Chapter 61: Li Jing’s Disguise

As everyone entered the military tent, Zhang Gongjin spoke up, "Reporting to General Li, all the generals have gathered, and no one is late."

Hearing Zhang Gongjin's words, Li靖 (Li Jing) nodded, his gaze naturally shifting to Zhang Gongjin as he said, "Commander Zhang, please brief us on the current situation in Shuozhou!"

"Yes, General Li!" Zhang Gongjin replied, producing a map.

The map was densely marked with various notations. Every tributary and every hill bore labels; just looking at the sheer volume of names on the map made it evident how much painstaking effort Zhang Gongjin had poured into it.

As he laid out the map, a hint of deep emotion washed over Zhang Gongjin. He gently traced his fingers over the names on the parchment, knowing that every single marked location was a place he had personally ridden across on horseback.

"Commander Zhang? Please brief us on the Turkic situation," Li Jing said again, noticing that Zhang Gongjin had drifted into a daze.

"Please forgive my lapse in composure," Zhang Gongjin said, taking a deep breath. He continued, "It is impossible to conceal our large-scale troop movements from the Turkic cavalry scouts. Under these circumstances, the Turkic Jieli Khan has already gathered the main Turkic forces and stationed them at Dingxiang, with more troops continuously arriving. Therefore, the situation for our northern expedition is far from as optimistic as we originally estimated."

"You cannot see the reality of things just by looking; we must clash with the Turks to find out," Li Jing nodded, yet he proposed otherwise.

"General Li means to...!" Zhang Gongjin looked startled, never expecting Li Jing to harbor such intentions.

Looking at the map, Li Jing said, "The distance between Dingxiang and Mayi is not far—only three or four hundred miles. If we launch a surprise raid with cavalry as a probing maneuver, we should arrive in three days at the earliest, or five at the latest."

"Does the General intend to launch a surprise attack on Dingxiang?!" Zhang Gongjin asked with a solemn expression. "Isn't that taking too much of a risk?"

"It is naturally dangerous, but our goal is not to annihilate the Turks in a single stroke; it is merely a probing attack!" Li Jing looked at the map with composure, speaking calmly to Zhang Gongjin.

"A probe?!" Hearing this, Zhang Gongjin breathed a sigh of relief. It was normal to test the waters before a clash between two armies. "As long as it's not a reckless assault, that's fine. In truth, Jieli Khan's strength is by no means weak."

"Oh?" Li Jing looked at Zhang Gongjin and prompted, "Please elaborate, Commander Zhang."

"It is like this: although Jieli Khan has fallen out with the Yinan, he still retains the core strength of the Turks, particularly relying on three elite forces!" Zhang Gongjin explained. "The first is the Turkic Imperial Guard, inherited from Shibi Khan; the second is the Turkic Tiger Division, which he trained himself; and the third is the Xiaoguo Army, which has always remained in the hands of Princess Yicheng!"

"The Xiaoguo Army?!" Hearing this, Li Jing furrowed his brow and asked, "The Sui Dynasty has already fallen, where would a Xiaoguo Army come from?"

Zhang Gongjin said gravely, "This army was formed by Princess Yicheng, who sent men to encroach upon our Great Tang borders and plunder our citizens, using the Sui military training methods to forge a new army. It has always been tightly controlled by Princess Yicheng, and its true capability remains unknown. As the capital with which Princess Yicheng stirs up storms in the Turkic lands, this army must not be underestimated."

Li Jing nodded upon hearing this. To be frank, Princess Yicheng was indeed the Turkic trump card that could rival the Great Tang politically. Moreover, this woman was formidable. One could say that a major reason for the deep hostility between Jieli Khan and the Great Tang was the instigation of this very woman.

"Since we do not know the enemy's exact strength, all the more reason we must clash with them to ascertain the true power of the Turks!" Li Jing declared. "I will personally lead three thousand elite guards to assess the strength of the Turkic army and establish a baseline for ourselves!"

"The General is going personally?!" Zhang Gongjin could not help but worry upon hearing Li Jing's words, and he urged, "Would that not be too dangerous? The Great General is the master of the entire army; how can he risk his own person in such a rash endeavor? Better that I go in your stead!"

Li Jing replied, "The battle has not yet commenced, and the Turks are still hesitating over whether to deploy against us, so their guard is certainly not stringent. Since I am taking cavalry primarily to test the Turkic combat capability, if their strength proves overwhelming, a force composed entirely of cavalry can still effect a smooth retreat."

Hearing these words, Zhang Gongjin breathed a sigh of relief, comforted that Li Jing was not merely acting on a hot-headed impulse. As for a commander leading troops personally to the front lines to assess or observe the situation, it was considered entirely normal within the Great Tang military culture.

This unhealthy precedent had primarily been set by Li Shimin. Compared to Li Shimin, who frequently dared to scout right up to enemy camp gates with merely a small squad of soldiers, Li Jing was taking three thousand cavalrymen to conduct a combat assessment; by any measure, Li Jing was acting with utmost prudence.

Conversely, a commander who hid inside his camp the entire time, refusing to conduct even a simple combat reconnaissance and launching the entire army into battle blindly without knowing the enemy's strength—against such a leader, a general like Li Jing naturally inspired far greater confidence.

"However, just to be safe, we cannot afford to make no preparations whatsoever," Li Jing pondered aloud. "Commander Zhang, you shall lead the central army to advance at a leisurely pace, and order the Mo Dao Campaign Commander to lead the eastern main force in an attack upon the eastern Turkic heartland. Order the Jinhe Dao Campaign Commander to advance westward along the Yellow River to echo and coordinate with us from afar.

"The Prince of Rencheng has also been pushing westward from Lingzhou, and Youzhou Governor Wei Xiaojie will gradually close the encirclement after we launch our offensive. As for the Changwu Dao Campaign Commander, he is to take a detour through the northeast to strike the Turkic rear and monitor Tulis Khan, so as to avoid any unnecessary trouble."

"You don't just mean to probe Jieli Khan with this; you are trying to encircle and annihilate him!" Zhang Gongjin said as he looked at Li Jing's deployment. "With such an overwhelming, Mount Tai-like momentum, aren't you afraid Jieli Khan will launch a desperate counterattack?"

"With the movement of more than one hundred thousand troops, Jieli Khan will surely notice; we need only have them march at normal speeds," Li Jing said calmly. "Facing this scale of troop mobilization, the Turks will focus their attention on the main army. But in reality, I will have already broken through with my personal guards to strike directly at Dingxiang. By blending the false with the true, I will have the assurance to withdraw safely!"

"The deployment of over one hundred thousand troops, just to cover your surprise attack..." Zhang Gongjin muttered inwardly as he listened to Li Jing.

Are you really just going to assess the Turkic strength with a move like this?!

Yet Li Jing knew clearly what he was doing. An assessment? If his surprise attack failed, then naturally it would just be an assessment. But if his surprise attack succeeded, it would be much more than an assessment!

There was simply no need to explain such matters to Zhang Gongjin. After all, as the commander-in-chief, the most important thing was to stabilize military morale. If he were to tell everyone that he was going to launch a surprise raid on the Turks—leaving aside whether they would believe him—for the commander of over one hundred thousand troops to personally lead a raid on the Turks was, in itself, a remarkably unorthodox and reckless-sounding act.

Therefore, let it simply be called a combat assessment!

Li Jing dispatched his orders via scouts to each of the campaign commanders. Naturally, due to the slight variations in distance between the various commanders, the designated times for each commander to advance were not identical.

At the same time, Li Jing led his cavalry to march by night and hide by day, lunging directly toward Dingxiang. Three days later, Zhang Gongjin would dispatch the main army to advance toward Dingxiang. Simultaneously, Li Shiji in Datong would push into the Turkic heartland at almost the exact same moment.

Nearly every campaign commander received their orders within a time window of less than a day, as if Li Jing had calculated everything down to the minute.

At this moment, the entire war machine of the Great Tang began to close its iron net around the Turkic army.

Such a massive military mobilization by the Tang army could naturally not be concealed from the scouts and roaming cavalry on the grasslands. Almost the entire attention of the Turks was drawn by these Tang forces, naturally focusing their gaze outward.

Consequently, they grew somewhat sluggish regarding their immediate surroundings. They never imagined that Li Jing's order for the Tang army to move three days after he began his own march was intended precisely to thin out the density of roaming scouts and outposts around Dingxiang.

Even among nomadic peoples, warriors capable of serving as scouts in the army were generally elite. In other words, the number of scouts in an army was limited, and under normal circumstances, scout density increased the closer one got to the main camp.

However, with the massive troop mobilization of the Tang army and the looming threat of encirclement, the density of Turkic scouts actually became sparser the closer one got to the main camp, while the density near the Tang forces grew higher. This paradoxically created a golden opportunity for Li Jing to launch a surprise attack!

Hiding in the forests overlooking the Zishui River, Li Jing watched as the Tang army's maneuvers caused the scouts along the riverbank to continually rush toward the Shuozhou direction. Meanwhile, reconnaissance directed at Dingxiang Commandery became utterly lax—virtually nonexistent!

"The General's divine calculation is truly wondrous! In just a single night, the scouts along the riverbank have thinned out so drastically!"

A broad-shouldered, stout young man bit into a meat brick and chewed, the sound of the bones crunching echoing aloud. "When are we attacking Dingxiang? Once we cross this Zishui River, that's Dingxiang, right?"

"Feed the horses concentrated grain, let them eat and rest well. Tomorrow at the third watch, rise; at the fourth watch, cook the meal; at the fifth watch, our horses will trample Dingxiang!" Li Jing looked at the young man and said, "Dingfang, I'll give you two hundred mounted archers. Tomorrow, you will serve as the vanguard. Do you dare or not?"

Hearing Li Jing's words, Su Dingfang rubbed his palms together eagerly, his face glowing with excitement as he said, "Leave it to me, General! Once we defeat the Turks, I'm going to head into the city and have a proper hot meal. Though these meat bricks fill the stomach, they're far too hard in this snowy weather!"

"Tomorrow, put some snow and pine needles in an iron pot, chop off some pieces of the meat, and boil it to eat as a soup," Li Jing instructed.

"Understood!" Su Dingfang was even happier upon hearing this.

Watching Su Dingfang depart, Li Jing could not help but reveal a slight smile. The young man was undoubtedly one of the few moldable talents among his personal guards.

Turning his gaze toward the stacked meat bricks, Li Jing narrowed his eyes slightly.

As a military commander-in-chief, and indeed a military strategist of legendary caliber, how could Li Jing fail to see the perfect synergy between these meat bricks and cavalry forces? They were practically born to be rations for mounted troops.

Though a single meat brick appeared to be only about ten catties in volume, as long as a portion of it was chopped off and tossed into a pot to boil, it quickly yielded a bowl of fragrant and savory meat soup. For cavalrymen in the field, could there possibly be any greater delicacy?

Moreover, the meat bricks were remarkably enduring; a single brick could sustain a soldier's grain requirements for nearly a month. This in itself was a breakthrough in the sustained operational capability of cavalry.

With each man riding two horses, these meat bricks could push the long-range raiding capabilities of the cavalry to their absolute limits.

To a certain extent, while this item seemed simple, it was an invention comparable in value to the stirrups!

There was one point, in fact, where Li Tai had been slightly mistaken: Li Tai believed a single meat brick could only last half a month because his calculations were based on three meals a day.

Li Jing, however, operated differently. Not to mention that soldiers typically only ate two meals a day, boiling these meat bricks into a meat soup was far more effective at keeping warm and filling the stomach. Occasionally tossing in some edible wild herbs made it superior to the vast majority of military rations, crushing them utterly in terms of quality.

After all, this was meat!

A hint of quiet admiration crossed Li Jing's mind: "It's just that compared to the simplicity of stirrups, this stuff is far too expensive. Producing three thousand meat bricks from one hundred thousand chickens and ducks—is this really a meat brick? Even if traded entirely for copper coins, it wouldn't cost this much! Prince Yue is truly imaginative, and His Majesty is truly generous! However, aside from being a bit expensive and a bit salty, it really has no other flaws as military rations."

To be honest, when Li Shimin first bestowed these three thousand meat bricks, Li Jing had actually wanted to refuse. He had even considered suggesting to Li Shimin that His Majesty might as well convert these goods directly into copper coins for him; at least having coin on the battlefield might help boost troop morale.

But now it seemed, how could copper coins ever compare to the goodness of this food?

Especially now in the freezing depths of winter, occasionally gnawing on these meat bricks provided his soldiers with the stamina needed to ward off the biting cold. Given how exceptionally and eerily cold this winter was, he had originally expected his cavalrymen to push through purely on sheer willpower; but now, with full stomachs, they at least wouldn't freeze to death!

"Prince Yue's meat bricks are truly marvelous. I wonder what role that medical camp will play!"

Thinking of the medical camp he had casually dumped into Zhang Gongjin's hands, Li Jing began to look forward with a degree of anticipation toward this peculiar force that had arrived carrying large and small bundles as if on a vacation.

"Your camp has so many donkeys, and they're all carrying so many packs and bundles—what on earth is inside?" Having been authorized by Li Jing to command the entire army, Zhang Gongjin soon turned his attention to this out-of-place medical camp.

The trainees within this medical camp were astonishingly young, mostly around fifteen years of age. While the Great Tang did recruit soldiers of tender age, anyone would naturally cast a few extra curious glances at a troop composed of such youngsters.

Especially this unit—their luggage was easily more than double that of any other regiment!

"Reporting to Commander Zhang!" Liu Shenwei stepped forward and said, "We are a medical camp organized by the teachers and students of the medical and pharmacology departments of the Agricultural Academy. These donkeys are mainly laden with medicinal herbs. We are responsible for treating soldiers suffering from illnesses due to a change of climate and water, as well as providing emergency medical rescue."

Upon hearing Liu Shenwei's explanation, Zhang Gongjin nodded and said, "Since you possess no combat capability, stay close to the central army once we reach the battlefield. Don't go poking your nose into things out of curiosity; just focus on doing your proper job as doctors!"

"Understood!" Liu Shenwei replied, quickly bowing and nodding in acknowledgment.

Seeing Liu Shenwei's cooperative attitude, Zhang Gongjin nodded with satisfaction and continued his inspection of the military camp.