My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 385: Misfortune always brings blessings, and blessings always bring misfortune

Half an hour later, at Zhao Yun’s camp, located thirty miles southeast of Fuli County.

This camp was just set up by Zhao Yun today. His cavalry chased here yesterday and hastily built a camp with some wood and branches. Today, the main force of infantry arrived one after another, and then the construction began in earnest. So until now, it is still a busy construction site.

Guan Yu welcomed Zhuge Jin, who had just arrived, into the camp. Zhao Yun had been waiting outside the camp gate. When he saw Zhuge Jin appear from a distance, he ran up to meet him.

"Zi Yu! It's been a few years since we last met. Even if you had time to leave Danyang in the past two years, you only went to Guangling and Donghai. Why didn't you come to Hefei for a visit?" Zhao Yun said as he stepped forward, grabbed Zhuge Jin's horse reins, and pulled him towards the camp gate.

Zhuge Jin rode a BMW that was comparable to Zhao Yun's. It was a good horse from the Western Regions that Liu Xie rewarded Zhuge Jin with for his meritorious service in his appearance before the emperor in Xuchang. However, this horse was in the hands of a timid and cautious person like Zhuge Jin, so it was a bit of a waste of talent and never ran at full speed.

It’s like someone in 2024 bought a 4090 but used it to run Stardew Valley. The graphics card always feels like it’s about to catch a cold.

At this moment, Zhao Yun was running on foot pulling the reins, and the horse actually ran faster than when Zhuge Jin was controlling the horse himself.

Zhuge Jin also hurriedly tightened the reins, and the group chatted about what had happened since they parted, and soon arrived at the central military tent.

Zhao Yun was very curious, and asked immediately after he sat down: "I heard from Yunchang that he went to Suiling to invite you to join the army in order to break Guo Jia's 'hidden reefs across the river', and then he solved it in a short time? I wonder what magic method he used, how could it be so fast."

Zhuge Jin cleared his throat and said modestly that it was not that fast actually. It was mainly because the information exchange was smooth and not much time was wasted in asking for instructions and seeking advice.

In fact, Guan Yu continued to move westward from Suiling a few days ago and arrived at Qulu County on the border of Pengcheng County. After being blocked by Guo Jia's destruction of the waterway, he immediately released a carrier pigeon back. The pigeon flew faster than a horse and flew back to Suiling County in more than an hour and landed in Zhuge Jin's hands.

Zhuge Jin pondered it for a moment at the time, but had not yet figured out the specific details of the plan. He just thought that perhaps he could copy the answer from history, and then he sent a fast messenger with his note to rush back to the army, and asked Guan Yu to prepare the necessary materials according to the note.

Therefore, after Guan Yu found himself blocked by Guo Jia's sabotage work, only three or four hours later he had already begun to prepare the materials needed to crack the code, waiting for Zhuge Jin to arrive.

Zhuge Jin then thought slowly along the way while riding his horse with his guards to the front of the army. Before the battle, Zhuge Jin specially transferred Zhou Tai, who was guarding the city from Langya County, to the front line and join the battle reserve. So this time when he came to meet Guan Yu, Zhou Tai and several hundred cavalrymen protected him along the way.

With this calculation, there is really no need to rush.

After Zhao Yun had a general understanding, he was not interested in the details. He just wanted to know how Zhuge Jin had solved Guo Jia's destruction of the waterway, so he asked about this point.

Zhuge Jin then revealed the whole story: "It's nothing, actually. I'll send a fast messenger to inform Yun Chang to prepare enough strong wood. If that doesn't work, we can also dismantle the warships, drag them ashore, and use carts and horses to pull them upstream.

After I arrived, I had people use a lot of wood to make a solid raft. Then I installed the iron spikes that were originally used to assemble the planks of the rafts on the heads of these heavy solid rafts. I had the trackers and polemen drag the solid rafts and hit the reefs on the bottom of the water to break them. The draft of the solid rafts was guaranteed to be deeper than that of our warships. After wading through a path, the following ships could pass safely. "

When Zhuge Jin said this, there was no pride on his face. When Zhao Yun saw this, he couldn't help but respect him even more: After all, he was Zi Yu, who was able to come up with such a brilliant idea in a flash, and he was not at all arrogant or proud. It turned out that he had thought of so many brilliant plans that he had become accustomed to them.

How could he know that the reason why Zhuge Jin was not proud was that he felt he had gotten an advantage. He simply copied the method used by Wang Jun and Du Yu of the Western Jin Dynasty to defeat Wu Yan, the prefect of Jianping in the Eastern Wu Dynasty, by using "iron chains across the river". What was there to be proud of?
Ordinary warships dare not charge head-on because the wooden boards are too thin and easily broken, and the tonnage is not large enough. If the tonnage is larger and made solid, what kind of artificial obstacles can't be knocked down?

However, Zhao Yun was not a time traveler after all, and he didn't know who Wang Jun and Du Yu were, so he didn't have a preconceived notion that this method of handling the situation was powerful.

After thinking carefully, he still couldn't believe it, so he asked: "Can we break the underwater reefs in this way? The underwater reefs are indeed not solid, and they can be broken down by force. But Zhang He was patrolling on the north bank at that time, and our army could only control the south bank.

The Sui River is not very wide. If we deploy boatmen and polemen on the south bank, won't we be harassed by Zhang He's crossbows on the other side? Moreover, the raft is only supported by the south bank. How can we ensure its progress? Won't it be washed off course?"

Zhuge Jin smiled slightly and reminded him, "Zilong must have missed it just now. I deliberately said that I asked Yunchang to dismantle the wood, transport it from the south bank to the upper reaches by land, and then assemble it again.

After being placed in the river, it does not go upstream, but downstream. The inertia of the river water hitting the raft's own weight is enough to meet 70% to 80% of the impact force, and a little pulling and pushing to avoid deviating from the channel is enough. "

Zhao Yun was stunned, and then he realized that he had missed a detail.

It turns out that Tzuyu thought so carefully that she thought of utilizing the power of the Sui River's flow from the very beginning, rather than fighting against the natural power of the river.

By switching from downstream to upstream, the destructive effect can be increased several times.

This is not surprising.

Anyway, Ziyu had created this miracle. Now that he had brought Guan Yu's troops here, what else was there for him to worry about? If anyone was worried, it should be Cao Ren, Zhang He, and Guo Jia who should worry about it.

Zhao Yun just casually added a question at the end: "What if this method didn't work in time and was delayed?"

Zhuge Jin: "That's fine. At most, we can let Yunchang lead the cavalry of Xuzhou Army to meet with you and attack Cao Ren from both sides. But in that case, the troops may not be as sufficient as they are now, and the secret of our army's real-time communication through pigeons will be immediately suspected and discovered, which will not be conducive to our next attack. But now, at least we can pretend that it was a 'coincidence' and that our army was able to break Guo Jia's moves quickly. If Cao Ren can become more distrustful of Guo Jia and let Guo Jia also bear some of the blame for the defeat, and blame each other, it will be a pleasant surprise - but I don't dare to count on it."

Zhao Yun was sincerely convinced. Ziyu not only had brilliant strategies at his fingertips, but the key was that even if they didn't work, he also had a backup plan.

……

There is nothing much to review about the past.

Zhao Yun quickly brought the topic back to the current battle situation, and simultaneously gave Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin the information that "Cao Ren withdrew 10,000 men to Fuli County, and left another 20,000 soldiers in Qi County, and that our side had only killed 13,000 enemies in several rounds of pursuit before" in the most concise and clear words.

Then Zhao Yun asked directly: "... This is what happened. The strategy you and Aliang came up with was not used well by me. It was a bit of a big plan for a small purpose, and only killed a small number of enemies. How should we deal with it in the future?"

Zhuge Jin pondered for a while, digested the results, understood the situation, and then comforted Zhao Yun:
"Zilong is really strict with himself and lenient with others. If he were an ordinary general, he would be proud and complacent after being able to kill 10,000 enemies at a small cost under Cao Ren.

However, I don’t think this is really bad news - although we killed fewer enemies, maybe 10,000 less, but the enemy was delayed more, which is good for our overall strategy. "

Zhao Yun was originally still blaming himself, but after hearing what Zhuge Jin said, the haze suddenly disappeared, and then he was a little bit unbelieving: "Zi Yu, you are not trying to comfort me, are you?"

Zhuge Jin: "We are family now, so of course we can say whatever we want. Do I need to comfort you? What I said makes sense.

Think about it, what is the final battle goal of our army in the autumn and winter this year? What results do we want to achieve while the main force of Cao's army is pinned down in Hebei? Is it to kill more of Cao Ren's troops? No! Don't forget that we want to capture Pengcheng County, Taishan County and Runan County, and occupy the dangerous mountains and rivers in the southeast and the Huai River.

Even if Cao Cao destroys Yuan Shang and has time to march back south, we won't be able to take it back. By then, the strategic locations will be in our hands. Even if Cao's total military strength is twice or three times ours, we can only watch and sigh.

If Cao Ren had only defended Fuli and Zhuyi, the two cities separating Sui, the Suishui waterway would have been completely blocked, and our army would have been unable to stop Cao Ren from retreating to Suiyang via the Suishui waterway when he felt he was running out of manpower after holding out for a long time.

That would be the most disadvantageous situation for us, because we could neither ensure the annihilation of the enemy's main force nor firmly hold a piece of territory - even if we temporarily took Fuli, Zhuyi, and even the entire Qiao and Liang areas, these territories were all in the flat Huaibei Plain, with no strategic location to defend. After Cao Cao defeated Yuan, he came with a total force two or three times that of ours, and it would be difficult for us to defend, and we would have to give it up.

But now, Cao Ren has lost 20,000 troops in Qi County, a plain county with no water in the back and no river in front. He can only defend the three cities of Fuli, Zhuyi and Qi County to the end. The 20,000 troops in Qi County are surrounded by us, and it is impossible to withdraw by water.

After all, the Fuli County garrison only withdrew 10,000 troops. If Cao Ren wanted to defend Fuli and Zhuyi, he would have to draw more troops from Pengcheng and Runan on the left and right, first go around to the upper reaches of Suishui, and then go downstream by water into our encirclement to reinforce Fuli.

In this way, Pengcheng and Runan will be more empty than we expected at the beginning! At that time, as long as the troops of Runan cross the Huaihe River to the north, cross the Woshui River to the north, and arrive at Suishui to reinforce Fuli, Xingba can lead the navy to cut off the waterways of Woshui River and Huaihe River, so that the enemy troops of Runan will stay in the north and never think of returning to Huainan.

Then, you can withdraw most of the infantry surrounding Fuli, turn back to take Huainan, or at most leave cavalry behind to monitor Cao Ren, and then withdraw.

Zhang He in Pengcheng will suffer the same fate if he dares to support Cao Ren. I will let him cross the Sishui River and Suishui River to the south easily, but it will be wishful thinking for him to cross the Sishui River to the north and return to Pengcheng. When the time comes, we will use our navy and warships to intercept them vigorously, and let the Cao army on both wings stay and watch the show when they arrive at the battlefields of Fuli and Gaixia. Even if our main force leaves, they can't leave!

We only paid the price of "preventing our navy from participating in the decisive battle", in exchange for Cao's main force not being able to participate in the decisive battle, isn't this a huge profit!"

Zhao Yun finally understood, it seemed to be true.

Sometimes, it's hard to tell the pros and cons. Although killing more enemies is definitely a good thing, since it can't be achieved perfectly, this suboptimal option seems to be acceptable.

What remained was how to create further tension for Cao Ren, and force Zhang He, Cai Yang, and Li Tong to send troops to rescue Cao Ren as quickly as possible, and then take down the lair of Zhang He, Cai Yang, and Li Tong.

-

PS: I have written this part of the story, and some people still asked me in private messages and criticized me, "Why don't you directly attack Fuli and Zhuyi guarded by Cao Ren, which is Suzhou, Anhui in later generations. Why do you have to take so many detours to attack Runan County and Pengcheng County?"

Let me explain again: Go and look at a map, the kind with terrain. Taking Runan, especially the part south of the Huai River, will make it easier to defend in the future. Even if Cao Cao returns with a large army, Liu Bei will take it. Every bite counts. Cao's army has no navy and cannot take it back. Pengcheng has a large marsh and is backed by the Taishan and Mengshan mountainous areas in the north.

It’s different with Suzhou, which is a vast plain with no strategic locations to defend.

The situation of "Liu is strong and Cao is weak in Huaibei region" has a window period and a shelf life. It was only like this during the three or four months when Cao Cao captured Yecheng and destroyed Yuan Shang.

Once this window of time passed, Ye City was broken and Cao Cao's main force returned south. In terms of overall military strength, Cao was still strong and Liu was weak, so Liu Bei had to go on the defensive for a period of time.

Therefore, my strategic target selection criteria are all "the terrain must be strategic, so that if I take it I can ensure that I will be able to hold it firmly and Cao Cao will not be able to take it back even if he turns back."

(End of this chapter)