Chapter 1 Ni Si Gui Secretly Complains

Jia Qingyun's statement made Ni Sigui secretly complain. He wasn't as impulsive as Jia Qingyun, but upon careful consideration, things really seemed as Jiang Xujing had said. And now, even Jiang Xujing himself had set an example, handling his own main force in the same way. Although everyone still wanted to argue, after Jiang Xujing's speech, they could only swallow their selfishness.

What was the Yunzhou army? It was a first-class professional army, no less impressive than the so-called number one army, the Blood Kirin Army, and far superior in numbers. In the eyes of many in Xiling, the Blood Kirin Army was a bunch of bored Dongping aristocratic clans throwing countless amounts of money around. But the Yunzhou armies, starting from the reorganization of the fifty battalions, from equipment selection to training, followed the path of a conventional professional army. It wouldn't be wrong to consider the Yunzhou armies as the standard for Dongping's military strength in the years to come. The significance of defeating the Yunzhou army in a formal battle, from this perspective, surpassed even piling up corpses to defeat the Blood Kirin Army. And if they could win, the benefits would be self-evident.

Jia Qingyun frowned, sighed, and said, "I respectfully obey the Great Commander's orders."

Seeing that Jia Qingyun still had some emotions, Jiang Xujing sighed and said, "A general's incompetence kills the entire army… This time, the Yunzhou army's mobilization, judging from their posture, was obviously prepared for a considerable time, yet our spies gained nothing. And those troops originally on the Northern Liao side are said to have marched continuously and then directly engaged in combat. What a terrifying ability. In any case, I dare not underestimate Ye Tao. You can rest assured, this time, I am sorry to the soldiers, hence this inferior strategy. After this battle, I will definitely put aside this old face and ask the imperial court for compensation, guaranteeing that the casualties will be properly taken care of, and ensuring that the surviving soldiers will receive generous rewards."

Jia Qingyun had followed Jiang Xujing for many years, and seeing Jiang Xujing's actions, which were almost equivalent to begging for his cooperation, he felt somewhat unbearable. He quickly said, "Great Commander, this humble general would never dare to complain, but… seeing so many soldiers going to their deaths, my heart cannot bear it. Since the Great Commander says that he will make proper arrangements, so that the soldiers have no worries, they will naturally fight to the death."

What Jia Qingyun said made sense. The Zhenbei Military Command wasn't like Yunzhou and other places in Dongping, or even as wealthy as the southern regions. It was able to support a considerable number of professional soldiers. And the Zhenbei Military Command had always had to bear the burden of the entire northern war and maintain a relatively large number of troops. Therefore, the salaries of soldiers and lower-level officers had always been low. Thus, in the Zhenbei Military Command, where military households accounted for the majority, most families were very poor. If the compensation amount was large, coupled with a certain amount of encouragement, it would be easy to get those soldiers to risk their lives to win a future for their families.

Jiang Xujing nodded and said, "Very good." He discussed some combat preparations with the two of them before letting them leave.

However, what happened in the following days made Jiang Xujing extremely depressed. The Yunzhou army actually changed its previous rapid advance and began to advance slowly and steadily. But the Yunzhou scouts advanced even further, extensively searching and killing in areas where neither army had many troops, and where only scouts and small teams of cavalry were sent. Because the Frost Wolf and Silver Wing armies were light cavalry integrating reconnaissance and combat, they were much more adept at this task than the scout cavalry teams led by Jiang Xujing's scout chief. Similarly, in this way, the four elite cavalry teams that Jiang Xujing had originally sent to harass the rear of the Yunzhou army were also somewhat embarrassed: they found it difficult to pass through the buffer zone where scouts from both sides shuttled back and forth and small-scale battles broke out from time to time.

After a cavalry team was spotted by a team of Frost Wolf army scouts, it quickly retreated, originally planning to pass through the buffer zone overnight. What they didn't expect was that they were ambushed by two battalions of superior forces as soon as they passed through the buffer zone. Although they were protected by the darkness of night, only thirty or so people escaped in the end.

Even more unlucky was a team that had quietly passed through the buffer zone. They had originally approached a supply camp transporting a batch of huo you dan (fire oil bombs) and easily worn parts for crossbows, ballistae, and divine arm bows, but just as they were preparing to take a detour to set up an ambush, they unexpectedly encountered a battalion of auxiliary soldiers from the Rongjun Farm Ranch. This battalion had just been approved to go to the front line to participate in the battle as an important supplement to the main combat troops, and they were so excited that they didn't even care that Suo Zheng had reminded them not to cross the convoy of that supply camp too quickly when they set off, saying that it would be troublesome to reorganize non-formal units like them if they bypassed the order. They ran into the supply team that same day. Of course, it may also have been because the beef powder and beef jerky produced by the Rongjun Ranch itself were better and easier to carry than standard military rations, and they brought a lot of it… They claimed that they could operate continuously for a month without resupplying food.

However, the confusion caused by the auxiliary soldiers and the supply camp meeting on the road saved the supply camp. If a single cart was set on fire, the chain reaction would be enough to destroy everyone. While the auxiliary battalion was bored, they decided to camp and wait for the supply battalion to pass first. They also boredly scouted the surrounding area and unexpectedly discovered the scouts of Jiang Xujing's elite cavalry. If it were other troops, they might carefully scout the enemy's numbers first, but this auxiliary battalion was afraid of missing out on a battle. They didn't let go of this extra snack delivered to their door before the formal battle. They didn't even make any arrangements and directly launched an attack on the mountain pass with a very bandit-like brawl tactic. After defeating the enemy, they dispersed into small teams to search and kill, while calling out to any troops they encountered along the way. The veterans in the auxiliary battalion often ran into acquaintances, and with their calls, they launched a massive search and kill operation against the remnants of that cavalry force. In the end, they even dispatched two airships for aerial guidance. Although they could only communicate by exchanging gestures in binoculars between the air and the ground for the time being, they had begun to exert the power of "air-ground integration." And finally, after more than seven thousand troops were invested in searching and killing that elite cavalry team, the entire elite cavalry force was wiped out, and not a single person escaped. For the Yunzhou armies, the main reason for investing so much energy in such a thorough search and kill operation was not to establish prestige or maintain military secrecy, but purely for fun…

But these were just the state of Yunzhou accumulating combat power. Ye Tao ordered the entire army to advance slowly and steadily, directly putting Jiang Xujing in a dilemma. The Yunzhou side could not indefinitely delay the war, but delaying it for ten days or half a month, this progress was still much better than originally expected. These days, the army had changed from having to precisely calculate the amount of supplies, with basically only a small amount of food and other daily necessities remaining between two resupplies, to now having at least ten days' worth of supplies for each battalion. Suo Zheng also strictly ordered all subsequent troops entering the Zhenbei Military Command to bring their own thirty days of rations…

Although Ye Tao had already decided to fight a battle with a total troop strength far less than the opponent's, he was never willing to take too much risk. He not only joined forces with the Northern Route Army led by Dai Shijin and the First Corps, but also ordered those troops whose combat effectiveness had reached a certain standard to gradually transfer to the front to prepare for battle. The three battalions of Rongjun Farm Ranches would all be equipped to the battle troops, and the rear supply line would be the responsibility of several temporarily transferred garrison battalions. In this way, coupled with the severely overstaffed tribal army that Golan had gotten, although this lineup seemed a bit strange, at least the total troop strength would not be comparable to the part of the Zhenbei Military Command that Jiang Xujing could mobilize. At least it was a ratio of less than one to two, which was enough. Everyone was already saying that Ye Tao overestimated the combat power of Jiang Xujing's troops.

Moreover, after a heavy infantry battalion of the Vanguard Army arrived at a place where Guiyi City could be seen, Ye Tao actually set up camp and stood firmly there, seemingly preparing to swoop down after the entire army was assembled. In the days when Ye Tao slowed down his advance, Jiang Xujing felt very uncomfortable, not only because the longer the time, the greater the possibility of problems arising from the army gathered by the Zhenbei Military Command, which was ten thousand times more complex than the Yunzhou army, but also because the consumption of 300,000 troops was really a figure that could drive people crazy. And when preparing for this great battle, he would rather overdraw future food than reduce rations to make everyone aware of some kind of crisis.

And Ye Tao setting up camp like this immediately put Jiang Xujing in a dilemma. Should he launch an attack now, or wait and see if Ye Tao would attack Guiyi first, creating the opportunity he wanted. Within the Zhenbei Military Command's army, the general opinion was that they should launch an offensive immediately. What everyone saw was that Ye Tao's subsequent troops arrived every day. Although there was only one battalion every day, no one knew exactly how many battalions would come in the end. Taking advantage of the current high morale and superior strength, it would be good to swoop down. On the other hand, it was because the Yunzhou army led by Ye Tao looked too well-equipped. The scouts who patrolled around the camp every day, the soldiers who stood upright at the gate of the camp with their dazzling armor, everyone saw it. Every day, large equipment such as ballistae were pushed out of the Yunzhou army's camp for maintenance and calibration… These had also begun to circulate within the army of the Zhenbei Military Command, and over time, it would definitely affect morale.

However, if he launched a full-scale attack now, Jiang Xujing didn't really have complete confidence that he would be able to swoop down in one go. Without the restraint of Guiyi City, even if he pulled out all the Protectorate Army to use together, perhaps the combat power wouldn't be reduced, but there would be one less direction of operation, and there would be fewer tricks he could play. And a one-time collision of more than 100,000 troops against nearly 300,000 troops? Heroic, perhaps… Jiang Xujing didn't want to engage in such a heroic gamble.