Warring States Odyssey

  After defeating a strong enemy, the general returned to the capital and was rewarded by the king, which is a very normal thing among the various states. Three years ago, Li Mu had received grand treatment from King Zhao Xiang in Handan after winning the Battle of Pingyang, and was also granted the title of Wu'an Jun and led 3,000 households as his fief.

  After Shi Chong finished reading the imperial edict, Li Mu said: "Since the Great King has an edict, as a minister, I should hurry back to Handan to see the Great King. However, now that the Qin army has retreated and our army has recovered several cities, I still need to make some arrangements for the border defense before leaving with peace of mind. Therefore, it will take three to five days. I don't know if the official is waiting in the military camp to return to Handan together with me, or whether he should go back first and report."

  Shi Chong smiled and said: "As for the matters on the front line, it is natural that you will handle them yourself. Even if there is some delay, it is still reasonable. However, I fear that Your Majesty might be anxious, so I will return to Handan first to report back. Since you have defeated the Qin army again this time, Your Majesty will surely reward you heavily. When you return to Handan, I will definitely go to welcome you and help you rest and refresh yourself."

  Li Mu nodded and smiled: "Doctor, you're too polite. However, since you've come from afar, you must be tired from the journey. Why don't you rest for a day in the camp, and return to Handan tomorrow? It's just that the conditions here are simple, I'm afraid it will be a bit of an inconvenience for you tonight."

  Shi Chong hurriedly said: "What are you talking about, sir? Since you and the generals can all live in the camp, what is there for me to pick on?" Then he leaned in closer and said: "I heard that not long ago a general star descended into the world, at which time fire stones fell from the sky and the four fields were shocked. I don't know if it's true or false."

  Li Mu smiled slightly and said, "I have already reported this to the king in all honesty. At that time, fire stones fell from the sky, making a sound like thunder, flames shot up into the air for dozens of feet, burning down trees within a radius of several dozen feet."

  Shi Chongdao said: "There is such a strange person, I don't know where he is now, can you ask him to meet with me?"

  Li Mu said: "Whether it is a star descending to the world, I do not know. The person who came down from the fire stone heaven is called Gao Yuan. He is indeed in our army now, but he is only an ordinary mortal. However, he is a talented general. This time, we defeated the Qin army and achieved great merit. Unfortunately, you arrived at an inconvenient time. He is currently handling military affairs in the large camp of Jingdian, not here. However, at that time, the fire stone heaven descended, leaving behind a large pit which still exists. If you are not afraid of fatigue, Li Mu would like to lead you to visit the scene personally."

  Shi Chong heard that Gao Yuan was not in the military camp, and he was slightly disappointed. He came to Li Mu's large camp this time, and there was another important purpose, which was to see the so-called "General Star" for himself. Because after Li Mu reported Gao Yuan's affairs to Handan, King Jia of Zhao immediately let Taibu divine the fortune, calculating good or bad luck. The result of Taibu's divination was: General Star descends, greatly beneficial to the North. Zhao Guo is a northern country, so King Jia of Zhao was also very happy, and all the court officials congratulated King Jia of Zhao. With the General Star descending, Zhao Guo would surely prosper.

  Li Mu then defeated the Qin army again, killing their commander Huan Ju, which further showed the great auspicious sign of the arrival of a star general. King Zhao Xiang of Zhao sent Shi Chong to deliver an edict to Li Mu and also wanted Shi Chong to see this star general in person. However, Shi Chong arrived at an inopportune time as Li Mu was not in the Zhao army's main camp at Fanwu at that moment. Upon hearing Li Mu say that he could bring him to see the large pit that had been created at the time, Shi Chong immediately became spirited and said: "Your subordinate will not trouble you, please take your subordinate there immediately."

  Dividing line Dividing line

  Li Mu did not deceive Shi Chong, and Gao Yuan was indeed not in the Zhao army's Fanwu large camp. He was in the Jingdian large camp. At the same time Li Mu was receiving Shi Chong, Gao Yuan was sitting in his own tent in the Jingdian large camp, writing with a brush.

  Although this time the defeat of the Qin army was extremely great, Li Mu also made it very clear that with the powerful national strength of the Qin state, this one defeat did not count for much. As long as the Qin state was willing, they could rise again in three to five months and come attack Zhao once more, so precautions had to be taken early on.

  However, after capturing Jixian, the situation for Zhao was much better than before the Battle of Yanmen. Not only had the defensive line been pushed forward overall, but there was also more room to maneuver, and Jixian and Yanmen could support each other and pin down the enemy from two sides. Therefore, Li Mu decided to move the command center of the Zhao army to the large camp at Jixian. The next battle against the Qin army would be fought with the large camp at Jixian as the main base. Gao Yuan and Li Xinghong had already moved to the large camp at Jixian in advance.

  This time, the new cavalry of one thousand people established by Gao played a huge role, especially in the last battle to pursue Huan Chu, it showed far more combat power than chariots. Therefore, Li Mu also decided to expand the new cavalry to two thousand people. The selection of new cavalrymen, training, and equipment were all entrusted to Gao.

  In this campaign, the new cavalry regiment lost a total of 133 men and another 62 were wounded, temporarily losing their combat effectiveness. The total loss was close to 20%. Moreover, due to the backward medical level at that time, the cure rate of the wounded was not high, so it was difficult for all the wounded to recover and return to the team. Therefore, the actual number of new cavalry regiments in this expansion exceeded 1,000 people.

  In addition, due to the outstanding military achievements of the new cavalry in this war, they also received generous rewards from Li Mu after the war. Gao Yuan distributed all of Li Mu's rewards to his soldiers and provided generous compensation to those who died or were injured in battle, which greatly attracted other soldiers. Many soldiers who were friends with Gao Yuan, such as Wang Hu and Wang Bao from the front army camp, also came to find him, asking to join the new cavalry.

  Gaoyuan clearly set out some conditions to assess the soldiers who wanted to join the new cavalry, only those who met the standards were selected. This was fair and reasonable, and no one could say anything about it. Therefore, during this period of time, many soldiers who wanted to join the new cavalry also practiced according to Gaoyuan's conditions, striving to pass the assessment and be selected.

  At the same time, Gaoyuan also summed up with Li Yinghong, Du Yi, Ji Hua and other cavalry generals the gains and losses of the cavalry battle in this battle, drew lessons from experience, and formulated more reasonable cavalry training methods and tactics.

  Although the plateau knew the historical trend of war development and had a lot of theoretical knowledge about cavalry tactics, it lacked actual experience after all. Therefore, this battle was actually a very rare experience for the plateau, combining practice with these theoretical knowledge, and gradually exploring a complete set of cavalry training methods and tactics. Moreover, he planned to write down the methods he summarized.

  But after writing a few words, Gao Yuan suddenly realized that he was completely unaccustomed to the writing tools of this era.

  To be honest, in the past, writing reports on the plateau was basically done on a computer, and even pens were not used much. Brush calligraphy was only limited to elementary school days, when we wrote big characters, let alone small characters like fly heads. In this era, there was no concept of paper at all. Except for a few privileged classes who could use silk, hemp, or animal skin, most books and documents were written on bamboo or wooden slips. Even the privileged class couldn't write everything on silk, hemp, or animal skin. Therefore, even if they wrote with great effort, it would take a lot of time to write just a few lines, but the characters that came out were all crooked and twisted, without any uniformity at all.

  Gao Yuan could only sigh and put down his brush, thinking to himself if he should make the paper himself, as he still remembered some of the principles of papermaking. Just then, the tent flap was lifted and Li Yinghong strode in.

  Although Li Yinghong was a girl, she had been following Li Mu for many years and living in the military camp, so she was not bound by some trivial matters in life. She had also fought side by side with Gao Yuan and was very familiar with him, so she was also very casual. Without asking, she directly rushed into Gao Yuan's tent and said: "Gao Yuan, Father has given an order to return to the Banwu Great Camp, and then return to Handan together, and we will also bring the cavalry we have established back to Handan."

  Gao Yuan nodded and said, "How many new recruits have we enlisted now?"

  Li Yinghong sat on the opposite side of the highland and said, "Now there are more than 1,600 people in total, with over 4,000 war horses. Yesterday, Wang Hu and Wang Bao also passed the examination at Kao Hai, so they can be considered to have joined as well. The remaining people can return to Handan and then make their selection."

  "Alright, the number of people is about right, notify them that we will set off tomorrow."

  At this time, Li Yinghong just realized that there were pens, ink and bamboo slips on the case, and couldn't help but say: "What are you writing?"

  Gao Yuan Dao: "I want to write down the training tactics of riding troops during this period, and in the future, we should train the cavalry in this way."

  Li Yinghong listened and became very interested, saying: "Can you still write books? Let me see what kind of thing you are writing." As he spoke, he grabbed the bamboo slips in front of Gao Yuan and took a look. But as soon as he looked at it for the first time, Li Yinghong furrowed his brow and said: "Why do you write horizontally?"

  Kougen also wryly smiled, the ancient Chinese characters were always vertical and from right to left, but Kougen was used to horizontal arrangement from left to right, so he wrote on the bamboo slips horizontally. He could only say: "In our place, it's customary to write like this horizontally."

  When chatting with others and talking about his background, Gao Yuan could only be half true and half false. He selectively told some things about the situation in another time and space, which made Li Yinghong feel both fresh and curious. However, this also had a good effect, that is, if there was anything different from the habits of this time and space, Gao Yuan would push it to our place, just like that, and perfunctorily dealt with it.

  Although China is not yet unified in its writing system, the Chinese characters used by different countries are also different, but they are basically similar. Generally, literate people can understand the texts of various countries. The plateau uses modern simplified Chinese characters, which evolved from the small seal script of the Qin state. Therefore, Li Yinghong could still roughly understand it. However, after reading for a while, Li Yinghong said: "The customs in your place are really strange, and the words you write are so ugly! Why do you have these curved and circled things?"

  Gao Yuan Dao: "This is called punctuation marks, which are used to help with reading and pausing when reading books."

  Li Yinghong smiled and said, "Is this also a custom in your place?"

  "Yes."