Commanding Wind and Cloud

"It is my first time doing so." Qian Jin felt the chess board with his fingers gently. "I only have four dispatches of logistics soldiers, which, if left for serving as the reserves at the back of the major force, would have a very little effect. Thus I wanted to make a bet. I knew there was the strategic high point and I intended to impose some impediments on your troops to have you feel that our main forces had arrived. In this way, you might rearrange the strategic deployment."

While nodding the head incessantly, Nanmen Xiangrong grew more vigilant and coldness out of his eyes. "I knew you deemed it as playing the game. Suppose the forty soldiers were your friends in real life, would you exchange them with the enemies for the chance of your own life?"

Nanmen Xiangrong’s light voice echoed in the classroom, causing all the warrior students who were immersed in the admiration towards Qian Jin to lower their heads and meditate on this question. If in a war-like situation, would they make this choice? Would they lead their bosom comrades-in-war to launch such a suicidal attack?

Qian Jin’s finger poking above on the chess board quivered slightly. Would he, as the captain of the logistics soldiers, make that choice on the battlefield?

"Boy, one’s real character emerges during his first time playing this game chess." Nanmen Xiangrong walked down the pulpit and came in front of Qian Jin. "You were only given four dispatches of logistics soldiers, but you decided to have them march ahead with light packs. Maybe you don’t really care about the result because you just regard it as a game. However, such action reflects your attitude of being not resigned to surrendering, no matter what circumstances you are in."

"Not resigned to surrender..." Qian Jin repeated what Nanmen Xiangrong had just sad to him and was suddenly enlightened. He was of no doubt the type of person who insisted on the warrior’s life path with an unyielding mindset even if he was endowed with the bloodline awakening power. Under no circumstances would he feel resigned to losing to the bloodline power awakeners.

"Never surrendering, not admitting and refusing defeat." Nanmen Xiangrong paced along the passage between two rows of desks. "This is your true inner mindset. The spirits of taking risks are deeply rooted in your sub-consciousness. But as a general and a commander..."

Nanmen Xiangrong turned back to look at Qian Jin, lifted his right index finger and wiggled it slightly. "You are not qualified to be a commander. Soldiers are born for war, not for sacrifice. In case you sacrifice your life for victory on your side, the other people will only remember the surviving general who commanded the fight instead of you."

"The status and merits you procure for yourself at the cost of your men’s lives might not be seen through by the outsiders, however..." A sword-like light flashed by Nanmen Xiangrong’s small eyes, which seemed to be penetrating into one’s body. Under such a stare, Qian Jin quivered and thought about Enlak’s equally smashing spirits in the endless world.

"The comrades who survive the war and the other soldiers will have all these borne in their minds and they will never ever help you for the rest of your life." Nanmen Xiangrong wore a cold smile. "The commander is obligated to win the war as well as trying their very best to reduce the casualties on his soldier men’s side. What are the differences between you and a butcher once you do show no care for your soldiers’ lives but only the outcome of the war?"

"This is a military academy, not an abattoir." Nanmen Xiangrong glanced over the whole class. "If you become the kind of commander who only has eyes for success instead of the well-being of your soldiers after graduating here and stepping into the human-demon battlefield, you can just throw away the diploma conferred by Punitive Expedition Academy. If you don’t agree with my point, you can just go to other academies right now."

"For example..." Nanmen Xiangrong wore a scornful sneer on his face, "The illustrious, highly nutritious Holy Warrior Academy for cultivating honor-borne generals."

It was so silent in the classroom that even the gasp of the warrior students could be clearly heard. Everyone was contemplating on Nanmen Xiangrong’s words, heads lowered, while Tence Matten tucked his folding fan and looked at Nanmen Xiangrong with sheer admiration.

"I cannot do that." Qian Jin suddenly raised his chin to look at Nanmen Xiangrong and shook his head slightly. "Was it not in the chess game but a real fight, I cannot do that..."

Nanmen Xiangrong patted Qian Jin on the shoulder. "Don’t regard it as a chess game the next time. This is the real battlefield. History is written by the victors and the victors become famous generals for the later generations to adore. Only those military establishments which survive the war would become famous army groups in the future, whereas those sacrificed for changing the tides of battle would be forever forgotten in the sands of time."

Qian Jin lowered his head at the chess board and started meditating. If what the instructor said was true, how should I do in case I had only four dispatches of logistics soldiers? Should I remain in the rear and watch the other warriors fight against the Demons?

No. Qian Jin suddenly raised his head fiercely, "Instructor, it is just war chess."

Hardly had Nanmen Xiangrong walked out of the classroom with his hands crossed at the back when he heard what Qian Jin said. He then stopped, turned back slowly and gazed at Qian Jin in sheer silence.

The atmosphere of the classroom turned devastatingly suffocating. Some warrior students longed for whispering to Qian Jin to apologize to the instructor, as the current feeling was really killing.

One second...two seconds...five seconds...fifteen seconds...one minute...

Nanmen Xiangrong turned away silently and stepped out of the classroom slowly, setting the entire class free. However, such a feeling of relaxation wasn’t thoroughgoing. It was like casting off fifty pounds off the rock pressed on one’s breast that weighed one hundred pounds previously.

Though the instructor had left, the silent look he cast at Qian Jin on his departure stood like a rock pressed above the whole class. Lenz Zarf paid a look at Qian Jin’s back, put on a faint smile and then shook his head. It seemed that this bloke made that move in the chess play by sheer luck, while indeed he hadn’t mastered the essences of war chess. That was, the chess board was a virtual battlefield, where the illustrious generals stationed in the camp and gave out orders to decide the outcome of the fight.

At the sight of Qian Jin who had slumped back onto the seat and was now reading the chess board instruction carefully, Tence Matten smacked his mouth. "What a confident person he is."

"Confident?"

Several retinue members of Tence Matten looked at their master with great curiosity.

"Of course he is."Tence Matten unfolded his fan again. "Qian Jin was telling the instructor that the chess board was only a chess board, where he wasn’t a brick-and-mortar person at all. While the moves of his on the real battlefield couldn’t be calculated like the data displayed on the chess board. What an interesting guy..."

"Interesting. Really interesting." Walking on the corridor outside the classroom, Nanmen Xiangrong loaded off his sullen and silent look and replaced it with a happy smile growing along his wrinkles. To have the soldiers’ sacrifice was, by all means, a misdeed, yet the idea of casting away the logistics soldiers and making a rapid march was worthy of praise.

"Especially his performance of forging ahead in the fight. A touch of forging ahead." Nanmen Xiangrong waved his skinny arms. "It will be a big problem for a general to have no awareness of attacking. The last sentence he said, ’ war chess is just war chess’..."

"Well..." Nanmen Xiangrong kept shaking his head. "What a confident boy he is. I had intended discussing with the dean to have him be transferred to the commanding division. Now I must strongly recommend so. Though having him play the role of a commander looks a little risky, it is indispensable for the army force to incorporate someone adventurous like him. What prospects will he have, as an ordinary warrior to mingle with a crowd of bloodline warriors who have eyes only for improving individual combat power?"

"If he could maintain this state for long..." Nanmen Xiangrong cupped his chin with his hands, "He might be able to challenge the top student of the commanding division of grade one, Su Muping from the Ultimate Push School of Thoughts."

"The prospects..." Qian Jin felt for the tenuous lines on the chess board, "won’t Fanta Kunge ace this game?"

Lenz Zarf looked at Qian Jin with great curiosity. If his performance in the chess play was concluded as luck, how could his knowledge of the two hundred generals’ profiles be explained? Had he covered a wealth of military sciences? If so... I have to notify my family to have him work as my retinue, no matter to cost.

To have such a retinue member... Lenz Zarf gazed at Qian Jin contemplatively. If so, he would gain a lot of help on the human-demon battlefield in the future.

"Personal combat power, knowledge of the famous generals, and his strain capacity in the battlefield." Tence Matten waved his folding fan gently and started to view the scores for the chess game of which the top five were all made by his retinue. Would Qian Jin change this situation?

After a short break of ten minutes, there came the lesson of Breakdown of Continental War History.

Qian Jin listened to the teacher carefully and every now and then he would nod his head lightly. The curriculum set by Punitive Expedition Academy was much more excellent than that of other schools, where the teachers not only gave illustrations to the publicly famous campaigns but also provided analysis of the small-scale battles of the local battlefields.

Not every military officer in this world could become the marshal commanding the entire troop. Most of them only served as the bottom-level military officers in charge of a group of ten, twenty or a hundred at most.

However, it was these military officers that constituted the backbone of the entire army force. No one could say with certainty how much influence these bottom-level military officers’ provisional reaction would exert on the final outcome of the war.

For the entire morning, Qian Jin was sitting in the classroom listening carefully to the teacher. Some of the knowledge taught was already familiar to him, while the rest was totally new.

For the knowledge points he had read from the Qian predecessors’ diaries, with the smart analysis of these professional teachers, Qian Jin found them much more to the point and insightful, and through comparison or supplementation with what he had already borne in mind, he was able to infer heavier content.

Walking out of the classroom, Qian Jin wondered whether the place he was in was a warrior academy. In his understanding, the warrior students enrolled in warrior academies were held responsible for improving their warrior power and fighting techniques under the teachers’ supervision.

"Hehe...I’m still too naive." Qian Jin wore a self-mocking smile. Was there any necessity of attending school, should the unanimous goal was improving individual combat power? Save and except for those of humble origins, the descendants from significant backgrounds didn’t need to go to school as drilling at home mightn’t necessarily bring lesser effects than receiving training at school.