My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 63: Zhuge Brothers Meet
Two days later, Liu Biao, at the suggestion of his father-in-law Cai Feng, held a grand banquet for celebrities in Xiangyang.

Pang Degong, Huang Chengyan and others naturally attended the banquet, and there were also talented young people such as Wang Can and Song Zhong.

The banquet process is naturally not the focus and needs no elaboration.

It was nothing more than a group of famous scholars debating classics, exchanging views, and talking about the prospects of the world.

After three rounds of drinks, the conversation became more lively. Suddenly, someone announced that a young talent, Zhuge Liang, nephew of Yuzhang prefect Zhuge Xuan, came to ask the governor for an important matter.

Everyone was unable to react for a moment and didn't know whether they should persuade Liu Biao to meet him.

However, Huang Chengyan was the first to react and found an excuse to propose a meeting - it was not known whether Huang Chengyan did so spontaneously or because he was pestered by his daughter these days and had other intentions.

"In that case, let's meet him." Liu Biao went with the flow and followed his brother-in-law's advice.

After Zhuge Liang entered, he went through a series of formalities, and then he asked Liu Biao for help as planned. Finally, he took out a piece of silk, presented it with both hands, and said earnestly:

"…Zao Rong was worried that his uncle would gain a firm foothold and cause trouble, so he raised his army to attack. Sun Ce of Danyang also made a move, reconciled with Zu Lang, and went upstream from Dangtu, intending to commit a crime.

Since the beginning of winter, Sun Ce has completely pacified Wujun and conquered Xugong, and has been raising troops for several months. There were rumors in various places in Yangzhou that Sun Ce wanted to first attack Kuaiji Wang Lang next year, and then covet Yuzhang. I never thought that he would be inspired by the imperial court's canonization, and he also wanted to eliminate future troubles while his uncle's foothold was not stable. I hope you will observe it. "

Sun Ce certainly had no intention of attacking Yuzhang now. His current plan was most likely to deal with Wang Lang next year.

But Zhuge Liang knew that he had to say this in order to arouse Liu Biao's sense of crisis.

Zuo Rong had no grudge against Liu Biao, so if it was just the threat from Zuo Rong, the priority would not be high enough.

Sun Ce and Liu Biao were sworn enemies because of their father's murder. Once Yuzhang County fell completely into Sun Ce's hands, he would be directly bordering Liu Biao's Jingzhou, and would come into direct combat with Huang Zu of Jiangxia.

As for the urgent letter submitted by Zhuge Liang, the words on the silk were of course written by him three days ago.

Zhuge Jin believed in his brother's intelligence, but he also knew that he was thousands of miles away and did not understand the situation in Jingzhou, so he could not give his brother any random advice.

You will be outside, and your orders will not be accepted.

The one who has a capable general but a king who does not control him will win. There will be no good end to long-range micro-manipulation.

Therefore, Zhuge Jin only mentioned a few possible ways to escape in his letter to his brother, to inspire his brother's thinking, for reference only.

The final details and execution were all handled by Zhuge Liang himself based on the actual situation.

Zhuge Jin also fully trusted his younger brother, so he dared to give the blank silk cloth with the seal on it to Zhuge Liang to fill in himself, believing that Zhuge Liang could make good use of it.

……

At this moment, when Liu Biao saw the letter asking for help with the seals of Yuzhang Taishou and Pinglu Cavalry Captain, he certainly had no doubts about it.

Normally he wouldn't care whether to rescue Zhuge Xuan or not, but when it comes to Sun Ce, he has to let him go.

But Liu Biao was still a cautious and indecisive person after all. He was already in his fifties, and old people tended to be hesitant.

After a little hesitation, Liu Biao asked Zhuge Liang whether he was sure and advised him not to fight against the strong with the weak.

Zhuge Liang then came up with a perfect excuse to reassure Liu Biao, as well as a new proposal:
"Sir, I have a little friendship with Gan Sima of Fancheng. Gan Sima is also a righteous man. He is willing to escort me to Jiangxia. I beg you to be lenient! In addition, I have an unwelcome request. I beg you to write a letter to Lord Huang of Jiangxia and persuade him to send troops nearby to help my uncle. This is also for the safety of Jingzhou and to keep Sun thief away from the state."

This request made Liu Biao think for a long time.

He knew Huang Zu very well. Huang Zu was a local tyrant in Jiangxia and he could not even command him.

If Huang Zu was willing to help Zhuge Xuan, he would have done so last year.

Even if I write the letter again this time, Huang Zu may not agree to send troops.

In this case, there is nothing wrong in writing a letter for nothing and asking the Zhuge family to do me a favor.

Anyway, if he didn't send troops in the end, the Zhuge family would remember his kindness and hate Huang Zu for not helping him and not obeying the orders of the governor.

If Huang Zu sent troops, there would be no harm, after all, it would expand the overall power of Jingzhou.

After considering many aspects, Liu Biao felt that there were no major problems in all aspects, so he finally went with the flow and approved Zhuge Liang's request.

He wrote a letter and asked Zhuge Liang to take it to Huang Zu, and also agreed to take Gan Ning with him as a guard along the way.

Zhuge Liang then breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, if he just wanted to leave Xiangyang, he wouldn't have to go through so much trouble, because the security around Xiangyang was not strict.

Historically, when Gan Ning wanted to go to Jiangdong, no one cared about him on the way from Fancheng to Jiangxia.

The area where the strictest control was implemented was the area passing through Xiakou in Jiangxia Prefecture, where the border between Jingzhou and Yangzhou met, and Huang Zu's patrolling navy patrolled the river day and night.

With Liu Biao's letter, he and Gan Ning would be able to pass through Jiangxia smoothly without being stopped. This was the key to this trip.

As for Huang Zu's refusal to send additional troops to help, Zhuge Liang did not take it seriously at all, and he did not count on Huang Zu's troops.

If Huang Zu and Zhuge Xuan were very close to each other, but he just watched him die without helping, or even found an excuse to disobey Liu Biao's order and not help, it would give the Zhuge family an excuse to resent Huang Zu in the future.

……

Zhuge Liang completed all the formalities in Xiangyang and finally set off on his journey through dangerous terrain.

He also deceived Gan Ning, who was eager to make a contribution, and other comrades who had fled with him from Yizhou, and escorted Zhuge's family downstream to Jiangxia.

When Gan Ning fled from Ba County two years ago, he brought with him a group of nearly a thousand soldiers, but more than a hundred of them had been killed, and now there are barely seven or eight hundred left.

Those lost troops were those who suffered in the battle with Zhang Ji and Zhang Xiu earlier this year.

When Gan Ning fled to Jingzhou, he was joined by two other Yizhou generals of similar rank, Shen Mi and Lou Fa. Lou Fa had already been killed in the Battle of Zhangji in the autumn, and Shen Mi had only two or three hundred men left.

The total force of Gan Ning and Shen Mi together barely exceeded one thousand, and they sailed downstream in more than thirty large and small warships.

Gan Ning's troops obviously paid more attention to the speed of coming and going as fast as the wind, so the entire army did not even have a large fighting ship, let alone a tower ship.

They are all narrow and streamlined warships that can only carry about fifty people. They have very low freeboards and oar holes on the sides. When sails and oars are used together, they can travel at a very fast speed.

Although the group experienced some setbacks before setting off, Zhuge Liang soon discovered that Gan Ning was an excellent sailor and the speed advantage could completely make up for the lost time.

Nothing happened during the journey, and Zhuge Liang spent every day on the boat pondering over the secret scroll that his elder brother had given him.

And he tinkered with the box of triangles that Huang Yueying gave him a few days before she left.

Use a ruler to measure the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle square one by one, and then record the measured trigonometric function values and the square roots of commonly used integers in a number table for direct query and copying when needed in the future.

If Zhuge Jin were here and saw his second brother's method of learning, he would be dumbfounded - this is too fucking pragmatic, the number table is not calculated, but measured with a ruler.

It’s really unconventional to use experiments to obtain data in math classes.

In just three days, Gan Ning traveled 800 miles down the Han River and arrived at Jiangxia from Xiangyang.

After three days of intensive study, Zhuge Liang also finished learning the remaining bits and pieces of mathematics in the third year of junior high school, as well as the "Junior High School Physics Optics Part - Lower" given by his elder brother (of course, the original text of Zhuge Jin's secret volume was not named like this).

His next step was to take out the scroll “Preliminary Application of Optical Geometry in Water Conservancy Survey” and finish reading it while sailing from Jiangxia to Chaisang.

However, the fleet was slightly delayed when passing through Jiangxia.

Huang Zu's troops blocked the fleet, and it took half a day to communicate before Zhuge Liang met Huang Zu in person with the letter for help from Liu Biao.

Huang Zu was a rough and sturdy military commander with a face full of short beard as thick as steel needles. He was nearly fifty years old.

After seeing the letter from Liu Biao asking him to send troops to help Zhuge Xuan, Huang Zu did not dare to openly disobey the order without reason, but he still found various excuses to delay.

It doesn't mean that the enemy situation is not serious or there is a false alarm and it needs to be explored again. It means that the Jiangxia navy was unprepared in a hurry and could not set out for the time being.

Strictly speaking, Huang Zu's first excuse actually worked out well - because the enemy situation in Yuzhang was not serious.

Sun Ce has indeed not yet extended his ambitions to Yuzhang. He is still thinking about attacking Wang Lang after the spring.

These so-called "serious military situations" were actually made up by Zhuge Liang.

So Zhuge Liang didn't argue any further, but just pretended to beg in vain, and then with a bitter face, he compromised and asked Huang Zu to at least let him and Gan Ning go to Yuzhang for reinforcement.

With two steps forward and one step back, Huang Zu had no more excuse to refuse and had to let him go.

……

The fleet sailed downstream for another two days.

When Zhuge Liang finished reading and rerolled the secret scroll "Preliminary Application of Optical Geometry in Water Conservancy Survey", the fleet had already entered Poyang Lake.

Gan Ning asked people to look carefully, and Zhuge Liang also went to the lookout for a rare time to admire the endless view of Poyang Lake, feeling quite magnificent.

After watching for a while, Zhuge Liang suddenly saw several ships as small as mustard seeds appear on the horizon in the distance.

Zhuge Liang recalled the knowledge he had just learned from the secret scroll and asked Gan Ning casually, "Xingba, can you tell the type of ship we are facing? How long is this type of ship?"

Gan Ning also used his hands to make a shelter and squinted his eyes for a while: "The largest one should be a fighting ship that can carry 300 people. It should be twelve feet long."

Zhuge Liang took out a ruler, stretched out his arm and compared it, then asked: "According to your estimate, how far is this ship from us?"

Gan Ning made a rough estimate based on his experience and said casually, "It should be about six or seven miles, right?"

Zhuge Liang: "My arm is three and a half feet long. A 12-zhang ship is only two centimeters shorter than this, which is 6,000 times shorter. The ship is at least 6,000 times the length of my arm, which is a little over 20,000 feet, more than 9.5 miles."

"How can you tell the difference so accurately? A difference of one millimeter could lead to a difference of one mile."

Gan Ning rolled his eyes and didn't bother to care about this kind of nonsense that couldn't be verified. He felt that even if Zhuge Liang's method was correct, the error would be large.

He was just about to find another excuse to retort to Zhuge Liang.

But as the opposing fleet approached and became clearer, Gan Ning suddenly shouted and changed the subject:

"That fleet is flying the flag of Yuan Shu! Let's turn around and go to the upwind side to avoid any accidents!"

Zhuge Liang's eyesight was indeed not as sharp as Gan Ning's. He quickly lay on the side wall of the lookout and stared into the distance.

After a while, the two fleets adjusted their courses, changing from heading head-on to crossing sideways, and Zhuge Liang was able to roughly see all the ship types on the opposite side.

Zhuge Liang's mind moved, and he quickly told Gan Ning: "It might be my brother's fleet! He may be flying Yuan Shu's flag just to paralyze the enemy and make it easier to sail! Quickly light up the pile of red smoke I asked you to lay out in advance!"

Gan Ning was stunned for a moment, then he remembered that early this morning Zhuge Liang had handed him a box of tinder and asked him to spread it on a stone platform high at the stern.

It is said that this thing ignites very quickly, and when it burns, it produces red smoke, which is very eye-catching. It is a token sent by his eldest brother from Guangling last time to facilitate the reunion.

At that time, Gan Ning thought that this thing was too troublesome to use. If you burned things on a wooden boat, you might accidentally burn the boat as well.

So before he set sail from Jiangxia, he specifically followed Zhuge Liang's instructions and built several stone troughs for horses to drink from on the shore, and poured the fuel that would ignite the fire into the troughs to prevent the fire from spreading.

Fortunately, Gan Ning is efficient and will execute orders even if he doesn't understand them.

Not long after, red smoke finally began to burn on Zhuge Liang's boat, and almost at the same time, red smoke also began to burn on the fighting ship on the opposite side.

Zhuge Liang then had no more doubts and asked Gan Ning to come over immediately.

Gan Ning looked doubtful: "Can this be confirmed?"

Zhuge Liang spread his hands and said, "Have you ever seen anyone who can produce smoke of this specific color? This is naturally the secret recipe that my eldest brother has carefully crafted!"

Gan Ning thought about it and realized that it was true. He couldn't help but admire him.

It seems that the Zhuge brothers are both people with endless brilliant ideas. If you follow them and listen to their instructions carefully, you should be able to achieve great things.

You just need to be responsible for using the knife.

The two fleets quickly approached each other, and Zhuge Liang searched for a while and finally found a target on the rear deck of the opposing battleship.
I saw a man who was more than eight feet tall, wearing a bright red brocade robe and a seven-ring jade belt around his waist.

"Brother! I'm here! I'm Aliang!"

Following Zhuge Liang's call, Zhuge Zhi and Zhuge Lan also came out of the cabin wearing gauze curtain hats and squeezed to Zhuge Liang's side.
Following the direction of his wave, I found my eldest brother's location.

"Brother, you have really achieved great success. With the pomp and ceremony of leading the troops, people would believe you are a general." Zhuge Zhi and Zhuge Lan both looked at him with admiration.

Zhuge Jin on the other side also saw the greetings from his brothers and sisters, and secretly felt lucky:
When he and his second brother separated, he was just fourteen years old. Now he is sixteen and a half and will soon be seventeen.

The young man and I haven't seen each other for nearly three years, and he has changed a lot. If I made a mistake, wouldn't it arouse my second brother's suspicion?
However, his own appearance should not have changed much. From the age of nineteen to twenty-one and a half, his appearance stopped changing.

Zhuge Jin stared at Zhuge Liang hurriedly, trying to identify him clearly so as to avoid revealing any flaws when the two ships came into contact.

Fortunately, it only took him a few seconds to calm down:

It’s okay, I won’t admit my mistake!
As expected, the most handsome guy on the entire ship was Zhuge Liang, who was very different from the others.

(End of this chapter)