My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 532: What kind of person is Zhuge Liang? He can defeat the enemy with just a few words in front of the battle line

N flowers bloom, each showing its own beauty.

The perspective returns to Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang in Ba County, and the timeline goes back a dozen days to mid-April.

That was when Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Pang Tong were blocked in Langzhong County by Feng Kai, who was helping Xiahou Yuan.

Zhuge Liang, who was helping Liu Bei guard the new city of Jiangbei in Jiangzhou in the rear, had just received Fa Zheng's secret letter at this critical juncture.

Zhuge Liang certainly would not delay the event. He immediately received Fa Zheng's messenger and unfolded the secret letter to read and ponder it carefully.

Although the cover of the letter stated that Liu Bei had to open it in person, who was Zhuge Liang? Military affairs were urgent and of great importance, and Zhuge Liang could read anything that Liu Bei could read first. This was the authorization that Liu Bei had repeatedly emphasized before he led his troops north, and there was no overstepping of authority.

Zhuge Liang saw that Fa Zheng's letter was very detailed, and he clearly stated the details of the military order given to Wu Yi by Liu Zhang's army. He said that Wu Yi would leave Jiameng Pass and go straight to Yangping Pass at double the speed, trying to avoid a battle with Xiahou Yuan's main force, and only sneak through the pass without fighting a hard battle.

What kind of person is Zhuge Liang? When he saw these descriptions, he immediately found a map, made some calculations, and soon concluded that Liu Zhang had underestimated the enemy and that this plan would definitely not succeed.

"Liu Zhang underestimated Xiahou Yuan. Seeing that the lord was able to defeat Xiahou Yuan, he thought that he could do it too? He really overestimated his own abilities. If he forces Wu Yi to fight like this, I think he will lose. What happens next will depend on how capable Wu Yi is, whether he can save his army, retreat and hold out until help comes."

Zhuge Liang continued to deduce on the map while pondering and talking to himself.

It's true that Zhuge Liang's deduction was as if inspired by God. Based on the military strength, mentality, and geographical location of both sides, he actually calculated that it was impossible for Wu Yi to break through Yangping Pass.

If the attack failed, Wu Yi's second option would definitely be to intercept Xiahou Yuan and prevent him from returning to Yangping Pass. However, this option would most likely fail if Xiahou Yuan was desperate and tried to escape at all costs.

If Wu Yi loses both battles, the subsequent situation will become even more critical. If Wu Yi is incompetent and the morale of his troops collapses quickly, Wu Yi may be destroyed after the second phase.

But if Wu Yi still had some tenacity, some resilience and some brains, and could retreat in an orderly manner and not fight with the desperate Xiahou Yuan, then he might have retreated to the Chencang Road where Xiahou Yuan came from and held on to wait for help.

It's true that Zhuge Liang's three-stage deduction, combined with Wu Yi's actual performance later, can be said to have been at least two-thirds correct. The development of the first two stages was exactly the same as Zhuge Liang's speculation.

Only in the third stage, Zhuge Liang's guess was at least half correct. The only difference was that Zhuge Liang was not sure whether Wu Yi could continue to fight after his defeat. This could not be blamed on Zhuge Liang, but he was still young after all, and was not very familiar with Wu Yi's talents. The intelligence collection was not sufficient, and he only knew that the other party was a relative of Liu Zhang.

Wu Yi had never led troops in battle before, so Zhuge Liang had no way of verifying his command ability, and he was not really an omniscient and omnipotent god.

In other words, Zhuge Liang, who was 85 miles away, was able to accurately predict the development of the military situation in the next month or so, at least five-sixths of the time, which is almost over %.

This level of skill is extremely rare in the world. Apart from his eldest brother, there is hardly any third person who can do it.

After making his own speculation, Zhuge Liang of course immediately came up with a response plan and figured out how to give advice to his lord.

Anyway, he was very confident that he could accurately predict the first two stages of Wu Yi's fate. As for the third stage, it didn't really matter whether it was accurate or not.

If Wu Yi collapsed completely in the second stage, he would be doing nothing but wasting his time, making the people sent by the lord go in vain, and there would be no further loss.

But if Wu Yi can survive the second stage and enter the third stage, his subsequent arrangements can be used.

So Zhuge Liang thought about it and quickly wrote a plan for his lord, and prepared to ask someone to send it to Langzhong by express horse.

But, it's just a coincidence.

While Zhuge Liang was analyzing Fa Zheng's secret letter and giving his own suggestions, almost within the same two or three days, another secret letter was sent from Jingzhou downstream, also to Liu Bei. However, it was written on the cover that because the information might be urgent, if Liu Bei was not there, Zhuge Liang could handle it personally and then pass it on.

This wording clearly showed that it was written by someone who knew the relationship between Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang very well, but this was not surprising - because this letter was sent by Zhuge Jin via express horse.

After seeing this, Zhuge Liang was no longer in a hurry to offer advice to his lord. He planned to read his elder brother's letter, then check for omissions and make a comprehensive summary.

……

Zhuge Jin's letter was sent in early April. Due to the difficult road to Shu, even though he tried his best to use fast horses, it still took half a month to reach Shu.

This year, Zhuge Jin wrote a total of two letters to Liu Bei discussing important military information. The last one was written in March, which is only more than half a month away from the current one.

The first letter was mainly to inform Liu Bei of the news that Cao Cao had declared himself the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, and to advise Liu Bei to "focus on consuming Cao Cao on the western front, and at the same time draw troops and prepare for a decisive battle with Cao Cao on the western front", setting this grand strategy. (Note: I have forgotten the whole process of setting the strategy in the previous chapter. If you feel that the plot is not coherent, you can go back and read Chapter 508 to review it.)
Now, less than a month later, the second letter arrived, apparently reporting on the preparation status of the matter requested last time, as well as informing of some new additional information.

Zhuge Liang read it carefully. In the first part of his elder brother's letter, he indeed mentioned the adjustments in the deployment of troops and generals in Guandong in the past month.

Zhuge Jin said that he had observed that Cao Cao had quietly withdrawn some troops from the Youji and Yanyu fronts. But in general, Cao's army still had sufficient defensive forces in Guandong, so he and Guan Yu did not find an opportunity to take advantage of and did not intend to change the original plan set last month.

Cao Cao now controls half of the country, while Liu Bei controls 30% of the country. The total conventional forces of both sides are about 500,000 to 300,000. Although Cao Cao wanted to march west for a decisive battle, he probably left 300,000 soldiers in Guandong to ensure that the territory was well defended, and he dispatched the remaining nearly 200,000 soldiers to enter Hanzhong to fight Liu Bei.

After observing this change, Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu had no choice but to prepare in advance. They tried their best to mobilize another 50,000 troops from Jing and Yang. They have already set out to the west and will soon enter Sichuan to meet up with Liu Bei in order to participate in the decisive battle of Hanzhong.

In addition, Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu also dispatched 20,000 second-line garrison troops, mainly natives of Jingnan and others whose hometowns were close to Sichuan. They did not care about their combat effectiveness. They were responsible for helping Liu Bei guard the newly occupied areas from Diaoyucheng to Jiangzhou to Yufu, Wuxian, etc., and guarding against Liu Zhang's impatience and turning against him.

This would at least allow Liu Bei to replace his elite field troops used to control the newly occupied areas, allowing them to fight the decisive battle.

All in all, Liu Bei's army entering Sichuan could have 120,000 troops, 100,000 of whom could fight in the decisive battle, and 20,000 could guard their homes along the way.

If they felt that it was not enough, Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu could continue to recruit troops, but Zhuge Jin also suggested in the letter not to do so. Now in Guandong, Liu Bei's army is 200,000 and Cao's army is 300,000. It is not very sufficient, and both sides are mainly defending their territory.

If more troops are withdrawn, the long expedition of thousands of miles will cause great losses and waste. I hope that the lord can try his best to think of a way to let Liu Zhang, who is local, contribute more and integrate Liu Zhang's forces at the same time.

Zhuge Jin thought so because he knew that Yizhou was not badly damaged in the war at the end of the Han Dynasty. At the peak of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yizhou had a population of more than 5 million, and now there are only more than 3 million left. So many people are not needed in the local area, and it is a waste to transfer them from thousands of miles away.

In addition, Zhuge Jin also mentioned that because the troops in Guandong were constantly being withdrawn, in order to prevent problems with their own defense line, they had recently made some minor adjustments to their deployment.

Guan Yu, who was originally stationed in Xuzhou, moved his headquarters to Shouchun. He did not need to report this to Liu Bei, because Huainan was originally part of Guan Yu's defense zone. Guan Yu just chose another city as a base within his defense zone. He only reported this to Liu Bei afterwards.

Zhuge Jin also went south from Youzhou and recently settled in Xuzhou, leaving Youzhou's defense to Zhao Yun and Jizhou and Bohai County's defense to Zhou Yu. Zhao Yun and Zhou Yu joined forces on the northern front, and Zhou Yu provided strategic support to Zhao Yun, which could absolutely ensure that there would be no mistakes.

In this way, the center of gravity will generally shift to the south, and by placing more powerful and famous generals on the south side, the gap created by the large number of troops from Jing and Yang being withdrawn to the west can be filled.

Even if the number of defenders on the Huaihe River defense line was reduced by half, Guan Yu himself was in charge and Cao Ren on the opposite side could do nothing to him.

……

The contents of the above letters are all basic work reports and information on military deployment, and there are no surprises.

But Zhuge Jin's letter was very long, and it was obviously much more than that. Zhuge Liang continued to read on and soon caught another key piece of information.

Zhuge Jin actually said in the letter: Their garrison deployed in Huainan had always sent out spies to secretly cross the Huai River to the north to collect military and political intelligence from the various counties in Yuzhou and Yanbian of Cao Cao's side.

According to the investigation, it is basically certain that Cao Cao originally planned to lead his army across the Qinling Mountains and head south after the snow in the Qinling Mountains completely melted, the ice flood was over, and the dirt roads in the valleys became dry again at the end of April. However, as mentioned above, Cao Cao did not dare to transfer too many troops stationed in Guandong to Guanxi, so the court in Xudu was saying that Cao Cao hoped that Ma Teng could make great efforts to pacify Yizhou this time.

After stating this fact, Zhuge Jin added his own judgment:
Given Cao Cao's previous record of using the newly surrendered troops as cannon fodder and vanguards, especially after Zhang Lu surrendered last year, Cao Cao sent surrendered generals such as Yang Ang and Yang Ren to serve as vanguards to die and be consumed when attacking Diaoyu City, Ma Teng's side would most likely not obediently serve as cannon fodder.

Therefore, Zhuge Jin had already used a trick in Guandong to send spies to infiltrate Cao Cao's occupied areas and spread rumors, specifically emphasizing Cao Cao's bad deeds in this regard in the past few years, especially focusing on the treatment of Zhang Lu, a general who surrendered last year, and who had been eliminated and killed.

Zhuge Jin firmly believed that this kind of propaganda offensive would definitely make Ma Teng feel uneasy and even induce some other changes.

He also hoped that his second brother Zhuge Liang could make good use of this opportunity. Even if Ma Teng and Ma Chao did not encounter any mishaps, his second brother could adapt to the situation and spread this false news to allies such as Liu Zhang, so that they would firmly believe that Cao Cao would not enter Sichuan so soon and that Cao Cao might be delayed, thus encouraging the allies' determination to continue to resist Cao.

As for how to use this tactic of improvisation and encouraging allies, Zhuge Jin did not go into detail in his letter.

After all, he was thousands of miles and several months away from us, and he was not a god.

But this kind of concise reminder was enough for Zhuge Liang.

What kind of person is Zhuge Liang? He followed his elder brother's reminder, combined it with his original plan, and immediately came up with a whole set of new supporting strategies.

He also hurriedly took the letter of advice he had just written to his lord, crossed it out and rewrote it, added his latest thoughts, and then sent someone to deliver it to the Langzhong front line by flying horse.

(End of this chapter)