My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 362: Pulling back the fist so that the next punch will be more powerful
As Cao Cao took over Bingzhou, Liu Bei took over the three counties of Cangwu, Nanhaji and Hepu.

The end of the seventh year of Jian'an and the beginning of spring of the eighth year of Jian'an passed by in a flash.

Time passed quickly and it was already late March of the eighth year of Jian'an. The busiest farming season of spring had just passed, and the people in the Central Plains could finally take a break and relax.

Cao Cao and Liu Bei had waited for such a long time, so they didn't need to wait for the busy farming season, so they naturally wouldn't do anything to drain the pond and destroy agricultural production.

In Jiangxia, with Zhang Fei's victory in Lingnan, Liu Bei's territory in Jingnan was completely consolidated. So he was preparing to move the General of Chariots and Cavalry's headquarters recently.

Within a month or two of preparation, he would temporarily move the shogunate to Hefei, and then coordinate the battle line from the center. When Cao Cao's main force was transferred to attack Yuan Shang, he would be able to wait for an opportunity to stab Cao Cao in the back.

Anyway, Liu Bei was not in a hurry. He did not need to be stuck on the timing of "attacking Cao Cao as soon as Cao Cao attacks Yuan Shang". It would be completely fine even if he sent troops one or two months later than Cao Cao.

Because no matter how weak Yuan Shang was, he couldn't fall immediately. Liu Bei would wait until Cao Cao had made sufficient preparations and the battle was already deadlocked before he took action. That way, Cao Cao would go all the way because of his sunk costs and loss aversion.

I can't eat anymore, but I don't want to vomit.

Otherwise, it would be like the other person just picked up the chopsticks and hasn't taken a bite yet, and you immediately go up to provoke him, then he will definitely put down his chopsticks and fight back.

After Liu Bei moved his shogunate to Hefei, he would certainly reward people based on their merits and re-appoint official positions to the military generals under his command who had made contributions in the past few years.

After all, it has been three years since the Yidaizhao incident, and it has been at least four years since the last promotion of senior officials in Liu Bei's camp.

During these four years, Liu Bei defeated Zhang Xian and Sun Ce, took over the three counties of Nanhai, and took back the western part of Donghai and the entire territory of Langya. However, the official positions of his high-ranking civil and military officials remained unchanged, which was also to show that Liu Bei "respected the order issued by Emperor Liu Xie before the Yidaizhao".

Historically, Liu Bei held the position of "Left General" for a full twenty years.

Even though Guan Yu was only a "Lieutenant General", he followed him for eleven years. When Liu Bei conquered Jingzhou, he changed Guan Yu's title to "General Suppressing Bandits". Eight years later, when Liu Bei became the King of Hanzhong, he changed Guan Yu's title to "Front General".

If even Guan Yu was like this, let alone others.

In this life, Liu Bei made rapid progress in his campaign against the rebels. The old officials before the Yidaizhao were retained for four years before being promoted, which showed enough respect for the emperor.

By then, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Zhuge Liang, Zhuge Jin and Pang Tong will definitely be able to join in the event.

But Zhang Fei might be absent, because he had just conquered Lingnan and needed to clean up the area and spend time to repair. The journey was too long and he would definitely not be able to make it back in time. The same was true for Bu Zhi and Lu Yi.

Therefore, Zhang Fei could only hold the official position temporarily and it was impossible for him to participate in the subsequent Northern Expedition against Cao Cao this year.

This year's Northern Expedition mainly relies on Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, and Gan Ning. Taishi Ci needs to help Yuan Tan fight a defensive battle in the direction of Qingzhou and gradually control and erode Yuan Tan's territory.

Of the five early generals in Liu Bei's camp, only three would undertake the Northern Expedition.

……

Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang were in Jiangxia preparing for the relocation of the shogunate, the deployment of troops, personnel arrangements, and promotions.

In Xuzhou and Yangzhou, Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin were also busy.

Since the end of the counterattack in early winter last year, Guan Yu has been preparing for subsequent battles.

In the past four months, Guan Yu's main job was to reorganize and train the more than 10,000 surrendered soldiers and prisoners of Langya and Taishan bandits captured last year.

Guan Yu's own troops also lost several thousand people in last year's defensive counterattack. If they are not replenished, their combat effectiveness will definitely decline significantly.

Rather than relying on recruiting new soldiers who cannot quickly form combat effectiveness to replenish the troops, it is better to transform these mature troops who originated from "bandits".

Although the troops composed of thieves have better martial arts and relatively poor military discipline, many prudent generals find it difficult to use such troops well.

Many famous generals in later history, whether it was Yue Fei or Qi Jiguang, emphasized discipline first when recruiting soldiers. They needed to use soldiers from good families, even if their physical fitness and combat experience were a little worse.

Guan Yu was not ignorant of this principle. But perhaps he had a special temperament and ability that made him more able to attract "bandits" to serve him, and to transform former thieves into warriors who supported the Han Dynasty.

So he knew that as long as he worked hard and focused for a few months or half a year, he would be able to accomplish this goal.

This is a talent unique to Guan Yu, which is innate and cannot be learned.

It is like Yue Fei in later generations, who was also a military god. But the gangsters were too embarrassed to worship Yue Fei, nor would they worship Qi Jiguang, but they felt no psychological pressure to worship Guan Gong.

Guan Yu spent more than four months, but failed to improve the martial arts of these surrendered soldiers, but his military discipline did improve a lot, and orders were enforced. The original factional problems in the army were also resolved.

Guan Yu then reorganized these captives into his original local army in Xuzhou, slowly adding sand to the mix and disintegrating the subordinate relationship between the Langya and Taishan bandits.

Among the captured grassroots officers, only those below the garrison commander could stick together according to their hometowns, and all those above the garrison commander were disrupted. This was also a decision made by Guan Yu after careful consideration, which is similar to the later "military construction should be carried out down to the company level".

Because Guan Yu knew very well that those soldiers were illiterate, and it was impossible to tell them a grand story and ask them to fight for something lofty and noble. He could only tell them to protect the interests of their own families and small groups. The Han Dynasty soldiers did not care about those great things.

Therefore, when building a team of grassroots soldiers with less than 100 people, they should be allowed to form groups among their fellow villagers and relatives, so that they will fight for their own small groups on the battlefield.

As for those with a size of hundreds or more, reaching the level of Qu Junhou, the original organization of the bandit prisoners must be broken up, so as to ensure that the command system can obey orders.

……

Guan Yu was busy reorganizing and recruiting prisoners and training the army.

The daily government affairs, logistical and military preparations in Xuzhou were naturally shared by Chen Deng, Mi Zhu and Lu Su. Therefore, Zhuge Jin, who was in a more superior position, had the opportunity to be a hands-off manager for a few months.

A sage should rule the country with ease. Zhuge Jin is so smart and knows so many things that others don't, so of course he should spend his energy on the most important things.

After calming down, Zhuge Jin was not idle. He just did things based on his own interests and the pain points he observed.

For example, during the battles of Donghai and Langya last year, Zhuge Jin observed that Guan Yu's army had some trouble with two minor issues. As long as you put your heart into it, these problems are not difficult to solve.

First of all, the communication means of Guan Yu's army were still too outdated. After Lu Su and Gao Shun in Langya were separated by Xiahou Yuan, they could not get in touch with Guan Yu and could not play a role in the decisive battle. They could only be used as the main force in the final counterattack.

Although the Battle of Langya was won and Gao Shun and Lu Su made great contributions, Zhuge Jin always felt that he had not done well enough when he reviewed the situation afterwards.

If the means of communication can be upgraded, we can do better.

So in the past few months, Zhuge Jin has been thinking about breeding homing pigeons.

The people of the Han Dynasty were still too backward in the use and training of homing pigeons, and the application of the homing characteristics of birds was not studied thoroughly enough. No one had systematically summarized the laws from a biological perspective.

That is why it happened in history that until the Tang and Song dynasties, only one out of seven or eight carrier pigeons would return home. A large amount of information would also be leaked to nearby enemies, resulting in people not daring to use carrier pigeons to deliver anything even slightly confidential.

Zhuge Jin was blessed with the biological knowledge of later generations. Even if he didn't know the details, after several months of research and observation, he was able to further understand the homing characteristics of homing pigeons.

So he compiled his research in the past few months into a secret notebook, and found some people from the biological laboratory in Guangling to help with the experiment summary. These laboratory talents were also gathered when Zhuge Liang was studying microorganisms, and later followed Hua Tuo to conduct many experiments.

Although his major is not very suitable, he is already the most suitable talent with the best understanding of biological common sense and execution ability that can be found in this era.

After in-depth experiments organized by Zhuge Jin, the team finally summed up a feasible model of "long-term fixed-point breeding of homing pigeons, sending fast horse messengers to another city to deliver letters before the war, and relying on homing pigeons to bring back reply letters."

In other words, at least Zhuge Jin can ensure that when Liu Bei's camp sends letters that "need to be sent back and forth" in the future, they can save manpower on the one-way trip. The outbound trip still needs to be delivered by express messengers, while the return trip can let the pigeons fly back by themselves.

In this case, because the pigeons have only been away from their long-term nests for a short time, their memory of the location is particularly deep, the probability of returning to the nest will be greatly increased, and the path-finding radius will also be greatly increased.

The Han people who originally raised pigeons did not understand this rule, and often took the pigeons away from their mother nests for a long time before releasing them. They also ran around and added extra time to the pigeons' itinerary, which caused confusion in the pigeons' ability to locate and return. They identified several places as their "mother nests," and therefore could only return two or three hundred miles.

Now that Zhuge Jin has been conducting regular and intensive training and does not allow the pigeons to stay in multiple places, it is possible for them to fly thousands of miles back home.

This will definitely be of great benefit to the upcoming counterattack by Liu Bei's camp.

Zhuge Jin has keenly observed that a very big hidden danger in Liu Bei's camp is that the territory is too long and narrow, stretching too far from the northeast to the southwest, and the strategic depth is insufficient, especially in the Huaibei part, which is almost a coastal line map. If something happens in the northeast, it will take a long time for the southwest to know about the situation and organize support.

Previously, Liu Bei's camp had also taken advantage of the enemy because of the information time difference, especially before and after the Battle of Guandu. As the party that profited from the information difference, Liu Bei's camp certainly had to work hard to solve these problems when they faced them. Zhuge Jin's timely improvement of pigeon breeding and deep exploration of the biological principles involved were obviously a great reinforcement.

In the future, when Liu Bei is stationed in Hefei, he can remotely control Guan Yu and Zhao Yun to respond to the situation, and whichever side has the opportunity will take the first action. Even if Cao's army is "fighting on the inside", the information transmission may be slower than Liu Bei's.

(Note: There is no such thing as raising pigeons in two places for a long time and letting them fly back and forth to send messages to each other. Carrier pigeons can only be used to "return to the nest after being taken away from the nest."

Those are all made up by stupid TV scriptwriters for the plot. They don't know much about biology. If pigeons were really that awesome, they could replace radios. How could there be such a big motivation for technological progress? And it's the fault of the game planners of Assassin's Creed.)
In addition to establishing new means of communication, Zhuge Jin also improved a few small things in the past few months, which did not cost much effort and were purely a matter of breaking through a layer of window paper.

For example, during the Battle of Ju County, Gao Shun wanted to sneak out of the city to attack Zhang He's Shushui grain route and set fire to the grain ships. However, because fireworks were strictly prohibited during the night march, he wanted to suddenly light torches on a large scale before setting the fire, which wasted more time and affected the suddenness of the sneak attack, which ultimately led to the inadequate results of the arson battle.

After learning from this lesson, Zhuge Jin thought that he could make a "fire starter" by using tinder and temporarily sealing the air. In this way, a portable, long-term fire source without flames could be made, which would be of great help in dealing with the suddenness of night battles, surprise attacks and arson.

Zhuge Jin had an idea and knew what the fire stick was in history. After careful experimentation, he was able to make this little gadget in just a few months.

Historically, the fire stick was invented around the Southern and Northern Dynasties, at the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty, less than a hundred years after the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Now it has been advanced to the end of the Han Dynasty, at least 300 years earlier, which is of course an obvious asymmetric advantage for Cao Cao's side.

In this year's new war, if there is an opportunity for night battles, arson, and sneak attacks, we must make good use of it.

(End of this chapter)