Mythical Three Kingdoms

”You’re not presenting your plan?” Chen Qun didn’t engage in conversation, instead asking directly.

”I think I’ll pass. If I step up, I’ll just get criticized. I’m not going,” Chen Xi said grumpily. With so many sharp critics picking fault, who could withstand it? Didn’t you see the old man Cheng Yu almost faint from anger earlier? ”You didn’t go either.”

”Zichu and I aren’t really skilled in military strategy, but you...” Chen Qun looked at Chen Xi, puzzled. After the Chen Family branched, Chen Qun accepted it, and their relationship became much more peaceful. ”You should be quite accomplished in this field.”

”Please, I’ll pass. I think they’re just idle,” Chen Xi curled his lips. They were completely just bickering, ”The strategy needed for this battle isn’t much. The main thing is to fully leverage the advantage of overwhelming the weak. If the details are passable, that’s enough.”

”If you ask me, what Chen Gongtai came up with isn’t bad,” Chen Xi said, spreading his hands. ”By the way, Changwen, what’s your son’s name?”

Chen Qun tugged at his mouth, realizing Chen Xi’s train of thought was really unpredictable, with no logical connection between the subsequent and previous sentences.

”My son?” Chen Qun raised an eyebrow, ”I’m all alone right now, what son do I have? But I’ve heard you have a daughter. Someday if you have a son and I still don’t, why not pass one over to me? He could inherit my line and save me from being childless.”

”Cough cough cough...” Chen Xi coughed repeatedly, shocked that such words could be said, ”You, mind the taboos when you speak.”

”I once had someone read my fortune. If my legal wife were always present, I’d have a son, making the Chen Family prosperous. If there’s no legal wife, there’d be no offspring. My wife passed away recently, so I suppose it may actually be as the fortune-teller said.” Chen Qun sighed deeply.

Chen Xi was taken aback and asked, ”Who read your fortune? It wasn’t Zhu Jianping, was it?”

”It was Zhu Jianping. The previous head of the Fan Family said something similar,” Chen Qun said with a face full of emotions.

”Ugh...” Chen Xi felt a bit stunned. If he remembered correctly, Chen Qun had an only son who was very impressive, historically noted for his military talent in direct confrontation with Jiangg Wei. Previously, Chen Xi had even thought about recruiting him, since they shared the Chen name. Yet now he’s undone his own plans like a butterfly effect. What a joke.

”Anyway, if you end up with more children, pass one to me.” Chen Qun said with some emotion.

”Don’t worry, you won’t be childless,” Chen Xi patted Chen Qun’s shoulder, and at this point, the rest seemed to have calmed down and weren’t nitpicking as crazily as before.

Seeing that the anger had dissipated quite a bit, Chen Xi clapped his hands to draw everyone’s attention. ”That’s about enough. Are the Northern Huns worth all this?”

”No, we’ve already come up with a plan that satisfies us all,” Zhou Yu turned to say to Chen Xi, surprising him.

”At this point, any conspiracy is meaningless because everyone here is too adept at simple tricks, leading to the fact that any intricate conspiracy can only lead to a dead end when broken down by us,” Guo Jia said with a smirk.

”So in the end, conspiracy has no entertainment value. Everyone present is an expert, so to implement a plan, we must think in another way,” Zhou Yu said, dissatisfied.

”That means figuring out how to manipulate the opponent, guiding them step by step according to our ideas, which is the so-called open strategy,” Cheng Yu said with a dark expression.

”So it has ended like this.” Xun Youi moistened his fingers with a drop of water and slowly slid them across the table, but Chen Xi couldn’t see what it meant.

”That’s about it,” Zhuge Liang nodded silently. This group was extremely capable; he had much to learn.

”Oh, if you all think it’s good, then it’s good,” Chen Xi shrugged. He hadn’t paid attention at all; with so many people, one person less wouldn’t matter—the opposition would still lose. However, Zhuge Liang and Fa Zheng listened intently, clearly absorbing insights.

”You didn’t listen, did you?” Chen Gong turned to ask Chen Xi.

”No,” Chen Xi replied calmly, and the others didn’t question further, letting Chen Xi off the hook.

”We can set strategy aside for now. Those who know formation, come to embed military formations; those skilled in breaking formations, come to break them; those able at dispatch, estimate dispatch speed,” Jia Xu appeared to have taken the lead, putting strategic planning aside and proceeding with a test of military formations.

”I’ll handle the dispatch, but I’ve never commanded an army of 250,000 elite soldiers, so I can’t estimate the timing accurately,” Zhou Yu said after a moment of silence.

”Wen He and I will calculate the timing with you. We’ve both participated in massive battles surpassing 400,000 on both sides,” Guo Jia said to Zhou Yu. Though he didn’t quite grasp the dispatching aspect, he had witnessed battlefields of tens of thousands being maneuvered.

”Count me in for breaking formations,” Pang Tong said. Surprisingly, only Xu Shu stood alone in the formation-breaking camp.

Then both sides began the exercises. In the first round, Xu Shu’s speed in breaking formations made Zhou Yu break out in a cold sweat. He often positioned himself ahead at strategic nodes, forcing Zhou Yu to make large adjustments with limited forces, almost disrupting Zhou Yu’s entire military formation at the start.