Chapter 807: Small Actions (Part 1) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]
Upon hearing this, Qin Li, who had been sitting up straight, leaned back and said lazily, "Find it yourself, I'm not interested."
Zhao Feng, who was looking down at his daughter, was annoyed.
"What do you mean 'not interested'? Dawei usually respects you the most. When has he ever not called you 'uncle'? We haven't even seen Dawei's heroic figure on the battlefield yet. It's a rare opportunity, and you don't even know how to cherish it? Humph! Humph!"
Qin Li: "..."
I don't want to argue with a childish old man about this.
On the sand table, there were over two thousand people on both sides, all locked in a chaotic battle. Who could tell them apart? This scholar's way reflects the real world, placing all mountains and rivers proportionally scaled down on it. At that same scale, a person is smaller than an ant.
Zhao Feng was now trying to find his daughter among more than two thousand ants, a truly unreasonable request.
All they could see were small black figures.
As expected, Zhao Feng's eyes were sore from looking, but he still couldn't find Zhao Wei, so he had no choice but to ask his colleagues for help.
“Gongsu, this is, after all, your way of the scholar.”
Qin Li half-closed his eyes, looking languid and relaxed: "The way of the scholar is not omnipotent. It is already difficult enough for you to see the situation on the front line from the rear. Don't ask for too much."
If he pushes further, he will abandon his scholarly ways.
Zhao Feng was so angry that he pulled out several hairs from his beard and grimaced in fury.
Unable to find his daughter, Zhao Feng now mistakes every strange-looking little figure for Zhao Wei, secretly encouraging each one. In tense and exciting moments, he can't help but fidget with them, as if that could shield them from enemy attacks. He's anxious when a little figure is injured, and his heart tightens when they lie down, his forehead unconsciously sweating with tension.
call--
This is even more tiring than going to the battlefield himself: "Gong Su, why can't your scholarly way be interfered with by external forces?"
Qin Li asked with his eyes closed, "What external interference?"
Zhao Feng extended his index finger and gestured towards the battlefield: "Like this, I extend a finger here, and a huge, phantom finger descends from the sky over the other side of the battlefield. Hey, that way, I can send anyone flying if I want."
"...I am a human, not a god," Qin Li said irritably. "It's not dark yet, it's not time for you to dream." Even if he could do that kind of divine skill, doing it like that would take at least three to five years of his life.
Zhao Feng sighed repeatedly, saying only "What a pity."
Qin Li: "..."
A short while later, he heard Zhao Feng say "Eh".
Qin Li opened his eyes: "Something's changed?"
Zhao Feng pointed to another group of small black figures approaching the battlefield: "Another group of soldiers has arrived, and they've raised their flags."
The flag on the sand table was very small, but Zhao Feng squinted and could barely make out the outline of a cluster of characters, and his expression changed slightly.
Qin Li asked, "Whose troops are these?"
Not many people know about Shen Tang's ambush.
This includes people like Qin Li.
She didn't hide it from her ally Wu Xian, but Wu Xian didn't inform Qin Li and the others, only saying that Shen Tang had recently launched a military operation. If it weren't for Qin Li's scholarly approach, Zhao Feng would have been completely unaware of Shen Tang's scheme. The banners displayed by this third army—
Zhao Feng glanced at Qin Li's expression and stammered.
Qin Li sighed and stated in a declarative tone: "Wu Gong's?"
Zhao Feng muttered, "My lord, this is too much—"
He couldn't think of a more suitable word for the time being.
Wu Xian's deployment of troops was definitely pre-arranged with Shen Tang. Once the ambush troops entered the ambush area and the two sides engaged in battle, Wu Xian would send troops to attack from both sides, as military merits should be shared with allies. However, Zhao Feng and the others were completely unaware of this, and before Wu Xian's troops appeared, they all thought it was a unilateral military action by Shen Tang, which made them somewhat uncomfortable.
Zhao Feng nodded: "It is indeed the lord's troops, but we do not yet know who the commander is. It is most likely those people from Tianhai. Gongsu, this is definitely another deliberate attempt to hide it from us."
Avoid them whenever there's any benefit to be gained through merit; such childish things are the kind of things that Tianhai and his group would do...
He scratched his head, racking his brains to try and comfort Qin Li.
Whether this concealment was Wu Xian's idea or the Tianhai faction's, it was a bitter pill to swallow for Qin Li. Zhao Feng was not emotionally sensitive and had climbed up from the bottom, so he had been sidelined many times before, but Qin Li was different.
Qin Li, who had been pampered since childhood, had never experienced anything like this before.
Qin Li simply smiled, smoking without saying a word, his expression behind the smoke unreadable: "If Master Wu likes it, let him be."
Zhao Feng inwardly felt a chill for Wu Xian: [My lord, my lord, you've truly hurt Gong Su this time.]
They're the kind of people you can't appease.
Looking back a few years, if Gong Su suffered injustice or grievances, Wu Xian would rush to his door late at night to explain and appease him; conflicts were never left unresolved overnight. Times have changed, and people's hearts are fickle. How could things be different now? Has our lord changed, or has he always remained the same?
Zhao Feng blurted out his inner thoughts without thinking.
He was so frightened that he quickly glanced at Qin Li's expression out of the corner of his eye.
Qin Li exhaled a puff of smoke and slowly added tobacco to his pipe: "It's probably always been like this. People change, but not so easily. Otherwise, where would the saying 'It's easier to change mountains and rivers than to change one's nature' come from? Change means changing everything that was originally there, shaping a different self. And laziness is a deep-seated flaw that people can't eradicate. There aren't many people with the willpower to change themselves."
Whether this change is good or bad.
Zhao Feng: "...But our lord..."
Qin Li's eyelashes trembled slightly: "Pretend."
To disguise oneself in order to achieve one's goals.
A typical example is Qi Yuanliang from back then.
The difference between the two is that Qi Yuanliang went to great lengths to deal with Qin Lixiang, creating a persona that perfectly matched his preferences, successfully cheating him out of food and drink and fooling him; Wu Gong's disguise, however, was for the general public.
He wasn't the only one who saw through his disguise.
From this perspective, can Qi Yuanliang still be considered a human being?
A cold smile crept into Qin Li's heart.
Sooner or later that day will come—
He wasn't smoking a cigarette, he was smoking Qi Yuanliang's face! He wanted to see what was real and what was fake about this guy!
Upon hearing this reply, Zhao Feng felt as if he had used up all the anger he had accumulated over the past year. "My lord is foolish!"
Regardless of whether it was a pretense or genuine intention before, if he can maintain this approach, with the scholarly principles of Gongsu, as long as there isn't an absolute disparity in military strength between the two sides, who can't he fight? No matter how clever the troop deployment, it can't overcome his scholarly principles.
"What do you think our lord is thinking...?"
Looking at the enemy's surprise attack, which was like a dumpling wrapped around his head, Zhao Feng felt like he couldn't figure out the answer even if he racked his brains.
Is it simply because you don't want to pretend and expose your true nature?
Qin Li said, "Because there's no profit to be made."
Zhao Feng pricked up his ears: "No profit to be made?"
Qin Li gave a forced smile: "Dayi, haven't you noticed? Tianhai and we have completely different political views. Their rejection of us isn't just because of our background. In terms of background, I'm a prince, the future head of the imperial clan—how am I inferior to them? Of course, it's not just because we're from out of town. How many of the Tianhai families are descendants of refugees fleeing disasters here? Their rejection stems from our completely different pursuits. We've been wandering for years, rootless and adrift, making our home wherever we go, while they're more content with their current situation..."
Should they rely on Qin Li, or should they value the Tianhai family? Behind the scenes, these represent two different strategic choices.
Choosing the former means being radical and expansionary.
Choosing the latter means maintaining the status quo and being cautious.
"The Tianhai family's foundation is in Tianhai. Even if they don't do well, they can still hold onto their small territory. But we are different. We have no choice but to expand outwards to have our own foundation, our own land, and our means of survival..."
Zhao Feng was a little confused.
He felt he understood, yet he also felt he didn't.
Qin Li calmly smoked his cigarette: "The amount of farmland under Lord Wu's command is limited. The powerful families and gentry take a portion, the commoners take a portion, and the remaining wasteland is difficult to cultivate. Even if it is cultivated, it is mostly inferior land with little value. The land that goes into their pockets will not reach us, and we cannot make things difficult for the commoners. The only way to gain benefits is to find a way to help our lord conquer other places..."
He drew a conclusion.
"It is inevitable that our lord will choose to rely on the Tianhai group. Now that Shen Jun's power is growing, if he launches another military campaign, he will be competing with Shen Jun. He is not confident and is worried about losing miserably. The Tianhai group is more afraid than he is."
Therefore, the choices tend to be conservative.
Qin Li sneered, "Even without your adjutant's death, if our lord had sided with them and distanced himself from us, it would still have happened. It just wouldn't have come so quickly or become so ugly."
After all, Wu Xian is also a person who cares a lot about his reputation.
He wanted to give Qin Li a plausible excuse so that Qin Li wouldn't have too many complaints and would swallow his grievances.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Feng was so surprised that his mouth gaped slightly: "But..."
He looked at the sand table beside him.
The scholarly way of Qin Li is not incapable of fighting.
Even if they can't win, they can still gain enough bargaining chips, and at least get more benefits than Wu Xian's conservative choice.
Qin Li exhaled smoke: "My lord, you don't know this, do you?"
We don't know now, and we never will.
He would reveal his hand to Zhao Feng and the others because they were sworn brothers, the kind who would give their lives for each other. Would Wu Xian be the same? The greatest lesson Qin Li learned from Qi Shan was—don't trust men who use sweet talk!
Even when you're deeply moved, you should still leave some room for maneuver.
Zhao Feng sighed again.
While the two were talking, the one or two thousand enemies on the sand table had been annihilated. The terrain that was originally suitable for an ambush had been completely changed by the destruction of the Wudan Warriors' army. A large part of the cliff on one side had been cut away, and the rolling boulders buried the mountain road.
The old mountain road disappeared, and a new "mountain road" appeared.
Looking at the busy little man, Zhao Feng felt sorry for him.
"Gongsu, is Dawei injured?"
Qin Li: "..."
Zhao Feng's eyes scanned each little figure as he muttered to himself.
——
"Ah owe-ah owe-"
On the battlefield, Zhao Wei's makeshift ghillie suit lost all its leaves and grass during the fighting, leaving only the bottom layer of plain cloth soaked in leaf sap. Because there were no color-fixing methods, the sap, after drying, mixed with sweat and blood, fading and emitting another suffocating odor.
At this moment, Zhao Wei was cleaning up the battlefield with his weapon, poking each enemy twice to make sure there were no survivors.
I don't know when it started, but I've been sneezing constantly.
"Xu Wenshi, are you insulting me?"
Xu Quan happened to pass by and was caught by her braid and scolded.
Who are you?
Xu Quan was about to explode in anger.
His current braid was made using the unique braiding techniques of the Gongxi tribe, taught to him personally by his idol, Gongxi Chou. It's a 100% identical style to Gongxi Chou's, achieving the visual effect of making the crown of the head appear higher and the head fuller.
Xu Quan hates it most when people grab his braid!
"Dawei?"
Zhao Wei plunged his weapon into the corpse at his feet.
"It's me."
"Your face..."
It's all tree sap and blood plasma; who could recognize it?
Zhao Wei said, "My lord said this is a disguise. Achoo—I'm sneezing again. Are you cursing me?"
Xu Quan: "..."
Should he really have to take the blame for this?
She initially thought it was nothing serious, but she couldn't stop sneezing, and her face felt inexplicably itchy. When she washed off the dirt with water, she was horrified to find her face covered in small red spots, and her neck also started to itch.
The army doctor took one look and said, "It should be ringworm."
It's actually an allergy.
But Zhao Wei was a brave and skilled warrior, so it wasn't a big problem. During marches, all sorts of strange illnesses could be encountered, and the army doctor was quite experienced: "We just don't know what caused it, but to be on the safe side, we suggest the centurion not participate in future campaigns."
Because of the tight schedule, we had to use materials available locally.
Ghillie suits are made from whatever materials are available. The one Zhao Wei is wearing, however, is of unknown origin.
Zhao Wei: "..."
The military doctor picked up his pen and wrote a prescription.
Zhao Wei was still in a daze when she came out of the wounded soldiers' camp.
The operation was a success. Although the enemy outnumbered them four to one, they caught them off guard, and with their lord leading the charge, the two armies clashed briefly before Wu Xian's troops flanked and reinforced them from the rear. This ambush force suffered only seven dead and fifty-one wounded, mostly minor injuries. However, Zhao Wei, due to an allergic reaction, added one more person to the wounded list. It was an utter disgrace!
"Pfft—your face?"
Xu Quan idly twirled his braid with his fingers. Seeing Zhao Wei's expression, he burst into laughter, clucking incessantly like a hen.
Zhao Wei retorted irritably, "What are you laughing at?"
Faced with the large axe that Zhao Wei pulled out, Xu Quan chose to be pragmatic: "Ahem, I'm not laughing anymore."
Zhao Wei was finally satisfied.
"You should buy me a drink to apologize."
Xu Quan knew immediately that the other party was trying to extort him again, and complained with a sneer, "Don't you get a salary yourself?"
Zhao Wei said matter-of-factly, "The wine is so expensive!"
How many times can she drink with that little salary?
Xu Quan was the richest military general she knew.
"Do you want to cover your face?" My daughter cherishes her face, and now it's covered in red rashes, which looks quite scary.
"Cover my ass! Lots of you men have scars on your faces, and none of you hide in the inner quarters afraid to come out. What do I have to hide?" Zhao Wei didn't care about her appearance at all; she even regretted not having a scar on her face to boast about her war achievements. At this moment, Xu Quan secretly took something out of his armor and stuffed it into her hand.
Zhao Wei asked, puzzled, "What are you giving me?"
So mysterious, could it be—
"Hey, a letter of admiration for me?"
Xu Wenshi has good taste and understands aesthetics.
"Zhao Dawei, you wish!" Xu Quan rolled his eyes, put his arm around Zhao Wei's shoulder, and whispered in her ear, "My cousin used his connections to secretly pass this over, and he made sure I delivered it to you personally. Find an opportunity to give it to your father."
The monthly pass post in the comments section is now open.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
