My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 746: The "Reinforcement Messenger" was captured by Xiahou Dun
Relying on his tenacious and firm defense, Zhou Yu easily repelled Zhang He's fierce attacks for several days, which seemed difficult but was actually very easy.

After suffering four-digit casualties every day for a while, Zhang He was forced to slow down the pace of the attack slightly as the initial morale of his troops faded.

Although it will not directly turn from a strong attack to a siege to consume food, the intensity of the attack will definitely decrease.

The means of attack will also be more inclined towards long-range firepower destruction and attritional confrontation.

For example, after actual combat testing, Zhang He quickly realized that traditional ladders, even the heaviest ones, were useless when attacking a fortified city that the enemy had been operating for several years.

Because the newly built and rebuilt horse-faced armor on the defenders' walls can accommodate a much higher density of archers than originally imagined. Moreover, these horse-faced armors are also extremely defensive and are not afraid of the rain of gravel from high-throwing ballistics, allowing archers to attack with peace of mind and concentrate their firepower for cross-flank shooting.

In this case, the last part of the journey of climbing the ladder by the traditional ladder truck is simply delivering food to the rain of arrows, and many lives are lost in vain.

If you want to attack by force in the future, you can only build more Ge Gongche. Although the enemy also has the technical means to restrain the Ge Gongche, it is not so strong after all, and the price paid is still within a relatively affordable range.

Of course, the ladder truck is not going away from the stage of history. This kind of thing has a lower cost, is faster to build, and has a lower technical content. In the future, when there are a large number of small and medium-sized cities, it can still be used. After all, the cost of war must be considered comprehensively.

It’s just that kind of important city at the provincial capital level, and it will be useless to rely on ladders in the future.

In addition to these melee siege weapons, Cao’s army’s long-range observation equipment also needs to be upgraded.

During this battle, Zhang He discovered that Zhou Yu's catapult could use a very high trajectory to counter Cao's catapult outside the city. And because of the very high trajectory, Zhou Yu's catapult could be hidden behind the reverse slope of the city wall.

Cao's army relied on traditional trespasses and watchtowers. No matter how high they were built, they could not directly see the exact position of the enemy's trebuchets, so it was difficult for them to command Cao's trebuchets to shoot at Zhou Yu's trebuchets.

Zhang He has not yet figured out a solution to this problem, he has just discovered the problem.

But this is not surprising. If the technical problems and difficulties created by the Zhuge brothers could be overcome so easily, and one could tell how to solve them at a glance, then what were the Zhuge brothers doing?
Having suffered losses and realizing the problem, but being unable to solve it, is normal. Cao's civil and military officers must learn to accept reality.

Zhang He couldn't solve this problem for the time being, so he could only slowly buy time while changing his attack method despite the disadvantage.

In the following days, he continued to use bulldozers with anti-arrow shields to destroy the moat, so that more gaps would appear in the moat, making it easier for more siege weapons to pass through at the same time in the future.

Moreover, by filling the river and launching a tentative attack at the same time, the defensive firepower of the defenders could be defrauded, thus sharing more of the pressure.

After all, if they rush directly towards the city, the defending army's archers will be able to shoot at close range and cross-fire, and the firepower output efficiency and hit rate will be much higher.

Shooting from a distance across the moat would not only reduce the hit rate by an order of magnitude, but the anti-arrow shield of the bulldozer could also block most of the attacks. When the Cao army's archers and catapults fired at the defenders, the pressure would be much less, and they could also consume a large amount of Zhou Yu's supplies.

Considering that Zhou Yu has no external aid, while Zhang He has a large number of troops and external aid, it is definitely worthwhile to consume Zhang He in this way. The only suspense is how long Zhang He can maintain such an encirclement and consumption intensity, and whether he can consume Zhou Yu to the point where he can no longer hold on.

Therefore, while besieging the city, Zhang He took into consideration that his own troops had surplus manpower, all of which were piled up outside Nanpi City, and many soldiers had nothing to do and would not get a chance to fight.

He once again ordered his troops to be divided into several groups to capture various counties and destroy the enemy-occupied areas within Bohai County. They would seize any food they could and arrest any civilians they could.

Of course, all this will definitely take a process and will not happen overnight. Some of the other small counties in Bohai County can last for ten days or half a month, and some even longer.

Cao's army marched, moved to find targets, prepared siege weapons... all of these took time. And with Zhou Yu as a nail behind them, they had to keep one eye open and look back at all times, keeping one hand on guard against Zhou Yu's breakthrough and attack deep into Cao's rear, all of which slowed down Cao's progress.

Taking this situation into consideration, Zhang He specifically assigned the task of taking over the counties and seizing people and supplies to his old buddy Gao Lan, while Zhang He himself stayed in Nanpi to besiege the city.

Gao Lan had absolute trust in Zhang He, so after receiving the assignment, he started working right away without any hesitation or delay.

However, Zhou Yu's pre-war work of clearing the countryside was also quite thorough. The government warehouses of the counties in the rear were all concentrated in Tianjin City, and the people were also concentrated before the war. All of this meant that even if Gao Lan advanced smoothly, he would not gain much in terms of materials and personnel.

Only some of the elderly, weak, sick and disabled who could not walk and would die on the road if they migrated in late autumn and early winter could not be relocated, so they could only be left in their hometowns. Moreover, these people had their own food rations, and the government would not plunder them.

No one knows whether Gao Lan would capture the old, weak, sick and disabled after he arrived, or even take away the food that sustains them.

Anyway, Zhou Yu had already minimized the possible losses caused by Zhang He's temporary occupation of other areas of Bohai County except Nanpi and Tianjin. Zhou Yu had done everything he could.

Zhou Yu knew that it was inevitable that most of the undefended areas around Bohai County would be temporarily occupied by Zhang He. This temporary book loss would definitely be greater than when Zhang He and Lu Kuang entered the country three years ago. This was also necessary for the show of weakness and could not be saved.

But Zhang He will have to pay back this price ten times including the principal and interest in the future. This is just a temporary benefit for him for three to five months.

……

Five or six days passed in the blink of an eye, and Zhang He's siege of Nanpi City had lasted more than ten days.

The wheel of history has also turned to mid-October of the 16th year of Jian'an.

The nearest county to Zhou Yu, Fuyang County, had already been captured by Gao Lan.

However, Zhou Yu did not know what was happening inside the city. After all, he was surrounded and it was impossible for him to get any news from the outside world.

After Gao Lan succeeded, the morale of all Cao troops on the Bohai battlefield recovered a little.

It was not because of how many people and materials the Fuyang County he captured had, but because Fuyang County was located north of Nanpi and downstream of the Zhangshui River. After Gao Lan captured Fuyang County, he cut off the Zhangshui River from Nanpi to Tianjin.

Even if Liu Bei's camp wants to reinforce Zhou Yu in the future, they will not be able to take the Zhangshui waterway unless they break through Cao's blockade of the river first.

Zhang He and Gao Lan would definitely not give the enemy this opportunity. As soon as Gao Lan captured Fuyang County and notified Zhang He, the two of them discussed the matter remotely through scouts and messengers, and immediately decided to dig the Zhangshui River near Fuyang County to create dangerous shoals and artificial reefs to prevent large ships from passing through.

Then they built earthen platforms and set up catapults and crossbows on the river bank to block the river. In addition, the water level was low in early winter, so Cao's army was fully capable of completely disrupting the navigation of the Zhang River. As long as the sabotage work was in place, even if Liu Bei's army recaptured Fuyang County in the future, they would not be able to quickly clear the waterway again.

After finishing all this, Zhang He and Gao Lan calmed down. Zhang He also hurriedly reported this harvest as a major victory to Xiahou Dun in the rear.

Xiahou Dun was also quite relieved after hearing the news.

However, coincidentally, Zhou Yu, who was trapped in Nanpi City, was also extremely calm about all these changes - he and Xiahou Dun and Zhang He were obviously enemies, and while his enemies were calm, he was also calm. This situation can only be described as incredible.

Even though Zhou Yu could not grasp the details of the real-time external battle situation, he was at least very confident about the overall situation. So even though he knew that Gao Lan seemed to have cut off his water support, Zhou Yu was not worried at all.

But not all of Zhou Yu's generals were so calm.

In the past two days, a captain and two military commanders took advantage of Zhou Yu's personal patrol of the city and passed by their defense areas to ask Zhou Yu for advice, wanting to know whether they had reinforcements.

After all, many of these middle-level generals did not know the plans of the top leaders. They all felt that their camp still had potential in Youzhou and Qingzhou, and would not let Zhou Yu and his family withstand the offensive of Xiahou Dun and Zhang He alone.

Wouldn't that mean that all the teammates were just watching the show? How could that be possible?

From the perspective of the soldiers in Nanpi City, they certainly hope that Zhao Yun and Taishi Ci will come to support them as soon as possible.

After all, what is good for the world and the entire camp may not necessarily be the best for every small group or every individual.

Individual and collective interests are often misaligned. A grain of sand from the times may become a mountain when it falls on an individual's head.

Faced with his subordinates' concerns, Zhou Yu only thought about it for a moment and decided to tell the truth.

Of course, he could have lied to boost morale, such as telling everyone, "General Zhao and I are brothers-in-law, and he will definitely spare no effort to come to reinforce us as soon as possible, and work with us to defeat Zhang He." But Zhou Yu knew that such a lie might temporarily boost morale, but in the future, if the reinforcements did not arrive after a month or even two months, the lie would be exposed, and morale would plummet.

In this case, it would be better to make things clear now. The key point is that Zhou Yu felt that even if he told the truth, the morale of the people in the city would be enough to hold on for a long time.

What if we tell everyone clearly that there will be no reinforcements in the short term?
After understanding this, Zhou Yu confronted his generals in a friendly manner: "I will tell you the truth. There will be no reinforcements within two months! But don't worry, we can definitely defend Nanpi by ourselves. And by then, we can make Cao Cao pay a greater price! We will get back our money with interest!

According to the plan made by Situ before the war, if Zhang He's offensive was indeed fierce, Qingzhou's General Taishi might dispatch some of Yuan Qingzhou's former troops who had been reorganized, cross the river to provide support.

However, these troops will not be too strong, nor will they be too aggressive. Once frustrated, they will switch to defense on the spot. If they are pressed by Zhang He again, General Taishi can decide whether to retreat. In short, what we want is to stick to Zhang He as much as possible, while showing weakness, so that they can see clearly that Hebei really has no troops to threaten them at present. "

After Zhou Yu said so much, his generals had nothing to say and all accepted the situation.

Anyway, they can defend the city with their own strength, but it will be relatively difficult. The Lord of the Mansion doesn't treat us as outsiders anymore, and he doesn't hide anything from us. We should fight to the death.

Trust is mutual.

……

Zhou Yu stabilized the people's hearts in Nanpi City and revealed the truth to his trusted generals, such as "Don't count on Zhao Yun to rescue you, but Taishi Ci might come to rescue you in a staged manner."

In this way, when all this really happened in the next few days, the generals in Nanpi City would not panic at all, because Zhou Yu had already taken precautions.

And all this happened just as Zhou Yu knew, according to the script.

On October 12, there were no changes or new things within a hundred miles of Nanpi City. The rhythm of attacking and defending the city was the same as before, and both sides just continued to consume each other, and Zhou Yu was able to ensure an absolutely dominant battle loss exchange ratio.

However, on this day, a military incident occurred about 150 to 160 miles southeast of Nanpi City.

Early that morning, the troops stationed in Liu Bei's camp in Qingzhou, led by Taishi Ci, attempted to cross the Yellow River from the Qingzhou side to the north of Xipingchang County in Leling County of Jizhou, directly harassing and threatening Zhang He's flank in order to support Zhou Yu's garrison in Nanpi.

The Yellow River is long, and it is impossible for Cao's army to garrison along the entire length of the river. In this section of the Yellow River, the south bank is Qingzhou, and the north bank is Jizhou. If Liu Bei's camp wants to rescue Jizhou from Qingzhou, they can cross the river from either place.

Therefore, at the beginning of the crossing, Cao's army did not make any moves to attack, intercept or harass the enemy halfway across the river. When the county magistrate of Xipingchang heard that the enemy had entered the country, he could only close the city gates and tremble in fear.

Taishi Ci advanced all the way to the city of Xipingchang County, and then began to intimidate and persuade the county magistrate to surrender. The county magistrate's first reaction was naturally to refuse to surrender, and he just wanted to rely on more than a thousand soldiers to delay until Zhang He or Xiahou Dun came to rescue.

However, his limited military force was destined to be insufficient in front of Taishi Ci.

Cao's army stationed heavy troops in many counties on the north bank of the Yellow River, but Xipingchang County was not one of them. This was because the area was located at the junction of Leling and Pingyuan counties, and was relatively poor and remote, belonging to a no-man's land.

Besides, there are only thieves who can steal for a thousand days, but there is no one who can guard against thieves for a thousand days. Before Taishi Ci came to reinforce, he must have done a good job of intelligence gathering and specifically picked a county with relatively weak military strength to attack.

If the military strength in Xipingchang was not weak, Taishi Ci would not have attacked from here, so he would definitely be able to find the weak point.

The stubbornness of the Xipingchang County Magistrate resulted in his head being hung at the gate of the county government office two days later. Taishi Ci quickly attacked and captured the county with twenty times the force.

However, the deaths of the Xipingchang County Magistrate, the County Lieutenant, and a military commander responsible for defending the city were not entirely in vain, as they bought Cao Cao's camp two days with their lives.

Taishi Ci saw that the city had been captured and the main force of Cao's army was stationed in Dongguan County in the north, so he sent troops south to rescue.

Zhang He was in charge of the siege of Nanpi and could not move easily. In addition, Zhang He was farther away from the southern battlefield, so traveling back and forth was even more tiring.

Therefore, the task of coming to Xipingchang to eliminate the reinforcements of Liu Bei's camp was led by Xiahou Dun himself.

Xiahou Dun led an army of 40,000 and attacked Taishi Ci directly.

Taishi Ci was in Qingzhou and could have mobilized tens of thousands of troops to reinforce Zhou Yu, but on the one hand he could not expose his full strength, and on the other hand according to the plan he could divide his troops for rescue instead of putting all of them in Xipingchang, so Taishi Ci only had 20,000 troops in Xipingchang.

In terms of numbers, Taishi Ci is only half of Xiahou Dun.

Of course, if these 20,000 people were all elite veterans of Liu Bei’s army, even if their number was half as many, they would still be able to fight against the main force of Cao’s army.

But the problem is, according to the pre-war plan for this battle, there was no intention from the beginning to let Taishi Ci bring his own troops to scare away Xiahou Dun. Taishi Ci only brought the old subordinates under Yuan Tan, who had just been initially reorganized and reformed by Liu Bei's army in the past two years. Their combat effectiveness could not be compared with the main force of Liu Bei's army.

It's not that the old troops in Yuan Shao's camp were weak in combat, as there were many brave men in Hebei and Qingzhou. It's just that most of the old elite soldiers in Yuan Shao's camp were killed or forced to surrender by Cao Cao.

Many of the combat forces that Yuan Tan had reassembled were recruited several years after the Battle of Guandu. They had a relatively poor foundation and were not the veteran legacies left to him by his father.

Taishi Ci had to be cautious when leading such a group of people to fight against Xiahou Dun.

In the following three days, both sides fought a small-scale field battle between Xipingchang County and the neighboring Ban County and Ande County.

Taishi Ci was repelled in both battles, but he did not suffer much loss.

Finally, Taishi Ci took advantage of the fact that Xipingchang County was not far from the north bank of the Yellow River, and that the Yellow River had not completely frozen in mid-October, so he took advantage of the night to march south and retreat to the other side of the Yellow River.

After Xiahou Dun discovered this, he also sent people to pursue him.

However, Taishi Ci decisively chose to cut off the rear and survive. He personally led a cavalry to cover the rear. He also took the initiative to pretend to counterattack Xiahou Dun before dawn, creating a certain amount of chaos for the enemy. He used offense instead of defense to delay time and ensure that the main force successfully retreated to the south bank.

Taishi Ci relied on his skills and courage, as well as the mobility of his cavalry, and after buying enough time, he successfully retreated.

Xiahou Dun didn't get the upper hand, and finally chased all the way to the bank of the Yellow River, and couldn't help thinking in his heart:
'The 20,000 Liu Bei troops we encountered these days were not strong enough and their military discipline was not strict enough. They were probably the weak troops left by Yuan Tan. However, this cavalry, which was covering the retreat of the friendly army, was able to escape unscathed after a feint, and its combat power was really extraordinary.

Could it be that this cavalry is the direct descendants of Taishi Ci who have been led for many years, and they are all elite troops under Liu Bei, so they have such strength?'

Xiahou Dun thought about it over and over again, but couldn't come up with any other explanation, so he could only convince himself this way.

Fortunately, judging from the ratio of casualties, he did not lose in this battle. Moreover, after repelling Taishi Ci, he also crushed Liu Bei's army's powerful rescue of Nanpi. If this news reached the ears of the defenders of Nanpi City, the morale of the defenders would definitely be further reduced, and it would be easier to break the city at that time.

However, just when Xiahou Dun thought that everything was settled and all his gains were in his pocket, later that day, another small but far-reaching incident occurred in his army.

On the night when Xiahou Dun returned from defeating Taishi Ci, the army was camping in the wild for the night, and Xiahou Dun himself was holding a military book with a few wooden tablets of military information next to him, reading by lamplight.

A scout officer suddenly came in urgently to report that a small group of messengers sent by Taishi Ci had been captured.

"General! When we were on night patrol, we caught several enemy cavalrymen who tried to bypass our patrol area and head towards Nanpi! After we caught them, we tortured them. These people were to inform Zhou Yu to wait for help."

When Xiahou Dun heard this, he instantly became alert.

Could it be that Taishi Ci originally intended to reinforce Zhou Yu, but was repelled by himself, so he temporarily decided to send his death squad to break through and deliver intelligence, so that Zhou Yu could wait in peace? To make Zhou Yu believe that reinforcements would still come?

If this can be intercepted and tampered with, or manipulated in some other way, it will be very useful! Maybe it can help break Zhou Yu's determination to defend the city.

Thinking of this, Xiahou Dun immediately ordered: "Quickly bring the captured messenger up! I want to interrogate him personally!"

(End of this chapter)