The next day, when many people were still hangover, Liu Hou got up and practiced Tai Chi and Wufowl opera, and played the marksmanship taught by Zhao Yun again, and finished today's morning class when he was sweating.

After breakfast, Liu Hou went out to the lobby and unexpectedly found that Fei Yi and Guo Youzhi were there, Liu Hou was still curious if these two didn't drink at the celebration banquet last night? How do you work here so soberly?

These two people do have the demeanor of a generation of famous ministers, and they are very restrained, although they also drank last night, but they only tasted it. As soon as the big war is decided, they need to keep a clear head to deal with possible emergencies and all kinds of complicated trivial matters.

No, they got up early in the morning to deal with the government order, and Liu Hou also admired them. When the two saw Liu Hou coming out, they got up together and bowed to Liu Hou: "Good morning, Shizi!"

"Good morning, gentlemen." Liu Hou also returned the salute. "How's it going in the city? What's the big deal? ”

"If you return to the world, the city will be fine, the people will be stable, the market will be restored to normal order, and some businesses will reopen for business one after another." Fei Yi's simple report made Liu Hou feel like listening to the news broadcast of later generations.

"The troops are now taking turns to rest, but there is always a guarantee that a regiment of soldiers will take over the city defense, and there should be no problem with 1* troops guarding the four gates. According to Shizi's opinion, additional scouts were sent to listen to the movements of the Eastern Wu army, and spies were also sent to cross the Yangtze River and infiltrate the Jiangdong territory to listen to the news, but no news was transmitted back for a while. Guo Youzhi also reported on military arrangements.

Liu Hou nodded as he listened, he was quite satisfied with the work of the two.

"As for the big thing, there is also one thing, that is, the envoy sent by Dongwu has arrived and is waiting for the reception of the prince." Fei Yi added.

"Oh, so fast? Hmph, Soochow is finally willing to send someone to negotiate? Liu Hou was refreshed when he heard this, and the expected envoy of the Soochow negotiations had already come, but he didn't expect it to come so quickly.

"It should be that when the Soochow naval army retreated yesterday, they sent envoys, and they just waited until this morning to ask for a meeting. Do you want to see him? Fei Yi explained as if he knew what Liu Hou was thinking.

"I won't see him, you can negotiate with them. Now we have the upper hand and we don't need to give them any good looks. I have already mentioned the condition to Lu Meng before, that is, to ask Sun Quan to cede twelve cities to me.

Of course, as long as Sun Quan has not gone crazy, he should not agree to such conditions, so you can grind with them slowly, after all, we have 7 generals and 30,000 elite soldiers as bargaining chips, and these chips are obviously very important to Dongwu, and they can't be returned to Dongwu until they spit out enough benefits.

Well, I think so, the bottom line is 7 cities, and every general changes a city, and their attached soldiers are added to the head, and they are included for free. Liu Houdao.

Liu Hou put forward the bottom line of negotiating with Eastern Wu, Fei Yi and Guo Youzhi looked at each other after hearing this, the appetite of this world is too great, although it is said that the number of cities has been reduced from 12 to 7, but the importance of the major forces to the territory is very high in recent years, and Sun Quan will not necessarily agree to such a price, but will almost certainly not agree.

"Shizi, is such a bottom line ......" Guo Youzhi had the heart to advise, but he didn't know how to talk about it.

"Too tall?" Liu Hou asked, "It doesn't matter, let's talk about it first, if it really doesn't work, then consider lowering the requirements appropriately, but it can't be reduced too much." Also, we can get the word out and get the word out about the terms of our negotiations. If Sun Quan refuses to agree, he will lose the hearts of these 7 generals and 30,000 soldiers in the future. It will even affect the morale of their entire army. ”

"This ......" Guo Youzhi hesitated a little, this is indeed possible to hit the military spirit of Dongwu, if Dongwu agrees to the conditions, it will suffer heavy losses, if it does not agree to the conditions, it will lose the morale of the army, no matter how you choose, the price is very large. But if such conditions are released, will it also cause adverse effects on my own side? Guo Youzhi, as Liu Hou's staff officer, had to think about these things.

After all, the prince is young and has not considered things thoroughly, and it is his duty to fill in the gaps for the prince as a military advisor who assists the prince. Guo Youzhi faintly felt that this seemed a little inappropriate, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while.

"What else do you have to say about that?" Liu Hou was not arbitrary, and humbly asked for advice.

"You vaguely feel that there is something wrong with this, but I can't think of what is wrong for a while." Guo Youzhi honestly said what he thought.

"It doesn't matter, you can think slowly, let's talk to them first, make a price all over the sky, and pay back the money on the ground." Negotiations usually begin with both sides testing each other's bottom line, and the process will be lengthy. Mr. Guo, if you think of anything at that time, we will discuss and adjust the strategy. Liu Houdao.

"That's all there is to it." Guo Youzhi.

"Oh, by the way, Shizi, after a long negotiation time, the pressure on the grain and grass in Jingzhou City is very high, there are 30,000 soldiers in Eastern Wu, even if they are only given 10 taels per person (equivalent to about 150 grams in modern times) of grain every day, they will consume more than 50 stone of grain every day. More than our own soldiers consume. You also know that there is not much food in the city left, and Guan Gong has sent a large amount of supplies to the front line before......" Fei Yi asked a new question.

"Oh, that's ......" Liu Hou pondered, and now he finally understood why he liked to kill a prisoner in ancient wars. First, these captives are difficult to manage, and a large number of troops must be assigned to take care of them, and if the guards are not strict, it is easy for them to bite back. No one wants to fight to the death with the enemy, and put a barrel of explosives that can explode at any time by their side.

Second, it has always been a very important factor to march and fight, and in many cases, whether there is enough grain and grass can determine the victory or defeat of a war, which is why Cao Cao likes to burn people's grain and grass so much. And a large number of captives will inevitably consume a large amount of grain and grass, and even if they are only given one-third of the supply of normal people, when the number of captives reaches a certain distance, the burden is very great.

Therefore, many generals in ancient times were reluctant to accept prisoners, and even often killed prisoners. There is no reason for killing the god Bai Qipit and killing 300,000 prisoners.

After thinking for a while, Liu Hou finally came up with a solution: "This is easy to do, even if you are in prison, someone will send you prison food." Mr. Fei, you tell the negotiator to bring food to the captives. Don't talk about the rest yet, let them send food first. Tell him that Jingzhou is short of food and cannot feed so many prisoners, and if they don't send food over, his 30,000 soldiers will starve. How many people will starve to death will depend on how quickly they deliver food. ”

"This plan is very good, as long as Sun Quan still wants to return the 30,000 soldiers and horses, he has to keep sending food over. In this way, a large amount of grain will be consumed in Soochow, and it will be their turn to be anxious at that time, and maybe it will affect the progress of the negotiations. Also, we have to let them send it in full according to the amount of 2 catties of food per person per day. When the time comes, we will deduct a little more, and even our own military rations will be solved. Hehe! Speaking of pride, Guo Youzhi couldn't help laughing.

"Huh." Liu Hou and Fei Yi also laughed, Liu Hou felt that he was thick enough to be black, but he didn't expect this Guo Youzhi's understanding of thick black science to catch up with his cheap father Liu Bei.

If Dongwu was allowed to send food according to the amount of food of 2 catties per person, but in fact only gave one-third of the food per day, that is, 10 taels (16 taels per catty in ancient times) to supply the prisoners of Dongwu, then he would make a net profit of 100 stone of grain every day, would there be a better business than this? It's really good to grab it. If this had been the case, he would rather have been talking about the old age of the world in this negotiation.

After discussing the negotiation, Liu Hou remembered something that had been unknown again, that is, he had made so many arrangements before, why couldn't the news of Guan Gong's troops be delivered to him in time in the end?

Since Guo Youzhi had not followed Liu Hou for a long time, the matter was handed over to Fei Yi to investigate. Seeing Liu Hou asking, Fei Yi reported the recent investigation results to Liu Hou.

Similar to Liu Hou's previous guess, the carrier pigeon was probably eaten by a bird of prey. Fei Yi checked the sending records of Jingzhou City and confirmed that there were carrier pigeons sent out in Jingzhou City in a timely manner, and 10 carrier pigeons were released at one time. There were also some pigeons that arrived at the transit stations along the way, but did not receive a single pigeon in Chengdu.

Liu Hou was deeply disappointed with the method of carrier pigeon communication. In this era, the natural environment has not been destroyed, and there are many wild animals of all kinds, such as jackals, tigers and leopards, and eagles and eagles in the wild. It is really frustrating that 10 carrier pigeons were eaten clean at one time.

When Liu Hou first established the carrier pigeon transmission system, he was worried about this situation, so he also specially instructed the intelligence personnel in Jingzhou to send messages through the military channel at the same time when sending carrier pigeons. In his opinion, one of the two channels will be delivered, and his arrangement can be described as foolproof.

Who knew that something was wrong with this traditional communication channel as well. According to Fei Yi's investigation, during the period when Guan Gong sent troops, many post stations on the line from Jingzhou to Chengdu were looted by armed men of unknown origin, and messengers were often ambushed. The communication between Jingzhou and Chengdu has been intermittent.

Considering various circumstances, especially the sneak attack on Jingzhou by Soochow this time, Fei Yi analyzed that these things were very likely to be done by Soochow people. The purpose was to paralyze the communication between Jingzhou and Chengdu and create favorable conditions for them to sneak attack Jingzhou.

"Alas, it's really that people are not as good as heaven, and things that have been prepared for so long always have accidents of one kind or another. Murphy was right, if something bad could happen, no matter how unlikely, it would happen. Liu Hou couldn't help but say the famous Murphy's law in later generations.

"Huh? Who is Murphy? But the people of the Mo family? Fei Yi asked curiously.

"Oh, it's nothing, it's a fellow practitioner who Master Zuo knows, I don't know if it's from the Mo family, and I haven't seen him either." Liu Hou habitually pushed a difficult matter to Zuo Ci. Usually at this point, people don't ask any more questions.

Sure enough, Fei Yi no longer dwelled on this issue, and instead comforted Liu Houdao: "The prince doesn't need to be frustrated, although there was a little accident, but judging from the results, we still achieved great results." This time, we not only tried our best to protect Jingzhou City, but also captured 7 generals and 30,000 soldiers and horses of Eastern Wu, such a brilliant record, even those so-called generation of famous generals are just that.

The Governor of Eastern Wu, Lü Meng and Sun Quan, were defeated by the prince successively, especially the naval army that made the Eastern Wu rely on the most relied on was defeated by a warship of the prince, and it is believed that after this battle, the prince will be famous all over the world. ”