Cao Shen was originally a rafter prison in Pei County, and Liu Bang was the pavilion chief at that time, as his subordinate. But he never underestimated Liu Bang, but always respected him. Probably he was also influenced by Xiao He, and felt that Liu Bang was not a simple character, in other words, he felt that Liu Bang was a hidden dragon, although he was poor, but he was not a thing in the pool.

At that time, Xiao He and Cao Shen were already officials, and Liu Bang was just a cloth cloth, and it was not easy to make friends with Liu Bang in their identities, not to mention abandoning their families and children to follow Liu Bang to raise an army against Qin. You must know that plotting rebellion in the Qin State is to destroy the unforgivable sin of the Nine Clans, at that time, the strength of the Qin State was still extremely strong, but the future of the righteous army was uncertain.

Therefore, among the first group of people who followed his own incident, Liu Bang was undoubtedly most grateful to Xiao He and Cao Shen. It's just that Cao Shen has a cold temperament and is restrained and serious, which is also disliked by Liu Bang, who has always been informal, plus he has always been willing to be Xiao He's deputy, the light is gradually covered by Xiao He, and over time, Cao Shen is not famous everywhere.

But this does not affect Liu Bang's trust in him, and Cao Shen is not only good at literary affairs, but also has great martial arts. When Liu Bang first started the incident, his forces were very weak, and he was defeated by the defenders of Qin State one after another, and he was embarrassed for a while. Cao Shen personally invited Ying, personally led 2,000 troops to attack Huling and Fanghe by surprise, attacked the army of the Qin Dynasty county supervisor and broke it. Only then did Liu Bang's situation improve, and he gained a foothold in Huaibei and was qualified to become one of the generals under King Huai.

The thesis Cao Shen is not as good as Xiao He, and he may not be as good as Fan Hao and others who are brave and martial arts, but what is commendable is that he is capable of writing and martial arts. And Cao Shen's biggest characteristic is that he is stable and does not leak, and he can do everything entrusted to him by Liu Bang without any mistakes. At the beginning, Tian Heng's vain death was all done by Cao Shen, which not only allowed Liu Bang to successfully usurp the throne of the King of Qi, but also blocked the leisurely mouth of the Qi people.

But he is such a capable official who does not show his edge, but now he has also left Liu Bang.

First Xiahou Ying, then Fan Xu, and now Cao Shen, the five confidants who were the most troubled by Liu Bang back then, have now withered most of them, leaving only Xiao He and Zhou Bo.

Liu Bang clenched his fists tightly, his face was blue and veined, and his face was very terrifying. Cao Shen's death not only made him deeply saddened, but more importantly, what he feared in his heart was being realized step by step.

If Qi Land is lost, he Liu Bang will have no place to retreat, and there will be no place to bury him when he dies.

Xiao He looked at Liu Bang's somewhat lonely back, silent, but his eyes were gradually moistened, Cao San was not only his colleague who had been with him for many years, but also his most relied on confidant. Chen Ping was stunned at first, then lowered his head, not knowing what he was thinking.

The loss of the Han State behind the back is undoubtedly a drain on Liu Bang for the current stalemate situation. Originally, he wanted to strengthen the wall and clear the field to drag down the Qin army, but now it has become the enemy on the back of the abdomen, and under the premise of losing the rear, all the sticks have become meaningless, just a trapped beast fighting.

Xiao He forcibly suppressed his grief, stepped forward and said in a deep voice; "King Han, at this time, it has come to the autumn of critical survival, you must not be too sad, how many desperate situations we have stubbornly stopped, although it is dangerous now, it may not be without a turnaround."

Liu Bang smiled miserably, his smile was full of bitterness, and he asked rhetorically: "Turnaround?" What can be the turning point, we have reached the point of exhaustion. I said a long time ago that this Han Shin is my nemesis, and now it seems that this is the case, every time I am beautiful, he always pulls me down from above. What else can I do? What else should be done? ”

Xiao He glanced at Chen Ping, who had been silent next to him, and asked; "Chen Ping, you have always been good at strategy, so how can you solve the current dilemma?"

Chen Ping smiled bitterly, "Lord Xiangguo thinks highly of me, how can I have any good ideas." If I had to say something, I'm afraid that the King of Han would have thought of it a long time ago, which is nothing more than to put down the rebellion with all his might, and uproot the traitors by thunderbolt means while they are not firmly established, otherwise we will have a big stop once the climate has become a major event. ”

Liu Bang calmed down slightly, thought about it and asked; "Zhou Bo needs to defend the city, and he has no time to clone, so he can only let Zhou Bo go."

Chen Ping nodded and said again; "Also, we must not let the traitors connect with the Qin army, we must isolate them and break them one by one. This is also our only chance to turn the tables, if we lose again, even if Sun Wu is alive, it will be useless. ”

"The key is in Boyang." Xiao He said in a deep voice, "As long as Boyang is held, it is impossible for the Qin army to ignore the back road and go deep into Jiaodong alone. ”

Liu Bang nodded slightly, his face was still a little pale. Boyang is a big city with high and deep pools, and Zhou Bo personally led an army of 50,000 to garrison it, so there will be no mistakes.

"In order to ensure that nothing goes wrong, I will ask Wang Wei to bring 30,000 people to support."

…….

After learning of the rebellion in Jiaodong and Langya counties, the Qin army celebrated. The morale-boosting Qin army successively made efforts to conquer several cities. Han Xin personally led the army into battle, and the army approached Boyang.

Boyang is the seat of Jibei County and an important hub connecting the east and west of Qi State. If Boyang is not conquered, the Qin army will not be able to penetrate deep into the hinterland of Qidi, otherwise once the defenders of Boyang go out of the city to counterattack, the Qin army is likely to be cut off, and they will not be able to take care of each other.

Since Boyang is a key place, its importance is second only to the capital Linzi, so Liu Bang deliberately asked Zhou Bo to be stationed here.

Facing the pressure of the Qin army's troops, Zhou Bo didn't have too much to worry about, but just ordered his subordinates to patrol day and night to prevent being attacked by the Qin army.

The siege of the city is not better than the field battle, and the field battle mostly relies on the strategy of the generals to win, and the siege of the city is more of a righteous division, relying on each other's strength to compare the step by step to capture the city. Sun Tzu's Art of War has a cloud: ten and surround it, five will attack it, and multiple will divide it. Most of the troops used in the siege were twice as large as the forces in defending the city. Then the Han army in the city had 80,000 troops, while the Qin army besieging the city was only 60,000 horses, which was far less than several times.

This is also the reason why Zhou Bo is full of confidence, even if the Qin army is elite and brave, the advantage of defending the city is enough to make up for the lack of quality of soldiers. With 60,000 troops to surround the city of 80,000, unless this Han Xin has the ability to reach the sky, he only needs to fight steadily and steadily, and follow the strategy of defending the city step by step.

Despite this, Zhou Bo is still cautious, and he has been patrolling the city day and night for the past few days, for fear that there will be mistakes.

What puzzled him was that Han Xin did not rush to attack, but camped and rested for the night after arriving at the city. That night, Zhou Bo sent a tentative night attack by people who dared to die, but was killed by the Qin army, who had been prepared for a long time, and almost rushed into Boyang by taking advantage of the chaos.

Seeing that the Qin army had already taken precautions, Zhou Bo gave up the idea of going out of the city to fight back, and just concentrated on letting go of the city. Fortunately, Boyang City is high and deep, and there is enough grain and grass for a large army for a year, and there is living water in the city to draw water, so there is no need to worry about the siege of the Qin army.

In the early morning of the second day, Zhou Bo, who had not been asleep for a long time, was woken up by his own soldiers.

"What's the matter?" Sitting up and rubbing his temples, Zhou Bo asked hoarsely with bloodshot eyes. Last night he toured the city until late at night, and he was awakened not long after lying down, still feeling physically and mentally exhausted.

The soldier cautiously replied: "My lord, the movement of the Qin army outside the city is a little strange, and General Zhang, who is keeping vigil, does not dare to make a claim, so let me wake you up and ask you to go and see for yourself." ”

"I'll go."

Zhou Bo hurried to the city tower, and looked around, but saw that the camp of the Qin army on the opposite side was already boiling, and a large number of siege equipment were pushed out one after another, lined up and stacked in front of the camp.

Zhou Bo is a person who has seen the siege of the city, when the anti-Qin coalition army besieged Xianyang, he once took the lead and led the dead soldiers to jump on the Xianyang city wall. So he is no stranger to the tactical equipment of attacking and defending cities.

But when he squinted his eyes and looked at the dozens of black behemoths parked in front of the Qin army's camp from a distance, a trace of uneasiness arose in his heart. These were things he hadn't seen before, and at the back of the row was a row of huge chariots dragging and long, and the long wooden poles looked a little like the stone throwers that had made a big splash in the Battle of Xianyang, but they weren't exactly like them. The front one looks even more bizarre, like a ladder, but there are trays and wheels underneath, which is a bit nondescript.

At this time, Han Xin, who was in the Qin military camp opposite, was looking at these new engineering weapons of the Mo family with a smile.

"This is the throwing car I built according to the original drawings, its range is far more than half of the ordinary throwing car, can hit 200 steps, the high energy can exceed the three-zhang high Boyang city wall, and the heavy stone bullets are also much more." The craftsman Ram Valley on the side explained with a smile.

"That's a good thing." Han Xin couldn't help but stroke the car and exclaimed.

Originally, the craftsman technology of the Qin State was also ahead of the six countries of the Kanto region, like the giant stone machine placed in Xianyang City, it was very powerful, but the only drawback was that it was very difficult to disassemble and assemble, if it was to be transported from Xianyang for thousands of miles, I am afraid that the battle had already been fought.

Therefore, Han Xincai wanted to ask the Mo family for help, and in the past, Mo Zhai, the ancestor of the Mo family, was famous all over the world for his tricks and methods of attacking and defending the city, and he was called the two great wizards like the grandson at that time. Although the Mo family takes the elimination of military disasters as their own responsibility, they have been specializing in the art of defending the city, but those who are good at defending must first be good at attacking, if they are not familiar with various siege tactics, then how to defend the city. ”

Ram Valley is one of the Mo family's famous disciples for their tricks. He has a withdrawn temperament and rarely contacts outsiders, only concentrating on the study of various instruments. At that time, the world had been unified, and most of the enemies that Qin had to face were all southern barbarians and northern herdsmen, and where would these enemies have decent cities to hold onto, most of them were short-handed, so the Ram Valley lost the opportunity to carry it forward.

So when Ran Yi recommended Ram Valley to Han Xin, Han Xin didn't expect that the Mo family would have such a talent, and he couldn't help but be overjoyed. And these new siege equipment are the precious fruits of the labor that Ram Valley has worked hard to conceive.