My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 338 Both sides have an IQ of 90 or so, and they can't break the moves.
"Mr. Fengxiao, the idea you gave to the lord is not working at all! We finally managed to break through Langya from Kaiyang County and fight all the way to Rizhao Port. What was the result? Liu Bei had already fortified the small counties in Langya and stockpiled enough supplies!

Cut off their supply now, they don't need to be shipped in for a short time! My Lord, why did you order us to limit the scope of operations to Langya and gnaw on the bones of this mountainous area! If I were allowed to attack Donghai and Xiapi in the south, I could even fight all the way to Haixi in Guangling!"

After suffering a setback in Ju County and losing many soldiers and generals, Xiahou Yuan was extremely depressed.

He originally had great respect for Guo Jia, who was sent to him by Cao Cao, but now he couldn't help but complain whenever he had the chance.

But from the perspective of a front-line commander, Xiahou Yuan has his own interests, and it is understandable that he complains.

Because his tactics in the first phase were to find a location where the terrain was easy to break through along the junction of the Yimeng Mountains in southern Shandong and the plains in northern Jiangsu, and then quickly break through.

Then, in the second step, they would naturally face two choices: go north and attack the cut-off Yimeng Mountain area; go south and attack the fertile northern Jiangsu plain.

So after failing in his attempt to attack the Yimeng Mountains, how could Xiahou Yuan not regret and feel jealous?

If we didn't have to take on such a tough challenge, and had allowed the battle to be fought in the northern Jiangsu Plain from the beginning, then the battle would have been over long ago! The results would have been many times greater than they are now!

Faced with Xiahou Yuan's anger, Guo Jia had no choice but to calm him down from a global perspective, asking Xiahou Yuan to think not only about military matters but also about politics and diplomacy.

So Guo Jia advised earnestly: "General Miaocai, don't be reckless. How to fight is a question you should think about as a commander. But who to fight and where to fight are the things Cao Gong should plan.

If our army turns south after breaking through Rizhao, it will certainly be easier militarily, but it will lead to a situation where there is no turning back. We will have to tear off the fig leaf of "attacking Yuan Tan" and go to war with Liu Bei in an all-out manner. This is not what Cao Gong wants to see at the moment. He looks at things from a much higher perspective than you and I.

Another purpose of our tentative attack on Langya is to let Yuan Shang see our sincerity in going south, so that Yuan Shang can boldly provoke a civil war between the two Yuan brothers. As long as Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan start fighting, they can no longer stop and fight to the death. We may seize the opportunity at any time, tear up the contract with Yuan Shang, and invade Hebei to capture Yecheng!
If you go south to the East China Sea, you may be able to conquer the East China Sea, and even fight all the way to Haixi County, which is close to the Huai River. But how much benefit is this compared to being able to withdraw in time and stab Yuan Shang in the back and take over Yecheng?

Therefore, we must control the scope of the battle against Liu Bei and ensure that we can control it freely! The lives of a few thousand soldiers are not what Cao Gong cares about! We must put the overall situation first!"

Xiahou Yuan was doused with such a bucket of cold water and was helpless.

After all, he knew that the military serves politics, and sometimes, one cannot plan a war based on a purely optimal military solution.

Cao Cao must have a higher position and more far-reaching plans, which are beyond the imagination of a mere military general like him.

But Xiahou Yuan also had his own problems to solve, so he could not help but complain angrily: "So we are just going to keep doing this? Mr. Fengxiao, you can't just tell me what to do and not let me do that. You have to give me advice and be flexible in what I should do!"

Xiahou Yuan was relatively polite to Guo Jia. Even though he was so depressed, he only pointed out that the other party should not "only destroy without building, only oppose without offering constructive suggestions."

Of course, Guo Jia also knew that this was his responsibility and he had an obligation to come up with a solution for Xiahou Yuan.

After pondering for a long time, Guo Jia finally proposed two strategies, one positive and one negative: "General Miaocai, please forgive me. At the beginning, I thought the problem was simple. Now facing Liu Bei's strong defense, we can at least make efforts in two aspects.

First of all, isn't the general obsessed with invading the East China Sea? He wants to pick on the weak. Although this is not allowed now, I have come up with a compromise and obscure solution. I need to send an envoy to Xudu to ask Cao Gong for instructions, and I also need to wait for the cooperation of generals such as Zang Ba, Chang Xi, and Sun Guan to do some preparatory work.

This may take a month or so. By then, if Cao Gong agrees, we can invade the East China Sea. But before these preparations are completed, it is absolutely impossible.

Secondly, while waiting for Cao Gong to adjust the overall strategy, we have something to do in the past month or so. You can pretend that Ju County is difficult to capture, and have to leave troops to besiege it, while sending troops north to capture other counties, plunder the surrounding areas, and clear out all the coastal ports in Langya County.

At that time, I will also help the general design some other small deceptions, such as taking advantage of the enemy's weaknesses of being surrounded and out of information, spreading false information, trying to make the defenders of Ju County mistakenly believe that other counties are in danger, or vice versa, making the defenders of other counties mistakenly believe that Ju County is in danger.

If this trick works, although it won't force the defenders of the two cities to rescue each other - they know they are not strong enough, and it will be useless to rescue. However, it may force Gao Shun to find the weak link in our army's logistics and food supply, and go out of the city to harass and burn the food supply of our army's counties. At that time, we can attack him with an ambush, and destroy Gao Shun outside the city, and then we can accomplish our goal! "

The strategy Guo Jia mentioned may be confusing to readers who don’t look at the map, but in fact, it is easy to understand with a little guidance.

Ju County and Zhu County are both located along the Shu River, a tributary of the Yi River, and Zhu County is further upstream of Ju County. If Xiahou Yuan felt that Ju County was difficult to capture and wanted to surround Ju County, then bypass the city and continue to advance upstream to attack Zhu County, then the grain route of his troops going to Zhu County must pass outside Ju County.

Because of this large area of Yimeng Mountain, it is relatively easy to march and transport food only along the Shushui River Valley, and no one can directly cross the mountains to transport food. And Zhuxian is relatively wider from a geographical point of view, not as steep and easy to defend as Juxian - when Le Yi led the coalition forces of five countries to attack Qi, the only places that failed to be captured were Jimo and Juxian. I have never heard of how strong the resistance in Zhuxian was, which shows that the difficulty of attacking Zhuxian is indeed at least one order of magnitude lower than that of Juxian.

If Xiahou Yuan became impatient with fighting Gao Shun, he could leave a small number of troops to watch Gao Shun, and then take the main force to continue upstream along the river to the north, surround Lu Su and Zhuge Jun, and then spread the word that Zhuge Jun was in danger.

So, as Gao Shun was just a surrendered general, would he dare to sit back and watch as Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang's third brother were killed?

Everyone in the world knows that Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang were Liu Bei's top two most important ministers.

If a general in Liu Bei's camp falls into the trap of Zhuge's family and does not come to the rescue, his career will be over.

Moreover, from a military point of view, when the enemy marches along a river and bypasses the previous node along the river to attack the next node, the previous node must go out of the city to harass and destroy the enemy's grain transport team when it passes by. If the general guarding the previous node does not even have this courage, it would be a great dereliction of duty.

To give the simplest example, in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Zhang Fei entered Sichuan, Luo Guanzhong also used this strategy to deal with Yan Yan: Zhang Fei saw that he could not defeat Yan Yan by direct attack, so he pretended to find a small road to bypass him. Then Yan Yan thought that he could take advantage of the fact that Zhang Fei's main force passed first, and then ambush and kill Zhang Fei when his food and supplies passed, and burn and rob Zhang Fei's supplies.

Although "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" does not record Zhang Fei's specific strategy to defeat Yan Yan, from the perspective of the correct military strategy, Luo Guanzhong's deduction is correct.

Although Guo Jia had never read Luo Guanzhong's strategy, he himself was well-read in military books and of course did not need to learn from anyone. He was able to come up with this tactic based on his own abilities, which can be considered a correct military strategy.

Moreover, he felt that Gao Shun in the city was not a wise general. It might be difficult to deceive a famous and wise general with a strategy of this level, but it was enough to deceive Gao Shun.

……

Guo Jia thought of an adjusted new strategy for Xiahou Yuan, and after Xiahou Yuan accepted it, Cao's army quickly took action separately according to the new deployment requirements.

Guo Jia's strategy consists of three parts, all of which can be executed independently without relying on each other.

Therefore, starting from the second half of June, Cao's army continued to move northward along the coastline from Rizhao, trying to destroy all large and small seaports in Langya, and at the same time increasing its efforts to penetrate and divide.

On the other hand, following Guo Jia's suggestion, he divided his troops into several groups to bypass Ju County and head north to besiege various counties, threatening Lu Su and Zhuge Jun.

Although these two moves were of little practical value, they were still a kind of damage to Liu Bei's military logistics. And the key is that the reputation is good enough to cover up Xiahou Yuan's slow progress.

In the battle report that Xiahou Yuan handed over to Cao Cao that month, he shamelessly wrote "the territory was expanded by 200 li from east to west, and by 600 li from north to south", as if a large territory had been conquered.

But in fact, this vast area of 200 miles by 600 miles was just a few lines along the rivers and coastlines. In fact, no fortified city was breached, and it just surrounded such a large area of the Yimeng Mountain area.

The Yimeng Mountain area covers an area of 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometers. Except for the areas with urban settlements, all the other barren mountains are given to you!
After receiving the battle report, Cao Cao certainly knew there was some water in it, but he did not want to expose it. Instead, he rewarded Xiahou Yuan generously and promoted him to a high position.

Xun Yu, who was in Xudu with Cao Cao, also saw the water in Xiahou Yuan's battle report. He thought Cao Cao was protecting his shortcomings or didn't understand, so he found a private occasion to remind him:
"Your Excellency is so busy that you may not think about some things carefully. But the report of General Miaocai's victory... I think the actual results may not be that great. If you promote him to a higher position and give him a heavy reward, once the truth is revealed in the future, it may damage your reputation of being fair in rewards and punishments and promoting people based on their talents..."

Cao Cao just laughed when he heard this, then lowered his voice and patted Xun Yu on the shoulder: "Don't worry, Wen Ruo, do you think I didn't see it? Of course I know that Miaocai has falsely reported his military achievements. I guess this is what Fengxiao taught him, and he has become even more unscrupulous.

However, the court also needs such a victory to boost morale and stabilize the hearts of the people in Xudu. More importantly, I need to reward talented people with generous rewards to deceive Yuan Shang and make them overestimate the intensity of the battle between our army and Liu Bei, so that he will be more daring. "

Xun Yu was also an extremely smart man and of course he understood this truth. He was just afraid that Cao Cao would be deceived.

Discovering that Cao Cao's mind was as clear as a mirror and he knew everything, Xun Yu no longer needed to be a bad guy.

Xun Yu was about to leave, but Cao Cao stopped him and said, "Wen Ruo, wait a minute. Since you are here, why don't we take a look at the backup strategy mentioned in Feng Xiao's secret letter and see if it is feasible."

(End of this chapter)