As a mid-ranking official, Zhang Xing had neither the right to be informed nor any say in decisions. He could only be pushed forward by the vast machinery of imperial power.
But the very name Baiden Mountain already made his liver quiver. What if a Modu Chanyu emerged among the Wu Clan? This world's Lord White Emperor had never been up Baiden Mountain. And given the way these two worlds seemed alike yet differed, what if someone sent a whistling arrow his way?
So, from the day they received orders and set out, he kept dropping hints to Li Ding. But Li Ding's position was that such a thing could not happen, and even if it did, it would not matter... because the East Wu Clan lacked the strength to truly swallow over twenty thousand men of the Upper Five Armies, especially when the army also contained a far higher proportion of cultivation experts than the Wu Clan's forces, as well as the Crouching Dragon Seal.
"Let me put it this way!"
Whenever military affairs came up, Li Ding grew particularly serious, without a trace of the impatience he had shown while providing general instruction back in Taiyuan. After they made camp, he even dragged Zhang Xing somewhere deserted to give him supplementary lessons. "The prefectural troops of Yanmen, Mayi, and Loufan, along with the garrison at Fenyang Palace, can move into all the strategic positions in Mayi as soon as the Wu Clan appears on the shores of the Sea of Bitterness, and provide support for His Majesty. In other words, the Wu Clan would have to commit a hundred thousand cavalry willing to fight all at once to have any chance of delivering an overwhelming surprise attack, forcing our entire army to shrink back into high mountains or