Greats assassinating armies

[tape]

I'm wondering if there is a consensus that Xiang Yang only fell for historical and plot reasons and that the Greats could have snuck out and assassinated 100-200 soldiers a night over the course of those 16 years and single handedly destroyed the Mongolian army.

I can't imagine Guo Jing, or any Great for the matter, wouldn't be able to easily decimate hundreds of soldiers and escape safely especially if he wielded the Dragon Sabre.

[Banh Mi]

I can't see how Wuxia poison hasn't taken biological warfare to a whole new scale. What would the Mongolians have in the face of semi decent poison experts in Wulin?

[Dimeron]

Pretty much IMO.

There is nothing stopping the greats from sneaking in every night and kill bunch of officers.

Soon enough there wouldn't be any officers left. Or if you a great that can unify the martial artists in Wulin, you can create very powerful commando teams to perform surgical strikes on enemies supplies (similar to what YG did) can completely cripple armies.

If YG and his 700 or so Wulin experts kept harnessing the Mongols there is no way in hell they could have taken XY

[Dirt]

By the time Xiang Yang fell, Guo Jing was 70. Huang Yaoshi and Yideng would have been well over 100 and we know there's a deterioration as they get older. Not to mention, they're probably dead. Even with his getting younger with 9 Yin, Zhou Botong was at least as old as Yideng and also probably dead. That just leaves Guo Jing and Yang Guo. We now (in the revised) know that Yang Guo didn't make it to Xiang Yang in time. So that just leaves Guo Jing able to kill maybe 100 or 200 more soldiers which isn't nearly enough to win. And the Mongols would have been prepared for him.

[tape]

People mentioned poison and strike teams, but just Guo Jing alone should be sufficient over a 16 year period.

200 soldiers a day 365 days a year 16 years....thats 1.168 million soldiers.

He can take off Major Chinese Holidays too.

[HuntingX]

The only flaw in the argument is you assume GJ will survive all those sorties. Even if he has a 95% survival rate (which is quite optimistic), he's still only going to last on average 20 sorties before he's killed, which is only 4000 odd men he's downed.

[tape]

The only flaw in the argument is you assume GJ will survive all those sorties. Even if he has a 95% survival rate (which is quite optimistic), he's still only going to last on average 20 sorties before he's killed, which is only 4000 odd men he's downed.

95% is generally a high percentage for most things, but I don't think it is an accurate assumption of Guo Jing versus regular soldiers at night. Unless they have thousands of sentries posted for their hundred thousand strong army, he should be able to move in and out with ease.

[HuntingX]

I would estimate 20-30% of the soldiers should sentry at night right? That's like 20-30 thousand soldiers trying to stop GJ from assassinating people. If not 95% then 99%? Even then, still only 20k people, not enough to put a serious dent in the grand Mongol Army. Also, most of the people he'd be killing are ethnic Chinese.

[Mojo Jojo]

Guo Jing doesn't even have to get close. He simply takes a bow and uses inner power to shoot Mongols at 400-1000 meters with deadly accuracy. Almost no Mongols can shoot back effectively, and the ones that can will be easily blocked or dodged. If the Mongols mass up and charge him, he simply shoots a few and goes back into the city and the city defenders can support him.

Every sortie out of the city should result in at least a dozen dead Mongols and he can do this multiple times a day with basically zero chance of the Mongols doing anything about it. If he does this at night, the odds shift even more in his favor.

Or if he has the shouting power of YD, YG, or XX, he can simply area effect hundreds of Mongols at the same time every day. If necessary, he can have HR or the Wu brothers with cotton in their ears carry large steel shields to block waves of arrows while he's doing this.

[tape]

I would estimate 20-30% of the soldiers should sentry at night right? That's like 20-30 thousand soldiers trying to stop GJ from assassinating people. If not 95% then 99%? Even then, still only 20k people, not enough to put a serious dent in the grand Mongol Army. Also, most of the people he'd be killing are ethnic Chinese.

I have no idea what percentage, any number I say would be a totally random guess.

I think it's like higher than 99% to be honest.

Like the poster above said, Guo Jing also has range at his disposal. He can shoot arrows farther than anybody in the world can, so he can stay at a range where he can hurt them and they can't hurt him. At night, even if alert, I don't see how normal soldiers can possibly dodge Guo Jing arrows.

[HuntingX]

I think we're underestimating the innovation of the Mongol army. Also, they didn't besiege Xiangyang consistently for 30-odd years. The final Xiangyang battle didn't take nearly as long, and it was done using non-traditional siege tactics. I'm not sure GJ could have stopped it, being 70 and all.

[ROI]

My take is even a top expert won't be able to do this night after night without eventually exhausting their internal energy reserves.

[Mojo Jojo]

I'm afraid that you can only innovate so far vs someone like Guo Jing. He's essentially a god compared to the average Mongol soldier, able to fire dozens of arrows a minute at huge ranges with high precision. The Mongols probably need at least in the high hundreds of soldiers massed in one area to have a chance of killing him. He has great lightness kung fu, so even if you mass enough troops, he'll just zip away. Not to mention that he has absorbed the book of Wumu and his wife is one of the great strategic geniuses of the age who can advise him on how to avoid enemy traps.

Let's be completely conservative:

1) I'm assuming he can kill 100 soldiers a day with arrows. He can probably kill more than that since his arrows are shot at probably semi-automatic speeds and his deadly range is likely 500+ meters when shooting ordinary soldiers.

2) He rests 1 out of every 5 days to recharge his inner power. This is probably more rest than he needs since what he's doing is very easy compared to fighting other wuxia experts.

3) The Mongols have 0% chance of killing him if he stays at range.

In a year, he can kill 100*292 = 29,200 soldiers. In 16 years, that's 467,200 soldiers. Plenty to kill off the entire Mongol army. It won't actually take 16 years since long before that point, I think the Mongols would get discouraged and run away. Even an elite army like the Mongols can take only so much punishment before it breaks and routs.

I think I'm being somewhat conservative with my assumptions. He can probably kill them at a faster rate and he probably needs less rest than I am assuming.

[athlee]

If I were a Mongolian and GJ and friends did what you guys are saying, I would issue a warning, for every officer killed this way I will torture/kill a thousand to death. If GJ doesn't stop it himself, I am sure there will be some desperate people who will try and kill him to stop this, especially if I make sure to leave someone alive in each family I capture, telling him this would stop if GJ stop. Emotional blackmail works wonders

Oh yea, I am also going to make sure I am deep within Mongolia or Eastern Europe

[Dimeron]

If I were a Mongolian and GJ and friends did what you guys are saying, I would issue a warning, for every officer killed this way I will torture/kill a thousand to death. If GJ doesn't stop it himself, I am sure there will be some desperate people who will try and kill him to stop this, especially if I make sure to leave someone alive in each family I capture, telling him this would stop if GJ stop. Emotional blackmail works wonders

Oh yea, I am also going to make sure I am deep within Mongolia or Eastern Europe

I don't think this kind of collective punishment works.

Sure there will be a few who get pissed at GJ, but vast majority will just get pissed at the Mongols for killing their family.

But yea, the defense method works much better, just keep shooting arrows at the great and eventually someone will get lucky and go past their defense.

[Mojo Jojo]

If I were a Mongolian and GJ and friends did what you guys are saying, I would issue a warning, for every officer killed this way I will torture/kill a thousand to death. If GJ doesn't stop it himself, I am sure there will be some desperate people who will try and kill him to stop this, especially if I make sure to leave someone alive in each family I capture, telling him this would stop if GJ stop. Emotional blackmail works wonders

Oh yea, I am also going to make sure I am deep within Mongolia or Eastern Europe

The Mongols tried something like that by driving all civilians in the nearby area toward Xiang Yang, thus forcing the Song to shoot their own people with arrows and leaving thousands dead. If this didn't force the Song to surrender, I'm pretty sure this version of emotional blackmail won't work either. In fact, it will probably just make the defenders fight harder.

The beauty of GJ's long range super archery is that there is no defense and no opportunity for a Mongol to get lucky. GJ can't be harmed by an arrow infused with inner power fired at relatively short range by GWM even while distracted and climbing a wall. Any shots by Mongol grunts at extreme range wouldn't even register with him.

[Ken Cheng]

The thing that ultimately plays in the Mongols' favor is that even if Gwok Jing is successful in repelling them 99% of the time, all they need is to be successful that *one* time and the city is theirs. Gwok Jing literally has to be flawless for the rest of his entire life.

As great as Gwok Jing was, he was only human. Humans, by definition, aren't flawless.

[Dirt]

How many people Guo Jing could kill with is arrows depends on how many arrows he had.

[tape]

The thing that ultimately plays in the Mongols' favor is that even if Gwok Jing is successful in repelling them 99% of the time, all they need is to be successful that *one* time and the city is theirs. Gwok Jing literally has to be flawless for the rest of his entire life.

As great as Gwok Jing was, he was only human. Humans, by definition, aren't flawless.

This is anecdotal logic that doesn't really come into play if we go purely by what they've shown to be able to do. Humans are by nature flawed because of what we learn in morality, religion, ethics, etc, not some fundamental law of science.

99% is generally considered high, but I will go so far to say that this method should be 99.999%. Using 99% arbitrarily doesn't give a realistic scenario in which Guo Jing could be harmed.

For him, this task could be as easy as walking a dog. I've walked dogs hundreds or thousands of times, yet I've never failed at that. My rate of failure for dog walking is 0%, at least for now.

[Dirt]

This is anecdotal logic that doesn't really come into play if we go purely by what they've shown to be able to do. Humans are by nature flawed because of what we learn in morality, religion, ethics, etc, not some fundamental law of science.

99% is generally considered high, but I will go so far to say that this method should be 99.999%. Using 99% arbitrarily doesn't give a realistic scenario in which Guo Jing could be harmed.

For him, this task could be as easy as walking a dog. I've walked dogs hundreds or thousands of times, yet I've never failed at that. My rate of failure for dog walking is 0%, at least for now.

Was there anybody actively trying to stop you from walking said dog?