69 Making The Preparations

Since this battle field did not revolve around any particular war in history, the two sides could decide what troops they wanted to field. Meng Yi, Yue Fei, and Baron had decided to take this choice into careful consideration. The amount of time that they took to make this decision was definitely longer than any normal group.

In the end they had decided that out of their million man army they would have half of that number be the infantry on the ground which would be armed with standard guns and such. Another 200,000 would be tasked to be on heavy artillery duty. 150,000 would be dedicated to defense. 25,000 would become pilots. The rest would be assigned various other tasks such as producing weapons for the other soldiers.

The three of them decided it best if they split up their roles in this battle. Baron, and Yue Fei was tasked with offensive duties. This meant that the two of them would have to be the ones to lead the attack on the enemy. While Meng Yi would stay behind and protect the fort.

There was only one choice left to make, what terrain should they choose so as to increase the difficulty to siege. Since Meng Yi was on defense duty, he was the one to decide. In the end he chose to construct a base in a not so hilly valley that was surrounded on all sides by multiple mountains.

On each separate mountain, they had also constructed military outposts to warn the main base in case of enemy attack. This type of general layout is how many of the official tournaments are done. Not with any particular war in history, this is done to see who is the best strategist given the same resources as everyone else is.

Since this was a practice simulation they could choose the preparation time and ended up with 6 months to prepare themselves for combat. The actual fighting part of wars is the only part that a strategist can show their brilliance. The preparation phase is just as if not as important since if there are weak preparations that have been completed, that would just make the enemy an edge to beat you with.

The first thing that needed to be done was to set up the bases with the proper technology so as to relay orders properly and efficiently. In this regard, Baron could be seen as the one out of all of them as having the most up to date knowledge of these devices and technology. However, with his limited understanding of the infrastructure of all these he couldn't do much except the basics. He made a mental note to buy the blueprints for it later or recruit someone who knew this better than he did.

The next area that they needed to focus on was that the soldiers would need to get proper training for 2 main purposes. The first was that better trained soldiers would be more effective on the field. While the other was that all these soldiers would have nothing more than patrol duties for the next few months.

Baron, and Yue Fei designed a training regiment for the multiple troops that they housed. The pilots would spend more time in the air working on mimicking the leader's movements. Many of the other troops would be subjected to target practice for the majority of their preparation time. The two offensive strategists would supervise the drills for the first few days then pass on the authority once they felt thateveryone knew what to expect in the training.

The completing of the base of operations and the other outposts were completed a few months into their prep time and in the meantime the 3 of them did all they could to get their spies into the enemy camp. Likewise they were trying to be wary of who they told their battle plans to. Since it was almost certain that there were spies in their camp already. In the presence of a million faceless soldiers, who would notice a few extra?

The amount of prep time that they had put into this operation was staggering. Once the time of the first day of battle was drawing near, Yue Fei and Baron would move their respective armies to their own chosen base and began a waiting game to see which side would cave in and start attacking first.

It could be said that the 5 of them knew fairly well of each other's tactics, but in an actual battlefield, the reactions of any strategist is never guaranteed. The unpredictability of war is especially apparent when facing extremely quick thinking generals.

In the end, Yue Fei was the first to make a move. He had moved a portion of his army to engage with an enemy base that he believed had the least chance of housing either Guan Yu or Meng Tian. He did this because although this enemy base could still receive orders from those two, their decisions were almost certainly going to be flawed since they weren't their in person to witness the battle.

They made their way to the specified base and met no resistance on the way there and was only stalled a bit before swiftly conquering the first base. Yue Fei decided to push his luck and pursued to the site of 2 more bases which he also took down in no time flat before making his way back to his own base.

His two teammates obviously knew of his movements and they communicated with each other as soon as he got back to friendly territory.

(BM) "What's the situation, Yue Fei?" Baron asked out of curiosity.

(MY) "It didn't seem like the enemy was particularly interested in stopping your advance. Meng Yi questioned.

(YF) "I find this situation suspicious as well, I'm not too sure why they did not at least send reinforcements to help out the 3 struggling bases I had just felled. I find it hard to believe that they would just let me take out 3 bases without getting something back in return." Yue Fei remained cautious.