We'll have you impersonate the Crown Prince and create a prosperous era for the Great Qian Dyna

The noise drifted into the tent.

Zhou Rui couldn't help but go outside.

When he saw this scene, he was momentarily dazed.

Those hundred-odd men, all wounded, were the soldiers brought by the Crown Prince?

"good!"

Zhou Rui shouted and turned to the old eunuch to give orders.

"Go and fetch the silver; there will be a generous reward!"

"This is what the soldiers of the Great Qian Dynasty should look like!"

When he returned to the tent, Sun Tong was already waiting there, his face full of bitterness, unable to smile at all.

On the contrary, Zhou Rui, after sitting down, was beaming with pride and looked very pleased with himself.

He looked at Sun Tong and spoke with a smile.

"How did you feel about this battle, my dear minister?"

Sun Tong gave a wry smile.

"To train soldiers to this level in just one month, I am utterly convinced of my defeat."

He was out of ideas.

In the same month, the soldiers trained by the Crown Prince were completely different from those trained by others.

Sun Tong sighed and slowly explained the reasons for his defeat.

"A month is too short a time. My soldiers are afraid even of wooden blades. I asked them, 'What are you afraid of?'"

"They actually told me that it hurts when wood hits you?"

"On the contrary, the troops trained by the Crown Prince have truly surprised this humble general."

"They knew that the wood would hurt and injure them if it hit them, but they didn't back down an inch."

"His Majesty must have noticed that some people have broken legs, some have broken bones, and some have had their teeth knocked out, but I haven't heard a single person cry out in pain."

"The Crown Prince's training of troops is truly awe-inspiring."

The civil and military officials looked at each other in bewilderment.

The officials from Qin Zhi'ang's faction looked very grim.

Qin Zhi'ang, on the other hand, remained remarkably calm.

The Crown Prince is not out of the running?

This is actually a good thing.

As for military spirit and troop training, Qin Zhi'ang didn't care about them at all.

Ordinary people wouldn't be afraid of wood, but he sent in real swords and knives!

When that time comes, he'll be sure these soldiers won't be afraid!

Zheng Rong glanced at Qin Zhiang meaningfully, then a faint smile appeared on his lips as he calmly picked up his wine glass.

He knew that the soldiers trained by the Crown Prince wouldn't be so useless.

So what if two hundred fight five hundred?

They can still fight!

As for Qin Zhi'ang, he's just a pedantic scholar who knows absolutely nothing about training troops!

He's waiting for the day Qin Zhiang turns cold!

When Zheng Rong turned to look at his daughter, his smile vanished.

Zheng Ye'er was holding her head high with a proud expression, looking as if she shared the glory and disgrace with the Crown Prince, which made Zheng Rong's eyelids twitch.

He couldn't stand it anymore; his adopted daughter's smile was so pathetic.

……

Lin Tong rushed to the camp and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the Crown Prince was safe and sound.

"Your Highness, this humble general is guilty!"

He cleared up the misunderstanding, then patted his chest with a look of lingering fear.

"This humble general never expected that Sun Tong would launch a surprise attack on the military camp, almost ruining Your Highness's important plans."

Zhou Tiancheng smiled and shook his head.

"It's okay, they lost."

"If I'm not mistaken, Sun Tong must have sensed something was wrong with the order, so he wanted to strike first. Fortunately, we won."

"It's a pity that we lost more than a hundred brothers, and now only about three hundred of us are left."

We won the battle, but the sacrifices were real sacrifices.

With only 300 people left out of 500, winning the championship will be quite difficult.

After pondering for a moment, Lin Tong quickly shared his thoughts.

"It seems that we can only wait until Shi Cheng and Hou Feng decide the outcome, then strive to win without fighting, absorb the remaining troops to replenish our manpower, and then we can fight the Third Prince."

There's nothing we can do.

There are too many people on the Third Prince's side!

Xinhua also spoke up from the side.

"Could we set a trap, just like before, to force the Third Prince's troops into the trap and achieve victory without any casualties?"

Lin Tong thought about it and felt that there was no such possibility.

"This time we took the initiative to attack, and the Third Prince had more than a thousand men under his command, but they still retreated and made way. This shows that Xue Fan, who was in charge of the troops, was cautious. He is not the Third Prince and is not so easy to scheme against."

"Because his military strategy and his ability to judge people far surpass those of the Third Prince, and more importantly, we don't know what the situation is like in their military camp. His power is even greater than that of the Third Prince. It is almost impossible to set a trap to lure his army into a pit."

A person like Xue Fan might not achieve great feats in the Northern Frontier, but he would definitely not make mistakes!

This is the most troublesome opponent, and even Lin Tong feels a headache coming on.

If they keep suppressing them step by step, when will this go on?

More importantly, once Xue Fan disperses his forces, he will have to wear down Xue Fan's troops little by little, and these three hundred men are simply not enough to wear them down!

Because there are too few of them!

"Fortunately, the warhorses are still intact. I think we can use cavalry to try and seize the flag by surprise. Let's see if we have that opportunity."

"As long as we capture the military flag, victory will still belong to us."

Zhou Tiancheng didn't have any good ideas either, but he thought Lin Tong's idea was better.

Whether Xue Fan fights or not is irrelevant; after all, this is someone from the Ministry of Rites, and there's no need to save face for him.

They only need to head towards the military flag; their goal is clear, and capturing the flag means victory.

Zhou Tiancheng was absolutely confident in this approach, and he had full faith in the National Protection Army!

Therefore, he no longer hesitated.

"General Shi, have the reconnaissance battalion split into two groups: one to check on the battle between Shi Cheng and Hou Feng, and the other to find out where General Xue Fan's flag is hidden."

"After all, we don't have many people, so we can't dawdle any longer."

"Let's do this: regardless of how Shi Cheng and Hou Feng fare, let's capture Xue Fan's flag first, then turn around and deal with Shi Cheng and his men. That would be a victory in this training competition."

Lin Tong opened his mouth, but ultimately remained silent.

He wasn't stupid; he naturally understood that the Crown Prince still wanted to leave the final battle to the Northern Frontier faction.

This did not align with Lin Tong's plan, but Lin Tong did not reject the route; he simply stood quietly to the side.

Xiao Shi immediately led the scouts away.

Not long after.

The message was then relayed back.

Shi Cheng and Hou Feng were both badly injured, but one side was on defense and the other on offense. In the end, Hou Feng won, leaving only a little over a hundred men, which can be considered a narrow victory.

Zhou Tiancheng glanced at the sand table, pondered for a moment, and then turned to ask Lin Tong.

"Can you calculate roughly how many troops we'll need to sacrifice to capture the Third Prince?"

He feared that if too few people survived, they wouldn't be able to continue attacking Hou Feng, which would give Hou Feng an advantage.

Lin Tong pointed to the sand table.

"The enemy soldiers are clearly inferior to ours; capturing the flag shouldn't be difficult for us."

"After all, they are infantry, while we have the advantage of cavalry charging. As long as we break through the barricades and bypass their traps, capturing the flag will be a piece of cake."

"Your Highness, I believe we should leave a hundred men behind as a precaution. If we succeed in capturing the flag, we can then integrate the main force and launch a counterattack against Hou Feng."

"Even if we fail to capture the flag, we can still work together with Hou Feng to kick the Third Prince out of this competition."

"Whether we win or lose at that time is still hard to say."

He was reminding the Crown Prince to deal with Hou Feng first, as Xue Fan was nothing more than a rabble.

But Chou Tien-cheng pretended not to understand.

He waved for everyone to sit down, sighed, and began to apologize.

"Sun Tong's sneak attack this time was my fault."

"If I hadn't been in such a hurry and been surrounded by Sun Tong, I wouldn't have had to sacrifice so many soldiers."

"Now that you're back, General Lin, the future troop deployments will still be left to you. I'm really not good at this kind of thing."