The Northern Expedition.

Spring expedition.

After a few months, the rainy season has arrived.

The Shu army won successive battles, and its sphere of influence had exceeded the end of the first Northern Expedition.

The Qishan line on the left is still camped by Weishui, and the right road has crossed Chencang and reached Chang'an.

This led to longer and longer supply lines at the back.

There is also increasing pressure to transport grain.

The rainy season has finally arrived.

Cao Jun had already prepared.

Move the food and grass to higher places in advance to avoid being corroded by the rain.

In this way, it is inconvenient for the armies to fight.

It happened that the Wei army was also closed and could not come out, and for a time, sporadic skirmishes occurred in the rear of the Shu army.

Cao Jun also ordered Wang Ping to lead 20,000 elite soldiers to garrison Jieting, and Ma Dai's army also withdrew from Wucheng and stationed at the Sanguan near Chencang, which greatly reduced the pressure on logistics.

After the outbreak of Gou An's grain transportation.

Zhuge Liang returned to Chengdu from Hanzhong, and after some negotiations with Li Yan, he took over the drudgery of carrying grain and grass.

He also ordered Changshi Yang Yi to be in charge of transporting grain.

Before the Wei army intercepted the grain, there were no twists and turns in the matter of grain and grass.

Cao Jun was standing in the big tent with a gloomy face at the moment, and after the grain transport officer sent by Yang Yi counted the newly arrived grain and grass, he found that there was a lot of mildew and dampness, and there were no ten or five, and most of them were lost along the way.

The grain transporter was in a mess, with a piece of wet mud hanging from the hem of his lower body, and was kneeling on the ground.

"General, I am the grain transport officer under Yang Yi's account, it is indeed not that I don't care, but the rainy season is coming, I encountered mudslides along the way, many landslides, and the harassment of the Wei cavalry, and my subordinates let people carry the 50,000 loads of grain and grass from Jiange Road."

Jiang Wei on the side looked at Cao Jun, and couldn't help but sigh: "These tens of thousands of loads of grain and grass are mostly moldy and wet, only enough for 300,000 troops to eat for a few days, and they can't be left for a long time. ”

Cao Jun nodded.

The grain transporter was still lying on the ground, trembling.

The loss of grain transportation is too large, or it is delayed for more than three days, but it is a major matter that will be cut off.

Cao Jun helplessly helped him up with his own hands and comforted: "This time, fortunately, I have a letter, you can hand it over to the prime minister in person on the way back." ”

Cao Jun thought about it.

At present, the wooden ox and flowing horse have not yet been launched, and the northern expedition of the Shu army has been annoyed by the grain road for many times, and it is time to solve it.

It's just that how to remind Zhuge Liang to work?

It has to be tactful.

Nor can they reveal the secrets of their own prophets.

After the event, Cao Jun pondered for a long time and wrote a letter by hand.

The letter mentioned the current difficulties of the grain road, and also mentioned whether the wheelbarrow could be improved, preferably over the mountains and mountains, so as to reduce the pressure on the grain road.

The rest can only be handed over to the first wise man of the Three Kingdoms.

said that after Zhuge Liang received Cao Jun's letter, his brows furrowed for a few days.

One day, while he was inspecting the city of Hanzhong, he passed by a carpenter's workshop and saw a carpenter making a wheelbarrow, and suddenly he felt something.

When I returned home immediately, I asked someone to bring pen and paper.

An image of a cow not like a cow and a horse not like a horse was drawn on paper.

He asked Yang Yi to come over and take a look, and the latter looked at it for a while, only to see the things painted in the picture: square belly bent head, one foot and four legs, head into the collar, tongue on the abdomen, the bend is the head of the ox, the double is the ox's feet, the ox is on the back, the person walks six feet, and the ox walks four steps.

Each ox carries a month's worth of grain for ten people, and the people do not work much, and the oxen do not eat.

After Yang Yi looked at it, he was immediately shocked, "Prime Minister, what is this?" ”

Zhuge Liang said: "This is a wooden ox, a tool for transporting grain, which can go over mountains and mountains, greatly reducing the pressure of human transportation, but it is my inspiration for a while, and it needs to be further improved." ”

Afterwards, after a few days of continuous study, Zhuge Liang perfected the technique of the wooden cow more and more.

He also researched another grain transportation tool, saying: "Flowing horses." ”

Chen Shidao of the Northern Song Dynasty has a written record: "There is a small cart in Shu, which carries eight stones alone, and the front is like a bull's head; And there was a big cart, which was pushed by four people, and carried ten stones, and covered with wooden oxen and horses. ”

It can be seen that the wooden ox and horse are not the so-called perpetual motion machines without manpower, but just an improved version of the footed trailer.

However, the wooden oxen and flowing horses are involved in the rugged roads that are difficult to travel in Shudi, which naturally greatly facilitates the transportation of grain and grass.

Half a month later, Zhuge Liang gathered all the craftsmen in Hanzhong and secretly made a batch of wooden oxen and horses, and handed them over to Yang Yi to be personally responsible for escorting the latest batch of grain and grass.

Yang Yi led a thousand soldiers, drove wooden oxen and horses, and arrived at Qishan Dazhai from the Sword Pavilion, carrying grain and grass back and forth for the use of Shu soldiers.

After passing the Sword Pavilion, I happened to meet the cavalry of the Wei army who came to intercept the grain.

Yang Yi asked people to stop the grain and grass in the middle of the road, and after breaking the button under the neck of the wooden ox and flowing horse, the wooden ox and flowing horse stopped in place and did not move.

After a while, the Wei cavalry arrived.

It was also the first time the leader had seen such a thing.

I saw from a distance before, the Shu soldiers pushed this strange thing forward, over the mountains and mountains, as if walking on the ground, and moved extremely fast.

Now that it was effortless to scare the Shu army away, General Wei hurriedly dismounted, and watched with his sergeants around these wooden oxen and horses.

"General, look, this is filled with military rations."

But it was a wooden ox and a flowing horse that had fallen to the ground because it had stopped incorrectly, and the grain inside had spilled out.

General Wei ordered the other soldiers to check every ox cart and was shocked to see that it was full of grain.

This strange thing was originally used to transport grain and grass.

"Quick, push these things away, don't leave them to the Shu army."

Unexpectedly, the Wei soldiers used their strength, and the wooden ox and horse always stopped on the ground, motionless.

At this time, the Shu army, which had fled before, saw that the Wei army only had 500 men and horses, and lost the momentum of the cavalry charge, and immediately reversed and killed back.

The sergeants sent by the grain transportation are all regular sergeants, and if they are on the ground, 1,000 Shu troops can completely eat this wave of 500 Wei troops.

Seeing that there was nothing to be done, the Wei army hurriedly ordered the soldiers to overturn an ox cart, emptied the grain inside, put the ox cart between the two horses, and retreated in a hurry.

A few days later, the group temporarily turned around and transported a captured wooden oxen and horses back to the Wei camp.

Sima Yi led a group of people around the perimeter.

"What is this?"

The leading Wei Jun said: "The governor of the capital, the last general doesn't know what it is, but he just saw the Shu army transporting grain here." ”

Sima Yi asked people to break open the middle of the wooden ox and flowing horse, and sure enough, he saw that there was a lot of space inside, if it was all filled with grain, he was afraid that it would be the size of seven or eight stones.

Sima Yi asked the Wei army carefully, and was taken aback when he learned that the Shu army actually transported grain with 1,000 soldiers.

You must know that at this moment, the capable warriors on both sides are either sent to the battlefield or stationed in dangerous places, and there are no extra soldiers.

Why can the Shu army send 1,000 Shu troops to transport grain at a time?

Before the Shu army transported grain, it was a wheelbarrow, with four laborers, which could only be equipped with 3-4 stone of grain, and a little Shu army escorted along the way.

Often, it takes many waves to transport grain at one time to meet the needs of the army.

In this way, because of the lack of defensive forces, the Wei army was given the opportunity to intercept grain.

If all the grain is transported by wooden oxen and horses, a car can transport 8-10 stone of grain, and the carrying capacity of a single time has increased greatly, and it is completely possible to merge the previous waves of grain transportation teams into one wave.

As a result, the harassment of the Wei army in the rear will become more difficult.

The 1,000 Shu army faced 500 Wei cavalry, relying on favorable terrain to resist, it was not false at all.

If the number of cavalry of the harassed Wei army is increased to 1,000 people, because the target is too large, and the risk of exposure is increased, it is easy to be defeated by the Shu army.

The harassment in the rear, which lasted for nearly a month, came to an end after the wooden cattle and horses came out.