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The Making of a Legend
Chapter 12: The southern war begins
Everyone around the camp was on edge, the battle was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon. Though that the question of where and when the battle was going to happen was unknown to most people in the Shu camp except for Zhuge Liang, who had already come up with his plan for the battle all the way to how to make the battle start, and he already was quite sure with how the battle was going to end as well. He just had to put everything into motion, and watch as the actors in this little play did their parts. There enemies in this battle were Zhu Bao, and Gao Ding, two former Shu governors that surrender their cities to the Nanman people, and now allied with them as well. They were not going to be much of a challenge with his plans. Liang turned and wrote down a note and give it to a messenger to tell the commanders that they were going to have a commanders meeting for preparations for the upcoming battle.
Guan Ping sat in his tent looking at his dragon blade sword. He had not been in a real fight since the day that the first emperor had died, and in the battle before that, his father ended up dead. Ping had not though about it on the march to the southland. His mind was more on other things, mostly making sure that he led his men correctly, and take time to go over the lessons that Guo Jia had given him when he was learning from him in the middle of nowhere. He just could not stop worrying that something bad was going to happen to someone he carried about in the coming battle, or in the coming campaign. Everything was just clouding his thoughts, he had to focus on what was going to happen in the battle. He remember one of the most important things was to think with a clear and present mind. Right now however he was no where close to being able to do that. Just before he went out the tent something bumped into him causing him to fall back a step. He then looked quickly for what he had walked into, already having a good idea who it was.
In front of his was a very excited Xing Cai, actually was looked more excited then she then he could remember. Ping sighed, thinking about how energized Cai had been on the whole march, nothing seemed to get in the way of her happiness over the idea of proving herself a an capable unit commander.
"Well Ping, I should I tell you the news or not, hmmm," Cai said with mock arrogance, "well, I guess I think I may this time. Zhuge Liang is having a commanders council for us to attend, I believe he is going to give us are orders for the upcoming battle."
"Well good, it is about time, well, I think we need to get going," Ping said walking past Cai before turing back to her with a small smirk, "Well are you going to come as well, or you going to stand there while we have the meeting."
Cai turned to him with a look that showed she did not like the comment, "Well Ping, you better watch that, you're the one who.." she said before Ping had walked out of sight, "Ping, you always have be like that, you can be so annoying sometimes."
When Cai, and Ping made it to the meeting they found their seats and waited for the meeting to begin. Ping turned to say something to Cai, but before he could say anything, Liang walked into the camp, automatically getting every ones attention on him. He walked up to the front of the tent where he had a map of marking where he thought that the enemy fortifications were placed. On the map where two arrow going to the two fortifications.
"Well, Lord Guan Ping, and Lady Xing Cai, I want you to take the eastern route to the camp, I believe that you will find the route I made up easy and will have no problems with the enemy forces. Lords Wang Ping, and Lord Zhang Yi, I want you to take the western route, you two likewise should have no problems with taking the western fortifications."
There was a pause for a second before, Zhao Yun stood up along with Wei Yan, "My lord, what is our job for this battle to be?"
"My lords, I did have a plan for how to use you two in this battle, but I don't want to risk you two. You do not know the land very well, and to be frank, you are not so young anymore, and I don't want to risk losing you in this upcoming battle," Zhuge Liang said before turning to his assistant to tell them to give the commanders the information they would need.
"My lord, what if we found a way to get to know the land, then could we help out in this this battle," Yun replied looking Liang in the eye.
"No, I must say you can not take the risk of send you two, you are to much past your prime to handle this one," Liang replied, "Well commanders I will now give you the information for the battle."
With that the plans for how to attack the rebel armies was passed on, and the men soon began to gather for the battle. Zhao Yun, and Wei Yan not looking happy at all about being left out of the battle.
Around the same time in Cheng Du, Liu Feng was sitting in one of the many rooms of the capital, looking over information flyers that were to be sent out the next day. He and Guo Jia, had been working hard with coming up with a way to find new talent, and find a way to get them to come and join the Shu ranks, both as military commanders and civil commanders. The final plan was a simple one thought, it was to have an grand test for the people who wanted to test themselves, one part was a writing contest, the second part was an pros contest, a third part was a mental challenge came, and the fourth part was a strength challenge to test the applicants mettle in combat. Large rewards would be given to the top 10 finishers in all areas, and a very large reward would be given to the overall winner. The only rule was command officers were not allowed to enter. Liu Feng smiled to himself thinking and hoping that this plan would work to find the officers he would need for the future of his land.
Now it was nighttime in the southland, and the armies of Xing Cai, and Guan Ping had been marching for a good while, and the camp was just in sight. It was not really what one would call a great defense, there was a small wooden wall that had been put up, that blocked their view of the camp. The odd thing was that they had not been fired on by arrows, and the gate to the fortifications was still wide open.
"Cai, do you think this could be a trap, something seems really odd about all of this," Ping said turning to Cai, worried that this was going to be another nightmare of a battle.
Cai gave him a small smile in return, "Don't worry so much Ping, I am sure they just have not spotted us. Men charge, take that gate before they close it."
She then rushed ahead of him, with her unit leaving Ping frozen for a second. His mind race, and all he could see was a ambush in his mind where Xing Cai would end up on the ground dead, and him alive again to have to deal with having her die in front of him. He then gripped hard on his dragon blade, and pulled it out with anger. "Men, lets attack, and that camp."
Moving as fast as he could he caught up with Cai and her unit as she entered into the gate, on the other side they did not see a ambush, but a group of shocked , and panicked. They were running in every direction. Except for one area where a very tall man stood, he had to be taller then any man he had seen before, and held a halberd with a huge double sided blade. Xing Cai made a charge for him and thrusted with her blade at the tall warrior, but the larger warrior swung his halberd knocking Xing Cai's double fanged spear to the ground. Ping saw that Cai was in great danger at that moment, and he also panicked for a half of a second, running and sliding between the large warrior and Xing Cai, blocking his halberd with his dragon blade sword. The tall warrior then brought his halberd to his side and then used a vertical strike in an attempt to take down Ping. Ping had already had come up with plan, he moved forward, and dodged the strike and was now close enough to counter the attack. He knew it would take to long to use his sword to kill the tall warrior, he would of move his halberd in a secondary slashing attack he knew he could not be able to block. So he got up close to the tall warrior quickly and kneed him in the stomach knocking him to the ground, and forcing him to drop his weapon at the same time. Without his large weapon, the tall warrior had no choice but to submit to surrender. As he looked up the last of the enemy had either fled or surrender to the forces. A few seconds later he knew why, he saw Wei Yan, and his unit riding forward. It would seem that Yan, and Yun did not listen to orders and had attacked before they had gotten to the rebel fortifications, which is why the rebels were in such chaos when they arrived, and did not notice them.