Novel The Great Game - The Young Master (Ch.308) [finished]

It's a combination of real life and writer's block. I know that I'm proceeding very slowly, or at least; I wanted to go faster, but I'm wrestling with the narrative on how to get there.

 

To those that really like xianxia/wuxia/xuanhuan, quantity over quality might be preferred. But as one that gave up on those novels, I wouldn't be here if the story weren't good, and it is for me. If you need time to write what you want, not just storyline but quality as well, I say no problem. Sadly I can't really say what would help you, not a writer myself and you know yourself.

 

“War. War never changes.”
--Fallout series

Chapter 87 – The grind

It had been several days since the Huangs and their forty thousand soldiers marched into Wei. The lack of response from Wei was disconcerting to Huang Zheng. There wasn’t even a manned checkpoint to put up a symbolic gesture of resistance. There used to be an outpost to monitor the comings and goings from Wu to Wei, but it was abandoned and its buildings torn down.


Huang Ming secretly praised the wise decision of the enemy commander to take flight; for what could he have done with a mere border outpost against forty thousand Wu soldiers?


Though the lack of action was pleasing to the Wu soldiers, the commanders themselves were worried; as each ‘easy’ victory meant they had to march deeper into Wei to seek out a decisive battle. This in turn would leave them vulnerable, for Marshal Gao would rather have the forty thousand Wu soldiers die just to satisfy his desire of having Huang Zheng martyred.


Huang Ming grinned when he saw his father, Zhao Tong and Huang Ke pouring over the maps.


“What the hell are you smiling about?” Huang Ke growled, noticing the lackadaisical look on his younger brother’s face.


“We just had a ‘victory’. Why are you so worried?” Huang Ming asked in return.


General Zhao Tong snorted. “Do you not understand the situation? The willingness of the enemy to flee meant they were prepared to give ground to buy time,” he said.


“I’m not worried about the enemy in front, it’s the enemy behind that’s more dangerous,” Huang Ming said.


Huang Ke exhaled heavily. “But what can we do? We’re ordered to ‘draw off’ the enemy, but the enemy doesn’t want to stay for a fight.”


“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” Huang Ming said.


“Oh?”


“That Qin Lang said that we’re not expected to attack the Wei cities, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to do so. We direct our attentions to one and make the enemy come to us, rather than just chase aimlessly after them.”


“Don’t be ridiculous,” his father snapped. “We’re not equipped for a siege, and I’ll will not throw my men pointlessly at their walls.”


“Who said anything about walls?” Huang Ming asked.


“But you just said-” Huang Ke began to protest.


“We don’t need to attack the city itself proper. Storm every village and outlying township for supplies, but ignore those with walled defences. If the enemy comes out, then we could attempt to destroy them in the field and take the city. If the enemy stays stubbornly within the walled city, then we may proceed unmolested here and there. Sooner or later, Wei will be forced to act,” Huang Ming said.


“You want to cause hardship to ordinary countryside peasants?” Huang Zheng asked in shock.


Huang Ming shrugged. “Father, this is war. I know you value good conduct in war, but this is a fight that we never wanted; and we have an adversary sharpening his dagger to stab us in the back. This is no time for niceties and have proper, ‘honourable’ combat.”


His father sighed, and Huang Ming could see the creases and wrinkles on his face deepen further.


“It’s just so…so…” Huang Zheng muttered.


“So cruel,” Zhao Tong finished for him. “But your son is right, this is war. And while I have no love for Wei, it is clear that our true enemy is that damned marshal.”


“There is an additional benefit to this,” Huang Ming added.


“What do you mean?” his father asked.


“For every little position we take, send messages back to report your ‘victory’. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small outpost like this one, or a village, or a town. All you need to do is to tell the marshal that you’re winning. Have your messenger then spread the word everywhere. The marshal will be needled into moving, he cannot afford to stay back and let you grab all the glory. He will insist to take charge of the invasion proper,” Huang Ming explained.


Huang Zheng brightened. “Good!”


Daliang City,
Capital of Wei

General Ran Wei was a towering man in his late thirties. He had a brutal sort of handsomeness: a square jaw, glowering eyes and thick brows. He had a presence about him that dominated the room, an intimidating aura that struck awe and terror to all who saw him. This was a man who used his dreadful reputation as an armour.


His reputation was not undeserved. Despite his relative young age, he had carved a bloody career as he rose relentlessly in the ranks. Wei was a nation where martial prowess was prized, and General Ran Wei was the epitome of a great Wei Warrior that had great cunning to go along with his strength.


There were few who dared to challenge his authority, but in recent days his mystique had eroded in the face of Wu’s aggression. When he had proposed the invasion of Wu, no one had spoken a word against it. He had argued a convincing case: that Wu’s king was a weakling and that there was dissent in the court, that Wu was ripe for the picking.


Who would have expected Wu to have struck first? The capture of Tigertrap Fort was akin to a slap to the face, and those who were jealous of this young man’s meteoric rise were quick to take advantage of it, resulting in this emergency inquest at the King of Wei’s palace. General Ran Wei could feel the cold, mocking looks of the court officials and old mainstays of the army, all revelling in his moment of weakness.


He had made a lot of enemies in his thirty years, either directly or indirectly. The nail that sticks out would be hammered down, as the saying goes.


Ran Wei was one such nail.


“How is it that your invasion plans of Wu resulted in us being attacked instead?” a courtier asked.


“I warned that antagonizing Wu would do us no good. You have misled the king with your false advice!” another accused.


“Enough,” the King of Wei said wearily from his throne. “Now that we have invited the enemy into our realm, what is your plan to defeat them?”


Ran Wei saluted the king. “Sire, most of our own forces are dispersed. It will take time for us to gather our forces into a cohesive unit. In the meantime, I have instructed our garrisons to hold fast and ignore the enemy provocations.”


One of his military rivals sneered, a certain general called Fei Yue. “Sire, what General Ran meant was for us to hide behind our cities while the enemy is rampaging through the countryside. Would the general continue to stay still until the enemy is right before Daliang?”


The King of Wei leaned forward. “Well, General Ran?” he asked.


“Wu is doing this precisely to draw our defenders away. If we allow our soldiers to sortie forth to do battle, it would to play directly into their hands. No, we must stay within and let the enemy exhaust themselves.”


“Hah!” Fei Yue scoffed. “Exhaust themselves? The Wu devils are pillaging the towns and villages for supplies, causing hardship to our people! It seems that General Ran has grown too lax after being promoted too quickly. Sire, give me the honour to crush the Wu devils!”


The King nodded. Ran Wei was his best general, but his passive advice did not please him. Still, he wanted to give some face to the young man.


“What do you think?” the king asked.


“Let General Fei Yue try,” Ran Wei said as he bowed, and his rival exulted at his humiliation.


No one saw the cynical smile on his face.


‘Do you think the likes of Huang Zheng and Zhao Tong are mere scarecrows? They are veterans of a hundred battles! Let him try, and fail. Then you’ll have no choice but to rely on me once more.’

Fools rush in,
Confident in their desire to win.​

 

First !
Thank for the chapter.
Eh, interesting, so they weren't ready for war :x

 

oops I forgot to like. Lokumi your first is fake.

 

It's because Wu took Tigertrap Fort, their rallying point. Since messages and orders have 'travel time', their own forces have to idle at their home bases to await new orders.

 

Well, I'm first to like, and first to comment, so I'm first...

That's quite logic, but they still should have "lot" of troop near the border if they were planning to invade, to have reinforcement for the main army at least (Well I'm not a strategist so I could totally be wrong).

 

Third... didn't had enough time to be the first... even though I got the alert as soon as possible...

 

Three new chapters, yay.
Thanks for the work.

 

You could do that, but you're also saying to everyone: "Hey, I'm gathering troops! I'm gonna do something with them! LOOK AT ME, I'M GOING TO WAR!!" Also, soldiers need food and housing, even soldiers that just stand around (so their just a waste) and the invasion proper was supposed to be later. As for why build the fort if the invasion is later, that place was lacking materials and no one though Wei would waste time and effort to cart things there through crappy terrain, so secret project. No large troop movement, no "waves" to tip off the "weakened" Wu.

 

Chapter will be late, tired from Chinese New Year shopping. The past few days have been hectic, not helped by the rains.

 

Gather the mob. The chapter is late!

Just kidding, thanks for the heads up!

 

“You know, this is not the conduct of a gentleman.”
-- Lord General Cornwallis, ‘The Patriot’

Chapter 88 – Infuriating Fei Yue

Wu Vanguard camp,
Within Wei


“Well, we’ve done it,” Huang Zheng grunted heavily as he looked up from the letter of challenge.


“It’s about time,” Zhao Tong grumbled.


Their vanguard force of forty thousand soldiers had marched unchecked, sowing chaos among the rural population. The lack of a concrete objective for the vanguard meant the Wu soldiers were free to split and merge their units as often as they liked, behaving akin to a very large group of bandits; ravaging the Wei countryside.


The irony was not lost on Huang Zheng and Zhao Tong, having pretended to do so earlier back home. But it was not to this scale.


Many of the lesser townships and villages did not bother to resist, most simply fled at the sound of their arrival. In honesty, Huang Zheng had his troops deliberately slow down and beat the drums and gongs loudly so that the citizens would have some measure of time to evacuate. Then his troops proceeded to march unopposed and seize the crops, leaving only empty granaries for the returning inhabitants.


There were a few settlements with stalwart leaders that dared to conscript a militia, but the poorly armed villagers would flee when they saw the Wu soldiers. The charismatic leaders that had stirred their fighting spirit would shout and scream at them to no avail. Some were opportunistic to make names for themselves, others were truly patriotic and slit their own throat in despair rather than to surrender or escape. To them, the passing Wu soldiers would give a respectful salute.


There was also an uncharitable reason for Huang Zheng’s measures of mercy. The survivors would return to find their homes bereft of food and their fields trampled, and would have no choice but to seek aid from the nearest city. The influx of refugees placed pressure on the city’s supplies, and each day of inaction from the city’s authorities against Wu only heaped more criticism and anger on them.


As word began to spread about their ‘atrocities’, even the Wu soldiers were beginning to question themselves. The concept of a professional army as Huang Ming understood it had yet to arrive in this world: many of the soldiers were farmers themselves and hoped to return home to their own fields once their tour of duty was completed for the year. A standing army, trained and maintained for a tenured period had yet to be truly implemented except for the royal guard; as it was costly for kingdoms to pay and feed people ‘idling’ around in the military when they could be farming or working as labourers. That was a reason why many cities were impressively walled, so as to buy time for the rest of the country to mobilize their conscription and armaments.


It was one of the things that Huang Ming wished to change to make warfare more efficient. There were many ‘outdated’ practices that he wanted to abolish, for example; the lack of a proper chain of command among the ordinary soldiers. On the whole, the army formations and legions were unwieldy. A general would lead ten thousand men (or more) and might detach part of it to a trusted aide for maneuvers, but the idea of lower ranked officers like sergeants and corporals given responsibilities and acting on their own initiative were virtually unheard of. Perhaps this was why many soldiers revered the older leaders like Huang Zheng and Zhao Tong, for they rose through the ranks and did what nobody had expected of them.


Another of the existing concepts Huang Ming found amusing was the letter of challenge, one of which had just been delivered to them. Apparently, the raiding tactics of Huang Zheng were unorthodox and contrary to the usual practices. The Wei general had marched from one crisis point to another, but was unable to catch or intercept to the constantly moving Wu force because they were not aiming for a specific city. After a few instances of this, the Wei general finally opted to send multiple messengers in every direction with copies of a letter of challenge so that a formal, ‘old-fashioned’ battle on an agreed time and place could be fought.


“So who are we fighting?” Huang Ke asked.


“A force of seventy thousand, under the command of Fei Yue,” Huang Zheng said.


“Fei Yue, bah!” Zhao Tong said scornfully. “Nothing but a windbag who can’t fight his way out of a women’s skirt.”


Huang Ming raised an eyebrow at this comment. “He’s an incompetent?” he asked.


“He’s all talk and little action,” Zhao Tong said and spat.


“To be honest, I expected their best. Someone like General Ran Wei,” Huang Zheng said. Then he unrolled a map and marked several locations with pins. “Still, they slightly outnumber us. Fei Yue has proposed three sites of battle. Here, here and here. Send some scouts to all three, we need more information,” he said.


Huang Ming was aghast. “Wait a minute, don’t tell me you’re accepting?”


All turned to face him questioningly.


“Of course we are. I’m not about to refuse combat against Fei Yue of all people!” Zhao Tong said, and Huang Zheng concurred.


Huang Ming stared at them as if they were mad. “Just because the enemy sent a piece of paper doesn’t mean we have to agree!”


“This is an opportunity to destroy their army in the field,” Huang Ke pointed out.


“We’re the one with the initiative, why should we drop it and fight where and when the enemy wants?” Huang Ming demanded.


“What do you propose then?”


Huang Ming glanced at the map. “Tell Fei Yue that we choose the one on the left,” he said casually.


His brother exploded. “What? But you just said-”


“I didn’t say that we’re going to be there,” Huang Ming interrupted blandly. “We’re going the opposite direction, I’m sure we can find a few other places to sack.”


“You want us to lie? But I thought all along that we were to draw the enemy into the open, and now they are literally begging us to fight!” Zhao Tong said bemusedly.


“Oh, we’ll fight. At a time and place of our choosing,” Huang Ming chuckled. “Since they are the ones who are desperate, we should turn the screws on them and seek favourable conditions for ourselves. After all, we do need to survive until the thirty days are up before Marshal Gao moves his fat ass.”


“Assuming he will move at all,” his father muttered.


Huang Ming nodded grimly. Then he beckoned them to come closer and lowered his voice.


“This is what we’ll do…”



General Fei Yue’s camp,
Within Wei

“Those miserable, dishonourable cretins!” Fei Yue raged, crumpling the letter in his hand.


His seventy thousand Wei soldiers were hungry for vengeance. They were eager to lay their hands on the Wu invaders, and their anger was further inflamed when they heard how their countryside had been pillaged. Yet, there was no predictable pattern to Wu’s movements. He had led his men fruitlessly, chasing the down the latest emergency report; only to find their quarry had already left the area. Their only reward was exhaustion and irritation, and the scorn of the villages and towns that saw their belated arrival as proof of their incompetence.


If Fei Yue was a more flexible commander, he would have coordinated with the garrisons of the nearby cities to entangle the Wu vanguard so that he could bring his bigger force to bear. But he was a prideful person, and having blustered in front of the King of Wei to seize the opportunity from General Ran Wei, Fei Yue loathed to ask for help.


He had thought the Wu invaders to be cowards who kept evading and avoiding his superior force. But as the days wore on, he realized that they were simply ignoring him to continually raid the rural civilians. Thus he had resorted to the time honoured letter of challenge to end the cat and mouse chase. His subordinates were skeptical, but they had no other recourse.


Much to Fei Yue’s surprise, the Wu vanguard actually accepted; and he happily marched his force towards the designated place. As custom dictated, they were supposed to camp facing each other, have a brief parley between the commanders and then the battle could commence.


When Fei Yue reached the designated location, he was delighted to find it empty. It meant his troops could set camp first and enjoy a brief respite while waiting for the Wu vanguard to arrive. After the promised date had lapsed, Fei Yue decided to wait one more day… only to feel as if his face was slapped when the next spy report told him that the Wu vanguard were nowhere near the promised site. In fact, they had struck towards the opposite direction, and in multiple areas at once! It was as if they couldn’t care less about Fei Yue and his numerically superior force, the Wu vanguard was brazen enough to split its forces. It flew against the tenets of war: an inferior force should not divide itself against a bigger opponent.


Fei Yue had enough, he felt he had been utterly shamed.


“Split our forces into three! We’ll march in three pincers: from the north, south and east and push them back towards Tigertrap Pass! We’ll surround the Wu devils and finish them once and for all!” he roared.


A subordinate was brave enough to speak against it. “But sir, if we’re to cast the net that wide, that would mean a very large gap between the three blocks. It would be very difficult to coordinate with each other.”


Fei Yue nodded. “You have a point. Let’s do it this way then, we’ll set a date to reform in the centre. Even if we do not catch them, then we’ll just regroup and push directly into Tigertrap Pass. If we cannot destroy these damned Wu bandits, then we’ll just take the fort itself!”

All the toil and sweat,
His appetite was whet. ​

 

Thanks!

 

What is honor, can you eat that ?

 

Thanks for the chapter.
Lol, I had the whole thing emailed to me as part of the notification.

 

how did that even happen

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Eh at least you had a notification
Thanks for the chapter !

 

That's how they come for me too. It is also why I sometimes forget to come to the forum and like/comment.