Kingdom - Ch. 782 - The Path of the Supreme Commander

[havelmom]

I'm so confused right now
it doesn't help that the Qin and Zhao armies all look the same
also, introducing 10 character each chapter doesn't really help

 

[maxiusagi]

de-denrimi assassin squad bros

 

[Bogdan6222]

That Shibashou dude is actually Funny Valentine

 

[2hot4you]

so now the enemy general is caught in a triangle and can just be ganked from every side, how is that a good strategy?

 

[Korvalus]

People keep bashing Riboku's strategy but, if you think about it, it's quite sound.

First he took out Hi Shin, a unit which has shown more than capable to wreck or disrupt his plans often by being unpredictable and highly mobile by tying them and the Gyouku Hou in situations where they cannot retreat to provide support (losing a flank is a disaster, and Riboku is too much of a threat to ignore). The left flank with Yotanwa is also swamped on their own battle, so there's that too.

In the center, if you remember, there was a full advance in Zhou's side, which means all units would get into battle sooner or later (that's why Shibashou seemed to appear out of nowhere, he was just behind the other units and had just arrived). With the different Qin units tied in attrition battles (probably their worst situations while being in numerical disadvantage), this means that there's a road directly to Ousen's whittled unit for Shibashou to use unimpeded and attack him (and meaning that Shibashou looks more like a "combat" general instead of a "strategist" general, it's not without basis). Simply put, Zhou's units has to hold long enough for Shibashou to kill Ousen. But it's not without risks.

The first one, is Shin taking Riboku out. But there's the catch: it's a siege battle. Those things require preparations and even then they're not Shin's forte. It will cost Shin time, which is what Riboku wants. Another is Youtanwa winning in her flank and going to the help of the centre, but her match is a hard one (strategist + knowledge of her tribes + grudge). Second-to-last is one of Qin's center units winning/breaking off their fights and going to provide support to Ousen or the other units, but I guess Riboku thought about it and put bad match-ups for them.

But the biggest one is that, ultimately, the strategy IS simple. It's not an incredibly convoluted plan with multiple layers of deception (this time, maybe one or two at most), but a relatively simple one which relies in putting Ousen in a checkmate while nobody is able to do anything to avoid it. But somebody who's used to being crafty, making plans, and generally being a magnificent bastard and had the time and position to see the big picture would probably had more than enough time to see something like that coming, see where it fails and plan countermeasures for it.

Somebody like, y'know, Ousen.

TL;RD: Riboku's plan is solid despite what everyone thinks, but simple. Ousen is too clever to fall for it without a plan on his own.

 

[Tyrosinase]

In real history, the Yuezhi Empire to the north was a far greater threat to Zhao than Qin was until around this time period. It was also similarly the biggest threat to Qin. The historical Sima Shang (Shibashou) was a Zhao general who mostly fought in the north until around the time the historical Li Mu (Riboku) dealt the Yuezhi a major defeat, ironically freeing up Qin to start their conquest of Zhao by removing this northern threat to Qin itself.

The Qin conquest of China was actually made possible by the collapse of the Yuezhi and the rise of the Xiongnu under their great leader Touman around 224 BCE, culminating in the founding of the Xiongnu Empire in 220, the year immediately after the founding of the unified Chinese Empire under Qinshihuang (Ei Sei). By a funny coincidence in history, Touman himself then lost his life to the Xiongnu's greatest leader Modu (Baghatur) in 209, just in time for China to again be "safely" embroiled in civil war. If Modu hadn't launched his coup then spend the next half-decade defending his claim to the Xiongnu throne, perhaps the Han Dynasty would have been crushed in infancy by a nomadic invasion.

The historical Sima Shang was in fact spending most of his time fighting the Yuezhi and Xiongnu in the north until the historical death of the historical Pang Nuan (not in a duel with Shin) and the turmoil of the Zhao succession forced Li Mu to summon him south to help fight Qin. The northern army of Zhao was historically the strongest army Zhao had, because they'd spent the entire time fighting militarily superior northern nomads rather than the qualitatively poorer peasant armies of other Chinese states.

So yeah, Shibashou the Zhao grand general is appearing in Zhao's central theater almost the way he would have in history. In history he was present much earlier, though.

I'm not reading the second half of that. Reading china history is spoiler lmao

 

[reishiki]

Shibashou rocking twintails to the big battle, the epitome of 'moe'.

 

[Rosen_Ritter]

So it turns out Riboku's current strategy is to simply leave the field and have Shibashou take charge. By doing so he had the Qin face off against his equal whom they had never encountered before, and they reacted very poorly to the change.

It's pretty smart because the goal is disorientation from a enemy that is not able to adapt to sudden changes. RBK is reserving his personal forces for later after SBS's full might is displayed. The problem I have with it is that this plan simply relies purely on all the generals and SBS just being Houken OP and nothing more. Strategy or not, no tactic of their own are noteworthy and they're powerful simply because they can kill soldiers easily. It's just another plan where RBK throws powerful and plenty of soldiers at his problem, just that this time he can send a army of Houkens instead of just one that happened to 'wander' into the battlefield to conveniently protect RBK in time. They better show off something unique otherwise this is just crap writing.

 

[KDragonuv]

ima take a break cuz wtf are these short chapters

 

[Konrad2]

Thanks for the scanlation.

 

[tave49]

ok, after mostly finishing my reread of the whole manga, I have to issue a formal apology to riboku. The guy isnt as exaggerated as it seems. What happens is that in a lot of battles, the people under him will come up with good strategies, and then their opponents will give all the credit to riboku. You see it happen a few times in several battles.

One of the more extreme cases of this is how Riboku is seen as a master of information, when in actuality it turns out he has a really good intel guy, You Ka (Ri Shi's superspy who is a double agent). You could actually say that the only reason riboku's cage plan that got kanki killed only succeeded because of how good his intel team was as keeping any info from leaking out.

Shunsuiju is another example. He tends to be a crucial part of many of Riboku's victories, and its pretty clear that Shunsuiju tends to make up his own plans instead of listen to direct orders, since his methods are much more underhanded than riboku's usual plans (burning heki's rations in shukai) (poisoning the wells in the town heki rested at... poor heki keeps getting owned by this guy!).

And i think the reason all his subordinates give all the credit to him is because that makes him much more of a legendary figure, so the other nations fear him, and by extension zhao, a lot more.

 

[hi-shincommanderlee]

Going as it usually does with Riboku making the first critical move. But remember we have yet to see Ousens true martial might. I think this would be a good time for Hara to display that.