Vol 9 Chapter 188 (2/2)

Naturally, I did not believe in the hypothetical situation I just described. There is no way that Xu Shu woman who is dressed in white will come to siege the city. They will try to do some things in the meantime but they will definitely not siege the city. Yet just saying that we will defend the city is far too weak so I had to try to fit in some sort of vision for victory inside.

When I finished, I looked at the officer and saw that she looked somewhat relieved. I did not feel the same way however. She might have had to experience seeing the troops under her command shrinking to just 100 from 1,000 but I have had to see my army shrink to just 3,000+ from 30,000.

Besides… I turned back and looked at Lu Xiang. Lu Xiang is not an important person to me by any means but as a warrior, I must repay the favour for saving my life. At the same time, I cannot deny that I have feelings of respect and also pity for her. As I thought so, I reached out with a spare hand to readjust her position so that she would not fall over later and swung my reins down as I accelerated slightly to catch up to the head of the troops.

Along the way, I thought back to the battle. What caught my attention the most was also what perturbed me the most. With how things were after the second battle, if Imperial Uncle Liu Bei is really dead, why did Guan Yu and the rest choose to fake their defections? What would be the purpose of doing so?

Have they really remained united and inherited the will of Liu Bei? Or is it because of that Xu Shu? Was it her who kept everyone together? Clearly not as she only join them recently.

… No matter what angle I look at this from, that man wearing the Nanman hat is extremely suspicious. Even though I was not able to catch a glimpse of his face, the way everyone tried to protect him before made it clear that he was no ordinary general. Given this, and everything else I have observed thus far, that man must be…

“Is the counting complete?”

Un? I looked up when I heard a voice and found that Cao Ren was in front of me. I thought that I was at the head of the troops since I saw her but when I looked about, I found that my relative position had not changed much. Looks like my horse slowed down while I was thinking.

“Ah, un. The count is complete.” I nodded, “I’m sorry, I was thinking about some things.”

“No, that’s fine. We do indeed have a lot to think about right now.” Cao Ren smiled bitterly as she shook her head, “How is it? How many troops do we have left?”

“Less than 4,000.” I replied simply, knowing that Cao Ren should have been able to arrive at a similar ballpark figure as well.

“I see.” Cao Ren said as her smile stiffened up, “Less than 4,000 huh~ Looks like there were more survivors than I thought.”

So she was more pessimistic than I was huh?

“But we couldn’t turn the tide in the end huh? With my formation.”

“That couldn’t have been helped. No one knows what will happen in battle.”

Naturally, I would not be dis.h.i.+ng out points for her now. And it’s not like I had any ideas back then as well.

“I’m sorry. I even bragged about it at the beginning. Yet if we hadn’t stayed and fought, we could have left the battlefield with a more respectable number than 4,000.”

“You can’t say that… At the end of the day, we lost because we underestimated their strength.”

Even though we had just suffered a grave defeat in the city, we were rather confident of pulling off the 8 Doors Golden Lock as our troops were highly disciplined, skilled and geared. This was seen most acutely in how we easily devoured the first batch of enemies almost effortlessly. However, we are only left with 4,000 troops now. The bulk of the losses were sustained from Lu Bu’s charge.

“Un…” Cao Ren sank into silence for a while after I finished before she continued, “I am actually very sure that few people know about my formation and even fewer know how to counter it. But…”

“Un?” I looked at Cao Ren when she trailed off and sighed and urged her to continue, “What’s the matter?”

“I think the enemy must have recognised my formation.” Cao Ren finally spoke up after a long while.

“Un,” I nodded, “Have you discussed this formation with others before?”

Cao Ren shook her head, “I have never discussed this with anyone before. Naturally, I learnt this from a book. Of the 8 Doors, 2 bring good fortune, 3 bring bad fortune and 3 bring death. That Lu Bu charged actually charged between a Door of bad fortune and good fortune and actually broke the formation while doing so.”

“So the enemy was able to counter your formation huh?”

“Un…” Cao Ren frowned as she sank into silence. Looks like my guess was wrong.

“What really impressed me was this. According to the book, one should split into 2 groups and enter the Doors of good fortune. Thereafter, doing battle there will eventually break the formation.” Cao Ren paused as she said so and looked up, “Yet the enemy actually forcefully charged through the entire formation. It is true that this simple act can mess up the complex formation but this is not the optimal strategy. I have to say though that it is much simpler and cleaner than the solution I mentioned earlier.”

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