Just as Huangfu Song decided to attack Guangzong, Zhang Luo began to march north with an army of more than 2,500 people, crossing the Yellow River and entering the state of Ganling (Qinghe County). The news brought back by the reconnaissance force startled Zhang Luo, and a Han army of more than 2,000 people was attacking Zhang Luo's side - seeing that the banner was the army of Liu Qing, the assassin of Jizhou, the old opponent.

"Can't you be sure about Guangzong's military situation?" This is the issue that Zhang Luo is most concerned about.

"I only know that the Han army and the defenders of Guangzong fought a battle, and our army won a big victory. The Han army of Ganling has discovered us! The reconnaissance unit replied.

According to the intelligence of the reconnaissance troops, the Han army has undoubtedly appeared with Zhang Luo's troops. If you continue to advance, you will directly crash into the heavy army group of the Han army.

"I'd better avoid it first!" Bian Xi suggested.

"No!" Zhang Luo said.

This attitude surprised the brothers, according to intelligence, the number of Han troops stationed in Ganling State was at least more than 10,000 people, and Zhang Luo's troops could not do it with one enemy of ten.

Zhang Luo continued: "Our troops are not as good as the Han army, we know, and the Han army also knows. Therefore, the Han army dared to take the initiative to attack our troops. If we can easily defeat the Han army, what will the Han army think? ”

Duan Rui had already been promoted to the military candidate, and he took the lead in putting forward his opinion, "Liu Qing has two thousand people after all, if we suddenly attack, it is okay to catch him off guard." But Liu Qing is very cunning, during the battle of Zhanghe, we were outflanked by both wings, and Liu Qing ran away, but he couldn't catch up. ”

Sima Ju also supported Duan Rui's idea, "If the Han army turns around and encircles our troops, our troops will not be able to resist it." And since the main force has already gone north, and there is still no contact with us, there is no need to expect them to kill them. If we can't defeat Liu Qing with one blow and let Liu Qing follow us, it will be difficult. ”

"Then let's just defeat this cunning Liu Changqing with one blow." Zhang smiled slightly.

Zhang Luo's fingers slid across the map, which was a road that went straight to Ping'en County after defeating Liu Qing: "If we go straight to Ping'en County after defeating Liu Qing and raid the place where Guangzong's camp is hoarding military resources, what will the Han army think?" ”

The officers looked at each other, what would the Qing army think? They are likely to think that this Taiping Road is self-defeating.

"The Han army will feel that the main force of Taiping Dao going north is just a pretense, the purpose is to mobilize the Han army and pull out a gap, and we are an ambush army that Rengong has prepared a long time ago. As long as we wait to fight under the city of Guangzong, what the Han army has to do is to intercept us immediately. Zhang Luo said.

This explanation is too easy to understand, Zhang Luo's troops took the initiative to jump into the enemy's encirclement, and the enemy would naturally take advantage of the situation to encircle Zhang Luo's troops.

Zhang Luo pointed to the map and said: "Then we have to give full play to the ability to march, and the brothers who arrived at Ganling County will only harass them after they arrive at the city of Ganling, and then come back immediately." While the brothers of this army attack, we will only have to find our way north. ”

Bian Xi, the temporary acting chief of staff, frowned, and almost twisted a pimple in the center of his eyebrows. He was already staring at the thing called "sand table" made by Zhang Luo, doing an arithmetic problem next to him, and after more than ten minutes, the standard calculation formula had been written on paper, and the problem was quite simple, it was a problem for calculating time. Bian Xi only needs to find the side length of a triangle according to the angle, and then divide the side length by degrees, and use division to calculate a time.

The entire operational strategy was formulated by the officer corps, and the members of the officer corps were Zhang Luo, Bian Xi, and Lan Wei, four Qu military candidates, and officers from several key departments, and it was the work of the general staff to formulate the battle plan.

Chief of Staff Bian is now imitating the calculations that Qu Shuai Zhang Luo has made many times to deduce the basic combat steps. While watching Zhang Luo make plans, Bian Xi felt that he had learned. When it came to the actual operation, he realized that he had not learned at all, and many things he still had no concept in his mind.

Now, after two months of surprise study, Bian Xi is not the only one participating in the study. Those who can work in the staff headquarters have at least received training, and all of them can read and write. What Bian Xi did, the staff officers in the staff department probably knew. The staff officers are not even as good as Bian Xi, they don't know what it is, and they don't know why. Five or six selected people, one holding a sand table, some of them were anxious, and they bit the bamboo skewers that were used as pens in their mouths, and the hard skewers were all bitten full of gaps.

The arithmetic and geometry problems could not be solved, so Bian Xi changed to another sand table, and he began to try to solve another problem with coordinates. After frowning at the coordinate system for a long time, Bian Xi suddenly slapped his thigh and stood up, and he said excitedly as he walked: "I see!" I see! ”

The staff officers of the General Staff Department looked at each other one by one, not knowing what Chief of Staff Bian had figured out. However, everyone was embarrassed enough at this time, and there was such an opportunity, the staff officers put down their work at hand and asked about Bian Xi.

"Chief of Staff, what did you figure out?"

"Tell me, tell me. We don't know what's going on! ”

Bian Xi didn't answer, his arms were folded in front of his chest, he lowered his head in contemplation for a while, and raised his head and closed his eyes for a while. After a while, he opened his eyes excitedly, let go of his arm and said: "The arithmetic problem is like fighting, don't think that it will move, in fact, it will not move, no matter how the person moves, the picture will not move." What's this called......"

As he spoke, he grabbed out a piece of paper, and Bian Xi said, "Origin! That's the origin! ”

The staff officers originally wanted to learn something from the chief of staff, but the more they listened, the more confused they became. Bian Xi solved his own problem, he ran back to the sand table, and after some calculations, he calculated the final result.

In the past two months, he has learned from Zhang Luo how to write and recognize four or five hundred characters from the southeast, northwest, left and right; I also learned the Nine Chapters of Arithmetic. And it's hard to connect these words with reality. In addition to learning to establish the concept of connecting words with reality, he also learned basic mathematical and geometric concepts from Zhang Luo.

For example, the concept of 36o degrees, which could only be expressed by east-southeast or south-southeast, can now even vaguely establish the concept of describing the direction of the march from angles. Let him count from o to 36o in one go, Bian Xi can already do it. The problem is that when it comes to 359 degrees, Bian Xi will first make a rough estimate clockwise in his mind, and there is no way to come up with one degree directly from the o degree counterclockwise.

As a genius who discerns direction, Bian Xi can easily recall and construct a picture in his mind. Now Bian Xi suddenly understood that for him, this picture was too real and too vivid. As the chief of staff, Bian Xi's first thing to do is to construct a very simple model in his mind, which is not three-dimensional, but just a simple plane. Regardless of the terrain and landforms, the march was completely reduced to a model composed of lines and moving points.

After establishing such a simple model, Bian Xi suddenly became enlightened. What bothered him was now extremely simple, and it was Bian Xi who overcomplicated things. No matter how our army or the enemy moves, all movements have an origin on this map. Bian Xixian has found his own cognition of the origin.

The staff officers around him are far inferior to Bian Xi's talent, and it is already very difficult for them to construct a picture of movement in their minds, let alone simplify from complex. After listening to Bian Xi's experience for a while, the staff officers seemed to understand whether they understood or not. And Bian Xi's perception was not practical for them, the work was urgent, and everyone went back to their places and began to gnaw on bamboo sticks and continue to try to solve the problem.

After the battle plan drawn up by the General Staff was finally distributed to the various units, the units also felt a headache. The battle plan is quite detailed, where to go from, what road to take, and even what steps to march and the degree of march, all of which are reflected in the battle plan.

One of the key points of Zhang Luo's cultural knowledge of the army is to popularize Xingshu and vernacular Chinese. Because Han Li pays too much attention to strokes, Xingshu is a writing mode that has emerged in the past ten years; The main point of classical Chinese is that almost every word has its own independent meaning, and the key point of learning classical Chinese is to know how to organize these meanings reasonably.

The vernacular text is more standardized, and Zhang Luo believes that the vernacular text is a tool, according to the subject-verb-object-subordinate model, a series of nouns with clear meanings are connected, and the steps to be completed in detail are pointed out. From a literary point of view, Zhang Luo's approach is not subtle at all. It has nothing to do with the subtle words and righteousness, and what is lifelike. But Zhang Luo is quite proud that this is the foundation of the new world he wants to create. In the Taiping Dao, where the literacy rate is less than 10%, Zhang Luo wants everyone to be able to write. By mastering the tool of writing, being able to read and write official documents, and being able to communicate with each other through writing, this is the progress of the times.

Of course, two months could not complete Zhang Luo's grand blueprint, and at least a small number of commanders who had mastered 300 to 500 words finally began to approach Zhang Luo's standard. After reading the battle plan that the staff had painstakingly written, the officers below began to scratch their heads.

The road of marching relied on the mode of guidance, and each unit had a special guide for the march. Many of the officers of various departments still can't read the map, the map is relatively precious, and no one can scribble on it, so many of the road names on the simple map made by Bian Xi before the war are incomprehensible. It's not that the cultural instructors of the army didn't teach, but that everyone didn't have a concept and couldn't remember.

In these years, there were no clocks and watches, and it was impossible to train the frequency of marching troops in two months, and without this foundation, the degree of marching became empty talk. The four Qu military candidates in Zhang Luo's army unanimously agreed that the staff was talking nonsense.

Zhang Luo put forward the organizational concept of "three determinations". Determine the position, the establishment, and the responsibility. Under such a clear system, the efficiency of the work in the army has been greatly improved.