In this realistic war game, only I understand the course of the battle.

Behind him followed an old soldier with a pipe in his mouth, a centurion with his left arm wrapped in bandages, and several wounded soldiers. Their armor was tattered beyond recognition, but their eyes shone brightly.

Shen Du knelt on one knee. "Li Jingzhong, the commander of the Yanshan Left Guard's Pocheng Camp, pays his respects to General Zhu."

There was a moment of silence in the tent. Zhu Neng stood up from behind the desk, walked around it to Shen Du, and looked down at the young man covered in blood.

"Forty people."

Zhu Neng's voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the tent could hear him clearly.

"You led forty men out of the south gate of Baojia Camp, broke through the Chenjia Camp and Zhongying Camp, blew up two iron gates, and let Chen Heng's cavalry out from the south gate of Zhongying Camp. Then you led the remaining thirty or forty men to stand under the walls of Dezhou City and forced Li Jinglong's commander to surrender."

Shen Du didn't reply. Zhu Neng took half a step forward, then suddenly reached out and patted Shen Du's right shoulder hard.

The palm strike was quite powerful; Shen Du's body swayed slightly, but he did not retreat.

"I've fought half my life, and I've never seen a battle fought like this," Zhu Neng's voice suddenly rose a bit. "But I admit it. The greatest credit for the battle of Dezhou belongs to you."

He took a bronze plaque from his waist; it wasn't the ordinary plaque for a centurion, but a silver plaque for a chiliarch. The back of the plaque was engraved with the character "朱" (Zhu), and the front depicted a gyrfalcon with outstretched wings. He placed the plaque into Shen Du's hand.

"From today onwards, you are promoted to centurion. Team C is promoted to the vanguard centurion unit of the city-breaking camp, and Gu Zhang is promoted to deputy centurion."

"You choose the men yourself. If you need any equipment or supplies, just report it to the central command, and I'll approve it for you."

Shen Du cupped his hands in thanks. "Thank you, General Zhu. But I have another matter to ask."

"explain."

Shen Du raised his head and his gaze fell on the Shandong defense map on the table.

His gaze shifted south from Dezhou City and settled on Jinan.

"Although we have captured Dezhou, Jinan is still in the hands of the Southern Army."

Sheng Yong and Tie Xuan are not Li Jinglong; they won't run away. Jinan will be a tough battle.

His voice wasn't loud, but he pronounced each word clearly.

"I heard that the Three Guards of Doyan have arrived. The Three Guards of Doyan are elite cavalrymen of the grasslands, skilled in ambushes and encirclements in open terrain."

However, there were not many open areas outside Jinan city where cavalry could maneuver. To the east of the city were mountains, and to the west was the Luo River.

To gain the initiative on the outskirts of Jinan, our army needs a new mixed infantry and cavalry tactic. I would like to visit the commander of the Doyan Three Guards to learn their archery and horsemanship techniques, so we can learn from each other's strengths and compensate for our weaknesses.

The tent fell silent for a moment. Zhu Neng turned to look at Huo Zhen.

Huo Zhen pulled the dagger from the horse's bone and said in broken Chinese, "The horses of the Doyan Three Guards are not to be lent to outsiders."

Shen Du turned to Huo Zhen and cupped his hands in greeting.

"Commander Huozhen, I am not borrowing a horse, but learning how to ride one."

The Three Guards of Duoyan came from the grasslands, and their horsemanship and archery skills were unparalleled.

But Jinan is not a grassland; Jinan has many alleys and stockades, so mounted archery cannot exert its full power.

If infantry and mounted archers could coordinate their attacks—infantry breaking through the gaps, cavalry charging in through the openings—the casualties of the Doyan Three Guards could be halved, and their combat effectiveness doubled.

Huo Zhen narrowed his eyes. He stared at Shen Du for several moments, then suddenly grinned.

He revealed two rows of teeth yellowed from being soaked in mare's milk wine. "You're the first to say the cavalry of the Doyan Three Guards weren't going to their deaths. Fine, come find me at the camp tomorrow. Bring your wine."

Jinan. Shandong Provincial Administration Office.

Tie Xuan sat behind a desk in the center of the hall, with a thick stack of military reports piled on the desk in front of him.

The news of the fall of Texas arrived in the early hours of this morning. Since then, he has been working continuously for six hours, his eyes are bloodshot, but his back is still straight.

He was a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations) during the Hongwu era and served as a censor in the Censorate for more than ten years before being transferred to Shandong as a councilor last year.

The imperial edict issued to him by the Jianwen Emperor was only eight characters long—"Supervise the transport of grain and assist in the defense of Jinan." He managed to turn "supervise the transport of grain" into "preside over the defense of Jinan."

"Has Military Advisor Song arrived yet?" Tie Xuan asked without looking up.

"We've arrived," the aide replied. "Wait outside."

"Let him in."

When he entered the hall, he had already changed out of his civil official robes and put on a clean one.

After the fall of Dezhou, he did not retreat south with the remnants of the army, but instead rushed to Jinan without stopping.

Before leaving, he made a final sorting of the military reports from the Twelve Cities, extracting all the useful information from the mess. Now, he held these files in his hands and personally presented them to Tie Xuan.

Tie Xuan took the file and flipped through a few pages, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"The Twelve Linked Cities were a pocket formation, but the pocket formation failed to contain the Yan army's vanguard. Instead, they were breached from the inside. Was the Yan army's leader just a junior officer?"

"Yes." The voice in the blue robe was steady.

"Li Jingzhong, the commander of the Yanshan Left Guard's City-Breaking Camp, blew open the west gate of Baojia Camp and the south gate of Zhongying Camp. He then led a small force southward, spreading smoke and creating confusion along the way. Finally, he personally led his troops to the walls of Dezhou. General Li Jinglong saw the Yan army's banners on the city wall and assumed that the Twelve Linked Cities had been completely breached. He then abandoned the city and fled south. The defenses of Dezhou collapsed as a result."

Tie Xuan placed the case file on the table and remained silent for a long time. He was not a military general, but he knew how to read people.

Every description of Li Jingzhong in this file can be summed up in one sentence: the enemy didn't rely on luck, but on their brains to fight.

"This person is a great calamity."

Tie Xuan opened another booklet, picked up a pen, and wrote a few lines on the paper.

"I will present the section about Li Jingzhong in this military report to General Sheng Yong without altering a single word. The deployment of defenses for the Battle of Jinan must take this man into account. If we can win him over, we will; if not, he will be our primary target on the battlefield."

The man in the green robe cupped his hands in greeting: "I am willing to assist General Sheng Yong in preparing for the city's defenses."

"I've played against Zhu Neng in Texas before, so I have some understanding of his fighting style." Tie Xuan nodded, signaling him to step back.

When the man in the green robe turned and walked out of the hall, it was already late at night.

The streets and alleys of Jinan were far from quiet, filled with torches. Laborers pushed carts of grain up the city walls, blacksmiths' furnaces burned all night, and the clanging of hammers echoed from street to street.

The man in the green robe walked along the torch-lit stone path toward the post station, but his mind was elsewhere. Li Jingzhong.

This man fought his way to the outskirts of Texas. He had a feeling that conquering Texas was not his end goal. He was accumulating some kind of power that no one could yet recognize for the next great battle.

The Yan army camp. The centurion's tent.

When the news of Shen Du's promotion to centurion reached Team C, Zhao Laoliu was washing his tobacco pipe by the river.

The tobacco residue was so thick that he tried to clean it with a blade of grass for ages without success, so he simply rinsed the pipe in water, put the dripping wet pipe back in his mouth, and held it there. When he returned to the camp, he found that their accommodations had changed. It was no longer the few drafty tents in the corner of the dilapidated city camp, but a separate courtyard belonging to the centurion, with two flags planted at the entrance.

On one side was the black flag of the Yan army, and on the other was the silver command flag given by Zhu Neng. Gu Zhang sat at the courtyard gate wiping his knife; the bandage on his left arm had finally been replaced with a clean one.