After three months of peace, the once quiet Donic territory was once again engulfed in war.
And the timing happened to be in the last few days of September.
Unlike the last war, this time the Lunlang family personally took to the field. The two Lunlang sons, Adam Lunlang and Gossa Lunlang, led ten hundred-man squads, along with six hundred-man squads from the Ars family and eight hundred-man squads from the Terra family. A total of twenty-four hundred-man squads, divided into three groups, launched a combined attack on the Donic family's castle.
The reason for the war was quite interesting. They said that the youngest daughter of the Donic family had learned evil magic and, in order to gain the status of an earl, used magic to bring a plague, killing all her relatives and half of the innocent people in Donic Castle. Their goal was to eliminate this evil practice and the evil girl who had brought disaster to this land.
When this story reached Perth, Yun Zhe burst out laughing. While laughing during a meeting was indeed inappropriate, Yun Zhe's laughter didn't offend Andrew, who was chairing the meeting. He looked at Yun Zhe with interest and asked, "Yun Zhe, is it that funny?"
Yun Zhe's smile faded slightly. "Anyway, they're just pointing fingers from a moral high ground. Since there are no legal loopholes, they can only make up stories and create hostility. But the person who came up with this reason is quite good. The most crucial thing about this reason is that it has maximized the gossip spirit and inner fear of the people of Donic City, directly ruining the Earl's reputation."
Serena, though falsely accused, was not at ease. Although she knew it was a slander, she was well aware of its power and intensity.
"So how should we deal with this?" Serena asked worriedly.
“Issuing a statement, making a public clarification. Wouldn’t that work?” Nyrent tentatively suggested.
"That won't work. The people have already formed their own opinions. Explaining things now might backfire."
“Then let’s just admit it. Maybe it’ll scare the enemy soldiers, right?” Luke said loudly.
The group exchanged bewildered glances, and Yun Zhe was surprised to find that a few people actually thought this wasn't a bad option.
Yun Zhe was a little anxious. "Why follow what they say? They are an aggressor. No matter how nice their banner is, it is still an aggression. Why bother with what they say? Let's just point out their true nature!"
Yun Zhe's words were a wake-up call. Indeed, no matter how much one tries to explain, it's just following someone else's rhythm. As long as you're in their rhythm, they'll always find a problem, rendering all your explanations weak and ineffective, even making things worse. Everyone nodded in agreement. Yun Zhe's words had pinpointed the crux of the problem.
"Were the Donic family and the Lunlang family on good terms before?" Yun Zhe asked.
Everyone looked at each other, and finally their gazes fell on Serena. Serena shrugged. "Very bad." After saying that, she fell silent.
"That's simple. Aggression and slander, those two points are enough." Yun Zhe leaned back in his chair, pointed a finger forcefully into the air, and shouted, "Expose their lies!"
The atmosphere in the meeting room instantly became cheerful. Everyone burst into laughter at Yun Zhe's antics. Arthas, on the other hand, remained serious, trying hard not to laugh, but his beard twitched involuntarily, which was quite amusing. The others, however, were less restrained and laughed more freely.
After a while, everyone calmed down again. Although Yun Zhe had tried to ease the tension, the serious situation prevented them from relaxing any longer. While the Pas family's army had increased in size, more than half were still new recruits with no combat experience. Although they had participated in simulated exercises to familiarize themselves with the battlefield, there was a significant difference between exercises and real combat. Wooden sticks and bamboo poles were vastly different from greatswords and spears. Furthermore, they couldn't send out all their troops because of an uncontrollable variable: Andrew's brother, Sind.
“We can expand our army. I think arming twenty hundred-man squads shouldn’t be a problem. At least that way we won’t be at a disadvantage in terms of troop numbers,” Andrew suggested sincerely. In his view, if the enemy has twenty hundred-man squads, then we can defeat them as long as we have the same number of troops.
Yun Zhe remained silent because he realized that everyone in the room shared this idea, and even Ellie thought it made a lot of sense.
Yun Zhe felt it was unnecessary, but convincing everyone of this idea would be too difficult, and besides, it wasn't something of critical importance. So Yun Zhe remained silent, seemingly sharing the same thoughts as most people.
The decision to expand the army was passed unanimously. So, how should the war begin?
Everyone had surprisingly similar thoughts on this issue: they all wanted to rush to the walls of Donic and fight, only their methods of fighting differed, while the actual tactics were the same.
"Should we launch another surprise attack?" Yun Zhe suggested tentatively.
Everyone suddenly remembered Yun Zhe's very effective feint attack last time. It was a very successful operation, but this time it didn't seem so suitable. Because in everyone's opinion, the time was very insufficient this time, and their best approach was to arrive at the battlefield before Donic City fell.
"I mean, we can split our forces into several groups, making it difficult for them to distinguish the number of our various units, so that we can launch a surprise attack."
Everyone thought it made sense, but it was just a feeling. They were completely baffled by the idea that splitting the troops into several groups could carry out a surprise attack, and they felt there was no connection between the two.
However, given the effectiveness of Yun Zhe's feint attack last time, everyone at the meeting was very interested in Yun Zhe's new idea.
Yun Zhe thought for a moment and organized his thoughts.
"If we send troops, based on the known marching route of the enemy, the first and easiest targets we can hit should be the Ars family's forces. We know this, and so do they."
Everyone looked at Yun Zhe, eagerly gesturing for him to continue.
"So from the other side's perspective, who would be the most relaxed and least vigilant about our deployment of troops?" Yun Zhe asked patiently.
"The farthest one, the Tra family?" Serena asked tentatively.
Yun Zhe nodded. The Terra family, being the furthest away, should be the most relaxed and vigilant. Therefore, our main direction of attack should actually be the Terra family.
After Yun Zhe finished speaking, everyone exclaimed "Oh!" in sudden realization.
However, everyone was still completely confused, wondering what could possibly happen even if all this was the case.
"Yun Zhe, just tell us your thoughts," Arthas said, looking at everyone and seeing their awkward expressions as they wanted to ask questions but didn't know where to start. He then looked at Yun Zhe and encouraged him.
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