“Oftentimes in war what matters more isn’t who is more courageous or who has a better head for tactics and strategy. Battles are all too often decided by the commander that was more capable of adapting to the situation they were in.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

“Make sure to write a long and detailed complaint to the Imperial Master of Arms about the quality of his disciples later, Zahira,” said Leung Hua-Jeong after he watched the duel which their Imperial champion lost badly in. There was naturally no point about scolding the dead man, but he sure could complain to the man who trained said champion.

Hua-Jeong always felt that the Imperial Master of Arms was far too boastful and arrogant and never liked the man, anyway.

“As you command, Long Jiangjun,” replied Zahira from beside him. The young woman was dutiful as always. Like him, she was not particularly inclined towards the Imperial Master of Arms either, the latter being a nobleman who got in the good graces of the Emperor and attained his position due to the acclaim his skills with the arts martial had gotten him.

The Imperial Master of Arms had trained several disciples over the Emperor’s reign so far, and while they had shown skill in spars, none of them had yet to be blooded. Today’s duel was the first time they had one of the students of the Imperial Master of Arms take the field – the man had been in the south with Hua-Jeong prior to this – and engage in a fight with their life on the line.

That said disciple failed miserably and was killed by an opponent who was clearly less trained for duels and more for battlefield combat was a rather damning result. Good thing they kept things quiet so that the man’s failure and demise didn’t really affect the morale of the soldiers, otherwise Hua-Jeong would have sent more than just scathing words back to the Imperial Master of Arms.

Once the duel was over, troops from both sides advanced forward. From the Imperial side, the troops that were sent out first were units composed of soldiers who were part of the debacle in the east but managed to escape. Sending them out to fight was to give them an opportunity to reclaim their lost honor and to return the humiliation they suffered to the enemy.

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None of the true elites Hua-Jeong brought with him or the cavalry were committed yet to the assault, and instead they were kept in the reserves. From the looks of things, his enemies did much of the same, sending only their weaker soldiers instead of the stronger ones he encountered in the southern battlefield as well.

For a moment, it appeared as if the Imperial troops were about to lure the enemy to overextend themselves. The enemy’s left and right wings were notably weaker and less skilled compared to the troops that held their center, so the officer commanding the Imperial troops had pretended to be pushed back in the center to lure the enemy to come after them.

Unfortunately, the enemy commander noticed the developing situation before the Imperial troops managed to lure them far enough to exploit the forming gap between their center and flanks, and swiftly retreated back to match their allies. The maneuver caused the battle to result in a stalemate where neither side managed to get the advantage over each other, which was not ideal, but something Hua-Jeong could accept.

After all, the Imperial Army had more troops compared to their opponents. A war of attrition was to their benefit as they would be able to rotate their fighting troops better, giving those behind more chances to rest. He knew that his opponent was unlikely to allow such a situation to develop, however.

The northern detachment’s loss in the east was a heavy one, with approximately forty thousand soldiers captured or killed. The group that got the worst of that loss was the cavalry, who had taken heavy losses. Out of Hua-Jeong’s twenty thousand or so cavalry, five thousand were what he brought with him, while of the rest, half were from the splinter group that went further north and managed to retreat unmolested. Only the remaining half were survivors of the eastern debacle, less than a third of the cavalry forces assigned to the detachment.

Hua-Jeong had faced the odd enemy cavalry with their burly beasts and monstrous chariots in the south, as those enemies had caused the southern expedition an unexpected setback right when they were about to make a final push for victory after the old general slew the enemy leader with an arrow. As such, he was understandably wary of them. While he had since discovered potential ways to counter said enemies, he had yet to find a chance to put them to the test before he left for the north.

Because of that, those tests would likely have to take place in the north, where he had less than ideal resources and troops at his disposal. None of it mattered, though. A good general would still come out the victor even when given troops of poor quality, so he would just have to make up for the general low quality and morale of the remaining troops in the north with his own capabilities and the elites he brought with him.

As the fighting progressed a bit further into the afternoon without either side managing to gain an advantage over the other, Hua-Jeong decided to spice up the day’s battle a bit rather than let it boil down to its natural conclusion of a draw with both sides returning to their camp come sundown. He beckoned Zahira Al-Nairi closer and whispered into her ear, at which the young woman nodded and left on her mount.

A few minutes later, a small group of two thousand cavalrymen rushed out from the Imperial formation with the young female general at their lead, carrying out Hua-Jeong’s command as they galloped towards the ongoing battle.