Chapter 262 Shaohua Mountain Comes to Surrender

Among the 108 Liangshan heroes, the one with the best martial arts skills must be "Jade Unicorn" Lu Junyi.

This is basically known to all and there is no doubt about it. Lu Junyi's record can also prove that he is the most powerful general in Liangshan.

However, looking at the entire Water Margin, you will find that Lu Junyi's martial arts may not be the best in the whole book, of course not taking the magician into consideration.

Because there are several people who can compete with Lu Junyi, and among these competitors, Shi Wengong is one of them.

How good is Shi Wengong's martial arts? This can be analyzed from his battle records.

Chao Gai once attacked Zengtou City, but was shot by Shi Wengong's poisonous arrow and died. Of course, Shi Wengong did not fight Chao Gai directly in this battle, so his true fighting ability cannot be seen.

When Song Jiang attacked Zengtou City to avenge Chao Gai, Qin Ming had a battle with Shi Wengong.

Shi Wengong went out to fight, and Qin Ming took over. After only twenty rounds, Qin Ming became exhausted and fled back to his camp.

However, Qin Ming did not run away, because Shi Wengong was riding a very fast horse, Zhaoye Yushizi, so he caught up with Qin Ming and stabbed him. Qin Ming fell off his horse, and if Lu Fang and others had not rescued him in time, Qin Ming might have died.

Another point to note is that Shi Wengong was defeated by Lu Junyi.

Lu Junyi defeated Shi Wengong very quickly. However, this does not mean that Lu Junyi is much stronger than Shi Wengong, because at that time, Chao Gai's ghost was haunting Shi Wengong, and Yan Qing was helping him, so Lu Junyi was able to stab Shi Wengong off his horse in one go.

Regardless of his strength, this brave warrior has come up the mountain and I can use him.

A few more months passed, and during this time, a horse thief from Zhuozhou called "Golden Retriever" Duan Jingzhu came up the mountain to offer his horses, and bandits from Qingzhou called "God of Dangerous Roads" Yu Baosi, "Stone General" Shi Yong, "Golden-eyed Biao" Shi En and others came to surrender.

These people don't have any great abilities, so there's no need to mention them.

By early summer, the Shaohuashan group finally arrived at Liangshan safely.

There are four leaders in Shaohua Mountain: "Nine-Striped Dragon" Shi Jin, "Divine Military Advisor" Zhu Wu, "Jumping Tiger" Chen Da, and "White Flower Snake" Yang Chun.

Shi Jin was originally a rebellious teenager, but when he met his mentor Wang Jin, he was transformed, learned a lot of skills, and became a brave man.

Lu Da was the only true friend he made who was helpful to him. The two of them appreciated each other, shared weal and woe, and thought about each other every day. In times of crisis, only Lu Zhishen would come to the rescue without hesitation.

But Shi Jin's abilities are actually not that great.

Even though he had a dragon soul and could improve his soul strength by "feeding dragons", he was still far behind Li Jun.

Cao Jie was very happy to train Li Jun.

He was also very proactive in training Zhang Shun.

But the brothers Zhang Heng and Tong Meng didn't have much desire.

The same goes for Shi Jin.

In the original novel, he was arrested and imprisoned many times. The first time was because he showed his bravery and committed assassination. If Lu Zhishen had not come to investigate and Liangshan had not come to rescue him, Shi Jin would probably have died.

The second time, he was naive and careless again, and walked himself into the tiger's mouth. He narrowly escaped death, and it was Liangshan that saved him.

The third time was that Shi Jin had no correct estimate of the strength of Shaohua Mountain. The four people in Shaohua Mountain, except Shi Jin, had low combat effectiveness. They usually robbed and looted, and did not have the ability to attack cities and strongholds. Now they wanted to conquer Mangdang Mountain. Obviously, they underestimated others and overestimated themselves. How could they not fail if they acted rashly? If it were not for the Liangshan group to come to the rescue, the people in Shaohua Mountain did not know how to end.

In the end, he died from Pang Wanchun's arrow, which shows that he could only be used as a general and was unable to take on important tasks.

As for generals, Liangshan has no shortage of them.

The newly conquered Shi Wengong was still idle, bored to the point of spending the whole day training with Sun Li and others on the training ground. What Cao Jie really valued was Zhu Wu, the "Divine Military Advisor".

After a welcoming banquet, Cao Jie took Zhu Wu to visit the Liangshan army.

"Brother Zhu Wu, what do you think of our Liangshan soldiers?"

"Even the Western Army has elite soldiers and strong generals, and it can't be better than this!"

"Haha, it's made with a lot of money. Brother Zhu Wu, I know you are proficient in formations, are you willing to train these elite soldiers?"

Zhu Wu's eyes were shining. Even though he had two swords hanging from his waist, he was not good at martial arts. His martial arts skills were even very low.

In the original novel, Zhu Wu's abilities were brought into play after he was recruited, when Liangshan conquered Liao, captured Tian Hu, destroyed Wang Qing, and captured Fang La.

For example, his ability to identify and crack changes in formations during the conquest of Liao was clearly far superior to Wu Yong's.

This is the most glorious moment in Zhu Wu's life since he went to Liangshan, and his importance cannot be replaced by anyone.

This is because: First, Wu Yong is good at strategies but weak at formations.

Secondly, although Gongsun Sheng was the deputy military advisor of Liangshan, apart from being a Liangshan elder and having unmatched magical powers and Taoism, he had never shown his military and literary skills to anyone, so he must have been in name only and not his forte.

Thirdly, the Liangshan troops had to be divided into two groups for the battle. Wu Yong would definitely follow Song Jiang, so someone had to assist Lu Junyi. After searching all over Liangshan for the leader, only Zhu Wu could take on this task. It was really a last resort.

Although Zhu Wu was good at battle formations, his military strategy was obviously insufficient. It was also due to his mission that he was promoted to the position of Lu Junyi's military advisor. Although he had many brilliant achievements, he also suffered many casualties due to his desperate attacks, which showed that Zhu Wu's talent was limited.

As the saying goes, clouds are in the sky and water is in the bottle. Everyone can only give full play to their strength in their appropriate position.

Zhu Wu's talent is better used in deploying troops rather than breaking the enemy's formation.

"If you don't abandon me, I will do my best to train an invincible army for you and Liangshan."

It is said that the "array formation" originated from Huangdi, who learned the "Tianyi Dunjia" from the Queen Mother of the West in order to defeat Chiyou.

Of course, this is something that cannot be verified. However, during the period when King Wu conquered King Zhou, we can find evidence of the use of formations: "The Zhou army... was stationed in Muye."

A legend and a historical fact, seemingly unrelated, but they both illustrate a "truth": in ancient times, battle formations played a decisive role in victory in wars.

First of all, the army that can be deployed must obey orders strictly. This alone makes them elite.

If you can change your formation in response to the enemy's offensive during a battle, you will be the elite among the elite.

The first thing Zhu Wu trained was Sun Tzu's ten formations: square formation, circular formation, sparse formation, numerical formation, cone formation, goose formation, hook formation, Xuanxiang formation, water formation, and fire formation.

With the help of the "formation", we can help to rally the morale of the army, unify the dispatch and command, make the best use of the "strengths and overcome the weaknesses" of the "arms", and respond in time according to the combat terrain.

After becoming familiar with the basic formations, Zhu Wu began to train in the "Eight Formations".

The formation is round inside and square outside, and is arranged in the order of the Eight Diagrams. It is real and fake, and the big formation surrounds the small formation. It can divide the enemy's strength in an instant. It can break the commonly used basic formations such as square formation, circular formation, cone formation, etc.

With the support of this formation, Liangshan's combat power will be increased by at least 50%.

This is the equivalent of restraint in the game.

(End of this chapter)