Chapter 1 Watching the Detailed Battle Report on Horseback

Zou Shuangwen sat astride his horse, watching the detailed battle report just delivered by airship from Ye Tao's camp. The warhorse galloped, and being able to make out the words on the battle report amidst such jolting was a special skill in itself. In fact, Ye Tao had long forbidden such actions. In the Blood Kirin Army's code of conduct, the rule against reading documents while marching, though listed far down, did indeed exist. At the time, Ye Tao had put a lot of effort into explaining the importance of protecting eyesight, even promoting a set of "eye exercises" in the Blood Kirin Army, but these regulations had clearly not been taken seriously.

"Commander Ye is fine," Zou Shuangwen said. "I estimate that by noon, Commander Ye will be able to completely break the pontoon bridges again. Right now, this kind of stalemate warfare is our Blood Kirin Army's forte."

The surrounding battalion commanders and Zou Shuangwen's own staff officers burst out laughing, relaxed. The outside world had all kinds of comments about the Blood Kirin Army, mostly guesses. The Blood Kirin Army was the number one army in the world, and that title wasn't for nothing. All five thousand of them, along with auxiliary soldiers, reserves, engineering units maintaining the camp and building training grounds, totaling more than seventy-four thousand, were working like crazy every day to ensure that this proud title would always belong to the Blood Kirin Army. And behind them was the most powerful financial and material support in the world.

However, the Blood Kirin Army was not completely ahead in every aspect. When it came to mobility and marching speed, the Blood Kirin Army couldn't compare to the Jingyun Cavalry of Yunzhou. Those warriors from the prairie tribes could stay on horseback for days without it being a big deal, but they couldn't do that. When it came to well-equipped, Ye Tao's Guard Battalion far surpassed them. Although the size was always only around fifteen hundred men, each person was an expert, and each person's weapons and armor were custom-made. This also meant that the Guard Battalion always wore dark gray cloaks with dark gold cloud纹 (wén) embroidery on military review occasions that required formal attire; otherwise, they would look a bit like a "mixed bunch." When it came to explosive combat power, they had been defeated by the Imperial Guards in a short competition before setting out. Chi Yun was too blessed by nature, with the Imperial Guards' already strong soldier base, the full set of training programs of the Blood Kirin Army and the various armies of Yunzhou, and the financial support of the East Peace Prince's inner treasury, to create a more elite army of just under fifteen thousand based on the Imperial Guards and the Tan clan soldiers of Jiangshan Fort. These soldiers were loyal and fanatical, and they actually completely suppressed the underprepared Blood Kirin Army in exercises. Compared to this unit, Chi Yun, who was always calm and composed, and who could at least be considered a semi-"Confucian general," had actually trained such a "berserker" unit, which was even more surprising.

The Blood Kirin Army was most proud of its overall strength. They might lose to some units in some characteristics, but they were a comprehensively powerful army, and the key was that the Blood Kirin Army's soldiers were of extremely high quality. Everyone knew why they were fighting, knew how to fight smartly, and how to make full use of all available resources. Once the battle time was prolonged, this characteristic became more and more obvious. The Blood Kirin Army's combat endurance was so strong that it gave all opponents a headache, and what was even more unmanageable was that they were always breaking conventions and constantly coming up with new tactics. Often in short meetings, various ingenious combat methods would be thought up, and the soldiers under their command would immediately put the ideas into practice, even adding their own improvements. An army where everyone from top to bottom was always using their brains to fight was a terrifying thing.

And Ye Tao, although he had caused the largest casualties since the establishment of the Blood Kirin Army in this unavoidable blocking battle, it should be known that he was facing a Northern Liao army twenty times his size. In pure defensive warfare, inflicting more than fifty thousand casualties on the Northern Liao army in more than ten hours of continuous combat was a battle record worthy of pride. Now, Ye Tao was indeed no better than those professional officers who pondered these things all day long at the tactical command level, but Ye Tao's characteristics of being good at planning, organizing, and finding opportunities to win in desperate situations, while also cherishing the lives of his own men, were fully brought into play. Although many Blood Kirin Army soldiers were injured, the proportion of deaths was not high relative to such a severe operation, and the proportion of disabilities was also much better than expected.

Although he was very interested in the stepped camp prepared by Ye Tao that was only suitable for that kind of terrain, Zou Shuangwen decided that it would be better to eliminate the enemy first and then visit the camp. After receiving a message from Ye Tao, learning that there were no problems with the camp of Ye Tao's unit, he had already ordered a slight slowdown in the marching speed, so that the soldiers could conserve some strength. Of course, this conservation did not include the scout troops and airship troops. These troops were scouting for suitable river crossing routes.

Heaven didn't help, and by noon, Zou Shuangwen's unit had just arrived at a shoal forty miles downstream from Ye Tao's camp. Another place suitable for crossing the river was almost twenty miles further downstream. Zou Shuangwen decisively ordered a division of troops to cross the river. Today, the entire army must meet on the opposite bank. And at this time, it actually started to drizzle. In this kind of weather, crossing the river would be even more difficult.

But the officers came to report various situations one by one, and no one said anything about whether to slow down. With everyone's careful preparations, Zou Shuangwen's troops took the lead in crossing the river at two o'clock in the afternoon, while the downstream troops began crossing the river two hours later. Until around seven thirty in the evening, the entire army gathered on the opposite bank and set up camp and lay in ambush in a forest. In order not to alert the enemy, the airship troops had all gone to assist Ye Tao at this time, and the scout troops became Zou Shuangwen's only eyes.

In the camp, after carefully studying the map, Zou Shuangwen focused his attention on Qingya Town behind the Northern Liao army. Although senior military officers such as Gao Senqi were now commanding operations at the front line, the logistics operation center that supplied the three hundred thousand-strong army was in Qingya. For an army of this size, what was more troublesome than combat was this kind of logistical supply. Unlike the Dongping army, which had already established specialized logistics officers at all levels, Gao Senqi had also thought about changing the logistics system in the army, but that was not something he could move with his words alone. Now, the logistics supply of the Northern Liao army was still divided into two major blocks: the front camp granary and the transfer granary. The storage and transportation departments were directly controlled by Gao Senqi and others, and the supplies were picked up by the various armies themselves. This was completely different from the way the Blood Kirin Army operated, where the chief officer only had to order what was needed, when to eat, and how much rest time was available, and there were naturally dedicated people responsible for managing these things. The probability of Northern Liao officers arguing with the logistics department was much higher. Under the circumstances that the Northern Liao army had suffered heavy casualties, it was conceivable how busy Qingya would be now.

"Commander, what if we can't take Qingya in a hurry?" An officer reminded. "This subordinate believes that it would be better to feign an attack on Qingya, and then..."

"Besiege the spot and strike the reinforcements?" Zou Shuangwen asked with a smile. "That's a good idea. I also agree to lure the enemy out of the camp to fight, but we have to think clearly about how to fight, and it has to be done with some sophistication. But the first wave of attacks must be fierce enough, and we must completely attract the other party, so that the other party cannot measure our strength. Lure them out. And our second wave of attacks to strike the reinforcements must also be highly efficient, otherwise, if we can't cause enough damage, we'll be in a dilemma."

The staff officer calmly added, "However, luring the enemy out to fight in the open is more cost-effective than attacking towns and camps, isn't it?"

Zou Shuangwen thought for a while and said, "Let's do it this way. We only have this little bit of people in our hands, and it's impossible to annihilate three hundred thousand troops no matter what, but we can't turn a battle of annihilation into a battle of defeat. It has to be fast and ruthless enough, so that we can bite off a piece of flesh from this Gao Senqi. Otherwise, with this kid's temper, I'm afraid he'll slip away quickly if he sees the situation is not right, and that will be even more troublesome."

Everyone knew what Zou Shuangwen meant. Although the Blood Kirin Army had already opened up the situation, desperately captured Xiangning City, and withstood Gao Senqi's long-planned army assault, they had suffered considerable losses themselves. Coupled with the limited troops, they had to enter a short period of rest and temporarily lost the ability to expand rapidly. Once Gao Senqi withdrew, the Blood Kirin Army would definitely not pursue too deeply. Their bigger problem now was to stabilize the occupied territory, and to join forces with the main forces in the middle and north, and at Zhenning Pass, to connect the battlefield into one piece and stabilize the battle situation. How successful their raid was would depend on Gao Senqi's decision. The time they had to fight fully was no more than three days.

One order after another was passed down, and the soldiers lay down in the camp to rest. The atmosphere was extremely calm. Zou Shuangwen inspected the camp with satisfaction, his heart full of expectations for tomorrow's battle. These past few days, their number one army in the world had been tormented miserably. The Blood Kirin Army had never been in such a situation before, and tomorrow, they could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

In the evening, another good news arrived, which eliminated Zou Shuangwen's last worry that the garrison in Xiangning City was not strong enough, and that there was a hidden danger that the captured prisoners might riot and be unable to be suppressed. In addition to the flying squadron sent from Danyang, the vanguard of the Zhenning Pass garrison was now less than a hundred miles away from Xiangning City and was still marching at high speed. After learning the news that Xiangning City had been captured, although they slowed down their marching speed, they used airships to ferry soldiers back and forth to strengthen the defense of Xiangning City. This extravagant way of replenishing troops increased the remaining garrison in Xiangning City from less than three thousand people plus some wounded soldiers, which made Zou Shuangwen tremble with fear, to nearly five thousand people. And reinforcements were arriving tomorrow. On this night, those prisoners in Xiangning City who had been frightened out of their wits could not cause any trouble.

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It seems to be a little late again, sorry everyone.

By the way, the physical book of Dark Room has been released. Although it seems that many people don't like Dark Room, I still want to shout and say that if you see it and have some spare money, please buy a copy to support me, thank you.