In front of Zheng Yunming was a large topographic map of Xianghan with plain brocade as a base, which was so delicately depicted that even the small village with only a few dozen households and the path of sheep intestines through which only one person passed were marked. Wang Deng understood how much effort Bai Yijie had taken to make this map, and he sent dozens of painters who were proficient in geographical depiction to depict the terrain separately, and then checked for errors and omissions one by one. With the skill of this map alone, Wang Deng was able to conclude that Xiangyang would not fall into the hands of the Mongols so easily.

Zheng Yunming raised his head and saw that it was Wang Deng who came in, and raised his voice and shouted to him, "Wang Jingsong! How many men and horses does our army still have in Xiangyang City! How many gunners and cavalrymen were among them! ”

Wang Deng was stunned for a moment, although this place is where the festival hall is located, but it is really unscrupulous to shout out the most important military secrets of Xiangyang City so loudly. He and Lu Xunzhi, who walked into the hall later, glanced at each other, only to see Lu Fuzi nodding slowly.

"There are still 61,000 officers and soldiers in Xiangyang City who can still fight, including about 2,200 firecrackers, and the cavalry has not fought a big battle, and there are still 5,200 strength at present."

"How many cavalry does the enemy have?" Zheng Yunming then asked loudly.

"Don't be kidding, when the Mongol army marched south, everyone had horses, even if a few lost a few horses in a fierce battle, the number of cavalry was still a frightening number, even if the dismounted cavalry preparing to attack the city and the cavalry used to block Meng Shuai's reinforcements on the periphery, the cavalry that could be mobilized for field battles was at least more than 100,000 cavalry." When Wang Deng spoke, Ge Huai ran in from outside the hall with his stomach up, and he happily interjected: "It's a pity that these Mongolian horses only have four legs, and they don't have four hands to climb the wall, so they can only wait outside the tall city wall of Xiangyang." ”

Zheng Yunming's voice was lowered, but the words he said were more deafening than a thunderclap: "Do you think our army will go out of the city with these 5,000 cavalry to fight the Mongol army?" ”

Wang Deng was shocked and didn't speak, but Yang Luo's slightly passionate voice sounded behind him: "What are you kidding, if you use bow horses, one Mongolian cavalry is my five soldiers, if there are only a thousand horses outside the city, our army will attack and win." But outside the city there are 100,000 enemy horsemen, and the 5,000 useless cavalry are going to crash into the stones? ”

Zheng Yunming said: "But sometimes fighting a war is not necessarily about winning. ”

Seeing his serious appearance, it didn't look like he was joking at all, and Yang Luo couldn't take it on for a while. Bai Yijie, who had been listening to the corridor for a while in an awkward silence, walked into the lobby, sat down next to Zheng Yunming, and placed the white feather fan on the map.

"What do you think, just say it."

Zheng Yunming smiled and placed a chess piece in his hand on the map, which Wang Deng recognized as a cannon in a set of rhino horn chess that Zheng Yunming was used to.

"There are many definitions of winning. It doesn't have to be a win to kill all opponents on the battlefield or drive them off the battlefield. As long as you can achieve the desired goal, you are done. He pointed to the location of the cannon: "As long as you bring it here, even if you lose some cavalry, it will be a price to bear." ”

The crowd came up to see where he had placed the cannon on the Ten Thousand Mountains near the Mongol camp. Suddenly everyone fell silent.

Wang Deng couldn't bear it, he said loudly: "Impossible! Wanshan is near the main formation of the Tartars, and the elite soldiers are gathered. How could it be easy to get close, not to mention that in order to build the Wanshan Fortress, all the trees on the mountain were cut down without any shelter, how could the catapult be transported up to the Wanshan without leaving a trace? ”

"There is a way. It just needs to be cooperated. Zheng Yunming said confidently.

"How many people do you need to cooperate?"

"We need 61,000 officers and soldiers in Xiangyang, 240,000 people, and Meng Heng's army across the river to put on a good show for the Mongols. Then, taking advantage of the enemy's distraction, he secretly sent the required parts to Wanshan. ”

The absurdity of his plan can almost be described as whimsical, even if it is a clever trick to transport the catapult to thousands of mountains? As soon as the catapult fired a single round of artillery, its position was immediately revealed, and at that time, even the catapult with dozens or hundreds of lax-laden servants fell into the siege of the Mongol army and could not survive.

Who would be willing to take on this mortal task, and who would be willing to fight for miles in the plain wilderness just to send them to their deaths? Everyone just shook their heads again and again, thinking that this time their own master must have lost his mind and gone crazy, so he would come up with such a ridiculous plan.

Bai Yijie stood up, paced back and forth in the lobby, and after walking twice, he turned around and asked Zheng Yunming: "Is that Qu Zhu really terminally ill, how sure can Ming Gong be?" ”

Zheng Yunming stared at the map with his eyes, and said lightly: "How can there be a very good chance of winning in a war, those who calculate more will win, and those who calculate less will not win, that's all, as the deputy capital of Jing and Hubei, my judgment is that this time the risk is completely worth taking." ”

Bai Yijie asked again, "Have you ever consulted with the envoy?" ”

"There are still some details to be determined, and I'm not sure that the Maker will agree to such an outrageous plan of mine."

"Failure to make it clear how to know that the Dao system must not be allowed?" Bai Yijie said loudly: "Zhao Kui is a famous national general who has been on the battlefield for a long time, and he is not conservative in his use of troops, so he can rest assured to go and discuss with him." ”

Zheng Yunming said: "Jing Song and Chun's father, Gongfu and Lu Weng will go with me, and Ge Weng will guard the yamen. Let's plan more carefully tonight. ”

He raised his head and looked at the clouds hanging low in the night sky outside the festival hall: "Maybe tomorrow, the real cold winter will come." ”

Since the intense work of building the camp was completed, Meng Heng did not take off his armor even when he slept, and the war horse was also saddled at night, ready to deal with all possible emergencies, so when the guards led the herald who had sneaked here from Xiangyang into the big tent, what they saw was Meng Heng in armor walking out from behind the screen.

He stretched out his hand to stop the herald's visit, sat down on the chair and asked, "The enemy is very besieged, how did you kill it?" ”

The man in black said, "We went by water, and sneaked in by boat to the place where the enemy had laid the star-scattering stakes, and then the brigade disembarked and pretended to chop and chop the star-scattering stakes, and I swam through the gap and swam all the way over. ”

Meng Heng knew that Zheng Yunming's subordinates were many Dongting athletes, and some of them were good men who were proficient in water. It's not surprising that things like crossing the Han River are just like everyday play.

He asked, "What letter did Zhao Zhizhi and Zheng Yunming call you to deliver?" Take it out and take a look. ”

The man spit out a wax pill from his mouth, Meng Heng got up and took it, smashed it and took out the note, and read it carefully several times. His brows furrowed, and he subconsciously asked, "Zheng Yunming really plans to do this?" ”

The man in black smiled: "I'm just a messenger, and I don't know what secret villains are in the wax pills." ”

Meng Hui shook his head, threw the note into the charcoal brazier and burned it, the small note flew and danced in the flames and annihilated, Meng Hui walked outside the tent of the Chinese army with his hands behind his back, looking at the increasingly dense clouds in the sky.

"Now that it's been agreed, the rest of the matter is left to the heavens."

When Zheng Yunming was woken up by the morning bell the next day, there were already snowflakes floating outside the window, usually the days before the snow were the driest and coldest, and the time when the snowflakes really fell was not as good as before.

When the generals rushed to the city wall neatly, they found that the chief general had already been at the head of the city with the staff officers and senators for a long time.

Heavy snow fell one after another, spreading the city above and below into a silvery white. Zheng Yunming found that at this time, the hands of the soldiers in winter clothes did not tremble. In this era, it is not easy to do this, the army withholds military salaries, greedy for ink equipment, in today's era is just a common truth in the world, from the Iberian mercenaries as far away as the West, to the Liao, Song, Xia and Jin countries in the East, the lowest soldiers are all as small servants, and the commanders rarely really care about their life or death. Zheng Yunming still remembers the memories of the Jin soldiers who escaped in the Battle of Sanfeng Mountain and surrendered to the Song Dynasty, and the soldiers were only wearing tattered single clothes during the Battle of Sanfeng Mountain. That was the trump card of the Jin country, as the most pillar of the back, when the thick ice rafters had formed on the handle of the big gun, it still gritted its teeth and held its position. However, the spiritual strength of the people was limited after all, and the Mongol army allowed them to freeze and starve in the field for several days before attacking, and finally defeated them.

In the face of such wanton abuse of the basic combat effectiveness of the generals, it was ultimately the interests of the emperor and the imperial court that were harmed. Because of the continuous defeat, the most difficult will inevitably affect the throne and the country and society under His Majesty. In order to resist the evil behavior of the generals who deducted the salaries of the soldiers, the imperial court thought of many ways, one of which was to send officials down to the troops to conduct regular reviews. But in this age of lack of binding, all oversight will eventually become a mere formality. Zheng Yunming once heard a true story in Jinghu. In order to cope with the inspection team coming from the top, the commander who withheld the military salary forced all the soldiers in the army to wear silk and cotton jackets, and if they did not obey the rod, they would be punished with a hundred. Some soldiers really have no money, so they can only borrow money from the renter to make silk and cotton jackets, but the commander does not give money, where will the soldiers get the money to pay off the debt. had no choice but to sell his wife to a large family as a slave, and later the little soldier felt sorry for his insider, so he hanged himself and died.

When the soldier told Zheng Yunming about these old things, the indignation on his face was still fresh in Zheng Yunming's memory. He was sometimes really grateful to the Ministry for giving him the position of counselor of the Transit Division, if it weren't for the only thing he did in this position that was generally adopted by the current Jingchu Army, and even the entire Jinghu Army, that is, the system of direct release by name, which was generally pushed away by Zhao Kui's toughness and the strong support of the imperial court. Even if he is now a general who governs an army, he may not really be able to put an end to the phenomenon of deducting military salaries. On the one hand, scholars who flaunt moral articles are used as commanders, and on the other hand, the financial supervision system is strengthened, and a relatively clean supply system is finally established.