Chapter 1 The Benlang Plains

The Benlang Plains encompass a truly vast area, stretching from the north of the Di River all the way to the south of the Wojin River, though individual areas have their own names. This expansive space can easily accommodate hundreds of thousands of cavalry for mobile warfare. Dai Yun was not optimistic about concentrating all her forces for a decisive battle with the Korka Allied Army. She scoffed at the plan proposed by some leaders for a phased decisive battle. Decisive battles never come with second or third chances. A single failure inflicts too much damage on morale, advantageous terrain, and the overall strategic situation, and the current Allied Army lacks the organizational cohesion to fight resolutely in a weakened state. Dai Yun opposed a decisive battle, frustrating the tribal leaders and warlords, whose pride and confidence have always been strong. But the tactics Dai Yun devised might be more suitable for everyone's strengths.

Dai Yun anticipated that the Korka tribe's southward campaign would also face severe supply problems. She ordered the Allied Army to retreat southwards, vacating the entire Benlang Plains. These tribes were the only inhabitants of the Benlang Plains, and their retreat effectively turned the entire area into a no-man's-land. The majority of the tribes' population was at the summer pastures around Snow Wolf Lake. Only a small number of people remained on the Benlang Plains, mostly warriors. The elderly, who would normally stay on the Benlang Plains during the summer, had already gone to Snow Wolf Lake because of the ominous atmosphere.

After implementing these scorched-earth-like measures, the Korka's supply problems would immediately become apparent upon entering the Benlang Plains. The notion that nomadic peoples don't need supplies when fighting is nonsense. While grazing and livestock as food can be ignored, water is the biggest issue. Although the Benlang Plains has many water sources, none can withstand the consumption of hundreds of thousands of troops. Dai Yun intended to wait for the Korka army to disperse. Once they dispersed, it would be easier for her to mobilize the Yunzhou tribal Allied Army, which was more familiar with the Benlang Plains, into several cavalry corps of varying sizes, ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 men. These corps would simultaneously attack several parts of the Korka tribal Allied Army. If opportunities arose to use tactics such as ambushes or surprise attacks, they would be seized. If not, the minimum requirement was to ensure that the attacks were relatively synchronized, preventing any part of the enemy from supporting each other.

The difficulty of such an operation was naturally immense. The first problem was how to maximize the synchronization of attacks in an era with such poor communication. Although the Korka Allied Army would be scattered around water sources, they would still be within a relatively limited space. If the attacks were not synchronized or not synchronized enough, it would be tantamount to sending troops to be defeated one by one. Achieving surprise under synchronized attacks was even more difficult. But the Yunzhou Allied Army's familiarity with the Benlang Plains far exceeded that of the Korka Allied Army, and they would naturally utilize the various terrains of this vast plain.

Another problem was the uneven combat power of the various units. In fact, this was within Dai Yun's expectations. She never expected to achieve good results in all directions after launching the attack. However, Dai Yun knew that the difference in strength between the various units of the Korka Allied Army was even greater than that of the Yunzhou Allied Army. Some tribes within the Korka Allied Army were even former enemies who had only reluctantly agreed to a temporary truce out of respect for the Korka tribe. Dai Yun couldn't guarantee that she would be able to learn the details of the military strength of each of the Korka tribe's outposts immediately, but she could at least make a rough estimate, allowing her to arrange suitable combat power to attack them separately. In these attacks, apart from the route where she concentrated the Blood Kirin Army, the Iron Cloud Cavalry, and the elite soldiers of the Blood Hoof and Soluo tribes, which she was almost completely confident in, her main goal for the other routes was to stall for time, prolong the battle as much as possible, reduce her own losses, and keep the enemy away from the center of the battlefield.

The most crucial element was the key strike led by Dai Yun herself with the Blood Kirin Army, the Iron Cloud Cavalry, and a mixed heavy force of tribal elites. If Dai Yun could lead these 35,000 of the strongest warriors to defeat a part of the enemy in the shortest possible time, and then quickly advance to support another battlefield on her side, then the victory of the campaign would be basically secured.

Ultimately, Dai Yun was simply breaking up the decisive battle that would concentrate all forces in one place into separate engagements at advantageous times and in different locations. For Dai Yun, the advantages and disadvantages of this tactic were obvious. The advantage was that she could fully utilize her strong elite forces to gradually change the situation where she was weaker than the enemy in terms of absolute troop strength. It could avoid the possible rout of the Allied Army due to lack of coordination and organization in a decisive battle if they were at a disadvantage upon contact with the enemy, thus dispersing the risk. The disadvantage, however, was that regardless of the outcome of each battlefield, such a campaign would bring considerable casualties to both sides.

To the Yunzhou Allied Army, the Korka tribe was like a monster spewing fire and charging into their homeland. These hunters had to put thick ropes on the monster's body and pull them in all directions. If they could work together, if they could persevere to the end, if they could wait for the mighty hero to cut off the monster's head, then the monster's huge body would inevitably crash to the ground. But if they could not persevere to the end, if one or several of the hunters did not do their best, did not use all their strength to tighten and stretch the ropes on the monster, then it would be the hunters who would be overturned. And no matter what price the hunters paid to conquer the monster, being scraped of a layer of skin by the ropes and getting their hands covered in blood was only the slightest, inevitable sacrifice.

The various tribes understood Dai Yun's arrangements and went to implement them. In order to achieve the greatest surprise in the campaign, and also to prevent some tribes from being disrupted by those with wavering wills or those who harbored ulterior motives, all tribal armies were forbidden to leave without authorization. To simplify this extremely complex surveillance and control plan, Dai Yun simply ordered all tribal troops to withdraw across the Di River, leaving only a very small number of Xue Qi Jun (Blood Kirin Army) and Tie Yun Qi (Iron Cloud Cavalry) scouts on the north bank of the Di River.

Even though Dai Yun, Golan, and others repeatedly asked Ye Tao to return to the Ningyuan City line with his guard vehicle, Ye Tao still stayed a little south of the Di River and began to use his engineering design skills to urgently repair the original ferry crossings on the Di River. The Di River had a gentle current and limited depth. During the summer flood season, there were still several places where cavalry could directly ford the river. Repairing the ferry crossings was more for facilitating future combat operations, but more for considering further strengthening transportation links between Dongping, Yunzhou, and the Benlang Plains. If there was any major use, it was probably to deliver supplies like arrows as soon as possible when the Blood Kirin Army's supply line caught up with their 10,000 men, or for the Blood Kirin Army and Iron Cloud Cavalry on the western front to quickly come to the northern front for support after resolving the threat from Xiling. As for the other second-line troops, there was no need for them to come now. Troops who did not have the ability to quickly enter battle after a forced march could not catch up with the Benlang Plains battle of attrition that would occur within a few days and then determine the outcome within at most two days.

Another reason was that some things would happen in Ningyuan City. There were many reasons why Yunzhou was in a critical situation. There was the surrounding forces' coveting of Yunzhou, the coordination of various parties to solve the Yunzhou problem in one fell swoop, and naturally, some hidden dangers within Yunzhou were also playing a role. Some were forced by external pressure, feeling that the Dai family could not hold on, and that following Dongping might not be a good end for families, clans, officials, merchants, literati, soldiers, and so on. With the combined threat of Xiling, Beiliao, and the northern tribes, the Dai family, in order to maintain stability within Yunzhou, controlled and monitored these undercurrents, but did not take any action. But now, the threat was basically eliminated. Even if the Benlang Plains battle of attrition planned by Dai Yun failed, the reinforcements coming from the western front would still be able to block the tribal Allied Army north of Ningyuan, along the Di River line. In this situation, the Dai family, who had controlled the entire Yunzhou for hundreds of years, finally went on a rampage. Before giving up the rule of Yunzhou, they swept away these opposing forces that had made them very unhappy for quite some time.

As for Dongping, old General Xu Jingtian expressed his position that Dongping would not interfere in these matters before the formal handover of Yunzhou. This was actually a tacit understanding. Although the Dai family had handed over the ruling power, they had been in Yunzhou for too long, and they could not abandon and let go of many deeply rooted relationships just by saying so. In the future, the Dai family would still have many industries operating in Yunzhou to provide a steady stream of funds for the Dai clan, to ensure the prosperity of the Dai clan, especially to ensure the Dai family's historically renowned strategy for cultivating their descendants. The Dai family suddenly went on a rampage and cleaned up these undercurrents, so at least for a long time to come, the Dai family would not have to worry about major obstacles in their business operations, and Dongping could get a complete Yunzhou, led by the Dai family, that was loyal to Dongping. Another benefit was that the Dai family promised that all the property seized in this "cleanup" would be used as treasury silver in various prefectures and counties of Yunzhou, and would all be transferred to Dongping in the future. It was rare for anyone to refuse such a bargain where the Dai family played the villain and Dongping inherited the property.

Ye Tao knew that such events were bound to happen sooner or later in the handover of Yunzhou, no matter how unwilling he was to see so many families broken and displaced. Since he was now powerless to change such things, he could at least bury his head like an ostrich and not witness the occurrence of these things with his own eyes.

He had prepared himself for some things, and for others, he didn't want to get used to them at any time.