Seeing the heavy rain falling from the sky, Ma Ping, who was also secretly complaining, saw that Li Yanzhao was different from ordinary people, and clenched his fists and shouted. But he knew in his heart that this kid had a ghost idea, so he rode his horse to Li Yanzhao's side and asked, "Seeing the heavy rain falling from the sky, what is Li Sima's good plan?" ”

Li Yanzhao looked back at Ma Ping excitedly, and said calmly: "Captain, we can use water to attack!" ”

"Water attack?" Ma Ping heard this. Instantly came interest.

Li Yanzhao handed the reins of the horse to Cao Jian beside him and got off the horse. Then he pulled Ma Ping off his horse, handed the reins of his horse to the sergeant beside him, and dragged him to the castle tower.

"How do you attack the water?" Ma Ping was dragged straight to the city tower by Li Yanzhao, and he was also bottomless in his heart, so he urged: "You should make it clear!" ”

Li Yanzhao had an indifferent look: "This plan can only be carried out with the cooperation of General Liao." Let's go, Lieutenant, when I see General Liao, I will make it clear. ”

Although Ma Ping was puzzled, he was also curious about the good way to defeat the enemy with water that Li Yanzhao said. So he followed Li Yanzhao to the city tower step by step. Li Yanzhao said to the sergeant defending the city in Xiping that there is an important military situation, please report it to General Liao. The soldier heard the words and left. Soon after, Liao Hu turned out of the city tower.

Li Yanzhao lowered his voice and said to Liao Hu: "The stakes are very high, and I hope the general will allow me to go in and discuss." He pointed to the castle tower beside him. Li Yanzhao saw that the meat worm on Liao Hu's face twitched, and then he raised his hand and made a gesture of please, seeing him like this, Ma Ping and Li Yanzhao went together.

Pushing open the city tower, the interior layout is also simple. It's just a low table and a few stools. There was also a small and elaborate stove with a pot of wine on it. There is a burst of rice fragrance.

After coming to this era, Li Yanzhao had never drunk alcohol, and he didn't know that the wine at this time was still some low-degree rice wine and rice wine. Despite this, in order to prevent misconduct, alcohol is still prohibited in the army on weekdays. Not to mention wartime. Presumably, when the two of them said that they were going to come in to discuss, Liao Hu had a slightly reluctant look, just because he didn't want others to see that he was secretly drinking.

Liao Hu quietly took three small bowls and poured a bowl of rice wine for each of them. Then he picked it up, took a sip, put down the bowl and stared at Li Yanzhao with interest. The meat worm on his face twitched twice from time to time, and Li Yanzhao's heart twitched for a while.

"Tell me, what is the military situation to discuss." Liao Hu stared at Li Yanzhao for a long time, and finally asked.

Li Yanzhao hurriedly got up, bowed his hand to Liao Hu, and then thought about it and said: "It rains heavily today, and the flood season in the Huangshui Valley is expected to come. The thief army is still in Linqiang, located in the upper reaches of the Huangshui, and yesterday's attack on the camp by our army must have caused the thief army to shake up and down. The thief army will soon rise up and come straight to the county town of Xiping. Guy Linqiang is located in the upper reaches of the Huangshui, which is completely unsuitable for building a pontoon bridge for more than 10,000 thieves to cross the river. ”

As he spoke, Li Yanzhao took out a roll of maps from his arms, which was a simple map he had taken out of his time to travel for the past few days. However, at this time, the other two generals looked at the map, but they were all as if they had been treasured, and they were overjoyed.

Li Yanzhao pointed out a section of the route on the map and said to the two generals beside him: "This section of the road is more than 150 miles, but there is only one Xiping County suitable for building a pontoon bridge for the brigade to pass. Ma Ping looked at it, and the section of the road that Li Yanzhao pointed to was the way that Ma Ping led many horsemen over the mountain to Xiping, and then to Linqiang.

"The thief army went down the river, and Xiping was the place where it must pass. When the thief army arrives in Xiping, they will inevitably try to attack the city for a day or two, but they will definitely not succeed. Seeing that Xiping was difficult to attack, the thief army would definitely build a pontoon bridge in order to cross the Huangshui River, go straight to Guangning, and then reach the territory of Guangwu. The thieves have a large army, and they are bound not to take the Xiping defenders seriously. They will definitely swagger and build a pontoon bridge outside Xiping City. However, the two generals thought that if the thief army had 8,000 men and 9,000 had crossed the river, the pontoon bridge would be washed away and the enemy would be cut into two sections by the flood......"

"Wonderful!" Liao Hu and Ma Ping stood up almost at the same time, and both big hands slapped the map.

"When the thief army is cut into two sections by the Huangshui, our army will go out of the city and attack the enemy army that was intercepted on the south bank of the Huangshui!" Liao Hu's eyes were filled with an inexplicable look, and the meat worms on his face couldn't stop writhing, and he couldn't help but see that Li Yanzhao was cold again.

"In this case, we and the other cavalry are going to build a dam and store water in the upper reaches of the Huangshui? But how do you know when to dig a dam and release water? Ma Ping couldn't help but question.

"Why should the general worry too much, just leave more than 100 cavalry on the opposite bank of Xiping County to monitor the enemy, the enemy army will send a few people to the place where the dam is built to report the progress of the enemy army, every half an hour will come a few people, report the progress of the enemy army, come in batches of two or three groups, we can calculate the approximate progress of the enemy army crossing the river, and then dig the dam and release water at the right time."

Ma Ping and Liao Hu thought about it for a long time, and they both felt that this plan was feasible.

Seeing that the second general nodded slightly, Li Yanzhao was greatly relieved, and then bowed his hand to Ma Ping: "Please also ask the general to transfer 5,000 cloth bags to our army for the purpose of building a dam." ”

Liao Hu nodded, and then called a guard outside the door: "You go and inform the prince of the mansion, collect all the spare cloth bags in the official warehouse, and then ask Wei Duwei to find all the cloth bags containing horse materials in the cavalry camp and hand them over to Ma Duwei." Hurry up! ”

The guard took the order and left. In less than an hour, officials from the county government came with several large carts of cloth bags. The Xiping cavalry also returned to the camp and went to the horse depot to get the spare cloth bags. According to rough statistics, there are more than 8,000 cloth bags, far exceeding the more than 5,000 that Li Yanzhao requested.

Seeing that the cloth bags were gathered, Li Yanzhao and Ma Ping made a look, and then the two said goodbye to Liao Hu, walked down the city tower, and saw that the sergeants had already taken a few cloth bags and carried them. There was no one left on the ox cart where the government pulled the cloth bag, so the two got on their horses separately. Ma Ping shouted loudly: "Let's go!" The sergeant of his own Xiping stepped forward and opened the city gate. The gates creaked open, and the horsemen rushed out on horseback. When they arrived at the simple pontoon bridge built overnight by the river, the horsemen immediately dismounted and led the horses across the pontoon bridge in batches.

After crossing the pontoon bridge, Fan Ting ordered his cavalry to dismantle the pontoon bridge, and the boat to build the pontoon bridge was naturally cleaned up by the troops in Xiping City. Ma Ping knew the truth of the soldiers' speed, so the sergeants put on rain gear, and the nearly 1,000 cavalry galloped straight towards the upper reaches of the river.

After walking for about two hours, the sentry came back from the front and reported that he had seen the thieves rising from the camp and coming down the river. Ma Ping ordered the horsemen to lead the horses into the woods, put a halter on the horses, and the soldiers were not to shout loudly. Walk slowly ahead under the shade of the trees. After walking for another half an hour, they saw the army of thieves coming in a mighty manner on the other side. Everyone stopped, lowered their bodies, and held their breath, for fear of exposing their whereabouts to the thieves on the opposite side.

The army of thieves came along the valley below the mountain, winding for miles. Li Yanzhao tasted the words and said: "There are more than 10,000 troops, and there are no boundaries. Today, when he saw the momentum of the battle of more than 10,000 thieves, he realized that this was not a lie. Thousands of thieves rode tall horses to open the way. Then the foot soldiers carried bows and arrows on their backs and scimitars at their waists. After nearly 10,000 steps, there are many carriages and horses.

At this time, it was raining heavily, and the thieves were also miserable, and there were many noisy and complaining voices in the marching army. Li Yanzhao saw it in his eyes and knew that the enemy's defeat had appeared. All the horsemen were quietly hidden, waiting for the thieves to pass.

An hour later, the last of the bandit army on the other side turned the foot of the mountain and went far. Ma Ping saw that the enemy army had passed through, so he ordered everyone to get up and continue on their way. In order to prevent the enemy from leaving sentry scouts in the rear, the group still walked carefully in the woods. to cover up their tracks.

After doing this for about half an hour, Linqiang County was already in sight. Seeing the black smoke rising into the sky, I thought that the thieves had set a fire when they left, but it rained heavily, and the fire was extinguished by the rain. However, the embers are still gone, so black smoke is still billowing out.

Seeing this, Li Yanzhao sighed, the people of Linqiang County are ruined and there are not many dead. Now it seems that even if he survives and returns to his hometown, he can only face the fact that his homeland was destroyed.

Ma Ping summoned Li Yanzhao and asked him where to build a dam to store water. Li Yanzhao pondered for a moment, and then said, the terrain must be slightly higher, and the area where the river is narrowed is better. When Ma Ping heard this, he ordered the sentry riders to go out to look for him. After a short time, a sentinel returned and continued to walk three miles upstream, and there was a river channel that was convenient for damming and enclosing water. However, there were still more than 100 people gathered in that place, and it was difficult to shelter in the rain, and they were huddled.

When Ma Ping heard this, his beard exploded. said to Li Yanzhao: "It must be the remnants of the people of Linqiang County." Li Yanzhao also agreed, so everyone got on the horse and continued to go upstream together.