Chapter 55: Combat Power Quantified

“Boom… boom… boom…”

After a thunderous explosion, a gap appeared in the city wall of Taizhou, and countless rebel soldiers surged through.

Shouts of battle pierced the heavens.

“The city has fallen!”

Panic spread rapidly; the conscripted youths, unable to bear the pressure, began fleeing in disarray.

“Hold the line!”

“Quick, go back and seal the breach!”

No matter how hard the garrison commander shouted, he could not change the reality of the city’s fall.

“It’s over!”

“All is lost!”

Watching the smoke rising across the city, Mi Zhixiang, the Prefect of Taizhou, collapsed to the ground.

“Master, flee while you still can!

The rebels are coming this way—delay any longer and it’ll be too late!”

The old steward urged anxiously.

To weaken resistance within the city, the rebels had adopted a three-sided encirclement with one side left open, deliberately leaving an escape route for the defenders.

But now that the enemy had breached the walls, the city’s defenders were demoralized and utterly incapable of organizing a second line of defense.

If they didn’t leave immediately, the only escape route would be cut off.

“Flee?

Where could I possibly run to?

Enough. The fall of Taizhou is my responsibility—I won’t drag innocent people down with me.

Furu, take the retainers and escort my lady and young master away immediately.

The Vice Minister of Nanjing is my former teacher; given my loyalty to the court in death, he will petition the throne to secure you a posthumous honor.

Return home with that honor, and no one will dare to prey on this widow and orphan.”

“Time is up. I must go.”

After speaking, Mi Zhixiang picked up the prepared poison and drank it down in one gulp.

In the Great Yu Dynasty, local officials bore the duty to defend their territory; the fall of the city made the Prefect irrevocably culpable. If he fled now, he would be punished by the court afterward.

Better to die honorably by his own hand than be disgraced by the court and bring ruin upon his family.

“Master, may you travel well!”

Saying this, the steward Furu kowtowed three times before Mi Zhixiang, then immediately led the retainers to escort the weeping lady and young master away.

…

Yangzhou City.

Upon hearing the news of Taizhou’s fall, the already tense atmosphere in the city grew heavier still, the air thick with the scent of smoke.

Everyone knew the rebels’ next target would surely be Yangzhou City.

At this critical moment, many noble youths panicked.

Those who had received military training fared better—they understood basic tactics and knew Yangzhou wouldn't fall easily, so they could still maintain composure; the spoiled rich young masters who had merely tagged along were now completely at a loss.

The Marquis of Wuyang, serving as Imperial Commissioner, was equally panicked.

He could lead troops, but he truly knew nothing of warfare.

In the Great Yu Dynasty, military knowledge was passed down orally from father to son; even the simplest troop formations remained mysterious to outsiders.

Before becoming an imperial relative, he was merely an ordinary scholar. After being appointed Commandant of the Five City Military Commission, he had only read a few widely circulated military texts.

He was the kind of “genius” general who seemed to understand everything at a glance but failed utterly in practice.

What finally made him recognize his own incompetence was that, after days of hearing the rebels were coming, he had still failed to devise a single strategy to defeat them.

“Gentlemen, do you have any strategy to defeat the enemy?”

The Marquis of Wuyang asked hopefully.

To improve efficiency, he had summoned only five Battalion Commanders to this high-level meeting; all the nominal Deputy Commanders had been excluded from decision-making.

“My lord, Yangzhou has twelve city gates. Any one of them could become the rebels’ main point of attack—we can only split our forces to defend them all.

The local troops may have been infiltrated by the rebels; they can serve only as auxiliary forces, not as our core strength.

The responsibility of defending the city must fall to the generals sent from the capital.

Our immediate task is to divide the defense zones and allocate our forces accordingly.”

Zhao Yawei spoke first.

It was absurd, really: after conscripting the youths, the Marquis of Wuyang had never even assigned them to units—they were still under Li Mu’s temporary command.

Had it not been for Li Mu’s excellent preparations—keeping the conscripts disciplined and gathering vast quantities of siege supplies—he would have already erupted in rage.

“Divide the twelve gates among the five Battalion Commanders. Simply keep one Battalion Commander to maintain order within the city, and assign the other four to three gates each—split the city’s troops evenly!”

The Marquis’s suggestion revealed his sense of fairness—and his utter ignorance of military affairs.

Even distribution of troops assumes equal combat capability among soldiers.

Theoretically, Yangzhou’s total force now approached thirty thousand, but twenty thousand of them carried only wooden staves.

The most combat-capable were the retainers brought by the noble youths—about two thousand five hundred, truly elite.

Next came the local garrison troops and yamen runners; their exact combat strength was unknown, but at least they had received occasional training—roughly four thousand strong.

Then came the retainers brought by the nominal deputy commanders—nearly two thousand five hundred.

They looked physically strong, perhaps better than ordinary men, but had received no military training—only suited for street brawls.

Finally, the over twenty thousand conscripted youths, who in peacetime struggled to fill their bellies, had abysmal physical condition.

“Commander, I have no objection to this allocation—I only fear the other officers won’t be able to bear it.”

Tang Jincheng, Battalion Commander of Xicheng, said with a sardonic smile.

The two thousand five hundred most elite troops were sixty percent from the Xicheng and Dongcheng Battalion Commanders; the other three combined accounted for only forty percent.

Equal distribution would make the other three units furious.

Fortunately, they were all on the same rope—any breach by the enemy would doom them all, so now was not the time to betray allies.

“Commander, keeping one Battalion Commander as a reserve force and assigning the other four to three gates each is acceptable, but the troop allocation must balance combat strength.

We can quantify the combat capability of the city’s forces.”

“The most elite retainers under your command are mostly battle-hardened veterans, each armored and well-equipped—we can assume their combat strength is 10.

The local Yangzhou troops would then have a combat strength of approximately 2.

The retainers brought by the deputy commanders are questionable in strength and lack formal military training; let’s set their combat strength at 1.2.

The conscripted youths, lacking weapons, have a combat strength of only 0.5.

Of course, these figures are only rough estimates—city defense differs greatly from open-field battle.

Even troops with low combat strength can still be useful.”

Hearing Li Mu’s data-driven analysis, and seeing no one object, the Marquis of Wuyang was stunned.

The gap in combat strength was far too extreme.

After all this, the retainers of the noble youths alone possessed greater combat power than all other forces in Yangzhou combined.

“You five work it out yourselves—I’m exhausted!”

The Marquis of Wuyang snapped irritably.

His own painstakingly devised defense plan had been utterly dismantled, leaving him, the Regional Commander, nearly depressed.

Yet, amid his sorrow, he felt a flicker of relief.

Though his own military ability was pitiful, his subordinate Battalion Commanders did possess genuine military competence.

Being humiliated in this closed-door meeting was better than being beheaded after a defeat. As long as today’s events stayed secret, it could be treated as if nothing had happened.

(End of Chapter)