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Chapter 521: Read Online
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Busy grinding FFXIV Stormblood. Direct download out tomorrow.
Chapter 521: Read Online
Turnip Farmers
Thanks Daddy!
Thank you 😀
thanks a lot!!
Thanks based turnips.
based turnip is based
What is this? Definitely did not see that coming. Does this mean that ousen prioritizing on wiping kisui army first?
Oh and thank​ you as always, turnip guys.
Don’t think it’s a matter of “prioritizing”. I think what this shows (and what the author likely want to show) is how many steps ahead Ousen can see.
Clearly Ousen was prepared for Kisui’s textbook reaction to Mouten’s strategy.
And of course, I’m sure Riboku will have a reaction to Ousen’s strategy. My guess is that he must have anticipated Ousen’s strategy – which was pretty obvious.
I over-estimated Kisui, I posted in the last chapter than Kisui only had 3k cavalry since it would be dumb to send out only 2k when he had 15k cavalry in total. Looks like Kisui is the inspirational leader but bad tactics type…
You all got me thinking (I’m a bit obsessed with this battle), if I were Riboku, assuming I knew what was happening on the left, what would I do?
Riboku, from his position, has both numbers and time on his side. Qin would need fancy tactics and a quick victory to win. If I were Riboku, I’d play things conservatively for a while, even if I did take losses on the left, and observe Qin’s actions, and basically, not do anything stupid like rushing in due to haste or frustration and falling into a trap. (Kisui, I’m looking at you.)
In other words, Riboku is better of counter-punching than punching, or, playing the part of Kasparov in “Kasparov vs. Deep Blue” and limiting Qin’s strategic options. I think Riboku ignores the left, and focuses on the fight in the center, at least until Kisui falls. If and when Kisui falls, Riboku will have to shore up the left, which will hand momentum to Qin right at the start, which is exactly what you don’t want if you have numbers and time on your side.
Kisui really, really, really should not have forced an engagement at this point. Kid messed up big.
I think they don’t have the option of “waiting it out”. They need to finish the battle as fast and swift as possible. A day of delay would mean a disastrous end to the city of Gyou.
Riboku’s hands are tied by the fact that a commander on one of his wings is spectacularly incompetent. The commanders of the left and right flanks should be the second & third best commanders, btw.
He has overwhelming numbers, so he knows his opponent either stands & gets slaughtered or tries actual tactics.
He has some light woods & hills on his outer flank.
Yet he never sends out scouts, even though the above are true.
Neither are his cavalry guarding his flank – cavalry are bad at defense, so Mouten would have been dead right there.
Both scouting and guarding the edges are classic cavalry functions.
Kisui also manages to miss 5K cavalry + the Hi Shin units advancing quickly, even though they would send out a wall of dust. Impossible to miss even from the command group.
He turns his infantry, even though infantry is terrible at changing facing in place. Against 5K, btw, sending 10K would not be “a half measure”.
His “right hand” is so hot headed that he cannot assess the situation or listen to orders.
So Riboku is severely limited by the fact that the Hand of God (writers) have given him commanders that aren’t good enough to be Lts.
And Mouten isn’t really using mixed tactics. Props for seeing the possibilities and not panicking.
Agreed with most comments on this… it is true that Gyou is screwed if they don’t end this quickly, but military commanders have to be disciplined. If they lose because they rush the engagement, Gyou is still screwed, along with their whole state.
Allow me to defend Mr. Hara- Riboku’s lieutenants do seem not so competent, but remember, his second in command, Kesha, was killed by Shin some time ago. And I think his third and fourth also feel during the course of this series. It makes perfect sense to me that the guys he had to raise up in their stead aren’t as strategically brilliant. Especially since he couldn’t muster all the forces he needed because of both the battle to the north of him (a different army invading a different part of the state), the moron king, and the haste with which this army was assembled.
Sorry you have it all wrong, Ousen has the time and patience on his side since he needs a long protracted war to allow the city to run out of food and then the army there to attack and take a easily fortafible/defendable site. Riboku has to attack quickly, defeat Ousen and then make it over quickly to liberate that city before it falls, right now Riboku needs to find a way to punch through and win. This is why he was willing to take the gambit of attacking the weak left side with hopes that Kisui’s army would punch through and make it to the city to provide additional relief.
In my opinion Riboku has a harder battle to fight than Ousen which is why Ousen can used unorthodox tactics to keep him off balance.
Remember the longer the battle take the better off it is for Ousen as time is his friend rather than his enemy.
Kisui’s reaction is in no way ‘textbook’. They show he never read a textbook.
No consideration of terrain, no scouting, no flank guards, over commitment of forces, poor command & control.
And at each step he assumes that Mouten is extremely simple. He found retreat to be clever.
Not sure why everybody keeps blaming Kisui tho… He is in charge of 30k soldiers against 5k, and they cannot delay this battle, so ofc when riboku gives him command to begin the battle it means to push his side considering the advantage he has.
He does that, despite Mouten’s hit & run tactics, he is still doomed as he cannot stop Kisui’s advance. Yeah yeah, Kisui decides to commit his entire forces too early and now he will be punished, but what is happening at the centre?
Unless Ousen’s army happens to be made of Hulks, he will suffer tremendous looses for this commitment to kill Kisui, and even if he succeds, the diference in numbers will remain or even increase because that would mean Riboku didn’t care to send reinforcements to a battle between 30k vs 20-25k. Even if Kisui falls Qin will take tons of looses to achieve that.
The only chance of coming out of this gamble on top is if Riboku make a mistake and send reinforcements to late to be effective, but we are talking or Riboku here, he probably had some units moving between wings in order to support them, that or he will teleport them, but they will be there.
Ofc, at the end of the day, if Kisui manages to get out of there alive, he will have to move very carefull from now on. That would be a win and is probably what Ousen is aiming for.
Interesting. I do think, however, Kisui overcommitted by leading his cavalry. That was his big mistake to me… I don’t think Riboku can stand to lose commanders. Men? Absolutely… which is why I think it was too soon for Kisui to personally lead a charge. He started playing Qin’s game instead of his own.
If he dies now, their formations will be in tatters, and whoever has to try to reform their lines will have a hell of a task.
@oshit
geez, when I was mentally prepared for a monday release, you gave us the chapter on saturday itself. and..
we’re Truly grateful for that.
Lol same, i am really caught off guard with this release. Thanks oshit sama
I actually checked this on Saturday and ignored it since I thought it was the previous Chapter.
I Always figured Ousen’s best plan was: get Mouten to harrass the left until the enemy fully committed, then hit them with a surprise flank attack. Obviously, Mouten’s tiny force was insufficient alone, Their job was to whittle down the cavalry and position the enemy infantry where Ousen wanted them.
At first I thought the Hi Shin would be the second wave unit, but now I’m wondering if they’ll see action for a while at all.
One of Riboku’s disadvantages here is of his own making: he and his men have very little intel on the habits of Ousen*, The Mountain people, Kanki (because he has no set habits), shin, Moten, or Ouhon. However, our heroes are in the opposite position, understanding all their targets very well, having fought them before.
*in case your’e wondering, Ousen never went all out, they know him as a wiley defender. He is now attacking. They won’t know his M.O.
And this is a problem Riboku accidentally made when he killed Ouki, who otherwise would have been leading the attack. Unfortunately for him, there were a few geniuses in reserve.
How will Riboku respond to not being the unseen mastermind for once? This is the first time he’s not the one setting the pace.
well, If you think for a while you may see that gramp’s who was left by mouten could be the responsible for eliminating the reamining scouts that mouten didn’t eliminate (the ones in the front) of kisui since the ones to the left had already been eliminated by Mouten in his first attack.
But now I believe it will be a move of riboku to make mouten retreat while giving the advantage to kisui who will probably be fighting shin who was sent to take his head.
Riboku Must also make his center advance quickly to make pressure in Ousen for a retreat and call it a Day, probably losing kisui and many men but now having a better view of just the monster Ousen is
There are more forces beyond the Makou Army – 5-10K troops.
That should be Shin & Kyoukai – that is 5K + 3K = 8K (midway between 5K & 10K) soldiers.
The way I read it was that after The 5k Makou Army then there is another 5k cavalry and then there was a 5k to 10k infantry behind them all.
None of these numbers reflect the HSU. For clearly the way HSU is set up they have more infantry than cavalry and there infantry do not number up to 10k.
The Makou army is 20,000 strong is you look at the deployment chart in 519 so I sense Shin isn’t around…5k + 5k + 5-10k pretty much sums up the Makou army 🙂
I am of the idea that Riboku has already set his plan to counter Ousen attacks to the Kisui army (probably by using Futei as someone poited out), but even then Mouten had proved to be much more effective than what both Riboku and Kisui were able to predict. Plus Ousen didn’t play around at all by sending some half ass reinforcement to the left.
He sent in an army of 20k soldiers, which is effectively enough to wipe out the Kisui army.
True, Riboku was aware that Kisui’s side of the battle represented some tactic he needed to watch, so he may react quickly. however, he won’t have a bird’s eye view, so he may not get the news in time. In previous chapters, he seemed to be taking a ‘wait an see’ approach to the battle on the left, so there’s a good chance that by the time he figures out what’s happening, its already too late. Ousen is fully aware what’s happening, so Ousen can counter Riboku’s counter, in theory.
Re: Shin’s involvement in this battle on the left, I am curious if he will be involved. If I were forced to guess, I’d still guess now. Because if I’m Ousen, I need the Hi Shin unit fresh, because eventually Riboku will play an ace that only Shin has ever been able to trump. You don’t want him tired and cut when the ace shows up…
er, no. I’d guess “no” now 🙂
Ousen’s left-flank plan isn’t exactly genius level at the moment. Basically he baited the enemy and surprised them with a larger force than they were immediately expecting. He simply made it appear that the left flank was disproportionately weak. I don’t think that’s a surprising “trap” to any extent.
My guess is that Ousen’s left flank strategy is to force Riboku’s next move to be predictable. Ousen knew Riboku would be likely to take the bait given his clearly stronger position (defending with a bigger army, home advantage and his considerable talent/experience). Rather than wait for a potential problematic “trap” to be exposed during a critical stage of the battle, Riboku chose to take on the “trap” early, at full strength.
I would guess that Riboku already predicted that Kisui would encounter more than just 5K troops, and sent the Kisui army in with a plan in mind. And Ousen should know that Riboku would have a suitable counter, which might be to send in the center army to support Kisui and/or attack Qin’s center army, which is clearly substantially weaker now that they’ve committed something like 20K troops to the left.
The question now is how will Ousen deal with Riboku’s next move…and next-next move. I fully expect that Ousen has already planned many steps ahead.
I’m hoping the author will surprise us with Ousen’s brilliance.
Riboku isn’t going to let Kisui be whittled down, the next flank will likely be reinforcements from the zhao side. In fact, it’s not impossible for the battle to devolve into sets of increasing larger forces sent to that singular battle, making it both unconventional and also giving Ouhon who started furthest to the left the final charge/blow at the end.
It’s sorta weird if Riboku just left Kisui out to dry since he spells it out right at the beginning that Ousen leaving 5,000 there was a trap either way and knowing that to not expect something to go from and hence plan accordingly…
I honestly feel that like the Renpa vs Mou-Gramps to make the most sense since he knew that something would eventually happen given that Renpa was the take the Initative sorta guy so he planned to make sure in case of an attack he had insurance.
It’s sorta weird if Riboku just left Kisui out to dry since he spells it out right at the beginning that Ousen leaving 5,000 there was a trap either way and knowing that to not expect something to go from and hence plan accordingly…
I honestly feel that like the Renpa vs Mou-Gramps to make the most sense since he knew that something would eventually happen given that Renpa was the take the Initative sorta guy so he planned to make sure in case of an attack he had insurance.
no, that’s not the problem here. See kisui expression that 5k cavalry heading his way with dumbfounded expression? he should at least guess that much and anticipate it.
Tks so much from vietnam 😀
Gaaaaah! I didn’t see this coming!! Thank you so much!!
Lightning fast. Thanks guys!
Thanks a lot!
Is Makou the smuggest man in all of Kingdom? I don’t think he’s changed his shit eating grin even once since debut.
& Bajio always has his arms folded – even when riding a horse. The exception is when he is fighting. Then it’s twin swords.
Thank you for early release guys 😀
Thanks for the early update !
Though how is Kisui taken by surprise and surrounded by upwards of 15,000 in the *middle of a plain* without him even noticing? Even if they came from Ousen’s central army, Kisui should have noticed them with plenty of time remaining for him to reorganize his troops into a defensive position once again. I hope the author explains the details in the next chapter because Kisui failing against this tactic sounds unrealistic for someone of his caliber.
well, If you think for a while you may see that gramp’s who was left by mouten could be the responsible for eliminating the reamining scouts that mouten didn’t eliminate (the ones in the front) of kisui since the ones to the left had already been eliminated by Mouten in his first attack.
But now I believe it will be a move of riboku to make mouten retreat while giving the advantage to kisui who will probably be fighting shin who was sent to take his head.
Riboku Must also make his center advance quickly to make pressure in Ousen for a retreat and call it a Day, probably losing kisui and many men but now having a better view of just the monster Ousen is
Its been a while since we saw a terrain map of this field of battle, but weren’t there hills dotting the space between the center and left? I think Ousen chose the left for the major engagement/surprise attack because the terrain could be used to obscure troop movements…
Exactly – it’s like they are fighting in the next room.
If successful, they potentially hit the Riboku’s Center Army flank while Ousen advances. This makes Riboku try to pivot his forces while being hit – or at least threatened – on two sides.
When something like this happens, It usually ends up being reported too late. Mainly because it wasn’t anticipated at all.
Same thing was shown to have happened in one of the previous chapters when the first wave of the Mouten army Flanked them.
So it won’t be exaggerated to say the report came in late especially when the whole armys attention is focused somewhere else.
Thanks very much !
Thanks for the chapter
Thanks Turnips!
What a great an engaging episode this is, Thank you for the subs Turnips
wow , ousen , i’d like to see what’s​ the riboku’s prediction​.
Thank you for the early chapter
General comment- people keep suggesting various commander’s response times and ability to be caught off guard is a flaw of the series. Perhaps… but then again, we’re all used to the modern age, where in movies and real life, generals are set up with command centers that have satellite feeds, recon drones, etc.
None of these guys have that! People are saying Riboku should have noticed the column of dust- perhaps. But isn’t it too simple to assume he could see a bunch of dust in the air and come to a specific conclusion about troop movements of the enemy? Two armies are meeting. probably, in every ten-second interval, there are a million foot steps being taken. Dust is everywhere.
And yes, there are scouts, but the scouts have to first see what’s happening, then send a signal. Kisui is cut off visually from Riboku, so they can’t use flags. The scout will have to ride back to base camp, find Riboku, explain, then probably ride again with specific orders for whomever Riboku sends to mop up Kisui’s mess. By the time all that happens…
I guess my point is, in this era, no general can be completely aware of all aspects of the field. If the generals were able to do so in Kingdom, I’d never have gotten this deep into it in the first place!
I think there was a saying that came about in the age of this sort of warfare. Something like: battle plans are always perfect until the enemy shows up.
There’s another series which likened being a commander on a field to playing blindfolded chess… because you can’t actually see what’s happening.
Thank you!
Looks like what I predicted is correct. The way Ousen form his “deep” formation is to mask shin and Makou to hit kisui but it wasn’t at their arse while chewing on Mouten. tsk… But since Riboku knows it a bait, he should have sent “some” men there. ex. the noisy girl.
Thank you for Kingdom
Thank you very much!
Is anyone disappointed with Riboku’s strategy? Why use a standard formation against a unconventional one?
For example, instead of having the Kisui army on the right, why didn’t they instead put in a very mobile force of 10K troops and reallocate the other troops elsewhere? Like perhaps a 50K – 60K – 10K formation? And instead of going after the “bait”, attack from the left to go after Qin’s right?
Thanks for the chapter and Thanks for your efforts turnipfarmers. You are amazing guys.
Quality over quantity. Thats the reason Qin did not fall on Kankoku Pass against coalition army. I think Riboku was aware of that so he called coalition army to finish Qin but it failed.
Gyou siege was a surprise for Zao. They were not expecting something like that, now they are a bit panicked. After conquering Retsubi ,Ousen said “so thats how it is .. Riboku..” (c509 p19) then vanished and went to scout Gyou and took a map then come out with a plan. Ousen knows what he is doing but Riboku is still blind against Ousen.
lol, now we are convinced that kisui is an idiot for not expecting that obvious ambush. Riboku once said that he found hidden talent in kisui which is nothing at all!
Kisui should have pinned 5k mouten with 10k his army (batei included) then 20k should move to flank qin center.While riboku should started engaging the center and the left so there will be no reinforcement coming from the center, rather from qin reserve unit. seriously, why should he afraid for the vast grassland offer no chance to ambush a man his calibre.
I thought this will be a battle of artrittion while placing right man in the right place, now the manga make it a battle of ‘shock’ offensife battle that will decide a battle in instant moment.
Sweet.
Thanks a lot for the chapter!! Its getting hotter in this war!
Can we expect an early release this week also ???
ITS MY BIRTHDAY hope chap come out all i want
no lie its really my birthday so please it will make my day