In Ren Feihong’s view, at least half of Shi Zhuhe’s capabilities lay in military discipline.
For a military commander, maintaining steady and composed command is already half the battle won. In these times, the failure to win battles often does not stem from any deficiency in the commander’s theoretical understanding, but rather from the difficulty of effectively implementing their intentions.
Ren Feihong had looked into Shi Zhuhe’s background. While in the capital, he was virtually unknown. However, since entering government service, regardless of his rank, his daily work had been free of any significant errors – though never outstandingly brilliant either. Every task assigned by his superiors was always completed to just the right degree.
It was only after Shi Zhuhe became a military adviser that Ren Feihong began to understand him, realizing that he had far more to offer than he was showing, rather than being incapable. Yet it took her some time observing him closely to reach this conclusion. So how did the Emperor, who spent most of her time in the palace, manage to uncover Shi Zhuhe’s true abilities?
Ren Feihong thought that if she were in the same position – unable to personally oversee and direct from thousands of miles away – she likely wouldn’t have the courage to choose an ordinary, even potentially resentful, scion of a declining noble family to lead a major army.
The Emperor had a true talent for recognizing capable people and, once chosen, trusted them without doubt. Ren Feihong felt that during the Tai Province campaign, her mistaken assessment of the situation wasn’t due to any lack of skill on her part, but rather because the Emperor’s foresight was simply too exceptional.
Once the battle ended and both sides withdrew to their camps, Shi Zhuhe spent the following days continuously seeking opportunities to push the surrendered troops into decisive engagements with the rebels in Dayi City. The rest of the soldiers, given no chance to fight, could only watch anxiously from the sidelines, clenching their fists and itching for a direct clash with the enemy.
This was a deliberate strategy – using battle to train the surrendered troops while refining the core army’s discipline and readiness through restraint.
To channel his subordinates’ pent-up energy, Shi Zhuhe ordered them to drill daily in formations and practice collective maneuvers.
On the other side, the rebels in Dayi City, despite occasionally gaining ground in clashes with Shi Zhuhe’s forces, had never managed to completely rout their opponents. Moreover, Zhang Ji proved inept at military command, and from him down, the city lacked any truly outstanding generals. Over time, a sense of weariness and numbness began to set in among them.
After that day’s battle, Shi Zhuhe specifically summoned his military advisers to discuss the next steps in their campaign.
Through the ongoing engagements, they had gradually gauged the enemy’s strength. Although Zhang Ji commanded large numbers, he was unable to deploy them effectively. To put it in gaming terms, his personal capacity for troop command was roughly around ten thousand men. If the number far exceeded this limit, his effectiveness wouldn’t improve with more troops – instead, confusion and disarray would likely set in.
In contrast, Shi Zhuhe, though relatively inexperienced as a new commander, had honed his skills through training in the front camp and systematic drills in recent days. With only thirty thousand troops under his command, he was able to lead with remarkable ease and precision.
In a letter to a friend, Shi Zhuhe once reflected on the battle to capture Lujia City. He analyzed that the Emperor’s arrangements at the time had at least two significant advantages. First, the enemy had not yet risen in full rebellion, and their vigilance was relatively low. If they could successfully take the city by strategy, it would provide a substantial advantage for future military campaigns. Second, many newly appointed commanders who would play key roles in future battles were deployed in that operation. Whether it was Shi Zhuhe himself or Chen Ming, seizing Lujia City inevitably boosted their prestige, making the troops under their command more inclined to follow their orders. In other words, without that earlier victory, Shi Zhuhe and Chen Ming would likely not have been able to operate independently from the veteran General Tao Jia so quickly.
Following the reign of Emperor Li, both civil and military officials had dwindled significantly. If Wen Yanran wished to pacify the realm, she had no choice but to promote new talent. This was originally a severe weakness for the Jianping army, yet through careful and methodical planning, she managed to position everyone effectively and appropriately.
Although Guide to Becoming a Tyrant would not disclose to the player the private letters exchanged between external officials, it collected and archived such information as crucial references for future version updates. At this moment, as the system integrated Shi Zhuhe’s latest data with content collected from other side storylines, it experienced yet another temporary instability. A string of error logs refreshed once again in the system records…
In the main camp, Ren Feihong, summoned by the commander’s personal guards, ambled over and offered a casual salute to Shi Zhuhe before getting straight to the point. “There’s news from the Ying clan.”
The Ying clan was a prominent family in the eastern region, with members spread across various commanderies. Since each generation had produced officials, they were generally aligned with the court. Among the current generation, Ying Jingdong had originally served as a clerk in the Secretariat but was soon transferred to the Imperial Household Department, holding a position as an Inner Court Attendant-in-Waiting appointment. Before Ren Feihong departed for the east, the Emperor specifically instructed her to bring Ying Jingdong along, intending to leverage the Ying clan’s local influence to win over public support.
As a thoroughbred scholar, Ying Jingdong’s riding skills were even worse than the Emperor’s during the spring hunt. After being brought here, he was initially placed in the Feng family’s fortress manor. It wasn’t until Lujia City was captured that he was escorted by Shi Zhuhe’s personal guards to the location, where he was now carrying out work to pacify and reassure the populace in the newly taken city.
At the same time, he wrote to his family. Though the Ying clan had reservations due to the Emperor’s order to dismantle the fortress manors, with the imperial army pressing in and the clan’s main lineage under the Emperor’s control, they had little choice but to comply and follow Jianping’s commands.
The rebel forces also depended on local influential families for supplies. Since the Ying clan, deeply rooted in the region, had decided to align with the Emperor, it became much harder for the rebels to secure provisions. While Dayi and Gufeng could still manage, rebel troops in smaller cities had recently found themselves in increasingly dire straits.
Shi Zhuhe gave a slight nod.
Ren Feihong said, “Given this, we can expect something to happen in Gufeng soon.”
Once the rebels in smaller cities sense the pressure, they will naturally try to join forces with those in the larger cities. As the rebel numbers in Gufeng grow, they’ll likely feel compelled to launch an attack on the imperial army.
Shi Zhuhe replied, “If we defeat Gufeng now, we might scare off the rebels in Dayi.”
Under normal circumstances, when an enemy force is positioned between two of one’s own cities, any commander with basic military sense would opt for a pincer attack. However, after days of observation, everyone in the camp – from Shi Zhuhe down to the ordinary staff – was worried that Zhang Ji simply lacked the skill to seize this golden opportunity.
Ren Feihong even thought that, had it not been for his abysmal command skills, Zhang Ji might have been closer in cluelessness to the young emperor in Jianping than any of them…
Someone suggested, “Then, General, why not feign a weakness to lure them in?”
Shi Zhuhe replied politely, “I’d like to hear the details.”
Without much thought, the adviser tossed out an idea to get the ball rolling. “We could start reducing the cooking smoke from our camp today. With the two armies so close, Zhang Ji is bound to send scouts to investigate. If they notice this, they’ll likely assume we’re running low on provisions and launch an attack.”
Ren Feihong slowly repeated the key point in the adviser’s words: “‘If Dayi notices this…'”
The adviser fell silent.
That was indeed a rather uncertain factor.
In this situation, Ren Feihong couldn’t help but reminisce about the Ge clan of Lujia City, which had once engaged in a back-and-forth struggle with them – comparison truly highlights differences. Placed alongside Zhang Ji and his ilk, those former local magnates now seemed like relatively competent amateurs. No wonder they had felt confident enough to guard the eastern gateway.
Unbeknownst to her – and equally unknown to Wen Yanran far away in Jianping – in certain branching storylines, the Ge clan of Lujia City, due to their outstanding performance, pledged allegiance to Great Master Xuanyang and were bestowed the Zhao surname by Tian Dongyang, who was operating under the alias Zhao Ju.
It was difficult for the enemy to gauge the effectiveness of Dayi’s scouting efforts, just as their opponents found it equally challenging to assess the intelligence-gathering capabilities of Shi Zhuhe’s scouts. The cavalry often moved along hidden paths, appearing and vanishing unpredictably. Of course, this wasn’t entirely due to the commander’s strategic prowess – much of the credit went to the maps provided by the Emperor.
Given the constraints of the era, maps were considered confidential strategic resources. After the war, they had to be promptly retrieved. Many officers believed that these detailed maps, even marking minor paths, were treasured artifacts from the imperial palace. Only Tao Jia, who had fought under the previous emperor, was puzzled, as during his youth, battling the Western tribes, he had never seen such precise charts. He quickly arrived at a conclusion: either the previous emperor was too distrustful to easily reveal the palace’s secrets, or he had habitually neglected governance and simply overlooked such matters. In Tao Jia’s judgment, either possibility aligned perfectly with the former emperor’s character and conduct.
Translator’s Words:
Btw I am currently translating another novel called Top Warzone Analyst. This is a sci-fi/cyber novel. Go check it out if interested!
This era is hailed as the worst for manually-operated mecha. Having been rebuilt amid high expectations, this profession barely glimpsed the brilliance of victory before it was once again on the verge of fading from the stage of history, condemned to decline. Everyone mocked, ridiculed, and questioned it, believing that manually-operated mecha had buried the youth of countless individuals and had already reached its end.
That year, the United Federation University admitted a “seemingly unusual-minded” new student.
The following year, the long-silent world of manually-operated mecha was swept by an unprecedented hurricane, violently clearing the fog that had long obscured its path forward.
“We are unfortunate to stand at the lowest point of this era, but I firmly believe that you are the rising flames.”
She would become the very first spark to lead the way.
