Lu Xiong was a veteran general who had weathered a hundred battles. He excelled at pitting armies against one another and disliked resorting to stratagems-not because schemes held no interest for him, but because he knew that war offered few chances for endless clever tricks. It was fought blade by blade, spear by spear, won by soldiers staking their flesh and blood.
An officer looked at the silent Lu Xiong and said, "Old General, His Majesty meant the same thing. There is no shortcut to retaking Sishui Pass. Sieges have always been like this. Many a Pass Wall has been scaled over a bed of corpses. There is no way but to stake our lives."
Lu Xiong nodded expressionlessly and strode to the front of the formation. The soldiers immediately fell silent.
Since they had made camp at Tong Pass and King Zhou had drawn a firm distinction between the treatment of generals and ordinary soldiers, the commanders could no longer win their men's love and support or share a bond as close as brothers, but their authority had grown considerably.
Especially for these lowborn soldiers, the more distant and mysterious their officers seemed, the more they feared them-and naturally, the more obedient they became.
Lu Xiong remained silent for a moment, then immediately understood. This was the last thing King Zhou had given him.
Without a stratagem to employ, he could only storm the pass, and a frontal assault demanded a great deal of the soldiers.
After enduring harsh treatment throughout the march, these troops could just barely adapt to a brutal battlefield. They had a clear goal worth risking their lives for, and they held their generals in awe and obeyed commands.
An army like this was precisely what he needed.
Lu Xiong's heart jolted. If that was