Arrayed for Battle

Treasure Bottle Continent. Atop the Southern Sacred Mountain, outside the Mountain Lord's shrine, rough buildings resembling a temporary military encampment had been thrown up. Great Li's civil and military Secretary Officials and generals from its vassal states hurried through them in a constant stream. Everyone wore a jade pendant that served for now as a Passage Document, modeled on the Old Dragon City Fu Family's Old Dragon Spreads Rain Jade Pendant. In a relatively quiet spot, four people, two old and two young, leaned against a railing and looked toward the southern battlefield. All came from Central Divine Continent. One of the elders rolled two School of Military Armor Pills in his hand, like a small-country martial artist playing with iron balls. He picked up his Rain-Dispelling Pendant and laughed. "That Embroidered Tiger is something else. He's equally good at earning money, saving it, and spending it. Old Man Jiang, have you learned anything about saving? By our rough count, there were some thirty-six hundred matters large and small on Great Li's battlefront and behind it. Most involved earning or spending money. Only two hundred and seventy-three concerned saving it. Little things like this pendant are what truly show the Embroidered Tiger's skill. When you teach at the ancestral mountain, Old Man Jiang, you should give this example special attention."

The other elder, the one called "Old Man Jiang," wore coarse hemp clothes and a small Fish Basket at his waist. He nodded, then gazed at the densely layered arrangements across the distant battlefield. "Formations for attack, commanders holding the defense. Everything crosses and interlocks, ordered amid its complexity, all in keeping with military principles. Beyond that, I can see familiar traces of two matters found within Military Strategy but outside the Military Book: a state's cultivation of talent, and