Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 232 The Amateur Players of Jizhou Withdraw

On June 26th of the 5th year of the Tongzheng calendar, in the Xiangzhou region (southern route).

Xuan Chong, who returned to the "lower route" on the Peacock, received news from Yongzhou (the northern route) that the encirclement of the Iron Wall was about to be completed. At the same time, he learned that in the Xiazhou campaign, due to Wu Zaixing's large-scale northward incursion, Hao's army had to move northward as well. Hao's army's move of exposing its rear (logistics line) gave Bai Feihao's troops, another main force of the Zhen army in Xiazhou, an opportunity to infiltrate to the rear.

In the past, they were unsure of Zhao Cheng's movements, so they didn't let Bai Feihao's troops act recklessly; but now that Zhao Cheng has been dragged south by Wang Yushan, Xuan Chong's movements in Xia Prefecture have become much bolder.

Xuan Chong picked up the bamboo slips and rolled them up with official documents, then gently tapped them on the table to slow his pace.

With advancements in machinery, paper pulp can now be made extremely fine, and a large number of messages are now recorded and transmitted on paper. However, out of tradition, some documents are still written on bamboo slips, using concise and meaningful characters. This is similar to the tradition of official documents with red headers (these originated from Su Chuo of the Western Wei Dynasty).
The landscape unfolds slowly in his heart. In Xuan Chong and Zhao Cheng's calculations during the game, Zhen Hao's "horse" piece should not jump to chase his "chariot".

Because his "cannon" can move at any time, and there are "pawns" advancing forward in front; if Zhenhao's "horse" jumps eastward, it can still control the movement of two or three pieces, but if it jumps northward, it will be "eaten".

Therefore, Xuan Chong was very surprised to hear that the chess piece "Zhenhao" automatically moved to the L-shape.

Because such a "bad move" doesn't seem like something Zhao Cheng would make. Wu Zaixing, on the other hand, is already prepared to capitalize on Zhao Cheng's mistake.

Xuan Chong: "He was quite confident in his report. Although he did not mention Zhao Cheng at all, he said that he would quickly complete the strategic battle and strive to go south to provide support in July. In other words, he wanted to meet Zhao Cheng."

Xuan Chong tapped the paper of the report and couldn't help but shake his head, saying, "Heh, he's getting arrogant. He's starting to think, 'Zhao Cheng is nothing special.'"

He then said to Wu Rui, who was accompanying him, "Send the message in my name. His mission is in the Xiazhou area. Don't give me any other ideas. Focus on executing the established objectives in the first phase. As for the next phase of the campaign, it will be issued after the General Staff has formulated the plan. Don't overstep your authority."

After the message was sent, Xuan Chong slowly said, "War is a national undertaking, not a stage for any one person. The mobilization and planning of resources in each region involves other regions, and all units must strictly implement the established plans."

Narrator: Even if Wu Zaixing were to resolve the Xia Prefecture campaign first and have the resources to support other battlefields, Xuan Chong would not allow him to act rashly. His unauthorized support could have negative consequences for the overall strategic plan.

For example, the road and material supply system in the Xiazhou region is not yet complete. Its unauthorized support to Xiangzhou means that a large amount of materials will travel through Xiazhou, and the losses in this process will be far greater than the existing planned roads in Xiangzhou.

Furthermore, after Wu Zaixing transferred troops, is it possible that Zhao Cheng could transfer troops from other places to infiltrate the area? If so, do the troops he currently retains in Xiazhou have enough supplies for a counter-infiltration?

Why did Xuan Chong emphasize this issue? Because based on Zhao Cheng's series of poor moves, he had already guessed the internal situation of the Hao Kingdom.

While Zhao Cheng is indeed a high-level Go player, he is limited by the factor of "physical strength" and cannot play several games in a row.

Over the years, Zhao Cheng had indulged in extravagant spending and absorbed a vast amount of power. While the hidden dangers were manageable during the favorable battles that swept the world, this was now a high-intensity contest. With Zhao Cheng being led astray by Wang Yushan's solo actions, he was forced to rush south to put out the fire; his other subordinates were now left to their own devices!
In fact, any force at the beginning of its development faces the risk of "not following overall command".

For example, in the process of taking over Southern Xinjiang, Xuan Chong 1: worked hard to suppress large merchants and film distributors in the commercial sphere, maintaining a balance of interests and preventing the formation of mega-merchants. This ensured that Xuan Chong's strategy of focusing on key areas and supporting core businesses was not distorted by interference, unlike Wu Hengyu's strategy.

2: In the military, the non-commissioned officer rank was manipulated to create positions for new recruits. This allowed for two rounds of tactical innovation!
3. Politically, they relocated their own clan members to the southern border, allowing them to garrison there for about ten years to accumulate merit. This was to prevent the new faction, led by Wu Juwang, from being hindered by the power of the Wu clan during the reforms.

After all, he was hit hard by the "prohibition of alcohol" right after he transmigrated. This made Xuan Chong wary of his subordinates disobeying him in extreme situations for decades.

In the past, when confronting Zhao Cheng, it seemed like all of this was futile, and it didn't matter that Zhao Cheng didn't do these things.

However, Zhao Cheng simply hadn't encountered extreme situations, and a large number of problems were suppressed and hadn't erupted.

As Zhao Cheng expanded his power, the various factions within his organization became increasingly complex.

Putting everything else aside, his four women are from a grassland tribe, someone brought from the Haotian Realm, and the two powerful families of Da Yao; any one of these forces could potentially gain a share of Zhao Cheng's army through divorce.

Such a complex contradiction had been masked by Zhao Cheng's series of victories; as long as Zhao Cheng continues to win, this contradiction will only erupt before he passes on the throne.

Xuan Chong hadn't anticipated the sudden outbreak of conflict within Zhao Cheng's household; after all, these issues had been largely hidden, and with the leader's authority maintaining control, the conflicts were practically nonexistent. —And Xuan Chong didn't have Wu Sidao by his side to help analyze the power struggles within Zhao Cheng's family.

As a result, Zhao Cheng was caught off guard and was directly hit by the youthful fists of Xuan Chong and his students, causing a chain reaction.

…Let's rewind the timeline to sixteen days ago (first blood in the bottom lane)...

On June 10th, the Battle of Changcheng began in Xiangzhou. At the start of the battle, the Zhen army, three days ahead of the Ji army, seized the city gates of Changcheng and hoisted their flags.

After capturing Changcheng, the Zhen army opened the city gates wide, allowing the unstable elements inside to leave and report to "Zhao Cheng" and the "Yan family." These aristocratic servants, clumsily acting as merchants, hid bamboo strips in the soles of their shoes and slipped out. Little did they know that the wooden phoenixes on the city walls were observing their whereabouts.

A day later, the army of 20,000 men from Jizhou sailed upstream on the Donghua River.

Its vanguard arrived at the walls of Changcheng on the morning of the 10th. However, Jizhou's advance, like Xing Daorong's, was a reckless provocation.

Just as many powerful families in Changcheng were preparing to defect, sending messages and coordinating from within to hand over Changcheng to the Yan family, Wen Siting led his troops to outflank the city.

Indeed, although Wen Siting was a veteran officer, and his grades were below average compared to the younger generation in military academies, he did have a staff composed of young trainee sergeants. Furthermore, he was open to advice, and the situation in Jizhou was incredibly weak—the Jizhou navy, sailing upstream, hadn't done any prior research on the waterways, resulting in the need for boat trackers to tow the ships in several key river sections; and the platforms where these trackers were gathered had become the bottlenecks and regrouping points for the Jizhou army's rear.

…Battle Report Review…

On the 12th, Wen Siting led his team to Taiyang Beach; a large number of boat trackers were gathered on the shore, and a large number of shacks were piled up in an area about the size of eight bird nests, which were the boat trackers’ places to spend the night; while on the riverbank, large boats with hard sails were stranded on the shore like a traffic jam.

It is worth mentioning that sails are now worthless, and the textile industry in the country can supply enough cloth; however, even though they are cheap, the bureaucrats of Jizhou did not purchase them before the war.

Because canvas sails were only introduced in recent years, many older ships still use the old-fashioned rigid bamboo sails to save costs. The Donghua River's lower reaches have a "self-stabilizing" system that exhibits exceptional resistance to industrial products.

Now, Wen Siting gave the other side no chance. As five hundred cavalry charged into the shantytown, a large number of boat trackers abandoned their jobs and ran towards the mountains. This exposed the mudflats, which were silted up with many ships, to the Zhenjun cavalry.

The two or three hundred soldiers left in Jizhou to guard the boatmen were neither armored nor in high spirits.

So they all abandoned their armor and weapons and fled, leaving two hundred boats on the shore.

Immediately afterwards, Wen Siting dispatched two hundred soldiers, divided into five columns, to operate bamboo rafts on the shore; they piled up all the cloth and firewood that the boatmen had used to build the sheds, then tied them together and floated them towards the boats in the water.

The soldiers from Jizhou on the ship already knew what these drifting bamboo rafts were.

The Thorn Army leader shouted from the ship, "Archers!" "Where are the bows and arrows?" "Quickly, go and shoot!"

However, the arrows were scattered, and when the bamboo raft, which was drifting downstream, came within 30 meters of the large ship, the oil was ignited; the people pushing the raft immediately dived away.

After ten breaths, the large ship began to smoke as it was licked by the flames. Flames began to cling to its hull, and then the flames rose up along the sloping bow like a gecko. Soon after, smoke filled the ship.

Many people jumped off the boats, abandoned their weapons, and swam toward the shore. As flames climbed onto the sails along with the thick smoke, everything spiraled out of control. The sails burst into flames, and large sections of the wreckage, blown by the wind, touched the sails of other ships, quickly setting the entire river ablaze.

…The Second Battlefield… On the 13th, this great fire reduced the Jizhou troops, who had originally been poised for a spear charge, to just a “spearhead”.

While these three thousand soldiers from Jizhou were still shouting "Surrender!" under the walls of Changcheng.

Another Zhen army outside the city learned of the news that their waterway army had been cut off before the vanguard army of Jizhou; so they directly sent out a thousand troops to attack, and also sent out several cavalry squads to raise dust.

The vanguard of the Jizhou army originally intended to settle the matter by sending out a proclamation and take advantage of the situation; however, they dared not directly engage those who actually dared to form ranks and fight.

Because the lines of the crossbowmen and musket formations in Zhenzhou were very neat, they could not be broken without long-range artillery attacks or a massive beast charge.

Just when the military commanders of Jizhou thought the dust storm outside was a bluff.

Two hours later, this bluffing hadn't stopped. The vanguard commander of Jizhou, with his troops at the gates, sensed something was wrong. Normally, the southern camp should send him a message every half day, but now an hour had passed and there was still no word.

Furthermore, the dragon-horse knights sent by Zhenzhou kept shouting that the main force of Jizhou had been defeated. The vanguard of Jizhou was already wavering.

If you could see morale data on the battlefield, you would see that the morale bar of the Iwa family's well-organized, fully-equipped, and orderly troops was plummeting.

The formation of three thousand men, which had been neatly arranged in a square, began to falter; then the musketeers of Zhenzhou began their attack.

The vanguard commander of the Thorn Army still tried to fight back in a desperate attempt, leading his cavalry to flank and charge against the Zhen Army. As the two sides' cavalry exchanged blows and suffered casualties, the Zhen Army's follow-up light musket cavalry arrived and unleashed a barrage of fire at the Thorn Army cavalry who had broken away from the battle lines, infuriating the Thorn Army's cavalry general who cursed them for their lack of martial ethics.

What were the rules of cavalry combat these days? Two cavalry units would charge at each other for one round, then cross paths, regroup, and then charge again for one round.

However, the Zhen army had the advantage of numbers; after the first round of close-quarters cavalry clashes, both sides' formations became somewhat chaotic. Just as the Jizhou cavalry were preparing to run out and regroup, the musketeer cavalry closed in, splitting into small groups of twenty men each, dismounted in advantageous positions, and began firing in volleys within a hundred paces.

The Jizhou cavalry collapsed and fled into the distance, but the musketeer cavalry did not let them go and continued to pursue them.

Meanwhile, the heavy cavalry of Zhenzhou ignored the fleeing Jizhou cavalry and began to outflank them, while the musketeers and crossbowmen of the Zhenzhou army pressed close in.

Just before the battle, the 3,000 troops of Jizhou collapsed. After a volley of musket fire from the front, the cavalry of the Zhen army charged up from the rear. Under the attack from both sides, the Jizhou army shattered like a glass plate falling to the ground.

Meanwhile, in Changcheng, the powerful families who had been preparing to coordinate an attack from within and without were struck by the news as if by a bolt from the blue.

Immediately afterwards, the doomsday came for those who hid in the tunnels, preparing to climb the city walls as soon as the army arrived.

The powerful families discovered that poisonous smoke had been poured into the tunnels, and a large number of people died in the tunnels afterward; the smoke was coming from the wells of some wealthy households in the city, and the search team then went to search the houses based on the smoke.

Outside the city, the troops of Jizhou ran rampant like three thousand pigs across the mountains and fields; these three thousand pigs were eventually captured by the local militia, and a large amount of rope reserves were used up before being sent directly to the jade mines for mining.

…Hao Jun's allies were gone just like that…

So when Wang Yushan, who had disobeyed orders, arrived at the battlefield with the Hao army on June 19th, he saw that the city of Zhenjun was completely undamaged, and the troops of Jizhou had become wreckage on the river.

After receiving the news from the scouts, Wang Yushan was stunned for a long time, then cursed, "This is a bunch of useless trash! How could I have imagined joining forces with these good-for-nothings!"

Although Wang Yushan was unsure of the nature of his pretense of not receiving Zhao Cheng's orders, he learned through the post stations that multiple troop movements on the rear had been initiated in response to his hasty mobilization. Seeing the chaos and disarray that followed, he knew he had stirred up a huge mess.

What Wang Yushan was even more unaware of was that the general standing before him was none other than Xuan Chong.

What he didn't know was that the reason why several legions of Haojun's main force were also mobilized to join the battle was because Zhao Cheng had also rushed over in a great hurry.

…Returning to the time period at the beginning of this chapter…

On the 26th, at the northern pass of Xiangzhou, Xuan Chong led 50,000 troops, deployed along a 15-kilometer-long front, and relied on a series of fortifications to firmly block the Hao army's southward advance.

Xuan Chong already knew that he was in an invincible position in this battle. But the key was how to win!
After winning, should we head north? Heluo is not Xiazhou, nor is it Yongzhou or Xingzhou, those two impoverished states ravaged by war; it is the most virtuous land in the world.

Although his various corps were not at a disadvantage in the main battle, Xuan Chong knew very well that this was because his own troops were united, but it did not mean that the whole world was convinced!
There was a precedent for this in Xuan Chong's previous life, when breakthroughs were made in various fields, from industry and technology to the military, proving that the core group within the country was united. However, many old forces around the world were not convinced.

Someone once said in Xuan Chong's previous life: "When faced with these forces that are hiding in the cesspool, unwilling to admit their wrongdoing and not afraid to talk back, never go down into the cesspool to argue with them; instead, wait until they drown in the cesspool and then put up a warning sign."

Xuan Chong, in the main camp, realized that the vanguard of Hao's army had now run into his defenses, and dared not attack, yet was unwilling to retreat, causing him to panic and make a mess of things.

Xuan Chong did not order a proactive attack, but instead ordered all camps to prepare for defense and for mobile assault forces to stand by.

Xuan Chong was instructed by the Ministry of Commerce to investigate the livelihood of the people under Hao Jun's rule. The report he was holding at the moment recorded the land annexation situation in the northern Heluo region handed over by Xiangzhou.

Year after year, Zhao Cheng's group engaged in land expropriation in the countryside. Even single households in rural areas could not withstand the forced expropriation from higher authorities. A large number of small farmers went bankrupt, abandoned their land, and fled.

Now the land to the north is entirely controlled by local powerful clans. Even if we conquer this area, the current "governance model" of the Zhen Kingdom will not work here.

In this war for the world, the Kingdom of Chen had no plans to occupy "Grass Belly," but Xuan Chong did not want these powerful clans to have an easy time, so he prepared to let this area experience a thorough plundering by the Hao army.

In the current struggle for supremacy, Xuan Chong's side relies on the intellectuals generated by the population concentration of "urban workshops" to contend with Zhao Cheng's majority of the world. However, Zhao Cheng's core supporters will not immediately turn to him after a few months of setbacks.

Even if Zhao Cheng is defeated and the Xuan Chong army marches on, these old local powerful clans who monopolize the means of production on arable land will not admit defeat.

In other words, if another military force representing their interests were to attack, these wealthy households would still slaughter pigs and cattle to reward the "royal army" that had come from afar, resolutely refusing to bow down to the "scraping sparrows".

Xuan Chong: So we have to make these nobles who monopolize the land go bankrupt on their own! And the best way to make them go bankrupt is to force them to engage in extremely costly battles.

Xuan Chong looked at the cards in his hand. The train was delivering military supplies such as charcoal, grain, and ammunition to the front lines every day, in units of hundreds of tons.

Xuan Chong began taking roll call at the camps. At this time, each of the twelve camps deployed at the front line had a strength of four thousand men; as if drawing lots, once a camp was drawn, the legion immediately launched an attack from the front line.

...a cat playing with a mouse...

On the 26th, Wang Yushan's scouts reported that they had discovered a large-scale movement of the Southern Chen army; however, just as he deployed his scouts to accurately determine the forces attacking from all directions, his scouts did not provide accurate information because their detection range was too wide.
Then, on the 27th, overnight, an army appeared to his southeast. Wu Zaixing executed the three stages of "entering, expanding, and taking" flawlessly.

The main forces of Zhen and Zhao have begun to clash.

(End of this chapter)