My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 506 Xiahou Yuan: Haven’t I cultivated these deer antlers in vain?
One day at the end of February, in the Cao army camp outside Diaoyu City in Ba County.

The Cao army, which had completely given up all attempts at a strong attack since the beginning of December last year, finally became increasingly restless and irritable after more than three months of sitting quietly and besieging the city, with resentment being harbored from top to bottom.

In particular, the mood of head coach Xiahou Yuan was visibly getting more and more anxious day by day.

So much so that later on, when he had nothing to do, he personally inspected the frontline siege positions every day to ensure that the antler fortifications of the siege were tight enough after a winter of repairs, and there was absolutely no way that a soldier of Liu Bei's army could break out and escape.

These enemies had wasted three or four months of his life as General Xiahou. How could he let them leave alive when he broke into the city? Of course, he had to kill them all without leaving a single one alive! So the antlers and trenches had to be built! The tighter they were built, the better, to ensure that not even a fly could fly out!

There is another benefit of repairing the antlers, that is, when Zhang Fei and Gan Ning lead troops to rescue Wei Yan in the future, Xiahou Yuan's siege camp will become extremely solid. In that case, if Zhang Fei wants to break through the encirclement and join Wei Yan, he will pay a heavy price.

There is more than one Diaoyu Mountain around Dianjiang County, where the terrain is rugged and easy to defend but difficult to attack.

The peninsula extending eastward from Diaoyu Mountain is also narrow, but without high cliffs. Xiahou Yuan's siege camp was built on this narrow stretch east of Diaoyu Mountain.

As long as he built high rammed earth walls and wooden fences along the river, Zhang Fei and Gan Ning would have to attack from the root of the peninsula. At that time, Zhang Fei would have to experience how difficult it was to break through the antlers that Xiahou Yuan had been building for a whole winter!

Unfortunately, all of this is based on the premise that "Zhang Fei will indeed come to rescue Wei Yan."

What if Zhang Fei doesn’t come?
All the construction work Xiahou Yuan did this winter was in vain.

It was precisely based on such considerations that as February was about to pass and the enemy had not made any moves, Xiahou Yuan naturally became more and more impatient.

……

Early that morning, Xiahou Yuan, who was bored to death, once again personally inspected the repair work of the deer antlers outside the siege camp, and then looked out at the silent Diaoyucheng.

Wei Yan remained as still as a mountain, which made him unable to help scolding:
"What's going on? The siege has been going on for three months, and the spring planting has already begun. Why hasn't Wei Yan run out of food yet? Did he really cheat when he threw the wooden sign into the river and underreported the amount of food stored in Diaoyucheng? Can he actually hold out longer?"

Xiahou Yuan put one hand on his waist and subconsciously swung the whip with the other hand, hitting the antler of a deer in front of him, making a crackling sound.

The generals and staff who followed the inspection also kept silent, not wanting to get into trouble when their commander was angry.

This situation is not the first time that has occurred recently. He gets angry every two or three days. Everyone is used to it and knows that they can just keep silent and get through it.

When Xiahou Yuan had almost vented his anger, Jia Xu, the only one among the accompanying staff who could not shirk responsibility, stepped forward to comfort him tactfully:
"Please be patient, General. The art of war is about responding to the reality. Before Wei Yan placed the wooden sign in the river, he might have agreed on a code word with Zhuge Liang, or they might have agreed to add or subtract words when mentioning the grain reserves. This is not surprising. But as long as Wei Yan doesn't get new grain supplies, he can always break the city."

Xiahou Yuan was puzzled for a moment, but he was also distracted by this novel statement, so he asked Jia Xu to explain it in detail. Jia Xu also explained it, and took the opportunity to divert Xiahou Yuan's anger.

To be honest, this kind of thing actually doesn't require much technical content. As early as the pre-Qin period, generals of various countries already had primitive and simple cryptographic ideas, and using code words when transmitting military secrets and orders was nothing new.

When it comes to describing time and numbers, it is easier to do something tricky. For example, before Wei Yan was besieged, Zhuge Liang could have made an agreement with him in advance: if he needed to report in a letter how long the stored food would last, the result written on paper would be reduced by two or three months from the actual number.

In this way, even if Wei Yan's food reserves could last until April, he wrote it down by subtracting two months and saying that it could only last until February. In this way, even if the enemy intercepted it, the number they saw would be false. When Zhuge Liang saw it, he only needed to add two months back according to the algorithm agreed in advance to get the real number.

This kind of operation can be said to have existed before the Eastern Han Dynasty. Now that the time has come, Wei Yan has not shown any signs of being unable to defend due to lack of food. With Jia Xu's intelligence, he will naturally think in that direction first.

Xiahou Yuan was reassured by this statement and was willing to observe for a while.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. Later that day, when Xiahou Yuan had just returned to the camp to rest, a team of Cao's scouts rushed back to the camp and informed Xiahou Yuan of the bad news.

That team of Cao's scouts was responsible for patrolling the north bank of the river, the former Dianjiang County. Their daily mission was to observe the enemy's movements on the north bank of Diaoyu Mountain across the river.

As mentioned earlier, there is a mudflat sandbar formed by the alluvial deposits of three rivers on the north bank of Diaoyu Mountain, and the sandbar is close to the cliff.

At the end of November last year, Lu Zhao, under the orders of Xiahou Yuan, led his troops to land here and tried to climb up the cliff for a surprise attack from behind. As a result, he was killed by Zhuo Ying who was waiting for him on the top of the cliff and smashed him to death with a big rock. The accompanying soldiers also suffered heavy losses.

Xiahou Yuan certainly would not relax his surveillance of the weak location of Diaoyucheng. During the three-month siege, he insisted on sending scouts to patrol and observe the situation every day.

At this moment, upon hearing that the scout had brought back important news, Xiahou Yuan of course immediately met him in person. "What important military information did you find out? What unusual movements did Wei Yan make?"

As soon as he saw the scout officer, Xiahou Yuan asked eagerly.

The scout officer greeted him with military etiquette and said in a deep voice, "General, when we were scouting today, we saw Wei Yan sending soldiers to pile up wood and build a trestle on the sandbar at the bottom of the cliff on the opposite bank. It seems that they are going to build a dock!"

Upon hearing this, Xiahou Yuan stood up immediately and felt his blood pressure rise slightly.

Jia Xu, who was listening to the report at the same time, reacted even faster and refuted it almost immediately:

"Wei Yan could actually build a wharf there? How is that possible? Where did he get so much wood to build a wharf on that rotten land? Moreover, the width of the West Han River in this section is only a hundred feet. Isn't he afraid of being suppressed by powerful crossbows during the construction process? Even if he built it, how would he load and unload the materials from this wharf and transport them to the top of the cliff?"

How could the scout answer these questions? He could only say that he knew nothing about them and let Xiahou Yuan and Jia Xu see for themselves when the time came. Anyway, according to what the scout said, this matter was only exposed in the past two days. It should have been done very secretly before, or it was indeed just started.

Xiahou Yuan was already very anxious after hearing this. Unfortunately, it was already late that day. When he personally rode a horse and led a team of cavalry to the north bank and arrived at the scene to observe, it was already dark and he could not see anything across the river.

He could only stay in Dianjiang County that night and go back to wait and see the view the next morning when the view was better.

After a night of emergency repairs, Wei Yan's army on the opposite side found that Wei Yan's dock had begun to take shape when Xiahou Yuan went across the river to investigate again.

Xiahou Yuan and Jia Xu observed carefully and their expressions suddenly became solemn.

Xiahou Yuan clearly saw that on the opposite cliff, there was a faint trace of stone steps carved out to climb the cliff.

It has not been completely repaired yet, but at least it is possible to climb up the cliffs that are 15 feet high. The exact width is unclear across the river, but wooden guardrails can be vaguely seen in those obviously narrow places and dangerous corners.

It is obvious that in the future, after the dock at the bottom of the cliff is built, the cargo unloaded from the ships can be carried directly to the top of the cliff along the stone steps by the soldiers carrying it on shoulder poles. Although it is a bit tiring, it is definitely sufficient as a channel for supplying military food.

These stairs were definitely not built in a few days, but were slowly constructed by Wei Yan at the end of January or even throughout February. At the same time, Wei Yan must have covered the location of the stairs with grass and trees to prevent the enemy troops across the river from seeing the situation clearly.

It was only in recent days that he suddenly removed his disguise, which was obviously done on purpose to let Xiahou Yuan see it clearly in order to undermine Xiahou Yuan's mentality.

In other words, once these facilities were completed, anyone with a discerning eye could see that it would be impossible for Xiahou Yuan to lay siege to the city and cut off its food supply.

"Wenhe! Why didn't you expect that Wei Yan could build a road down the cliff and even build a dock in such a place! Can we counter it? Why don't we send troops across the river to destroy them while they are still unstable at the bottom of the cliff!" Xiahou Yuan was so angry that he caught Jia Xu and asked.

Jia Xu knew that this matter was not that simple, and he quickly excused himself: "This matter is quite strange, so it is difficult to predict... General, please look, Wei Yan's pier is still built on flat ground, and it doesn't even extend into the river! That's why the construction is so fast, and it's difficult for us to destroy it - but what's the use of building this pier?"

Jia Xu pointed out several key doubts based on his own observations, which helped Xiahou Yuan calm down a little and think about it more slowly.

Indeed, it was obviously unreasonable for Wei Yan to suddenly cause such a big fuss within a few days, considering his construction strength.

If a normal person were to build a pier, they would certainly have to extend it into the river. For example, they would have to make sure that the berth was built to a depth of nearly ten feet, or at least six or seven feet, so that large ships could come over and unload cargo, otherwise the ships would run aground.

As long as you work in deep water, the underwater stress is not easy to bear, and it is difficult to excavate and pile, so the construction speed will become very slow, not as fast as building a wooden frame on flat ground.

Moreover, although Cao's army did not have the advantage of naval forces, it was still easy for them to make fireboats. For underwater targets under construction, they could simply send a fireboat to ram them and burn them. That was very easy.

Even if Gan Ning came to protect them, it would not work. No matter how strong Gan Ning was, he could not guarantee that he would sink the fire ship before it collided. He could only let his ship dodge, but he could not protect the fixed target dock facilities.

Moreover, as long as Wei Yan built a dock in the deep water area, the river surface in this section was not very wide. At this location, the Fu River had not yet merged with the Jialing River and the Qu River, so the water surface was only a hundred feet wide at its widest. Half of the south bank was a sandbar and mudflat, and if a trestle was built a dozen feet into the river, then the trestle would definitely be within the range of Cao's crossbowmen on the north bank.

Because Jia Xu knew these points, he had predicted that Diaoyucheng could not be built under the eyes of Cao's army to obtain supplies. Even if Wei Yan wanted to build a wharf, Xiahou Yuan had enough time and opportunity to destroy it.

But now, all this is happening right before our eyes.

(End of this chapter)