Chapter 1 Taking Down Zhenbei Military Command

Ye Tao smiled and said, "After taking Changshi Pass, the Zhenbei Military Command is at our mercy. His Majesty's requirement is to train troops, and the Zhenbei Military Command is the most suitable. Yunzhou can invest about twenty battalions of troops at a time, launching short, swift attacks to eliminate most of the Zhenbei Military Command's armies, and incidentally practice maintaining control after occupation. After taking the Zhenbei Military Command, if we can control the Qingping Dao and the Xie Family Fortress, we don't need to keep many troops in the Zhenbei Military Command to maintain it. The main force can return to Yunzhou. The time is short, but the purpose of training troops is achieved. After taking down the Zhenbei Military Command, we don't have to worry about the Xiling's attack on Taizhou, because once Chunnans starts fighting, they won't be able to spare many troops to deal with us. But I dare not attack the northern tribes because the road repairs on the Benlang Plains are still in progress, and the logistics simply can't keep up. Not attacking the Western Route Army isn't because of any concern for the agreement with the Gao family, but because from Yunzhou all the way to the Western Route Army, there are endless wildernesses, which can easily lead to a stalemate. Once the fighting lasts for a long time, the win or loss is debatable, but Gangduo won't have the time or money to build it."

Zhuo Mang nodded after listening and said, "Ye Tao, it seems you've put in a lot of effort, haven't you? This doesn't sound like a spur-of-the-moment idea."

"Pick the soft persimmons first," Ye Tao said frankly. "After the Samir family reached an agreement with us, Yunzhou has been planning its westward advance. But after looking at several plans, I originally thought that the plan to open up the northern tribes and then advance westward would be much more difficult than attacking the Zhenbei Military Command and then advancing north. Yunzhou has more than one plan on how to attack the Zhenbei Military Command. The Zhenbei Military Command already has a state of being strong in appearance but weak in reality.”

Ye Tao didn't particularly like fighting, but he wasn't afraid of fighting, especially this kind of operation that required a high degree of organization and explosive power in a short period of time, which was Yunzhou's army forte. As for whether Yunzhou's armies were willing to fight? It seemed that this was never a question, Yunzhou was warlike from top to bottom. The veterans who had been assigned to the honor farms and ranches were very actively training without being urged, just in case they could return to the army, and they were even smart enough to extract the latest training syllabus from their former comrades and subordinates to update their own training content... The fifty battalions that were being prepared, regardless of whether they had completed the re-equipment, had basically implemented the basic training, and everyone was eager to see how the current combat effectiveness was. Although Yunzhou has never had a major combat plan, all kinds of exercises have never stopped, and officers at all levels have always been constantly hinting and requesting the Jinglue Mansion to agree to short, swift attacks, gaining some military merit was secondary, Ye Tao estimated that most people just wanted to "relax." Even Dai Yun, who was very patient, didn't seem very satisfied with conducting campaign exercises on the sand table, and had already taken the gradually improving Central Army Battalion out to cooperate with other troops for exercises several times. As for the tribes on the Benlang Plains, where small battles happened every year and big battles happened every three, six, or nine years, although they sent some elite warriors to form the Jingyun Cavalry, although raising sheep, shearing wool, the wool textile industry, and planning to establish a permanent settlement on the Benlang Plains, a city of their own, and other things kept the Benlang Plains tribal warriors busy, they did not forget to fight. And because the supply of military equipment, grain, non-staple food, and medicine to the tribal warriors had been comprehensively improved, the tribal warriors were actually more warlike. In the past, the northern tribes would invade south on different scales almost every year, but starting this summer, many tribes on the Benlang Plains began small-scale "counterattacks." Because the scale was not large, everyone was not prepared to fight a big battle, and Ye Tao only received some painless reports.

If the news spread that a large-scale operation against Xiling was to be carried out, using about twenty battalions of troops, Ye Tao estimated that the documents requesting to fight that he would receive could be piled up into a building. That was Yunzhou, a place with more and more specialties, but which forever produced warriors.

In contrast, the Zhenbei Military Command was not so ideal. The main problem was that Jiang Xujing had never been able to integrate the various forces of the Zhenbei Military Command, let alone comprehensively update the nearly 200,000 troops of the Zhenbei Military Command in terms of technology, equipment, and combat command. After the defeat in the Yunzhou campaign, although Jiang Xujing was able to send some dude-type figures back to the court to take up positions, so they wouldn't stay in the Zhenbei Military Command, a dangerous place not suitable for earning military merit, he himself had changed from being highly respected to walking on thin ice. The losses of his own troops were not too serious, but the two units of Ni Sigui and Jia Qingyun, which he originally thought would be helpful, had never been able to truly restore their strength, and the reorganization of Zhao Li's unit had just been completed. In addition, there were several units under Jiang Xujing's command with names like "Certain Battalion," which when added up, meant that these most critical professional troops numbered less than 100,000. Among the remaining troops, the most combative were the Hujiao Army (Protection Army) of the Daoming Sect. Although the Hujiao Army dared to fight hard, and Jiang Xujing dared to use the Hujiao Army in the most important positions when facing tough battles, that was only limited to defensive operations. The Hujiao Army, with its mixed and outdated military equipment, could rely on religious fanaticism to hold off the enemy in defensive operations, and would not easily collapse even if the casualty rate exceeded half, but the Hujiao Army was almost completely unusable for offensive operations because their mobility was too poor. The Hujiao Army had expanded to more than 40,000 people with Jiang Xujing turning a blind eye, but they only had 6,000 to 8,000 warhorses of varying ages.

In addition, what worried Jiang Xujing was the strong encroachment shown by the Hujiao Army in the Zhenbei Military Command's territory. In order to expand their influence, the missionary activities of the Hujiao Army and the local Daoming Sect priests and their incitement of believers had made Jiang Xujing feel faintly uneasy. Because once the Hujiao Army encountered something related to the Daoming Sect, they would often be out of control. For example, recently the Daoming Sect and the believers of the Leiyin Demon Sect, which had flourished in Taizhou and the southern part of the Zhenbei Military Command, had had many conflicts of varying sizes. Because Sun Boping had a close relationship with the Leiyin Demon Sect, he naturally protected the Leiyin Demon Sect. And since most of the Zhenbei Military Command's consumption had to go through Sun Boping's hands, although he disapproved of Sun Boping protecting the Leiyin Demon Sect, he couldn't be too lenient with the Daoming Sect because of the Hujiao Army under his command. As a result, there were different voices in the Hujiao Army towards Jiang Xujing. Now it was no exaggeration to say that the Zhenbei Military Command was strong in appearance but weak in reality.

The decline in the army's combat effectiveness, the fact that the channels for entering and exiting Xiling were still in the hands of Yunzhou, and the various internal disharmonious factors made Jiang Xujing, the northern cavalry general who was not very talented outside of military command, overwhelmed. After the Yunzhou campaign, he had returned to the capital twice to report on his work. The second time he reported on his work, he did not bring any troops except for his own guards, which was a very obvious gesture. As for the fact that he had gone to Taizhou several times in the past year to meet with Sun Boping to coordinate how to deal with the Leiyin Demon Sect and the Daoming Sect, that was nothing. These frequent departures from the Zhenbei Military Command clearly showed the decrease in Jiang Xujing's control over the Zhenbei Military Command and the decrease in the degree of trust he was given.

Although Ye Tao did not operate a separate intelligence system targeting Xiling outside of the Dongping Intelligence Bureau, the good relationship with the Intelligence Bureau, coupled with the fact that there were people like the Leiyin Demon Sect and Sun Boping who could provide him with information, especially since Sun Boping was in charge of the supply of the Zhenbei Military Command, his understanding of the Zhenbei Military Command was indeed considerable. Although Ye Tao didn't really like the feeling of being in a high position, as the Yunzhou Jinglue Shi (Pacification Commissioner), he could be called diligent, at least he had never shirked these documents and other things that he should read.

An idea flashed in Ye Tao's mind, and he immediately said it out loud. His idea was to secretly prepare all the time, and then start mobilizing the entire territory of Yunzhou only fifteen days before launching an offensive against Xiling. All the troops would arrive at the designated locations on time, eat, rest, and then continue marching, and then enter Xiling in the predetermined order. After conducting no more than one and a half months of high-intensity continuous operations, they would achieve their complete combat objectives. Then the troops that took over the local defense and the civil affairs officials would successively move in, consolidating the battle results achieved in the Zhenbei Military Command in the shortest possible time, and then the main combat troops, except for the garrison troops, would leave completely. The entire operation would take no more than three months. During these three months, almost every unit involved in the operation would have to keep moving and fighting... And the meticulous preparation in advance, the carefully designed deception, coupled with the fact that the troops stationed in Yunzhou would be constantly conducting various feints during these months, and the time was so short that people would not have time to organize large-scale offensives. If it could be implemented smoothly, when the surrounding opponents, especially the Western Route Army of the Northern Liao, were ready to launch an offensive, they would find that all the troops had returned to their starting positions, and their hastily prepared offensive had lost its meaning.

After Ye Tao finished speaking, he also admitted that this method of operation was actually very similar to the actions taken by the Blood Kirin Army when they first attacked Tong Bingwen's unit after they occupied Xuanshan Pass. It was true that there was also the possibility of turning an explosive operation into a stalemate, but the various military actions before and after that were completely different. All the people present were experts in military command, and they were immediately attracted by this somewhat risky and somewhat crazy idea. Such an operation did involve considerable risks. If it fell into a stalemate, even with Sun Boping constantly dragging the Zhenbei Military Command down, it would still make things very troublesome. At that time, due to the Chunnans offensive, it was unlikely that Xiling would be able to spare enough troops to fight, but the Western Route Army of the Northern Liao was not certain. Although they had reached an agreement with Gao Senqi, Ye Tao had no doubt that once they found an advantage to be gained, the Gao family would definitely launch an attack without hesitation.