Regarding the result of "the best policy did not work", Liu Bei's camp was very tolerant.

Liu Bei didn't mention a word of complaints such as "how is this best policy unreliable",

Li Su also did not complain that Zhao Yun, who was performing this kind of enemy lure task for the first time, "did not have good acting skills", but after Zhao Yun came back, he patted him on the shoulder and took care of him casually:

"Zilong, I was negligent and forgot to explain you more details. The next time you have the opportunity to perform this kind of task of 'obviously not going around to steal your home, but you have to pretend to be stealing your home after going around', I will work with you, you should learn what acting is, and summarize it yourself. Of course, it may not be possible for me to lure the enemy, so a little more will be counted. ”

Zhao Yun is cautious and cautious, and his sensitivity is enough, but he doesn't have the D-level acting skills of Li Su who graduated from diplomacy.

However, he is also humble and studious, and his attitude is very good: "Thank you for your guidance, I will definitely pay attention next time." ”

The atmosphere of unity within the entire Liu Bei camp can be seen.

The best strategy failed, Liu Bei had no choice but to really continue to act, playing the drama of "the big truck is blocked, let's really use the small electric donkey to deliver express delivery across the city".

The army was divided into a small half of the infantry unit, with Zhang Fei as the general, Li Su personally supervised, and Zhao Yun led the way, and marched 200 miles to camp outside Xiangping City.

Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Lu Su and others continued to stay in front of the Liao Tunnel Fortress and confronted the enemy's main force.

Zhou Tai was responsible for protecting the subsequent transport of grain by land from the Liao Tunnel to Xiangping.

Because of Li Su's army, Zhang Fei's acting skills on this march are much better than Zhao Yun's.

What is the bluff acting skills of setting up more flags, reducing troops and increasing stoves, these basic exercises are almost easy to come by, and there are as many as there are.

So much so that Zhang Fei actually took away 3,000 infantry, but in the eyes of the enemy army in Liao Tunnel, he thought that the main force of Liu Bei's army, which had at least more than 10,000 people, really went around the rear and went east.

At the same time, Liu Beijun in the camp of the Liao Tunnel did the opposite, increasing troops and reducing the stove, more than 10,000 people ate, but the amount of cooking smoke coming out of the camp every day was much less than usual.

Before Li Su left, he took care of Liu Bei and sent some soldiers to the mountains and forests far away from the enemy's sentinel range in the south, where a large amount of wood was cut and burned, and then the charcoal was transported back to the camp for cooking.

However, there are relatively few types of food that can be cooked with charcoal, and Li Su also had to invent some simple cakes of fermented dough in advance to improve Liu Beijun's staple food diet, so that he can rely on charcoal to solve the problem of cooking for the army without knowing it-

In this era, there were non-fermented dead dough cakes such as fire, but there was a lack of fermented noodles. In the past few months in Liaodong, in order to improve his life when he was idle, Li Su also experimented with fermenting grains and making sauerkraut by mixing various foods with sour water and dough.

Although the initial scientific experiments often failed, and dozens of stones of flour were wasted before and after, but a few stable fresh yeast dough that would not make people eat bad food were finally tried-

During the trial period, Li Su would cook the dough that expanded after each acidification, and then find some hungry people to try it, which he would not eat himself. If it makes people diarrhea, then the experiment has failed, and the colony is abandoned. Until it was found that the dough could be fermented and not bad.

This natural fresh yeast community is not actually pure yeast, and there is a mixture of acetic acid bacteria and lactic acid bacteria in it.

Therefore, in fact, the products produced by fermentation not only contain enzymes, but also acetic acid and lactic acid. The pasta is sure to have a sour taste, similar to the ingjera cake in Ethiopian cuisine.

Once you have the native yeast, you don't have to grow the yeast each time. As long as you leave a piece of dough from the previous dough and add it to the new noodles when you make the cakes again, the new noodles can also ferment - just like in "The Little Master of China", this kind of thing is called "old noodles".

……

For several days in a row, all indications showed that the size of the Han army maneuvering in the direction of Xiangping was far greater than that of those who remained on the side of the Liao Tunnel.

There are mainly two rebel generals here in Liaojiao.

The main general, Zhang Hao, was originally Zhang Chun's subordinate at the time of Zhongshan Xiangshi, and a Sima of another department under the Zhongshan Governor, who rebelled with Zhang Chun.

The deputy general Xian Yu slave was originally a fierce general under Su Li. At the end of last year, Su Li himself was attacked and killed by Wuhuan Qiu Liju, and after the head was sacrificed to Liu Yu, the remnants of the Xianbei Suli Department fled to Liaodong with Zhang Chun with Xian Yunu, and now they are assigned to guard the Liao Tunnel with Zhang Hao.

Zhang Hao usually guarded the city of Liaojiao County, while Xian Yunu was stationed in the long trench fortifications along the Liao River outside the city, and was also responsible for tasks such as looting grain in the field and cutting off the enemy's grain route.

As the trick of stealing the house after the Han army became more and more complete and realistic, Zhang Hao and Xian Yunu also muttered in their hearts.

On the 18th day of May, Zhang Hao summoned Xian Yunu back to the city and discussed it together: "General Xian Yu, I don't know whether Xiangping's side is being feinted or attacked, you send hundreds of scouts, divide into several teams to get in touch with Xiangping, and be sure to find out the truth of the Han army." ”

"Okay, let's send Xianbei warriors to investigate." Xian Yunu did not disobey the order, and carried it out very sincerely.

As an aside, this Zhang Hao and Xian Yu Nu are both unknown generals in the history books, but now Zhang Chun has named them generals, and their ranks are not low, so they call each other so in their daily conversations.

Who let the Erzhang regime have come to an end, and the official position is worthless? People like Zhang Hao are actually pseudo-chariot generals, and Xian Yunu is pseudo-hussar generals.

The search lasted three days, and on May 20, a reply was finally obtained.

The scouts composed of four waves of Xianbei elite cavalry, each wave of fifty horsemen, a total of 200 people, only 37 people returned alive.

Among these thirty-seven people, only eleven people who could really see the distance of the Xiangping city wall retreated.

The rest were intercepted and killed by Zhao Yun's patrol cavalry, and Zhao Yun himself killed more than forty horsemen.

The news they brought back was: In the northeast and southeast directions of Xiangping City, there were murderous sounds, and the Han army camps were continuous.

In addition, for each group of camps, they also roughly estimated the number of tents, the number of cooking stoves for meals, and drew sketches on sheepskins.

Zhang Hao checked with Xian Yunu, and felt that the Han army under Xiangping City was definitely the main force, and it was estimated that there were more than 10,000 people.

Xian Yunu, who is a Xianbei person, first couldn't hold his breath: "And according to our daily reports of lookout posts and scouts, counting the number of Liu Bei's Liao Tunnel camp tent and stove smoke, this tent is enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people, but the cooking smoke for cooking is definitely not enough to raise 5,000 soldiers and horses."

If you want me to say, the number of tents must be a bluff, just to scare us, in fact, Liu Bei's troops on our side are empty. It's better that I will take advantage of the middle of the night to secretly wade through the water to cross the west tributary of the Liao River tomorrow night, and rob the camp and kill Liu Bei without being killed! If the camp here is broken, won't the Han army around Xiangping be cut off from the way back and the grain route, and catch turtles in the urn? ”

Zhang Hao is a Han in the end, so he is a little cautious: "No, what if it is Liu Bei's plan to lure the enemy?" I heard that when King Nanqiao and Yan Rou were in Changli, they repeatedly fell for the poisonous tricks of Liu Bei's military teacher Li Su. Let's just stick to it and fight Liu Bei.

The number of tents and stoves can be faked, unless it is the speed at which the Han army transports grain to the Xiangping front, and it cannot be faked - let's observe it for a few more days to see how many grain wagons the Han army transports to the front line of the siege of Xiangping every few days, and how many grain wagons there are each time, so that we can estimate the rate of grain consumption of the Han army after Xiangping bypassed.

This is unlikely to be fake, after all, the cost of transporting grain by land is huge, and the things that are not used are empty for a few trips, and the consumption of food on the way is not a small number. ”

Xian Yunu thought about it and had to admire: "It's still that you Han people are scheming and can think so carefully." But what if there are still not so many people eating on the front line in Xiangping, but Liu Bei transports the grain over first and hoards it? He can keep it if he can't finish it. ”

Zhang Hao smiled proudly: "Of course you can let it go, but if the Han army on the side of Xiangping is actually insufficient, and there is too much grain, are you not afraid that the general in the city will personally lead the troops to kill the camp and burn the grain and grab the grain?" The army defending the city wants to go out of the city to rob the siege of the city and the camp, it is a stretch of legs, there are only a thousand days to be a thief in the world, but there is no thousand days to prevent thieves. ”

Xian Yunu felt that it made sense, and the two discussed: observe two or three more waves according to this plan.

Anyway, even if Liu Bei mainly attacked Xiangping, with the city of Xiangping being strong, it would definitely not be able to be surrounded in a month or two.

And Zhou Tai transported grain by land to the Xiangping front, basically there was a round in seven or eight days, and it took more than 20 days to observe the three waves.

……

In this way, the two armies spent another twenty days observing each other, Xian Yunu always sent cavalry scouts to scout, and Zhou Tai's food protection troops were relatively sufficient, and it seemed that every time the people and soldiers were brought together, at least 2,000 people were transported. There were 300 ox carts, and each cart should be able to carry 20 stone of grain, which was 6,000 stone at a time.

Converted, Liu Beijun on the Xiangping side ate 6,000 stone of grain every six or seven days, and 1,000 stone per day. According to one bucket of rice per soldier every two days, it is almost a consumption rate of 20,000 people. There may be more of them, and they will be stored on the front line as a strategic reserve.

However, Xian Yunu's harassing cavalry didn't know that every time they followed out for dozens of miles, because of the appearance of Zhao Yun's cavalry, they had to be driven away to end the sentry, and they didn't dare to leave the Liao Tunnel Fortress too far-

Because as long as he left the Liao Tunnel Fortress for more than fifty miles and was discovered by Zhao Yun, then with a distance of fifty miles, Zhao Yun's light cavalry could definitely catch up with those small groups of Xianbei people, thus killing most of them.

With this kind of daily reconnaissance work, it is impossible for the Xianbei people to fill in a pile of lives every few days, so it is logical to follow a little dozens of miles to ensure that they can escape back immediately after receiving the enemy.

However, not all of Zhou Tai's grain trucks would travel 200 miles to Xiangping.

In fact, less than 100 of these 300 ox carts will actually arrive in Xiangping.

The remaining 200 cars, after 50 miles away from the Liao Tunnel, the soldiers hiding under the hay canopy in the car will get out, and then lead the light empty ox cart and make a slight detour to the south of the mountain road, find a place in the Anshan mountain area where they can barely set up camp and rest for a few nights, waiting for the return of the real grain transport team.

That's what Li Su asked Zhou Tai and Tai Shici: You don't care if there is an enemy approaching the sentinel every time you transport grain, in short, you must do the same thing as if the enemy sees or not, and your acting skills are in place every time.

This kind of flawless acting skills finally made Zhang Hao and Xian Yunu decide to do it - the purpose of setting up the Liao Tunnel Fortress is to steal the house after encountering Liu Bei, and to cut off the enemy's grain route after the winding.

Even if you don't go back to the army to save Xiangping, you have to try to cut off the grain road, and if you don't finish the task assigned by Zhang Chun, you will definitely not be able to explain it.

Zhang Hao instructed: "General Xianyu, tomorrow is the day of the Han army's grain transport, you first take all the cavalry of the headquarters, and I will help thousands of infantry to rob the military rations escorted by Zhou Tai." Looking at Zhou Tai's banner, it is just another Sima, and the strength is only 2,000, and we can rob the grain with three or four times the strength of the army, and we will definitely be able to destroy the grain and annihilate the enemy at the same time!

I have also inquired, the fierce generals in the Han army, mainly Guan Zhang and Zhao, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun are on the front line of Xiangping, Liu Bei and Guan Yu are in the camp of Liao Tunnel, this Zhou Tai who transports grain is not a general of the army, so he is not afraid. ”