My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 608: Fa Zheng surrenders, Fucheng changes hands

Zhang Fei and Wei Yan launched a feint attack for a long time as a deterrent, causing considerable casualties to the defenders, and then withdrew their troops back to the camp at night.

Although today's attack did not achieve a decisive result, it did fill several gaps in the moat, allowing heavy equipment to be pushed to the city, and also destroyed the sheep and horse walls and deer horns, so the harvest was still not small.

After withdrawing his troops, Zhang Fei quickly had someone calculate the losses and found that the casualties of his troops were well controlled. During the final retreat, under the cover of night, the rear guard soldiers were basically able to withdraw.

As for the archers who were shooting at the defenders, although they were also injured, most of them were only slightly injured - the archers of Liu Bei's army were now well protected, and there were also prefabricated rattan shields. Occasionally being hit by an arrow was basically not fatal, and they would be fine if they were carried back to the camp and the wound was carefully treated to avoid infection.

Only the auxiliary troops responsible for bulldozing and filling trenches suffered slightly more casualties. However, most of these auxiliary troops were former subordinates of Wu Yi. These soldiers were originally weak in combat power and had fought few tough battles over the years. They needed to be repeatedly tempered in blood and fire before they could approach the combat power of the main force of Liu Bei's army.

In this era, when any army is attacking an enemy, they will not let their elite soldiers dig dirt, fill trenches, or push ladders. They will definitely let the weak second-line brigades or even captured strong civilians do this kind of work. This is also the only way for new recruits to grow into elites.

The casualties were all within controllable range, the only thing that exceeded the budget was the siege supplies.

In order to create momentum and intimidate the defenders, Zhang Fei and Wei Yan had no restrictions on the use of arrows today, and they shot as much as they could. They were even more generous with the stone bullets from the catapults, throwing as many as they could.

However, the catapults in this battle mostly used gravel rain, which did not require any processing. They could just find pebbles on the beach of the Fu River to supply them locally. They could dig as much as needed.

……

After taking stock of the gains and losses and military exploits, it was already late at night. Zhang Fei lit a bonfire outside his tent, stewed a wild boar, and prepared some hot wine. He then asked someone to invite Wei Yan and Wu Yi to discuss the subsequent operations.

After Wei Yan and the others sat down, Zhang Fei didn't waste any words and directly tested their opinions: "Today's attack was quite impressive, I'm sure Ling Bao and Deng Xian are already scared. Do you want to continue the attack tomorrow?"

Wei Yan did not comment on this. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "If we stop, I'm afraid that the enemy's courage will be knocked out, and they will recover. It's better to keep attacking. Anyway, the casualties are acceptable if we fight this way. It would be great if Fa Xiaozhi could decisively persuade them to surrender."

Zhang Fei did not draw any conclusion, but just looked at Wu Yi again.

Wu Yi had no choice but to express his opinion: "In today's battle, my subordinates will be responsible for climbing the city walls and fighting. I shouldn't be afraid of fighting and avoiding the enemy. However, in order to scare the enemy, it is not necessary to press them all the time. If you push them too hard, they will have no time to calm down and reflect carefully.

Sometimes the tension and relaxation can make people even more panicked, especially when they heard so many Shu compatriots shouting and charging on the battlefield today, which must have slowly caused the defenders to waver. They couldn't help but wonder why so many former compatriots were moved by the general and were willing to fight. "

Zhang Fei listened to the opinions of both sides and fell into deep thought: "I have thought of these two points to some extent, but I don't know which one is more important. Do you have a way to put moderate pressure on the enemy and let them know that our army has long-lasting strength and there is no hope for them to defend. Without making our army pay too much price?"

Wei Yan and Wu Yi were both a little embarrassed after hearing this. Finally, after discussing for half the night, they worked together and brainstormed to come up with a plan.

Wu Yi didn't know what inspired him, but he suddenly said, "There is a way to meet the two requirements of the three generals at the same time. Why don't we keep the bows and crossbows and catapults suppressed for the next one or two days, but don't send too many soldiers to try to climb the city.

Don't we have a lot of Ge Gong bus parts that were cut down before the war? For today's battle, we mobilized a few of the fastest assembled ones. In the next few days, we will send people to assemble new cars hundreds of steps in front of the battle, right under the eyes of the defenders, and then cooperate with small-scale exploratory attacks.

Let the enemy see that we have temporarily reduced the intensity of our attack only because the first batch of equipment has been damaged, and the second batch of equipment will be assembled soon. The day when the assembly is completed will be the day they die!"

Zhang Fei and Wei Yan were impressed by Wu Yi. They didn't expect that this surrendered general had a good family background and could understand the worries of the weak side. Perhaps Wu Yi had followed Liu Zhang before, and Liu Zhang's army was not good at fighting, so he understood the mentality of his former comrades too well.

"This is a great plan! If Fa Xiaozhi hasn't succeeded yet, we'll fight according to this strategy. This way we won't have to invest too much and we can still keep the enemy's heart at bay." Zhang Fei made the decision decisively and followed this rhythm in the future.

……

While Zhang Fei and Wei Yan were planning how to exert pressure later.

That night, Fa Zheng also tried to subtly persuade and test Ling Bao and Deng Xian for the first time.

Ling Bao, in particular, was naturally a little discouraged because he had personally led the team to block the entrance and was injured in the battle with the enemy troops attacking the city. Fa Zheng would of course seize this opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

He specially brought Deng Xian with him to deliver the best medicine to Ling Bao, and took the opportunity to chat with him during the break after changing the dressing:
"Captain Ling is truly loyal and courageous. If you hadn't led the charge today, I'm afraid the bloody battle on the city wall would have lasted even longer."

Ling Bao did not dare to take credit for it: "General Fa is overpraising me. This is our responsibility. Captain Deng also led the team to patrol the city. It is because I am not as skilled as others that I was injured."

He was telling the truth. Deng Xian was not injured today, but when he was resisting Zhang Fei's siege in the east of the city, he personally led the team to block the entrance and killed two enemy soldiers. Although he didn't kill many people, he was indeed the first to do so.

In this case, Ling Bao did not dare to show off. As a military commander, it was not a glorious thing to be injured after killing a few enemy soldiers. It can only be said that the enemy was well-equipped and difficult to deal with.

Fa Zheng was not in a hurry either. He just pretended to sigh deeply and guided them secretly: "Captain Ling, Captain Deng, according to your estimation, with Zhang Fei's fighting ability, how long can we hold out? Tell me the truth."

Ling Bao and Deng Xian looked at each other and were silent for a while. Finally, they gritted their teeth and said, "There are 15,000 soldiers in the city. We can also mobilize the local militia to defend the city. We can fight Zhang Fei to the death and hold out for a month. If Zhang Fei is concerned about casualties and is unwilling to continue the fierce attack and changes to a siege, we can easily survive this winter."

"Can you really hold out for a month?" Fa Zheng asked without any fluctuation in his tone.

The two generals also lowered their heads and said, "Even if the fierce attack continues, we should be able to hold out for 20 days. The advantage of Zhang Fei's offensive equipment is indeed beyond our army's expectations.

However, we were caught off guard today, and the enemy had just started their attack and their morale was high.

When they come again next time, they won’t be as aggressive, and our army will be used to dealing with Ge Gongche, so we will be able to fight better.”

Fa Zheng did not refute immediately, but let the atmosphere calm down for a while, using the power of silence to make the two generals feel uneasy and unable to help but reflect on themselves. When Fa Zheng noticed that their eyes were evasive, he took the opportunity to change the subject and continued to attack their hearts: "Have you two generals ever thought about the grace and hard work that the people and the big families have received during the years when the lord was in charge of Yizhou, compared with the peaceful times?"

Ling Bao was stunned: "I am just a warrior, I have never calculated these things."

Deng Xian was a little smarter than him, and said carefully: "My lord, your father and son have ruled Shu for two generations, so the taxes on the people are naturally not light. But the corvée is less than before. The Bantun Man and Qing Qiang people no longer have to go out of Shu to serve as soldiers, they can be recruited locally. The major nobles can also save manpower and run their own industries."

Fa Zheng did not refute, but first admitted the other party's calculation, and then changed the subject: "Captain Deng did calculate the account clearly, it is true - but that was at least the situation three years ago. Since the Cao thieves entered Hanzhong, more than 100,000 people have been sent to the army. The suffering of this service is no worse than the suffering of corvée during the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling."

Ling Bao and Deng Xian's expressions changed slightly, sensing something amiss, and they said in unison, "How can you compare them like that? These three years have been hard because there are foreign enemies trying to attack us. If there were no one to attack us, the number of civilians serving in the military would definitely be very small."

Fa Zheng: "But the world has reached this point, and there will always be invaders. Even if we hold on to this wave, there will be another wave. The people under your rule have few soldiers, but this is just a lucky chance that the princes outside Shu were balancing each other and had no time to care about us, but it can't last long."

The two generals did not dare to act rashly, but only asked suspiciously: "Does the French general have another way out?"

Fa Zheng was certainly not stupid, he could see that the mentality of the two generals was not yet mature enough, and he did not directly control the military power, so he needed to soften them slowly, so he did not talk too much: "I also want a way out, but unfortunately, how can a way out be so easy to find?
You don't read books, so you didn't notice it. But I read the Zhuge Liang's letter shot into the city. Although it was the words of the enemy, the logic it talked about was really hard to refute. I just examined it with the eyes of exploring the destiny of heaven.

The light corvée and military service in Shu are only a special case when Shu is torn apart. If Shu is no longer torn apart, we will suffer every year. Of course, this matter is not unsolvable. I have thought about it before. If the lord can also be tougher, he can become a great lord.

"If you take the sons of Shu with you, go out of Shu to support the Han Dynasty and defeat Cao Cao, then the sons of Shu will be able to enjoy light taxes and levies in the future, and live in peace and tranquility. But my lord has no such ambition, and only wants to live a peaceful life. Then it is destined that when the outside world is peaceful, it will be a time when Shu will never have peace."

Fa Zheng reworded Zhuge Jin's words in his manifesto, combined them with the actual situation that Shu people were concerned about, and put himself in their shoes. Unconsciously, this also implanted a consciousness in Ling Bao, Deng Xian and others:
It is right to choose loyalty and righteousness in order to make life easier for the people of Shu.

However, in order to turn temporary benefits to the people into permanent benefits, a prerequisite is that we must not hold on to a separatist mentality and must restore peace to the entire world.

It is just to support the Han Dynasty, but it is shameful to secede and do nothing.

Winning or losing, both are possible, but dragging it out is unjust, especially when dragging it out without any ambition, and without the courage and plan to leave Shu and fight when "there is a change in the world", then he deserves to die.

When you are small and fighting a large enemy, you should not act rashly. It is right to accumulate strength. In history, when Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wei later led the Northern Expedition, they also had a dormant period of accumulating strength and waiting for changes in the world, but at least they would fight when they saw an opportunity.

Even if Liu Zhang saw changes in the world, he would not fight. This was the sin of his existence as a vassal.

Wanting to be independent and not unifying the world is a sin, it is dividing the world, leading to both sides being caught in an arms race, and the people of both sides suffering. Or just vote and don't be independent.

At least Wei, Shu and Wu all had the motive to unify the world and took action. Their lords were not as weak as Liu Zhang.

These principles were not written in Zhuge Jin's manifesto, but Fa Zheng was well-read and he supplemented and interpreted them based on the actual situation of the people of Shu.

Because it was a purely "academic discussion" and sounded so compassionate, Ling Bao and Deng Xian naturally couldn't do anything to him. The key point was that Ling Bao and Deng Xian were already a little unstable. The other party gave them a way out, so they couldn't be too reckless.

And the words that Fa Zheng said also planted new seeds in their vulgar and uncultured hearts.

At first, they did not understand the manifesto spread by the enemy, and did not think too much about it, thinking that surrendering was not an option. But after Fa Zheng explained it to them, they gradually figured it out.

In addition, thinking about today's battle and seeing so many former comrades with Shu accents fighting bravely for Liu Bei's army, their hearts became increasingly shaky.

The intervals between attacks always allow self-doubt to grow wildly, especially for the weaker side.

The hearts of the second general and many middle-level officers began to waver and become hesitant.

……

On the second and third days, Zhang Fei and Wei Yan followed the newly agreed plan, maintaining fire suppression and low-intensity siege.

At the same time, new Ge buses were assembled day and night outside the city in front of the defenders.

This action was like a heavy hammer, constantly striking the defender's mind.

After finding out the situation, everyone knew that when the second batch of Ge Gong buses of the attackers were assembled and actually put into the attack, Fucheng would be in great danger.

How to do?
Under the ever-tense mental pressure, Fa Zheng also took advantage of the truce every night to inquire about the situation of the city defense from the generals, and tortured their souls to ask if they really had the confidence to hold on.

Fa Zheng saw all the reactions of the generals. He certainly knew how to seize the opportunity and exert extreme pressure on the mental level.

Finally, after the third day of exploratory siege, Ling Bao and Deng Xian were finally overwhelmed by the judgment that "a new batch of Ge buses will soon be assembled and put into use."

After Fa Zheng helped them find enough excuses and subtly told them that surrendering to Liu Bei was the best option for the people of Shu, the two generals finally decided to support Fa Zheng and surrender together.

The next morning, Zhang Fei and Wei Yan were ready to attack again, but when they were about to launch the siege, the gate of Fucheng was opened directly.

Fa Zheng, holding the letter of surrender in hand, and accompanied his generals, welcomed Zhang Fei into the city.

(End of this chapter)