A military attache in his thirties, dressed luxuriously, stood on the platform at the top of Diaoyu Mountain with a cold and serious expression, overlooking the surging Jialing River in the distance at his feet, and his worry lingered for a long time.

He is Liu Yan's third son, Liu Mao, and the only son Liu Yan currently has with him.

Liu Yan has four sons, the eldest son Liu Fan and the second son Liu Dan are all officials in the court, and they are grassroots Lang officials and imperial historians. Previously, because the imperial court secretly asked Liu Bei to get Liu Yan back, he didn't officially tear his face, so he didn't treat them badly, but just idle and secretly monitored, as a hostage to threaten Liu Yan.

Liu Fan and Liu Dan were promoted relatively quickly during the reign of Dong Zhuo and Li Dao in history, reaching Zuo Zhonglang General and Zhishu Yushi respectively, and were later killed by Li Dao. But that was all because of the drastic depreciation of official positions during Dong Zhuo's later period and Li Dao's period. In the first year of Emperor Xianping, they were all petty officials

The fourth son, Liu Zhang, returned to Yizhou after Liu Mao died of illness in history, and was an official in the imperial court before he came back, but he was also a tasteless idler in the first year of Chuping, staying in Sili, and the surveillance was not as serious as that of the two brothers.

After Dong Zhuo entered Beijing, his grasp of Liu Yan's sons was relaxed. Anyway, Dong Zhuo and Liu Yan have no hatred or hatred, he wishes that Liu Yan and Liu Bei dog-eat-dog restrained each other. Therefore, the lives of Liu Yan's other three sons in Beijing are more secure than when the young emperor was in power.

In contrast, Liu Mao, who followed Liu Yan into Shu, did not catch up with the wave of inflation after Dong Zhuo took office, so that his official position is still only a "Sima of other departments" so far.

However, because Liu Yan actually became the emperor of the four counties of Shuzhong and the four counties of Nanzhong, everyone knew that Liu Mao was in fact the treatment of the crown prince.

The civil and military officials next to him who have higher official positions than Liu Mao, whether they are in Diaoyu City or Jiangzhou a little to the south, are all the only ones who look forward to Liu Mao. An order from Sima of another department can make a county Taishou obediently obey orders, and Liu Yan has already entrusted his son with full authority for the defense of the eastern half of the country.

There is no way, who let Liu Bei on the opposite side hold the holy decree, the appeal of the holy decree is too great. Liu Yan was a little frightened, he couldn't believe in the loyalty of any of his subordinates, he could only trust his own son, even if this own son's ability was far inferior to those Taishou and famous generals.

At this moment, it was another day that the offensive and defensive battle of the eastern wall of Diaoyu City was over, to be exact, the second city wall. Because the first pass had already been lost three days ago.

The Dongzhou soldiers who rushed out of the city at dusk to fight back also captured a few precious Han artillerymen, and could provide some valuable information about the new weapon of the counterweight catapult, so Liu Bi, the deputy general in charge of defense in the city, quickly interrogated the prisoners, and immediately reported to the young master after asking for details.

Liu Mao quietly listened to the description of the new weapon, and then said thoughtfully: "In this way, this kind of 'Hanzhong artillery' alone will not be able to break through the defense of Diaoyu City at a high place, and it is not a matter of worry. By the way, did you ask why they have suddenly stepped up their offensive recently? Is it because of this new weapon? ”

Liu Bi truthfully relayed: "If you ask out, there shouldn't be a fake - Guan Yu, the main general of the siege and the Taishou of Hanzhong, was transferred by Liu Bei and went to Shangyong to negotiate with Yuan Shu, the general of Nanyang, it seems that it is to crusade against Dong Zhuo, a thief who is in turmoil." ”

"Dong Zhuo? When? Isn't Dong Zhuo a former general and a state pastor? "Liu Mao and Liu Yan are really isolated from Shu Dao and don't know anything about the outside world.

Liu Mao told him all the information he asked, and Liu Mao nodded frequently after listening: "I didn't expect that Dong Zhuo had abolished the emperor for a few months, which is a good thing." The young emperor who ordered to recall his father has been deposed, and although the holy decree may not be withdrawn, there is no strength to investigate its implementation. This news is not good for Liu Bei, they will definitely not fabricate it, then it is absolutely true. ”

Liu Bi continued to report: "We separated a few prisoners and asked them separately, and they all said that Guan Yu was not there, and the navy army was also transferred to the Shangyong Hanshui area, and the Han army was afraid that there would be loopholes in the siege, so they knocked on the mountain and shook the tiger, and wanted to take the initiative to scare us completely." When Guan Yu comes back and has enough troops, he can completely continue to besiege us......"

Liu Mao's eyelids jumped.

Since February, he has been thinking about the problem that "if he is kept under siege, he will run out of food in Diaoyu City sooner or later in more than a year." But he didn't want to risk letting people transport grain immediately, not that he felt that the sailors of Jiangzhou could not defeat the sailors of the Han army.

First, the enemy army had just arrived at that time, and his vigor was in full swing, and the art of war was full of vigor and strength, and then it was exhausted, and it was better to spend several months fighting again than to fight immediately.

Second, Diaoyu City was just built last year, and it is not perfect in all aspects. Grain was hoarded as it was built, and the granaries in the city were also hoarded and rebuilt again. Therefore, the granary at that time could only store 150,000 stone of grain.

After the battle began, it was impossible to dig outside the castle, and the trees inside the castle were basically cut down on the spot when the castle was built as building timber, so it was difficult to build any more buildings. Even if a little building material is squeezed out, it will have to be spent on repairing the fortifications, so there is no plan to continue the expansion of the granary in the city, and it will have to wait for some of the grain to be eaten and the warehouse will be freed up before it can be lucky.

But now, the siege has been more than three months, and the army has eaten three months' rations, consuming about 20% of the total stock. And Guan Yu left temporarily because of begging Dong, which seems to be a good opportunity for the Jiangzhou Navy to transport grain and blood.

Once successful, extending the siege period for another three to five months in the future will also be a huge morale blow to the besieging side. Coupled with the variable of begging Dong, maybe Liu Bei will not be able to continue to besiege Diaoyu City because he has to face foreign enemies in the north because of this extra time? Doesn't this give Liu Yanjun relief?

When the time comes, we will further rectify and train the Dongzhou soldiers, narrow the gap between the quality of the soldiers and Liu Beijun, who has been through the war for a long time, and continue to farm over time, with five times the manpower and material resources of Liu Bei, and the people's hearts will become less and less serious about the central court of the imperial court, it will be overturned.

Time is on Liu Yanjun's side!

The more Liu Mao thought about it, the more beautiful it became, and immediately ordered: "Send the warriors and clippers in the city tonight to go down the river to Jiangzhou in the middle of the night, let Zhao Wei and Zhang Su prepare grain and grass, escort them with the main force of the navy, and set off in five days, and arrive in the city at dawn in seven days, and the defenders in the city will receive the sailors."

Guan Yu is not here, Liu Bei's sailors are not our opponents, they live in the upper reaches of the Jialing River, the water is shallow and turbulent, there were no big ships, and the ships had to be temporarily built last winter, there must be no good ships, and our army is still very stable in breaking through the blockade and transporting grain. ”

Liu Bi: "Obey!" The subordinates went to arrange for the messenger. ”

That night, the news was successfully sent, and civil officials such as Zhao Wei and Zhang Su and other county guards and Changshi in Jiangzhou City, as well as military generals such as Yang Huai and Gao Pei, all obeyed Liu Mao's order and immediately began to prepare.

Seven days later, Gao Pei led the naval division to escort the battle, and Zhao Yun, the Taishou of Pseudoba County, and the grain team to reinforce Diaoyu City, intending to renew the Diaoyu City with 30,000 or 40,000 stone of grain.

For this reason, nearly 200 ships were dispatched, of which 100 were grain ships with cameo appearances, ranging from 4 to 500 stone per ship to 800 stone each.

……

Liu Mao really knew that Yun Chang was not there, and he was afraid that it would be even more difficult to transport grain in the future, so he couldn't hold his breath. Do you have the confidence to intercept the rescue sailors outside the Diaoyu City and not let a boatload of grain enter the city! ”

On the eve of Gao Pei's fleet sailing upriver to Diaoyu City, he was discovered by the Han army's land scouts, and the fast horse returned to Li Su, who knew that his lure was successful, and immediately summoned Zhou Taiganning for questioning.

In order to ensure the success of luring the enemy, the superiority of the Han army's forces on the front line was not very obvious, because no matter how many men and horses there were, the enemy would be scared away. But Li Su kept one hand, that is, Liu Yanjun still doesn't know how many naval warships Liu Beijun has on the battlefield here, and he doesn't know that Liu Bei collected timber in Jiameng and Langzhong last winter, concentrated on building large shipyards, and built big ships with flowing water.

This is a hidden card that Guan Yu has never played, and there is no need to play it, and now it is necessary to count on Gan Ning and Zhou Tai to defeat the enemy with fewer troops by virtue of the advantage of having excellent warships.

Gan Ning really sat in prison for half a year and held his breath, and asked for his life without pay: "Zhonglang rest assured!" Rather be the vanguard of the front and swear to break the enemy fleet. Although our army is small in this battle, the warships are not inferior to the rebels, and our army has the advantage of going downstream, coming and going like the wind, as long as the action is fast enough, with the vanguard and the enemy entangled with the enemy, it will definitely make the enemy army chaos! ”

Li Su nodded with relief: "Okay, I will order Xingba to be the vanguard of the front, lead more than ten fighting ships, the men and horses of the headquarters, and add some of your Jiujiang soldiers, make up a thousand elites, and rush into the enemy formation to disrupt it." Then Youping led the main force to fight steadily and steadily.

I have calculated the journey of the boat, Gao Pei will not arrive at Diaoyu City until dawn tomorrow, so you must quietly pass under the Diaoyu City on the fourth watchday, so as not to be smashed by the rockfall blockade at the head of the city and smash the warship. Once Xingba and Gao Peijun were entangled together, even if Gao Peijun continued to force his way north and the battlefield approached Diaoyu City, Liu Mao would not be able to throw stones and smash the ship, because he would be afraid of injuring many more friendly troops by mistake. ”

Gan Ning's mission is like rushing forward to fight the enemy with bayonets and forcing the enemy to abandon the death squad covered by the shelling.

But an outlaw like Gan Ning didn't feel anything wrong with such a task, and happily accepted it.

After returning to Shuizhai, he immediately drank with the hundreds of river thief brothers who were Jinfan thieves, three bowls each, and then explained the combat mission, got up on the third watch, and passed through Diaoyu City on the fourth watch.

Nothing was said all night.

On the fourth watch of the next day, Gao Peijun had been sailing against the tide for most of the night, and finally arrived at the Jialing River, which was less than ten miles away from Diaoyu City. Seeing that the task of escorting and transporting food was about to be completed, Gao Pei, who was always vigilant, was about to relax his vigilance, but found that the enemy still did not intend to let him worry.

"Captain, a small number of enemy warships have been found upstream! Very fast! ”

In the darkness before dawn, the vision was very poor, and Gan Ning's ship did not have torches, so it approached within a hundred paces before it was discovered by Gao Peijun's vanguard.

Gao Peijun hurriedly lit torches and prepared to form a formation to fight.

"Those Han sailors directly bumped into the gang and jumped into the gang! Hold on to me! Shoot the arrows! The rear ship released arrows to stop them! ”

Gao Pei's Dongzhou soldiers were stunned when they saw this scene, Gao Pei's grain fleet and escort warships, the total number of people is definitely more than 5,000 people, and there are more than a dozen ships on the opposite side, and they actually rushed in and fought hand-to-hand together, without even keeping a distance and firing arrows.

Is there such a fight in water wars? Didn't you say that "the bow and arrow are the first on the river"?

Why do these guys have a lot of guerrilla thieves and don't talk about the art of war at all?

"Kara-" There was a sharp sound, Gan Ning's ship rushed down the river, and the crash angle was directly inserted into the side of a rebel warship, and then a device similar to the hammer and slap rod on the head of the Roman crow warship fell with a "bang" and smashed heavily on the deck of the enemy ship.

Gan Ning felt that the flail in his hand was a little useless, so he jumped directly along the crow's beak springboard to the opposite boat, and the halberd hammer flew and slashed.