novelraw Chapter 951 - 213: She Has Arrived
Chapter 951 - 213: She Has Arrived
"Snap!"
Zheng Fan threw the military orders from Lord Jingnan onto the table.
This action wasn’t to express any discontent, after all, no matter how much Lord Zheng fussed, he wouldn’t have any issues with old Tian.
In fact, even the demon kings themselves admitted that as long as old Tian was around, as long as he didn’t plan a rebellion, everyone would continue being loyal subjects of Yan.
"The military orders come in two copies, one written by the military documentation with the military intelligence descriptions, and the other, written personally by the Lord."
Zheng Fan reached out and tapped the tabletop,
speaking to the demon kings seated below:
"The orders are quite simple, just two words — sit tight."
The Blind Man nodded upon hearing this, obviously, this order was within his expectations.
Siniang also let out a long breath, knitting the sweater in her hands a little faster; with so many people inside and outside Snow Sea Pass now, the original reserve of money and food was only enough to smoothly get through this winter. If a war started now, this winter would be difficult to get through.
After all, not every battle can be profitable, many times some battles are really just pure consumption, and it’s hard to find places to recover."
The Wild King sat in an inconspicuous place at the bottom, still wearing shackles, without a seat, just sitting on the tiles.
"Anyway, we’re all sitting here, let’s share our thoughts."
Zheng Fan silently pulled out a cigarette, didn’t light it, just played with it between his fingers.
The Blind Man stood up and said:
"My lord, the fires arisen along the line of Town South Pass and Nanwang City this time, probably aren’t the precursor to a great war amongst the three states. On the Qian side, they used their newly formed precious cavalry units for a surprise attack, and on our side, though Town South Pass is the territory of the Chu, it is merely the former Situ Family’s surrendered general Xue Rang acting as a façade holding up a Situ Family sideline descendant’s claim to emperor, with the Chu just standing behind.
The two lines of Chu and Qian, should be much ado about nothing, just bluster, creating an atmosphere of tension, not actually intending to clash swords seriously with the Yan state."
At this moment,
The Wild King saw that the Blind Man had finished talking,
and immediately added:
"Lord, Mr. Bei is absolutely right, I know the nature of the Chu people the best, to put it nicely, they think they have noble heritage, to put it bluntly, they lack the guts to risk everything in their bones, especially that regent prince of the Chu State, who likes to manipulate everything within his grasp the most, unlike our Yan Majesty, he doesn’t like to gamble, he likes stability. This time, the Chu are merely bringing a card to the table to stir up the waters, to get us to move, and wear out our army."
The Wild King needed to seize the short time to showcase himself as much as possible, because his time was already not much, every time he demonstrated his value, there was a good chance he could get some improvement in his living conditions.
Now, he was striving to be moved to a cell above ground as soon as possible.
Because ever since Lord Pingye’s mansion was built, and he moved into the dungeon under Lord Pingye’s mansion, at night he often had nightmares, feeling a chill over his body from time to time, in short, that place gave off an eerie vibe, as the Wild King often prided himself on being a cockroach, able to survive anywhere, but this time he truly didn’t want to stay in the dungeon any longer, he was really afraid of dying suddenly if he stayed any longer.
Zheng Fan nodded upon hearing this, and said:
"So this time, it’s indeed a fatigue strategy from Qian and Chu, haha."
With Zheng Fan’s current status, he could actually stand at a slightly higher position to overlook the big picture.
Previously during the campaign against the wild people, the first failure of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, the Eldest Prince indeed needed to take part of the blame, but the fundamental reason was still due to Yan’s exhaustion from years of continuous warfare.
What kind of troops did Yan use in the wars in the early years?
It was the Town North and Jingnan troops, while the local troops and the imperial guard were only there to beat the drum, and when Fatty Hui gathered the heads of various troops in Nanwang City to forcefully suppress the probing of Qian’s three frontier armies, it was already the greatest achievement the local troops made in the first three-state war.
And the first expedition of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, choosing to form the Left Army, was actually due to the territory being too vast, requiring garrisons in various places while the two main elite armies of Yan had suffered significant losses themselves, leaving no choice but to use local troops and the imperial guard to maintain and support the empire’s campaign pace.
The Left Army’s corpses floating in the Wang River, the fundamental reason was still that the Left Army’s military quality was far inferior to the Town North and Jingnan troops.
Afterward, Lord Jingnan took command of the expedition, what’s called "grafting flowers onto a tree".
It seemed clever and profound,
but in essence, it was just "Tian Ji’s horse racing".
It was about disguising local troops, imperial guards, and Cheng State’s surrendered soldiers, these "inferior horses", as Town North and Jingnan troops to march to Jade Plate City, then using the re-equipped Town North and Jingnan troops as the main force, to decisively defeat the main force led by the Wild King.
The problem, however, is still that the replenishment and growth of the troops are far behind the consumption brought by years of war, Lord Jingnan’s approach, to put it plainly, was just to completely hide his weaknesses.
Even after defeating the Wild King’s main force, neither the formidable Lord Jingnan nor the formidable Emperor dared to push for a northern expedition to Snowfield, which means they were quite aware of how exhausted Yan was, not because they didn’t want to fight, but because they couldn’t.
The clearest example is that before, even if leading three thousand Town North or Jingnan troops, facing tens of thousands of enemy cavalry, Lord Zheng could still talk and laugh boldly, directly charging in without any psychological burden, as failing would still leave a decent chance of breaking through.