Chapter 187: Discipline and Victory
Chapter 187: Chapter 187: Discipline and Victory
Zhu Ge’s voice echoed across the ruins, lingering in the air.
The twenty-four hundred people before him stood in absolute silence.
Some clenched their fists, some had eyes rimmed with red, and some found their lips trembling, unable to speak.
Most were simple farmers who had gone their whole lives without hearing any grand philosophies.
But they understood what Zhu Ge was saying.
Perhaps they didn’t understand it all, but they grasped the core message—"one for all, and all for one"—and had at least a basic understanding of it.
"Palace Master Zhu..." Niu Tiezhu stepped forward, his voice cracking. "I, Niu Tiezhu, have never looked up to anyone in my life, but I look up to you. You’re right. We’re not fighting to rob people; we’re fighting so our families can survive."
"That’s right!" Ma San Dao stepped forward as well. "We’re from Dog Street, and we live and die by loyalty! Palace Master Zhu has shown us that loyalty, so we’ll give our lives to him!"
"We’ll give our lives to Palace Master Zhu!" someone in the crowd yelled.
"We’ll give our lives to Palace Master Zhu!" more people echoed.
"Kill the Demon Race! Reclaim our homeland!"
"I lost my grandparents when I was young, and now I’ve lost my parents. I have nothing left!"
"I have parents, a wife, and children. I have a happy life—I have everything. I will protect it all!"
"I don’t care about anything anymore! All I want is to slaughter the Demons and Spirit Monsters!"
Everyone was touched, each for their own reasons.
Zhu Ge raised his hand, signaling for everyone to be quiet.
"I don’t want your lives."
"I want you to live. Only the living can fight, protect their families, and see the day we take back our homeland."
"But to live, you must win. To win, you must have discipline."
He pointed to the bleached bones scattered among the ruins of Shayi Dam.
"Look at those bones. Those people, why did they die? Was it because they weren’t strong enough?"
"No. Shayi Dam had five people in the Second Realm and over a dozen in the First Realm, yet they still died. Why?"
No one answered.
But everyone seemed to be deep in thought.
"Because they had no discipline."
It was an absolute, almost simplistic judgment, but Zhu Ge had to frame it that way to stress the importance of unquestioning obedience.
"When the Demon Beasts came, they each fought for themselves, with no unified command, no unified formation."
"Some wanted to defend, some wanted to run, some wanted to fight to the death, and some wanted to surrender. And the result? They were picked off one by one by the Demon Beasts. Not a single one escaped."
"That is the consequence of having no discipline."
He paused, then said, "Do you know the difference between an army and a rabble?"
"Discipline!" Niu Dadan shouted from the crowd.
"Yes, that’s right. Discipline." Zhu Ge looked at Niu Dadan and nodded. "A disciplined army of a hundred can defeat a thousand. An undisciplined mob of a thousand can’t even beat a hundred."
"Why? Because discipline uses formations to weave the strength of countless individuals into a single, powerful force."
"This force isn’t one plus one equals two. It’s one plus one equals three, or five, or even ten."
"Think about it. A single chopstick is easy to break, but a bundle of chopsticks can’t be broken. Discipline is the thing that turns you into that bundle."
Zhu Ge then called for volunteers to demonstrate what it meant to focus one’s strength.
He had ten men each throw a punch at another ten men, one on one.
Everyone was completely unharmed.
Then, under Zhu Ge’s command, the ten men focused their attack on a single person from the other group.
By the time the fourth fist landed, the man being struck collapsed.
This demonstration made everyone understand the need for absolute obedience to commands.
’How could swinging punches wildly compare to focusing them all on one target under Zhu Ge’s command?’
’And why was Zhu Ge the one to give the commands?’
’Because Zhu Ge was the smartest and the strongest!’
’Because Zhu Ge could lead them to victory!’
"But Palace Master Zhu," a young Soldier raised his hand to ask, "back in our villages, we fought the Demon Beasts every man for himself, and we still managed to win."
Zhu Ge looked at him and asked, "How many times did you win?"
"Once or twice, I guess." The young Soldier scratched his head.
"And how many people did you lose?" The young Soldier fell silent.
Zhu Ge answered for him: "Those one or two times you won, didn’t you lose a lot of people? Wasn’t it a victory bought with human lives?"
The young Soldier lowered his head and said no more.
"In your villages, you had no choice. When the Demon Beasts came, not fighting meant death, so you had to throw everything you had into the fight."
"You might win by fighting desperately, but the cost is too great. Every death shatters a family."
"But in an army, it’s different. With discipline and formations, you can achieve a greater victory at a much smaller cost."
"A battle that would have cost a hundred lives to win might only cost ten with discipline, or maybe even none at all."
"That is the meaning of discipline: to keep you alive, and to ensure you win!"
"Palace Master Zhu," a man said, cupping his fist. "I served in the Jianshui City Guard for three years, so I know how important discipline is. But I have a question. Most of us here have never been soldiers. Some can’t even tell their left from their right. How are we supposed to have discipline?"
Zhu Ge looked at him and asked, "What’s your name?"
"Name’s Zhang Laoshu," the veteran said with a grin. "It means ’Honest Zhang,’ but I’m not always so honest. I used to swipe wine from the City Guard barracks."
A wave of laughter rippled through the crowd, and the atmosphere lightened a bit.
Zhu Ge smiled too. "Zhang Laoshu, you’re right. Most people here haven’t been soldiers. They can’t tell left from right and don’t know the first thing about drill."
"But that’s okay. We can learn. We’ll learn as we march, and we’ll learn as we fight."
"What if we can’t learn?" someone asked.
"If you can’t learn, you’ll practice. You’ll practice until you get it," Zhu Ge said. "But there is one rule: until you’ve learned, you must obey my commands."
"When I tell you to go left, you go left. When I tell you to go right, you go right. You don’t need to make your own judgments. You only need to obey."
"What if Palace Master Zhu’s command is wrong?" someone else asked.
Zhu Ge looked at him and said seriously, "My command might be wrong. But on the battlefield, right or wrong, it must be executed. Because hesitation is more deadly than a wrong command."
"So, trust me."
The crowd fell silent.
No one had ever spoken to them so clearly, so calmly, and in such detail as Zhu Ge had.
It seemed that all the powerful people they had met before were elites who were born looking down on peasants like them.
But Zhu Ge was different.
Very different!
Zhao Tieshan was the first to step forward, cupping his fist. "Palace Master Zhu, I, Old Zhao, trust you! You say how we fight, and that’s how I’ll fight!"
"I trust you too!" Ma San Dao added.
"Me too!"
"Me too!"
"Same here!"
One after another, more and more people stepped forward to pledge their support.
"Good. I will not let any of you down!" Zhu Ge declared, looking at them as a warm feeling spread through his chest.