My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 400: Two Fronts

Zhuge Jin's plan was obviously much more cunning than Chen Gong's.

He can obtain the expected benefits of Chen Gong's plan without being as forceful as Chen Gong's plan, and the political propaganda effect will also be better.

Therefore, Guan Yu and other generals were almost instantly convinced, and they all supported Zhuge Jin's plan. Chen Gong himself was also convinced.

However, the matter that Zhuge Jin and Chen Gong were talking about was a bit far away after all. It could only be implemented after Liu Bei's camp's counterattack plan against Cao's army was completely completed this autumn, and Liu Bei himself was free and had time to go north to Xiaopei.

As mentioned earlier, Liu Bei's camp's counterattack this autumn and winter was a simultaneous attack from both wings and from the east and west.

While Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin were collecting the three counties of Pengcheng, Taishan and Pei on the eastern front,

Liu Bei, Zhao Yun and Zhuge Liang also harvested the Huaixi area of Runan County on the western front.

Ensure that you can completely eliminate Cao Cao's forces south of the Huai River and gain a completely complete Huai River defense line. In this way, the future defense deployment of Liu Bei's army on the southern line will require much less manpower, manpower, and material resources.

As long as the entire Huaihe River is in their hands, Gan Ning's navy will patrol the Huaihe River, and a small number of troops will be able to block Cao's southward movement. There is no need to rely on Zhao Yun to station tens of thousands of troops in Hefei and Shouchun like in the past two years, and dare not move at all.

The strategic benefits of attacking Huaixi are so obvious that this goal cannot be missed.

If we expect Liu Bei to come to Xiaopei in person to do some political propaganda, we have to wait until the end of the year when everything in Runan has settled down.

……

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

The timeline also goes back to the end of July and the beginning of August of this year, and the focus shifts to the battlefields of Runan and Huaixi.

At the beginning, Zhao Yun and Guan Yu took action almost at the same time.

At the same time that Guan Yu sent Chen Dao to lure Zhu Ling to rob food, and then defeated him with an ambush, and then led his troops to counterattack Fuyang, besiege Chang Xi and attack Zhang He,

It was also on the Huaixi battlefield that Zhao Yun sent Wei Yan to fire the first shot of the Runan Campaign and attack Anfeng.

Of course, there are still some differences and changes between the specific actions of Zhao Yun's troops and the plan that Zhuge Liang set for him before the war. Even a master of calculation like Zhuge Liang could not act 100% according to the pre-war plan.

When it comes to war, once it starts, there are so many complicated and changing situations. Who can guarantee that there will be no accidents?
The main change on Zhao Yun's side was that when they pretended to attack Fuli and lure the enemy to reinforce, the progress was too smooth, so that they lured too many enemies - as mentioned earlier, the plan to lure the enemy formulated by Zhuge Liang before the war was to only pretend to attack and besiege the two twin cities of Fuli and Zhuyi, and stick Cao Ren's main force here.

Later, during Zhao Yun's implementation, Cao Ren was defeated at the gate of Qi County and decisively chose to withdraw the main force of his heavy infantry into Qi County instead of pulling them back to Fuli, so as to avoid being killed by Zhao Yun's cavalry on the way back and suffering heavy losses.

This move did allow Cao Ren to preserve more manpower, but it also left Fuli and Zhuyi with even less manpower, necessitating the transfer of more reinforcements from the battlefields of Pengcheng and Runan on both wings to Fuli to plug the gap.

After the leak was plugged, the size of Cao Ren's troops left in the Fuli battlefield was slightly larger than Zhuge Liang had originally expected - the extra part was mainly the part of Cao's army that was besieged in the third support point of the Fuli battlefield, the city of Qi County.

This is equivalent to Zhuge Liang only preparing one table of dishes, but two tables of guests came to eat. How can he entertain these guests?
The result of the temporary adjustment was that Zhao Yun chose to stay in the Fuli battlefield and use his cavalry to keep an eye on Cao Ren's main force for a while. He was worried that if he left, the other generals would not be able to control the situation with only this small force.

Zhao Yun himself no longer participates in the first phase of the attack on Runan. It will be mainly completed by Wei Yan, and Gan Ning can join later.

However, this change did not affect the overall situation. On the Liu Bei side, Zhao Yun was retained, but on the Cao army side, more troops were held back, and the strength of both sides on the Runan battlefield decreased proportionally.

In the first stage, neither side had a big boss to protect them, so it depended on who was stronger and who was weaker between Wei Yan and the unknown general of Cao's army who temporarily came up from the opposite side.

……

"This is the situation. Our army has tied up more Cao Ren's troops in Fuli than we expected at the beginning. But the price is that Zilong has to stay in Qi County and keep an eye on Cao Ren, and he can't come back for the time being.

Now, neither Cai Yang nor Li Tong are here in Runan, and even Cai Yang's general Qin Qi is not here. It depends on you whether you can quickly capture Anfeng in this first battle, take down this hub where the Huaihe River and Yingchuan meet, and prevent Cao's troops along Yingchuan from going downstream to reinforce. "

This is what Zhuge Liang told Wei Yan before the first battle when Liu Bei's army went up the Huai River from Xia Cai and attacked Anfeng.

In order to ensure the suddenness of the battle and to save time, they could not wait for other generals to slowly return for support. So they had to rush forward directly relying on Wei Yan, a mere military commander and a temporary high-ranking official with some extra soldiers.

In war, one must be as fast as the wind and as slow as the forest. It is a matter of combining speed and slowness and adapting to changing circumstances. Now is the time to be as fast as the wind.

After hearing what Zhuge Liang said, Wei Yan's blood boiled. What a rare opportunity! If they could quickly capture Anfeng and cut off the Cao army's route to the Yingchuan River, wouldn't it be a sure thing for him to be promoted to captain?
He became a captain in his early twenties. What a great honor and fame. Fortune and fame are achieved through risk, and it is worth risking one's life.

Wei Yan immediately promised: "Don't worry, Advisor! I will take charge of Anfeng City! I will lead the troops and make sure to capture the city within a few days! If I miss the opportunity, I will lose my job as the military commander! You can demote me to a small soldier! However, I need sufficient siege equipment and armor to ensure that everyone in the troops sent to the front has a steel-filled horse-slaying sword."

Zhuge Liang: "These are all fine. Zilong hasn't come back yet, and we have more than enough supplies for the Runan campaign stored here. I can give your troops more supplies first.

However, if you want to race against time, heavy battering rams and rams may be inconvenient to use, so you can only use lighter ladders, ordinary flying ladders, and battering rams. Because Anfeng is the first line of defense in Runan, it also has a moat, although it is not wide.

Since we didn't have time to slowly fill the moat, we could only use the moat bridge frame and wooden planks to cross the moat. Such a moat bridge has insufficient load-bearing capacity to pass heavy equipment and can only carry light ladders at most.

In addition, I can also provide heavy vehicles such as wells and catapults that do not need to cross the moat. Anyway, they can just shoot arrows and stones at the top of the city wall across the moat to suppress the enemy. I have them semi-assembled in advance and then transported to the front line by Huaihe River boats. The final assembly can be completed within a day and pushed to the front line. "

Wei Yan sorted out the weapons that his side could mobilize, and after making sure he had an idea, he accepted the order generously and then urgently adjusted the tactical deployment for the siege.

The next day, Wei Yan led an army of 10,000 people and marched upstream along the Huai River into Runan County and approached the city of Anfeng.

When they arrived, it was already afternoon and it was about to get dark. It was impossible for Wei Yan to launch an attack on the city immediately, so he simply set up camp.

Then let the main soldiers who will participate in the attack tomorrow have a big meal and go to bed early.

Other soldiers who did not need to participate in the main attack were responsible for assisting the military craftsmen, loading and unloading siege weapon parts from the dock, then assembling them overnight, and doing various miscellaneous preparatory work, and were busy all night.

But this kind of busyness is worth it, and the effect is very obvious.

After continuous rush work, from the late afternoon of the previous day to the fourth watch of the next morning, in half a day, the light ladder had been assembled, and two well-trampling vehicles were also assembled by concentrated manpower. Two more were in a semi-finished state and it was estimated that they could be assembled within an hour or two, so as to be in time for the morning attack.

In addition, seven or eight catapults have also been assembled on the battlefield.

At four o'clock in the morning, the auxiliary soldiers who were extremely tired could not go to sleep. Some people had to be assigned to light the fire and cook to ensure that the main force could have hot wine, meat and vegetables immediately after getting up at five o'clock.

This kind of deployment is also very much in Wei Yan's style - when Wei Yan is carrying out urgent tasks that require racing against time, he never likes to distribute resources evenly like sprinkling pepper, but prefers to concentrate resources and take the elite route to ensure that some of the main forces are maintained in the best condition.

Just as in history, when he came up with the Ziwu Valley plan 20 years later, he also let 5,000 people serve as "food carriers" to provide various guarantees along the way to ensure that the 5,000 main combat troops could maintain combat status. Although the Ziwu Valley plan was a bit unrealistic and could not be implemented, Wei Yan's style can already be seen.

At five o'clock in the morning, the five thousand main combat soldiers who were going to take part in the attack today also got up, washed and stretched themselves first, and then at the beginning of the fifth watch the whole army had a general rest.

Each soldier was given a bowl of salted fish stewed with rice, with unlimited rice and vegetables, and each soldier in the village also shared a pig leg. Before going to the battlefield, everyone could drink a bowl of water wine to boost their spirits.

There is no need to worry about soldiers getting indigestion or appendicitis if they eat too much - because there is still more than half an hour between meal and battle.

The troops lined up, reorganized, and marched to the city wall, which took nearly half an hour in total.

The most important thing is that the soldiers who will lead the way to the city today all have armor, and putting on armor is a time-consuming and laborious task. Ordinary soldiers cannot put on their armor completely by themselves, so they have to work in pairs to help each other put on the armor and tie the straps on the back.

Anyone who has some experience in wearing ancient armor knows that sometimes it takes two people a quarter of an hour to put on armor for each other, and during this time the food would have long been eaten.

Wei Yan had 5,000 men under his command, and this time 2,000 of them were wearing full heavy armor, responsible for climbing the city walls. Another 1,000 wore half armor, and were considered a mobile reserve. The remaining 2,000 were wearing light armor, responsible for long-range crossbow suppression, operating the well-rail catapults, and helping to carry ladders and trench bridge vehicles.

At the beginning of the morning hour, the sky was almost bright, and Wei Yan's troops were on high alert and had made all preparations under the city of Anfeng.

The unknown general of Cao's army on the top of the city was also frightened when he saw the well-organized army of Liu Bei on the opposite side.

The unknown general of Cao's army had no right to be in charge of the defense of Anfeng City. When Cai Yang was there, he was in charge directly. When Cai Yang was not there, Qin Qi was in charge. If both of them had not been deceived by Zhuge Liang, he would not have been able to lead such a small number of people to defend the city.

After taking a quick look at Liu Bei's army formation, the only thing that comforted General Cao was the size of Liu Bei's army flag.

"Wei? What is this flag? When did Liu Bei's army have a general named Wei? I've never heard of it. Could it be that Zhao Yun and Gan Ning were also entangled by General Cao and General Cai, so Zhuge Liang hastily found an unknown general to attack the city?

That's good... we're even now. The other side is also a newcomer, so there's still room for this battle."

(End of this chapter)