Chapter 12: The Valley of the Snake

As mentioned last time, Liu Hou knew that the peach blossom water was poisonous, and immediately ordered the troops to retreat five miles, and sent the army doctor to treat the poisoned Gao Ding's subordinates, and then held a military meeting to discuss the next move.

At the meeting, Liu Hou analyzed the shortcomings of the rattan armor soldiers, the rattan armor soldiers were not afraid of anything, they were afraid of fire, and he thought that they could be eliminated with fire. So everyone began to discuss the specific details of the fire attack. After studying a round of military maps and asking the local natives, Guo Youzhi first proposed the location of the fire attack:

"There is a valley 30 miles southwest of this, called the Valley of the Snake, this valley is curved and circling, like a snake, the road in the valley is narrow, and on both sides are high mountains that are difficult to climb. And because the valley is full of poisonous snakes, few people usually enter, so the dead grass and dead trees in the valley have accumulated over the years, and there is already a thick layer, and these things are excellent fuel.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Yu Zhi Jian, set the ambush site here. As long as the enemy is led into the valley, walled at both ends, and then set on fire, the enemy will not be spared. ”

"Snake Valley? Familiar with the name, huh? Is it the place where Zhuge Liang burned the rattan armor soldiers? Liu Hou thought to himself, and also got up to look at the map. Sure enough, I saw a curve that zigzagged like a snake. But the exact situation inside and outside the valley cannot be seen by the map alone.

"Judging from the map and the description of the natives, this place is indeed suitable for ambush, but this matter is very important, and we must not be sloppy at all, and we still have to investigate the field before making a decision. Mr. Guo, we will go to the site tomorrow to inspect the site and then make a decision. Now let's talk about how to lure the enemy deeper. No matter how well the ambush is arranged, it is useless to fool the enemy, and it is useless to attract the enemy into the set place. Liu Houdao.

"No!" Guo Youzhi replied, which was regarded as a promise to go to the scene tomorrow to investigate the matter. Then everyone expressed their own opinions and came up with ideas to lure Meng to be deceived.

In the end, the main idea of most people's ideas is to first engage the vine armor soldiers, then pretend to lose a few games in a row, and then retreat, and lead them into the Snake Valley step by step. However, there are still some challenges that need to be solved to achieve this.

One of the problems is how to make the barbarian army cross the river and engage his own side, and now looking at the shape, Meng Shu wants to hold the river bank and prevent the Shu army from landing on the shore. Although he failed to defend Lushui once last time, but that time, Meng Yu took the initiative to retreat and wanted to attack halfway, but it was just a trick to fight back, if he was determined to stick to the riverbank, it would be difficult for the Shu army to attack the shore without paying some casualties.

What's more, as long as a wise general knows that it is better to guard against natural dangers than to confront the enemy head-on. Even if the disparity in strength between the two sides is too great, and the natural danger of the guide cannot be defended, it is a crime of non-war. If you can't even win the battle against the sky, then there is no hope of a head-on confrontation.

Therefore, as long as Meng Shu's brain was not burned out, he would not cross the river to confront the Shu army head-on. If they don't cross the river, why talk about leading them into the Valley of the Snake?

The second problem is how to make Meng Shu believe that he has defeated the Shu army, after all, the Shu army was too strong before, and suddenly said that failure is failure, is it too bizarre, and if you change to a careful general, you will suspect fraud, but Meng Shu is definitely not a fool, and he is quite cautious in his use of troops.

Also, since the original Shu army knew about the Snake Valley, would the barbarians, who were local natives, not know? So when the barbarian army pursued outside the Snake Valley, would they not dare to enter and continue the pursuit regardless of the situation in the Snake Valley? Of course, it depends on the general's intelligence and character, anyway, if Liu Hou himself is replaced, if he knew that this valley was such a terrain, he would definitely not lead the army to chase it in, and would rather let the enemy run away than take this risk, then would Meng Hou be fooled?

Many opinions and solutions were put forward, but no consensus was formed, and no one could come up with a foolproof plan. Seeing that the time was not early, Liu Hou had to dissolve the meeting and decided to discuss it tomorrow.

There was nothing to say all night, and the next day, Liu Houan refused to wait up and down the river bank to find other places to cross the river, after all, he had to be prepared with both hands, in case he could not implement the plan of burning the rattan armor soldiers, he could only sneak across the river from other places, and then find an opportunity to fight to the death with the barbarians. Now Liu Hou's army has 100,000 people, and the strength is about the same as that of the barbarians, and he has the advantage of weapons and equipment.

After arranging the affairs of the army, Liu Hou took Guo Youzhi, Guan Suo, and Zhang Bao to Pansnake Valley to inspect the terrain on the spot. This snake valley is indeed as the local natives say, Liu Hou saw two mountain ranges running side by side, zigzag like two giant dragons playing. There is a long and narrow valley between the two mountains, walking in the valley, Liu Hou looked up at the sky, and finally experienced what a line of heaven is.

This is indeed a good place for ambushes, the ground is very soft, like stepping on several layers of carpet on top of each other, it seems that there is really a lot of dry grass and dead branches, and even the effort to prepare fuel can be saved.

Liu Hou decided to use this place as an ambush site, and dispatched troops to begin to arrange an ambush site.

In the next two days, there was no action on both sides, Liu Hou in addition to sending additional scouts, let the whole army rest for two days, after all, they had been on the road before, and it was a rugged and difficult mountain road, it was indeed hard, Liu Hou was the most important combination of work and rest, so at every opportunity, he raced against time to let the sergeant rest more in order to maintain the best condition.

Two days later, a soldier came to report, and the barbarian soldiers sent a messenger to meet His Royal Highness the Prince. Liu Hou was surprised, what else did the two sides have to talk about? There have been so many big and small battles, and they have already torn their faces, and they just started fighting when they meet, what are you wasting saliva for? He didn't believe that Meng Huo would come to him to talk about surrender.

The soldiers brought in the barbarian envoy, and the messenger was called Tu'an, not sent by Meng Shu, but by a man named Wutugu. According to the explanation of the translation, Liu Hou took a lot of effort to figure out that this vulture bone turned out to be a king, a king called the country of Ugo.

Liu Houcai is not a king or a king, he dares to call the country if he has a large territory, and he doesn't know a basket of big words, and he can only fight bravely and ruthlessly, and the savage dares to call the king, it seems that this so-called country is similar to the nature of the country called Yelang, in fact, the two countries are really not far apart. For such goods, Liu Hou didn't even want to look at them squarely.

However, with the translation of the general interpreter, Liu Hou couldn't help but be surprised, it turned out that the 30,000 rattan armor soldiers in front of him were the soldiers who didn't know what country Ukraine was, and the commander was the so-called Wang Wututu, which really couldn't be underestimated.

Liu Hou carefully inquired about the envoy's intentions, it turned out that this vulture bone was really in the water, and wanted to discuss it with the Shu army, so that the Shu army could retreat 10 miles and make room for a decisive battle, so that their vine armor army could cross the river and fight a decisive battle with the Shu army. and claimed that the Shu army won a few games against Meng Huo by relying on the "dark weapon", and he was not a hero, and he had a kind of fight with their rattan armor army in a dignified manner.

Liu Hou thought about it for a while, it seems that sending an envoy to ask the Shu army this time was a personal act of the vulture bone, and Meng Shu did not know about it. Judging from Meng Huo's use of troops earlier, Meng Huo is really a brave and resourceful person, and he would never make such a brainless request.

At the same time, it can also be seen that Meng Shu had reservations about this vulture bone, and did not inform the vulture bone of the true combat strength of the Shu army, so that the vulture bone did not know the horror of the Shu army's firearms.

It seems that this vulture bone is more brainless, and it is definitely much easier to deceive than Meng Huo, originally Liu Hou was most worried that Meng Huo's IQ was too high and it was not easy to deceive, but now this brain-dead child has made up for the biggest shortcoming of the plan, so can the original plan full of loopholes be implemented?

Liu Hou immediately showed a heroic look, stepped on the tiger skin stool with one foot, and said to the envoy: "Okay, what I admire the most is a hero like the King of the Vulture Bone, and what I look down on the most is a fearless bandit like Meng Shu, who will only hide behind the danger and release cold arrows."

Please go back and repay your king, and say that I, Liu Chan, agreed to his request, and we will now retreat another 5 li, and make up 10 li. Although you can cross the river with confidence, I, Liu Chan, am not a villain who is untrustworthy, I swear that I will never attack you halfway, and when you go ashore, we will put up a dignified army to fight to the death.

Moreover, I can promise that this time we will not use the kind of secret weapon that makes a loud noise, and everyone will fight according to their abilities to see who can achieve the final victory. ”

The envoy was very happy to see Liu Hou agree, but he also said that the Han people were cunning and could not be trusted, and Liu Hou had to swear in public before he could believe it. Liu Hou had no ghosts in his heart, so he was naturally not afraid of making any oaths, so he made a vicious oath to ensure that he would not make any half-cross attacks.

The messenger returned satisfied. This thing is a bit strange to say, a little unreasonable, but thinking about Xiang Yu doing this, it is relieved, what a big hero like Xiang Yu can do, why can't the barbarian king vulture bone who also feels that he is a hero of the world can't do it?

It turned out that the vulture bone came to the peach blossom water, always thinking about finding a decisive battle with the Shu army, but he had been suppressed by the cautious Meng Shu and did not allow him to move casually. He had been extremely depressed for the past two days, and felt that it was very unexciting and aggrieved to shrink like a turtle on this side of the river, so he kept looking for an opportunity to fight.

At the beginning, the vulture thought that the Shu army would soon come to attack, and then he and his sons would be able to fight happily, and there would be no need to think about so many messy things.

Who knows, this wait for 2 days, the Shu army did not move at all, and did not see that they had the possibility of rushing to cross the river and attacking this side, so the patience of the vulture bone was completely worn out in these two days, and he began to get irritable, and he repeatedly asked Meng Shu to cross the river to take the initiative, but unfortunately Meng Shu refused.

In the end, he finally broke out, he didn't want to wait like this, he wanted to settle the battle as soon as possible, so he actually used his elm-like brain to think of countermeasures?

There is a saying that as soon as people use their brains, God laughs, and I don't know if God laughs when we use our brains, but the vulture bones use their brains, don't say God, even pigs will laugh.

As soon as he used his brain, he remembered that the wisest elder in the clan had told the story of Xiang Yu's battle against the water, which seemed to fit the current scene very well. He thought that he was a hero of the world like Xiang Yu, and he was even a little stronger than Xiang Yu, so he also decided to follow Xiang Yu and also engage in a backwater fight.

Because he was worried that Meng Hou would still oppose his attack, this time he did not sue Meng Huo, but sent an envoy to Liu Hou on his own initiative, asking him to give up 10 miles of open space, allow his rattan armor soldiers to cross the river calmly, and finally the two sides fought again to determine the victory. So, there is the previous scene.