My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 497: The Same Death as the Mongolian Army
Since receiving Zhuge Liang's reply that day, Wei Yan has been making intensive preparations to plug the loopholes and deal with various surprise attacks by the enemy.

However, Wei Yan was ultimately the passive party. He could not decide when Xiahou Yuan would take action, when he would discover the "opportunity to fight", and he could not remind Xiahou Yuan.

All Wei Yan could do was to wait quietly for Jia Xu to discover the "loophole" that Zhuge Liang had already discovered, and then deliver the solution to his problem.

Fortunately, Jia Xu did not disappoint Zhuge Liang and Wei Yan.

About ten days after Wei Yan received Zhuge Liang's reply, Jia Xu finally planned a new siege tactics based on the intelligence collected by the soldiers who were responsible for recent reconnaissance and survey. After deducing it on paper, he felt that it was quite feasible.

Jia Xu immediately found Xiahou Yuan and actively offered advice.

Hearing that there was finally a trick, Xiahou Yuan was of course very eager: "Oh? Please go ahead, Wenhe!"

Jia Xu didn't waste any words, and pointed to the map and said, "Scouts have been surveying Fishhook Mountain for days, and found that the other sides are all cliffs plunging straight into the river.

Only in the sunken area on the north side, there is a sandbar and mudflat more than 100 steps wide extending into the river. It should be formed by the sediment carried by the river water over the years.

Now that winter has arrived, the water level of the Xihan River (Jialing River) is dropping every day, and the rocks at the bottom of the river are gradually emerging. By then, this sandbar will only become wider and easier to land and assemble troops..."

When Xiahou Yuan heard this, his eyebrows twitched slightly. He was also knowledgeable about military affairs, and had roughly guessed what Jia Xu wanted to say: "Could it be that Wenhe meant..."

Jia Xu nodded and said, "That's right. I think Wei Yan's troops are insufficient after all. He should have less than 10,000 soldiers under his command. Diaoyu Mountain is very large, ten miles long from east to west and three miles wide from north to south.

Under normal circumstances, it would take at least tens of thousands of soldiers to defend such a large area. Wei Yan was able to defend it with less than 10,000 people, relying entirely on the unique and dangerous terrain. He only needed to concentrate his troops on the east wall. The other three sides, which were 20 miles long, were all cliffs, so there was almost no need to leave any soldiers.

In this case, if our army launches another strong attack on the front and prepares more siege weapons, Wei Yan will think that we are temporarily suspending the strong attack in order to build more and stronger weapons. He will definitely not be suspicious.

As long as the casualties in the frontal attack were heavy, he would definitely deploy all the reserve troops to the front of the East Wall and the main peak of Diaoyu Mountain. At that time, we would use an elite team to go back to the sandbar on the north shore in the dark to land and assemble, and then use hooks and ropes to climb over the most dangerous section of the cliff. Later, we could use the hillside path to slowly go around to the top of the cliff...

At that time, we can send surprise troops to attack from both sides, or simply set fire to the enemy camp to make them confused and throw their formation into chaos, and then we can defeat the city in one battle!"

Xiahou Yuan's heart was pounding, but as a commander, he thought about it again and again, and asked steadily: "Is it possible to climb up there?"

Jia Xu: "I have heard that eight years ago, Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin, under Liu Bei, annihilated the Shanyue chieftain Zu Lang and other tribes in Yuzhang. Among them, two Shanyue tribes located in the steep Huangshan Mountain were defeated by Zhuge Liang, who used his so-called 'magic technique' to climb the mountain as if walking on flat ground.

I have never believed in ghosts and gods. Any talk of magic must be absurd and deceitful. In the final analysis, it must be that Zhuge Liang was good at craftsmanship and made tools that can climb dangerous mountains.

Before Cao Gong ordered the general to enter Sichuan, he also spent a lot of money to search for various mountain warfare equipment and weapons among the people. I have also seen some equipment for mountaineering and trekking. I wonder if they were made by Zhuge Liang in the past and lost and passed down.

But even if they are different, the principle should be the same. The general can have people produce them in batches for testing. If it works, it won't be too late. In addition, the general has to pretend to launch a frontal attack and build new and larger siege weapons to deceive Wei Yan. This also takes time. If we advance both ways, we won't be afraid of delays."

Xiahou Yuan thought about it and found it made sense, so he immediately ordered all units of the army to make preparations according to their respective tasks.

It turned out that before Cao Cao decided to fight Zhang Lu, he had considered the difficulty of mountain warfare across the Qinling Mountains. At that time, he offered a large sum of money to recruit talents and looked for various auxiliary plans that might be helpful to the war.

The complete set of mountaineering equipment that Zhuge Jin helped to come up with and Zhuge Liang helped to perfect has been around for eight years. Although the Zhuge brothers kept it secret and the original version in the army was never leaked, the Shanyue people and Danyang veterans who used these equipment at the time always spread the news by word of mouth.

Outsiders developed their own device after being inspired by a few descriptions. Although it is still much worse than the original product of the Zhuge brothers, it is still usable and at least helpful for climbing cliffs.

During the war, both sides were very concerned about military technology. If they couldn't get the original, it wouldn't be difficult to make a substitute according to their ideas and goals. After all, so many years had passed.

……

Xiahou Yuan asked the military craftsmen to build more heavy siege equipment, and especially asked everyone to work together to think about whether there was any way to improve the Ge Gongche so that it could be pushed up a relatively steeper slope, even if it meant sacrificing some performance and defense.

This will ensure that the subsequent frontal feint attack looks more realistic and more likely to deceive Wei Yan.

On the other hand, other craftsmen were ordered to rush to make various equipment to assist in mountaineering and put them into actual cliff climbing tests.

These tasks were naturally time-consuming, so soon another ten days passed.

Xiahou Yuan didn't know how many times he punished the incompetent craftsmen, but he finally got what he wanted.

Only then did he change his attitude again and rewarded the craftsmen who had made meritorious contributions, which could be regarded as "using both kindness and severity". It was almost the end of November, and it was already the 26th.

Xiahou Yuan gave his troops a hearty meal and rewarded them after a whole morning of hard work. Then he organized his troops and sent out tens of thousands of soldiers to re-form their battle array outside the east wall of Diaoyucheng.

In addition to the ladders, catapults, and battering rams that were present in the last attack, there were also some improved Ge Gongche.

The new Ge bus looks lighter and weaker, and has less protection, but its center of gravity is lower and more stable, and it can be pushed up steeper slopes.

This is also a special period, in order to obtain better battlefield passability and terrain adaptability, some combat performance has been sacrificed.

When Wei Yan heard the sound of drums and horns outside again after more than 20 days, he immediately climbed up to the tower on the east wall to supervise the battle and observe the enemy's situation.

Relying on his telescope, Wei Yan could clearly see the detailed changes in the appearance of Cao's siege weapons from hundreds of steps away. After a little thought, he realized that these Ge Gongche must have been improved for applicability.

Wei Yan couldn't help thinking in his heart: "Twenty days ago, Xiahou Yuan was defeated because Ge Gongche couldn't go uphill and couldn't attack the second inner wall after taking the first east wall, and was trapped in the middle of the '瓮城' area.

This time, his improvement must be focused on this aspect. But it's not a big problem. The Ge Gongche was originally built by the two Zhuge masters. Isn't the restraint method they left behind enough for me to use? Moreover, the two walls of Diaoyucheng were reinforced by me for 20 days, which is far from comparable to the original attack.

Cao's army came suddenly. Could there be some conspiracy from other directions? And it's almost noon today. If Cao's army wanted to attack, why would they come out so late? If they start fighting now, it will be dark in the afternoon. It must be as Mr. Kong Ming said in the letter, they want to attack in the dark and have other conspiracy!"

Wei Yan checked bit by bit according to the precautions in the letter Zhuge Liang gave him, and soon found many suspicious points. He was almost about to conclude that Xiahou Yuan's attack today was just a feint for cover, and he actually had other plans.

There was no way, because Xiahou Yuan really thought so - he didn't expect these weaker but more compatible Ge Gongche to break the city, he was originally trying to consume the enemy's energy and delay time.

In order to cover the troops that would climb up from the bottom of the cliff by the river to launch a surprise attack, he had to ensure that the battle on the front battlefield continued until dark. Only by keeping the pressure on would Wei Yan bring up all the reserve troops, leaving the rear empty.

But if we launch a feint attack early in the morning and continue the feint attack all day until dark, how many more people will die? So since it is a feint attack, we can start it in the afternoon and reduce the number of casualties by half.

Soon, Cao's army launched a frontal offensive again.

Arrows rained down like rain, catapults smashed into each other, logs were rolled, bottles of lime and gold juice were splashed behind the Ge bus approaching the city... There is no need to elaborate on these daily details. In short, it was not much different from the fierce battle twenty days ago.

Cao's army continued to lose lives, and although they occasionally killed and injured Wei Yan's soldiers, the ratio of casualties between the two sides was definitely that of Cao's army.

The new Ge Gongche was unable to show better combat effectiveness in the face of the two city defenses that Wei Yan continued to strengthen. Wei Yan used the Zhuge family's first-hand countermeasures to always maintain the resilience of the battlefield, and even had the spare capacity to keep the reserve troops on standby at any time and ensure that there were necessary guards in other directions.

The most "insidious" thing was that Wei Yan clearly had sentries on duty at other positions, but he did it very covertly. They were all "secret sentries" placed according to Zhuge Liang's instructions, and the enemy could not see them from a distance at all.

As the fighting on the front battlefield became more and more intense, Wei Yan ordered the sentries at other positions in the rear to lower their flags, as if "the situation on the front line is tight, everyone should go to the front line to provide support."

It was finally dark, Xiahou Yuan had suffered thousands of casualties and the fighting on the front line was extremely brutal.

The Cao army's water surprise attack team, led by Lu Zhao, finally lowered the boat from upstream and quietly landed in the dark at the indentation of the river beach north of Diaoyucheng. Then they reorganized themselves and began to climb up the mountain wall with newly made rock climbing tools.

The cliffs facing the river are not that high, only about 10 feet. After climbing 70 to 80 feet, and walking a few steep slopes, you can reach the open area above.

This move may seem risky, but we can't really blame Jia Xu for instigating Xiahou Yuan to gamble on his luck - because when famous military strategists are at a loss when facing Diaoyu City, they will most likely think of this tactic of trying their luck.

A thousand years later in history, after the Mongolian army failed to capture Diaoyucheng after besieging it for more than a decade, they sent the traitorous general Wang Dechen to try to land quietly from the dock area of Diaoyucheng and climb up to launch a surprise attack from behind. However, Wang Dechen's sneak attack was discovered by the Song army, and Wang Dechen himself was killed in the sneak attack.

At this moment, Jia Xu persuaded Xiahou Yuan to give way to Lu Zhao and lead the surprise attack force from behind. The tactics were actually exactly the same as when Mengge ordered Wang Dechen.

All we can say is that the terrain of Diaoyucheng is there, and there is really no other option but to "see the same thing".

At this moment, Lu Zhao led a group of elite soldiers in Cao's army who were good at climbing. After climbing for a while, the vanguard finally climbed up a vertical cliff area of 20 to 30 feet high and stepped onto the steep slope along the cliff that could be walked. They were about to organize the team and charge to the top of the cliff.

Suddenly, the flags that had been lowered on the cliff stood up again. Zhuo Ying, the deputy general who was urgently sent by Wei Yan to the top of the cliff on the north bank to supervise the battle, also showed up in bright armor and waved his hand:
"Shoot arrows! Throw logs and rocks!"

When Lu Zhao heard the sound, he looked up in surprise and was hit on his helmet by a hundred-pound rock falling from the top of the cliff. In an instant, both his head and the helmet were sunken into his chest.

(End of this chapter)