Chapter 1 Situation

"How are things?" Since being injured, Ye Tao had been removed from combat. According to Xu Ping, although his opponent wasn't a top expert, the palm strikes they used were truly insidious. Xu Ping had spared no cost in depleting his own power to stabilize Ye Tao's injuries, but with the current lack of medicine and doctors, he could only manage to stabilize them. To restore Ye Tao's health, they had to wait for the enemy to lift the siege and summon an imperial physician from the inner court in Danyang.

Ye Tao still cared about the battle situation, but he could only learn about it from Lu Dan, Qiu Haohui, and others who visited him daily.

"It's the same. Although they're attacking the city every day now, that one night really frightened Zang Keming. Without elites like the Mo Water Camp, other troops take turns attacking, and we take turns defending. The original scattered soldiers have been organized into five temporary banners. Two of those banners have selected strong soldiers who can rotate with our own heavy infantry, but since they're not used to it, those two banners can only hold out on the city wall for about an hour before needing to rest. Still, with the heavy infantry rotating, everyone's pressure is much lighter. I've taken down the archers' hand crossbows and formed dedicated crossbow teams, which are very useful for city defense and combat, but the arrow consumption is too fast. The workshops can't keep up with the arrowheads, and some arrows have already been made with sharpened wood as a temporary solution. We're saving our own special arrows and I haven't dared to use too many," Qiu Haohui reported in detail. The Blood Kirin Army's no-expense-spared attitude towards armor had kept their casualties at a remarkably low number these past few days, so low that he was embarrassed to face the friendly forces.

"Oh, right, the ballistae are too useful. Although the fire oil bombs are almost used up and the stone projectiles are troublesome to prepare, this thing isn't picky like the Shenbi crossbow. Even bricks torn from buildings can be used. These past few days we've relied on the ballistae. Zang Keming put in a lot of effort, but several attempts to reorganize the catapult formations have failed, and he's given up these past two days. We can hold them off as long as they only attack by climbing the city wall," Qiu Haohui said with interest.

These days, ballistae had become one of everyone's favorite weapons. Although the two hundred ballistae, distributed across the four city walls, had been built too hastily and had many flaws, their role in this stalemate battle couldn't be denied. The materials used for this batch of ballistae weren't consistent, and the torsion spring tension wasn't accurate. The shooting accuracy was somewhat problematic compared to the prototype Ye Tao had made, but the Blood Kirin Army's ordnance banner had the most precise and complex ballistics and basic mathematics knowledge of the era. They quickly recalibrated the sights on the different ballistae based on the actual situation. Even inferior products with a difference of more than ten percent in the left and right torsion spring tension now had a high hit rate. And the fact that they weren't picky about ammunition was even more appreciated. The soldiers and civilians carrying stone projectiles under the city wall now also had to take on the job of demolishing uninhabited houses, constantly hoisting pieces of walls onto the city wall. Then the soldiers operating the equipment on the city wall could knock off pieces of suitable size for their own use… On the other hand, the Shenbi crossbows were basically no longer used because only a small number of arrows remained. They would only pull out the Shenbi crossbows if they encountered a particularly valuable target.

"Xi Ling has increased their troops to over fifty thousand. Although it's getting harder and harder these days, we can generally hold them off. It depends on how the others perform," Qiu Haohui said. In the days that Ye Tao was unconscious, he had taken over the command of the entire White Stone City. Because, in those days, Yu Kang and Pan Xiangmin had seen what kind of army the Blood Kirin Army really was.

The equipment and treatment of the soldiers went without saying, but besides that, the Blood Kirin Army had too many details that were absolutely unseen elsewhere. From combat, combat preparation, logistical allocation and implementation, regular rest and adjustment, rhythmic troop rotation, officers' care and encouragement for their subordinates, soldiers constantly exchanging ideas on how to effectively kill enemies, officers constantly summarizing the gains and losses of each day and even each hour… what surprised all the White Stone City defenders and officials, including Yu Kang and Pan Xiangmin, even more, was that when the future was uncertain, the Blood Kirin Army was already studying what kind of equipment they would need in the future. Everyone unanimously proposed to independently organize a unit for logistical projects, including material transportation, ordnance repair and manufacturing, food and accommodation arrangements, and bridge construction, so as to comprehensively improve the efficiency of combat personnel.

After taking over the defense of White Stone City, Qiu Haohui reorganized the scattered soldiers, consolidated the battered White Stone City garrison, reassigned officers and non-commissioned officers, and unified the logistical supply and wounded treatment of White Stone City… Accompanied by the Blood Kirin Army's style of precise and rigorous troop movement and rotation, although the number of soldiers available in White Stone City was still dwindling, the situation had instead improved these past few days.

The members of the Blood Kirin Army were all waiting for the battle situation to change. Since Ye Tao had come up with that difficult but worthwhile tactic, everyone had another expectation in their hearts: not only to drive the Xi Ling army out of Dongping, but if possible, to leave them all behind and annihilate them in the vast area between Xuanshan Pass and White Stone City. And this tactic would naturally not be implemented by the Blood Kirin Army, which only had so few people. The key was to persuade Zhuo Mang.

Thus, a small scout troop, carrying the Blood Kirin Army's plan, finally met up with the main force of the Dongping army after recklessly leaving Danyang for a long time.

Because conveying military intelligence and persuading Zhuo Mang were of great importance, although Chi Lei was responsible for the scout detachment and had great responsibility, he personally led a six-man squad, evaded the Xi Ling army, and arrived at Zhuo Mang's camp.

"The armies are under investigation. Chi Lei, the banner captain of the Blood Kirin Army's scout banner, greets the General." Chi Lei's arrival excited Zhuo Mang and the officers and soldiers in the camp. The Chi family was a famous military family in Dongping. Among the nearly one hundred thousand troops that Zhuo Mang had gathered around him, there were quite a few who had been subordinates of Chi Lei's father. Chi Lei had met or heard of enough generals to fill several tents. He was almost immediately summoned by Zhuo Mang.

"Good lad, you've become promising." Zhuo Mang was very familiar with Chi Lei, who was originally a well-known troublemaker in Danyang. Chi Lei's changes after not seeing him for a while made his eyes light up. Chi Lei's originally impetuous nature seemed to have changed a lot. Now, he carried the same flamboyant sharpness, as well as an indescribable feeling of confidence. The battlefield was indeed a place to train people. When Chi Lei's work was so important that any mistake could lead to the army being blocked by the enemy and falling into a desperate situation, Chi Lei turned his wild ideas into countless inspirations, put away all his carelessness and impatience, and strived to do every detail well. And when he saw that he could actually do something he didn't dare to imagine, he realized that he had found his path. This kind of self-discovery based on actual achievements made the current Chi Lei very different from the original.

"General, the Blood Kirin Army is indeed responsible for acting without authorization, but the matter of pleading guilty can wait until after the war. I am here for two things. One is to report to the General the battle situation of the Blood Kirin Army these days, and the enemy situation we have discovered in constant combat and reconnaissance. The other is that our Blood Kirin Army has a plan, a big plan, that we hope to show the General. If it is feasible, please ask the General to implement it."

Then, Chi Lei respectfully presented two thick documents to Zhuo Mang.

Zhuo Mang opened the first military intelligence document and couldn't help but be startled after reading a few sentences. He looked at Chi Lei, but Chi Lei's expression was calm and there was nothing unusual. The Blood Kirin Army had absolutely no need to falsely report their battle results, but the achievement of annihilating 30,000 enemies these days was still a bit unbelievable.

Old General Qin Ziming, who had been Zhuo Mang's partner and deputy for decades, came over with a smile. After reading a few sentences, he took the document from Zhuo Mang in surprise and read it out loud in front of the officers in the tent.

Speaking of military intelligence documents, the military intelligence document format that Dongping had just finalized was copied from the Blood Kirin Army. The Blood Kirin Army had many aristocratic children, which in modern terms meant that their average education level was high. In the close drills and exercises, a large number of military intelligence documents had to be written. The officers in the Blood Kirin Army began to perform randomly, writing military intelligence documents into parallel prose was not a skill, writing them into regulated verse was only a bit difficult, and later, there were people who used military intelligence documents to express calligraphy, to show their familiarity with allusions, to joke with colleagues, and even to guess riddles. Basically, eight out of ten people couldn't understand the military intelligence documents. It was then that everyone held a serious and tense meeting under the leadership of Ye Tao, whose knowledge of ancient Chinese was not very good, and determined the military intelligence document format within the Blood Kirin Army. Basically, it referred to modern news reports, putting the focus in front, and dividing the format of the military intelligence documents into basic parts. First, whether the task was completed, how it was completed, how many battle results were obtained, and how many losses were suffered. Then, after completing the task, the attitude and actions of the chief officer of the unit, whether they had already taken action, were waiting for orders, or needed to rest, etc. After that, there was a detailed narrative of the entire stage of the battle, to describe the dynamics of the enemy and ourselves in this stage, to explain how the current situation was formed. Then, the chief officer of the unit was required to give suggestions and opinions on the next step of action. Finally, the person writing the document was allowed to express their feelings, whether they were prepared to die generously or were weeping sadly, expressing determination was even more out of the question, anyway, everyone would just glance at it. This format of military intelligence documents was clear at a glance. After the Blood Kirin Army formulated the text format and had a considerable sample, the Dongping Ministry of War immediately adopted this standard and began to promote it throughout the army.

In just the opening few sentences, the number of 30,000 enemies annihilated shocked everyone. At the same time, the losses of the Blood Kirin Army were basically negligible in everyone's eyes.

"Chi Lei, tell us in detail, how have you been fighting these days?" Zhuo Mang said after a moment of contemplation. It wasn't that he didn't trust the number, but how to annihilate 30,000 enemies while preserving oneself could better show how much combat power the Blood Kirin Army really had than purely annihilating the number of enemies. And a glance at the battle plan that Chi Lei brought was absolutely necessary to assess the Blood Kirin Army's capabilities for this battle plan.

"Yes." Chi Lei stood up and bowed his hands steadily to receive the order. Then, he began to explain in detail to all the officers present the entire process of the Blood Kirin Army from entering the battlefield at Pengxi to how they forcibly sent the Blood Kirin Army's infantry, archers, and ordnance soldiers into White Stone City.

Naturally, Chi Lei's explanation wouldn't be the dry statements on the military intelligence documents, but it wasn't a storyteller style of teahouses and taverns, or even the style of the Yizhan Tower lecture hall, but a relatively detailed introduction. As the eyes of the entire Blood Kirin Army, whether it was to preserve the precious scout cavalry or to better carry out the task of battlefield alert, Chi Lei didn't let himself and his scout cavalry become too deeply involved in the battles on the central battlefield. He only narrated what he knew about the Blood Kirin Army's actions, and interspersed some of his own reconnaissance and post-war exchanges with his colleagues. Chi Lei actually shouldered the task of screening opponents for the Blood Kirin Army, needing to accurately assess the combat power of each team of enemies that appeared in their sight. Then, specifically choosing which opponents to eliminate, and how to better implement their pre-determined strategies and tactics, was the matter of Ye Tao, Chi Yun, and Qiu Haohui.

Everything of the Blood Kirin Army was carried out extremely quickly, marching, transitioning from marching to combat, combat, disengaging from combat. And as continuous combat continued, when the Blood Kirin Army became accustomed to all of this, their series of tactical actions were carried out even faster. So fast that the Dongping officers present felt a bit unbelievable.

"Are you saying that you haven't left any prisoners, and that the enemy chief officers who are killed or captured are all crucified?" The only thing that everyone was a bit unaccustomed to was the Blood Kirin Army's iron-blooded characteristics in this regard. The Dongping regular army probably wouldn't do it so absolutely. No one expected that the Blood Kirin Army, with too many pampered young masters, would do this.

"Yes. We have no way to take prisoners. Letting go of prisoners may expose our direction of movement, and it will also give the enemy more troops. Once the battlefield activity is not open, we definitely can't afford to fight a large-scale war of attrition. Besides, provoking the enemy is very useful. At the beginning, several groups of enemies were instigated to chase after us, and we solved them by waiting for work. In addition to these reasons, killing prisoners does not violate the Dongping Ministry of War's marching guidelines. In fact, the marching guidelines do not contain any content in this regard at all. It is all up to the chief general to decide." Chi Lei didn't feel cruel or embarrassed at all. They had already unified their thinking internally. For the sake of victory, all of this was necessary.

"Who came up with this plan?" Zhuo Mang raised the second document in his hand, sighed, and asked.

"It's Ye Tao." Chi Lei answered without hesitation, and then added, "After having this big framework, we conducted several rounds of war game simulations internally, and then detailed this plan, but without Ye Tao, there would be no plan."

Zhuo Mang nodded, handed the document to Qin Ziming, and said, "Everyone circulate it. After an hour, order the troops to depart, and let's proceed according to this plan."

Zhuo Mang called Chi Lei to his military tent and said with regret, "Chi Xianping has two good sons. Although you are taking too much risk, it is indeed a good method."

The plan that Ye Tao envisioned included several key elements. The first was that White Stone City and Ning Stone City had to persevere until the end of the entire battle without reinforcements. Ning Stone City had far more adequate defense in terms of the number of defenders, the allocation of troops, and the preparation of city defenses than White Stone City. And after obtaining the military support of the Blood Kirin Army, the chance of White Stone City independently persevering to the end was much greater.

The second key was to use superior forces to attack Mian City. The best situation was to directly take Mian City, and then conduct a certain scale of decisive battle with the Xi Ling army under Mian City, to maximize the attraction of the Xi Ling army and make the Xi Ling army's attention focus on the Mian City line. If they couldn't take Mian City in the first time, they had to put on an attacking and strong attacking posture, and put on a decisive battle posture under Mian City, to attract the Xi Ling army, which still had a troop advantage on the battlefield, to fight a decisive battle. But whether the decisive battle was to be carried out depended on the last key: Xuanshan Pass.

In Ye Tao's idea, once the Xi Ling army began to concentrate on the Mian City line, the question was how many troops Xuanshan Pass would still have. Under such circumstances, the Blood Kirin Army could fish in troubled waters and raid Xuanshan Pass. The Blood Kirin Army didn't have any advantage in carrying out this kind of combat action, whether in terms of troops or their own characteristics determined this point. The Blood Kirin Army, which was now an all-cavalry unit, was absolutely not suitable for attacking and seizing passes. They had to get support from other aspects, especially infantry units with strong combat power and who were very familiar with Xuanshan Pass.

And the content extracted from the Xi Ling officers gave them the possibility of getting reinforcements: the Xuanshan Pass garrison that had now become Xi Ling prisoners.

"This is probably not possible…" Zhuo Mang objected to this point, "You are being a bit too naive. It is true that these people are now being held in Juyan Town, and it is impossible for there to be too many Xi Ling troops stationed to suppress them, but don't expect these people to still have combat power after being captured for so long. In the prisoner-of-war camp, how much food do you think the Xi Ling army can afford to care about the lives of our Dongping soldiers? These days, it is estimated that they have lost two circles of weight and are barely surviving. Moreover, in the prisoner-of-war camp, the original troublemakers are more likely to emerge, and they will not listen to your dispatch at all. Although it will not be detrimental to you, it is possible that they will slack off. For them, the idea of surviving is definitely the top priority."

Chi Lei was startled and hurriedly said, "Uncle Zhuo, what should we do then? Didn't you say this was a good plan? If the troops are insufficient and there are internal problems, then Dai Yun and the others will be in danger."

"The troops are still sufficient. I got the news that Chi Yun has already brought the clan soldiers and retainers supported by the various families, as well as the disciples of various sects, and they are already on the battlefield. If everything is normal, they should have already made contact with you, right?" Zhuo Mang's tone actually had a bit of envy, "Your eldest brother spent a lot of effort to get the military to issue orders downwards. Whether it is equipment or ability, these people are too amazing. Among the three thousand troops, there are probably about twenty who can be said to be first-class and quasi-first-class experts. The face of the various families is really not small."

Chi Lei breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Uncle Zhuo, let me go back. I am still worried about Dai Yun and his gang. The command and control of the scout troops is too complicated. My deputy… is still a bit too young. Moreover, I still want to go to White Stone City to take a look."

"Can you contact White Stone City?" Zhuo Mang asked. After successively increasing troops twice, the Xi Ling army had 60,000 troops stationed under White Stone City. Zhuo Mang wanted to send soldiers into the city several times to convey military intelligence or to understand the situation in the city, but he still retreated in the face of the Xi Ling army's strict defense.

"Yes!" Chi Lei said, "At night, I can use a signal lamp to contact a group of messengers I have ambushed outside the city, ten miles apart. If the Xi Ling side sees it, they will think it is just the flickering of lights. But this group of people is separated from the main army. I will let them send the military intelligence back, and then, the military intelligence should be sent to you, right?"

Zhuo Mang nodded and said, "You only have a few people, so don't wander around. You have already arrived here. If I let you go out again, what will I say to your father if something happens? I don't have a unified scout troop here. The left army, the right army, the vanguard army, the central army, and the rearguard army each send out scouts, and then summarize the results of the reconnaissance. I will give you a thousand cavalry. Are you willing to temporarily take charge of the reconnaissance work for the army? If your Blood Kirin Army's method is really useful, I will propose to the Ministry of War to set up a scout cavalry unit in each army after the war."

"That is what I wish for. I dare not ask for it." Chi Lei's mood was still relatively relaxed and he began to be a bit impudent with Zhuo Mang.

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