My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 78: Zuo Rong: I laugh at Guan Yu’s lack of strategy and Zhuge Liang’s lack of wisdom
"Captain Gan, wake up quickly, it's already three o'clock in the morning."

On the third day of February, at the end of the night, Gan Ning was woken up by his personal guards in a bad mood.

He rubbed his eyes and finally remembered Captain Zhuge's instructions before going to bed last night. He quickly washed his face with cold water, tidied himself up briefly, and pulled himself together as quickly as possible.

The firemen who cooked had obviously gotten up earlier than them, or had not slept in the first half of the night. The two thousand soldiers in Gan Ning's camp were able to have a rare extra meal at the beginning of the first hour of the first lunar month.

Everyone had fish and steamed eggs, plenty of white rice, and mustard leaves and water moss as a side dish.

Each village can also get two and a half roasted lambs, which are cut by the village chief according to the lamb legs, and each person is given a quarter of a lamb, so that everyone can have a taste of the meat.

Everyone knew that after this good meal, they would be besieged for more than ten days and could only eat cold dry food on the North Peak of Lushan Mountain.

Despite this, the morale of the soldiers showed no signs of declining - most of the people under Gan Ning's command were willing to risk their lives for personal gain.

Zhuge Liang had already figured this out, so he gave targeted encouragement, focusing on money, wine and meat. This could be considered as a method of commanding the army that he learned from Guan Yu, which he put into practice immediately.

Give these people good food and drink and rewards, and promise that if they perform well they can be promoted from ordinary soldiers to sergeants and squad leaders, so everyone is happy to move to another place for defense.

Anyway, defending a mountain is not more difficult than defending a city. The main difference is that you can't defend a mountain for long. When you run out of food and water, you have to wait for friendly forces to rescue you. Also, it's cold on the mountain, and sleeping in a tent is not as good as sleeping in a house in the city. There are no other differences.

"Everyone, take your new rations! These are rice balls pickled with vinegar and salt! They are packed in fresh bamboo tubes and won't go bad even if they are stored for half a month in winter! It's hard to get water for cooking on Mount Lu, so just bring the cooked rice balls!"

"Officers, be careful not to put the rice crusts you brought with you together with damp things! They will go bad easily if they get wet!"

"This is salted meat and pickled mustard tubers. Each person has one liter of meat and three liters of pickled mustard tubers. It's very salty. This is half a month's supply. Eat sparingly!"

"For those who guard Mount Lu, each person will be rewarded 500 coins. The military officers will seal the boxes in drawers according to your names. You can take them away when you return, or send them to your families! Everyone come and put your fingerprints on the seal!"

The special mission incentive of 500 coins per person for 2,000 people adds up to 1 million coins, which can spend a quarter of the 4 million coins in cash seized by Zhuge Jin from the Chaisang treasury.

However, compared to ensuring low losses and winning a battle that determines the ownership of a county, such a reward is nothing. When it is time to make a small investment for a big gain, you can't be stingy.

The Han Dynasty originally did not have a system in which soldiers' belongings were deposited and managed by camp officers.

Historically, it was not until the Tang Dynasty, when the Fubing system and the Mu Bing system coexisted, that the soldiers of the Tang Beiya Imperial Guard could enjoy such treatment (Tang Tongdian Bing 2).
But a few days ago, when Zhuge Liang was talking to his elder brother about the experience of commanding the army learned from Guan Yu, he mentioned the story that "Duan Yu had to fake an enemy attack and burn the property because the soldiers had too much reward property with them and had no intention of fighting anymore."

Although Zhuge Jin just listened casually at the time, he figured it out the next day and found an opportunity to tell his second brother: "Duan Xing was really stupid back then. He gave too many rewards to the soldiers and was worried that they would be given to others after they died in battle. He could have just implemented a deposit system."

Then Zhuge Jin wrote a letter with great fanfare, copying the "Personal Property Safe for Soldiers Going to War" that was only available in the Tang Dynasty. Each person pressed his fingerprints and signed his identity on the sealing clay, using the general's credit as a guarantee.

Then use a piece of bamboo to write the category and general description of the stored items, stamp it with the Gongcao's seal, and then cut the bamboo in half along the writing. Half is given to the soldiers for safekeeping, which is equivalent to a "passbook", and the other half is left with the Gongcao to be retrieved.

With mud fingerprints and passbooks as double insurance, the soldiers have nothing to worry about.

If a soldier died, the general also promised to send his saved reward to his family. If the family was in the local area, or even with the army, it would be more convenient.

These specific measures may not be exactly the same as those used by the people of the Tang Dynasty in later generations, but it doesn’t matter.

Zhuge Jin had two thousand years of experience in financial instruments, so the passbook system he designed would definitely be better and more anti-counterfeiting than the one designed by the Tang Dynasty people.

When this method was proposed, everyone was shocked, including Zhuge Liang, who exclaimed, "Why didn't I think of it? Big brother, you are so far-sighted."

It is said that the response from the troops was very good, the soldiers were very supportive, and even the incentive effect of giving out bonuses was improved.

At this moment, this series of clever motivational methods were used cross-wise, instantly raising the morale value to the maximum, and then Gan Ning's troops left the city with high morale.

They set out at four o'clock in the morning and arrived at the foot of the northern peak of Mount Lushan at dawn. Then they began to climb the mountain, set up camp, and deploy defenses.

In addition to Gan Ning's troops, there were thousands of people helping them pull carts and transport supplies, so as to transport the necessary supplies up the mountain as quickly as possible before Zuo Rong's army approached.

……

Gan Ning's troops spent two hours carrying the heavy loads on the journey. The baggage train that helped them transport supplies took another two hours to return to the city after unloading more supplies.

After finishing all this and establishing a solid position on the North Peak of Mount Lushan, it was already noon on the second day of February.

The entire deployment process was mostly the same as the design that Brother Zhuge had initially made last night.

But there were also some small details, and finally some fine-tuning was made at Gan Ning's active request and improvement.

For example, the original plan of the Zhuge brothers did not include additional bows and crossbows in Gan Ning's army. They only used as many troops as his own army already had.

In the eyes of the Zhuge brothers, Gan Ning is just a bait to tire out the enemy. Taking more weapons will take up more resources, which may even affect the resources for the subsequent general attack.

But Gan Ning was definitely unwilling to be a bait. He had his own subjective initiative to make more achievements, so he put forward two points of persuasion:
First, he hoped that during the siege, he could make several attempts to "break out" in order to further strengthen the enemy's determination to carry on the siege.

In order to pretend to break out and sneak down the mountain to steal the camp at night, more long-range weapons were needed to counter the revenge attack of the angry enemy. This reason successfully convinced Zhuge Jin, and finally Gan Ning was equipped with more crossbows. The two thousand soldiers were strengthened to four hundred crossbows and one thousand bows. More than two-thirds of the soldiers had long-range weapons. He was also given more arrows.

Zhuge Jin knew that Gan Ning wanted to pull off another night battle stunt similar to the "Hundred Riders Raiding Wei Camp" in original history.

But he also knew that such stunts could indeed make the acting more realistic, and everyone's interests were the same - in history, when Ma Su was surrounded on the southern mountain of Jieting, after the water supply was cut off, didn't he also try to break out of the mountain and break Zhang He's blockade?
If Gan Ning is not nervous at all, Zuo Rong will become suspicious after surrounding him for too long, so let him pretend to be Ma Su and cause trouble for a while.

The more she struggles, the more excited Zuo Rong becomes, and he will not suspect anything else.

After Gan Ning successfully obtained the over-equipped long-range weapons he wished for, he made a further suggestion - he hoped that his 2,000-man army could carry flags of more than twice the size, and preferably disguise themselves as 5,000 people camping on the top of the mountain.

This time, Brother Zhuge only thought about it for a few seconds and accepted the proposal again.

Indeed, if you don't over-equip your camp with long-range weapons, even if you put up a flag with a force of 5,000 people on the top of the mountain, the enemy will not believe that you really have 5,000 people surrounded.

But long-range weapons are over-equipped. When the enemy sees such fierce firepower, they might believe you if you say you have five thousand, or think you have at least three or four thousand.

In a nutshell, although this small detail will take up more resources, it can also "further strengthen Zuo Rong's confidence and make him more excited because the fat in his mouth has become bigger."

Exactly.

Anyway, the military flag is not a consumable. I will just borrow it for a few days and return it.

Therefore, what Zuo Rong finally faced was a plan to lure and tire the enemy, which was perfected by the collective wisdom of the Zhuge brothers and Guan Yu and Gan Ning.

……

After Gan Ning finished everything, he checked the defenses repeatedly, but the enemy still didn't come, so he had to go back and take a nap.

It was not until the early afternoon when he was woken up by his personal guards that he finally discovered:
Zuo Rong's main force had carefully crossed most of the Lushan Mountain area and finally approached his ambush circle.

"They are coming so slowly. More than ten miles of flat land, and more than twenty miles of mountain roads, which adds up to less than forty miles. They actually walked from early morning to afternoon?" Gan Ning shook his head as he looked at the enemy's speed.

Shen Mi, who was standing beside him, discussed with him in a low voice: "I just saw that they were marching very slowly, and they were searching carefully along the way. I'm afraid they were worried about our ambush, so they were walking very cautiously, which is why they were so slow?"

Hearing this, Gan Ning put his hand on his brow and stared at it carefully for a while: "This is not slow."

Shen Mi: "It was slow just now, but now it is probably because we are almost out of the mountain area and think there will be no more ambushes, so we relaxed and started to walk faster."

Gan Ning: "What are you waiting for? We can't let the enemy down. When they get close, use the logs, stones, bows and crossbows!"

After another two cups of tea, the enemy finally entered the ambush circle. Gan Ning launched a long-range attack from a high position, but did not send troops down the mountain to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Even so, they still beat the enemy's search force to a pulp, leaving behind at least hundreds of corpses and wounded soldiers, and then temporarily retreated.

It’s a pity that these are not the enemy’s main force, but only scouts responsible for searching, so the results of the battle could not be greater.

The army of Zuo Rong moved instantly like a rabbit whose tail was stepped on. The troops on the east side, which were marching by water along the shore of Pengli Lake, also came over immediately, not even caring about the boats, and landed directly to start the siege.

Other troops searching by land also surrounded Gan Ning's northern peak of Lushan Mountain and attempted to attack the mountain.

"Shoot arrows! Throw wood and rocks! This mountain is so dangerous. They can't defend the pass unless they have wings!"

Gan Ning commanded the attack easily and only spent some supplies for long-range attacks to repel another wave of enemy attacks on the mountain, causing hundreds of casualties to the enemy again and greatly dampening the enemy's morale.

After the defeat, the enemy finally calmed down, completely switched to encirclement without fighting, and then began to report to the commander in the rear.

Zuo Rong himself had not arrived at that time and was still ten miles away from the battlefield. After listening to his third brother's report on the situation, he rode his horse as fast as he could to see the situation in person.

"...Brother, this is exactly what happened. We searched for more than 20 miles along Mount Lushan, and there were no ambushes on any of the hills along the way that were suitable for ambushes. But on the last hill in the north, there was an ambush by the Zhuge family, and our army lost two small battles in a row, with hundreds of casualties on each side." Zuo Da reported ashamedly.

Zuo Rong was not discouraged at all. He looked carefully at the terrain of the North Peak of Mount Lushan and suddenly laughed: "Hahahahahahahahaha..."

Zuo Da was confused: "Brother, you lost so many people, why are you laughing?"

"Hahahaha..." Zuo Rong laughed for a long time, and finally let out all the turbid air in his chest. Then he stopped and began to speak for his third brother.

"I don't laugh at others, I only laugh at Guan Yu's lack of strategy and Zhuge Liang's lack of wisdom - they have been in Yuzhang County for more than a month, right? How come they are still not familiar with the geography of Mount Lu? The water veins of Mount Lu are high in the north and low in the south. Except for the Five Old Peaks on the south side, there are many springs and waterfalls.

But in order to force our army to attack only when it was complacent and careless, and to avoid scaring our army off by setting an ambush at the very beginning, they deliberately gave up setting up an ambush at Xianglu Peak and other places with abundant waterfalls, and insisted on choosing the North Peak, the last gateway!
Little do they know that although the North Peak is high and steep, it has no water. As long as our army surrounds it but does not attack, within a few days, the troops and horses on the top of the peak will be defeated and the water will be exhausted. At that time, they will have to take the initiative to go down the mountain and break out.

We don't have to do anything, just set up camp and plant more antlers, can't we wait for the ambush troops on the mountain to come and kill ourselves? Once the defeated soldiers on the mountain fail to break out, Guan Yu must send the main force out of Chaisang City to fight us! To help this ambush troops retreat back to the city, otherwise he will have to watch this small army being annihilated by us!
God is helping me. The enemy is ignorant and has set an ambush in a desperate situation. How can I not laugh? Send an order to the three armies to set up camp immediately, cancel the original plan, and instead focus on besieging the North Peak of Mount Lu until the enemy on the peak collapses! "

(End of this chapter)