As a staff advisor of the Heyang Dominance Mansion, Fang Tianqing shared honor and loss alike with his lord Chu Tianming, and while worried, he was also the first to offer a countermeasure.
Relying solely on the manpower and resources of Heyang County to deal with Great Xia was impossible, so if they wished to pass the Landgrave's trial and vie for the position of Little Landgrave, they had to open up a new path, feint in the east and strike in the west: overtly dispatch one hundred thousand troops to march south from the Jiuqu Blood Corridor in a feigned assault on Great Xia, while covertly concentrating Heyang's elite forces to advance westward in a real attack on Cai Qiu—this was the response strategy he devised for Chu Tianming.
Looking back now, this stratagem of his could be called supremely brilliant.
At the start of the year, he entered the Xia Camp alone, lobbied Great Xia Minister Xia Chuan, and took East River City without expending a single soldier.
