Way of Overlord-Chapter 628: The Khan Method

But the battle between the mountain tribes and the people below the mountain has tilted favourably to the people below the mountain.

This is just progression.

Those in the eastern side of the border grows with each battle and it is their turf.

It is just like how when cavalry goes to the mountain.

Even if there is tens of thousands of cavalries going to fight the mountain people, they would be defeated.

Yindu warlords once sent such an army toward the mountain trying to eradicate the mountain tribes.

What happens was that the army was crushed

This is because that is the mountain people turf.

They breathe the mountain air, and they know the forest of that mountain like their own backyard

When the steppe people go to the mountain, the steppe people loses, when the mountain people climbed down the mountain and fight in the Steppe, the Steppe wins

But Dama changes all of this.

Whether he had learned mountain people tactic or not, Chadha doesn’t know.

But he managed to defeat the mountain people on the mountains.

But that was not the reason why Chadha think he was incredible.

It was that he subdues them.

Subdue, not kill.

All of the eastern chief when they fight against the mountain people, would kill these mountain people.

There is deep blood feud among the people of the eastern side of the Steppe with the mountain people.

But Dama even under the insistence of his elders, subdue them and incorporated them

This is unusual for an eastern border tribe to do.

And since then he had reiterated the position of Yan and the Yan people as an enemy

Common people could not see it but how could Chadha who is adept at the use of tribal politics could not see it

It is just redefining enemies and friends.

The mountain tribes have been the boogeymen of the eastern tribes. Now, the boogeymen are Yan people and the Yan dynasty

And Yan people is a great target.

If there is one group of people of the Steppe hated the most after the mountain tribes it would be the Yan people.

This hatred of mountain tribes is most apparent on the eastern border tribes.

But this only works for eastern border tribes that lives inside the Southern Great Steppe

Dama chooses a different enemy to focus on.

And this method works.

The mountain people could not ride a horse as well as the people of the Steppe, but they have sturdy body and they are a great infantry.

Supplied them with large spears and shield and they are the sturdiest force to fight against cavalry.

Hence, why the tribes around Esbizuk tribe easily crumbles the moment that Dama leverages these mountain people into his tribe

Then there is the betrayal. All of Dama deeds shows that he had the determination to forge a new path.

Regardless of whether he would win or lose in the confrontation later, he had created a legacy and he is a hero

Then there is Aeryon.

This is a chief unlike any other that Chadha had ever seen.

And he is the likeliest candidate for the throne of the sole overlord of the Southern Great Steppe

One thing is clear, he carses about his reputation.

Why?

Because this is a man that wanted to create a legacy.

An enduring legacy.

People like this have a vision for the future.

Chadha remains silent in the tent after his cough and his sons could only wait. After a while, there is only sigh from Chadha.

"Chalik, you must try to appease the allied chiefs and their tribes" Suddenly Chadha begin giving orders

"Aeryon is different from other chiefs. He is one that attack heart and minds before his army even arrives. His army alone is powerful enough. Add that with his strtatgey, rarely there is a worthy opponent for this rising force"

Chadha sighed

Aeryon is one of his enemies.

And the only enemy that truly matters to him.

Because standing between him and the legacy of splitting the Southern Great Steppe into two is Aeryon.

And standing between Aeryon and his vision of unifying the Southern Great Steppe is him and his alliance.

Dama could be persuaded as he probably would see the expedition to the south more.....promising

Aeryon however, while his rhetoric seems the same as Dama, he is not as fierce towards the Yan people.

Instead, what he emphases in most of his lectures and words, are the desire to unify.

He clearly does not mean unifying Yan lands. There is only one place that needs unifying. And that is the Great Steppe.

At first Chadha like many others, thought he would stop when he reached that status of a large tribe

After all, overlords come and go in this land.

There would always be someone powerful that rises and unifies the tribe an command the tribe.

But after they reached such a position, they would then focus inward. Or they would be destroyed by the calculations of many empires around them

But this time.... this time it is different.

This time there is no empire to meddle in the matters of the Steppe.

Western Zhou is in a civil war, the Yan dynasty is plagued with rebellions and rising warlords, Roma has their own problem far in the northern Steppe.

And Aeryon instead of resting with his victories and enjoy himself like so many other chiefs before him, he did not stop.

Instead, he keeps fighting and the more he fights, the prosperous his tribe became, the more he fights, the stronger his tribe become

He had mastered the ideal of supplying war with war.

He creates city and bring about the unification on the area.

Unification of ideas and belief that the Steppe should be under one banner to resist foreign aggression and to destroy the enemies of the yesteryears

Those who are brave could get a position and title, fame and fortune follow and those who are talented on other methods could also make a living

It was then that Chadha understood Aeryon.

This is a man who has a bigger ambition. That was why when Chadha pieces it all together, any goodwill between them has vanished.

Because Chadha knows for Aeryon vision to succeed, Chagai tribe must relinquish control.

Chadha himself is not averse in relinquishing control.

But there is a chance here.

And he would be a fool not to take this chance

If he could split the world into two, then as long as he slowly dismantle the tribes on the west, by the time Aeryon and Dama fight each other, the winner would be weakened enough, that the west could attack Aeryon or Dama and force them to abide by this agreement

If this were to happen, Chagai tribe could last for a few hundred years just by this legacy

That is why there is some secret letters he sent to Aeryon and Mayeux, guaranteeing that if they split the world into Chadha would never attack the east.

And he meant it.

Unlike Aeryon, what Chadha seeks was the survival and prosperity of his tribe. Attacking and subduing the other tribes is just a mean to an end

Legacy for his tribe.

Self-preservation is the most important to him.

"Aeryon has many methods of destroying a tribe. But one he commonly uses is destroying the unity before destroying armies. It was like he had learned from Yan"

If one only read the battle reports and trusted the stories, one would only think Aeryon came with his army, charge into a tribe and then won

The narration is simple, the narratives is simple, the story is also simple

It gave the idea that Aeryon army is simply so superior that anyone that fought them were destroyed

But it does not capture the whole truth.

Those who observe better could see that even before Aeryon arrives at a certain tribe, that tribe has been weakened.

He attacked them head on but before that, he uses many methods.

He exploits rivalries between clans, bribe or threaten lesser chief.

For the chief he could bribe, he bribe them with titles and position, for those who could not be bribed, he threatened.

Of course, as his tribe become bigger and his army become larger, these methods is not employed that much

He also uses things like offering mercy to those who surrender early and promising loot and status to the defectors.

Many tribes collapsed from the inside before the first arrow was even fired. That is the method of Aeryon.

As for his battle toward the west, this is an anomaly. Not that the war itself an anomaly, it is this is the first time Aeryon truly formalized battle declaration.

When he was small, the attacks were sudden and brutal,, a lightning raid because it is as swift and brief as the lightning in the sky

He also employed night raids.

When the defenders are at their leisure moment, when their guards are down, that is when Aeryon attack.

It is quite confusing and the pace is sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes lulling the enemy into a false sense of security, sometimes pressured them until they became too tense.

And one of the most favourite tricks of the Khan army is attacking camps while herds were grazing

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