Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 85 Mobile Warfare

On the lush green grassland, Wu Sihao, the flag bearer of the Third Battalion, watched as the fierce soldiers of the Zhenzhou Army charged forward, roaring and brandishing their large machetes. Eight large iron rings pierced the backs of these machetes, making a clanging sound.

Wu Sihao then turned to look at Bai Ya, the commander of his squad. This officer, brought by the Second Young Marshal, was busy issuing several flag commands. A sergeant in the ranks shouted out the orders at the top of his lungs, while the soldiers silently and uniformly obeyed.

From a high vantage point, Wu Sihao's halberd-wielding troops were forming three horizontal lines in preparation for battle. The crossbowmen who had been following behind the ranks had switched to a column and were quietly moving around to prepare to line up on both sides of the battlefield; while further away, a group of Wu family cavalrymen with cloth wrapped around their hooves were flanking from behind.

After the Wu family army dispersed and formed ranks, they held back the Blood Fiend rebels for a while, and then suddenly began to spread out like five fingers, grasping at them in all directions.

Fighting this Wu family army were about a hundred mad soldiers from Zhenzhou. These mad soldiers were in disorganized ranks, but they were generally a head taller than the Wu family army soldiers and appeared strong and powerful. If taken out for a one-on-one fight, they would obviously be formidable warriors.

In fact, during the march, Wu Fei had already summarized his combat experience in the first few small-scale skirmishes: when normal troops faced the relentless, unpredictable slashes of the berserker's broadsword, even the veterans in Wu Family Army who had served for three years would quickly run out of energy while parrying, and would eventually be caught off guard and beheaded by such a terrifying opponent.

So, the tactics that the officers of the Wu family army summarized for dealing with these berserkers were: first, use cavalry to mow them down for a while, then have the infantry take turns attacking them, and when their strength is exhausted, bring in the crossbows to fire.

And so it is now. Just as the soldiers were about to rush to the front of the formation, Bai Ya raised his thumb to measure the distance between the enemy and himself. When they got within thirty paces, the Wu family soldiers threw out cross-shaped darts one by one.

The blast landed on the berserker ranks, the acrid smoke enveloping them, forcing them to drop their swords, shield their mouths and noses with their elbows, and squint with tears streaming down their faces. Their fearless charge was replaced by a series of slow, deliberate steps.

Just then, whistling arrows flew out from both sides. The Wu family's crossbowmen appeared almost simultaneously as the whistling arrows took effect and began firing. Arrows whizzed by, a rain of arrows swept across the sky, and a chilling aura swept across the ground, causing the locusts on the ground to fly around in terror.

The cavalry lingering at the rear also launched a charge, causing some of the berserkers to turn around and feign resistance. As the sound of hooves grew closer, the angry shouts of the berserkers, audible from the crossbowmen's positions, began to fade as they turned their backs to the Wu family's infantry formation.

However, the Wu family cavalry feinted, turning their horses around and leaving when they reached within fifty paces. The berserkers who were defending against the charge were delayed by stopping, allowing the crossbowmen to fire a third volley after the second round of crossbow bolts were nocked. After the firing, the cavalry returned, this time turning back within forty paces, and the crossbowmen fired again.

In the end, only a handful of twenty or so soldiers remained. Wu Sihao led his halberdiers to meet them. Just before the clash, he roared "Hey ha!" to raise morale to its peak. This was a characteristic of Wu Hengyu's Northern Route Army.

The Wu family army's close combat consisted of dozens of closely linked halberds forming a jungle-like formation, with many facing one opponent at a time. The well-coordinated Wu family soldiers spat on their palms, then gripped their spear shafts, having already communicated beforehand: "You two use your halberds to block his broadsword," "I'll stab him in the chest," "Third brother, you stab him in the balls."

With the halberdiers working in an orderly manner, these berserkers who could take on ten men in the arena were pinned to the ground and riddled with bloody holes.

After the battle, Bai Ya issued a message ordering the communications soldiers from other battalions to go to the battlefield to verify the battle achievements. The entire unit rested for half an hour before continuing its forced march.

…Back to the big map…

The Wu family army's northern route army marched in formation on a map of the five counties along the Zhen River, with each battalion represented by a flag.

Just now, Wu Sihao's column touched the enemy's flag, and the enemy flag disappeared in the collision. This was just a minor skirmish during the march. Similar obstacles were encountered by other columns as well. But none of them posed a major obstacle, and the march continued.

All troops advanced in unison.

The strongest enemy force encountered during the entire march was three days prior.

The warriors, fiercely loyal to King Lelang, led hundreds of their troops to intercept him. Wu Fei, the commander-in-chief, dispatched four large battalions to quickly converge on the target, overwhelming this seemingly insurmountable mantis with five times the mantis's strength.

As for King Lelang's main force, the map on Wu Fei's silk scroll showed that more than a dozen flags were densely gathered in the city.

If Wu Fei's army were marked on a strategic map with each flag consisting of 300 combat soldiers and 800 auxiliary soldiers, there would be more than a dozen flags, and they bypassed the area where King Lelang gathered his troops during their march.

It's worth mentioning that when they're closest to the city, these gathering points can only send out one or two flags to intercept at a time! They can't mobilize any more, just like a game freezing up.

…After a forced march of twelve days…

All troops have already penetrated through the central, dangerous area occupied by King Lelang's main force and arrived in the north.

Wu Fei had abundant intelligence. Two days after his own operation, King Lelang arrived at Kangtian City in his war chariot and took command of a camp of 30,000 men. It is said that this fiend, like a pyramid scheme leader, would roar angrily from the city wall, and tens of thousands of men below would respond in a state of rage.

Wu Fei was very curious about how he had taken over an army that was unfamiliar with him. Without the assistance of non-commissioned officers, he couldn't even keep track of the names of each team leader.

Of course, Wu Fei no longer needs to worry about this. He has already led his troops across 300 miles to achieve the strategic objective: all the battalions, after a long march, have arrived at the designated location and begun to converge, forming a main camp of 10,000 men.

After the eight battalions merged into a main camp, Wu Fei did not ride his beloved Jiu Feng, but instead donned the standard dragon horses of the battalion commanders. He then conducted a surprise inspection of the various battalions' post-marathon conditions.

When Wu Fei inspected the troops, each battalion was busy with camp deployment work according to the regulations.

The atmosphere of this scene is like a tour group getting up in the morning, with everyone in each room brushing their teeth and washing their faces at a designated sink, hurriedly doing their own things.

After the main camp was assembled, the wagons of each group gathered at the timber and water collection areas, busy with the tasks assigned in their battalion's manual. Facing Wu Fei's supervision, there was absolutely no possibility of concealment.

…a whole notebook full of problems…

After inspecting the situation of all the battalions, Wu Fei checked the clock and, after confirming that the initial work at each camp was completed, began to beat the drums to raise the tents. In less than 45 minutes, all the soldiers had arrived at their tents. Most of them had dark circles under their eyes, and judging from their armor, they hadn't taken it off since the previous night.

Wu Fei nodded, confirming that the Northern Route Army he had taken over was smoothly integrating into his training system.

In the camp, Wu Fei glanced at the participating commanders and then began to assign seats to everyone. Commanders who arrived first and whose ranks were over 90% complete sat at the head of the table; those whose ranks arrived but 20% had fallen behind sat in the middle. As for those who had been ordered by Wu Fei to abandon some of their supplies in order to arrive on time, they sat at the bottom of the table.

There's no other reason than that Wu Fei wanted to remind these soldiers that there are daily assessments!

This assessment process provides daily feedback, keeping everyone constantly on their toes. (It's similar to the infamous food delivery driver attendance system in Xuan Chong's previous life, but in the current military context, these non-commissioned officers are subject to assessment.)
Before the establishment of the non-commissioned officer system, Wu Fei controlled the details himself, but ended up falling ill while in southern Xinjiang. He realized that if he didn't properly delegate tasks to his subordinates, he would be overworked to death.

There was a minor incident during the seating arrangement: a captain of the Dragon Horse Cavalry lost five carts while his unit was traveling, and upon arrival, he had to ask other camps in the main camp to allocate vehicles to him, so he was assigned a lower seat. As a poor scholar whom Wu Hengyu had originally favored, he was now placed in a low position and was quite uneasy, but he didn't dare to show his emotions. Because Wu Fei's standards were fixed, everyone else had met them, but he hadn't, so he could only swallow his anger.

Wu Fei noticed this, because the cavalry captain's forgetfulness along the way was exactly what he had expected!

Wu Fei even took precautions, sending his adjutant to report on his situation to him at all times, and after confirming his work oversights every day, he would order him to drop supplies and maintain speed, while immediately ordering the accompanying brigade to send a team to receive the supplies he dropped.

When the cavalry captain was under Wu Hengyu's command, his abilities were among the best. However, over time, he became a bit arrogant and developed some conceit based on his abilities when facing other members of the Wu family.

This arrogance made him psychologically resistant to accepting Wu Fei's direct assignment of sergeants to manage him. In other words, as a smart person would say, "You want to teach me how to do things? Why should I?"

Therefore, Wu Fei did not assign him a nanny-level team supervisor, but let him try his own intelligence.

Narrator: Because he was Wu Hengyu's man, Wu Fei did not want the conflict between the two factions within the Wu family's Northern Route Army to escalate when he was doing things.

Wu Fei did not want to waste his precious authority on mediating the conflicts of a few individuals in the planning of this military operation.

Therefore, Wu Fei chose to let these guys who might provoke conflict step on the scale themselves, expose their true worth, and then convince them of their worth.

It has been proven that the military system is highly specialized and requires a large investment of manpower and resources for systematic exploration. The system that Wu Fei has is not necessarily the result of being particularly clever, but rather that after seeing the future, he took advantage of the opportunity to send troops to southern Xinjiang to quantify all aspects and then began to develop solutions to problems, which were then compiled into a military manual system.

Even if this Dragon Horse Cavalry captain is very smart, he hasn't done any test questions, so how could he possibly handle this kind of problem?

However, after he fails the exam, he will be able to accept the position of "Chief Commander" arranged for him by Wu Fei.

…The grades were not satisfactory, but there is still a lot of room for improvement…

Therefore, during the meeting, Wu Fei called out names one by one, and before each battalion came forward, they reported the number of soldiers under their command and the neatness of their armor and weapons.

Wu Fei checked the camp roster list. He then issued tokens to each squad leader, instructing them to prepare for a thorough inspection upon their return. Like a teacher checking elementary school students' recitation of a text, it was a lengthy process that lasted a full three hours. Meals were prepared for the squad leaders waiting in the main camp: meat for the first seat, salted bean cakes for the middle seat, and only water and leftover cakes for the last seat.

After receiving their tokens, the soldiers in the camp went out with the messenger for a second inspection. From eight in the morning until sunset, all the troops were checked.

In Wu Fei's central command tent hung a map of the entire camp, showing the location of each smaller camp. The number of soldiers and armored vehicles in the convoys was also tallied upon entering the main camp. The current status of each camp was displayed on this master map, with annotation boxes for each camp, clearly indicating whether any units were missing or not, and whether all soldiers and armor were in good order.

Three brigades had vacancies during the investigation. The battalion commanders of these brigades received red cards, which were recorded in the reward and punishment system. The relevant disciplinary actions will be determined later.

If immediate punishment is imposed, it may lead to cover-ups, resulting in excessive vacancies in some units. As the corps leader, Wu Fei was unaware of this, leading to repeated mistakes when assigning tactical tasks.

Temporarily refraining from punishment until the final assessment after the campaign concludes helps maintain team stability during execution.

When Wu Fei was revising the manual, he took into account all sorts of details for the implementers below.

That evening, Wu Fei looked at the map of the entire camp and let out a long sigh of relief. He had a clear understanding of the legion's situation after the assembly, and he had already compiled it into a complete record, awaiting the arrival of either Wu Hanluan or Wu Hengyu to take over the camp.

Wu Fei assigned a bunch of numerical values ​​to each camp. Morale was scored based on factors such as "hot food" and "whether bedding was intact," while combat strength was scored based on the condition of armor and weapons.

To play strategy games effectively, you need to know the health points of each unit. Currently, each battalion is a unit, and the number of soldiers and the level of armor and weapons represent "health," "defense," and "attack," respectively.

When Xuan Chong checked the exchange catalog, he discovered that his own system had an "digital" command system for exchanges, which was worth about 0.2 credits.

Wu Fei: "Hehe, I'll skip that."

…System: I wasn't planning on giving it to you. …

On the third day, after the army camp was secured, groups of cavalry began to go around the surrounding areas carrying flags to recruit soldiers.

In military strategy, there's not only the tactic of finding food in enemy territory, but also recruiting soldiers within enemy territory. In the modern era of numerous states, this tactic is called training a puppet army. But here, it's called recruiting volunteers.

While volunteers cannot be used for direct combat, they can be used to raid supply lines and collect resources by displaying their banners under the name of the leader (as a bodyguard).

The following are scenes of the volunteer combat.

At the foot of Qinglong Mountain, on a main road frequented by merchants, the bandits, the first and second-in-command, stared at the goods being transported by the once-powerful local government, their faces hardening with malice. In the past, they dared not touch them, fearing retaliation, but now! The first bandit, brandishing his knife, shouted to his men, "The cowardly starve, the bold thrive!" The bandits sparsely rose to their feet in response and began to charge down the road.

As the official convoy from Zhenzhou reached the middle of the road, the bandits suddenly unfurled the banners of the Wu Family Army and charged out. The soldiers guarding the convoy clashed weapons with the bandits briefly before the bandits were routed. Their perfunctory actions were akin to a theatrical performance.

As for the things lost by the soldiers of Zhenzhou, the defeated escort team returned to the old master and told him that they had "encountered" a large army sent by the imperial court, so let's not pursue it too much.

Ten hours later, these bandits—no, these court-certified righteous warriors—happily sorted through their treasures and moved the supplies they no longer needed to the designated trading point at Wu Feizha's camp to exchange them.

The saying "raise the king's flag to recruit soldiers for food" applies here. The volunteers were originally bandits and mountain brigands, but as times became difficult and they could no longer borrow food from the surrounding villages, they would run to the army, don the uniform, and become laborers in the main camp.

Wu Fei's camp was meticulously calculating its food and fodder consumption, while the agricultural troops were rapidly expanding within the past ten days.

Of course, Wu Fei wasn't there to incite an uprising. His recruitment of volunteers was merely a pretext to stir up trouble in the north.

Meanwhile, the 6,000 troops continued their northward advance silently, weaving through the area where the northern part of the Zhen River meets the northern part of Yongzhou, striking a point that no one had expected.

Wu Fei: Any military operation needs to ensure that its "intentions" cannot be figured out by the other side.

To achieve this, two things are crucial. First, speed is key—the action must be completed before the opponent has a chance to react. Second, it's essential to employ numerous "smokescreens" to ensure that one's strategic intentions remain undetected by the enemy in the short term.

However, Wu Fei's smokescreen is not only for King Lelang, who is a rebel, but also for Yongzhou in the north.

…On the other side of the fog of war…

In Kangtian City, King Lelang sat bare-chested in a brass armchair, reviewing intelligence reports from the north. Beside him lay the corpses of several slain servants. He had known for some time that the imperial army was coming to annihilate them, having already killed the imperial envoy.

Even the emperor was aware of his rebellion; otherwise, he wouldn't have sent that unfortunate imperial envoy after the Wu family army was in place.

However, King Lelang did not expect that just when he "voluntarily" tore off the mask of civility, wanting to have a proper fight and preparing to organize a large army to march south (it could be said that King Lelang was eager to fight, calling on his soldiers to take up war hammers and wear iron helmets to go out of the city and meet these bastards), the Wu family army suddenly marched north in its entirety, and the speed of the northward march was so fast that it took him by surprise.

For King Lelang, it meant that this guerrilla force had broken out from ten miles away on the flank of his army and escaped his capture. Ten days later, it had moved behind him and wiped out the useless troops he had left in the north.

He walked on the city wall, watching the bloodthirsty aura rising from the city.

At this moment, one by one, the unfortunate souls were thrown into the moat. Alligator snapping turtles surfaced and began to devour these struggling creatures. Just as these turtles were feasting in the murky moat, a large iron mace from the city wall crashed down, striking the turtles in the back. After struggling for a while, creating a large splash on the surface, the turtles were still dragged ashore by the chains of the hinged mechanism on the city wall.

The workshops on the shore immediately began modifying these war beasts. After the iron wheels of the docking mechanism were connected to the bellies of these ten-foot-wide alligator turtles, King Lelang's berserkers used iron pliers to string them together like "candied hawthorns" and put them to the mouths of the alligator turtles.

Upon closer inspection, it was clear that these weren't candied hawthorns at all, but rather heads strung together. After the alligator snapping turtle stretched out its head and devoured these heads one by one, the mud on its body cracked and peeled off as if it had been scorched by fire, revealing a blood-red body. The thorns on its shell transformed into clusters of bone-like blades with blood grooves, and sharp tusks sprouted from its already menacing head, protruding like those of a wild boar or an elephant.

The giant tortoise, bound by iron chains, entered the army of King Lelang, whose entire army was now painted red.

Over the years, after awakening their "fighting power," this unit has become increasingly bloodthirsty, following their master's lead.

When King Lelang roared from the city wall, the soldiers raised their weapons and roared back.

If you change the filter, it'll look like the scene of college students in military training hearing that it's time for lunch.

And so, this group of madmen, one by one, pushed and shoved their way out of the city gates and began their northward assault. Their momentum was deafening, like a river winding its way northward.

Meanwhile, the Wu family army's commander, who was waiting outside the city gate, dusted himself off, covered his body with concealment runes, and instructed the dragon horse to fly low so as not to attract the attention of the Zhenshui madmen.

…Crazy? Insane! You're crazy, aren't you? …

After receiving the report, Wu Hanluan summoned Wu Hengyu and many generals to discuss the situation at the southern camp.

Wu Hanluan: "Yuan Chang has already made preparations in the north. I will go there to oversee the situation. Once the rebel king is lured out of Lelang City, Hengyu, you will select three thousand elite troops to go north and follow behind. Don't rush to engage in battle."

Wu Hengyu: "Yes."

Wu Hanluan: "The Southern Camp will remain stationary here. Wu Hong, you stay here and guard the camp."

Wu Hanluan now has a vague awareness of the power within King Lelang, a power that goes berserk during the bloody battle, and he must personally confront it.

As for Wu Fei's specific mission, the generals in the camp were curious but did not ask.

After the discussion, Wu Hengyu privately asked Wu Fei where he had gone. Wu Hanluan replied, "He went to gather provisions."

Wu Hengyu: "The fighting has already started, where is he going to gather supplies?"

Wu Hanluan: "Heavenly secrets cannot be revealed."

(End of this chapter)