Chapter 186 Zhang Da Zhi's First Day

Zhang Da Zhi had two right-hand men under him, the more senior strategist would be the naval Qi Ji Guang, while the other one was the aerial strategist Ding Lai Hang. The three of them and all of the people under them would fight together to take on Jie Zi Fang and Jiang Yan. Taking on two such all-stars would be impossible for any of the other three alliances, he was the only one strong enough to. However, he felt like he didn't draw the short straw as most people would assume. For all that he feared and respected these two opponents of his, he respected and feared Lun Hu a million times over.

The battle began with them rushing with a little under a quarter of their entire forces to meet the 40,000 that the enemy had sent their way. He felt like he could take these two, maybe not win, because these two had the most intel available to buy. The other two were a bit of a mystery. Jiang Yan the bowmaster liked to lead from near the front lines and take down enemy officers with the deadly precision of his shots. On the other hand, Jie Zi Fang of the glaive was a more well-rounded strategist being both adept at short and long-ranged warfare tactics.

If Zhang Da Zhi could devise a plan based on these factors, he might just have a chance at beating them. He knew that if he could take down one of them first, the other would fall down in a matter of time as well. The big problem with that was that both of them worked together a lot and thus would be able to almost read each other's minds and react to any situation quickly if one was in danger. No matter though, however good or bad their battle ends up going, he had to give it his all.

Qi Ji Guang and Ding Lai Hang might not be great at land warfare, but they weren't so inexperienced that they would fall to most maneuvers and they would be able to hold their ground for quite some time. The two sides clashed and turned into one massive flow of bodies being shot at constantly, not to mention the barrage of artillery ringing in the distance. There wasn't much to do on the first day as this was about all they could and were willing to do. The night started to set and both sides decided to stop the fighting once the sun was nearly gone from the horizon and both sides retreated their forces so that they could rest up and continue tomorrow.

Zhang Da Zhi had been given a warning from Baron before they started all of this to be wary of night raids on the first night and every night after this. Such a no brainer statement was taken extremely carefully by him so much that even his two right-hand men were surprised. Thankfully, he had listened as the enemy forces did indeed try to launch a night raid which allowed them to get a jump on their foes. The surprise attack from Jie Zi Fang and Jiang Yan's soldiers turned out to be unsuccessful and retreated as soon as they found out that they were not able to do anything to Zhang Da Zhi's army.

Ding Lai Hang ordered his troops to chase them down and end them, but Qi Ji Guang quickly canceled the order and explained that there might be ambushes set up for them out in the dead of the night. Zhang Da Zhi knew that these were tricky opponents so he had his formations at the ready in case another night raid was to be launched at them. The first group that had been attacked them numbered nearly 10,000. He reckoned that his men had killed a thousand of them before they retreated.

His intuition served him greatly as soon after, another group came in to wreck some things. He caught them immediately in a trap and managed to kill nearly a quarter of them before they left. Then yet another group came to do the same thing, this time, they were reduced to half of their numbers before getting out of a trap that Zhang Da Zhi had set up. At this point, he knew what the enemy was planning. They wanted to sleep deprive his men so that they would not be able to fight as well the next day.

With this in mind, he ordered that 100,000 men were to move closer to the center of the camp and get some much-needed rest while the rest would stay up and defend if more enemies showed up. Indeed, they did. The next group came in two hours after the previous group. This time, he did not give them any mercy and completely decimated their entire army in the blink of an eye. There were no more attacks after that as the sun was nearly up.

Even with their success at eliminating one of the enemy forces, the men who were ordered to sleep were not all better off than the ones who stayed up to fight. The main reason for this was because the adrenaline rushing through them kept quite large amounts of them up for a while before they finally dozed off. In the morning, when all the soldiers were up to get some breakfast, not a lot of soldiers were well-rested.

Zhang Da Zhi knew ever since the previous night that the second day would be an important one and that the majority of his soldiers were now not functioning at their best. This would not only affect morale, but also the minute details such as individual fighting prowess, aim, reaction times, the general mood of the army, and so much more. It seemed that he had already been outplayed just like Baron had on the very first day. He had to think of something to raise the morale of his troops, that would be a challenge as many of them were still longing for sleep and dragging their feet already.