My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 563: After slapping Cao Cao, let him see a little hope again
In one battle, 40,000 Cao troops were annihilated. This number is a brilliant achievement no matter how you look at it.

However, Liu Bei, who was in high spirits, had already raised his expectations too high in the past few days. Especially with the great victory on the front line, his heart was inevitably inflated, and he always fantasized that the final results would be greater.

In the end, when the number stopped at 40,000, he actually felt a little disappointed, empty and regretful in his heart.

"I've counted it and it's really 40,000... I thought it would be more, but it's pretty good."

The next afternoon, when Liu Bei woke up and heard the final number, he couldn't help but sigh.

Because he was too excited, he did not sleep all night last night. He just personally patrolled the camp, encouraged and comforted the meritorious troops, and encouraged the generals. Finally, it was almost dawn, and he could not hold on any longer and fell asleep. When he woke up again, it was already afternoon, and it would soon be evening again.

Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong, who were standing by, were also not very energetic. Their work and rest schedules were quite chaotic, and their emotions fluctuated greatly, making it difficult for them to rest. Seeing his lord sigh, Zhuge Liang took the initiative to share his worries and analyzed:
"My lord, 40,000 is already very good, but we still have to consider the narrow terrain of Chencang Road. Even if Bai Qi and Han Xin were to fight, they would not be able to annihilate more enemies at once in such a terrain.

In yesterday's battle, more than half of our army's victory was due to Wen Chang and Wang Ping's ambushes on the flanks, which cut off part of Cao's army. As a result, these Cao's army's route back was cut off, and they were surrounded and surrendered in batches.

If there had not been this kind of interlacing, cutting and encirclement, relying solely on frontal attacks and driving away, it would not have been possible to annihilate more than 10,000 people in the entire battle. "

Liu Bei naturally trusted Zhuge Liang unconditionally under any circumstances. Zhuge Liang's analysis was so thorough that Liu Bei's reluctance and extra expectations completely disappeared, and he nodded in approval:

"That's true. I expected too much. Alas, it's a pity. After all, the terrain of Chencang Road is not suitable for a full-scale decisive battle, nor for a large army to decide the outcome. Sir, do you think Cao Cao will give up after this defeat? Do we still have a chance in Hanzhong to fight Cao Cao again in an open terrain and finally destroy him completely!"

Zhuge Liang had obviously figured out the problem while Liu Bei was resting. He pulled himself together and said excitedly:
"My lord, rest assured. As long as we want, there will always be opportunities. However, our army has just won a great victory over Cao Cao. If we continue to defend tightly, Cao Cao will not be able to find a chance to counterattack. Therefore, we can relax and deliberately expose some flaws to Cao Cao's army when the time is right.

For example, we can let Cao Cao see the hope of joining forces with Xiahou Yuan, and then let Cao Cao see the hope of transporting a large amount of military food to Hanzhong along the Chencang Road as a long-term plan. All of these require us to slowly lay out and plan them gradually. "

Encouraged by this, Liu Bei completely forgot all his resentment about the outcome of the battle. He began to look forward again, hoping to move from one victory to another greater victory.

At the same time, Pang Tong also took the opportunity to join in the fun and help Liu Bei analyze a few points purely from a military perspective:

"If you are obsessed with a decisive battle with Cao Cao in an open area, in order to annihilate the main force of Cao Cao's army, I think we should guide Cao Cao's army and drive its main force into the Hanzhong Basin. Then, we will also look for opportunities to fight a decisive battle with Cao Cao in the Hanzhong Basin.

Because the Chencang Road is too narrow, the terrain here is doomed to fail. In the entire south of the Qinling Mountains, only the Hanzhong Basin has a large enough plain for both sides to deploy hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight a life-and-death battle. The force of this decisive battle may be comparable to the Battle of Guandu. "

Liu Bei nodded and said, "So, based on what you said, after this great victory, we should still be able to relax and tense our forces, and retreat while we win, so that Cao Cao will have a chance to open up the Yangping Pass and eventually meet up with Xiahou Yuan smoothly.
But if we arrange it like this, Yangping Pass will always be in the hands of Cao Cao. Do we have to attack Yangping Pass by force in the future to enter the Hanzhong Basin and have a decisive battle with Cao Cao?

Or, after we let Cao Cao enter Yangping Pass, we just need to block the Chencang Road and prevent Cao Cao's army from transporting grain to Hanzhong from Chencang Road? In the end, the transportation on Baoxie Road will be difficult, forcing Cao Cao's army to run out of grain and retreat? "

Liu Bei has been imagining the Battle of Hanzhong for so many times recently that he can imagine a lot of follow-up events with just a few hints from the people below.

Following Pang Tong's train of thought, Liu Bei soon discovered a dilemma - there is only one Yangping Pass, if it is not in the hands of our army, it is in the hands of the enemy, and it is impossible to have both.

If Yangping Pass and the important roads outside the pass were in Liu Bei's hands, Cao Cao would have no way of joining forces with Xiahou Yuan. Even if they did, he would not be able to stay for long because the food supply was cut off, and in the end he would have to quickly retreat to Guanzhong via the Baoxiang Plank Road.

Liu Bei's army would no longer be able to achieve its goal of fighting a decisive battle in the basin plain and annihilating or at least weakening the main force of Cao's army.

If Cao Cao controlled Yangping Pass and the strategic pass in front of it, he could certainly transport food and stay there for a long time. But the question was how could Liu Bei fight him?
For the first time, Liu Bei realized how much he wanted to have two roads to enter the Hanzhong Basin, preferably one from the south and one from the north.

In this way, the northern route will be used by Cao Cao to transport food and join forces, and the southern route will be used by our army to enter the Hanzhong Basin, so that both can be achieved. In this way, the real decisive battle in the basin plain can be fought.

However, Liu Bei really didn't know that in the original history, the Battle of Hanzhong really ended like this. Cao's army had been holding Yangping Pass, and Liu Bei really found another way to enter the Hanzhong Basin.

It is precisely because Cao and Liu each have their own way to enter the basin that they can fight to the death inside the basin. Otherwise, if there is only one way, it's either you or me, so what kind of confrontation is there?

At this moment, Liu Bei repeatedly sighed and felt that it was difficult to have both. It seemed that this ultimate war had reached this point. Fortunately, he always had one or two counselors who could make the impossible possible. They were well versed in astronomy and geography, and knew all the strategies of war.

While Liu Bei was sighing, Zhuge Liang, who had been thinking about long-term countermeasures in the past two days, suddenly proposed a plan:
"Don't worry, sir. If we go back a few months, the only way to enter Hanzhong from the west to the east is through Yangping Pass. But things are different now. Now, our army has the 'wooden ox and flowing horse' and other ingenious vehicles for transporting food in the mountains.

Our army may be able to go directly eastward from the Yang'an Pass area where we are currently stationed, cross the Mi Cang Mountain, enter the southern edge of the Hanzhong Basin, and then fight a decisive battle with Cao's army in the open plains."

As Zhuge Liang spoke, he waved his hand to signal his attendants to bring a map, and then he gave Liu Bei instructions directly on the map.

Liu Bei immediately stared at the map with wide eyes for a while, but it was actually in vain - because there was no path on the map that could cross the Micang Mountain and turn from the Jinniu Road into the Hanzhong Basin.

On the map, the location that Zhuge Liang pointed to was just a few hills drawn with the three big words "Mican Mountain" written on it.

"Is there a road here?" Liu Bei couldn't help but be incredulous.

"There is a road," Zhuge Liang answered decisively, "but it is rugged and difficult to travel, and it is not suitable for transporting food. After the troops crossed the mountain, the necessary food and grass had to be carried in by the soldiers on their backs, which was very dangerous. However, our army now has the 'wooden ox and flowing horse', which can be used to transport food."

In the Battle of Hanzhong, when Liu Bei's army finally crossed the Mi Cang Mountain south of Yangping Pass and entered the basin, they had no wooden oxen and flowing horses to use. So Liu Bei's army mobilized a large number of civilians to transport food to the basin.

Yang Hong's words "Men should fight and women should transport" described the critical situation at that time.

If it weren't for Zhuge Liang's strong logistical organization ability after Liu Bei conquered Shu, and if he hadn't invested manpower and material resources at all costs, Liu Bei might have really run out of food after crossing Micang Mountain. It was really a risky move.

On the other hand, in history, Liu Bei also had Zhao Yun, who participated in the Battle of Hanzhong. Zhao Yun performed bravely in the battle of Mi Cang Mountain and the battle of "Zhao Yun defeated the enemy with a small force at Hanshui River", and robbed a large amount of food that Cao's army had transported with great effort for Liu Bei to eat, which was also an important reason why Liu Bei won in the end.

In this life, Liu Bei has not completely annexed Shu, Liu Zhang still exists there, and Liu Bei has not found an excuse to completely annex it. Therefore, the materials and manpower that Liu Bei's army can mobilize are obviously less than the same period in history.

On the other hand, Zhao Yun did not enter Sichuan to fight in this life, so we cannot take it for granted that "Liu Bei will be able to rob Cao Cao's military rations for himself in the future."

Fortunately, the Zhuge brothers had built wooden oxen and flowing horses in advance, and built transport vehicles that could stop at any time when going up and down steep mountainous areas. With this increase and decrease, the plan mentioned by Zhuge Liang was still somewhat possible.

Liu Bei sorted out all these considerations and finally figured out in his mind how to carry out the next move that Zhuge Liang had made for him.

"So, sir, you hope that our army will gradually let Cao's bandits in, and then let Cao's army see the hope of long-term grain transportation through Chencang Road and Yangping Pass.

After they have stored up some grain, we will divide our forces and occasionally cut off the grain route to Chencang Road, making it impossible for Cao Cao to swallow or spit out the grain.

Then, our main force should not attack Yangping Pass, but take the Mi Cang Mountain trail south of Yangping Pass, cross the mountain and enter the basin to seek a decisive battle with Cao Cao?"

Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong looked at each other and nodded at the same time: "That's exactly what we mean. This strategy is the safest. It can both keep Cao Cao in suspense and make him unable to afford the delay, so that he will be forced to fight quickly.

At the same time, we can also seek an open terrain for the decisive battle. Finally, we can also use the excuse of crossing the Mi Cang Mountain and the difficulty in transporting grain to get Liu Zhang to further support us. If Liu Zhang does not make an effort, we will have a legitimate reason to attack him later. "

History has already proven how high the cost was to support an army of over 100,000 people across the Migang Mountain. Otherwise, Yang Hong would not have said "women of Shu are the heroes".

Since women are supposed to transport grain, if you, Liu Zhang, don't want to contribute, then you are even worse than women. Why would you still be the governor of Yizhou?

Liu Bei understood these principles thoroughly and finally felt relieved. He dared to make the final decision:
"That's great. Our army has annihilated 40,000 Cao troops this time. With the increase of one force, the other will decrease. Even if the remaining troops of Cao's army successfully join forces with Xiahou Yuan and Cao Xiu, their total strength will not be much better than ours.

In this way, even if we have to fight a decisive battle on the open plains of the Hanzhong Basin, we will not be afraid at all. Moreover, before that day comes, we will definitely have other opportunities to slowly weaken Cao Cao a few times. This time Cao Cao really can't eat or spit it out. "

(End of this chapter)