The Protectorate holds the decision-making power. However, it may also have something to do with the secret guidance and encouragement of the royal family. Except during the war, the captains of the Protectorate were in the midst of heated debates and polemics all the time. Xu Wenhu had served as a lieutenant for eight years, and every other year he would discuss matters in the Protectorate Mansion, and during that long time, he divided the captains he knew into at least eight categories.

The first group is the followers of the marching division and the co-ordinator Cao's idea that "planning decides everything". They believe that with good planning, common sense and more precise principles, they will be able to achieve the desired results. They are accustomed to using numbers to tell the story, and all those who deviate from the plan and have doubts about the results are dismissed as uneducated or have ulterior motives. Some of the officers of the Anxi Military Division, most of the officers of the Andong Military Division, and most of the officers of the Great General's Mansion belong to this category. Zhang Shanfu, whom Xu Wenhu met in the Protectorate Mansion, was such a young lieutenant.

The second category is the opposite of the first. It's like the reverse of a Jiaozi. This type of person demands improvisation and bold action. It is believed that the General's Mansion only needs to give a reasonable goal, and how to implement it depends on the situation on the battlefield, and truly excellent front-line officers will inevitably get rid of the pre-formulated plan and find a better plan. These bold activists were also proponents of the drastic expulsion of barbarians. They used to laugh at the marching division and say, "We fight with swords and arrows, and they fight with pens on maps." Most of the people in the Anbei Military Division, a part of the Baggage Division, and a small number of people in the Anxi Military Division, belonged to this faction. Xu Wenhu used to belong to this faction, but now he is ashamed of his former youth and vigor.

The third type is the Mean, which is somewhere in between. They believe that there is no doubt that genius should not be bound by planning at a time when circumstances can happen at any time, but it is also undeniable that genius is so rare. Rather than gambling on a few geniuses, it is better to rely on well-thought-out planning in advance and those principles of military use that have been proven countless times by predecessors. This school of thought advocates that you should go according to the plan under normal circumstances, but when there is a huge benefit to changing the plan, you can't stick to it. Xu Wenhu thinks that these lieutenants are talking big, but they actually have no faith.

The fourth category is even more unbearable, they do not consider the interests of the whole country, they only support the national policy that is beneficial to the battalion and the army, and anyone who wants to promote a certain national policy can be supported as long as the conditions given are good enough. Xu Wenhu thinks that the existence of these people is simply a shame for the Protector Mansion, but fortunately, there are not too many such people in the Protectorate Mansion. After all, the lieutenants still want to go further in their careers, and they don't want to be seen as unprincipled people who only seek personal interests for a small group.

The fifth group is mediocre and incompetent, who are promoted by virtue of their prestige among the sergeants. They don't have any firm opinions, and even a single resounding statement can impress these people. These people regard entering the Protectorate Mansion as the greatest achievement in their lives, and what they like most is to constantly ask questions and toss the various experts sent by the marching division. But they don't know that the people of the marching division are snickering behind their backs, they are the easiest people to be persuaded. Fortunately, in the Protectorate Mansion, there are fewer such people than those of the Fourth Faction.

The sixth category is that there are always a dozen or so captains, who are infinitely loyal to the emperor, even worshipped, who act exactly according to the emperor's intentions, and who maintain a noble silence when the emperor does not show any meaning. Their dream was nothing more than to follow the emperor on his own expedition or to summon them into the Dragon's Tooth Army. These people are likely to be new lieutenants who have just entered the Protectorate Mansion. Xu Wenhu himself went through this stage, and later, he gradually accepted the truth that everyone bears the heavy responsibility of the world.

The seventh category is the villain in Xu Wenhu's eyes, and there is only one very important thing in their eyes, that is, their own best interests. There are always two or three black sheep who shout at the Protectorate Mansion in order to attract attention, pound their chests and argue with others, and people who can't even maintain the most basic composure, and do everything possible to blame others, like rat poop that spoils a pot of soup. As the saying goes, the heads of the Prime Minister's Mansion, the generals of the General's Mansion and the captains of the Protectorate Mansion all dislike these two or three people as if they were disgusted with flies and mosquitoes, and even the battalion leaders who promoted these two or three people were also discriminated against by various armies, and often after three or five years, they launched a series of activities among the sergeants to re-elect the captains and drive them out of the Protectorate Mansion.

The eighth category is a group of intelligent and capable lieutenants, who do not easily agree with any opinion, always observe everything calmly, and strive to find the most correct way out of the fog of war and policy. This faction seems to have subconsciously maintained the balance and mutual restraint between the captains of the Protectorate Mansion. The number of people in this faction is also small, but this type of person has the most promotions to generals. Before Xu Wenhu was successfully promoted to general, he considered himself to belong to this faction.

In the Hanguang Hall of Linquan Palace, it is rare to burn all the giant candles that are as thick as children's arms. This kind of giant candle is light and tasteless, illuminating the hall as bright as day, and the Xia Emperor Chen Xuan and the five generals are in front of the huge geographical figure of mountains and rivers hanging.

Before the court discussion began, the veteran Xu Wenhu, who came in a hurry, looked a little tired and thoughtful. Lu Qingzong, the general of Anbei, was talking to Prime Minister Liu Yi in a low and enthusiastic way, Chen Xuan, Liu Yi, and Lu Qingzong were the three sharp blades of the hussars who swept the tribes along the coast of the North Sea. Xia Huang Chen Xuan coughed, and nodded to Zhang Shanfu, the general of the marching division.

Zhang Shanfu looked calm, stepped forward, looked at the old faces surrounding the map, picked up an indicator stick and stood in front of the map, and said in a deep voice: "Now I will briefly introduce the situation of the Quartet border. Now, I would like to invite you to share your opinions. The four generals, Xu Wenhu, Xiang Shi, Wu Ting, and Xie Yuan, all stopped greetings. Behind them, the guards of the Dragon's Tooth Army carefully closed the door of the Hall of Light.

Zhang Shanfu's introduction is very slow and detailed, and his voice is monotonous and clear, without any personal emotional color. On the western frontier, the princes of the Great Eclipse and the Turks had been torn apart, but the invasion and burning of the Western nations had temporarily united them, and for more than 20 years since the loss of Jerusalem, the two sides of different sects had been fighting each other, and were accumulating force to prepare for a decisive battle. In the frequent contacts and battles, the military and political systems of the two sides also penetrated each other, among them, the Roma state located in the Hercynian region between the Xia Kingdom and Lumei absorbed the Western feudal system, and was nourished by the trade between the East and the West, and its power gradually became stronger. The Romani state was now faintly the leader of the Turks and the Great Eclipse Princes, and the Sultan Praetorian Guard had 50,000 elite cavalry, and the army of the Turkic and Great Eclipse vassals who submitted to it could reach 200,000 in a concentrated manner. It also posed the greatest threat to the Lumei Kingdom, as well as the Zhenxi Fort and Haixi Harbor built by the Xia Kingdom on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

The situation with Lu Mei is sliding in a worse direction. Faced with the threat of pagan food and Turkic people, Lu Mei turned to the West for help, which was tantamount to luring wolves into the house. The feudal towns established by the Crusaders did not listen to orders at all, except for the worship of Lumei as the right one. In order to counter the threat of the infidels and the encroachment of the Crusaders, Lu Mei is strengthening its cooperation with the Rus' state. The emperor of the Lumei Kingdom is already dying, and the eldest daughter of the emperor, Princess Anna, is the most active promoter, and it is possible that Lumei will marry the Rus Kingdom. If the king of Rus supports Anna to become the empress of Lumei, their son may become the ruler of both the kingdom of Lumei and Rus, merging the wealth of Lumei with the Rus' barbarian army into a new and powerful empire.

When Zhang Shanfu said this, Xiang Shi, the general of Anbei, snorted contemptuously in his nose, and whispered to Prime Minister Liu Yi: "Litong foreign country, in my opinion, this Taiping princess with reed eyebrows has only two ends, one is sent to a nunnery, and the other is beheaded." Liu Yi smiled slightly, noncommittal. And Xie Yuan, the general of the baggage division, as always, quickly recorded in a notebook full of handwriting.

The previous king of the Rus' kingdom, Vladimir, had already forcibly married a princess of the kingdom of Lumei as the main palace of his more than 300 wives and concubines. As a result, the Rus Kingdom embraced the state religion of Lumei and was known as the Orthodox Church. Before Vladimir's death, he passed the throne to Musti in imitation of the primogeniture system of the Xia Kingdom, and this Musti actually imprisoned all eleven brothers. He strengthened his control over the Rus' regions and used Orthodoxy to force the princes to recognize him as the only king of the Rus' kingdom who was qualified to communicate with the gods. Musti took three-quarters of the country's land and wealth into the royal family, which made life extremely difficult for the people at the bottom of the Rus' kingdom, but they supported a large army. The population of the Rus' kingdom was only more than 5 million, but the royal army reached 150,000. Musti also squeezed a large amount of grain, furs, and other goods, and trafficked them south to the country of Lumei, where he rewarded the rich and all kinds of luxuries that were loyal to him. In the western part of the Rus' state, the kingdom of Poland, the principality of Lithuania, Hungary and other kingdoms were also established by force, and there were nomadic Turkic people in the southwest, and they did not take much advantage of the war. After being hindered by the Xia kingdom in his eastward expansion, Musti set his sights on the south, and his army continued to crusade against the weaker tribes in the southern part of the Rus' kingdom, hoping to incorporate these new territories and peoples into the Rus' state. He responded positively to the olive branch extended by Princess Anna of the Lumei Kingdom, wanting to put his huge army to use.

"That princess Anna is not a fuel-efficient lamp, but a couple of Musti who imprisoned her brother." Xiang Shi muttered softly.

After Zhang Shanfu introduced the general situation of the western border, he then put forward a plan formulated by the marching department to attack the Rus' state.

"In order to bring about this marriage, the Rus' kingdom must demonstrate its military might, so the best way to conquer the weaker tribes in the south is to do so." Zhang Shanfu said slowly, "Our plan is to assist those small tribes who resist the Rus' country, so that Musti will continue to add troops to the south, and when his eastern defense line is empty, the Anbei army will cross the stone mountain and attack the territory of the Rus' country, forcing Musti to raise troops to meet the battle." Then, the Anxi army set out from the port of Haixi, and after landing, the army marched along the river and attacked his royal city. ”