Taking advantage of this meeting, Zhuge Liang told his plan, "Your Majesty, the minister plans to re-strengthen and transform the important cities in the territory, this is the plan I designed, please ask the emperor to take a look." ”

As he spoke, a sheet was presented.

Hearing that Zhuge Liang had already prepared, Liu Bei was naturally overjoyed, and opened the chapter in front of him, and after seeing that this was a city defense pattern with a moat, he immediately said with his forehead: "Does the prime minister mean that important cities will be built like this in the future?" But I don't know what's the use of spending so much? ”

Although Liu Bei also has some knowledge, it also depends on who he compares with, at least compared with Zhuge Liang, he is much worse.

"Yes." Zhuge Liang saw Liu Bei asking, so he nodded, and then replied seriously, "This is a moat, with this thing, it can make it not so easy for the enemy to approach the main city gate, so that the power of the so-called explosives will be greatly reduced, and we will have more space and more confidence when guarding the city." Oh, actually, this is not my first initiative, and Jinyang City has done it a long time ago, but because it has never been attacked, no one has seen its defensive function. ”

Zhuge Liang said so much, just to tell Liu Bei that after having the moat, Zhang Chao was thinking about transporting the explosives to the city, and the losses would definitely be much greater, so that they would have more chances to win.

On the drawings, there is not only a moat, but also an outer city, that is to say, the explosives have been transported to the city after a lot of hardships, and after being ignited, it only threatens the outer city, and then the Han Dynasty soldiers in the inner city can counterattack and retake the outer city, after all, from the main city to the outer city is a horse Pingchuan, which is more suitable for the army to attack. On the contrary, there were indeed several moats from the outer city to the outside of the city, which would greatly slow down the advance of the Celestial Empire soldiers, and in comparison, they would have a much better chance of regaining control of the outer city.

This set of roads is indeed the result of Zhuge Liang arranging people to draw the defense map of Jinyang City. When he saw those moats in the first day, even Zhuge Kongming had to sigh at Zhang Chao's power and foresight, although Jinyang City had never been attacked, but he believed that there was really that day, the city's defense ability must be very amazing.

Hearing these detailed explanations, Liu Bei couldn't help nodding. He was a man of courage, otherwise he would not have become the monarch of a country from a straw sandal seller. So he quickly made a decision, and everything was done according to Zhuge Liang's wishes. Although the cost of doing this must be not small, compared to the destruction of the city and the country, it is only a matter of spending some money, which is an excellent result.

After Liu Bei agreed to this suggestion, Zhuge Liang completely focused on the transformation and construction of the main city. As a result, he didn't pay so much attention to the affairs of his ally Wei State. In fact, he has long seen that the current Cao Cao has no chance of winning against Zhang Chao, even if he wants to make a move now, it is the same, even if this is the case, it is better to protect himself first.

Jingzhou and Yizhou, especially the important cities of Yizhou, began to dig ditches to divert water, and this matter was naturally reported to Zhang Chao by the members of Tianyan for the first time.

When he first heard the news, Zhang Chao was still a little confused, but after seeing the drawings of the Han Dynasty city building that the members of Tianyan got from him, he immediately laughed, "This Kong Ming is also very capable, but do you really think that this can block my Tianchao Iron Horse?" That's it, even if you are willing to work hard and lose money, just do it, but I just hope that when the day comes, you won't regret it. ”

Obviously, Zhang Chao had an insight into Zhuge Liang's meaning, but he didn't care, on the contrary, he still hoped that the other party would do it. Originally, he was worried that if he sent troops to attack the Wei State, he might attract the help of the Han Dynasty, but now, there is obviously no need to worry too much, the other party has something to do, so he should not be interfering in other people's wars.

It was precisely because of the Han Dynasty, after the news that Zhang Chao called Xishu, that he suddenly made up his mind to reorganize his army and march to Wei after the New Year, and he wanted to destroy Wei in one battle.

In February 207 AD, Qingzhou was completely occupied by the Celestial Empire, and so far Zhang Chaozhen took the most solid step into the Central Plains battlefield.

Just after occupying Qingzhou for half a month, Zhang Chao suddenly ordered the expansion of the army, all the legions had the original 200,000 people, and expanded to the current 300,000, of which the waterway legion expanded from the original 300,000 to 500,000. In this way, the number of troops did not increase, but the number of troops did increase by a full million.

What's worse is that these soldiers are not all new soldiers, most of them are evolved from the city defense troops of some cities, in comparison, these soldiers have also undergone a certain amount of training, but because of military expenses, they are not as sufficient as those main legions, and the intensity of training is not strong enough. It doesn't matter, after all, they are all people with foundations, and as long as the training methods are appropriate, it is still possible to quickly evolve from a new adult to an elite veteran.

After the expansion of the legion, Zhang Chao's order was issued again, that is, to train the army for a month and a half, and then in early April, he began to attack Wei and occupy the two prefectures of Yu and Xu, which belonged to the Central Plains.

A year ago, Cao Cao conscripted millions of soldiers, and the army still trained for three months, but in the end it was defeated. Now Zhang Chao is only training soldiers for a month and a half on the basis of expanding the army by one million, as soon as this news comes out, many families are not impressed after knowing it, they think that Zhang Chao is a little arrogant, obviously there is a lesson from the past, and he still wants to do this, what is this not arrogance?

But only the commanders of the legions know what is the quality of the soldiers assigned to their legions? may be a little less than the original elite, but it is indeed a lot stronger than ordinary people, and when the time comes, there will be no problem with the help of veterans.

The Celestial Empire began to expand its army, and released a bold statement to occupy Yu and Xu Prefectures, and Cao Cao, who got the news, couldn't sit still.

A few months have passed since the defeat of his second son Cao Pi, although Cao Cao is still a little sad when he thinks about it, it is far less intense than it was at the beginning. After finding a lot of doctors and famous doctors, the headache has also been alleviated to a certain extent, and now he has long been in charge of politics and dealing with military affairs.

It's just that although Cao Cao regained power, the situation in Wei was indeed not as good as before. After experiencing the ticket sticking incident of the money bank and the defeat of the army, many people no longer put the hope of success on him, and took money from the money bank one after another, so that the financial deficit has become the biggest problem.

Winning the hearts of the people without a strong foundation of force may not necessarily win the world immediately, but once it loses the support of the people, it is destined to lose the world.

Cao Cao is like this, he knows the truth of this, in the face of so many I went to the Wei State to withdraw money, in order not to lose his trust in the world, he smashed the pot and sold iron to pay off all the debts, but in this way, the money available in the treasury is pitiful.

Without money and food, the soldiers' food and clothing have become a problem, and even the weapons in their hands cannot be replaced, which is equivalent to losing in hardware before fighting.

Fortunately, Cao Cao was a firm person, and in the face of the Wei State, which seemed to be a little full of holes, he did not give up lightly, but made up his mind to start from the beginning, and he also made heavy measures for this.

Externally, he strengthened the alliance of Western Shu, and at the same time put down his posture and sent important ministers to negotiate peace with the former Eastern Wu, in order to achieve the purpose of the alliance.

The alliance with Xishu and Eastern Wu, although he also knew that it was not secure, but at the moment he had no choice, he didn't want someone to fight his own idea behind him and on his side when dealing with the army of the Celestial Empire. Fortunately, the results of the envoys sent back are still good, I am afraid that these people also know that there is no benefit in going to the hind legs of the Wei State at this moment, the so-called cold lips and teeth are dead, once the Wei State is really destroyed, I am afraid that the regime they have formed will not be reliable.

Internally, while Cao Cao stabilized the morale of the army, he also married off all his daughters and gave them to the generals who had meritorious service, and at the same time sold part of his ancestral land in exchange for gold and silver to reward those soldiers who performed well. In this way, he wanted to tell all the soldiers of the Wei State that this country belongs to everyone, and as long as the country is prosperous, as a soldier, he can achieve infinite benefits.

Under internal and external means, the originally somewhat crumbling Wei State has become much more stable, which also makes Cao Cao have the possibility of a bloody battle with the army of the Celestial Empire.

Today's Wei State, although it has experienced a great defeat, is still there after all, and there are still 1.5 million soldiers. Of course, it is somewhat difficult to point to these people to conquer the world, but in Cao Cao's opinion, as long as the operation is good, it is still possible to defend the two states, as long as he can block the troops of the Celestial Empire, after Xishu and Dongwu see it, they may join forces with themselves to fight against the Celestial Empire, so that a glimmer of victory will appear.

Cao Cao is actively making preparations, and Zhang Chao of Jinyang City is also making final preparations.

Compared with some of Wei's policies, Zhang Chao also has his practical measures, such as the upgrading of weapons.

The Zhangjia Weapons Institute has experienced decades of development, from the earliest Zhangjia blacksmith shop to the present, many forging techniques have been very mature. It's like refining from iron to steel, and I don't know how many times it has been done.

After a large amount of gold and silver was smashed, a large number of steel knives, steel guns, steel shields, and steel arrows were made, and all of them were put into the army, and the original iron weapons were replaced and rebuilt.