Chapter 133 Illumination
After agreeing to Di Qing's plan of dividing the troops and taking all the responsibility on himself, Lu Sen returned to his tent to rest for a while.
Because he had to erect fourteen well curbs and he had to build and supervise most of the work himself, he hadn't slept for nearly fifteen hours.
Although the fruits produced by the system do have the effect of replenishing physical strength, if you do not sleep for too long, even if there are fruits to replenish physical strength, the system status bar will still show a status such as "Low Energy".
It will lead to a temporary decline in 'cognitive ability', as well as a decrease in brain-related abilities such as 'logical thinking' and 'instinctive reaction'.
And the longer you go without sleep, the lower this status value will be.
He had just squinted for a short while when he heard someone outside say, "General Lu, your subordinate Zhang Zai, please see me."
Lu Sen yawned, stood up and said, "Come in."
The tent was opened and Zhang Zai walked in. After performing an official ceremony, he sat cross-legged on the felt blanket opposite Lu Sen.
"Zihou, is there anything important?" Lu Sen asked.
Although the rest time was not much, the negative values in the status bar were reduced a lot.
Zhang Zai nodded, and paused, as if he was considering his words. After a few breaths, he spoke: "I don't understand one thing. Why do you want to help Marshal Di and others take all the responsibility? If you fail, you will be the one to blame in the future."
Lu Sen smiled and asked, "Wang Jiefu gave blind orders and harmed hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Do you think there are many people who criticize him?"
This... Zhang Zai was stunned.
This is indeed not the case. It is better to say that the civil service group has been suppressing this matter. Under the leadership of Grand Tutor Pang, even Bao Zheng's faction, which opposed Grand Tutor Pang , helped suppress public opinion.
Even if there were criticisms from the public, they were quickly suppressed.
"So, if this fails, the most I can do is to be dismissed from my position as a direct scholar of Tianzhang Pavilion, or even be stripped of my official position." Lu Sen smiled and continued, "At most, I will be silent for a few years, so why should I mind it?"
Zhang Zai was silent for a moment. It was indeed true.
He could already guess the "punishment" that Wang Anshi would receive after returning to Beijing: he would be demoted in rank, stripped of his power as Pingzhangshi, and sent to a remote place for "training" for a few years before returning to Beijing to report on his work.
If Wang Anshi could do this, then the punishment received by Master Lu, who had extensive connections and magical artifacts, would probably be even smaller.
Zhang Zai was silent for a while, and then he said, "I just want to say that Lu Zhen doesn't need to get too close to the generals. Although your wife is from the Yang family, after marrying you, she is a member of the Lu family."
Zhang Zai did not have any particular aversion to military generals, but he did not like them either. It would be better to say that he held more of a neutral attitude.
This is determined by his stance. He is a man of letters...his natural stance is on the side of the writers.
This is a limitation of the times and there is nothing we can do about it.
But Lu Sen was different. He knew very well that if no one protected the general's family and if things were allowed to go on like this, a tragedy would happen in a few decades.
"I'm not close to generals!" Lu Sen said calmly, his smile as pure as a spring: "I'm not close to scholars either, because in my eyes, scholars and generals are all the same."
"They're all the same?" Zhang Zai looked a little strange.
"Yes, they are all the same." Lu Sen confirmed, "The reason why I help the Yang family and the Zhe family more is because they are my relatives. Besides, what do the scholars and military generals have to do with me?"
Zhang Zai was stunned for a long time, then smiled and said: "Yes, under the cultivation, all living beings are ants."
He stood up, clasped his fists towards Lu Sen, and said, "Wang Jiefu asked me to come here and he wants to invite Master Lu to come over for a chat."
Lu Sen waved his hand: "I don't have much good feelings towards Wang Jiefu now. I feel annoyed when I see him. It's better not to meet him for the time being."
"In fact, Wang Jiefu only had good intentions. Master Lu knew how to help General Di avoid disaster, and he did the same."
"I don't care whether he has good intentions or not." Lu Sen waved his hand and said, "I don't care what the emperor and the officials think. In my eyes, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers is a dirty deed that Wang Jiefu will never be able to wash away in his lifetime."
Hearing Lu Sen's decisive answer, Zhang Zai sighed and walked away disappointedly.
Lu Sen yawned and continued to sleep with his eyes closed.
It is not so easy to dispatch the army. It will take at least two or three hours to make various arrangements, and only then will the troops be divided.
During this time, he can take a break.
In fact, he really wanted to find Yang Jinhua, but when he thought it was against military discipline, he gave up.
Zhang Zai returned to Wang Anshi's tent and sat cross-legged.
Wang Anshi withdrew his eyes from the book and looked up at his friend across from him. Then he snorted and said, "Looking at Zihou's frustrated look, I think Master Lu is unwilling to condescend to sit with me."
Zhang Zai smiled bitterly: "Jiefu is indeed smart."
"I guess he criticized me." Wang Anshi's gaze returned to the book and paper, but the veins on his hand holding the book and paper were bulging.
Zhang Zai sighed and said, "I thought Master Lu was also one of us literati, but I didn't expect that he would be isolated from us and he didn't consider us as his own."
Wang Anshi snorted: "Master Lu considers himself a cultivator, so why would he care about the opinions of ordinary people?"
"That's not the case." Zhang Zai said, "Master Lu at least did not cause harm to the world, nor did he bully the people. He was even very kind to the people. He is not a heartless person."
"He is indeed not ruthless, but he is righteous." Wang Anshi snorted at the book in his hand and said, "Practitioners go against the will of heaven and fight for their lives. In his eyes, ordinary people are all equal. But this equality regards scholars like us who have studied hard for more than ten years as the same as those farmers and despicable merchants. It is really righteous."
Zhang Zai thought for a while and sighed, "What Jiefu said does make some sense."
Many people think that the word "heartless and ungrateful" means having no feelings and no loyalty.
This explanation does make sense, but it is the result of thousands of years of evolution, and the "small" pattern has led to a subtle misinterpretation of the idiom.
In essence, the initial meaning of "ruthlessness and unrighteousness" is that emotion refers to great love, and righteousness refers to great benevolence.
What is Daren?
The ruler is the ruler, the minister is the minister; the father is the father, the son is the son; the scholar is the farmer, the merchant is the merchant. Each is in his place, each performs his duty; there is order of respect and inferiority, and the superiors set an example, and the subordinates follow suit.
In the eyes of Confucian scholars, all of this constitutes great benevolence and great righteousness.
Lu Sen, on the other hand, is not a person of this era at all. In his eyes, people’s identities and status are indeed different, but in terms of the human soul, or in terms of human biological nature, all people are equal.
Lu Sen sympathizes with the people and is willing to do something for them. In the eyes of many officials, this is a manifestation of "affection".
But righteousness... they can't see it.
In fact, Wang Anshi was not the first person to evaluate Lu Sen in this way. In private, Bao Zheng and Master Pang had made similar comments.
But this does not prevent them from thinking that Lu Sen is a good person.
As for 'emotion' and 'righteousness', if it is not a matter of position, emotion is more important than righteousness, and everyone agrees on this.
Besides, Lu Sen is indeed a cultivator, not a Confucian, so it is not a big deal if he does not agree with Confucianism.
However, unlike Bao Zheng, Pang Taishi and others who were broad-minded, Wang Anshi at this time was still relatively stubborn, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was a little extreme.
So he actually couldn't stand Lu Sen's appearance.
Having said this, neither of them wanted to continue the conversation. For a moment, the tent was as quiet as an empty room.
Zhang Zai was thinking about the responsibilities that Lu Sen had taken on, and also about the ideas of the ancient sages that he had learned. His mind was full of thoughts and moral ideologies. Gradually, he seemed to have touched something, but also seemed to have touched nothing.
Not to mention that Zhang Zai seemed to have gained something in his character, Wang Anshi was really furious at this time.
But he still had some dignity to maintain, so he didn't fully express his emotions. But in the end, he became more and more unhappy with Lu Sen. He always felt that Lu Sen's attitude towards life and the way he dealt with people were a bit pretentious.
Such emotions made him extremely uncomfortable, and he couldn't even read the book in his hand.
Speaking of Western Xia, Mei Zang Su'er and a group of staff stayed in the marshal's tent. After discussing for more than two hours, they became increasingly unhappy.
Although the previous great victory caused the Song army to retreat to Shaguan and hold the pass, it was still a beautiful victory.
But that’s the extent of it.
The Song army had a very strong ability to defend a city. If one wanted to capture a city occupied by the Song army, even if the city’s supply line was cut off, the Song army could generally hold out for more than a month.
At this time, Shaguan was guarded by famous generals like Di Qing and Mu Guiying, and there were logistical supplies. Even if the morale of the army was low, it would be extremely difficult to capture it.
"Don't you have a reliable plan to take down Shaguan?" Mei Zang Su'er slammed the table heavily.
No one spoke.
There was silence for a while, and suddenly a surrendered Song general said, "Marshal, we really have no way to capture Shaguan this time. But we can wait. If we wait a little longer, there may be a turning point."
"What's the turning point?"
The surrendered Song general laughed and said, "Wait for the Song thieves to do something stupid."
Everyone in the tent was stunned, and then they all laughed.
The laughter was joyful and proud.
Mei Zang Suer touched the stubble of beard on his chin and felt that what he said seemed to make sense.
Like before, the three armies of the Song Dynasty had clearly surrounded Xingqing Prefecture. Even if they did not attack, as long as the army besieged the city for another month or two, Xingqing Prefecture would naturally surrender without a fight.
Because there is no food to eat.
But for some unknown reason, the Song soldiers suddenly formed a formation of multiple small circles. The three armies separated and formed more than 20 small circles, like Go pieces, surrounding the "Tianyuan" Xingqing Prefecture in the middle.
This formation opened the eyes of the entire Western Xia military. Then a wave of coordinated attacks by cavalry and infantry directly broke this inexplicable strange formation, which looked powerful on the surface but actually had no connection with any formation and no synchronized attack and defense.
When the Song army was defeated, the Western Xia army chased and hacked at them, until the blades of their swords became blunt and the soldiers could no longer run, so they thought of taking a rest.
And all along the way, there was blood and corpses.
It’s just… the Song army’s habit of doing stupid things from time to time seems to have no pattern at all.
Sometimes it appears very quickly, but sometimes it may not appear for a year or two.
But he didn't have much time left. The prime minister said that the problem must be resolved before winter, otherwise when the cold winter came, the army would have to retreat.
Should we send troops to lure the Song army into battle, or use a clever trick to launch a surprise attack and break through the gate?
Or wait and see?
Just as Mei Zang Su'er was still hesitating, a soldier came in from outside the door, knelt on one knee and said hurriedly: "Marshal, there is movement in the Song army camp, it seems that they are going to divide the troops?"
"What?" Mei Zang Su'er was stunned for a moment, then she was overjoyed: "Are you really dividing your forces?"
Could it be that the Song soldiers were really stupid again as the surrendered Song general just said?
There is no reason, right? The current military supervisor is Master Lu... But if you think about it carefully, Master Lu is just a cultivator and doesn't seem to know much about war.
If it is true that Master Lu is "itching to do something" and wants to command the army and enjoy the pleasure of deploying troops, then it seems to make sense.
"Come on, follow me out to take a look." After saying that, Mei Zang Suer led the generals and staff out to the hill outside the tent.
Sure enough, we saw the Song army camp moving and split into three routes.
Except for the middle lane which is still guarding the middle checkpoint, the other two lanes have moved .
Judging from the size of the left and right wings of the Song army and the smoke and dust produced when they moved, the number of people on the two wings is estimated to be around 100,000.
This number is not very accurate, but it is not far off.
"Divide your forces!" Mei Zang Su'er snorted, "Then you can't blame me for eating you in one bite."
After that, he asked his men to bring the map, looked at it carefully for a while, and said: "The front and center troops, go directly to surround the left wing, the rear cavalry troops go around the right side of the enemy to contain them, and the Iron Harriers guard the middle road. As long as the enemy's center troops dare to move and come out to rescue, you rush over to kill the enemy."
Then Mei Zang Su'er threw the map heavily and said excitedly: "I have the advantage in this battle, and defeating the enemy is just around the corner."
As Mo Zang Suer's order was issued, the main force of the Western Xia army soon surrounded the left wing of the Song army.
The left wing of the Song army seemed to react quickly and stopped on the spot. They first deployed a large number of barricades in front, behind, left and right, and then had archers to support them.
Although they took adequate measures, the Western Xia army was still on the scene with twice as many troops as theirs.
Moreover, the morale of the Western Xia army was higher.
Logically speaking...the left wing should be defeated this time.
But unexpectedly, when the Western Xia army encountered the left wing of the Song army, they had a very hard time fighting.
Even though the entire army was pressing forward, it took two hours before the left wing of the Song army was barely able to retreat halfway.
The Western Xia army suffered a higher casualty ratio.
However, the number of Song troops was still too small after all.
“It’s really tenacious, but that’s it.”
Mei Zang Su'er was very happy. He seemed to see the collapse and defeat of the left wing of the Song army, which then caused a chain reaction and led to the rescue of people in the middle, but they were attacked by the Iron Harrier heavy cavalry.
However...his smile quickly froze.
The Western Xia army was indeed about to crush the left route, but at this time, four well fences on the left wing of the Song army suddenly shone brightly.
It was really a bright, intense and dazzling light, shining on the front line of the Western Xia army.
At the same time, the Song army's center was not far from the left wing, and there were six fences that also emitted intense light, shining far into the front line of the Western Xia army, and the fences on the left wing also illuminated the corresponding area.
