Volume 1 Princess Taiping Grows Up Chapter 33: The Art of War
To be honest, Li Yuechen agreed with this method in his heart.
Rather than sending all the people to one place, it is better to disperse them to various states and counties.
In this era, grain production is too low. It is already good enough for each state and county to feed the local people. If there is still a surplus, it will be considered a prosperous place.
"Alas... I hope fewer people will starve to death." Li Yuechen whispered to himself behind the screen.
I have read on the Internet before that in ancient times, famine was severe and there was even cannibalism.
Li Yuechen could only pray in his heart, hoping that such a tragedy would not happen in the Tang Dynasty.
After the court session, Li Zhi and his wife walked side by side.
Li Yuechen, who was leaning against the wall, immediately put away his serious expression, ran between the two of them with a smile, took their hands and walked back.
The daughter was skipping and jumping in the middle. Seeing her like this, Li Zhi and his wife also looked in a good mood.
This is the effect Li Yuechen wanted. Even if Li Zhi was angry in the court, at least she could make him feel better.
People are more likely to make correct decisions when they are in a good mood, so try to avoid making Li Zhi angry.
Once the emperor gets angry and makes a wrong decision, chaos will easily arise from top to bottom. This is the disadvantage of autocracy.
…
It is October now and winter is approaching, so the clothes we wear have become thicker.
Today happened to be a holiday. After Li Yuechen finished practicing yoga with Shangguan Wan'er and her two sisters early in the morning, she ran to her master Liu Rengui's house.
Liu Rengui sat in the pavilion with hot tea on the table. He turned a health ball in his hand, stroked his beard, and nodded repeatedly to Li Yuechen, who was practicing the routine with great vigor in the yard.
Originally, when the princess said she wanted to learn martial arts, Liu Rengui didn't take it seriously.
However, over the past few years, it is obvious that he has practiced hard, his movements are extremely standard, and it can be seen that he has definitely undergone solid training.
Li Yuechen finished the routine and jumped in directly by grabbing the fence of the pavilion: "Master, how is it?"
"Well, the princess is extremely talented, and if she works hard to train, she will make great progress!" Liu Rengui commented with a smile.
"Hehe, my disciple practices hard every day." Li Yuechen boasted a little.
Liu Rengui picked up the teacup and said, "You can persevere. Your character is far superior to that of ordinary people... Let's start learning the art of war from today."
"art of war?"
Li Yuechen was a little confused and said he didn't quite understand. If you want to practice martial arts, then just practice martial arts. Why do you have to start learning the art of war?
Perhaps he saw the doubt in her eyes, Liu Rengui took a sip of tea and said, "Princess, you don't know that the art of war is something that warriors must learn!"
"Why?"
"All personal fist and kick techniques can be applied to military formations." Liu Rengui explained with a smile, "Once your own combat power has been trained to a certain level, you can gain enlightenment from the military formation techniques, and then you may be able to break your own limits and make further progress!"
Li Yuechen thought about it, raised his head and asked, "Master, do you mean that my own combat power and the method of military formation are originally one?"
Liu Rengui stroked his beard and nodded with a smile: "The princess is indeed smart! That's right!"
In that case, there is nothing more to say.
"In that case, I will obey your orders!" Li Yuechen pretended to be serious and saluted.
“Hahahaha…” Liu Rengui always found her mischievous look particularly interesting, “Okay, okay, come over and have some tea.”
…
It was almost time for lunch when Li Yuechen returned to Chengxiang Hall.
From a distance she saw Shangguan Wan'er standing on the steps at the door, waving at her.
Li Yuechen also raised his hand and waved in response, then took two quick steps towards Chengxiang Hall.
Fu Lai, who was following behind, also hurriedly trotted to catch up.
Arriving at the door, Li Yuechen walked in and asked, "Why are you guarding here alone?"
"I'm waiting for His Highness to come back. I'm a little hungry..." Shangguan Wan'er answered a little embarrassedly.
"Okay, let's eat." Li Yuechen smiled and took two steps , taking two steps at a time, and returned to the hall.
As soon as I entered the hall in my slippers, I saw Zheng tidying up things on the table.
"No need to clean up, eat first," Li Yuechen raised his hand to stop him, "help me copy some books after dinner."
"Yes!" Zheng bowed and agreed.
Now that Shangguan Wan'er is following Li Yuechen, she is getting enough nutrition and her overall complexion has improved a lot.
But after all, in this deep palace, what they study every day are some ancient books, which inevitably have a sense of maturity.
Overall, her temperament is fairly calm, but she lacks some of the agility of a child.
Perhaps only when he is with Li Yuechen will he show the smile that a child should have on his face.
After dinner, Li Yuechen placed the military book he had received from his master Liu Rengui on the table.
"Copy these classics and add punctuation marks!" Li Yuechen gave the order.
The main reason was that the language of these ancient books was difficult to understand, which made her feel overwhelmed.
So in order to make it easier to understand, Li Yuechen asked Zheng to copy it again with punctuation marks before reading it.
These military books don’t actually have that many words in total, but since they are written in classical Chinese, anyone who understands it will understand, so they definitely contain a lot of information.
In this era, copying books was a basic skill for literati.
Although woodblock printing already existed during the Zhenguan period, it was really too troublesome.
As for Liu Rengui's books, it was not appropriate for Li Yuechen to pass them on without his consent, so he could only ask Zheng to make a hand-copied copy.
Zheng's speed was not slow either. He finished copying five or six military books in less than seven days, and even added punctuation marks.
In addition to reading national history every afternoon, Li Yuechen also began to set aside some time to study military tactics.
If there is anything you don’t understand, write it down and ask Liu Rengui in person when you meet him.
Among these military books, except for "The Art of War" which is still very famous after more than a thousand years, I have never heard of the rest such as "Six Strategies" and "Wu Zi".
Even the name of one of the films seems a bit out of place, it's called "Sima Fa".
Li Yuechen, who originally planned to read Sun Tzu's Art of War, which became famous in later generations, opened Sima Fa out of curiosity and started reading it.
After reading the whole book, I found that it contains quite a lot of content, mainly on the use of troops and management of troops.
It includes all aspects such as etiquette, weapons, rewards and punishments, and vigilance, and is considered a very comprehensive military encyclopedia of that era.
Li Yuechen firmly remembered what Liu Rengui said about military formations and tactics being inseparable from martial arts, and most of his attention was still focused on the use of troops.
But it would be too troublesome to imagine it only from the words.
After thinking for a while, Li Yuechen put down the book in his hand, looked up and called out, "Someone come!"
The maid standing guard at the palace gate came in immediately and asked, "What do you want, Your Highness?"
"Call Eunuch Fu over here!"
“Yes!”
After a while, Fu Lai trotted into the palace and said, "Your Highness, do you have any instructions?"
"Yes." Li Yuechen nodded, "Go to the Craftsman's Office and find a bricklayer to make a sand table for me."
Eunuch Fu was a little confused and asked cautiously, "May I ask, Your Highness, what is this 'sand table'?"
"that is……"
Li Yuechen wanted to explain, but didn't know how to say it.
The concept of sandbox actually already exists in this era, but it is just a concept.
Most of the time, we just make a rough model temporarily using sand, stones and other things, and there is no such precise model sand table yet.
After thinking for a while, Li Yuechen explained with his hands dancing and excitement: "Just find a map, and let the masons use mud to make the mountains and rivers shown on the map in a reduced size..."
Fulai was quite smart. He immediately looked up and asked, "Your Highness, do you want to use this to conduct military experiments?"
Seeing Li Yuechen nod, Fulai looked a little embarrassed: "But Your Highness, the map is a confidential item, how can we..."
"Any place outside the barbaric world will do!" Li Yuechen said.
Hearing her say this, Fu Lai nodded to indicate that it was no problem, then turned around and left.
Although maps within the Tang Dynasty cannot be leaked, foreign maps are not a problem.
Although Li Yuechen was skeptical about the accuracy of maps of this era, it didn't matter since they were used for simulation purposes anyway.
Two days later, feeling a little uneasy, Li Yuechen went to the craftsman supervisor in person and started communicating with those frowning bricklayers.
"If there is a jungle on the mountain, it will be painted green. The river is painted blue..."
Under Li Yuechen's guidance, these bricklayers finally knew what to do.
Although the sand table made in this way is probably not very accurate, it at least looks much better.
These days, Li Yuechen basically spends every afternoon in the workshop supervisor, guiding them in making sand tables while asking other carpenters to make some suggestions on how to make chess pieces such as horses.
By the end of September, we finally made a sand table that was five meters long and five meters wide.
The mountains, rivers and streams have basically been made to look pretty good. Although they cannot be said to be lifelike, they can at least be recognized at a glance.
The carpenters on the other side had also finished making the chess pieces. The cavalry was a horse head, and the various infantry were human figures of different appearances.
Li Yuechen had even more respect for the craftsmen of this era. It was really great to be able to achieve this level.
If we don't limit the time and let them polish it slowly, they should be able to do better.
Li Yuechen asked Fulai to find someone to move the sand table back to Chengxiang Hall, and ran to Yanying Hall to find Li Zhi.
Now she didn't need to report before entering Yanying Palace. She just greeted Zhang Chengxin who was guarding the door and went in directly.
Seeing Li Zhi lying in a rocking chair and spinning a health ball, Li Yuechen thought to herself, "Why don't you stand up and walk around occasionally? You won't get tired of lying like this all day."
"Chen'er is here. Look at his smiling face. Could something good happen?" Li Zhi asked.
Li Yuechen threw himself on him, raised his head and smiled: "No good news, if Grandpa is not busy, can you come and accompany the child to do after-school exercises?"
"After-class exercises?" Li Zhi looked puzzled. "Aren't there literate palace maids reading with you?"
"Not a reading companion." Li Yuechen explained, "Master said that warriors should learn the art of war. I made a sand table. Grandpa, please accompany me to deduce the art of war."
Li Zhi looked up and thought: "What is a sand table?"
"Grandpa, come with me, and you'll know at a glance!"
"Okay, it seems that Chen'er has made something new again. Mei Niang, why don't you come with me to take a look." As he said that, Li Zhi stood up from the recliner and stretched.
Wu Mei Niang put down her pen and nodded, "Okay!"
Li Yuechen happily stood between the two of them again, holding the hand that was raised, and returned all the way to Chengxiang Palace.
When they saw the sand table that was five meters long and wide, Li Zhi and Wu Zetian were both surprised for a while.
"Wow, this is really a big thing!" Li Zhi walked over with a smile and looked at it. He stroked his beard and nodded as he looked at it, looking very satisfied.
Li Yuechen took out the chess pieces and placed them next to him, explaining to him what the different chess pieces represented.
The base of the chess piece is round, widest at the bottom and gradually getting smaller as it goes up. The size of the top of the chess piece indicates the quantity.
Then he took out two long sticks, the front of which was made into a U shape, so that he could easily clamp the base of the chess piece to control it.
"Grandpa and I each have an army of 100,000. Can we do some simulation here?" Li Yuechen handed a stick in his hand to Li Zhi.
"Okay, let's try it!"
Li Zhi also thought this way of playing was interesting, so he took the stick from Li Yuechen and started dividing the chess pieces.
Wu Zetian also seemed to find this thing interesting, and she knew what it was used for at a glance, so she stood next to the sand table and watched.
Li Yuechen arranged the chess pieces: "Now that Grandpa is occupying this mountain, I will first send out 3,000 light cavalry in the front, and the main army will be divided in the back, advancing slowly!"
As he spoke, he used the long stick in his hand to scatter the chess pieces and placed them one by one according to his own instructions.
As an emperor actually understood military tactics.
He smiled and said, "Chen'er, this method is too conventional. In this case, I will order the spearmen to line up in front and send out 10,000 light cavalry to attack from the flanks on both sides."
As he spoke, he placed the cavalry pieces in his hand on both sides to indicate a double team.
Li Yuechen chuckled: "But this is a mountain road, and the cavalry on both sides of Grandpa will definitely not arrive at the same time! I can let the crossbowmen and spearmen cooperate to encircle and annihilate the left side first! The light cavalry has no heavy armor, so they can be completely wiped out before the cavalry on the right arrives."
Li Zhi on the opposite side smiled and nodded: "Chen'er is right, light cavalry has no heavy armor. Then the 3,000 light cavalry you sent out in front will be eaten by me!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he pushed the military formation in his hands forward a little, and at the same time took down the 3,000 light cavalry in front of Li Yuechen.
"Forehead……"
Li Yuechen was stunned for a moment. It was his first time playing with this thing and he had forgotten this point.
But then he shook his head: "But my grandfather is fighting hard in the front, and the spearmen are already exhausted. If I continue to advance at this time, I can break through the front line of defense!"
"Yes!" Li Zhi nodded, but took the cavalry chess piece on the right side with the long stick in his hand, "But now my cavalry on the right has also arrived, and can attack from the side. In this way, the formation will be broken up, and Chen'er's army will be wiped out!"
Li Yuechen slapped his forehead and said, "Okay, I lost this round. Let's play another one!"
Li Zhi seemed to be a little too into the game and put down the health ball in his hand: "Come on!"
Wu Zetian, who was standing next to them, saw the two of them having fun, a smile appeared on her face, and she stood by and watched carefully.
