Chapter 119: The Stinkers' Counterattack

Wang Lang's deflated meal made the ministers silent for a while, especially Sima Yi's sentence "Why don't you come?" "So that most people have nothing to say. Among the ministers present, except for a few people who thought too much of themselves, no one else dared to say that they were better at fighting than Sima Yi.

Sima Yi once led the Wei army to fight many battles, including victory and defeat, but no one thought that he would not fight, even when he defeated the battle, the ministers still did not dare to underestimate him, because they all knew very well that sometimes it was not necessarily his fault to defeat the battle, but that his opponent was too strong, and if they went by themselves, they would lose the same, and they would lose even worse.

The court meeting fell into a stalemate, and in the end, Cao Pi had to agree to Sima Yi's three conditions, and he led the troops to fight, this battle can be said to be fought by Wei with all his strength, and it is good to say that if he loses, Wei will inevitably be greatly injured.

Let's say that Liu Hou led the army all the way north, and in ancient wars, people like to be the vanguard of all the way, and the vulture rushed to do this position, and Liu Hou was not good at dampening his enthusiasm, so he agreed to his request. The vulture bone ordered the five thousand rattan armor soldiers under his command to come out, and personally led the front, Liu Hou was afraid that he would make a mistake, so he asked Guan Xing to send five hundred fire # spearmen from the second brigade to follow him.

It didn't take long for the army to come to Maicheng, and to his surprise, there were no defenders in Maicheng. When Guan Yu was defeated in the last Northern Expedition, Maicheng was originally occupied by the Eastern Wu people, but later, Wei and Eastern Wu jointly besieged Jingzhou, and Eastern Wu gave up Maicheng to Wei as a place for them to hoard grain.

Therefore, now Maicheng is the territory of Wei, and the strange thing is that Wei took the initiative to withdraw the defenders in the city and surrendered Maicheng to the Shu army.

"Something is wrong." After the troops entered Maicheng, Liu Hou immediately summoned all the strategists to discuss this issue, "It stands to reason that although Maicheng is a small city, relying on the city wall for defense can also block the pace of our attack and consume a little of our troops and ammunition, why did the Wei army give up directly?" ”

"It seems that Wei has been prepared for the arrival of our army for a long time, and it must have prepared some kind of aftermath to deal with us." Steps.

"There is news from the fine work of Wei that Wei appointed Sima Yi as the governor of Dadu to lead the troops to meet our army, and has led an army of 100,000 to leave Xudu a few days ago."

The people of the "CIA" of Shu State still have a shallow foundation in Xudu, and they have not been able to find out the news of a very high level, and they do not know the total number of troops sent by Wei this time, but only know that Wei State has sent 100,000 soldiers and horses from the capital to fight, and it is unknown how many 200,000 horses and horses have been drawn from other places.

"No, Sima Yi is not such a light enemy, it is impossible to only send 100,000 horses to meet us, there must be something we don't know during this period." Deng Zhi also opened his mouth to analyze.

"Whatever their schemes, we must be careful." Liu Houdao, "Order the scouts to spread fifty miles, order the hot air balloons to take turns to lift into the air, and cooperate with the scout troops to expand the warning range." Order the vanguard troops of the vulture to proceed carefully, not to advance too fast, and not to attack rashly when encountering a fortified city or a large army of the enemy. The 'CIA' was ordered to intensify its reconnaissance efforts and try to find out Sima Yi's conspiracy. Liu Hou issued a series of orders in one breath.

Naturally, there were staff officers next to him who took a brush and brushed it down. The strategists don't have a good way now, and when the enemy situation is unknown, they can only do this first.

This time, Liu Hou brought twelve hot air balloons, and with these hot air balloons as early warning aircraft, the reconnaissance range of the Shu army could be very broad, and the movements of any large group of men and horses in the surrounding fifty miles of the army could not hide from these eyes in the air. The point is that the Shu army can quickly transmit information through a hot air balloon as an intermediary. The principle is quite similar to the communication role of satellites.

For the sake of caution, Liu Hou left 1,000 rattan armor soldiers and 500 fire # spearmen to garrison Maicheng, so as not to be copied by others. This is the disadvantage of taking the Jingzhou route to the Northern Expedition, although it is not said that it is surrounded by enemies on all sides, but it is true that the Wei State and the Wu State # army are eyeing each other. Using troops on this line is like walking on thin ice, at least Liu Hou is a little frightened, I really don't know how Guan Gong's nerves were so big back then, and he was so relieved to go all the way north.

At the same time, Liu Hou also deeply touched that the disadvantages of insufficient troops have begun to appear, a small wheat city, you have to divide your own 1,500 soldiers and horses, there are so many cities along the way, how many soldiers and horses can you squander yourself like this?

The Shu army cautiously went north all the way, especially when passing through Jingshan, and did not dare to be sloppy. There is a saying called roaring mountains and forests, and since ancient times, mountains and forests have been places where many horses can be hidden. Whether it is the bandits gathering in the mountains and forests, or the people and horses of Cao Wei's ambush brigade here, they are all things that have to be guarded against.

Fortunately, the Shu army still passed the range of Jingshan along the way, but still did not encounter any obstacles, and the scouts and hot air balloons did not find anything unusual. Liu Hou not only did not breathe a sigh of relief, but was even more puzzled, it was too abnormal to be so quiet.

The vulture led the soldiers and horses all the way to Xiangyang in front, not only did he not encounter any troops, but even the common people did not encounter a few. At this time, Liu Hou finally knew that Sima Yi was an ancient man who knew the phrase "strong walls and clear fields".

Liu Hou once again felt that he underestimated the ancients too much, sometimes wisdom has no cultural differences, and this kind of thing to drive away the people was much easier to do in ancient times than in later generations. Now it seems that the Wei army moved most of the people in the area where they were fighting with the Shu army in advance.

This is a big deal, the Shu and Wei armies of hundreds of thousands of troops fighting, the scope of the impact must be very wide, it can be predicted, the entire Xiangyang County will be plunged into the flames of war. What a big project is it to move the people of the entire Xiangyang County and even some nearby places? Of course, from another point of view, how many people have suffered? How many people have to be displaced.

The reason why Liu Hou chose to use troops at this time was to avoid the two main agricultural busy times of spring plowing and harvesting, and to minimize the impact of the war on agricultural production. However, if Wei did this, agriculture in Xiangyang would definitely be affected, after all, crops could not be left unattended for a long time, and no matter who won or lost this battle, it would be a catastrophe for the people of Xiangyang.

On this day, Liu Hou finally led the army to the city of Xiangyang, and the vulture bone arrived a day before him, and after receiving the news of Liu Hou's arrival, he hurried over to report on his work and hand over the task.

This time the vanguard mission, he was expecting to be able to kill a good one, but he did not encounter any enemy, which made him infinitely depressed, and when he arrived at the city of Xiangyang, Liu Hou sent a succession of heralds, strictly prohibiting him from attacking Xiangyang privately, which made him even more depressed.

The vulture bone entered the military tent, and Liu Hou was already discussing the military situation with several strategists. I only heard Liu Houdao: "Wei is really ruthless, completely ignoring the life and death of the people." People are driven away from their homes and unable to return home to tend to their crops for a short time, and this season's crop harvest will certainly be greatly affected, and it is possible that the harvest will be reduced or even eliminated. I didn't expect this situation to happen, I hurt them, but I had to conquer Cao Wei in order to end this troubled world as soon as possible. ”

"Your Majesty, please don't blame yourself, how can this be said to be Your Majesty's fault, this is Cao Wei's unkindness, and everyone is punished by rebellious ministers and thieves, not to mention that His Majesty is the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty, and he has the heavy responsibility of reviving the Han Dynasty. Cao Wei is so reckless about the lives of the people, sooner or later he will be punished by God. Deng Zhi said.

"Sima Yi's move to clear the field and fortify the wall is obviously to prevent our army from finding local people to buy grain and grass nearby, and he must have a backhand to do so." Guo Youzhi.

"Humph! It's a pity that he didn't expect that the people of Dongwu would give us so much food, and this food, together with the food we raised ourselves, was enough to support us in the army for four or five months. Four or five months is enough for us to hit Xuchang. Liu Hou said fiercely.

Bu Qi frowned and pondered for a while, and said, "I'm afraid that Sima Yi will calculate that we have enough food." ”

Liu Hou was also silent, with an old and cunning person like Sima Yi, oh no, it should be said that he is a far-sighted and thoughtful person, and he will definitely think about the problem very comprehensively, and he will definitely not imagine all kinds of possibilities in advance. He must not think that the Shu army will use troops when there is a shortage of food and grass, so he spent so much money to implement the strategy of clearing the wilderness, there is only one possibility......

"He wants to fight our grain idea, or rather, the idea of the grain road." Guo Youzhi said categorically.

"That's right, he is holding on to the wilderness, thinking that we can't get food on the spot, and why do we need to collect food on the spot? Then we only need to collect food from the local people when we are short of food. Why does he think we're going to be short of food? If we cut off our food routes, we will be short of food. "Bu Qi Dao.

"Hmph, he thinks he's Cao Cao, am I Yuan Shao? Do you want to play another fire to burn the black nest? Liu Hou snorted coldly.

"And that's not all." Deng Zhi also interjected, "Without food, we just have to retreat, it's nothing, for us, the loss is not big, at most it just delays our offensive time." Chen thought that Sima Yi's purpose must be more than that simple.

If he wants to inflict losses on our army, then he must find a way to prevent us from retreating safely. If we can't retreat and we don't have enough food, the consequences will be dire. Therefore, the minister thought that Sima Yi must have a back hand, and it should be the back hand to prevent us from retreating. ”

Liu Hou really admires these three stinkers, they really beat Zhuge Liang, their reverse thinking is too strong, from Wei Junjian's simple imagination of Qingye, little by little reverse deduction, so many things can be deduced. Although I don't know what Sima Yi's conspiracy is, at least I have a general direction, and in the words of later generations, it is not far from the truth.

"What else does he have to do?" Liu Hou also put away his contempt, he came from later generations, and he knew Sima Yi's horror better than the people here. In the previous few indirect or direct confrontations, he could be regarded as suffering Sima Yi's secret loss, so in this strange situation where the enemy situation was unknown, he had to be cautious.

"Please forgive the ministers for being ignorant and unable to guess Sima Yi's conspiracy." Deng Zhi surrendered his hand and pleaded guilty.

Liu Hou waved his hand, saying that it didn't matter, this matter was not to be blamed on the strategists, no matter how smart and high the IQ was. Thinking about everything, it is not a roundworm in Sima Yi's stomach, how can he guess all his plans, it is already very good to be able to reason his intentions to this kind of Cheng Dù.