Yang Ge said with a light chuckle, "Must be too full and just loafing around!"
Liu Tang laughed heartily, "Then you’ve come at quite the wrong time. If it were earlier, we’d have plenty of good food and drink to offer you, but now all I can offer are the enemy’s swords and spears!"
Yang Ge jokingly cursed, "A dog’s mouth can’t spit out ivory!"
"Hahaha..."
A group of Imperial Guards colonels burst into laughter.
"Enough chit-chat, someone go find me two rooms and get some food ready!"
Yang Ge waved his hand, "I’ve also invited some help over."
"I’ll go, I’ll go..."
A burly Imperial Guards colonel raised his hand and quickly stepped out from the crowd.
"Stay wherever it’s cool, this is Datong, I’m the boss here. What right do you have to welcome Erlang?"
Another colonel with a full beard grabbed the man and stepped out of the crowd, cupping his fist towards Yang Ge, "Erlang, don’t listen to Liu’s nonsense. Whenever you come, there’s always good food and drink!"
"Damn it, Zhang, you’re being disloyal!"
"That’s not what you said when we arrived..."
That’s how old friends reunite—no sooner do they agree to stop the nonsense than they start it up again.
Yang Ge had no choice but to engage in the banter with these hardened veterans.
After a while, Yang Ge pointed outside the pass and asked, "Liu, is the intelligence you guys gathered accurate? With this terrain, can the enemy really advance here?"
He had just seen that the walls of Datong, connected to the Great Wall, were twelve to thirteen meters high and six to seven meters wide. Moreover, the external mountains stretched on, and the terrain was treacherous. Any large army approaching the walls of Datong would be squeezed into a line by the mountain terrain, rendering their numbers, no matter how vast, useless.
"The intelligence is definitely inaccurate!"
When it came to serious matters, Liu Tang no longer joked around and shook his head solemnly, "Erlang, the enemy isn’t straightforward. They don’t just show how many troops they have. They might claim to have 200,000, but hidden away there could be 400,000 or even 500,000."
"You haven’t fought a border war, so you might not understand. Border warfare isn’t like siege warfare. In a siege, both sides are fixed, clashing against the gates and walls."
"Border warfare, however, is fluid. If the enemy can’t breach one pass, they can quickly divide their forces to attack another. Among the nine military towns along the 8,000-mile Great Wall, if the enemy breaks through one, they can push deep into our territory and loot and plunder before our forces can react."
"Right now, all we know for certain is that the enemy has no fewer than 200,000 troops coming this way, so we can only fortify Datong first and probe the enemy’s strength while we fight."
Yang Ge pondered for a moment and then asked quietly, "May I take a look at the map of the border?"
"Why not..."
Liu Tang turned around, "Qin, go get the frontier map from my horse for Erlang!"
"Yes!"
An Imperial Guards colonel responded and quickly walked toward the horses at the back.
Soon, a scroll of a beautifully embroidered frontier map was unfolded before Yang Ge.
Liu Tang pointed at the map, explaining to Yang Ge, "Erlang, please see, our Wei has established nine strategic military towns along the border utilizing the Great Wall as a base, also commonly known as the ’Nine Borders’."
"Starting from the Yalu River in the east to Jiayuguan in the west, they are, in order, Liaodong Town, Jizhou Town, Xuanfu Town, Datong Town, Shanxi Town, Yansui Town, Ningxia Town, Shaanxi Town, and Gansu Town."
"This here is Datong Town. Datong is situated in the middle section of the Nine Borders, with a strategic position that is easy to defend but hard to attack. But once Datong is breached, heading north becomes a flat open field, and Yan Yun will immediately fall into the enemy’s hands as their grazing ground..."
Following his explanation, Yang Ge carefully studied the arrangement of troops on the frontier map: Xuanfu Town stationed 80,000 troops, Datong Town stationed 75,000, and Shanxi Town 50,000, forming an angular defensive layout centered around Datong.
He pointed at Datong’s position on the map, "Has the number of troops in these three towns always been this much, or have more been transferred from other border towns to reinforce?"
Liu Tang nodded, "It’s always been this much. We haven’t yet grasped the full extent of the enemy’s capabilities, so we dare not rashly relocate troops. Besides, these three towns already have a full complement of 200,000 troops. If the enemy really only has 200,000 troops coming down, they definitely can’t break through the gates of Datong Town."
To complement his explanation, Yang Ge studied the border map attentively for a moment and finally grasped the general idea.
All nine major border towns were constructed relying on the Great Wall, which was built along the ridges weaving through towering mountains. Outside the Great Wall was generally a series of rolling mountain ranges.
This meant that moving troops from one border town to another outside the Great Wall required navigating mountains and taking a long, circuitous route.
However, moving troops from one town to another along the Great Wall allowed for rapid marches straight along the wall. While traveling within the Great Wall wasn’t the shortest straight route and also required climbing and descending, compared to following the mountainous terrain in huge loops, the Great Wall already served as a sort of expressway.
Thus, the convenience of the Great Wall could to some extent counteract the mobility advantage of the enemy’s cavalry, allowing Wei’s forces to fight a positional war with a strategy of unchanging response to ever-changing tactics.
Of course, that was provided that the difference in troop strengths wasn’t too vast!
And this required that Wei must accurately judge the main force of the enemy, otherwise, if twenty thousand enemy troops fiercely attacked Datong Town and drew the garrisons from the surrounding major towns for support, what if another main force of the enemy took the opportunity to break through and they launched a pincer attack inside and outside the Great Wall? Wouldn’t that spell disaster?
"That is to say, if there is no inside and outside collusion..."
Yang Ge stared at the border map, thoughtfully asking, "The focus of the enemy’s attack this time is mostly not on Datong?"
"It’s hard to say."
Liu Tang responded solemnly, "The art of military strategy is to feign weakness when strong, and feign strength when weak; the key still lies in how many troops the enemy has mobilized this time and how much resources they still have at home to sustain this battle."
"But this... is exactly why we are here!"
Yang Ge smiled and gently patted his shoulder, signaling him to put away the border map, "You guys have done very well, awesome job!"
Liu Tang laughed in response, "It’s all thanks to your good teaching!"
Yang Ge shook his head with a smile, "I have never taught you all this..."
Liu Tang, "Speaking of which, Second Master, you heading north this time..."
He gave Yang Ge an inquiring look.
Yang Ge chuckled, "You handle your tasks, I’ll handle mine; when I need your cooperation, I will speak up."
Understanding the meaning, Liu Tang smiled and grabbed his arm, "Alright, let’s not talk business for now. Come on, let’s go for a drink..."
Yang Ge took a couple of steps with him, then suddenly stopped and turned his head to look towards the southwest.
Seeing this, everyone lifted their heads to look towards the southwest, but they saw nothing.
Yang Ge patted Liu Tang’s shoulder, "The help I asked for has arrived. You guys go ahead and drink. I’ll be there shortly... Ah, ask Zhang to prepare an extra room."
"Yes, Second Master."
A group of imperial guards and colonels responded in unison, mounted their horses, and headed towards the city wall.
Suddenly, two beams of sword light descended from the sky, landing on the ancient city wall, revealing two majestic figures in green and white robes, both carrying long swords and their sleeves fluttering.
The man in the white robe was none other than the Heavenly Master Zhang Xuansu from Mount Longhu.
And the man in the green robe... standing eight feet tall, thin, with graying hair and beard, an indifferent look in his eyes, and no apparent aura around him, yet Yang Ge felt a slight sting in his pupils when his gaze met the man’s.
He immediately guessed the identity of the visitor and was somewhat shocked.
He remembered clearly, the first time Zhang introduced him, he had called him a senior!
Zhang, though old and wrinkled like a radish, had a senior who still had some black hair. If one only looked at his face, he seemed to be just about fifty.
"Yang lad, come here quickly..."
Zhang Xuansu beckoned Yang Ge from afar.
Yang Ge took a stride, spanning more than ten yards in one step, appearing in front of the two men.
Zhang Xuansu pointed at Yang Ge and introduced him to the man in the green robe, "This young man is the renowned ’Divine Monarch’ Yang Erlang, my close old friend."
He then pointed to the man in the green robe and said to Yang Ge, "Yang lad, this is the ninth generation Sect Leader of Mount Hua, Elder Jiang, whom I mentioned to you before!"
The two exchanged glances.
Yang Ge took the initiative to clasp his fists and bow respectfully, "Junior Yang Erlang, I have long heard of the senior’s great reputation."
He had long known of Elder Jiang from Zhang, but as this trip to the plains was to seek out that old monster in a fight to the death, he had only asked Zhang Xuansu, whom he had known for several years, to cover for him. How could he have the audacity to ask this Elder Jiang, whom he had never met, to come and lend support?
If a man becomes an immortal on land, that is his own skill, and he couldn’t morally bind someone else just because they are capable, could he?
Facing his greeting, Jiang Ping simply nodded indifferently, "I am Jiang Ping."
The atmosphere turned somewhat awkward.
Yang Ge looked puzzledly at Zhang Xuansu, ’Does he have something against me?’
Zhang Xuansu spoke up directly, "Elder Jiang has always been aloof by nature; it’s not personal against you."
Relieved, Yang Ge smiled peacefully, "Elder Jiang is a swordsman, after all; being a bit aloof is quite normal."
With Elder Jiang here to lend a hand, this battle is assured!
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