A Slave who became Emperor Chapter 57

The three great armies of Hindustan started marching towards Kurukshetra . . the site where the main battle would take place . The Magadhan army, the Gupta's army and the Gandhara army . . the Magadhan army reached first followed by the Gupta army . . the Gandhara army took few more days to reach . . all the forces assembled together . . the total army had eighty thousand soldiers . . . Pinaka and Samyukta ascended their horses and marched around the combined army . . they felt awe in their hearts . .

All the soldiers were dressed in their armour . . they were bearing spears, swords, lances, bow and arrows . . they were ready . . but now it was important for them to train together . . they still had a time of one week . . they received information that Zaffar and his forces reached the Sindhu river bank . . they were coming . . it would take ten days for them to reach Kurukshetra . .

Pinaka, Samyukta, emperor Krishna Chandra (Samyukta's father), Prince Surya(Samyukta's brother), Prince Deepak(Samyukta's brother), emperor Surya Gupta(Pinaka's father ), emperor Kailash Nanda (Pinaka's maternal grandfather), General Rudra Verma (Magadhan General) along with the generals of Gupta and Gandhara empires assembled in a tent . . . Prince Pinaka discussed the Strategy he thought about . . Samyukta heard him out and said, 'forming Chakravyuha is a big challenge . . we cannot simply fall into places, we need to assemble every soldier into place . . it cannot go wrong . . . what do all of you say? '

Rudra Verma said, 'Mandala Vyuha (galaxy formation) is a good idea . . within the bigger formation, we can have small clusters . . each cluster has one formation . . that is good . . but what will the formations be? '

Pinaka said, 'each army has a formation that they are best at, that formation must be adapted . . like Gupta army has a talent in forming the ardha chandra (crescent moon) formation, similarly Magadhans are well versed with trishula formation (trident), we will stick with our strengths . . what is the formation Gandhara army is most adapt with? '

Gandhara general said, 'Garuda formation . (eagle) ' . . Pinaka said, 'so, we will play with our strengths here . . only then it will be easy . . we will have a drummer who will keep beating his drums . . with change in the beat, we must understand that there is a need to change the formation . . once we engage the enemy, depending on the consequences, we will be merging into bigger formations or splitting into smaller ones . . '

Rudra Verma said, 'drawing a strategy in a war room is different from facing the enemy on the field . . ' Samyukta said, 'I agree, but without strategies we will not succeed . . ' Pinaka said, 'I think we need to have six smaller formations, which will merge into three formations . . all three merging into one great formation might not be possible . . ' Surya Gupta said, 'Chakravyuha can be executed on the second day of the war . . first day we have to go with the Mandala formation with the smaller formations . . '

Krishna Chandra said, 'but these three formations don't have anything in common, we need formations which could be merged easily or split easily . . ' everyone started thinking again then Pinaka said, 'we can also do a reverse strategy . . we can assemble the entire army into a big formation and as the enemy approaches, we can split into smaller formations . . what I explained need not be final, but the key is to have an ever changing formation . . ' Samyukta took a paper and started drawing something, everyone was looking at her, she then started explaining, 'we will assemble all the archers into Ardha chandra formation, right at the front, while the enemy is approaching, they will keep shooting arrows and make the maximum damage . . then the archers will move back giving way to the army . . at the center we will have part of our infantry standing with spears and shields,behind the infantry we will have fifty rows of cavalry, as the enemy comes towards the center, ten rows of cavalry along with infantry will remain at the center fighting the enemy, twenty rows of cavalry behind the first ten rows,move on to left side and twenty rows of cavalry move towards the right and surround the enemy from left and right, this will be the trident formation, after half the damage is done to the enemy, the remaining part of infantry will come in from all the sides and surround the battle and finish off the enemies . . ' Pinaka looked at her and said, 'I think this is a good strategy . . but when the last part of infantry comes in, we will make them come in the form of concentric circles facing outward, they need to surround Zaffar and his generals and then face inward, thus a Chakravyuha will be formed ultimately . . and before the enemies realize, they are trapped . . '

Chapter end