critical, without Xia Chuan leading people to defend the Beehive to the death, without Xia Hong leading the army to break through Long Mountain and sever one arm of Li Tiancheng, without Yuwen Dao bringing the news in time to disrupt the Longyou Army's morale, the ambush by the four would have been impossible to discuss.

This achievement was ultimately shared among all participants, with the four who made direct contributions receiving the main credit, each getting 200 points.

Thus, his father's cumulative military achievements were 320 points, just 180 points shy of being ennobled.

180 points may not seem like much, but currently, the channels to gain military achievements in Great Xia are just too few.

Since last year when Longyou was annexed into the territory, the camp had been almost devoid of warfare. Even when encountering other camps, they were mostly small to medium-sized, rarely large, let alone gigantic.

Moreover, with Great Xia's current scale, even if they encountered a large-scale camp, sending out an Advanced Hunting Team would likely resolve it, so unless they encountered village-level or town-level camps, there was simply no opportunity to earn military achievements.

With the difficulty of acquiring military merits so high, naturally, those who could be ennobled were pathetically few. In fact, there were quite a few like Chen Ying, who accumulated several hundred military merits during the Longyou War. From what Chen Shang knew, Lin Fan had 450 military merits, Bai Wuting had 420, both higher than his father's and very close to being ennobled.

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