Offense was the best defense.
With the initiative in her hands, Shen Tang could freely choose where to fight. Though Kang had begun preparing for this battle two or three years in advance, reinforcing the border fortresses along its southwestern frontier and evacuating the elderly, women, and children from the area, she had done everything she could. But if the battlefield ended up on her own turf, the damage was beyond her control.
Shen Tang knew the southwestern allies were playing little tricks to distract her with feints. So she turned the tables and deliberately let two of their weaker forces slip through, while making specific arrangements for the other two. Her own main force split up as well. One army would break through the allied forces' defenses as quickly as possible and attack a member state of the Dragon Slaying Bureau; the other would set an ambush in advance and intercept the enemy.
Luan Xin had a question.
His expression was extraordinarily complicated and troubled. "Does Your Majesty mean... that I should use eight thousand troops to intercept forty thousand elite enemy soldiers?"
Eight thousand against forty thousand???
It wasn't that they couldn't fight, but their odds of winning weren't great.
And on top of that, Her Majesty wasn't assigning him a top-tier martial warrior as commander. Gongxi Chou, Yun Ce, Chu Jie—or, failing that, at least Wei Shou. But instead, he got only Qian Yong. It wasn't that he looked down on Qian Yong's abilities; it was just that Qian Yong clearly couldn't make up for a gap of thirty-two thousand troops. If the enemy force happened to include a Nineteenth Rank Marquis Within the Pass, Qian Yong could celebrate his first birthday all over again next year.
Qian Yong couldn't worry about saving face.
He promptly pinched