Chapter 1776: Chapter 565: Yuwen Yong, Made the Right Bet (3)
Chapter 1776: Chapter 565: Yuwen Yong, Made the Right Bet (3)
But once the gamble paid off, the Left Army would be able to accumulate an extra share of Military Merit, and Yuwen Dao’s position would be correspondingly a little more secure.
If all of that was his motive for agreeing to cooperate with Hou Bing, then what truly pushed him to make up his mind was the meticulous plan Lu Yin laid out afterward—
The plan for seizing Guangning Mountain by catching the enemy completely off guard.
“Cai Qiu is utterly convinced that our Great Xia will no longer advance north. That is their greatest flaw.
Lord Hou has already led ten thousand troops toward Guangning Mountain, and with Su Xing’er’s coordination, gathered forty thousand rebels along the way. We’ve made almost no effort to conceal our movements, so right now Cai Yunzhou’s attention is entirely fixed on us.
There is a hidden passage within the eastern cliff face of Guangning Mountain. Su Xing’er’s three elder brothers have already slipped through that passage to the northern side of Guangning Mountain and linked up all fifty thousand rebels there.
General Yuwen has ordered twenty thousand of his men to disguise themselves as rebels and, over the next two days, cross through the hidden passage in batches. Even if a few are discovered, it won’t matter. Even if Cai Qiu’s sentries spot them, they’ll only take them for scattered rebels, and may not even bother to report to Cai Yunzhou……”
To put it plainly, Hou Bing’s plan was a classic feint: he would lead ten thousand Xia Army troops and forty thousand rebels to mount a false main assault from the east, drawing the full attention of Cai Qiu’s army; meanwhile Yuwen Dao’s twenty thousand elite troops together with fifty thousand rebels would launch the real main assault from the rear of the camp—that is, from the north.
Cai Qiu’s reliance at Guangning Mountain lay in the terrain and in his seventy thousand troops. As long as they could quietly reach the gentle slope behind the camp, the battle would already be more than half won. If all of Cai Qiu’s seventy thousand had their attention dragged to the eastern front, then the success rate of raiding the camp would be at least eighty percent.
The plan was fully workable, with an extremely high chance of success.
Coupled with all the reasons mentioned before, Yuwen Yong had no reason not to gamble!
Looking at it now, he had unquestionably chosen the winning bet.
Just like the expression frozen on Cai Yunzhou’s face at that moment, Cai Qiu’s army had not the slightest guard against Xia Army suddenly appearing behind them. Leading the most elite Reconnaissance Camp, Yuwen Yong cut into the enemy lines in a single clash, penetrating three to four hundred meters deep. They were now less than a hundred meters from the main tent of Guangning Mountain Camp.
“Hold the enemy! Hold the enemy! There are only thirty thousand Xia troops, the ones behind them are all rebels. Don’t panic, no one is to panic! Rear units turn and block the northern enemy, front units continue fighting the enemy from the east……”
Cai Yunzhou’s daze lasted only a moment; the carnage unfolding among the troops below forced him to hastily issue orders, almost roaring as he tried to rouse every Cai Qiu Soldier.
Unfortunately, even as he told others not to panic, his own voice was thick with panic. How could that possibly reverse the collapse?
Moreover, in battle between two armies, unless you’re the side enjoying unbroken momentum and clear advantage, the Soldiers on the disadvantaged side rarely obey the commander’s orders to the letter. Or rather, the degree to which those orders are carried out is usually far from ideal.
After all, everyone has eyes; they can see the situation for themselves.
The collapse of Cai Qiu’s army was already a foregone conclusion. Their psychological defenses were swiftly and completely shattered by the ferocious Xia Army charging in to slaughter them.
“Brothers, if we don’t seize Guangning Mountain Camp, we’ll never become Xia people. If we stay in Evergreen Valley, Cai Qiu will hunt us down sooner or later!”
“Slaughter every last one of Cai Qiu’s Soldiers—that’s our only way out!”
“Brothers, charge with the Xia Army!”
…
As the Xia Army in the front ranks fully broke into the camp, the rebel formations behind them also surged in one after another. Their cultivation was only at the Earth-digging Realm, some even at the Logging Realm, but the morale of tens of thousands bound together seemed a few degrees higher than that of the Xia Army itself.
As the saying goes, heavy rewards bring forth brave men—but bravery is not forged only by rich rewards. Sometimes absolute desperation can also force brave men to the fore.
These more than ninety thousand rebels, if they failed to take Guangning Mountain, had only one road left: death. That was absolute, utter desperation.
So right now, in their minds, the urge to break Guangning Mountain was even more urgent, even more intense, than that of the Xia Army.
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