Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 403: Shangyi Ren Xia
Bai Tu invited Xu Shu back to the government office in Xinye...
Normally, as the King of Chu, he should have a temporary palace, but... Bai Tu took into consideration that he would not be able to stay in each place for long, so he gave up the idea of "buying a house" in each city. He only temporarily requisitioned the yard behind the government office for the county magistrate to live in.
If it really doesn't work, Bai Tu and Cheng Ji can squeeze in.
Xu Shu was not surprised at all, as he had already guessed Bai Tu's identity. The two had a good chat, continuing their previous harmony and mutual appreciation.
Xu Shu did not hide his previous judgment of the "evil creature". To put it bluntly... it was just intuition!
As a strategist, Xu Shu is completely different from Zhuge Liang, Lu Su and others. If we draw a pentagon out of his attributes, Xu Shu undoubtedly has great "defects". His ability is outstanding in tactical command, but in terms of internal governance and strategy, he performs worse than ordinary scholars.
To some extent, Xu Shu was a counselor through and through, not a "literary man", which was also related to his experience...
"Your Majesty has treated me with sincerity, and I dare not hide anything... Actually, my real surname is Xu. In my early years, I killed a strong man in the county in order to avenge my friend. In order to avoid the government, I left my hometown, changed my name, and called myself Shan Fu." Xu Shu took the initiative to confess to Bai Tu.
Xu Shu's real name was Xu Fu, but Xu Shu is a name he has only used in recent years. Shan Fu... is a nickname.
With so many small accounts, it can be seen that Xu Shu is indeed a man of the world.
According to historical records, Xu Shu was a chivalrous man when he was young. After he was caught for murder, the officers tied him up and took him to the street, asking the villagers to identify him. However, no one in the village betrayed him, so he was able to save his life temporarily. Later, his companions broke into the prison and rescued him.
It can be seen that Xu Shu was a very gangster person when he was young, but while he was impulsive and willful, he was also quite popular. Perhaps it was for this reason that when Zhuge Liang first joined Liu Bei's army in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were not very convinced, but these arrogant generals did not have such "resistance" to Xu Shu.
Bai Tu sighed heavily upon hearing this, which was full of dissatisfaction. Xu Shu felt a little depressed after hearing this, thinking that Bai Tu looked down on his previous actions...
"What forced the righteous man from our hometown to kill people? The Han officials were so corrupt! If it happened in the State of Chu, when a powerful person killed someone, the government would have just reported it. How could they force innocent people to do it?" Bai Tu said angrily.
Support the Han Dynasty? What do you mean by support the Han Dynasty?
It made Xu Shu feel a little embarrassed.
In fact, his situation at that time was more like a fight between strong men in the county, but Xu Shu believed that he was more upright , at least he would not do anything to oppress the good people. When the villagers mentioned him, they all gave him a thumbs up instead of avoiding him and cleaning the streets.
"Your Majesty...is wise!" Xu Shu said sincerely.
"But come to think of it, Yuanzhi, have you learned all your military skills in recent years?" Bai Tu asked curiously.
"Yes and no. During these years of wandering around the world, I was fortunate to receive help from many good teachers and helpful friends. I also reflected on my previous impulsiveness, and now I can be considered to have some literary talent in my mind. But when it comes to the art of war, in fact, my past self has also been of great help to me today, which cannot be summarized by what I have learned in these years." Xu Shu said very modestly.
It was during the period when Xu Shu was on the run and traveling around the world that he began to study various schools of thought. Because Xu Shu was very friendly and could sit down and drink with common people, and even sit down and drink tea with elegant scholars like Pang Degong, after he decided to study, he acquired a lot of skills from everywhere, and learned everything from military science, Confucianism, Legalism, Taoism, and other schools.
However, what he is best at is still military strategy. As for the others... although Xu Shu has dabbled in them, he either did not learn them thoroughly or even if he understood the principles, he was too disdainful to pay attention to them because of his own personality.
Only in the area of military strategy, or tactics, Xu Shu was not only well-versed in military books, but also did not fall into ruts. His unique strategy was "breaking the enemy's formation on the battlefield", and he could almost intuitively discover the flaws in the enemy's formation!
In Xu Shu's words, the art of war is the same as when he used to wield a sword and injure people on the streets.
In the past, when Xu Shu fought with an opponent holding a stick, he would get close to him and then hit him hard on the ribs; when fighting with a desperate man holding a short knife, he would first pick up a dustpan to block the blow, then pull his hair and kick him; when fighting with a strong opponent, he could first pretend to fall down, then throw a handful of sand...
Xu Shu has never practiced martial arts systematically, nor does he know any moves. His physical strength, agility, etc. cannot catch up with military generals. At most, he has rich experience in street fighting, a real street fighter... ahem, he is a Ren Xia!
At first Xu Shu thought that his cultural level was very low, but later Xu Shu discovered that these were actually "military strategies"!
So Xu Shu began to connect what he had learned with his previous bloody deeds on the streets, and gradually summed up his tactical intuition based on combat intuition.
Later, with the recommendation of Pang Degong, Xu Shu awakened his official seal in a county town and possessed a unique strategic skill - breaking the formation on the battlefield!
After listening to Xu Shu's "learning" process, Bai Tu was also greatly impressed - according to legend, Miyamoto Musashi had never been a general and was only keen on kendo duels, but he comprehended various military strategies through kendo, and wrote a number of military books represented by "The Book of Five Rings", which were also deeply sought after by later generations... Could it be the same reason?
"Yuan Zhi is indeed a strange man... By the way, I once read a book that looked like a military book but wasn't. Some people said it was a collection of practical military tactics, while others said it was just a collection of kendo moves and thoughts on life. I'll go to Xinye Ji and print it out for you to see." Bai Tu said on a whim.
"Oh? What is the name of the book that the king is talking about? Who wrote it?" Xu Shu believed that he had read many military strategies, but none of them met the characteristics described by Bai Tu.
"It's called 'The Book of Five Rings', and it's... well, I don't know who wrote it." Bai Tu said vaguely.
Now Bai Tu no longer needs this kind of thing to increase his reputation, but... whenever Bai Tu takes out these books, people will naturally assume that they were written by Bai Tu, as they have never read them. Bai Tu is also helpless.
However, the white map did play a role in some revisions, otherwise it would definitely be discovered that the historical background in this book is somewhat magical... This is also very hard, right? As we all know, you can take the books of your predecessors, delete some of them, and then treat them as your own!
Bai Tu also mentioned something vaguely, about the "evil creature" and the possibility of major tactical changes in the future ...
After understanding Xu Shu's abilities, Bai Tu's expectations for him were much higher than those for ordinary battlefield strategists.
Because Xu Shu's tactical intuition sounds more like a methodology, in an era where equipment innovation drives tactical innovation, Bai Tu also needs an instructor who can quickly understand and get started!
As for Xu Shu himself, after getting the "Book of Five Rings", he first flipped through it briefly and confirmed that it was indeed a military strategy that he had never read or even heard of, and the writing style... well, it has the legendary "vernacular style", which is the style of Bai's writing.
Then, he accidentally came across the sentence "If you reach the highest level in the profession you love, you will naturally integrate all other skills... and eventually all things will return to one." He was so engrossed in reading that he even forgot that he was in front of a white map and just focused on flipping through it.
