“First things first: my robes do not equal a declaration of war, and I believe to suggest so is, frankly speaking, ridiculous. I am wearing it in the private setting of this council, where none but our own sect’s elders and their trusted assistants can see it, so you need not feel pressured by the estimation of our sect in the public eye in this regard. I chose to wear them to express my belief that the war concerns our sect and to show my sympathy for the attacked party, which this council has already agreed to support. If we decide today that our sect will not support the new alliance any further, I will accept that decision without question, as is my duty as the patriarch.

  “Now that we are at it, I believe it would be easiest to bring this matter to a vote right now. Who here supports joining the war to support the new alliance, setting aside the matter of how exactly that support will take form?”

  Liu Wei was the first to raise his arm. This had always been his goal for this meeting after all. The other elders, suddenly confronted with this question, took a moment to process it. Then, one by one, others started to raise their arms.

  With the patriarch leaving the specifics up in the air, many of the most influential members having already expressed their support and no one wanting to be the odd one out, every single elder raised their arms until Ning Bai was the only one left. After a moment of pondering, he too reluctantly raised his arm.

  “Very well, that settles it. With fifteen votes in favor and none against it, our sect will join the war on the side of the Parting Clouds Sect.”

  This had been a shrewd move by Long Zhao. It made the entire second half of Ning Bai’s complaint irrelevant and made him seem like a hypocrite for complaining about feeling forced to take a position that he himself chose to support.

  “Now for my silence during the declaration of support. You talk about our prestige as a sect, yet you pose that during that moment of rallying, I should loudly call attention to myself, only to declare that our sect does not yet have a position on the matter. Forgive me if I say so, but that would have been the greatest embarrassment I could have brought on our sect.

  “Had this been your only concern in the discussion back then, you could have spoken out about it, just as you have now. Had we decided to join the war in our discussion back then, I would have gladly taken the shame of belatedly declaring our support on myself. I would have openly signaled that my silence before had not been hesitancy of the sect, but only of my own person, for that would have been my role as the patriarch.

  “All that is to say, I wholly reject the notion that I make or preempt decisions that go beyond the scope of my duties as patriarch of this sect.”

  An elaborate and proper rebuttal, Liu Wei had to give that to Long Zhao. The truly important part came now though: how would he retaliate against Elder Bai?

  “As we have just established through a unanimous vote, our sect will join the war against the Roaring Thunder Sect. In consideration of that, I will overlook the disrespect in your attitude towards me this once. A fair warning though: do not test my patience any further. If you have remaining doubts about the adequacy of my actions as patriarch, raise them after the war has ended. That will be all.”

  That was it?

  A light admonishment for openly challenging the patriarch? That was more than lenient, as far as similar situations in this council went. A pleasant surprise, as far as Liu Wei was concerned. It seemed that Long Zhao was genuinely interested in taking this war serious and willing to leave the petty political bantering behind for the occasion.

  Ning Bai seemed to be just as surprised as him and took a few seconds before he answered.

  “I understand, Patriarch Zhao. Thank you for addressing my concerns.”

  Meixiu Xia sat up straight and got ready to speak next. Whatever her original plan for this conversation had been, Ning Bai disrupted it, and she was probably going to try and salvage it now. That was the cue for Liu Wei to preempt her by injecting himself in the discussion once again.

  “My Patriarch, in the spirit of your lenient decision, may I suggest that we agree to settle all other personal matters privately after this council has concluded and finally move to discussing the specifics of our strategy for the war now?”

  “You are right, Elder Wei, we should focus on that. Since you are perhaps our sect’s most experienced warrior, you may lead the conversation.”

  “Thank you, Patriarch.”

  That was more than he could have hoped for. Perhaps he would need to seriously reassess his opinion of Long Zhao after today. Up until now, he had always lumped him in with the likes of Meixiu Xia, as a shrewd and self-interested political thinker and done away his honorable and just demeanor as purely a fa?ade. But perhaps, there was a grain of authenticity in there that Lady Xia’s actions most certainly didn’t have.

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  Of course that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a shrewd political actor, and he remained an ideological opponent and leader of the opposing faction, but he did seem to be more reasonable than Liu Wei had believed him to be.

  “Well then, our purpose is clear: work out through what actions we can best aid the new alliance in defeating the Roaring Thunder Sect. To help the process of decision making, let me first outline the obvious criteria in the order of priority in which I believe we should evaluate them.

  “First and foremost stands reliability. We need to be as certain as we possibly can that our plan will work or, in other words, that it will lead us to victory. Any other concerns go out of the window if this one isn’t fulfilled because the entire purpose of our participation in the war builds on it.

  “Second is the matter of losses. Our strategy must naturally seek to minimize them as far as possible. Our own members have priority here, but we should also seek to reduce the losses of our allies as a secondary goal.”

  Liu Wei would also extend this thinking to civilian casualties and even enemy sect members, but he wouldn’t say that out loud here.

  “Lastly, there is the consideration of time. We should aim to end this war as soon as possible for several reasons. War interrupts the sect’s normal processes, slowing our member’s cultivation progress and our disciple’s training. This aspect also ties into the other aspects. The longer a war drags on, the more casualties it will produce on both sides and the less predictable it becomes for us. Therefore, any strategy we come up with should provide not only plans on how to fight, but also on how to end the war.

  “I hope that we all agree that we should primarily evaluate any strategic considerations based on these three criteria.”

  After assuring that there was a general sense of approval, Liu Wei continued.

  “Next, let me outline our position with the advantages and disadvantages we face.

  “With our participation in the war, our side once again outnumbers the enemy substantially. We should use that, while also making sure not to get overconfident because of it. After all, the war started out in a similar position and the Roaring Thunder Sect still managed to turn it around.

  “The fighters on both our allies’ and our enemy’s side have already fought a short, but very intense campaign. Constant battles, frequent moving and the ongoing winter will all have done their part to exhaust them and many of them will have sustained wounds. Our members, on the other hand, are fresh and healthy, giving us a marked advantage.

  “On the other side of the medallion, the previous battles will have given the participants ample experience. Our members haven’t seen proper battle in a good while, some of them have never fought at all. The Training Hall has been doing its best to mitigate this disadvantage since its restructuring, but there is only so much that voluntary training can accomplish compared to real battle. A capable command will be crucial to ensure that our warriors can fully exert their potential.

  “The last thing to consider and perhaps our most explicit advantage is that we possess the element of surprise. The Roaring Thunder Sect clearly doesn’t think that we would involve ourselves in the war, or they never would have started it to begin with. Their current war is most definitely enough to occupy them, so until the moment they make contact with our troops, they will be unaware of our participation. With how they are spreading out their forces, the information will take a good while to be passed around as well. That gives us a lot of leeway in how we approach this engagement.

  “With all of that established, let us see what we can come up with!”

  Ma Rong was the first to speak up.

  “I’m not the most strategic mind, but I personally believe that we should march to Patriarch Ye’s aid. At this point, they are probably in a terrible state of morale, which our arrival there could help raise. They still have a lot of powerful cultivators which we could work together with.”

  “That’s a bad idea. Their command structure was chaotic from the start, and we’d be worsening that problem further.”, Sun Liang commented.

  “I also dislike that plan.”, Liu Wei added.

  “It would put us in the same position that they were in from the start. How would we proceed from there? Try to march to the Roaring Thunder Sect again? That’s not a good plan of attack, as the current state of affairs proves. Mounting a separate attack seems like a better move to me.”

  “But what if their army collapses?”, Guang Lei objected, agreeing with his master.

  “We will instantly be outnumbered and out positioned.”

  Sun Liang answered, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “As Elder Rong pointed out, they are still in possession of serious forces, and Patriarch Ye is a committed leader. Their morale may be hurt, but they won’t collapse overnight.”

  “No, I think that is a real concern. Dismissing it outright would do us no good. Still, I don’t see how simply joining up with the army would provide us a good path to victory.”, Ning Bai asserted.

  “I agree that we should attack on our own, but I can’t exactly see how. We can’t be planning to just march to their sect, can we? That would also just be doing what the new alliance already tried.”, Lan Shi stated.

  “But it would split their attention in two. That is a big difference.”

  “How about intercepting their own attacks?”

  “Our armies can’t match the speed of their horses; they will always outmaneuver us.”

  “Let’s not forget about our fleet. It’s one of our greatest assets and the Roaring Thunder Sect can’t match us on the sea.”

  “But we need to defend our own territories as well. If we sail around the entire peninsula, we will leave ourselves open for attack and also completely abandon Patriarch Ye’s army.”

  “I believe that I could execute a maneuver to trap enemy divisions if I were to be put in charge of…”

  “Don’t forget about Xing Zhou’s strength. If he catches us during that, we would have to…”

  “But wouldn’t that go against our honor? We should fight them in the open instead of trying to trick them into…”

  As the debate continued and wildly bounced between the many different ideas, preferences and values of the elders, Liu Wei mostly remained silent. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t carefully listening though.

  Instead of actively participating, he was picking up bits and pieces of ideas and ordering them in his mind. As time went on, he began stringing them together, slowly weaving them into each other alongside his own opinions to form a more and more cohesive plan.