I said happily, "Now we know that Jin Wuzhu is going to launch a sneak attack on us, but we're not quite sure where his main point will be."
Yue Fei was taken aback and said, "Then why don't you just strengthen your defenses? What else is there to ask?"
I said, "I just want him to steal it."
"ah?"
I continued, "...the chicken failed and the rice was lost instead."
"Oh, you mean to play along?"
"Yes, yes, yes."
Yue Fei said solemnly, "Xiao Qiang, war is no joke. If you underestimate the enemy, even a god can't help you. You'd better order the entire army to be on alert right now." After saying this, Yue Fei continued, "Based on my years of fighting against Wanyan Wushu, I think this man is very talented, but he's a bit ambitious and arrogant. Of course, this is both his weakness and his strength. His surprise attacks are very unique. He usually uses small forces to harass the enemy's flanks, aiming to arouse their vigilance and panic, and then he will launch a large-scale cavalry attack on the enemy's command center, that is, the central army. Many Song armies were defeated by him in this way back then. His method of fighting is more like a surprise attack than a sneak attack. The most difficult part is seizing the moment when the enemy is caught off guard."
I gasped. So, if Jin Wuzhu launched a sneak attack, I and the Liangshan army would become his primary targets.
I hurriedly asked, "Then what should we do?"
Yue Fei asked, "What's the situation on your end?"
I said, “To the north are 300,000 Mongol troops, to the west are 600,000 Tang Dynasty troops, and to their east are 250,000 Liangshan troops. Our command post is right here. Should we bring some troops from those two sides?”
Yue Fei said, "If you want to use this as a counter-strategy, then don't alert the enemy." At this point, the marshal chuckled and said, "I didn't expect you, Xiao Qiang, to be such a resourceful person. It seems you have no shortage of manpower."
I chuckled and said, "But we're missing an old soldier who has fought against Jin Wuzhu—Marshal, could you do me this favor?"
Yue Fei chuckled and said, "How can I help you? I can only take three days off at most."
"No need for the Marshal to personally intervene, just lend me Xu Delong's 300 elite Beiwei soldiers." Fighting the Jin without borrowing Yue Fei's army would be futile, even if victory were achieved.
Yue Fei was taken aback and asked, "How can I lend it to you? According to what you said, they don't recognize me anymore, do they?"
I waved my hand and said, "How can you say that? How could the Yue Family Army not know Marshal Yue?"
"What's the meaning?"
“I’ve thought of everything for you. You don’t even need to go in person. You just need to write a military order for them to take the medicine and then return to the Northern Song Dynasty via the military route.”
Yue Fei stared in disbelief and said, "You actually came up with this kind of method? But... their direct superior now is another version of me."
I said with a grin, "See, you said it yourself, it's another version of you, we're all family."
Yue Fei asked cautiously, "Do you think what I did counts as stealing? Although it seems like I stole from one of my own people."
I said solemnly, "The greatest heroes steal for their country!"
Yue Fei remained silent for a long time before finally sighing and saying, "Then send someone to fetch the order, and remember to bring me a piece of paper from the Song Dynasty."
Marshal Yue sighed, "Xiao Qiang, I suddenly feel that with your brain, you would definitely be better able to punish those parasites if you were in my position!"
Is this a compliment or an insult? After Qin Hui left, Marshal Yue lost an assistant who could infiltrate the enemy, right?
After hanging up the phone, I told Wang Yin to set off immediately. I told him, "After you get the transfer order, Marshal Yue will tell you when to enter the military camp to steal people. Be careful not to let Marshal Yue find out. Here are 300 pills."
Wang Yin said, "There are 300 people. How can I possibly remember them all?"
I said, "How can you be so stupid? You just need to feed Xu Delong first, and he will take care of the rest."
Wang Yin immediately looked at me with new respect: "Hey, Xiao Qiang can be quite clever sometimes."
...Another one, I don't know if it's praising me or scolding me.
I glanced at Xiao Rang, who was biting his pen and straining, and said, "Alright, stop messing around. We have the transfer order with the watermark." Xiao Rang was trying to imitate Yue Fei's handwriting to forge the military order.
It's 3:10 AM now. I've ordered the entire army to strengthen their vigilance. Marshal Yue's words are very reasonable. We must never underestimate the enemy. What if the information about Baozi was also deliberately leaked by Jin Wuzhu? Basically, if we treat Jin Wuzhu as a time traveler, there won't be any mistakes in this battle.
Through casual conversation with Yue Fei, I learned that Jin Wuzhu generally didn't use surprise attacks. If he did, it meant he was somewhat unsure of the enemy's strength. A surprise attack in this situation would have a double effect: if successful, it would directly destroy the enemy's main camp and incidentally test their strength. In other words, Jin Wuzhu wanted to use this method to test the fighting capabilities of our allied forces.
The fact that the Jin army, with 800,000 men, didn't panic against our more than 1 million men is quite telling. While the Northern Song Dynasty could also muster an army of over 1 million, not all armies are the same. The corrupt and cowardly Song army was like paper dolls, easily routed. This was probably the thinking behind Jin Wuzhu's plan.
But I dare not say that Jin Wuzhu completely misjudged our strength, especially regarding the fighting capabilities of the Tang and Mongol armies, which I had never witnessed firsthand. Whether the ragged Mongols were as ferocious as they were in their golden age is another matter, and the well-equipped Tang army doesn't prove anything either. There's that popular storytelling verse: "Crossing, carrying, carrying, carrying... On this mountain, entrenched is the elite American-equipped White Tiger Regiment, a supposedly invincible force" (excerpt from the storytelling performance "Surprise Attack on the White Tiger Regiment")—look, even the American-equipped White Tiger Regiment is no match.
However, on the other hand, in this era, Tang-style equipment was equivalent to American equipment. I don't believe that Jin Wuzhu could really produce a group of American soldiers in the Vietnam War who wore white sand cigarettes on their helmets and carried M16s.
Chapter 157 Love Bia, Gray Teeth
If nothing unexpected happens, this battle of surprise attack and counter-surprise attack will be our first encounter with Jin Wuzhu. In Wu Yong's words, we can only win, we cannot lose.
In fact, knowing that the enemy was going to launch a surprise attack meant we had already won half the battle. All we had to do now was to adopt a posture of high alert, forcing Jin Wuzhu to change his battle plan. But we didn't want to do that. Rather than going out to hunt foxes with guns, we'd rather let the foxes into the yard.
However, we don't yet know how Jin Wuzhu, this fox, will steal it, so we are waiting for experienced hunters—300 experienced hunters.
Around lunchtime, Wang Yin drove back to the Liangshan base. I asked him, "Where are they? Have they been picked up?"
Wang Yin pointed outside the tent: "I've brought you the whole cartload."
I looked outside and saw a row of wooden carts hanging behind my old gold-plated cupboard, from which hundreds of soldiers were jumping down with a clatter. The two leading soldiers ran a few steps and called out affectionately, "Brother Xiao!"
The only one who liked to call me that was Yue Fei's 300. Those two young soldiers were Li Jingshui and Wei Tiezhu. The others also greeted me and the Liangshan heroes.
I took their hands and smiled, "You've arrived! Was your journey safe?"
Li Jingshui laughed and said, "If we had come here from home, we wouldn't have been able to get here until evening at the earliest. Luckily, Brother Wang came up with this solution."
I looked at the row of wooden carts and said to Wang Yin, "Sometimes you're quite clever!" I finally got my revenge.
Wang Yin: "..."