Chapter 99: The Battle of the Summit

  Starting today, two lessons per day, until all owed lessons are made up!

  After a month of hellish military chess promotion, I finally escaped the sea of suffering. A month of two battles every day almost exhausted me. Tomorrow is the final battle, known as the peak war, because my opponent is Nicholas!

  This one-month-long showdown was not a very difficult challenge for the poor Tao, and it ended in just two hours. For these people, that was an eye-opener! Originally, I didn't want to show off, but Grandfather strictly forbade me from holding back. This old man's vision is also extremely sharp; if I showed any slackness, he wouldn't let up, constantly nagging me and forcing me to use all my skills to defeat his so-called proud disciples. Whether it was the high-achieving students at the military academy or the generals who had been in the army for many years, they were all defeated. For a time, I was hailed as a military god!

  Actually, I'm just using the tactical ideas from "The Art of War", "Thirty-Six Stratagems", "Three Strategies" and "Six Secret Teachings". If someone is familiar with these military books, they might be able to compete with me. However, for those who have no knowledge of them, it's very difficult to defeat me on the battlefield, let alone in a game of Weiqi (Go).

  This time's big competition was extremely loud, even spreading throughout the continent. At first, it was some top students from the academy who lost, but they weren't that great anyway. However, my grandfather was a troublemaker who called all the teachers over and scolded them severely, finally issuing a death order: if I didn't win, he would deduct half their salary for six months! The teachers were mostly elite military personnel, with many being wealthy nobles, so they didn't care about this small amount of money. However, they couldn't bear to lose face, so they took turns going up on stage and then leaving with their tails between their legs! As a result, they began fighting for face, mobilizing all their connections, even ringing the wooden bell all the way to the king's palace, requesting the transfer of staff from the border defense field army. Even so, I didn't break a sweat.

  So, after the collective resignation of all the generals in the Great Han Empire, Nicholas, this newly joined famous general became their last fig leaf. Originally they did not want to use an outsider, and the person they thought of was Grandpa, but the old man was not so easily deceived, he rejected the proposal with his identity as a judge! In this way, they had no choice but to let Nicholas take over.

  Grandfather looked coldly at the several proud disciples in front of him and said, "I didn't expect that the face of our great Han army would need to be saved by a newly surrendered general. Should I feel happy or should I feel sad?"

  The soldiers below all turned red in the face. One of them said with a hint of grievance, "Principal, your grandson is really too formidable and doesn't give us any face at all! Winning isn't enough for him; he has to completely crush us before stopping! And you're still forcing us to go up!"

  "Yes! Now we've already called all the capable military officers in the Great Han Empire, those who refused have lost face, and the rest no longer have the courage to challenge. That's why we're forced to use Nicholas, hoping he can help us professional soldiers regain some dignity!" Another person said.

  "Alright, I agree to the challenge tomorrow. But since Nicholas lost, it's you arrogant officers who should be punished!" Grandfather said.

  "Yes!" someone below said.

  "If Nicholas wins, it will be a shame for the entire Great Han Empire! You will have to double your punishment!" Grandfather asked sternly.

  "No way!" Everyone couldn't care less about that little salary, said very readily.

  So it was decided that I would have a showdown with Nicolas.

  The command hall of the Military Academy was packed today, and even the king had come. In this building with a history of 300 years, most of the great generals of the Empire had walked out. Today, the battle between me and Nicholas would take place here.

  In the hall, there was a huge sandbox, which was the venue for this showdown. Nicholas and I were in separate small rooms giving orders, of course, we also had sandboxes, but only our own troop deployments, the enemy's were very vague, could only be obtained through reconnaissance, or maybe even fake! The sandbox in the hall showed all the troop deployments on both sides, which was for the audience to explain.

  This map is a vast grassland, with a river that's only one meter deep and ten meters wide, and there's a forest ten miles away from the river. Our military camps are naturally all along the riverbank, 200 miles apart. I knew it as soon as I saw this map - there must be some trickery going on here! What kind of crap is "fairness"? This is clearly biased towards Nicholas. He's famous for his lightning-fast cavalry raids, and his legion is even called the Lancer Lightning. Putting us in a vast grassland isn't just an opportunity for him to show off his skills and unleash the full power of his cavalry? If I were choosing the map, I'd definitely pick a mountainous region - let's see how his cavalry handles that!

  Our troops are all 200,000, but one cavalry is counted as two quotas, that is to say, you can choose 200,000 infantry or 100,000 cavalry. And heavy cavalry can only account for a quarter of the total number of cavalry. Nicholas chose 80,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry. I didn't dare to engage in a cavalry corps battle with him in an open area, which is stupid in my eyes, you kill one of mine, I kill one of yours, what's the point? There is no technical content at all! So I chose the opposite, I only had 40,000 cavalry and 120,000 infantry. Everyone has a month's worth of food!

  Haha, I've taken advantage of the rules here. I have 160,000 people's worth of food for a month, while Nicolas only has 120,000 people's worth of food for a month. Haha, my food supply is much greater than his! According to the rules, whoever completely annihilates their opponent wins, with no time limit. It's just that with the restriction on food and grass, it's not possible to keep playing indefinitely!

  What a pity that I have poor luck! When drawing lots, I didn't get the upstream camp. Otherwise, in the forest, I would find some laxatives for him to put into the water, hehe! Without fighting, I would win!

  Enough talk, let's fight!

  The poor way started with a big move, sending 10,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry to the forest to cut wood and bring it back to build defensive fortifications. The remaining 30,000 cavalry went to Nicolas' place to scout, if there were few enemies they would eat them, if there were many they would run away. In short, they had to figure out what Nicolas was up to, he took so many cavalry, definitely not for defense. The poor way estimated that he would launch a direct attack on me, after all, the camp given only had simple wooden fences, which could not withstand the impact of cavalry charges. Once again, I despise the idiot who designed this map, giving such a camp is not openly asking Nicolas to give me a good show? Finally, I sent out all my infantry to dig pits! Dig big and deep horse pits. Hehe, the poor way never used these things in previous matches, now they are brought out to give Nicolas a good show.

  We are a hundred miles apart, at Nicholas's speed, his army will arrive on the third day, but his scouts will appear on the second day. My 30,000 cavalry is to deal with the scouts and also to make Nicholas cautious and not dare to rush all the way. To build defenses for me and gain time.

  Unfortunately, I underestimated Nicholas. This guy is really a master of cavalry tactics. On the second day's contact, I saw that things were not going well and ran away, just to make him understand my intentions. On the third day, we clashed again, and I was surprised to find that Nicholas was no longer letting me go, but was pursuing me relentlessly. Normally, everyone would be tired from running and would have to rest, as no one wanted to see their horses die. That way, I would be happy. I ran three million horses to death, and he chased me with more people than I had. How many horses would I have to run to death? But now it's different. Nicholas ordered 40,000 men to bring two horses each to chase me. Since he could change horses halfway, I definitely couldn't outrun him. If he got these 30,000 men entangled, waiting for his follow-up troops to arrive, I would be finished.

  After running for a while, he didn't dare to run again. There were still nearly 50 miles away from the camp. If I ran until my horse died, I wouldn't be able to get there! What if my horse died? Would I fight his cavalry with infantry? Helpless, I had no choice but to confront his 40,000 cavalry. The cavalry led by Nicholas was not something that Pin Dao could contend with. After all, I didn't have any real combat experience leading an army! As soon as the two armies clashed, Nicholas showed off his brilliant command skills. He would either attack from the side or circle around, but never engage in a head-on battle with Pin Dao's central forces. He always managed to find ways to launch fierce attacks on my weak flanks, causing me huge losses. In less than half an hour, I had already lost 5,000 men, while Nicholas had only lost 1,000.

  Fortunately, I understand that we can't disperse, the troops are still gathered together and haven't been divided, but they've already been surrounded. The situation doesn't look good!

  This won't do! I'm no match for Nicholas' cavalry in a head-on confrontation. I must change tactics. It seems that these 30,000 men are doomed, my best option is to take advantage of the last opportunity to inflict as much damage on Nicholas as possible, like the 1:5 casualty ratio earlier, which is unacceptable! Nicholas also understands this, so he's not launching a fierce attack now, just surrounding me and constantly harassing me, waiting for reinforcements.

  The poor Taoist's heart skipped a beat as he gave an order, startling the officer who was relaying my commands. The officer angrily asked, "Are you certain you want to give such an order?"

  "Hmm!" The poor Taoist hummed!

  "How despicable! Shameless!" He said and then stormed out to spread the order!

  Cut! I'm too lazy to bother with such boring idiots. What's shameless? 'War is a deceitful way!' Does he understand anything?!