"This formation is completely at a disadvantage."
The Privy Council in Bianjing City. There is still intense discussion about various possible changes on the front line.
This is when they have begun to combine historical records with the terrain of the front line to examine this war more intuitively.
Although this is also Li Ning's suggestion, someone in Bianjing City has already thought of it. This is a map that they have not shared in a short time.
Fortunately, Emperor Zhao Zhen immediately dug out a few rough sketches from his previous correspondence with Li Ning. At the same time, the Privy Council also issued an urgent order, asking the frontline soldiers and low-level officials in the Privy Council to urgently draw a more detailed map and send it back.
So they could finally point out the country and scold Fang Qiu.
"It is said that the Pinaluz River is neither wide nor long. If the river is not guarded, the two sides may have to fight a tough battle through water."
"That's right, no one will launch an attack easily. Otherwise, the other party will definitely give up halfway. However, the age of this river is too shallow, and the power of half-degree headphones should not be too great. But the party who strikes first will definitely pay more. Big loss."
"I guess that King Alexander will not be the first to attack."
"Why?"
"How could he be the first to launch an attack with his small number of troops? If you look at the enemy's left and right wings, it is entirely possible to advance towards them along the coast and valleys. The coastline is relatively flat. It may be beneficial to the cavalry's maneuverability, but of course it is not conducive to the cavalry's movement. However, the Persian king had an advantage in cavalry training, so he would not care about a small group of cavalry launching an attack from here. As for the other side of the valley, it was extremely beneficial for the infantry to advance, because the cavalry could not cause trouble to them, so part of It is a very advantageous choice for the infantry to outflank them from there. Judging from this formation, there is no doubt that the first move is in the hands of the Persian king."
"But the original historical records are not like this. They said that the attack on the two wings was indeed what you said, but their records ultimately proved that Alexander took the lead in launching an assault from the center, and only sent a small number of troops to the two wings to contain it. A masterful enemy."
"Ferocious, so fierce!"
The officials of the Privy Council marveled together.
"I didn't expect that the leader of a country could be so brave and fearless of death."
Li Zi glanced at the emperor quietly, but when he saw the emperor staring at him, he immediately looked away in horror, and then continued.
"But then again, the courage shown by the king in the previous rebellious battles, especially the battles leaving Lycia, is really impressive. Every time he encountered dangerous and important places, he They are all brave enough to go through the history of China regardless of their own safety. I’m afraid it’s rare to see such a reckless character with such a happy ending.”
"What did the Privy Council say?" Emperor Zhao Zhen continued softly, "This also fully proves that Persia lags behind Greece in the art of war. It lags behind us in all aspects. "
"Your Majesty is wise."
Everyone took advantage of the cool air and slapped their flattery on them, but the emperor gently used the Shenluo Tianzheng and bounced all the flattery out of the sky with a smile.
"So I remember that before the Persian king went on an expedition, a Greek named Calledmos once suggested to him that if the Persian generals and soldiers relied only on their own bravery and numbers to deal with the Macedonians, then It is unlikely that they will win, they must have the same art of war. And we now share the same view as this man."
"It turns out there is such a person, and Wei Chen and the others don't know about it yet. But having said that, Li Ning will definitely recruit him by any means necessary. He likes to recruit talents so much."
Li Zi laughed softly, representing the recognition of the officials at all levels in the Privy Council for Li Ning's previous actions.
However, the emperor replied: "Li Ning has already stated the fate of this great talent to me in his previous letter. He died and was killed by the King of Persia."
Although they were not figures from Middle-earth, upon hearing such bad news, the officials in the Privy Council fell into a small silence.
After a long time, someone stood up and said with gritted teeth: "The king's lack of morality is comparable to that of Shang Zhou. This country is undefeated, so how can the laws of heaven exist?"
Zhao Zhen also excitedly slapped the table, stood up and said, "I think so too,"
Hearing what the emperor said, all the ministers were filled with anger, and they all screamed and criticized the Persian king. However, there was one exception among them.
Li Zi, who was calm and thoughtful, did not launch a crusade like them. Instead, he quietly pondered the tone of the emperor's words just now. This pondering did not matter, he almost killed himself.
The reason is very simple. Why did the emperor specifically emphasize that the enemy army will be defeated? And no matter how you listen to these words, you feel like you are cheering for yourself. Could it be that he still has any doubts about the great sage recorded in history? ?
"Your Majesty." He broke through the noise of the crowd and looked at the emperor with some fear. He hesitated whether to ask this question. Finally, he decided that even if he was going to criticize such an important issue, he had to ask the truth. Come out, "I have a question to ask."
"Li Qing, what do you want to ask?"
"On the front line, are there any changes?"
Everyone looked at the Privy Councilor with strange eyes, but the emperor gently shook his head and signaled them not to criticize this important minister with vicious eyes.
"Yes, it is not a possible or impossible problem. From the moment we set foot on that battlefield, variables inevitably appeared. As I emphasized to you before, Li Ning worried about the emergence of the butterfly effect more than once in his letters. Although we have not yet seen the power of the so-called butterfly effect, with such a war before us, we are also worried that it will be inconsistent with historical records. And once this discrepancy is unfavorable to our Emperor Song, the problem may be It would be very serious.”
At this point, everyone began to become frightened.
"That is to say, losing troops and generals may still happen."
"Of course it is not impossible to lose a book, but Li Ning once said that there is a great road between heaven and earth. As long as you understand the laws of the development of things and master advanced productivity, you don't have to be afraid of the butterfly effect, or even worry about these small things. , carefully becoming an opportunistic tightrope dancer. Although I have no idea what he is talking about, he seems to have brought these two things to the Huangsong Dynasty. I hope he is right."
"He must be right." Li Zi's soft whisper brought a heavier sentence to everyone, "It's just that he hasn't fully demonstrated the rules and productivity yet. Now he is just a tightrope dancer." He is an opportunistic thief, a liar who, like us, uses historical records to defraud the fruits of victory on the front lines."
"Yes, he is the best liar in our Song Dynasty." As he said, the emperor fell in love with his privy minister. Unexpectedly, this old man began to understand the secrets of it. You should know that he is a young man who can still be exposed to new things. It took people a while to figure out the secret.
But based on this, some things have to be done.
"The decree is passed on to the draft system of the bachelor's academy. Regarding the history of overseas countries, no one is allowed to mention a word. Anyone who dares to disobey will be punished by having his car broken up, or by his family being executed at the worst."
"I will obey the imperial edict!"
Behind this uniform voice, a voice that was more chaotic but more heroic occurred on a battlefield thousands of miles away.
They were sent out by a phalanx of Macedonian infantry, and the enemy opposite them, although they attempted to respond with equal vigor, failed to do so.
The Macedonians, who were prone to longing for their homeland, resented enemies blocking their way to their homeland, so when they returned, everyone's veins were filled with anger.
And when they discovered that the Persians, who originally had the initiative but failed to launch the first charge in time, actually took a defensive stance on the central defense line on the other side, they became even more convinced that victory definitely belonged to them.
The resulting boost in morale made their war cries more impassioned.
Alexander bravely took the lead in challenging the waters of the Pinarus River and the enemies on the other side of the river for the countless times in his life.
At this time, Parmenio's left-wing cavalry also began to tangle with the opponent's right-wing cavalry. They were at a numerical disadvantage and could only rely on small-scale continuous counterattacks to trap their opponents in their positions.
At the same time, some of the opponent's Kardak infantry also appeared on Alexander's right flank in the mountains.
From the perspective of war deployment, the threat posed by this group of people may be very great, but what is shocking is that Alexander only sent a small number of companion cavalry to successfully prevent their advancement.
Even more exciting things are yet to come, the newly formed fleet that just appeared on the scene not long ago. At this time, gunpowder soldiers from the Song Dynasty actually appeared on the sea on the west side.
They used simple trebuchets or even the most primitive arm strength to throw gunpowder packets on the beach.
Although some of the gunpowder packets failed to detonate in time due to being soaked in sea water, those that successfully landed basically brought earth-shattering shock to the Persians.
Since the location of the attack was the second half of the enemy's cavalry, Parmenio was not affected. However, the Persian soldiers in the rear who were in chaos were instantly hit by Parmenio because they could not receive timely assistance. Retreat, this is a scene that has never happened in history.
There was another scene that had never happened before, and that was the fierce battle on the northern battlefield.
The northern battlefield did not exist at all originally, but it suddenly increased due to the involvement of the Song Dynasty.
The strangest thing is that neither Li Ning nor Pang Ji are willing to let their footprints interfere too much with the original historical records.
Therefore, their initial attitude was somewhat passive and they avoided the battle, purely using good ditches and huge firepower clusters to resist the enemy's advance.
However, they soon realized their stupidity, because the trenches they dug were too deep and too dense, which prevented them from taking full advantage of the neatness of the phalanx and the speed of the cavalry during the countercharge.
Therefore, the northern battlefield fell into a brutal tug-of-war. Even the commanders on both sides began to hate this war.
Opposing the Song Dynasty army were some insufficient troops in Persia. Their weapons were not advanced and their combat effectiveness was not high. They generally served as the second half of the entire army and did some physical work and the like.
Since the Persian counselors insisted that their biggest enemy was the Macedonian army led by Alexander, they deployed their main force on the southern battlefield. Therefore, the only ones left to deal with Li Ning and his group were what they should have gone to. The tribal army serves as cannon fodder.
So in the dense trench group, the tribal armies from Central and Western Asia began to engage in a fierce close combat with the stragglers from East Asia.
When Li Ning took over the battle a few days ago, he hated such a scene, but he did not make immediate adjustments on the surface. Instead, he changed the main force consumed from his own army to Greek mercenaries, and surrendered with some locals. The wealthy armed forces of the heavenly army.
As for what the remaining marchers should do, on this narrow battlefield that cannot be fully expanded, there is only a little they can do. With the strength of the troops at a disadvantage, it is natural to make the battlefield even narrower. It was good, so they started digging trenches.
So when the war ended, a strange scene appeared on a huge map of the Privy Council.
After receiving Li Ning's letter, the emperor used a brush to draw a line pointing to the Amanus Gate in an open area north of Issus.
Then he turned to Li Zi and said: "This is the variable we are worried about. He took action and brought a move that is completely different from history. Our long-standing records may become completely untrue because of this. . I just don’t know if we can get enough benefits from this step.”
"Your Majesty, aren't you worried that he will cause failure?"
"Don't worry. You didn't see the content of his letter, and you wouldn't be worried if you did. Those trenches may play a decisive role in the next battle."
"Do you think this line represents a trench? How many people will it take to dig it? I'm afraid it's not a good thing to spread the troops like this."
"No, this fully proves that there is a problem with the enemy's mobilization and deployment, and there is not enough force to prevent him from doing so. And as far as I know, although the enemy claims to have 500,000 heavy troops, it only has 200,000 combat troops, and other basic They are all family members of the army and various miscellaneous craftsmen and slaves. And more than half of these 200,000 people need to be deployed on the southern battlefield to stop Alexander, and what we face may only be twice the number of enemies."
"That's also scary."
"We have the art of war." The emperor looked at the slanted line and suddenly laughed strangely, "The Armanus Gate is the only place they must pass to escape. Li Ning is being sarcastic, sarcastic They cut off the Macedonians' return route. Haha, once their war on the southern front goes unfavorably, they will suffer a more brutal blow from Li Ning's troops during their chaotic escape. And if Alexander on the southern front does not win, can With this river ditch, Li Ning can also keep the troops in his hands. This is a wonderful move that can advance and retreat in one move."
When the emperor said this, his privy ministers immediately fell into shock.
He felt that he still underestimated Li Ning. Such methods were definitely not something ordinary people could pull off.
What he didn't know was that the most important thing Li Ning did in Asia Minor was to collect various engineers. After talking with Theodorus, he believed that these Western engineers were rare. Talents.
And now this group of people gave him a huge help in digging trenches.
There is no need to worry about variables. ,
This is undoubtedly a fortunate thing for the emperor.
But his Privy Councilor seemed to have something else to say. However, he wasn't sure whether it was a smart thing to pour cold water on the emperor at this time.
Therefore, he just remained silent in front of the emperor, and it was not until he returned home that he thought about some of the pros and cons.
Once the butterfly effect occurs, all historical records will be destroyed. This was what he realized, and it was also what the emperor once emphasized in front of his ministers.
So even if we have to make arrangements that are different from those in history, I am afraid it should be at the most critical time in order to gain the greatest benefits.
The Battle of Issus they are facing now is very important from a war perspective, and may even be the most important battle during Alexander's Eastern Expedition, but what are the benefits it can bring?
Li Zi is a typical official who thinks with his brain. He knows very well that this kind of important war will only happen when you risk your life to defend the country, but it may not bring enough benefits to the winner. Because the losses often brought to the winner are not too small.
So he doubted whether Li Ning's approach at this time was correct.
Therefore, he believed that from a high-wire dancer's point of view, he seemed to have to sit back and watch this battle end smoothly in order to quietly reap greater benefits.
Then he believed that Li Ning may no longer be the most suitable commander on the front line, nor the most suitable planner of related matters, because before he relied on his familiarity with overseas history, but now the Privy Council also has the knowledge A reminder as good as the overseas history he knew.
So he wanted to persuade the emperor to replace Li Ning. In a short period of time, he might not be able to win over the outstanding Li Ning.
At this time, Li Ning was doing something that the civil servants in the rear could not think of.
He led an army and quickly moved northeast from the position.
All the Persians realized that the target of his attack was the Amanus Gate, their retreat.
When the enemy was digging for aviation, their sentries scattered along the way sent similar news.
However, at that time, the enemy did not mobilize heavy troops to attack. But now, the situation is very different.
