GBP Chapter 288 Personally Killing the Enemy
Chapter 288 Personally Killing the Enemy
This canyon in Kemuzi Mountain is winding for seven or eight hundred meters, with almost vertical mountain walls on both sides. The soldiers guarding the mountain can throw logs and stones at the passing Chinese soldiers without any hindrance.
Moreover, the mountain path leading up to the east was extremely steep, making it impossible to directly attack the Dayuan garrison, and fire attacks were also out of the question. The entire army was at a loss, and this was the perfect opportunity for him to hide his talents for ten years, make a name for himself, and repay the Emperor's kindness in recognizing his talent.
Zhuge Liang's face revealed a confident expression, for he already had a preliminary plan. This strategy combined the knowledge he had learned in school with a tactic that no general in the history of warfare had ever used before.
Zhuge Liang stood with Zhao Yun, Xun Yu, and others, carefully observing the shapes of the mountain walls on both sides of the canyon. They then went to the roadside to observe the main composition of the nearby rocks for a while before returning to Zhao Yun and saying, "General Zhao, I have thought of a strategy to defeat the enemy."
"What method? Tell us!" Zhao Yun and Xun Yu asked immediately upon hearing this.
"I can't explain the principle behind this method, but I'm certain it will wipe out all 20,000 enemy soldiers on the mountain. I'll explain it after we've eliminated the enemy forces in front of us." This principle for defeating the enemy was something new he learned in school; Zhao Yun, Xun Yu, and the others probably had never even heard of it, let alone understood its principles. Zhuge Liang feared that explaining it would lead to collective opposition and prevent the plan from being implemented.
Zhao Yun and Xun Yu exchanged glances. Xun Yu asked, "Kongming, you won't even tell me your plan. How are we supposed to defeat the enemy? Are you going to grab a sword and charge up the mountain to kill them yourself?"
Zhuge Liang shook his head and said firmly, "I really can't explain it clearly. However, I will sign a pledge: if we fail to defeat the enemy this time and eliminate the 20,000 enemy soldiers on the mountain, I will resign and return to the capital to be punished. The only condition is that all the war drums and drummers in the army be handed over to me for my personal command, and no one else shall disturb me."
Zhao Yun glanced at the third deputy advisor appointed by the emperor, considered for a moment, and asked, "How long do you need?"
"This method will take a long time, I don't know exactly whether it will take one or two days or three or four days, but it will definitely be effective, and we will not have a single soldier injured or killed!" Zhuge Liang replied.
"You can't even grasp the timing, how can you be so sure it will be effective?" Xun Yu frowned and questioned.
"I've done the experiment myself, and it works! It's just that the situation is different now, the terrain is different, so the time required is uncertain," Zhuge Liang replied affirmatively once again.
Zhao Yun and Xun Yu discussed the matter in hushed tones for a while and decided to give Zhuge Liang a chance, setting a five-day limit. If Zhuge Liang failed to eliminate the 50,000 soldiers guarding the mountain without losing a single soldier within five days, allowing Zhao Yun's army to safely cross Mount Kemuzi, then Zhuge Liang would resign and return to Luoyang to explain himself to the emperor.
With Zhao Yun's approval, Zhuge Liang immediately took action. He first ordered all 500 drums and 1500 drummers of the entire army to gather on the main road east of the valley and form a drum formation.
Then, 40,000 elite soldiers were mobilized to patrol day and night, guarding against enemy soldiers coming down the mountain to attack the drummers. Then, the logistics department was searched thoroughly, and 500 clocks were found. All these clocks were adjusted to ensure that there was no error in the ticking of each second, and then they were placed in front of the 500 large drums so that the drummers could see them clearly.
Because no one had ever done this before, Zhuge Liang personally directed and arranged the process, which took more than five hours to complete. Then, the 1500 drummers began to beat the drums in shifts of three.
At 8 PM on March 7th, the 11th year of the Emperor's reign, 500 large drums of the Central Route Army of the Chinese Empire's Central Asian Expeditionary Force were simultaneously struck at Zhuge Liang's command. The thunderous sound reverberated across the land. Zhuge Liang ran around correcting those who misjudged the timing, ensuring that all the drumbeats were delivered at the exact same second.
The drums beat at a precise five-second interval, maintaining an absolutely uniform pace, allowing no room for error—this was crucial to ensuring the successful implementation of Zhuge Liang's plan. The drummers were all foot soldiers; although they didn't understand the underlying principles, they simply obeyed the deputy strategist's orders.
The sudden, deafening drumbeat startled the 20,000 soldiers guarding the mountain. Even those who were supposed to be resting rushed out of their tents in a panic, asking the Chinese soldiers, disheveled, whether they were going to attack the mountain again or force their way into the valley.
Finally, after concentrating and waiting for over an hour, but seeing no Chinese soldiers attack the mountain or force their way through the canyon, they all went back to sleep, grumbling. Those who couldn't sleep because of the drumming simply stuffed their ears with cloth and tried to continue sleeping.
Many of the Chinese soldiers in the rear, unaware of the reason, also assumed there was an operation and quickly dressed and rushed out of their tents, only to find that no organization had headed towards the Kemuzi Gorge. After finally understanding the situation, they realized it was a scheme by the deputy strategist Zhuge Liang, and so they went back to their tents to catch up on sleep, cursing him as a "lunatic" and a "madman."
Zhao Yun, Xun Yu, Ma Teng, Zhang He and other generals were all amazed to see that Zhuge Liang had spent so much time coming up with this solution.
"Kongming, what kind of crazy plan is this? How can it wipe out 20,000 enemy soldiers on the mountain?" Zhao Yun watched as the drummer played for more than an hour, but Zhuge Liang did not make any other follow-up arrangements. Instead, he ran up and down the mountain correcting the drummer's timing of the drumbeats, making sure they were played correctly. So Zhao Yun stepped forward and asked.
After more than an hour of adjustments, the drummers basically understood Zhuge Liang's requirements. All the drumbeats fell on the same point in time, meeting the conditions for the implementation of Zhuge Liang's plan. Zhuge Liang breathed a sigh of relief and went back to drink water.
Upon hearing Zhao Yun's question, Zhuge Liang smiled and replied, "That's right, just wait and see! Within five days, I will annihilate those 5 enemy soldiers!"
Several senior generals looked at each other, shook their heads in unison, and did not understand Zhuge Liang's meaning.
Zhuge Liang didn't explain, but simply instructed the surrounding guards to be on high alert and not let the enemy soldiers on the mountain come down to disturb the drummers' drumming. Then, he went back to his camp to sleep...
The generals and advisors looked at Zhuge Liang's retreating figure with expressions of utter disbelief, as if he were mentally unstable. Each of them harbored a skepticism: "To wipe out enemy troops simply by beating a drum? I've never heard of such a story before!"
Of course, they didn't know this story, not even Emperor Liu Xie, who traveled from two thousand years in the future.
This method of defeating the enemy has never appeared before in China, nor even in the entire world throughout history. Only a genius like Zhuge Liang could have gleaned such a strategic idea from a popular science lesson taught by the emperor in a textbook.