Rui Plains Battle

Before arriving near Sanyou, Mou Gou had to reorganize his main army, he had lost many 1,000 man commanders. He promoted the lieutenants of the units that lost their commanders but was still left with two vacant positions, he decided to promote his grandson Mou Ten (300 man commander) and Ou Hon to 1,000 man commanders.

Shin must have made an impression on him, as he promoted Shin to a 1,000 man commander as well, he must have been in a good mood since he didn't demand that Shin needed to claim three 1,000 man commanders' heads or a Generals like he did in the manga.

As Mou Gou's main army advanced towards Sanyou, they learned that Kankis' and Ousens' armies were making great progress on either side of them, all three forces were advancing at the same pace making it hard for any Wei forces in the area to exploit any isolated armies. By all three forces invading at the same pace, neither of the armies was too far ahead or behind, they were close enough to support each other, but not too close that they were getting in each other's way, causing them to slow each other down, or end up fighting to capture that same city.

Their invasion wasn't fast but they were steadily capturing city after city, and in only two months, they had advanced to the Sanyou area. Most of the generals thought that Wei would hold up in the city and wait for reinforcements from the other nations, but surprisingly, a Wei force under Renpa had marched out to face them.

Renpa rushed troops to secure mount Man, a strategic location in the area, but Ousen had managed to beat him to it. Renpas' army would now have to fight on the Rui Plains located below.

Despite being called plains, the location was also filled with forest, hills, and wetlands spread out across the area that the generals would need to be aware of.

Renpa was secretly in command of the Wei forces, but because he was born in another state and had just recently arrived in Wei, the official leader of all the Wei forces was General Haku Kisa, but because he wasn't officially the commander of all the troops, he was freer to move about the battlefield as a result and didn't need to stick around the command center.

Meng and his 3,000 mounted archers were positioned with the vanguard unit under General Do Mon, the Gyoku Hou unit was also amongst the vanguard. In total, the vanguard including his troops numbered 8,000 men.

Being in the vanguard of the Main army positioned in the center, Meng and his men would be among the first troops to enter the battle. He hasn't received any orders from Do Mon and could only act as he always has once Do Mon ordered the Vanguard to charge!

Taking his three thousand mounted archers, they rushed ahead of the others to harass the enemy vanguard under Rin Ko (8,000). He and Mob 2 harassed the enemy right flank, mob 3 harassed the enemy center, and mob 4 harassed the enemy left flank.

Meng and his men got close enough to launch a volley and then turned around and fled from the charging enemy, they did as they always had, and harassed the enemy as they charged after them, firing volley after volley at the enemy until both vanguards were about to clash.

Meng took Mob 2 and his thousand men and circled around the Qin vanguard to act as a stationary archer force behind the mainline (could also act as cavalry and reinforce when needed), mob 3 left the center before the vanguards clashed and took over harassing the enemy on the right flank.

By the time that both vanguards clashed, Meng and his troops had managed to whittle down the enemy vanguard to 7,600 men and wounded several others, greatly affecting their charge.

Qin's vanguard (5,000) vs Wei vanguard (7,600), finally clashed! Wei had lost some of their momentum from his harassment and had clearly lost the first exchange of blows against each other as both forces clashed.

Qin's first wave was winning at first, but due to all their vanguard forces mostly being newly constructed 1,000 man commanders, their inexperience from not working together was starting to show.

Rin Ko and his men had spent years working together, and they were steadily starting to push the Qin forces back! Rin Ko rallied his men and started to quickly push through the Qin's vanguard! threatening to cut them in half!

Ou Hon (leader of the Gyoku Hou Unit) showed his talent and quickly moved to face Rin Ko and blunt his push. Meng and his fresh 1,000 men, were positioned behind the line in reserve, seeing Ou Hon struggling he ordered Side Mob and his 300 men to split off and go support Ou Hon and the Gyoku Hou unit!

Meng and his 700 men got closer and started volleying into the enemy, he risked hitting his own troops but Wei had more men on the field and would end up taking more losses than Qin.

Mob 3 and 4 had been harassing the Wei forces from the rear and now both forces in unison charged into the rear of the Rin Ko force! Meng seeing his two 1,000 man commander charge, ordered mob 2 to join the battle and they moved to join the battle as cavalry!

Rin Ko army was surrounded and struggling! many of his men could be seen with arrows in their armor! he had been close to killing Ou Hon when that annoying Ye Mu who he met on one of his assassination attempts arrived to assist Ou Hon. The two thousand men near him were winning, but the thousands of troops in rear and side were struggling!

Qin Vanguard (6,700) vs Wei Vanguard (5,400)

Both sides kept fighting until Rin Ko vanguard number dropped to less than 3,000 soldiers! Rin Ko seeing that he was close to being annihilated had no choice but to signal the Wei forces.

Qin Vanguard (5,400) vs Wei Vanguard 2,600

Meng 3,000 men had been reduced to 1,750 mounted archers. Ou Hon has 550 men left, while the rest Qin vanguard is from the other units.

The battle was going well, but Meng still didn't like it, Rin Ko had managed to inflict a lot of casualties on his men. Looking around he could see the second wave (8,000) of Wei's force charging towards them!

Mob 3 and 4 seeing Wei's second wave coming, disengaged from Rin Ko's troops and moved to go harass Wei's second wave. Meng seeing his troops moving to confront the enemy, signaled his men to instead retreat and regroup. Retreating his 1,750 mounted archers from the battlefield, they moved to go replace their mounts and equip their extra quivers.

Qin General Ei Bi saw Wei's second wave charging so they also charged with his 8,000 men, Shin's unit located among the second wave, charged with them.

Meng watched as both sides sent in their second wave to join the battle, watching both sides fight, he noticed that the battlefield was slowly filling with smoke! he then remembered that enemies General Gen Pou had used this strategy in the manga!

The Wei forces in the smoke were secretly moving to split the battlefield into two lanes for their chariots to charge down, using small sound teams they surrounded the Qin forces and transmitted their location to their archers.

Meng if he sent his men back into the battle would likely become lost due to the smokescreen, it would take time to find all the sound units, and due to the smokescreen, they might run headfirst into the enemy or get trampled on by the Wei chariots!

Meng quickly rode back to the camp and started ordering the men to give the signal to retreat! before anyone could react, the Qin center camp started beating their drums signaling the army to retreat!

General Do Mon and Ei Bi hearing their camp drumming the signal to retreat! pulled their men back! they were shocked! running out of the smokescreen, in the few minutes they had been fighting amongst the smokescreen they had suffered a lot of casualties without them even noticing it.

Qins 1st and 2nd wave (5,600) vs Wei 1st and 2nd wave (9,400). Both sides have sent in 16,000 troops but somehow without them realizing it, Wei had managed to turn the situation around, and had almost wiped them out!

Of 5,600 troops from the 1st and 2nd wave, mengs 1,750 men made up about 31% of the survivors! in total Qins 1st and 2nd wave had only around 35% of their men left, with Wei having 58% of their troops in the 1st and 2nd waves still alive.

Meng having given the order to retreat without permission was quickly tied up and arrested! there were talks happening about stripping him of his rank or worse! until an angry Do Mon and Ei Bi stormed into the commander center to vouch for him! without them realizing it, the smokescreen they were fighting in had almost completely wiped out their men, if they had fought for another 30minutes they were both sure that they would have all died there!

Vouching for Meng, they pretended that they had ordered him back to the center armies command center to order the retreat, with the two generals vouching for him, the soldier had no choice but to release him.

Meng returning back to his men, ran into Shin along the way. Shin having failed to reach the enemy General Gen Pou was angry with his failure! his men had just figured out that the enemy was locating them with sound! when they heard the Qin drummers signaling the retreat order! Shin seeing the state of the army after leaving the smokescreen, blamed himself for not acting faster.

Meng couldn't tell him that originally he and Ou Hon would both charge the enemy General but end up failing to kill him or stop the almost complete destruction of the 1st and 2nd waves.

Even with Meng ordering the retreat, of the 16,000 men sent out in the first waves, only 5,600 came back, while 9,400 soldiers from Wei survived their first clash. Qin's morale was down having lost their first exchange of blows against Wei, but Meng knew that they were better off than in the manga, where Qins 2st and 1st waves had almost been completely destroyed.

Both armies still having troops on route to the battlefield decided to end today's fighting here and return to their camps.