My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 744 Everyone in the world saw it, but Cao Cao was the first to act
After his nephew Xun You explained the truth to him in detail,

Even if Xun Yu was unwilling to believe all this, he could only accept it silently.

Sure enough, when things in the court gradually went wrong and began to go downhill, the vast majority of people on this broken ship would first think about how to protect themselves and take credit for themselves.

Whether the imperial court can overcome the difficulties may not be the most important thing.

But the most important thing is to avoid being thrown into the water and buried with the ship as it gradually sinks.

Sima Yi and Jia Xu, one tried to win favor in front of the prime minister, and the other tried to avoid disaster and avoid the responsibility for future defeat.

Regardless of their respective motives, the final actual result was that these two people, from different angles, prompted Cao Cao to decide to take the initiative again and try to break through the battlefield in Hebei.

It originally seemed that Liu Bei would take the first move in the battle between Cao and Liu, but after many twists and turns, it seemed that it was Cao Cao's turn to fire the first shot.

Of course, this first shot, which is fired after careful consideration, is very different from the first shot that is fired on impulse or out of anger.

This time, Cao Cao had fully considered various possibilities and difficulties. Before taking action in Hebei, he had already deployed very sufficient defenses in Henan, and was mentally prepared that "as long as I take action, Liu Bei will also take action."

But Liu Bei did not take the initiative to take action, as if he was waiting for Cao Cao to fire the first shot.

It is really difficult for outsiders to understand this strange situation where both sides are happy to see the situation develop in this way.

Perhaps both sides have their own unknown reliance and considerations.

……

A few days later, on the Hebei battlefield.

Cao Cao finally decided to take action first and sent the military order to Xiahou Dun in Yecheng as quickly as possible, ordering Xiahou Dun to immediately gather more troops as reinforcements to support Zhang He on the Hejian, Qinghe and Pingyuan fronts.

While Xiahou Dun was preparing for war, Xun You, who was in Luoyang and participated in the discussion of military strategy, also rushed back to Yecheng from Luoyang. Anyway, it would take time for Xiahou Dun to prepare for war and assemble troops, so this time difference was enough for Xun You to hurry on.

At the same time, Cao Cao's messenger continued to move eastward from Yecheng to inform Zhang He to make preparations for battle.

The three groups of people were each busy with their own tasks, advancing in parallel in an orderly manner, and no one dared to delay.

On the other side of the battlefield in Henan, Jia Xu also returned to the Xuchang army as soon as possible and reported the prime minister's decision to Cao Ren. Cao Ren also seized the time to further build high walls and deep trenches, and clear the fields, intending to fight Liu Bei's army hard around Xu County.

The whole busy process lasted for more than ten days.

Finally, one day in late September, Zhang He, who had received reinforcements from Xiahou Dun himself, was finally ready to attack.

In the first battle, he assembled a total of 50,000 troops and enough transport ships to go downstream along the Zhang River.

There will be other troops that can be added later, but they will be supervised by Xiahou Dun himself. After all, Cao Cao would not feel at ease if Zhang He, as an outsider, directly led too many troops.

Joining Zhang He on the expedition was Gao Lan, his long-time friend. Gao Lan had defected to Cao along with Zhang He during the Battle of Guandu, but later had no opportunity to make any contributions.

Because Cao Cao once "employed people like piling up firewood, and the latecomers were given the upper hand", people like Lu Kuang and Lu Xiang, who surrendered later than Zhang He, all had higher official positions than Gao Lan.

However, in the following years, Lü Xiang and Lü Kuang died in two battles, at the hands of Taishi Ci and Zhao Yun respectively. The former Yuan Shao surrendered generals left by Cao Cao in the Hebei battlefield gradually withered away, and now it was finally Gao Lan's turn to be the "second in command of Jizhou surrendered generals". (There was also Jiao Chu, whose status was not lower than Gao Lan, among the Youzhou surrendered generals)

Early that morning, Zhang He and Gao Lan held a swearing-in ceremony before the expedition in Dongguan County, at the border of Hejian and Bohai County.

In front of 50,000 soldiers, Zhang He first said some polite words, and then, with an excited look and a passionate tone, he spoke some truths from the bottom of his heart:
"Soldiers! I know some of you fought with me in Nanpi three years ago! Later you were defeated by Zhou Yu! But this is a different time! Back then, we were just following the order of the Prime Minister to feint and attack Bohai as a diversion! Zhou Yu and Zhao Yun won a small victory by chance, and from then on, they looked down on the imperial army.

Now Zhao Yun dared to go on a long and arduous expedition to the northern land of Fuyu, leaving Bohai empty and Zhou Yu alone to defend it. The Prime Minister had already learned the lesson from three years ago, and this time he fully supports us in swallowing Bohai and completely cutting off Zhao Yun's contact with Liu Bei!
Not only do we have an army of 100,000, but we also have General Xiahou himself supervising the army as backup! Moreover, winter is coming soon, and Zhou Yu has no navy available. This battle will be won by our army!"

Naturally, Zhang He's motivational speech was not his own idea. The reasoning details and the summary of his side's advantages were all taught to him by Xun You.

Although these words are a bit far-fetched, they are true. After listening to them, the soldiers found that they made some sense and the morale-boosting effect was good.

"We swear to follow the prime minister and the general, to make achievements and to defeat the enemy!" Several generals took the lead in expressing their stance, and some even broke arrows to swear an oath.

After some commotion, Zhang He saw that the army's morale was high and finally gave the order to march forward.

Three years later, he once again went downstream along the Zhang River and led tens of thousands of troops to attack Bohai County where Zhou Yu was stationed.

To be precise, it was an attack on the eastern two-thirds of Bohai County.

Because there is no strategic location to defend on the Hebei Plain. Zhou Yu's territory in Bohai County was based on the former county seat of Nanpi City as the front line support point. The land of Bohai County west of Nanpi, such as Dongguang County and Xiu County, has been in the hands of Zhang He in the past few years.

Because Nanpi became the front line, in order to better develop Bohai and prevent his fertile heartland from becoming a barren frontier, Zhou Yu had already consulted Liu Bei in the past few years. After discussion with the Zhuge brothers, Liu Bei approved Zhou Yu to move the county seat of Bohai to Tianjin City.

As mentioned earlier, Tianjin City was a new city built on the muddy land by the sea during the years when Zhou Yu built the Changlu Salt Field after he governed Bohai. It was located right between the mouths of the Zhangshui River and the Yishui River.

Ten years ago, the city of Tianjin was an alluvial mudflat by the sea. The silt brought by the Yishui and Zhangshui rivers over millions of years made the foundation of the city very soft and difficult to build.

However, since Zhou Yu spent a lot of money to build salt fields and develop the salt drying method, the black mud between the mouths of the Zhang and Yi rivers has been dredged and excavated to form salt drying ponds.

If the silt at the river mouth is fertile enough, it can be used as compost to grow salt-tolerant crops. After the land is cleared, the foundation of Tianjin City will be laid naturally.

Then, the cost of building a new city would not be as high as originally estimated, because the same amount of dredging labor as the salt field construction project was used, thus killing two birds with one stone and reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Today, after several years of development, Tianjin City has long surpassed Nanpi, which was a military fortress.

Tianjin is also a river-sea transfer terminal for water transport in the Yishui River Basin. The Yuyang Border Market previously operated by Mi Zhu and Tian Chou has also developed rapidly. In recent years, a large amount of salted meat, sea salt and other border trade materials have to be transported from the coast, changed ships in Tianjin and traded in Yuyang. After buying salted meat and fur, they must also be transported south through Tianjin.

The prosperity of commerce has made Tianjin's foundation stronger. Therefore, when Zhou Yu heard that Zhang He was coming to attack, he was not panicked at all.

The economic value of Nanpi City is much lower than it was three years ago. Today, Nanpi is a strong city for military purposes. Zhang He can just besiege it if he wants.

Zhou Yu did not expect Nanpi City to generate revenue to support the Bohai military and civilians. He simply stockpiled a large amount of military rations, supplies, and equipment in Nanpi before the war.

Zhang He hoped that the city would run out of ammunition and food, but that was absolutely impossible.

"Everything has just happened as Situ Xin predicted. Cao Cao was fooled by the fake news that 'our army is stuck in a quagmire in Buyeo and Goguryeo', and once again took the risk of sending Zhang He to attack Bohai!
Pass on my order, Nanpi City will be fortified and the fields will be cleared, and all the main forces of the county will be concentrated to defend the city. Zilong and Ziyi will help us worry about the defense of Tianjin City and other places downstream.

Zhang He, a mere bastard, actually thinks that if I wait until the Zhang River freezes over in winter and I have no navy to use, he can destroy me? Even if he is just trapped in an isolated city, he is no match for me! "

After Zhou Yu learned about the enemy's advance from the scouts, he expressed his position with certainty, which served as a reassurance to the generals and staff around him.

When the rest of the civil and military officials in Nanpi heard that all this was part of Situ's plan and that Zhang He was deliberately lured to attack, their hearts instantly calmed down. They also gained more confidence in organizing the defense of the city.

Only one or two civilian aides, who were in charge of logistics and civil affairs, could not help but remind Zhou Yu to be careful of Zhang He's large-scale destruction of Bohai County during the siege.

However, Zhou Yu was not too worried about this, and instead comforted his subordinates:
"It's not like Zhang He didn't try before. How else could he have done anything? The most he could have done was to dig up the dikes of the salt fields bit by bit. If he really had the energy to do that, we can just rebuild it next year.

There is nothing to destroy in the other counties along the Zhang River. The valuable workshops and commercial ports are all in Tianjin City. The winter wheat has just been planted. What can Zhang He destroy?"

Zhou Yu had made up his mind that no matter how Zhang He besieged and sabotaged the city, he would fight to the end.

Of course, if it was in previous years, Zhou Yu would have felt bad for this level of damage. But this year, he knew that after Zhang He left, he would have to earn several times or even ten times the interest, so he didn't mind investing a little bit in the early stage.

……

A few days later, Zhang He steadily advanced to the city of Nanpi. Seeing Zhou Yu's retreat on the city wall, but seeing the soldiers in the city all exuding a murderous aura, Zhang He could not help but secretly shake his head.

Nanpi City has been blocking Cao's army for many years and is not so easy to attack.

Not to mention Zhou Yu defending the city, even Yuan Tan defending the city in history had once blocked Cao's army for more than a year. As long as there were sufficient supplies, this place would not be easy to break.

However, Cao's army assembled a large number of troops this time and attached great importance to the battle more than in previous years. They also prepared and improved many siege equipment.

Including the Ge Gongche that Liu Bei's army is now tired of using. Liu Bei used that thing twelve years ago. Cao Cao also learned it about nine years ago, and it gradually became popular.

Now Cao's artisans have gone a step further and have completely mastered the process of prefabricating parts and then transporting them to the front line by boat to assemble them into a car. In this way, Cao's army has greatly accelerated the speed of building the Ge Gong car, and ten days after approaching the city, they can launch a powerful offensive.

In addition to the Ge Gongche, ladders, wells, catapults, rattan shield formations, etc., all other items were also necessary. All kinds of offensive and combat tools were completely prepared within ten days.

While Zhang He was preparing for the attack, Cao's subsequent reinforcements also arrived one after another, and Xiahou Dun himself advanced to Dongguan County and stationed there, which was Zhang He's attack base.

Cao's army had assembled at least 100,000 troops on the front line of the Hebei battlefield, some in the open and some in secret, so that they could leave an extra route for retreat. In case Liu Bei's army sent Taishi Ci to rescue, or Zhao Yun took time out of his busy schedule to send another deputy general to rescue, Cao's army could also try to surround and attack the reinforcements.

When Zhang He attacked three years ago, he could not consider operations such as besieging a point and attacking its reinforcements, because his mission at that time was only to make a feint attack to divert the enemy's attention, and he did not have such a strong force to carry out such operations.

But now everything is different. The Hebei battlefield is at least the main attack direction of Cao's army. If the reinforcements of Liu Bei's army are small in scale, they may be wiped out.

At least that's what the Cao army's top brass thought.

On the sixth day of October, Zhang He's preparations for siege were finally completed.

While building the siege equipment, the civilian laborers and young men in Cao's army, braving the defenders' rain of arrows, filled in several gaps in the moat of Nanpi City so that the siege weapons could be pushed directly through the gaps to the bottom of the city.

When Cao's army was filling the river, Zhou Yu was certainly not idle. At the beginning, he also asked the archers to shoot arrows as hard as they could.

But this level of defense did not last long, and Zhou Yu discovered that the situation had changed slightly.

The enemy was indeed no pushover and came well prepared - when Cao's army was filling the river, they actually used bulldozers with anti-arrow shields similar to those used by Liu Bei's army for five or six years.

If you think about it carefully, this situation is reasonable. The anti-arrow bulldozer used to fill the river was developed by Liu Bei's army as early as when he was fighting against Liu Zhang. It was Zhuge Liang's masterpiece and replaced the wooden ox and flowing horse in history.

So many years have passed. Just look at the two or three years when Liu Bei and Cao Cao fought for Jingbei and then stopped fighting. In two or three years, the designs that can be imitated by just looking at the surface mechanical structure will most likely be copied by the enemy.

However, there are still some differences in details between the anti-arrow bulldozers made by Cao's army and the original model developed by Zhuge Liang. They are definitely not as light and convenient to use as the one made by Zhuge Liang, and the parking brakes on slopes are not as stable as those of Zhuge Liang's model. But these attributes are not important when fighting on plains.

Cao's army also had a new weapon to fill the river. Even if the arrows Zhou Yu ordered were shot accurately, most of them would inevitably hit the shields of the chariots and could hardly cause any damage.

So later on, Zhou Yu could only reduce unnecessary waste. When encountering bulldozer soldiers, he no longer relied on shooting arrows. At most, he would let the catapults on the city walls throw a few rounds of rubble to suppress them.

The stones still easily broke through the wooden shields, but there were too few catapults and the firepower density was much lower than that of bows and crossbows, so Zhang He finally achieved his "construction goal".

The interim achievement of breaking the moat really made Zhang He breathe a sigh of relief.

Early in the morning of the day of the all-out attack, he couldn't help but ask the soldiers who cursed at him to give Zhou Yu one last shock.

"Zhou Yu, my boy! Don't think that the siege equipment made by Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang is so mysterious! After three years, the imperial court's generals have also learned it! Now, it's just right to use the things that the Zhuge brothers have figured out to attack your own city!

If you are afraid, I can let you go. Even if you don't want to surrender, I can let you break out of the city. I will never chase you or intercept you! I, Zhang He, keep my word!"

Zhou Yu had no intention of paying any attention to Zhang He's final nonsense. He just looked disdainful and contemptuous:
"Zhang He! Why are you wasting so much time talking? Just attack the city if you want to. You think you can attack the city just because you have learned a little bit of what Zi Yu did many years ago. Just try it!"

(End of this chapter)