After the news of Bu Dugen's cession of Ma Yi to Liu Quanzhong reached Luoyang, Liu Qi couldn't help but be overjoyed, and repeatedly praised his cheap son Liu Quanzhong, Liu Cunxiao and the young general Deng Ai for his ability, and knew how to take advantage of the situation to put pressure on Bu Dugen, and seized a strategic place for the Han Dynasty. He also sent Ma Tan as the governor of the Xiongnu Governor's Mansion and Chen Tai as the Sima of the Xiongnu Governor's Mansion to jointly assist the two princes to deal with the surrounding Xianbei tribes, and gather forces and train soldiers, preparing to lead the army south when necessary to threaten Cao Wei.

In this way, the strength of the Han Dynasty has actually become a threat to Cao Wei from both sides.

When the news reached Yecheng, Cao Hong, as the symbol of Cao Wei's highest real power, couldn't help but be shocked. Because with the occupation of Mayi by the Huns, Cao Wei's Jizhou, Youzhou and Bingzhou were all exposed to the threat of the other side, plus the north bank of the Yellow River, which was threatened at any time, which would allow the Cao Wei regime to have tens of thousands of more conventional defense forces out of thin air, which was definitely a major test for the consumption of grain and grass materials and the reduction of mobile troops.

With Deng Ai being named a third-grade general at a young age, his name was naturally known by Cao Wei, and it was naturally not difficult for Sima Yi to judge after hearing the news, which led the Huns to see through Guo Huai's plan, and the actual commander of the Hun army who defeated Guo Huai's army should be the Deng Ai who is said to be the descendant of Deng Yu, a famous general in the Han Dynasty.

"Hmph, Guo Huai is also a famous general of my Great Wei, and he is more than twice as old as Deng Ai, and now he is easily defeated, it really betrays my trust, if it is not for the sake of no one in the state, I will definitely punish him severely."

Despite this, Sima Yi still asked the emperor to issue an edict to demote Guo Huai from the general of Zhengbei to the general of Zhenbei and fined him for half a year. Let him continue to serve as the assassin of the state, lead the troops to defend the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu, if there is another mistake, he will definitely not be spared.

Besides. Sima Yi also strictly ordered all parts of the Han border to strengthen their garrisons, deal with them carefully, and never make any mistakes, and appointed his brother Sima Lang as the overseer of Hebei to inspect the military situation in various places on the north bank of the Yellow River. If negligence is found, it will be dealt with by military law.

But Sima Yi knew that these things were not enough, he had to speed up the preparation of military forces and produce new military equipment, in order to be able to do this, Sima Yi ordered the county guards to strengthen the training of government soldiers, and also ordered those who had entered the Han Dynasty to step up their actions and steal the production methods of those advanced weapons in the Han army such as crossbows, wheeled stone throwers, gunpowder, and rockets earlier.

After several years of preparation, most of the meticulous works sent by Sima Yi to deliberately surrender to the Han army were absorbed into the Han army's arms production as craftsmen, and hundreds of them were appreciated for their hard work and quick minds. Gradually, he became the small leader of various production departments, and was gradually introduced into the ranks of the production of core weapons.

Of course, these hundreds of people are not all meticulous works, otherwise they will definitely not be able to hide from the ears and eyes of the Han army, only five of them are the meticulous works of the Wei army, and even if they are the five of them, they do not know each other's identities with each other, they are only responsible for conveying part of the information they have to the Wei State.

Liu Ye is such a person, he is one of the most effective works under Sima Yi, he has many years of experience in infiltrating the enemy camp to find out the news, and was later ordered by Sima Yi. Mixed among the ordinary soldiers, he surrendered to the Han in the Battle of Puyang.

At that time, he was not even a craftsman, but later showed a keen interest in making weapons by chance, and was selected for the army with excellent performance during a selection of craftsmen.

Liu Ye began to become a full-fledged craftsman from then on. He seems to have an amazing talent for weapon making, and in just half a month he can produce faster than the people around him who have worked for several years.

So he directly received the attention of the upper echelons, and was later promoted to the supervisor of the Left School Office.

Although this is a petty official from the ninth rank, that is to say, he belongs to the lowest rank of all officials, but he has great power, because he is the most direct official in charge of the production of weapons.

Nevertheless. After nearly three months of observation, he finally grasped all the production links of the repeater, plus he had already figured out the crossbow before, and after finally understanding the core technology, he fully understood the technology of the Han army to produce fifty crossbow arrows at a time.

After this, Liu Ye took the time to draw the production technology of the repeater into a simple atlas, then hid it in a bamboo tube, and sent it back to Wei through secret channels.

After Sima Yi got the repeater schema, he was overjoyed, and hurriedly transcribed a copy of the atlas himself, and then handed it over to his younger brother and supervisor Sima Sui, so that he could immediately produce according to the schema, and at any cost, he must produce 10,000 pairs of such repeaters within a year.

Seeing that it was arranged by his brother, Sima Sui did not dare to slack off, so he immediately summoned officials at all levels and experienced craftsmen and asked them to study the schema and put it into production immediately.

However, Sima Sui didn't know that in Yecheng, there were actually infiltrated by the fine works of the Han Dynasty, which were originally sent by the right servant of the Han Shangshu to monitor the movements in the palace.

Since Huang Yueying became the queen, the "Infernal Affairs" organization was naturally not suitable to lead anymore, so Liu Qi handed over this important task to Pang Tong.

After Pang Tong led the "Infernal Affairs", he focused his supervision on the palace of Yecheng, because according to common sense, the mansion where Sima Yi and Cao Hong were located was the core area of the news investigation, but Pang Tong knew that Sima Yi was cunning and resourceful, and if he infiltrated there, he would probably not be able to hide it, so he did the opposite and put the fine work in the palace.

One of them is called Pu Liao, originally a eunuch in the palace, because of the unsatisfactory mix, he was sent by Pang Tong to buy the fine work, and became the "Infernal Affairs" of the downline organization, and later this person was transferred to Shaofu Temple as a small official, at the beginning of the production of crossbows, he did not care much about this, but the mystery and seriousness of those producers and related officials attracted his attention, and then he found that the production of crossbows this time was very different from the past, It looks like one of those perfect-level repeaters in the Han army that can fire fifty crossbow arrows at once. I couldn't help but be shocked.

After that, Pu Liao took the time to sit with one of the old craftsmen, who had already known him well and was taken care of by him. After a few glasses of wine, he told him everything he knew, but the old craftsman knew very little, but it confirmed his suspicions.

This time the Wei army carried out the production. It's the perfect repeater capable of firing fifty bolts at once!

Pu Liao was shocked, and immediately reported it through secret channels, and finally the news reached Pang Tong a few days later.

After hearing the news, Pang Tong was also extremely shocked, and hurriedly entered the palace to ask to see the emperor, and reported the shocking news to Liu Qi.

After hearing this, Liu Qi just smiled faintly and said softly: "In fact, as long as we know this secret, the so-called secret is no longer a secret, even if Cao Wei can produce a repeater, as long as we take precautions in our hearts, it will not play a role." What's more, we have now secretly produced more advanced weapons such as rockets and assault rifles, which can far surpass the crossbow in terms of range and power, so once the two sides fight a decisive battle, the unlucky one is none other than the Wei army. ”

"But in the future, Cao Wei will definitely further explore the secrets of more of our weapons, if we let this hateful work be left to our side, I don't know how many advanced weapon production technologies will fall into the hands of the enemy? Therefore, Wechen is ready to find out this detailed work, so that our secret will not be revealed again. Pang Tong's face was ashamed, because since he was in charge of the spy agency "Infernal Affairs", he not only had the task of sending spies to investigate the news. At the same time, he was also responsible for purging all the subtleties lurking in the Han Dynasty, but now that the production method of heavy weapons has been stolen, the person in charge of himself has no idea, but he has been sent to the enemy's meticulous work to find out the news. How can he, the person in charge, hold his face?

That's why Pang Tong was so resolute in demanding that hateful work be unearthed.

But Liu Qi said with a smile: "It's okay to investigate, but we must not startle the snake, I think that in our general prison, there is more than such a detailed work, so we either don't do it." Once you do it, you have to uproot them. Besides, although this fine work has stolen the secret of the repeater, we can ask him to do us a favor. ”

"Help? How can assignments help? Your Majesty is saying, anti-intriguing? Pang Tong's eyes lit up suddenly, and then he thought about it.

saw Liu Qi smile and said: "If it is an ordinary anti-plot, how can it reflect our care for Sima Yi?" This time, we occasionally learned that Cao Wei had discovered the secret of the repeater, and we could pretend not to know, and then the Wei army's detailed work will definitely further explore the secrets of rockets, gunpowder and catapults, as long as we make slight changes from it, so that the weapons produced by the enemy are useless, so that not only Sima Yi can be happy, but also Cao Wei can consume a lot of materials and manpower, hehe, we and Sima Yi are very happy, why not? ”

Pang Tong listened to Liu Qi's words, a trace of admiration immediately flashed in his eyes, and he sighed softly: "Weichen originally thought that Weichen was already vicious and shameless enough, but he didn't expect His Majesty to be better, hehe, if this is the case, then Sima Yi may not even be able to cry." ”

In fact, what Pang Tong said was straightforward enough, that is, Liu Qi's despicability and shamelessness were worse than his own, if a cautious monarch saw him talk like this, he would have been furious, but Liu Qi laughed at it, and he was quite complacent about what Pang Tong said, and the monarch and the ministers could get along so well, which was also a beautiful talk between the DPRK and China.

Of course, the words of the monarch and the ministers praising each other for being despicable and shameless cannot be spread outside the court anyway, so this beautiful talk can only be circulated between Liu Qi and Pang Tong, and it has become an interesting story that only two people know.

And Pang Tong, who was instructed by Liu Qi, then began to secretly investigate, starting from the origin of all the craftsmen in the palace, including the activities of these craftsmen in the past six months, including the places they went, the people they contacted, etc., without letting go of any clues, a little secret investigation, after more than half a year, the target of suspicion was locked on more than a dozen people.

Although in addition to these dozen people, there are hundreds of craftsmen who were born under Cao Wei, but there is no sign of any connection with Wei in either their work relationship or family and social relations, of course, Pang Tong is not completely at ease with them, but continues to pay close attention, for fear that some of them will be further bribed, or although they are meticulous, they have not taken any action in the recent period.

Since it has been decided to investigate this time, it must be thoroughly investigated.

On the other hand, Pang Tong was also secretly deploying this major operation, that is, cooperating with the Wei army's meticulous work, allowing them to steal the production technology of the rotary catapult.

However, after the secret negotiation between Pang Tong and Ma Jun, this technology has been changed, and the result of the change is that once it is produced, when it is ready to be used, the stone-throwing vehicle will throw stones in the opposite direction, as long as Sima Yi uses such a siege bureau to attack the city, the unlucky ones will definitely be themselves.

This is the most satisfactory explanation of the phrase "shoot yourself in the foot".

And this time, Wei Jun, who was responsible for stealing the technology of the rotary catapult, was still Liu Ye, who had stolen the repeater technology before.

He didn't know that he had actually been watched by the Han army, and he still calmly went in and out of the craftsman's workshop as usual, remembering the production processes one by one in his mind with his own memory, and then summarized the memories little by little, drew them into a simple schema, and then found a way to send them to Yecheng.

However, this time Liu Ye is obviously a lot more cautious than last time, he no longer sends all the schemas together, but sends them out in batches, and marks the order on it, this is because the production process of this kind of catapult is very complicated, and the difficulty of wanting to transport it out together will be more than twice as large as the last time, and the second is that he doesn't know why, he feels that the recent atmosphere is a little weird, for fear that it will arouse the vigilance of the Han army, so he gradually increased his caution, and when entering and exiting the craftsman workshops of each process, it is no longer in order, It wasn't a non-stop trip, but it was out of order, and the next move would only take place at regular intervals, so the theft of the wheeling catapult technology alone would have cost him a year. (To be continued.) )

[The author reminds you! , where there are faster and clearer chapters, URL]