Reborn in Liangshan: I built the strongest lineup

"Brother, there are still three people on Qingfeng Mountain. Li Zhong and Zhou Tong are alright, but what about Wu Yong?"

Seeing that Chao Gai's problem had been solved, Zhu Wu smiled and continued to ask questions.

"Wu Yong? He's still in the training camp? He hasn't been eliminated yet?"

Ren Yuan was somewhat surprised; Wu Yong was still there?

"Well, his physical strength is below average, but his brain is the best in this training camp."

"Wu Yong..."

Ren Yuan tapped rhythmically on the table with his fingers, lost in thought.

Wu Yong, a character whose importance is exaggerated in the original work.

In his previous life, Ren Yuan had clashed with others more than once; it was a question of who was stronger between the two.

Ren Yuan's conclusion is that, excluding the achievements after the Heavenly Book was activated, Zhu Wu is stronger than Wu Yong; but including the achievements after the activation, Wu Yong is stronger.

The reason is quite simple. First, many people directly cite the poem of praise, saying that Zhu Wu's poem of praise clearly states "now he is worthy to be Wu Yong's equal," which is undisputed and shows that Wu Yong is stronger.

In response, Ren Yuan said, "You want to read the poem of praise? Okay, let's all read the poem of praise together. Let's not have double standards, let's all recognize the poem together."

Leaving aside Zhu Wu's poem of praise, let's first look at Wu Yong's poem of praise: "His strategies dare to outwit Zhuge Liang, and his talents are no match for Chen Ping!"

Look at this boast! He's directly comparing Wu Yong to Zhuge Liang and Chen Ping! When I first read "Water Margin" in my past life, I thought Wu Yong was incredibly powerful!

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be nothing special. Before reading military books with Song Jiang in Chapter 43 of the original novel, what was Wu Yong? Just a village schoolteacher. His notable achievements included transporting birthday gifts and fighting Huang An.

The birthday tribute, those who know, know. Fighting Huang An, who is Huang An? He's just a minor county thief catcher. Is it glorious to beat him?

With this level of skill, he dares to say he can beat Zhuge Liang and Chen Ping? When Ren Yuan saw this, he felt it was the greatest insult to Zhuge Liang and Chen Ping!

Therefore, if one wants to conclude that Zhu Wu is inferior to Wu Yong based on the poem, then one must first assume that Wu Yong, Zhuge Liang, and Chen Ping are on the same level. If anyone really thinks so, then there is no need to discuss this issue; it's such a huge joke, why even bother discussing it?

Some people say that Wu Yong had a good track record, and some even compiled statistics on his double-pronged strategy, his great victory over Tong Guan and Gao Qiu, his success rate, and his brilliant achievements.

The problem is that Wu Yong's so-called "glorious" achievements are basically those he achieved after reading the Heavenly Book in Chapter 43, so these achievements are not very valuable for reference.

Why? What is the Heavenly Book? It's a cheat code! In the entire original Water Margin, only Song Jiang and Wu Yong could read the Heavenly Book. According to the original text, the Heavenly Book came from the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady. Who was she? She was the one who assisted the Yellow Emperor, teaching him military strategy, Taoist arts, and the art of divination, among other things.

So, Song Jiang and Wu Yong obtained the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden's Heavenly Book, and it was said that after studying it, they could "assist the country and bring peace to the people, and eliminate evil and return to righteousness." What does this mean? Assisting the country and bringing peace to the people naturally refers to things related to domestic affairs, such as how to govern the country and how to appease the people.

What about eliminating evil and restoring righteousness? Naturally, it means using force to maintain the rule of the Song Dynasty and eliminate those evil and rebellious people. In this regard, it naturally involves things like military strategy, Taoist arts, and the art of divination.

Therefore, the fact that Wu Yong and Song Jiang could read military books meant that they had learned what the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden had taught the Yellow Emperor. This was obviously a cheat code, and that's an undeniable fact.

Who needs cheat codes? Only bad players need cheat codes. If Wu Yong truly possessed the abilities of Zhuge Liang and Chen Ping, would he need the Heavenly Book? Ren Yuan recalls that there was a Heavenly Book in *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, so why didn't Zhuge Liang need to read it?

Some people even told Ren Yuan that the Heavenly Book was meant to cleanse Song Jiang and the others of their demonic nature so that they could return to Heaven as soon as possible.

Yes, the question is how to wash away the demonic influence? The original text clearly states that it's all about gaining military merit through battles, so the Heavenly Book is just a cheat code for Song Jiang and Wu Yong to fight. What's wrong with that? What? You can fight without the military book? Yes, but in the original text, the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden told Song Jiang that she would give him the military book to speed things up and help him return to the world faster.

Isn't the meaning quite straightforward? The Heavenly Book can help Liangshan speed up battles. Without providing weapons or directly enhancing people's physical abilities, how can battles be accelerated? Naturally, it's through military strategy.

So, Wu Yong, in his early days, was a schoolteacher skilled at understanding people's hearts but prone to making mistakes in his strategies. Later, he achieved remarkable results by using cheat codes. But does someone getting pentakills and godlike streaks every game after using cheat codes necessarily mean they are highly skilled?

Furthermore, the Heavenly Book of the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden likely contains more military strategies than formations. Even after Wu Yong received the Heavenly Book's enhancement, he still didn't recognize many formations. In the original story, the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden had to come again to break Wu Yan Guang's Taiyi Hun Tian Formation, which proves that the Heavenly Book likely doesn't contain many formations.

However, it is important to understand that military strategy is military strategy and battle formation is battle formation. These two should not be confused. The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a military strategy, but it does not teach people how to set up battle formations.

Taking all these factors into account, Ren Yuan had a lukewarm impression of Wu Yong, but he valued Zhu Wu highly.

The reason is simple: in the original story, Zhu Wu, as the leader, gathered several hundred people in the Shaohua Mountain stronghold. The entire Huayin County tried to suppress them several times, but to no avail. Finally, a reward of three thousand strings of cash was offered.

In other words, before Wu Yong read the Heavenly Book, Zhu Wu had already fought battles of the magnitude of the one against Huang An, defeating an entire county and earning a high reward. Even though Zhu Wu later ceded his position to Shi Jin and became the second-in-command of Shaohua Mountain, that was still earlier than Wu Yong becoming the second-in-command of Liangshan under Chao Gai.

I was already the second-in-command before you became the second-in-command.

Moreover, Zhu Wu can recognize formations, which is an essential skill for a strategist. But someone in his past life told Ren Yuan that Zhu Wu only knows how to give away lives; what use is he if he can't recognize and break formations?

Yes, Ren Yuan admits that in the original novel, Zhu Wu's battle record after joining Liangshan was indeed relatively poor, and his presence was low. After all, as Zhang Shicheng's advisor, Shi Yuanzhang did not write much about Zhu Wu, who was based on Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the matter of a strategist recognizing battle formations can be compared to a student recognizing English words. Zhu Wu knows many words but can't speak them very well, while Wu Yong doesn't even know many words. So, is it even necessary to say who is more skilled?

In short, even if they were both the best of the worst, Wu Yong before he read the Heavenly Book would not be able to beat Zhu Wu.

Before you, Wu Yong, became the de facto second-in-command of Liangshan, a group of several hundred men, Zhu Wu was already the leader of Shaohuashan, a group of several hundred men! And he even received a bounty!

Then someone said, "Zhu Wu is so capable, why did he take Yang Chun and surrender after Chen Da was captured? Why didn't he use a strategy?"

Ren Yuan felt that this kind of person lacked vision and should just shut up. Zhu Wu had used a scheme!

In the original novel, how did Zhu Wu speak to Yang Chun? "I have a desperate plan; if it fails to save him, we'll both be finished." But after he told Yang Chun this, what did Yang Chun say? "Yang Chun said, 'A good plan! We'll go together!'"

If they can't be saved, then they're all doomed. But if they can be saved, then it's a great success! Zhu Wu was able to judge that this self-inflicted injury scheme would work on Shi Jin based solely on what he had heard about him. Although there was an element of gambling involved, he won the gamble. Isn't that amazing?

As Zhu Wu predicted, he used a self-inflicted injury ruse and an emotional attack to rescue Chen Da and all the captured henchmen of Shaohua Mountain from Shi Jin, whose martial arts skills were far superior to his own, and also won over Shi Jin as a powerful ally!

All he had to give up was a bit of his own dignity. Isn't this a brilliant strategy that yields huge rewards with almost no cost? It's just like the story Ren Yuan heard in his past life about "getting XXX to spend a million on me with just three sentences." Pretty impressive, right?

Some people say that it's not strong, even laughable, because it entrusts life and death to others instead of taking control of its own destiny.

What about Zhuge Liang in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" who used the Empty City Stratagem against Sima Yi? What about Zhang Fei who used a few dozen feints against hundreds of thousands of Cao Cao's troops at Changban Bridge? What about Liu Bang who faced Xiang Yu's army at the Feast at Hongmen? What about Lin Xiangru who faced the Qin ruler alone when returning the jade intact to Zhao? ...Should all these people who entrusted their lives to their opponents be ridiculed?

No, they deserve to be celebrated! Because they all successfully understood their opponents' psychology and behavior, and thus survived!

Ren Yuan always felt that those who failed with this strategy could be ridiculed at will, but those who succeeded with this strategy were a different story.

If you're not convinced, ask yourself if you dare to use it. If you don't, then shut up. Don't say things like it's stupid to entrust your life to others. Those who dare to use such risky tactics and succeed are experts; they know what they're doing!

Of course, in the later part of the original work, after Wu Yong read the Heavenly Book, Zhu Wu's battle record was not as good as Wu Yong's, and he was also overshadowed by Wu Yong in terms of ability. This is a fact that Ren Yuan also acknowledged.

Therefore, in conclusion, choose Zhu Wu before the cheat code is activated, and choose Wu Yong after the cheat code is activated.

But in this lifetime, without any so-called cheat-like military treatises, the first strategist Ren Yuan sought out was Zhu Wu!

And as it turns out, Ren Yuan made the right choice. At least at the beginning of Liangshan, with only a few hundred or a thousand people, Zhu Wu was still able to handle things with ease. Later, with the addition of Wen Huanzhang, Xiao Jiasui, and Xu Guanzhong, Zhu Wu's pressure was greatly reduced. Moreover, by the side of these three people, Zhu Wu's skills improved dramatically.

At least in this lifetime, he's not just someone who knows about formations but doesn't know how to use them!

So, Ren Yuan suddenly had an idea.

"Zhu Wu, how about letting Wu Yong follow you and serve as your advisor and head of the military intelligence agency?"

"Have him come with me?"

Zhu Wu was somewhat surprised, because he didn't actually need a deputy.

"Yes, I had a dream before where I heard someone say something like 'he is now a worthy successor to Wu Yong,' and it made me feel uncomfortable."

Ren Yuan simply handed Wu Yong over to Zhu Wu.

"From now on, he will follow you. In my Dayi, Wu Yong's highest goal is to become Zhu Wu's deputy!"

PS: Yes, this chapter was written specifically for me. In conclusion, my personal understanding of the comparison of their abilities in the original work is: Zhu Wu was stronger before reading the military treatise, and Wu Yong was stronger after reading it.

Dear readers, Yanzu and Yifei, you may disagree, but in this book, you still have to listen to me.

To those who like Daniel Wu and Liu Yifei, I'm sorry, you may not agree with my opinion and you may have your own thoughts, which I respect. But there's no need to refute me here, thank you.