My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 21: Life is still uncertain (new book, please vote and collect)

The night when Guangling City was captured ended in complete chaos and firefighting.

Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, one in rags and the other covered in smoke, could hardly recognize each other when they finally met at the fire scene.

Zhang Fei fought bloody battles for one day and two nights. Although he was brave and had the belief of revenge, he still suffered several minor injuries in the end, and his physical strength was seriously overdrawn.

The moment he saw Liu Bei appear, he almost couldn't hold on.

"Brother! I lost Xia Pi, but I helped you take Guang Ling back! I just killed the arsonist soldiers and saved several warehouses of grain."

Liu Bei looked at Zhang Fei for a long time. Fortunately, the other party was originally dark, so no matter how severely he was smoked, the change was not too big.

Liu Bei wiped the ash several times with his hand, and it was unknown whether he wiped it off in the dark. Finally, he choked up and patted Zhang Fei's back gently: "These are all trivial matters. Go back and recuperate quickly... You should be the first...second meritorious one in capturing Guangling. I will not blame you for Xia Pi anymore."

Zhang Fei was forgiven, and the depression in his heart finally dissipated. As soon as he relaxed, he felt dizzy, and finally muttered modestly: "But I still lost my sister-in-law... Although I captured Guangling, I couldn't get my sister-in-law back..."

As he was speaking, he fell headfirst.
Liu Bei was shocked and quickly used his hand to check, and found that the person was still breathing, but had fainted.

"Hurry up and take Yi De back to rest, and find a doctor to take care of him!" Liu Bei hurriedly ordered his personal soldiers to find a stretcher and carry Zhang Fei away.

Of course, there were no stretchers in the Han Dynasty, so Zhuge Jin had someone make one these days. It was nothing more than two bamboo poles and a piece of thick linen. All it lacked was an idea, and there was no technical difficulty.

Zhuge Jin brought these stretchers because he considered that Zhang Fei could mobilize only a small number of troops for the surprise attack and needed to cherish every combat force.
He thought about some easy-to-make battlefield rescue equipment, hoping to improve Zhang Fei's troops' ability to continue fighting without spending any money.

Secondly, Zhuge Jin had an idea at the time. He was afraid that if he crossed the river in white and was intercepted and inspected, someone would question why he was carrying so many equipment that looked like siege ladders when he was clearly a merchant ship.

That’s why Zhuge Jin invented the stretcher. Anyway, it was made of two bamboo poles just like a siege ladder, except that the bamboo was cut shorter and covered with cloth in the middle. As long as the siege ladder was transported disassembled without assembling the crossbars, it could be completely explained as a “semi-finished stretcher that has not yet been cut and assembled.”

In this way, they disguised themselves as "merchants selling medical equipment" and sold some boiled cloth bandages.

It's no wonder that Zhuge Jin did such a cool thing that when he passed by Piliang County at the mouth of the Yangtze River three days ago, he actually encountered a patrol boat of Sun Ce's army. He got away with it by giving this explanation.

The only thing worth regretting is that the Sun Ce naval lieutenant who was in charge of the inspection seemed to be quite knowledgeable and was very interested in the stretcher. He felt that it really facilitated the treatment of the wounded and said that he would go back to offer advice to his lord and suggested that such a thing be manufactured in the army as well.

At that time, Zhuge Jin complained in his heart: Your Han Dynasty has no patent rights, and anyone can just copy a good idea and get it for free... But he could do nothing about it.

Unexpectedly, the first prominent person rescued after the stretcher came out was Zhang Fei, who was injured, exhausted and unconscious.

……

Zhang Fei was injured and unconscious, and Liu Bei's condition was not much better. Although he was not injured, he had been marching frantically for two days and two nights, and only rested for a while on the boat.

After completely eliminating the remaining enemies in the city and controlling the situation, it was already dawn the next day.

Liu Bei had no time to enjoy the joy of victory. He was already unable to hold on any longer. He returned to the government office he had just occupied and took a long nap. When he woke up, it was already afternoon.

Liu Bei was sleeping very soundly, but he did not dare to relax. Finally, he woke up immediately when he heard a slight noise.

Liu Bei rubbed his eyes and looked around to see that there was no one to serve him. He returned to the front hall of the government office and saw Zhuge Jin sitting in the seat of the Lord of the Mansion with his legs crossed, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan. There were a few pieces of paper and wooden tablets scattered in front of him, which he had not even sorted out.

Seeing Liu Bei wake up, Zhuge Jin stretched lazily helplessly and said, "General, you are still here, and they have to report these urgent but unimportant details to me, and I can't push them away.

At 11:00 in the morning, Liu Xun finally led his defeated army to Guangling. To be safe, the defenders at the north gate shouted and shouted, and shot them away with arrows. Is that okay? "

Liu Bei said quickly: "It was handled very well. In such an urgent military situation, Yide and I were still asleep, so it was safest to chase him away. Liu Xun is a waste, so he can leave if he wants. We won't keep him here. It is a great honor to be able to capture Guangling.

I was rude last night. You were an outsider, but you got dragged into this. You have done us such a great favor, but I was not able to celebrate and thank you in time..."

Zhuge Jin didn't care about these details and pushed the pieces of paper and wooden tablets towards Liu Bei:
"This is the inventory balance of Guangling Prefecture that was just counted by the military grain officer this morning. Since it is not urgent, they did not dare to disturb the general. They asked me to take a look first..." Liu Bei immediately said, "What is wrong with taking over? Sir, you have done such a great favor to our army. You can take a look at anything you want. It is I who bother you again and again..."

After all, up to now, Zhuge Jin is still a "guest" and he was involved in this series of events.

All this took only twelve days in total - today happened to be the twelfth day of Zhuge Jin's time travel.

Liu Bei had not forced him to stay or given him an official position before. At that time, Liu Bei felt that his life was in danger and he did not dare to hope to drag Zhuge Jin into the water. He just gave him some money to show his gratitude.

So Liu Bei felt from the bottom of his heart that he should be more polite to the other party, because this was not his subordinate, but a guest and benefactor.

After sighing inwardly, Liu Bei was not slow at all. He took the account that Zhuge Jin pushed over and glanced at it.
He was impatient to look at the details and just took a rough look at the results. When the total number came into view, Liu Bei's mood, which had just improved, could not help but sink again.

"How come there is only this much food left in Guangling's treasury? We originally planned to capture Guangling, which might be enough for our army to eat for three to five months!
The remaining amount will only last for one or two months at most, right? Well, if we don’t fight, we can save some food, so it will last about two months. This is more than half less than expected!"

Zhuge Jin expressionlessly pushed forward another piece of paper that Liu Bei had ignored. On that piece of paper were some confessions obtained from torturing Yuan army prisoners, but Liu Bei was eager to see the conclusion, so he ignored it.

Zhuge Jin could only give a brief summary to Liu Bei: "When the general was asleep, I asked a few captives - it was also a fluke that these captives were not captured in the city, but I took some risks yesterday evening and ordered Zi Zhong's merchant ship to raid and rob the enemy ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River at Hangou, and captured them.

Yesterday afternoon, at least hundreds of ships left Guangling County through the canal. I only had the 300 sailors and guards given by Zi Zhong at the time. I was unable to intercept them by disguising myself as a merchant in white, so I could only flee far away at first.

Finally, when the enemy fleet had almost all passed and it was completely dark, I suddenly turned back and captured the two or three ships that were lagging behind while the enemy was not prepared. The ships were indeed carrying military supplies.
The officers on the enemy ship confessed that they were originally subordinates of Zhang Duo, a pirate on the Fei River. They had just defected to Liu Xun two months ago with the help of Liu Ye, a famous scholar in Lujiang, and helped Liu Xun with water transportation and escort.

These minions don't know the other details, and they can't get them out through torture. After all, the highest-ranking captive is only a village chief. But I can guess that the move to let Zhang Duo retreat early to preserve his strength and transport military rations back must have been done by Liu Ye."

The prisoners captured by Zhuge Jin did confess that "Liu Ye was in Guangling City at that time". They just had no way of knowing whether the specific idea was proposed by Liu Ye, and they didn't know the decision-making process.

But for a prophet like Zhuge Jin, this little information was enough for him to make full assumptions. He was certain that the enemy's sudden change of tactics yesterday afternoon, from resistance to conservative loss-cutting, must have been Liu Ye's idea.

After listening to Zhuge Jin's introduction, Liu Bei was stunned again.

He was annoyed that there was a wise man in the enemy army and he had tripped him up.

I was also deeply shocked by Zhuge Jin's ingenuity. He was able to think of so many things when he saw the enemy's transport fleet, and boldly captured several ships for questioning to verify, and finally he was able to reversely deduce the truth from such a tiny clue.

Tzuyu not only has extraordinary strategies, but also has incredibly sharp insight. He is an expert at reasoning and figuring out details.

"Is that so... Alas, I didn't expect that even though we captured Guangling, we still couldn't completely solve the problem in the end." Liu Bei felt dejected, and the initial ecstasy last night also dissipated a little.

Zhuge Jin patted him on the shoulder and said, "General, don't be depressed. Everything has its pros and cons. Liu Ye's move has both advantages and disadvantages for our army."

Liu Bei was also depressed for the moment, and did not have time to think deeply. After hearing Zhuge Jin's words, he immediately bowed and asked for advice: "I am depressed for the moment, and my mind is in a trance. I can't understand the truth. Please explain it to me and solve my confusion!"

Zhuge Jin pointed at the papers and said calmly, "Liu Ye was prudent and knew how to stop losses in time. The biggest harm he caused to our army was that a considerable portion of Liu Xun's army's food reserves were robbed and transported away. In the end, Chen Lan's fire burned about 20% of the inventory.

The inventory our army has now is only about 40% of the original inventory, which is at least two months less than originally planned. This is the biggest disadvantage.

However, Liu Ye asked Zhang Duo to avoid fighting and not to use his full strength, which was beneficial to our army on the front battlefield. I have estimated that if the 4,000 to 5,000 Yuan army soldiers fought to the death with all their strength, plus the 2,000 enemy soldiers who arrived later, the total number would be 7,000.

If they had chosen to fight hard, Yide might have survived because of his great martial arts, but the 1,000 cavalrymen he brought would have been completely wiped out. The general's reinforcements would have to pay at least a thousand casualties before they could win a tragic victory and capture Guangling.

Now it was equivalent to both sides retaining more troops, and the general captured the city with two or three thousand fewer casualties. This was 'saving men and losing food', and Liu Ye was betting that the general would not be able to get enough supplies immediately to tide over the difficulties, so he wanted to use the lack of food and the collapse of morale to win the final reversal in the future.

If the general could find a way to solve the problem of military food and the problems of the soldiers in Xia Pi County who were homesick and whose families were held hostage by Lu Bu, then the general would be able to turn the danger into safety, and even achieve better development than if Liu Ye had resisted to the death.

Everything depends on the general's ability to respond."

(End of this chapter)