Ri Boku Vs Shou Hei Kun-Who Is Superior?
- Thread starter Lee Ba Shou
- Start date
SHK takes all.
R1 - Coalition results at Kankoku pass are the best proof.
R2 - "Moubu vs Kanmei" and SHK wasn't even present there.
R3 - Is there any need for this Major ?? He was direct competitor of Moubu.
I believe R2 is only debatable here but SHK would definitely be equal to Riboku if not above him.
R1 - Coalition results at Kankoku pass are the best proof.
R2 - "Moubu vs Kanmei" and SHK wasn't even present there.
R3 - Is there any need for this Major ?? He was direct competitor of Moubu.
I believe R2 is only debatable here but SHK would definitely be equal to Riboku if not above him.
Really tough, but so far I think SHK wins in strategy, Riboku wins in tactics, and SHK low diffs in a fight. SHK is the Head of Military Affairs in Qin for a reason, he's been credited with a lot of campaigns and victories and so far, SHK bested RBK in the Gyou Campaign, albeit with several advantages for SHK and several disadvantages for RBK.
Riboku tactics are really something else, from killing Makou himself in a surprise attack to baiting Karyo Ten & Sai citizens to spamming the Houken card.
SHK is like, Moubu's confirmed equal in fighting, based on a statement all the way back in Pre-Bayou...and considering their future ehm one-shot, that should all be confirmed. Riboku is a formidable foe but there's simply not enough feats.
Riboku tactics are really something else, from killing Makou himself in a surprise attack to baiting Karyo Ten & Sai citizens to spamming the Houken card.
SHK is like, Moubu's confirmed equal in fighting, based on a statement all the way back in Pre-Bayou...and considering their future ehm one-shot, that should all be confirmed. Riboku is a formidable foe but there's simply not enough feats.
However we'll never truly know the answer until when both Riboku and Shouheikun bite the dust. Riboku dies in 229 BCE (6 historical years from now) and Shouheikun dies in 223 BCE (12 historical years from now) from then out we'll see Riboku beat Kanki, and engage in a hopefully epic 3v2 matchup, alongside Shibashou against Ousen, Yotanwa, & Kyoukai. Meanwhile with Shouheikun, we'll eventually see his betrayal of Qin and how he decimates the Ri Shin Army alongside Kouen, then his climactic duel against Moubu.
Not sure if everything I said was accurate to what history has shown, but we won't fully know who would be better until EOS imo.
Not sure if everything I said was accurate to what history has shown, but we won't fully know who would be better until EOS imo.
I’ll give my answer as well:
Strategy-Riboku. @Shanks Shouheikun coming up with the strategic counter to the coalition army was great, but let’s not forget that Riboku would’ve actually won the strategic battle against Shouheikun by taking his secret army through the Bu Pass, which Shouheikun had no answer to. It was Sei that defeated Riboku at Sai with Shouheikun’s support, and even then Riboku would’ve defeated Sei at Sai if not for Yo Tan Wa. So Riboku won in terms of strategy there.
Let’s also not forget that Riboku and Shouheikun fought a literal strategic battle in the Western Zhao Arc, and imo Riboku was the clear winner there.
Riboku fortified Western Zhao so hard that Shouheikun recognized that his only option was a suicide charge on Gyou, only to discover that Riboku had plugged up that hole as well.
The gap isn’t large, but Riboku looks slightly superior as a strategist imho.
Battlefield tactics- Draw. Riboku’s battlefield tactics surpass Ousen’s, Riboku butchered the Xiongnu using overwhelming tactics, he has top tier formations like the Ryuudou and the Great Crane, etc.
We’ve only seen two instances of Shouheikun’s tactics, both of which were disturbingly effective and one of which he wasn’t even present for lol. Echelon which dismantled Kan Mei’s lines (and was performed by Moubu who was taught the tactic by SHK, not even SHK himself), and the Hyourai which effectively allowed Shou Hei Kun to defeat an army of 10,000 men with only about a thousand men on his side.
So I would say both are about equal there.
Fighting Strength- Shouheikun, though Riboku is not a roll over for Shouheikun as some may say. Riboku is probably going to be one of the strongest warriors in the manga as @Xione and I have discussed in the past. I think he probably can push Shouheikun to around a lower high diff in a 1v1.
So they’re about equals overall lol.
Strategy-Riboku. @Shanks Shouheikun coming up with the strategic counter to the coalition army was great, but let’s not forget that Riboku would’ve actually won the strategic battle against Shouheikun by taking his secret army through the Bu Pass, which Shouheikun had no answer to. It was Sei that defeated Riboku at Sai with Shouheikun’s support, and even then Riboku would’ve defeated Sei at Sai if not for Yo Tan Wa. So Riboku won in terms of strategy there.
Let’s also not forget that Riboku and Shouheikun fought a literal strategic battle in the Western Zhao Arc, and imo Riboku was the clear winner there.
Riboku fortified Western Zhao so hard that Shouheikun recognized that his only option was a suicide charge on Gyou, only to discover that Riboku had plugged up that hole as well.
The gap isn’t large, but Riboku looks slightly superior as a strategist imho.
Battlefield tactics- Draw. Riboku’s battlefield tactics surpass Ousen’s, Riboku butchered the Xiongnu using overwhelming tactics, he has top tier formations like the Ryuudou and the Great Crane, etc.
We’ve only seen two instances of Shouheikun’s tactics, both of which were disturbingly effective and one of which he wasn’t even present for lol. Echelon which dismantled Kan Mei’s lines (and was performed by Moubu who was taught the tactic by SHK, not even SHK himself), and the Hyourai which effectively allowed Shou Hei Kun to defeat an army of 10,000 men with only about a thousand men on his side.
So I would say both are about equal there.
Fighting Strength- Shouheikun, though Riboku is not a roll over for Shouheikun as some may say. Riboku is probably going to be one of the strongest warriors in the manga as @Xione and I have discussed in the past. I think he probably can push Shouheikun to around a lower high diff in a 1v1.
So they’re about equals overall lol.
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I'm giving the first 2 rounds to Riboku
even though Shou hei kun is hype af and is definitely top tier in strategy and tactics i don't think he has shown enough to be put above Riboku
I don't think anyone in history has achieved what Riboku did in like 1 month
He decimated 100k mountain warriors, killed the greatest general of Xin and then did the same to Yan and both of these were just part of a plan to form a coalition army which would have resulted in Xin getting erased from the map if not for the chadness of their generals and King
He also did very good in the Gyou arc and would have defeated Ousen on 3 or 4 occasions with the smart moves he made like killing Makou, figuring out Akou's weakness, giving strategies to take out Ouhon and then putting Ousen in a sandwitch between Banaji and Futei...
And then you also have to add Riboku figuring out that food will come from Qi after thinking for a couple of hours while Shou hei kun after 1 year of planning to take Gyou couldn't think of this and it was Ousen who had to find a way to get food
But the fighting strength goes to Shou hei kun as of now
Riboku has some hype as a combatant and i think he will be in the same tier as people like Bananji or Akou but his hype and portrayal definitely is below Moubu who is said to be Shou hei kun's equal
even though Shou hei kun is hype af and is definitely top tier in strategy and tactics i don't think he has shown enough to be put above Riboku
I don't think anyone in history has achieved what Riboku did in like 1 month
He decimated 100k mountain warriors, killed the greatest general of Xin and then did the same to Yan and both of these were just part of a plan to form a coalition army which would have resulted in Xin getting erased from the map if not for the chadness of their generals and King
He also did very good in the Gyou arc and would have defeated Ousen on 3 or 4 occasions with the smart moves he made like killing Makou, figuring out Akou's weakness, giving strategies to take out Ouhon and then putting Ousen in a sandwitch between Banaji and Futei...
And then you also have to add Riboku figuring out that food will come from Qi after thinking for a couple of hours while Shou hei kun after 1 year of planning to take Gyou couldn't think of this and it was Ousen who had to find a way to get food
But the fighting strength goes to Shou hei kun as of now
Riboku has some hype as a combatant and i think he will be in the same tier as people like Bananji or Akou but his hype and portrayal definitely is below Moubu who is said to be Shou hei kun's equal
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SHKs strategy was just too good for the likes of Riboku, GHM, SSK etc to the point that Qin was able to put Coalition at back foot and forced Riboku to make plan B (southern pass).
Qin was at disadvantageous point in that war but still put Coalition in check clearly shows the differences between the level of SHK and rest as grand strategist.
Nope. First of all Riboku/Zhao lost Kokuyou Hills along with Riboku's right hand Keisha. And secondly again, Riboku wasn't in front line where strategies changes according to situation which clearly Ousen did.
Again remember no matter what, Riboku couldn't win Kankoku pass even when they had severe numerical advantage and had better generals/strategists like himself , GHM and SSK.
Centre's battle on final day proves otherwise where Zhao army under direct control of Riboku was on backfoot so badly that they couldn't even counter even once against Ousen and had to took side stroll (targeting Gyou). Ousen clearly above Riboku there.
We got SHK's only battle against Ai's army where he did overwhelmingly defeated them even though had severe disadvantage (but still quite quickly defeated them). Though i believe this couldn't even be compared against hyped of Xiangnu army. I believe we should wait for final arc to see the real capabilities of our little prince in real time action against great enemies (due to spoilers not going to mention names and other stuff here. Lol).
Here I'm agreeing as well. Definitely Riboku has some amazing martial capabilities. First the way he pushed/thrown back Shin so easily and secondly those muscles and cuts.
SHK definitely going to be above Riboku and by not small margins as well.
@Admiral Lee Hung Also SHK didn't only won Kankoku pass as strategist but also made it impossible for other states to infiltrate Qin again and provide reinforcements or food supplies. Otherwise Chu should be able to send either KouEn or Renpa for Coalition's aid.
This also shows how far sighted and troublesome he is.
While Riboku, who was at home advantage and had significant numerical advantage, couldn't even stopped Ousen/Qin's invasion but also lost a big part of land. This is Riboku against only one army. While SHK defends against whole Coalition. Riboku lost at all front in current arc while SHK lost in southern pass only (which was sneaky infiltration through hills and bypassing gate). One sneak attack was by Riboku and other one was by Sei with surprise attack of YTW.
Qin was at disadvantageous point in that war but still put Coalition in check clearly shows the differences between the level of SHK and rest as grand strategist.
Nope. First of all Riboku/Zhao lost Kokuyou Hills along with Riboku's right hand Keisha. And secondly again, Riboku wasn't in front line where strategies changes according to situation which clearly Ousen did.
Again remember no matter what, Riboku couldn't win Kankoku pass even when they had severe numerical advantage and had better generals/strategists like himself , GHM and SSK.
Centre's battle on final day proves otherwise where Zhao army under direct control of Riboku was on backfoot so badly that they couldn't even counter even once against Ousen and had to took side stroll (targeting Gyou). Ousen clearly above Riboku there.
We got SHK's only battle against Ai's army where he did overwhelmingly defeated them even though had severe disadvantage (but still quite quickly defeated them). Though i believe this couldn't even be compared against hyped of Xiangnu army. I believe we should wait for final arc to see the real capabilities of our little prince in real time action against great enemies (due to spoilers not going to mention names and other stuff here. Lol).
Here I'm agreeing as well. Definitely Riboku has some amazing martial capabilities. First the way he pushed/thrown back Shin so easily and secondly those muscles and cuts.
SHK definitely going to be above Riboku and by not small margins as well.
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@Admiral Lee Hung Also SHK didn't only won Kankoku pass as strategist but also made it impossible for other states to infiltrate Qin again and provide reinforcements or food supplies. Otherwise Chu should be able to send either KouEn or Renpa for Coalition's aid.
This also shows how far sighted and troublesome he is.
While Riboku, who was at home advantage and had significant numerical advantage, couldn't even stopped Ousen/Qin's invasion but also lost a big part of land. This is Riboku against only one army. While SHK defends against whole Coalition. Riboku lost at all front in current arc while SHK lost in southern pass only (which was sneaky infiltration through hills and bypassing gate). One sneak attack was by Riboku and other one was by Sei with surprise attack of YTW.
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Other than round 3, rest are no-brainers for me, and fairly one-sided. This one's gonna be arguably my longest post yet, will be addressing some of the arguments here as well. In my opinion, Riboku stands at a higher level as a whole than any other general in the Kingdom-verse. But before I get into each rounds and the arguments, I do want to first establish the context in which Riboku's character exists compared to the likes of Karin, Gouhoumei, Shouheikun, Shunshinkun, as well as other generals and great generals.
Riboku - Fulfilled the role of Shouheikun (Chief of Military), Ryofui (Chancellor), Ei Sei ( Backbone / main leadership of the nation), and the nation's top general. Every single move he makes has to take into account the effects it has on the nation as a whole. This is something nobody else has had to deal with so far in Kingdom.
Few examples:
Karin - has Rein handling the politics, as well as a capable King, also has Tiger of Chu under her who acts as the top general of the nation.
Shouheikun - Has Ei Sei, Shoubunkun, RiShi handling politics/economics/leadership of the nation, also has Tou & Moubu who act as the nation's top generals.
Gouhoumei - Acts as the nation's top general, has a capable King, Hari who acts as the Chief of Military/strategist, Gekkakou as the prime minister.
Tou/Moubu - Just act as the nation's top generals
Ousen - 1 of the handful generals of the nation
Tiger of Chu - responsible for just the military under him
The closest person to being Riboku-esque in role was Shunshinkun, who was Prime Minister + Chief of Military, however, he had a capable King who handled leadership of the nation. He had Kouen handling a good portion of the military as well as being the Nation's top general.
Handicap of not being able to focus just warfare: Now some might say politics, leadership of the nation, etc has no effect on his strategical abilities and performance. Well, you'd be wrong in that thinking. When somebody has to focus their brain on various different thing, naturally they wouldn't be able to dedicate their whole self to strategically and would be at a natural disadvantage compared to somebody who focuses just on warfare, just common sense that we can test out in our real world. Just have somebody deal with multiple completely different subjects vs somebody who just deals with 1 sort of subjects.. the one dealing with multiple things not only is dealing with a bigger mental burden, but his overall performance is likely to be lower as well compared to the person who's dealing with just 1 subject.
Yet despite that Riboku is held as the top general. While we have the hype of Ousen/Kanki/etc being people who're comparable to Riboku. But when it comes to the top dogs of the Kingdom-verse, they consider Riboku to be a threat unlike any other. This is also evident historically, which Hara has chosen to demonstrate beautifully here.
Now with that said, let's get to the rounds. For the purpose of making it easier to demonstrate how Riboku is superior to Shouheikun, I'll be using some of @Shanks points for Shouheikun to counter.
Strategy:
To be clear this is referring to non-battlefield strategies. In this Riboku is far superior to somebody like Shouheikun, who really hasn't even established himself superior to the likes of Tou & Ousen in Qin alone, let alone being superior or equal to Riboku. This is sort of easy to measure since Riboku has been countering Qin the entire manga:
-> Riboku outplays Shouheikun with the information lockdown that led to Ouki's death.
-> Shouheikun then tries to start planting the seed for the conquest of China, with taking Sanyou
-> Riboku counters that with the Coalition Army, Riboku was countered in this... but it wasn't done by SHK alone:
-> Qin then starts the Kanki campaign, in which Zhao takes the L because Riboku misjudged Kanki's strength. But I can't credit this to Shouheikun fully as well, as Kanki's performance even out did his own expectations.
-> But despite that Riboku then counters this hard, by making Zhao practically impenetrable.
-> Shouheikun comes up with a plan for this, but Riboku counters that, and from there on Ousen takes over for Shouheikun
-> Riboku would've countered the plan by SHK + Ousen with the Qi thing as well, had he not been pulled away by the King.
@Shanks makes a comparison between Shouheikun & Riboku in that Shouheikun was able to counter the combined armies of multiple states, while Riboku failed at just countering 1. But this is truly a terrible comparison imo, here's why:
Shouheikun & Coalition war- as pointed out earlier Shouheikun himself never formed any strategy that countered Riboku, rather it was required entities bigger (The King) and on par with Shouheikun (Ousen & Yotanwa) who did things that Shouheikun had no clue about that helped counter Riboku. Furthermore, Shouheikun had 4 Qin6 level generals under him, on top of that the power to control all of the Qin armies.
Riboku & Qin war - Riboku made Shouheikun's strategy useless right from the get-go. Ousen then took over, Riboku also countered Ousen multiple times. Then Ousen & Shouheikun pull off the Qi strategy, which Riboku would've countered had he not been pulled away, giving Qin the lucky break. On top of that Riboku never had the cooperation of his own King. He also did not have command over the Kingdom's whole armies. He also did not have a single general under him that was on par with Qin6 as a whole. If Riboku had the cooperation of the King, he would've wiped out the Qin army and weakened the Qin military as a whole by a great margin, as Ousen himself pointed out.
Without having the privilege of an Ei Sei like King, without the privilege of having 5+ Qin6 level generals (who then have underling-generals that match up with Riboku's own underlings), without the privilege of having 4 rising stars who're essentially destined for Qin 6 level prowess as well. Riboku has been outshining Shouheikun all throughout the manga.
Before putting Shouheikun as Riboku's equal or superior on this, one should first establish him as superior to Tou & Ousen in this...something that the manga has yet to do. (Note: Him being the Chief of Military doesn't mean he's better than Ousen & Tou in this.)
Battlefield Tactics:
If there is one thing the Shukai plains demonstrated, it's that Riboku stands at the epitome of battlefield tactics. Now to be fair to Shouheikun he hasn't had the screentime to showcase battlefield tactics like Riboku. So I'll address the two times mentioned for Shouheikun in this thread.
1st: Moubu vs Kanmei - It's effectiveness was good against Kanmei a non-strategist. If that was something done against Karin, I would consider this to be worthy of recognition on the level of Riboku, but it was done against a brute who had strategists that weren't even close to Karin. But to be fair to Shouheikun, this was never meant to highlight Shouheikun's strategical prowess, but to showcase Moubu's growth from being a mere brute general.
Riboku using Bananji to dismantle Ousen's "joint" tactic used by Akou, a general who had been groomed under Ousen himself.. was much more impressive.
2nd: His rescue of Kanyou- this was really impressive indeed, though this more of a highlight of his martial prowess, rather than strategical prowess.
I mean what Riboku pulled against the Duke is on a whole different level than anything Shouheikun has showcased so far.
But as I said to be fair to Shouheikun he hasn't had any time to showcase it, thus the only argument for this would be to use any hype or something.. but when it comes to that there's absolutely nothing implying or warranting Shouheikun to be put on par or superior to Riboku. I would first like to see Shouheikun establish his supremacy over Gouhoumei when it comes to battlefield tactics and of course Qin's top strategical general at the moment, Ousen.
Martial Might:
Shouheikun, until Riboku showcases anything worth batting an eye at. But as discussed with @Admiral Lee Hung I do see a potential based off of the potential portrayal & hype put in the manga by Hara in him ending up being somebody on par with the likes of Ouki/Houken/etc.
Overall:
Riboku is in a role and position that Shouheikun would never be in. He holds responsibilities that Shouheikun never will. Despite that he still outside Shouheikun in being the Chief of Military affairs. He holds the title of the top general of Zhao. Where as Shouheikun would be at best be #3 for Qin or more than likely in the 4th to 5th spot.
When it comes to strategies, Shouheikun also isn't Qin's top dog, that's Ousen, the man who has Shouheikun beat in strategical feats... but also in hype and portrayal.
Shouheikun also has yet to establish superiority over his counterparts from other weaker states, Gouhoumei or Hari and Karin (an individual Hara has been constantly hyping up after every major war).
There's one man who stands atop the generals of China right now, with nobody next to him, the man they call GOATboku.
Riboku - Fulfilled the role of Shouheikun (Chief of Military), Ryofui (Chancellor), Ei Sei ( Backbone / main leadership of the nation), and the nation's top general. Every single move he makes has to take into account the effects it has on the nation as a whole. This is something nobody else has had to deal with so far in Kingdom.
Few examples:
Karin - has Rein handling the politics, as well as a capable King, also has Tiger of Chu under her who acts as the top general of the nation.
Shouheikun - Has Ei Sei, Shoubunkun, RiShi handling politics/economics/leadership of the nation, also has Tou & Moubu who act as the nation's top generals.
Gouhoumei - Acts as the nation's top general, has a capable King, Hari who acts as the Chief of Military/strategist, Gekkakou as the prime minister.
Tou/Moubu - Just act as the nation's top generals
Ousen - 1 of the handful generals of the nation
Tiger of Chu - responsible for just the military under him
The closest person to being Riboku-esque in role was Shunshinkun, who was Prime Minister + Chief of Military, however, he had a capable King who handled leadership of the nation. He had Kouen handling a good portion of the military as well as being the Nation's top general.
Handicap of not being able to focus just warfare: Now some might say politics, leadership of the nation, etc has no effect on his strategical abilities and performance. Well, you'd be wrong in that thinking. When somebody has to focus their brain on various different thing, naturally they wouldn't be able to dedicate their whole self to strategically and would be at a natural disadvantage compared to somebody who focuses just on warfare, just common sense that we can test out in our real world. Just have somebody deal with multiple completely different subjects vs somebody who just deals with 1 sort of subjects.. the one dealing with multiple things not only is dealing with a bigger mental burden, but his overall performance is likely to be lower as well compared to the person who's dealing with just 1 subject.
Yet despite that Riboku is held as the top general. While we have the hype of Ousen/Kanki/etc being people who're comparable to Riboku. But when it comes to the top dogs of the Kingdom-verse, they consider Riboku to be a threat unlike any other. This is also evident historically, which Hara has chosen to demonstrate beautifully here.
Now with that said, let's get to the rounds. For the purpose of making it easier to demonstrate how Riboku is superior to Shouheikun, I'll be using some of @Shanks points for Shouheikun to counter.
Strategy:
To be clear this is referring to non-battlefield strategies. In this Riboku is far superior to somebody like Shouheikun, who really hasn't even established himself superior to the likes of Tou & Ousen in Qin alone, let alone being superior or equal to Riboku. This is sort of easy to measure since Riboku has been countering Qin the entire manga:
-> Riboku outplays Shouheikun with the information lockdown that led to Ouki's death.
-> Shouheikun then tries to start planting the seed for the conquest of China, with taking Sanyou
-> Riboku counters that with the Coalition Army, Riboku was countered in this... but it wasn't done by SHK alone:
Now @Shanks said SHK countered the Coalition Army and that Riboku had to go to plan B because of SHK.. both are completely false.
1. Shouheikun & Shoubunkun's plan gave them a chance to fight the Coalition Army, that's about it.
2. Riboku's plan A was never really showcased, rather Riboku decided to go with Karin's plan and derived strategized the coalition army around that plan. And the one who countered this was not Shouheikun or anybody, it was Ousen. What Ousen did was something beyond the expectations of SHK/Shoubunkun/etc, thus he can't be credited for it:
As Renpa would then explain to the Chu King, Riboku had yet to make a single move in the Coalition War.
3. Riboku's actual plan was the one with sneaking on to the other path with a formidable army, while the Coalition Army served as the diversion. This plan completely checkmated the Qin. It took two factors completely outside of Shouheikun's control to counter this plan: 1st the King of Qin Ei Sei who was a rarity that nobody in their right minds could've predicted. 2nd the king of the mountains, Yotanwa.
So no Shouheikun did not counter Riboku's coalition army plan. It was Shouheikun + (small credit to Shoubunkun who helped in devising the plan) + Ei Sei + Ousen + Yotanwa that were responsible for countering the coalition army (I'm crediting Moubu beating Kanmei and etc to Shouheikun, since it was something in his expectations).
1. Shouheikun & Shoubunkun's plan gave them a chance to fight the Coalition Army, that's about it.
2. Riboku's plan A was never really showcased, rather Riboku decided to go with Karin's plan and derived strategized the coalition army around that plan. And the one who countered this was not Shouheikun or anybody, it was Ousen. What Ousen did was something beyond the expectations of SHK/Shoubunkun/etc, thus he can't be credited for it:
As Renpa would then explain to the Chu King, Riboku had yet to make a single move in the Coalition War.
3. Riboku's actual plan was the one with sneaking on to the other path with a formidable army, while the Coalition Army served as the diversion. This plan completely checkmated the Qin. It took two factors completely outside of Shouheikun's control to counter this plan: 1st the King of Qin Ei Sei who was a rarity that nobody in their right minds could've predicted. 2nd the king of the mountains, Yotanwa.
So no Shouheikun did not counter Riboku's coalition army plan. It was Shouheikun + (small credit to Shoubunkun who helped in devising the plan) + Ei Sei + Ousen + Yotanwa that were responsible for countering the coalition army (I'm crediting Moubu beating Kanmei and etc to Shouheikun, since it was something in his expectations).
-> But despite that Riboku then counters this hard, by making Zhao practically impenetrable.
-> Shouheikun comes up with a plan for this, but Riboku counters that, and from there on Ousen takes over for Shouheikun
-> Riboku would've countered the plan by SHK + Ousen with the Qi thing as well, had he not been pulled away by the King.
@Shanks makes a comparison between Shouheikun & Riboku in that Shouheikun was able to counter the combined armies of multiple states, while Riboku failed at just countering 1. But this is truly a terrible comparison imo, here's why:
Shouheikun & Coalition war- as pointed out earlier Shouheikun himself never formed any strategy that countered Riboku, rather it was required entities bigger (The King) and on par with Shouheikun (Ousen & Yotanwa) who did things that Shouheikun had no clue about that helped counter Riboku. Furthermore, Shouheikun had 4 Qin6 level generals under him, on top of that the power to control all of the Qin armies.
Riboku & Qin war - Riboku made Shouheikun's strategy useless right from the get-go. Ousen then took over, Riboku also countered Ousen multiple times. Then Ousen & Shouheikun pull off the Qi strategy, which Riboku would've countered had he not been pulled away, giving Qin the lucky break. On top of that Riboku never had the cooperation of his own King. He also did not have command over the Kingdom's whole armies. He also did not have a single general under him that was on par with Qin6 as a whole. If Riboku had the cooperation of the King, he would've wiped out the Qin army and weakened the Qin military as a whole by a great margin, as Ousen himself pointed out.
Without having the privilege of an Ei Sei like King, without the privilege of having 5+ Qin6 level generals (who then have underling-generals that match up with Riboku's own underlings), without the privilege of having 4 rising stars who're essentially destined for Qin 6 level prowess as well. Riboku has been outshining Shouheikun all throughout the manga.
Before putting Shouheikun as Riboku's equal or superior on this, one should first establish him as superior to Tou & Ousen in this...something that the manga has yet to do. (Note: Him being the Chief of Military doesn't mean he's better than Ousen & Tou in this.)
Battlefield Tactics:
If there is one thing the Shukai plains demonstrated, it's that Riboku stands at the epitome of battlefield tactics. Now to be fair to Shouheikun he hasn't had the screentime to showcase battlefield tactics like Riboku. So I'll address the two times mentioned for Shouheikun in this thread.
1st: Moubu vs Kanmei - It's effectiveness was good against Kanmei a non-strategist. If that was something done against Karin, I would consider this to be worthy of recognition on the level of Riboku, but it was done against a brute who had strategists that weren't even close to Karin. But to be fair to Shouheikun, this was never meant to highlight Shouheikun's strategical prowess, but to showcase Moubu's growth from being a mere brute general.
Riboku using Bananji to dismantle Ousen's "joint" tactic used by Akou, a general who had been groomed under Ousen himself.. was much more impressive.
2nd: His rescue of Kanyou- this was really impressive indeed, though this more of a highlight of his martial prowess, rather than strategical prowess.
I mean what Riboku pulled against the Duke is on a whole different level than anything Shouheikun has showcased so far.
But as I said to be fair to Shouheikun he hasn't had any time to showcase it, thus the only argument for this would be to use any hype or something.. but when it comes to that there's absolutely nothing implying or warranting Shouheikun to be put on par or superior to Riboku. I would first like to see Shouheikun establish his supremacy over Gouhoumei when it comes to battlefield tactics and of course Qin's top strategical general at the moment, Ousen.
Martial Might:
Shouheikun, until Riboku showcases anything worth batting an eye at. But as discussed with @Admiral Lee Hung I do see a potential based off of the potential portrayal & hype put in the manga by Hara in him ending up being somebody on par with the likes of Ouki/Houken/etc.
Overall:
Riboku is in a role and position that Shouheikun would never be in. He holds responsibilities that Shouheikun never will. Despite that he still outside Shouheikun in being the Chief of Military affairs. He holds the title of the top general of Zhao. Where as Shouheikun would be at best be #3 for Qin or more than likely in the 4th to 5th spot.
When it comes to strategies, Shouheikun also isn't Qin's top dog, that's Ousen, the man who has Shouheikun beat in strategical feats... but also in hype and portrayal.
Shouheikun also has yet to establish superiority over his counterparts from other weaker states, Gouhoumei or Hari and Karin (an individual Hara has been constantly hyping up after every major war).
There's one man who stands atop the generals of China right now, with nobody next to him, the man they call GOATboku.
@Xione well done man, I think that was your post I agreed the most with so far (though I think you heavily underestimated Shouheikun putting him beneath Tou, more on that later). Just wanted to briefly respond to two points you made:
The battle of Kanyou heavily highlighted Shouheikun’s tactics. From the very start of the battle when Shouheikun had Kaioku blowing the horn to signal Hyoushiga, Shouheikun was tactically dismantling Wategi to a genuinely scary degree (though I think Wategi’s tactics were very basic.)
Shouheikun perfectly timed his initial assault with Hyoushiga bursting through the gates of Kanyou. Then Shouheikun sent a cavalry detachment out to his right flank, predicting that Wategi would come at him from a specific direction literal minutes before it actually happened, and Shouheikun’s detachment was able to strike Wategi’s cavalry at the exact right point, and again Shouheikun ordered this minutes before Wategi had sent cavalry to that location.
Shouheikun was thinking minutes into the future, with flawless accuracy, at the same time that he himself was fighting on the front line.
Then of course he was banking on Karyo Ten reading his moves to complete the Hourai but..that’s more hype for Ten than Shouheikun lol.
So the Battle of Kanyou imo showed Shouheikun as scarily effective with his battlefield tactics, he literally mauled a mountain army with a 10:1 disadvantage.
Now, as for Tou vs Shouheikun, I really don’t know how you came to the conclusion that Tou is superior to him. At best I could see you making the argument that because Tou has no strategic or tactical weaknesses, this would prove he’s superior to Shouheikun, but this logic is questionable.
Tou retreated from a literal basic pincer from Rei Ou, a maneuver that was Rei Ou just dipping his toes in the water. Tou retreated from this and never even tried to outright face Rei Ou tactically. Not saying Tou did the wrong thing, but this is just to say that having no weaknesses =/= demonstrating superiority as it’s questionable if Tou can compete with Rei Ou intellectually. Rei Ou and Shouheikun should be comparable intellectually as far as we know, and if you’re going to claim that Tou is above him you’ll need more than just “Tou held his own against Ka Rin” when Ka Rin’s goal was literally just to distract Tou while she snuck an army past him (which she succeeded at).
Oh and one last thing, if Shouheikun were a General right now, he would be Qin’s number 1 bro. The perception about Shouheikun within Kingdom is that he is on par with Riboku intellectually with the combat strength of Moubu. To rank him below Qin’s other Generals whos’ main claims to fame are sharing just one of those stats (EITHER Moubu’s strength OR Riboku’s intellect, not both like Shouheikun) is disrespect my man lol.
But overall great post like I said.
The battle of Kanyou heavily highlighted Shouheikun’s tactics. From the very start of the battle when Shouheikun had Kaioku blowing the horn to signal Hyoushiga, Shouheikun was tactically dismantling Wategi to a genuinely scary degree (though I think Wategi’s tactics were very basic.)
Shouheikun perfectly timed his initial assault with Hyoushiga bursting through the gates of Kanyou. Then Shouheikun sent a cavalry detachment out to his right flank, predicting that Wategi would come at him from a specific direction literal minutes before it actually happened, and Shouheikun’s detachment was able to strike Wategi’s cavalry at the exact right point, and again Shouheikun ordered this minutes before Wategi had sent cavalry to that location.
Shouheikun was thinking minutes into the future, with flawless accuracy, at the same time that he himself was fighting on the front line.
Then of course he was banking on Karyo Ten reading his moves to complete the Hourai but..that’s more hype for Ten than Shouheikun lol.
So the Battle of Kanyou imo showed Shouheikun as scarily effective with his battlefield tactics, he literally mauled a mountain army with a 10:1 disadvantage.
Now, as for Tou vs Shouheikun, I really don’t know how you came to the conclusion that Tou is superior to him. At best I could see you making the argument that because Tou has no strategic or tactical weaknesses, this would prove he’s superior to Shouheikun, but this logic is questionable.
Tou retreated from a literal basic pincer from Rei Ou, a maneuver that was Rei Ou just dipping his toes in the water. Tou retreated from this and never even tried to outright face Rei Ou tactically. Not saying Tou did the wrong thing, but this is just to say that having no weaknesses =/= demonstrating superiority as it’s questionable if Tou can compete with Rei Ou intellectually. Rei Ou and Shouheikun should be comparable intellectually as far as we know, and if you’re going to claim that Tou is above him you’ll need more than just “Tou held his own against Ka Rin” when Ka Rin’s goal was literally just to distract Tou while she snuck an army past him (which she succeeded at).
Oh and one last thing, if Shouheikun were a General right now, he would be Qin’s number 1 bro. The perception about Shouheikun within Kingdom is that he is on par with Riboku intellectually with the combat strength of Moubu. To rank him below Qin’s other Generals whos’ main claims to fame are sharing just one of those stats (EITHER Moubu’s strength OR Riboku’s intellect, not both like Shouheikun) is disrespect my man lol.
But overall great post like I said.
If you are comparing against everyone in series than, ShunShinKun did a lot of what mentioned above and was far more successful in expanding Chu's border and bringing prosperity in state as well.
Chu's king was also stingy by holding back KouEn for Coalition campaign (as he mentioned himself) just like Zhao dumb King holding back capital's army in westernzhao arc. Though i know Zhao's case was worst. But SSK did achieve better results in his days. Rest you can guess his significance through narration and hype given by Hara himself.
@Xione Riboku's information lockdown did led to the death of Ouki but same goes for Qi being supplier for Qin army which led to Zhao's losing the battle.
Riboku just offered a peace agreement for a short amount of time but through that what SHK achieved was even outside of Riboku’s calculations.
You said SBK and SHK just laid a plan for Qin to give them a "chance" against Coalition but same plan had strategy/tactics to counter attack on Kankoku pass with Ousen being shield of the pass and targeting only Chu which could and in reality did affect whole Coalition. Later for defeating commander in chief of Chu, it was his strategy which worked flawlessly.
In strategy he was far above RIBOKU confirmed by these :
- Riboku acknowledging his mistake which brings Sanyou in hands of Qin. Riboku’s peace agreement turned out to be root for Qin's unification plan.
- Riboku on just one front couldn't even defend against his own home invasion while SHK not only did defended his own but also won lands of others such as Sanyou from Wei, Kokuyu hills, Western and southern area of Zhao and now with Coalition of Wei he offered them Juuko.
@Xione i think you can understand that he's just formulating strategies and road map for campaigns of Qin. He ain't in front line. So his strategies would requires further evolution or change or even completely drop down according to situation's need.
First of all Kanmei got strategists under him there who got failed. Kanmei was main general for Chu there so i believe those assigned under him there wouldn't be your average strategists.
Second, comparing Banaji stragically to either Moubu or Kanmei would be insulting Banaji. Banaji did showed his brain capabilities and that was sufficiently above those two brute monsters. What SHK achieved through through Moubu was far above and he achieved that through an "idiot".
Epitome of battlefield tactics, that goes to only Renpa and Ouki.
Riboku's only success in Shukai plain was bringing down Makau on first day but let's compare what Ousen and Riboku planned for same wing on day one :
- targeting generals of same wing battlefield.
- Using Mouten as bait worked successfully results in Makau silencing Kisui with wave attacks.
- Ousen deployed Shin with sneak attack while Riboku used himself for same. It was Shin's emotional dumbness which cost Ousen's lose there.
Later on in central war, Riboku lost against Ousen in both strategical warfare and instinctual. Both were perfectly countered by Ousen. He got on backfoot and couldn't counter Ousen. Riboku placed his all bets on Houken after that.
Now putting all debate aside and what we got so far from manga :
- Under SHK, Qin is currently successful in not only defending his own state but also winning against other states and acquiring there lands.
- SHK as Qin's commander in chief is going for unification and currently being successful by defeating Zhao, stopping Wei from interfering or attacking Qin and later in Coalition with Wei, defeating Chu.
- Riboku couldn't defend his own state invasion.
- Riboku's led biggest Coalition in history couldn't even acquire a bit of Qin's land.
SHK is working on a lot bigger task than Riboku currently and we got results on panel perfectly of this task.
Chu's king was also stingy by holding back KouEn for Coalition campaign (as he mentioned himself) just like Zhao dumb King holding back capital's army in westernzhao arc. Though i know Zhao's case was worst. But SSK did achieve better results in his days. Rest you can guess his significance through narration and hype given by Hara himself.
@Xione Riboku's information lockdown did led to the death of Ouki but same goes for Qi being supplier for Qin army which led to Zhao's losing the battle.
Riboku just offered a peace agreement for a short amount of time but through that what SHK achieved was even outside of Riboku’s calculations.
You said SBK and SHK just laid a plan for Qin to give them a "chance" against Coalition but same plan had strategy/tactics to counter attack on Kankoku pass with Ousen being shield of the pass and targeting only Chu which could and in reality did affect whole Coalition. Later for defeating commander in chief of Chu, it was his strategy which worked flawlessly.
In strategy he was far above RIBOKU confirmed by these :
- Riboku acknowledging his mistake which brings Sanyou in hands of Qin. Riboku’s peace agreement turned out to be root for Qin's unification plan.
- Riboku on just one front couldn't even defend against his own home invasion while SHK not only did defended his own but also won lands of others such as Sanyou from Wei, Kokuyu hills, Western and southern area of Zhao and now with Coalition of Wei he offered them Juuko.
@Xione i think you can understand that he's just formulating strategies and road map for campaigns of Qin. He ain't in front line. So his strategies would requires further evolution or change or even completely drop down according to situation's need.
First of all Kanmei got strategists under him there who got failed. Kanmei was main general for Chu there so i believe those assigned under him there wouldn't be your average strategists.
Second, comparing Banaji stragically to either Moubu or Kanmei would be insulting Banaji. Banaji did showed his brain capabilities and that was sufficiently above those two brute monsters. What SHK achieved through through Moubu was far above and he achieved that through an "idiot".
Epitome of battlefield tactics, that goes to only Renpa and Ouki.
Riboku's only success in Shukai plain was bringing down Makau on first day but let's compare what Ousen and Riboku planned for same wing on day one :
- targeting generals of same wing battlefield.
- Using Mouten as bait worked successfully results in Makau silencing Kisui with wave attacks.
- Ousen deployed Shin with sneak attack while Riboku used himself for same. It was Shin's emotional dumbness which cost Ousen's lose there.
Later on in central war, Riboku lost against Ousen in both strategical warfare and instinctual. Both were perfectly countered by Ousen. He got on backfoot and couldn't counter Ousen. Riboku placed his all bets on Houken after that.
Now putting all debate aside and what we got so far from manga :
- Under SHK, Qin is currently successful in not only defending his own state but also winning against other states and acquiring there lands.
- SHK as Qin's commander in chief is going for unification and currently being successful by defeating Zhao, stopping Wei from interfering or attacking Qin and later in Coalition with Wei, defeating Chu.
- Riboku couldn't defend his own state invasion.
- Riboku's led biggest Coalition in history couldn't even acquire a bit of Qin's land.
SHK is working on a lot bigger task than Riboku currently and we got results on panel perfectly of this task.
Some great read right here. I was sure of my answer until I saw few posts from the others;
First- Stategically; Riboku for the win. He managed to form up a coalition army right under the Qin's nose. Him having information lockdown and slaying the Mountain Tribes prior to the Ouki's death was impressive. He also outsmarted Ouki by using his fastest Cavalry unit which isn't much but it still is impressive. He also completely ripped SHK's plan of Zhao invasion which led to Ousen being incharge. SHK probably used months to hatch the plan but Riboku completely read that and countered that. Details are in above posts..
Second - Battlefield Tactics; SHK takes the WIN. Riboku has shown some great feats but SHK impresses me more. His actions during Coalition arc (stationing Generals) and Kanyou battle says lot more of him. Riboku has mostly been dependent on Houken for his major battles. He used Houken to slay Duke, at Shukai Plains too he had Houken be his last defensive line. His impressive feat was to slay Makau at day 1 but didn't get much after that. He has shown to be a great strategist but poor tactician, IMO.
Third - Fighting Strength; SHK stomps., no questions asked.
First- Stategically; Riboku for the win. He managed to form up a coalition army right under the Qin's nose. Him having information lockdown and slaying the Mountain Tribes prior to the Ouki's death was impressive. He also outsmarted Ouki by using his fastest Cavalry unit which isn't much but it still is impressive. He also completely ripped SHK's plan of Zhao invasion which led to Ousen being incharge. SHK probably used months to hatch the plan but Riboku completely read that and countered that. Details are in above posts..
Second - Battlefield Tactics; SHK takes the WIN. Riboku has shown some great feats but SHK impresses me more. His actions during Coalition arc (stationing Generals) and Kanyou battle says lot more of him. Riboku has mostly been dependent on Houken for his major battles. He used Houken to slay Duke, at Shukai Plains too he had Houken be his last defensive line. His impressive feat was to slay Makau at day 1 but didn't get much after that. He has shown to be a great strategist but poor tactician, IMO.
Third - Fighting Strength; SHK stomps., no questions asked.
@Admiral Lee Hung @Xione just a thought, if we talk about Riboku's political career than don't you think his biggest failure was just the accepting TouJou as king of Zhao. He was in clear position as prime Minister and head of the military to rebel against him and made 1st prince the king of Zhao. Whole Zhao army worships Riboku like a god and than many members/ministers in court has faith in him while prince's faction supported him as well. He might have successfully thrown TouJou away for Zhao's better future.
Yeah I really don’t know why Riboku just accepted TouJou’s rule lol. Maybe that’s the entire point of all this.
The Zhao Court have always thought of Riboku as a coward though, even in the days of the Xiongnu they tried to remove him from his command and only let him maintain his position out of necessity since the Xiongnu kept mauling every other Great General the Zhao sent to deal with them lol.
The Zhao Court have always thought of Riboku as a coward though, even in the days of the Xiongnu they tried to remove him from his command and only let him maintain his position out of necessity since the Xiongnu kept mauling every other Great General the Zhao sent to deal with them lol.
Woo boy officially retiring from forums after this post (ignoring my failed retirement few months ago 
).
Leaving y'all with this giant ass post (that I won't delete like the other 30,000 character post :yasu:)
@Yo Tan Wa GOATBoku greatness expanded on.
Biggest failure? Not at all. It can't even be a small failure since it was never his requirement.
Let's takes a look at Zhao's history & Riboku's, using both historical and manga facts:
Zhao's background prior to Riboku taking over:
The infamous battle of Chouhei (Changping): 24+ years ago from present story Zhao rivaled Qin and Chu in military strength. Renpa went on the defensive measures against Ouki, after Renpa was replaced by a newbie general, Qin replaced Ouki with Hakuki. Then Hakuki goes on to slaughter 400k of Zhao soldiers. After that Ouki would go on to conquer more of Zhao's territory as well (that's why you see Zhao people having such a grudge against him in the manga).
This battle took Zhao from being a rival to Qin & Chu, to becoming one of the bottom tier states. You then also had general Kyou who took shit ton of provinces from Zhao as well right after.
All in all, things weren't all that good for Zhao. Then just a year or so before Ouki's death, Renpa leaves Zhao.. with Zhao's other great general taking a giant L from Renpa. After Renpa's departure.. we then have the entry of RiBoku.
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19 years ago - Riboku was a normal general with not much renown
18-17 years ago - He heads to Ganmon, where he starts making his name with Bananji coming under his command.
8 years ago - He completely slaughters one of the Xiongu forces, and makes his entrance by slaying Ouki. This is when he was freshly appointed as one of the 3 great heavens and the prime minister of Zhao, just after Renpa left.
Basically everything Riboku has done so far has happened in the span of 8 years.
As the top general of Zhao:
-> Took down the biggest threat to Zhao, Ouki
-> Took out Gekishin, the guy held as Yan's top general (in name atleast), then expanded Zhao's territory
-> Formed the Coalition army
-> Took on Ousen and had him beat objectively, until betrayed by his own people
As the Chief of Military of Zhao:
-> Working the alliances between the various nations
-> Strengthening the military of Zhao so that it could compete with Qin to an extent, after Chouhei had taken it's bulk
-> Fortifying the defenses of the Zhao borders by construction of various fortresses strategically, to a point they made Zhao semi-impenetrable by any large force.
-> Bringing in and essentially raising Zhao's top generals like; Bananji, SSJ, Keisha (2 of whom are still gonna continue to grow under Riboku).
-> The Zhao's "youth star" equivalent: Futei
As the Prime Minister of Zhao:
- Strengthened Zhao's economy
- Other various things for Zhao, that we are yet unaware of, since the manga doesn't focus a whole lot on his political side.
- Considering Zhao was taking territories and dealing with alliances, there's a whole lot of stuff he was likely dealing with. And since Bananji didn't come down from Ganmon until this campaign, safe to assume there's some stuff to deal with the Xiongu as well.
- As the prime minister of Zhao, he was rivaling this man:
-> While rivaling Ryofui, he started off as an inferior politician to Ryofui, but ended up surpassing Ryofui himself in the department of Prime Minister/Chancellor. With Ryofui being at political stat of 90, and Riboku going from 88 to 92 over the course of the manga (basically as he got experience as the prime minister he grew). Some people tend to forget how great of a man Ryofui was, he was personally leading armies of 200k himself lol.
^^ That right there is no joke.
-> After Ryofui, he was then directly rivaling the man himself, King Ei Sei, as you might remember there are two direct opposing political methods to Ei Sei's political method of bringing peace to China, 1st was Ryofui's & 2nd is Riboku's:
In comparison, Shunshinkun, another person who was Chief of Military & Prime Minister, doesn't have the same resume as Riboku despite being the prime minister for 20 years.
------------------
Now addressing not overthrowing the King:
Well 1st and the most obvious reason:
He had no intentions of becoming the King himself or leading a rebellion against the King. That's not who he is. It's similar to let's say Superman. Could he make the earth a better place by taking out the corrupt leaders of the world? Yes. But will he? No.
2nd reason:
Now the above is for the current situation where it's killing the current king and replacing him, but same would apply to the Old King, prehaps to an even greater degree.
It would essentially be planting the seeds of a civil war, especially when it's linked to him. Furthermore, when he took over both of the prince would be akin to somebody like young Ei Sei at best. He could possibly control him and what not, but who's to say the power doesn't get to the prince's head. On top of that, if it ever got out that Riboku is the one who got the King of all people killed... then there goes Riboku's reputation and start of a civil war that would lay waste to Zhao, a state that was already weak as fuck and had no other great general outside of Riboku.
3rd reason, time:
I put the history first for this very reason. Riboku had only been in charge as the prominent leader for 8 years or so. And it's only after Bayou that he became highly famous with the people of Zhao, so roughly 7 years ago. Let's suppose he takes the King out after becoming prime minister for a year or so. For one there would be high suspicion on him at this point, simply for that. For second he'd essentially be the psuedo-King, as a young prince Ka would be akin to prince Ei-Sei, where either Shoubunkun or Ryofui have to run the affairs, you don't see either of those on the battlefield or dealing with warfare and Why don't they?
Because as the psuedo-King one would have to deal with fuck ton of other shit as well like the royal families, different factions of power and etc. I mean we don't know much about Zhao's political landscape, but if Qin is anything to go off of.. and that fat mf who got Riboku done in.. it's not exactly the best of situations, and highly doubt it'd be less busy than Qin, considering Zhao was already in a much worst condition in all aspects than Qin.
Add on top of that, Zhao court was also infiltrated by Ryofui to a certain degree. You think Ryofui and Qin would waste time to not take advantage of that? Hellll no. There would be more turmoil caused by spies from other states and etc, as neither Shunshinkun or Ryofui would let such an opportunity go.
Furthermore, in everything he did above in those 8 years, where exactly would he be fitting in a rebellion against the King, while still doing all the great things he did?? I mean the dude is the GOAT for sure, but he ain't no God.
Ryofui spent decades planning a rebellion, he had much more influence in Qin than Riboku does/did in Zhao politically, guess how that went for him? Took a giant L. Where would Riboku have had the time to plan such a rebellion prior to those 8 years, considering he was busy dealing with the problem with Xiongu in the north?
4th reason, not privileged enough:
Not priviliged as Prime Minister:
He simply was not privileged like the Qin were. You have to understand that Qin was a loaded powerhouse, that's why people like Ryofui could afford to do rebellions against the King. Thanks to Ei Sei's grandfather gathering fuck ton of top tier generals.That's why Ei Sei & Ryofui could have their little mini-civil war without it effecting the court's prowess. Let's do a 3-way comparison of Shunshinkun/Ryofui/Riboku in the event all 3 managed to topple their kings:
If Ryofui had successfully overthrone Ei Sei, he'd have :-
If Shunshinkun overthrew the King:-
If Riboku had successfully overthrone the King he'd have :-
He has a weak ass shit military if he himself is not at the helm of it, something he won't be if he has to also take on the King's responsibility. Who is he going to appoint Chief of Military? Assuming he got a chief of military, that person isn't gonna be on his capability, where he could also act as the state's top general..
Hara had the non-selfish, non-egotistical Riboku make this statement for a reason, he's essentially negating majority if not all of the main Generals of Qin himself:
It's easy to do a Prime Minister's job when you don't have to worry about being the center piece of a nation's military, or having to spend time strategizing and planning out how to make your military strong..
Not privileged as Chief of Military:
People like Hari (strategist for Wei), Shouheikun, Karin, others in similar positions are have the luxury of not having to worry about politics, laws, etc for their nation. Riboku does not. He's literally the only main competant politician of such caliber in Zhao.
Shouheikun - Had Ryofui & RiShi, now has Ei Sei/Shoubunkun/RiShi.
Shunshinkun - Had a very very competent King, who cared about the prowess of his state + Tiger of Chu handling part of military responsibility
Karin - Has Rein taking care of politics + A competent King
Hari - A competent King + a Prime Minister
Riboku - a dead weight of a King, backstabbing officials in the court
All these mfs have to worry about is Military scheming. Even when they had political affairs to worry about they had help in the military department , in the case of Tiger of Chu (1st in command of Chu Military).
Not privileged as the Nation's top general:
Every nation's top general has to mainly just worry about strengthening his own army. Furthermore, they're usually given command over the country's best soldier. Riboku on the other hand? No sir. The man has absolutely no command over the 300k+ strongest army of Zhao, because of the King.
The top general of the nation doesn't have to worry about political affairs, he doesn't have to worry about overall planning of the nation's military, strategically placing armies at certain points and etc.. He has the chance to develop his own army and grow himself personally..
He's fulfilling the role of Tiger of Chu/Ouki or Hakuki/Renpa/ Gouhoumei/ Tou or Ousen/ Gakuki/etc... while handling other bigger responsibilities of the nation.
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The privileges were mentioned to point out how he's already at a disadvantage in the roles he serves compared to his counterparts, who're doing 1/3rd of his work (or even 1/4th).. How in god's earth is the man going to handle all those things while being at disadvantage, if he also then has to start being the psuedo-King and handle the royal affairs, which are fuck ton of drama and are likely going to take approx. 1/4th to half of his time??
He cannot afford to dethrone the King by force and cause a destabilization. You're asking too much from a man who already had very little to work with compared to the rest.
Addressing some specific points:
"Zhao army worships Riboku like God":
It wasn't hard to turn the Zhao armies against Riboku lol. The only ones who stay true to Riboku were Futei's unit, some other few members from SSJ. And Bananji's personal army. Vast majority of the army went right at Riboku after he got declared a traitor. What's going to happen if somebody exposes Riboku as the traitor who killed the King?? With the help of Ryofui, Kakukai (the fat dude) could do that.. ding ding ding, you guess it.. his head is gonna go rolling.
"Many Ministers in court":
Good amount of them are probably out for their own gains, so they could potentially be bought. The good dozen that wouldn't sell out Riboku were already in jail at the time:
The importance of the "Throne":
The importance of the Throne is immense. A person automatically even if a scrub, has more influence than a well-renowned General if they hold the throne. All Sei had to do at Sai was talk some sweet words at the start and give a nice speech, and the people were ready to fight for him.. because he's the King. Where as like Riboku mentioned, even a top notch general would struggle to rally up such an army.
This is why Ryofui had to gather so much money, buy influential families, play decades of politics, get influential people like 1 of Qin's GG, Chief of Military, Chief Diplomat, Keeper of Law RiShi and etc to match up with Ei Sei.
Conclusion:
In Riboku we have a guy who has bested Ousen tactically. And was keeping in check a state that possessed multiple Qin 6 level generals.
A guy who's outdone SHK strategically, time after time.
A guy who's political prowess as a prime minister grew even above Ryofui (as showcased by their political stat)
A guy who became to his nation what Kings are to others, the backbone
Going all of that within 8 years.. he simply does not have the time or the correct situation to deal with toppling Kings.
@Admiral Lee Hung nah bro that shit was just some people from Ganmon falsely reporting that Riboku wasn't doing his job properly. Had nothing to do with the Zhao Court thinking bad about him being a coward or anything.
I'm gonna address few points by the homie @Dark Admiral here and then some by the bruhz @Shanks in his post from before, since y'all have fairly similar points. Some points for both of y'all might get mixed up, so just pick out which might refer to you ahaha.
1st. Reliance on Houken:
Ouki had Tou, Shin has Kyoukai, why are we docking Riboku from having Houken?? Unlike Tou & Kyoukai, Houken is trash in tactics. Furthermore, it's not like Riboku himself was tearing people apart and then had an uber mf like Houken under him who did the same. It was that Houken was the martial might for him at the time, since Riboku himself didn't want to pick up the sword. He did the samething at Ganmon, Bananji was doing the martial fighting on behalf of Riboku. But let's address the actual situations though:
Duke Hyou & Gekshin -
He did use Houken. But nothing implies he couldn't handle Duke without using Houken. That's the thing here. Using Houken was the easiest/simplest way to get rid of the Duke. Which is what Riboku is all about, the path that causes the least causalities. Fans assume that Riboku got saved by Houken or that he couldn't take out the Duke without Houken.. Manga neither states or implies that. Only Duke Hyou tries to break Riboku's face by going "What're you gonna do now Riboku.. now that you're trapped? you're gonna fight me??" The Duke has no idea about Riboku's martial prowess, just like Shin didn't.
Fans also don't realize that Riboku could've just retreated and made the Duke chase him more, then eventually killed him by tiring him out and swarming him.. or actually fight himself if he needed to. Instead he chose to stay there in the middle of Ryuudou and lure the Duke in there, then have Houken take him out. Cause remember he was trying to do get this done without harming the army too much, so they could take down Kantan properly.
Gekishin was the same way. It's not as if Riboku couldn't beat Gekishin without Houken, it's that using Houken was the easiest and most effective way to do it. Remember he's trying to strengthen the Zhao military here, meaning get shit done with the least amount of causalities to the Zhao army.
But if we're going to dock him for using Houken to take out generals in a swift manner without grinding out his army, we gotta dock Ouki for using Tou, who according to Ouki is just as powerful as him. Not to mention Tou actually can use tactics, Houken is just there to swing his glaive lol.
Shukai plains:
Riboku had 0 plans for Houken in Shukai plains. Houken showed up on his own, and ever after Riboku heard the news of his arrival.. he still had 0 plans for him. Houken on his own, then decided to come to Riboku's HQ on the last day. Neither did he have any plans for using him as the last defensive line of some sort. In fact despite the him lying to Kaine about Houken not losing to Shin.. he had no expectations or reliance on Houken winning.. Which is why before Houken vs Kyoukai/Shin starts.. he says:
Then concluding with this when Houken gets defeated:
Only thing Houken did there was made Riboku's retreat late, that's it. Something that even Ousen was surprised about, because he was expecting Riboku to have left his HQ long ago, but Riboku decided to wait and see how Houken's final moments would be.
2nd Tactics at Shukai plains:
Not sure why you guys think he got bested by Ousen or was unimpressive, when the entire arc is him owning Ousen one after the other.
1st. Trying to remove the wing's generals. Riboku successfully got Makou, Ousen failed at getting Kisui. @Shanks blames Ousen's failure in this on Shin being emotional and not continuing to hit the Kisui HQ. However what the brother here doesn't realize is Shin did the correct thing in that situation.
-> Ousen's entire plan relied on Makou being able to stall out Kisui's main army. While HSU & Mouten hit Kisui's Hq and slay him.
-> Riboku slew Makou, which ruined Ousen's plan in such a manner that the Makou army would've been taken a HUGE loss had Shin idiotically continued trying to get Kisui, who would've ran away from the side that Mouten was attacking from.. because Mouten pulled back from attacking Kisui's HQ, after seeing the flow shift.
-> Shin had two choices: Hit the Kisui HQ, where the zhao soldiers had raised morale now and were making it harder for HSU to get through Or... go after the enemy's commander-in-chief in hopes of turning the tide and essentially ending it all. He picked the smarter choice of the two, which was try to take the enemy's commander-in-chief down.
-> Now the correct choice was then what Mouten suggested, leave Kisui's HQ alone and try to reform the Makou army. So it's not just Shin who made the decision not to go slay Kisui, MOUTEN himself made the same decision.. because it was a bad decision to make in that situation.
Ousen here took the L plain and simple.
@Dark Admiral he got wholee lot after Makou.
2nd. Countering Ousen's "joint" stratgem + taking out Akou:
Akou implements Ousen's technique of "joints" or w.e it was called. Riboku after taking 1 look at it, proceeds to tell Bananji how to counter it, who then proceeds to counter it. lol.
Riboku again gave Ousen a L here.
Taking out Akou by using Bananji & Gyou'un was also Riboku's plan, he succeeded. Ousen on the other hand didn't have a single plan to take out the generals on that wing.
3rd. Both were even with their armies face to face:
@Shanks You're flat-out wrong in saying Ousen had Riboku on the backfoot when it comes to tactics. He did not. Both were in a deadlock stalemate as pointed out by the narrator.
@Dark Admiral bro if Riboku is a poor tactician, that means Ousen is poor as well. Their armies were in a literal deadlock due to their tactics. Their face to face clash is the best direct face to face tactical feats we have in the manga.
4th. The pincer attacks:
Ousen's plan to slay Riboku relied on HSU coming in to pincer him, which would've gave him the edge in their stalemate. Riboku countered this shit HARD, by making his own pincer on Ousen's HQ, with Futei & Bananji.
Ousen was then saved twice:
- 1st by Ouhon, who prevented Futei from slaying Ousen or atleast keep him occupied until Bananji came in to do it.
- 2nd by Mouten, who landed the lethal blow on Bananji's eye that slowed him down
^^ These were factors outside of Ousen's control. You might say Riboku had Houken.. but Houken didn't save Riboku from nothing, Riboku was gonna escape the HSU either way. Something Hara had Mouten point out to Shin. Hell Ousen was expecting him to escape even after Ousen got pincered.
As far as THEIR tactics go, Riboku had Ousen dead in the Shukai plains.
5th. Countering the Qi plan:
The only reason Ousen was able to pull off this plan was, thanks to Riboku getting taken away, which delayed it. Had Riboku been on the battlefield he would've figured out the plan a lot sooner and his army would've acted on time or even before time. Where as Riboku did figure out Ousen's plan, but he couldn't get this army to acton time, because of the giant ass distance between him and his army. And then Kaine and such not taking action fast enough.
But yea, Riboku owns tactics.
).Leaving y'all with this giant ass post (that I won't delete like the other 30,000 character post :yasu:)
@Yo Tan Wa GOATBoku greatness expanded on.
Biggest failure? Not at all. It can't even be a small failure since it was never his requirement.
Let's takes a look at Zhao's history & Riboku's, using both historical and manga facts:
Zhao's background prior to Riboku taking over:
The infamous battle of Chouhei (Changping): 24+ years ago from present story Zhao rivaled Qin and Chu in military strength. Renpa went on the defensive measures against Ouki, after Renpa was replaced by a newbie general, Qin replaced Ouki with Hakuki. Then Hakuki goes on to slaughter 400k of Zhao soldiers. After that Ouki would go on to conquer more of Zhao's territory as well (that's why you see Zhao people having such a grudge against him in the manga).
This battle took Zhao from being a rival to Qin & Chu, to becoming one of the bottom tier states. You then also had general Kyou who took shit ton of provinces from Zhao as well right after.
All in all, things weren't all that good for Zhao. Then just a year or so before Ouki's death, Renpa leaves Zhao.. with Zhao's other great general taking a giant L from Renpa. After Renpa's departure.. we then have the entry of RiBoku.
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19 years ago - Riboku was a normal general with not much renown
18-17 years ago - He heads to Ganmon, where he starts making his name with Bananji coming under his command.
8 years ago - He completely slaughters one of the Xiongu forces, and makes his entrance by slaying Ouki. This is when he was freshly appointed as one of the 3 great heavens and the prime minister of Zhao, just after Renpa left.
Basically everything Riboku has done so far has happened in the span of 8 years.
As the top general of Zhao:
-> Took down the biggest threat to Zhao, Ouki
-> Took out Gekishin, the guy held as Yan's top general (in name atleast), then expanded Zhao's territory
-> Formed the Coalition army
-> Took on Ousen and had him beat objectively, until betrayed by his own people
As the Chief of Military of Zhao:
-> Working the alliances between the various nations
-> Strengthening the military of Zhao so that it could compete with Qin to an extent, after Chouhei had taken it's bulk
-> Fortifying the defenses of the Zhao borders by construction of various fortresses strategically, to a point they made Zhao semi-impenetrable by any large force.
-> Bringing in and essentially raising Zhao's top generals like; Bananji, SSJ, Keisha (2 of whom are still gonna continue to grow under Riboku).
-> The Zhao's "youth star" equivalent: Futei
As the Prime Minister of Zhao:
- Strengthened Zhao's economy
- Other various things for Zhao, that we are yet unaware of, since the manga doesn't focus a whole lot on his political side.
- Considering Zhao was taking territories and dealing with alliances, there's a whole lot of stuff he was likely dealing with. And since Bananji didn't come down from Ganmon until this campaign, safe to assume there's some stuff to deal with the Xiongu as well.
- As the prime minister of Zhao, he was rivaling this man:
^^ That right there is no joke.
-> After Ryofui, he was then directly rivaling the man himself, King Ei Sei, as you might remember there are two direct opposing political methods to Ei Sei's political method of bringing peace to China, 1st was Ryofui's & 2nd is Riboku's:
In comparison, Shunshinkun, another person who was Chief of Military & Prime Minister, doesn't have the same resume as Riboku despite being the prime minister for 20 years.
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Now addressing not overthrowing the King:
Well 1st and the most obvious reason:
2nd reason:
It would essentially be planting the seeds of a civil war, especially when it's linked to him. Furthermore, when he took over both of the prince would be akin to somebody like young Ei Sei at best. He could possibly control him and what not, but who's to say the power doesn't get to the prince's head. On top of that, if it ever got out that Riboku is the one who got the King of all people killed... then there goes Riboku's reputation and start of a civil war that would lay waste to Zhao, a state that was already weak as fuck and had no other great general outside of Riboku.
3rd reason, time:
I put the history first for this very reason. Riboku had only been in charge as the prominent leader for 8 years or so. And it's only after Bayou that he became highly famous with the people of Zhao, so roughly 7 years ago. Let's suppose he takes the King out after becoming prime minister for a year or so. For one there would be high suspicion on him at this point, simply for that. For second he'd essentially be the psuedo-King, as a young prince Ka would be akin to prince Ei-Sei, where either Shoubunkun or Ryofui have to run the affairs, you don't see either of those on the battlefield or dealing with warfare and Why don't they?
Because as the psuedo-King one would have to deal with fuck ton of other shit as well like the royal families, different factions of power and etc. I mean we don't know much about Zhao's political landscape, but if Qin is anything to go off of.. and that fat mf who got Riboku done in.. it's not exactly the best of situations, and highly doubt it'd be less busy than Qin, considering Zhao was already in a much worst condition in all aspects than Qin.
Add on top of that, Zhao court was also infiltrated by Ryofui to a certain degree. You think Ryofui and Qin would waste time to not take advantage of that? Hellll no. There would be more turmoil caused by spies from other states and etc, as neither Shunshinkun or Ryofui would let such an opportunity go.
Furthermore, in everything he did above in those 8 years, where exactly would he be fitting in a rebellion against the King, while still doing all the great things he did?? I mean the dude is the GOAT for sure, but he ain't no God.
Ryofui spent decades planning a rebellion, he had much more influence in Qin than Riboku does/did in Zhao politically, guess how that went for him? Took a giant L. Where would Riboku have had the time to plan such a rebellion prior to those 8 years, considering he was busy dealing with the problem with Xiongu in the north?
4th reason, not privileged enough:
Not priviliged as Prime Minister:
He simply was not privileged like the Qin were. You have to understand that Qin was a loaded powerhouse, that's why people like Ryofui could afford to do rebellions against the King. Thanks to Ei Sei's grandfather gathering fuck ton of top tier generals.That's why Ei Sei & Ryofui could have their little mini-civil war without it effecting the court's prowess. Let's do a 3-way comparison of Shunshinkun/Ryofui/Riboku in the event all 3 managed to topple their kings:
If Ryofui had successfully overthrone Ei Sei, he'd have :-
- Shouheikun (qin6 level)
- Ousen (qin6 level)
- Kanki (qin6 level)
- Moubu (qin6 level)
- Tou (qin6 level)
- Shin (future Qin 6 level)
- Kyoukai (future Qin 6 level)
- Ouhon (future Qin 6 level)
- Mouten (future Qin 6 level)
- Mouki (future top tier strategist)
- Karyo Ten (future top tier strategist)
If Shunshinkun overthrew the King:-
- Sentou (on par with the likes of Moubu & Tou)
- Man'U (on par with the likes of Moubu & Tou)
- Kanmei (on par with the likes of Moubu & Tou)
- Tiger of Chu (The most hyped general out there right now, outside of Riboku)
- KouYoku (Future Qin 6 level)
- Karin (On par with the likes of Shouheikun and even better than Shunshinkun as Chief of Military).
If Riboku had successfully overthrone the King he'd have :-
- Shibashou (Qin 6 level)
- Keisha (non Qin6 level)
- KoChou (non Qin6 level)
- Chou Haku (non Qin6 level)
- Bananji (non Qin6 level)
- SSJ (non Qin6 level)
- Gyou'un (non Qin6 level)
- CHG (non Qin6 level)
- Futei (maybe future Qin 6 level)
He has a weak ass shit military if he himself is not at the helm of it, something he won't be if he has to also take on the King's responsibility. Who is he going to appoint Chief of Military? Assuming he got a chief of military, that person isn't gonna be on his capability, where he could also act as the state's top general..
Hara had the non-selfish, non-egotistical Riboku make this statement for a reason, he's essentially negating majority if not all of the main Generals of Qin himself:
It's easy to do a Prime Minister's job when you don't have to worry about being the center piece of a nation's military, or having to spend time strategizing and planning out how to make your military strong..
Not privileged as Chief of Military:
People like Hari (strategist for Wei), Shouheikun, Karin, others in similar positions are have the luxury of not having to worry about politics, laws, etc for their nation. Riboku does not. He's literally the only main competant politician of such caliber in Zhao.
Shouheikun - Had Ryofui & RiShi, now has Ei Sei/Shoubunkun/RiShi.
Shunshinkun - Had a very very competent King, who cared about the prowess of his state + Tiger of Chu handling part of military responsibility
Karin - Has Rein taking care of politics + A competent King
Hari - A competent King + a Prime Minister
Riboku - a dead weight of a King, backstabbing officials in the court
All these mfs have to worry about is Military scheming. Even when they had political affairs to worry about they had help in the military department , in the case of Tiger of Chu (1st in command of Chu Military).
Not privileged as the Nation's top general:
Every nation's top general has to mainly just worry about strengthening his own army. Furthermore, they're usually given command over the country's best soldier. Riboku on the other hand? No sir. The man has absolutely no command over the 300k+ strongest army of Zhao, because of the King.
The top general of the nation doesn't have to worry about political affairs, he doesn't have to worry about overall planning of the nation's military, strategically placing armies at certain points and etc.. He has the chance to develop his own army and grow himself personally..
He's fulfilling the role of Tiger of Chu/Ouki or Hakuki/Renpa/ Gouhoumei/ Tou or Ousen/ Gakuki/etc... while handling other bigger responsibilities of the nation.
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The privileges were mentioned to point out how he's already at a disadvantage in the roles he serves compared to his counterparts, who're doing 1/3rd of his work (or even 1/4th).. How in god's earth is the man going to handle all those things while being at disadvantage, if he also then has to start being the psuedo-King and handle the royal affairs, which are fuck ton of drama and are likely going to take approx. 1/4th to half of his time??
He cannot afford to dethrone the King by force and cause a destabilization. You're asking too much from a man who already had very little to work with compared to the rest.
Addressing some specific points:
"Zhao army worships Riboku like God":
It wasn't hard to turn the Zhao armies against Riboku lol. The only ones who stay true to Riboku were Futei's unit, some other few members from SSJ. And Bananji's personal army. Vast majority of the army went right at Riboku after he got declared a traitor. What's going to happen if somebody exposes Riboku as the traitor who killed the King?? With the help of Ryofui, Kakukai (the fat dude) could do that.. ding ding ding, you guess it.. his head is gonna go rolling.
"Many Ministers in court":
Good amount of them are probably out for their own gains, so they could potentially be bought. The good dozen that wouldn't sell out Riboku were already in jail at the time:
The importance of the "Throne":
The importance of the Throne is immense. A person automatically even if a scrub, has more influence than a well-renowned General if they hold the throne. All Sei had to do at Sai was talk some sweet words at the start and give a nice speech, and the people were ready to fight for him.. because he's the King. Where as like Riboku mentioned, even a top notch general would struggle to rally up such an army.
This is why Ryofui had to gather so much money, buy influential families, play decades of politics, get influential people like 1 of Qin's GG, Chief of Military, Chief Diplomat, Keeper of Law RiShi and etc to match up with Ei Sei.
Conclusion:
In Riboku we have a guy who has bested Ousen tactically. And was keeping in check a state that possessed multiple Qin 6 level generals.
A guy who's outdone SHK strategically, time after time.
A guy who's political prowess as a prime minister grew even above Ryofui (as showcased by their political stat)
A guy who became to his nation what Kings are to others, the backbone
Going all of that within 8 years.. he simply does not have the time or the correct situation to deal with toppling Kings.
@Admiral Lee Hung nah bro that shit was just some people from Ganmon falsely reporting that Riboku wasn't doing his job properly. Had nothing to do with the Zhao Court thinking bad about him being a coward or anything.
I'm gonna address few points by the homie @Dark Admiral here and then some by the bruhz @Shanks in his post from before, since y'all have fairly similar points. Some points for both of y'all might get mixed up, so just pick out which might refer to you ahaha.
1st. Reliance on Houken:
Ouki had Tou, Shin has Kyoukai, why are we docking Riboku from having Houken?? Unlike Tou & Kyoukai, Houken is trash in tactics. Furthermore, it's not like Riboku himself was tearing people apart and then had an uber mf like Houken under him who did the same. It was that Houken was the martial might for him at the time, since Riboku himself didn't want to pick up the sword. He did the samething at Ganmon, Bananji was doing the martial fighting on behalf of Riboku. But let's address the actual situations though:
Duke Hyou & Gekshin -
He did use Houken. But nothing implies he couldn't handle Duke without using Houken. That's the thing here. Using Houken was the easiest/simplest way to get rid of the Duke. Which is what Riboku is all about, the path that causes the least causalities. Fans assume that Riboku got saved by Houken or that he couldn't take out the Duke without Houken.. Manga neither states or implies that. Only Duke Hyou tries to break Riboku's face by going "What're you gonna do now Riboku.. now that you're trapped? you're gonna fight me??" The Duke has no idea about Riboku's martial prowess, just like Shin didn't.
Fans also don't realize that Riboku could've just retreated and made the Duke chase him more, then eventually killed him by tiring him out and swarming him.. or actually fight himself if he needed to. Instead he chose to stay there in the middle of Ryuudou and lure the Duke in there, then have Houken take him out. Cause remember he was trying to do get this done without harming the army too much, so they could take down Kantan properly.
Gekishin was the same way. It's not as if Riboku couldn't beat Gekishin without Houken, it's that using Houken was the easiest and most effective way to do it. Remember he's trying to strengthen the Zhao military here, meaning get shit done with the least amount of causalities to the Zhao army.
But if we're going to dock him for using Houken to take out generals in a swift manner without grinding out his army, we gotta dock Ouki for using Tou, who according to Ouki is just as powerful as him. Not to mention Tou actually can use tactics, Houken is just there to swing his glaive lol.
Shukai plains:
Riboku had 0 plans for Houken in Shukai plains. Houken showed up on his own, and ever after Riboku heard the news of his arrival.. he still had 0 plans for him. Houken on his own, then decided to come to Riboku's HQ on the last day. Neither did he have any plans for using him as the last defensive line of some sort. In fact despite the him lying to Kaine about Houken not losing to Shin.. he had no expectations or reliance on Houken winning.. Which is why before Houken vs Kyoukai/Shin starts.. he says:
Then concluding with this when Houken gets defeated:
Only thing Houken did there was made Riboku's retreat late, that's it. Something that even Ousen was surprised about, because he was expecting Riboku to have left his HQ long ago, but Riboku decided to wait and see how Houken's final moments would be.
2nd Tactics at Shukai plains:
Not sure why you guys think he got bested by Ousen or was unimpressive, when the entire arc is him owning Ousen one after the other.
1st. Trying to remove the wing's generals. Riboku successfully got Makou, Ousen failed at getting Kisui. @Shanks blames Ousen's failure in this on Shin being emotional and not continuing to hit the Kisui HQ. However what the brother here doesn't realize is Shin did the correct thing in that situation.
-> Ousen's entire plan relied on Makou being able to stall out Kisui's main army. While HSU & Mouten hit Kisui's Hq and slay him.
-> Riboku slew Makou, which ruined Ousen's plan in such a manner that the Makou army would've been taken a HUGE loss had Shin idiotically continued trying to get Kisui, who would've ran away from the side that Mouten was attacking from.. because Mouten pulled back from attacking Kisui's HQ, after seeing the flow shift.
-> Shin had two choices: Hit the Kisui HQ, where the zhao soldiers had raised morale now and were making it harder for HSU to get through Or... go after the enemy's commander-in-chief in hopes of turning the tide and essentially ending it all. He picked the smarter choice of the two, which was try to take the enemy's commander-in-chief down.
-> Now the correct choice was then what Mouten suggested, leave Kisui's HQ alone and try to reform the Makou army. So it's not just Shin who made the decision not to go slay Kisui, MOUTEN himself made the same decision.. because it was a bad decision to make in that situation.
Ousen here took the L plain and simple.
@Dark Admiral he got wholee lot after Makou.
2nd. Countering Ousen's "joint" stratgem + taking out Akou:
Akou implements Ousen's technique of "joints" or w.e it was called. Riboku after taking 1 look at it, proceeds to tell Bananji how to counter it, who then proceeds to counter it. lol.
Riboku again gave Ousen a L here.
Taking out Akou by using Bananji & Gyou'un was also Riboku's plan, he succeeded. Ousen on the other hand didn't have a single plan to take out the generals on that wing.
3rd. Both were even with their armies face to face:
@Shanks You're flat-out wrong in saying Ousen had Riboku on the backfoot when it comes to tactics. He did not. Both were in a deadlock stalemate as pointed out by the narrator.
@Dark Admiral bro if Riboku is a poor tactician, that means Ousen is poor as well. Their armies were in a literal deadlock due to their tactics. Their face to face clash is the best direct face to face tactical feats we have in the manga.
4th. The pincer attacks:
Ousen's plan to slay Riboku relied on HSU coming in to pincer him, which would've gave him the edge in their stalemate. Riboku countered this shit HARD, by making his own pincer on Ousen's HQ, with Futei & Bananji.
Ousen was then saved twice:
- 1st by Ouhon, who prevented Futei from slaying Ousen or atleast keep him occupied until Bananji came in to do it.
- 2nd by Mouten, who landed the lethal blow on Bananji's eye that slowed him down
^^ These were factors outside of Ousen's control. You might say Riboku had Houken.. but Houken didn't save Riboku from nothing, Riboku was gonna escape the HSU either way. Something Hara had Mouten point out to Shin. Hell Ousen was expecting him to escape even after Ousen got pincered.
As far as THEIR tactics go, Riboku had Ousen dead in the Shukai plains.
5th. Countering the Qi plan:
The only reason Ousen was able to pull off this plan was, thanks to Riboku getting taken away, which delayed it. Had Riboku been on the battlefield he would've figured out the plan a lot sooner and his army would've acted on time or even before time. Where as Riboku did figure out Ousen's plan, but he couldn't get this army to acton time, because of the giant ass distance between him and his army. And then Kaine and such not taking action fast enough.
But yea, Riboku owns tactics.
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Woo boy officially retiring from forums after this post (ignoring my failed retirement few months ago ).
).
Ousen destroyed all of Riboku's plan with locusts tactic and starting countdown for Zhao. Later even forced Riboku to leave his army at Shukai plains and go for Gyou.
Like how SHK first captured Sanyou through Riboku’s tactical peace agreement and forcing Riboku to form Coalition so that they could stop Qin. But failed badly. Later SHK stole Riboku/Zhao's own ally that is Wei from supporting them in there current situation.
Nope. Just no for this bro. Riboku was successful against Qin for one time only and that was against Ouki which made him famous in whole China (just for this, removing Gekishin and Coalition formation, even Renpa started calling him most dangerous man in all china) than again killing even Ouki was whole different topic coz Riboku brought a whole new and fresh army for that task. Lol
Riboku lost against Qin tactically in Sanyou, than Coalition than Kokuyou Hills and now whole big portion of western/Southern area of Zhao.
Ryufui was different thing as he kept the previous king (EiSei father) like a puppet fir whole time. Riboku couldn't even control TouJou for use of capital's army.
This is just why i said he should have somehow thrown away TouJou and made 1st prince the king of Zhao. Lol
Karin with Ri En did that successfully while they both jointly are lower than Riboku (whether talk about brain or support of army).
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@Xione if possible than please stay with us for some more time bro. Otherwise farewell bro and have amazing time ahead.
:cheers:
First of all with the strategy of SHK, not only Qin won Northern Pass, but also secured all of the borders so that no other state could send reinforcement. Later using Qi against Coalition with the help of Saitaku to further weakening Coalition and made them take hasty decisions.
Couldn't counter at Bu pass because Qin literally didn't had any more soldiers in spare.
But facing the biggest coalition in history and than made coalition eating loss at every moment in the war at northern pass literally proves how far ahead he is against any general of that moment.
Riboku made peace with Qin after Bayou so that he could start his scheme of destroying Qin by starting with Yan.
But SHK thoroughly destroyed all of the imaginations of Riboku by starting campaign against Wei and conquering Sanyou fort so that he could start his plan of unification of whole China.
Here are two things :
First SHK succeeded in his start of campaign by using Riboku's strategy against first Wei and than again Wei than later Zhao.
Second Riboku failed in Coalition, failed in securing western zhao even after challenging in Qin court, failed in securing southern zhao. In all these Riboku has all kind of advantages. Still failed.
We haven't seen SHK taking charge from the front in any big war at the moment that's why didn't know how he could counter or prepare for opponents surprise moves. Acting commander of army here has to play that role as we saw Ousen doing twice.
But overall SHk proved himself to be quite better than Riboku with bigger picture and achievements .
Couldn't counter at Bu pass because Qin literally didn't had any more soldiers in spare.
But facing the biggest coalition in history and than made coalition eating loss at every moment in the war at northern pass literally proves how far ahead he is against any general of that moment.
Riboku made peace with Qin after Bayou so that he could start his scheme of destroying Qin by starting with Yan.
But SHK thoroughly destroyed all of the imaginations of Riboku by starting campaign against Wei and conquering Sanyou fort so that he could start his plan of unification of whole China.
Here are two things :
First SHK succeeded in his start of campaign by using Riboku's strategy against first Wei and than again Wei than later Zhao.
Second Riboku failed in Coalition, failed in securing western zhao even after challenging in Qin court, failed in securing southern zhao. In all these Riboku has all kind of advantages. Still failed.
We haven't seen SHK taking charge from the front in any big war at the moment that's why didn't know how he could counter or prepare for opponents surprise moves. Acting commander of army here has to play that role as we saw Ousen doing twice.
But overall SHk proved himself to be quite better than Riboku with bigger picture and achievements .
