Of course, Liu Cong knew that Liu Bei would run after the big war came, and now what gave him a headache was where Liu Bei would run. If it is allowed to go west into Yizhou, it will not be easy to do. But if he is allowed to cross the river, even if he can't capture Jiangling, he is afraid that the four counties in the south of the Yangtze River will not be able to withstand the attacks of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and others. The only way is to guide him to Jiangxia.

Although Cai Mao is a surrender faction, he is by no means a surrender to Liu Bei! If Liu Bei rushes to go, Cai Mao will definitely be killed. and his eldest brother Liu Qi, if he follows Liu Bei to attack Jiangxia together, then he will not escape the blame. Liu Cong thought about taking the opportunity to deal with Cao Cao and cleaned up Liu Bei, otherwise this careerist would not be like that in his own territory.

Liu Cong sent troops and food to Liu Bei, others don't know, Liu Bei must know, this kid is yin me! Three thousand soldiers, even if they are elite soldiers and strong generals to deal with Cao Cao's hundreds of thousands of troops, I can't accept it. After all, Liu Bei was entrusted by Liu Biao to guard Xinye. At this time, before Cao Cao arrived, he turned his face with Liu Cong, which was also despised by the world.

accepted Liu Cong's gift, so whether it was superficial kung fu or real fighting, he would resist Cao Cao for a while, otherwise this kid might have snared himself for some crime and drove himself out of Jingzhou.

However, Liu Bei is also very curious, although he understands Liu Cong's bravery and resourcefulness, but now the elders of Jingzhou, including Cai Mao and others, are unable to resist Cao Cao, where does this kid's confidence come from?

Of course, Liu Bei thought more about retreating. Xu Shu also reminded the crooks more than once to take advantage of the chaos to seize Jingzhou. Coupled with Liu Qi fanning the flames on the side, Liu Bei gradually had that thought. The problem now is Cao Cao's southern expedition, Xiangyang is by no means a safe place, even if Liu Cong invites himself to sit in the town, Liu Bei will not go. Because there are only two ways to go to Xiangyang: Liu Cong confiscated the military power, or Cao Cao beat him so that he didn't know his father and mother.

Liu Bei's idea was more risky than Xu Shu's, hoping to capture Jiangling. In Liu Bei's estimation, no matter when Liu Cong is defeated and retreats, Cai Mao will definitely surrender to Cao as soon as possible. If he can take advantage of the entanglement between Liu Cong and Cao Cao to lead his troops into Jiangling, he may be able to hold on. Of course, this plan is only the state of the most power. The most basic plan is to take advantage of Cai Mao's avatar to obtain the general in the name of Liu Qi.

Of course, it was really not good, so he raised troops to cross the river, seized the four counties in the south of the Yangtze River, and then fought with Cao Cao.

Liu Bei thought about this, and gradually calmed down, and no longer took Liu Cong's calculations to heart.

The most important enemy at the moment is still Cao Cao, whether Liu Bei wants it or not, Cao Cao thinks so. Of course, Liu Bei also knew Cao Cao's complicated feelings about him. If you want to make a comeback, you must avoid Cao Jun and survive first!

After a brief discussion with Xu Shu, Guan Yu and others, Liu Bei sent spies to Xiangyang and Jiangling. Compared to nothing, the extra was stopped outside the city gate by Liu Cong's defenders. Because from the moment Liu Cong learned of Cao Cao's southern expedition, he ordered Fancheng, Xiangyang City, and Jiangling City to be on high alert. Entering and exiting the city requires strict formalities and certifications.

Of course, what surprised Liu Bei even more was the 20,000 sailors on the Han River, Liu Bei didn't expect that Cai Mao went to Jiangxia to take away the navy for one night, and Liu Cong could also gather 20,000 sailors to guard the key points of the Han River tightly. If a few people cross the river, there may be a way, but if there are thousands of people, they will definitely not be able to avoid Liu Cong's ears and eyes.

After sending Liu Bei military rations, Liu Cong was not idle. On the one hand, he and Jiang Wan supervised the progress of the division of labor among the generals, and on the other hand, they had to always pay attention to the hearts of the people in Jingzhou and not be bewitched by outsiders.

Wei Yan was the first to complete the task assigned by Liu Cong, and as soon as July passed, a brand-new urn city was erected outside the north gate of Fancheng. The east and west city walls of the urn city are one-third long of the original city wall of Fancheng, and the north and south are also 100 zhang long, the height is exactly the same as the old city wall, and the top width is more than three zhang. The walls of the urn city and the urn city alone can garrison five or six thousand soldiers. This will surely become a burial ground for Cao's soldiers during the bitter battle between the two sides.

After inspecting the newly built urn city, Liu Cong ordered Wei Yan to build simple arrow towers on both sides of the urn city day and night by the moat. These towers are distributed in an inverted figure-eight shape, like a large mouth of blood basin that has been open.

At this time, Zhuge Liang was also methodically building bed crossbows and catapults, and the arrows had also completed the first month's task as scheduled.

After the 100-bed crossbow was built, it was placed on the city wall of the urn city at the north gate of Fancheng, and Liu Cong had people erect a wooden platform higher than the arrow stack at the back of the city wall, and placed more than 100 crossbows on it, so that Wen Ping arranged for the soldiers to start practicing and familiarizing themselves with the bed crossbow.

Looking at these bulky wooden lumps, even people, including Wen Ping, didn't think so. looked at Zhuge Liang and shook his head.

Seeing this, Liu Cong beckoned Liu Yin and others to come over, set up three bed crossbows in groups of three, and then ordered people to put wooden stakes, straw men, and leather armor outside the city fifty, sixty, and seventy steps away.

Under the curiosity of everyone, the three bed crossbows were fired at the same time, and more than a dozen iron crossbows roared out in between. Then it passed through the straw man, through the leather armor, and finally most of it was nailed to the stake.

Liu Cong then led everyone down the wall to check.

When the crossbow shot from the city wall was almost about to pierce the stake, the soldiers who had been laughing just now froze. These bed crossbows turned out to be an artifact for killing enemies. On the battlefield of cold weapons, in addition to the number of people, it is equipment. A good weapon can often take the lead when a military general or a group of people fights. And now there are a hundred such sharp bed crossbows on the walls of Fancheng. When the opposite side is no longer a stake, but a charging enemy, you can imagine a hundred crossbows firing in unison, it will be screams and corpses!

To be able to kill the enemy as much as possible is to protect yourself. Battle-hardened soldiers naturally understand this truth.

Wen Ping even apologized slightly to Zhuge Liang for not being compensated. The bed crossbow designed and manufactured by himself according to the will of the lord can be recognized by the soldiers, including Wen Ping, Zhuge Liang is too late to be happy, and naturally there is no reason to be angry.

But Liu Cong did not show a trace of joy, but said to everyone very seriously: "Fancheng still needs a hundred planes, of which fifty are still placed on the wall of Wengcheng, and the other fifty are placed on the main city wall. The ones that were rebuilt later remained in Xiangyang City. Zhongye, from now on, we must send special personnel to take care of these equipment, and they cannot be exposed to the sun, rain, and fire. If you lose a machine, I want a human head! ”

"Yes!" Everyone also knows that Liu Cong is not lying.

On the battlefield, these instruments may be able to exchange for the lives of more soldiers, and it is not too much for Liu Cong to ask them to guarantee the safety of the equipment with their heads.

Of course, a bed crossbow is not enough. Cao Cao's siege of the city will definitely build catapults, and now there are still zero catapults in Fancheng City, so Zhuge Liang's next stage of focus is to make more catapults while making up the bed crossbow.

And Zhang Yun's progress was slower than expected, not that Zhang Yun was lazy, but that he seriously followed Liu Cong's orders. However, it is the rainy season, and it is common for the fenced weir to be flooded with water, so it is stopped to drain and then widened. Now, except for the east gate, the remaining three gates have been nearly doubled according to Liu Cong's requirements.

Nowadays, it is impossible to leap over the moat, and it takes several minutes to get down the river. This is enough time for the defenders to shoot the soldiers who cross the river. Looking at the spacious moat, Zhang Yun seemed to begin to understand Liu Cong's painstaking efforts. In the past month, he has asked every general to lead the troops to toss. At first, they were all skeptical, but when they were completed one after another, they found that everything was to win the battle with Cao Cao, and everything was targeted. It was Cai Mao and himself who underestimated this cousin.

If Cai Mao was by his side at this moment, Zhang Yun would definitely persuade Cai Mao to insist on resisting. The eloquence shown by this young master roughly made Zhang Yun, a general, willing to give him his life!

Zhang Yun is like this, and others are not like this.

It was Gan Ning and Wei Yan, although they had been following Liu Cong, but when Liu Cong said his estimate and said that the Cao army had nearly 200,000 people, they were not sure of victory. But now that progress is picking up, it seems that every day is adding chips to victory in this war, and they are also infecting the soldiers below. Whether they were building fortifications or collecting topographic maps, they all came up with the idea that every effort they put in today could lead to a chance of victory in future wars!