Liu Houye said: "Sima Aiqing, these boys are still young and inexperienced after all, so you can point them out." The stakes in this war are too important to be missed, and we must be careful and cautious in formulating a foolproof strategy. I'm sorry for you. ”

Sima Yi bowed to Liu Hou and said, "Your Majesty is serious, this is the internal matter of the micro-ministers, and the micro-ministers will definitely praise Your Majesty and live up to Your Majesty's trust." It's just to accommodate Weichen for some time. ”

"Okay, Aiqing, please take care of yourself." Such a huge battle plan is not just a matter of a few words, it must take a certain amount of time, all aspects must be considered, and an official document must be formed, all of which will take time.

Even if it is Sima Yi, it takes time to think it through, he is not Cao Zhi who can write a poem in seven steps, even if he can write a poem in seven steps, a poem is only a few crosses, but a battle plan can easily cost thousands or even thousands of words, and the workload is not at the same level at all.

However, his head spins quickly, and he has a lot less time to think about it than the average person. Liu Hou understood this very well, so he waved his hand and asked him and the people from the staff to go down to reformulate the battle plan, while he continued to talk to Guan Gong and the others.

A day later, Sima Yi and Zhuge Wang came together, looking at their expressions, they must have made a battle plan, and now they came to the emperor to report the results. The battle plan was completed in one day, and it seems that Sima Yi's ability is really not covered.

"Your Majesty, this is a newly formulated battle plan, please take a look." Zhuge Wang said as he spread out a long piece of white paper in front of Liu Hou, which was densely filled with words, and there were even illustrations in some places.

Liu Hou looked down at this battle plan, and Sima Yi began to explain it synchronously: "Your Majesty, this plan is changed on the basis of the plan formulated by the original General Staff. You see, here, here....... and here. Sima Yi said as he pointed his finger to several places marked on the illustration.

"However, in order to prevent the mine-laying process from being obstructed and destroyed by the enemy, we switched to the form of airdrops. Now we have ten hot air balloons on the front line, and Wei Chen has calculated that ten can be transferred from Jingzhou and nearby in a short time, and there are a total of twenty hot air balloons. We can concentrate these twenty hot air balloons and mine these estuaries.

The current new hot air balloon has a large load, and one can be loaded with ten large mines or one hundred small mines at a time. Twenty hot air balloons can hold 100 large mines or 1,000 small mines at a time. With only one flight of 20 hot air balloons, it is estimated that the first stage of mine-laying work at an estuary can be completed.

There are a total of six estuaries on both sides of the strait, which means that they only need to fly six times to initially block all the estuaries of the river. In order to reduce the probability of the enemy being discovered, we can choose to lay mines at night, and under normal circumstances, the troops will try to avoid dispatching at night, so even if the Soochow people find that there is an abnormality in the mouth of the river, as long as they are not attacked, they may not be dispatched on a large scale, and at most they will send scouts to spy on the situation.

But what's going on in the air and what's in the water isn't so easy to detect, so they won't necessarily be able to figure out what we're doing until dawn. And the time for laying mines, one night is enough.

We have calculated, the average time it takes to lay an estuary is an hour, of course, some estuaries are close and take a short time, some are far away, and it takes a long time, in short, six estuaries can be completed in twelve hours.

We can do this at two o'clock in the evening (about 19:30. Dusk is the time, that is, 19 ~ 21 o'clock, can also be called a watch day) let the first batch of hot air balloons set off, so that when they reach the farthest estuary, almost to the people (Hai time, that is, 21 ~ 23 o'clock, can also be called the second watch), at that time the sky is completely dark, can avoid the enemy to find the whereabouts of the hot air balloon.

Then, we will lay mines in order from far to near. It is estimated that all the minelaying work can be completed at the latest on the next day's eclipse time (hour, that is, 7~9 o'clock). ”

As soon as Sima Yi finished speaking, Guan Gong had a question to ask: "May I ask Lord Sima, why do you deliberately emphasize minelaying from far to near?" Also, generally by the time of sunrise (Mao time, that is, 5~7 o'clock), the sky has been bright, at this time will not still find clues for the people of Dongwu? Your plan doesn't seem to be perfect. ”

Hearing Guan Gong questioning that Sima Yi's plan was not perfect, Liu Hou couldn't help but laugh, not because he looked down on Guan Gong, but because the two had different majors. Both of them are top talents, but one is a top general, and the other is a top military advisor.

What is the difference between a top military general questioning the strategy of a top military advisor and a physical education teacher questioning the literary level of a Chinese teacher?

However, Guan Gong's identity was there, Sima Yi didn't dare to slack off, and when he heard his question, he patiently explained: "The reason why minelaying is carried out in order from far to near is that the farther away from us, that is, the deeper you enter the encirclement, is the most dangerous place.

It would be good if all the inlets could be successfully blocked under the cover of darkness this night, but if bad weather or other factors hindered the mine-laying operations, and the hot air balloons could not complete the mine-laying task at dawn, they could only send mine-laying boats to forcibly enter the encirclement and block the remaining estuaries at this time.

General Guan, please think about it, if the time comes when it is necessary to send mine-laying boats, is it better to go into the deepest part of the encirclement, or to enter the place closest to us where we can quickly escape? ”

"Of course, the closer the better, if we enter the periphery of the encirclement, with the powerful firepower of our escort warships, the Soochow people may not be able to help us." Guan Gong blurted out.

"Yes, yes." Sima Yi said.

"So what about the next morning? With an hour or two after dawn to finish, is there a way to make a hot air balloon invisible in broad daylight? Guan Gong continued to ask.

"Hehe, yes, yes. At that time, the general trend has been achieved, and it doesn't matter whether the hot air balloon is hidden or not. At that point, there are only two or three estuaries left that have not been blocked, so what does it matter if our attempts are discovered by the Soochows?

In this short period of time, they simply did not have time to react. Besides, even if the hot air balloon can't complete the mission, isn't there still a surface ship? When the time comes, mine-laying boats can be dispatched to force their way into the remaining two or three estuaries of the river, where they can lay mines in a grand manner.

As I said earlier, the remaining two or three estuaries are already at the outermost part of the encirclement, and they are the closest to us. On the one hand, they are no longer able to form an encirclement around us, and secondly, because of the close distance, our ships come and go quickly, and they can quickly attack, support, or retreat quickly, so what is there to be afraid of?

It can be said that even if we do not lay mines at the mouth of these two or three rivers, but rush into them with a large force, and it will be no problem to defeat the enemy who is ambushed here head-on, as long as the Dongwu naval forces of several other tributaries cannot break through the mine array and run out to make trouble, we will be hitting a small part of their forces with superior forces, and coupled with the unparalleled combat effectiveness of our army, it will be like probing for them to deal with them. ”