Xu Shu stood up and said his suggestion: "Zhugong, our army is stationed in the city under its jurisdiction, the troops have been scattered a lot, the strength in Wancheng is only 16,000 people, Cao Cao has an absolute advantage in the strength of the force, if he does not directly kill Wancheng, but adopts the method of encircling, persuading, inducing or attacking the defenders of our cities respectively, our losses will be great!" ”

If you give up other cities and concentrate all your forces in Wancheng, the number of troops sent by the Cao army this time will not have much advantage, and our army can rely on the city to hold on, and the Cao army will inevitably retreat if it cannot attack for a long time; You can also take advantage of the lack of people and horses after Cao's army has been attacking for a long time, and go out of the city to carry out a surprise attack! ”

"At the same time, send envoys to Jingzhou, Eastern Wu and Hebei to persuade Liu Biao, Sun Quan and Yuan Shao to send troops to attack Cao Cao's various territories, as long as there are troops all the way, Cao Cao's threat to our army will be lifted!"

This suggestion won Qin Feng's heart, and he immediately sent several envoys to Jingzhou, Jiangdong and Hebei respectively, and ordered to all counties under his jurisdiction, except for a few key passes, he transferred back all the soldiers and horses stationed in each county, and at the same time sent people to investigate the battle between Ganning and Xiahoudun.

Before the personnel could be dispatched, Gan Ning sent someone to report that he had defeated Xiahoudun and Li Dian, and captured Li Dian and a young general named Hao Zhao, who were already on their way to Wancheng.

After hearing the messenger's report, Qin Feng said to him: "You go back and tell General Gan, ordering him to withdraw to Wancheng with his soldiers and horses, and give up all the cities along the way, Cao's army does not have much advantage over our troops this time, if we divide our troops to garrison, we will be broken by each of them, it is better to fight with them under Wancheng City!" ”

"No!" The messenger agreed, saluted, and turned away.

After the military affairs are arranged, the next step is to arrange the later and civilian affairs.

If you want to defend the city, in addition to the city being strong, you also need to have enough food, grass and materials to defend the city.

Qin Feng asked Yan Xiang to dispatch the officials of the government to organize some women and idle people in Wancheng City, and asked them to trim their feathers, polish their arrow shafts and arrowheads, and assemble arrowheads, arrow shafts and feathers.

He also organized some young men and horses, and used a large number of carts and mules and horses to go outside the city to mine stones and stones, cut down trees and transport them back to the city, which could be used to defend the city.

Qin Feng personally took Wen Ping, Huang Yi, Juniper, Lu Meng, Chen and some soldiers to push a few board carts to the outside of the city, and there were several wooden barrels on the board carts, and the wooden barrels were specially filled with quicklime.

"My lord, what am I waiting to do outside the city?" Lu Meng couldn't help but ask.

Qin Feng didn't answer, but only said to him: "You go and walk this way from under the city wall, walk at a normal pace, and stop after walking fifty steps!" ”

"No!" Lu Meng agreed, turned around and ran towards the city gate, waited for him to run to the city gate, and then turned around and walked out of the city.

Keep walking, stop when you count to fifty steps, and just walk to Qin Feng and the others.

Qin Feng shoveled out some quicklime from the wooden barrel on the cart with a shovel and drew a white straight line from where Lü Meng was standing, which was parallel to the city wall, and wrote "50" in Arabic numerals on the side of the white line

"This line is fifty steps from the wall, remember! Okay, Ziming, take fifty steps forward! ”

When Lu Meng walked fifty steps again and stopped, Qin Feng used a shovel to shovel out some quicklime to draw a straight line, wrote "100" and said to everyone: "From here to the city wall is a hundred steps, remember!" ”

Next, Qin Feng used the same method to draw a white line at 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500 steps, etc.

"Do you know what these white lines do?" Qin Feng pointed to the white lines and numbers that he had just drawn.

Lu Meng's brain was more flexible, and he tried to ask: "Ranging?" ”

Qin Feng nodded: "Yes, the range of a bow and arrow is seventy or eighty steps, and if you can shoot to 100 steps, it is already a strong bow!" The bed crossbow built by Xi Ji ordered people to shoot more than a thousand steps from a long distance, and if it is used for flat shooting, it can also shoot five or six hundred steps, which is a sharp weapon for killing the enemy! ”

"There are also trebuchets, the trebuchets are installed on the city wall, and the range can be more than three hundred steps away, so as long as Cao Jun's thunderbolt and building cart reach the range of three hundred steps, they can use trebuchets to restrain them, and prevent them from using these siege weapons to cause damage to our soldiers!"

"Now you know what these white lines do?"

Everyone suddenly realized that the function of these white lines was to observe the distance between the enemy army and the city wall, and the distance they had observed the enemy army before could only be estimated visually, which was not accurate, and they could see clearly after drawing these white lines on the ground.

At this time, Chen asked: "My lord, if someone in the Cao army guessed the purpose of these white lines and destroyed them, wouldn't we be able to accurately observe the distance of the enemy army?" ”

After hearing this, Qin Feng nodded and said: "It's not impossible, that's why I didn't draw these white lines too long and obvious, the white lines are indeed too obvious, it is better to change it to a small white circle, so that it is not easy for the enemy to guess its use!" ”

When everyone heard this, this idea was good, and they all rushed to do it, and they also drew a lot of white circles on the parallel line, even if Cao Jun destroyed it, it was impossible to destroy it all.

Cao Jun was still in Wuyang, Qin Feng began to organize the military and civilians to deploy the city wall fortifications, a large number of stones, wood, arrows, boiling water iron pots, bricks and some fire oil were transported to the inner side of the city wall under the root of the wall to pile up, these things can not be carried on the city wall at the beginning, the city wall can accommodate the limited space, if a large number of garrison materials are stacked, it will be in the way.

It is also easy to carry these materials at the base of the inner wall of the city wall, as long as some people are arranged, they can be carried on the city wall at any time.

Two days later, Gan Ning led his troops to escort more than 3,000 Cao army prisoners to the completion of the evacuation, accompanied by a large amount of grain and grass.

With the withdrawal of Ganning's army, the soldiers of other cities also withdrew one after another, and the strength of Wancheng suddenly approached 30,000 horses.

Yan Xiang reported to Qin Feng: "My lord, now that the army is here, people eat horses and chew, the consumption is too great, counting the capture brought back by General Gan Ning this time, if the Cao army attacks the city, our soldiers will have to increase their rations to have enough strength to fight, so that the grain and grass in the city can only be eaten by the army for a month and a half!" ”

Qin Feng frowned after hearing this, "If we can defeat the Cao army within a month, it would be fine, we will use the money to buy some grain and grass in the market for the western expedition to Chang'an, but if we can't defeat the Cao army within a month, this matter will be troublesome, I think we still have to take precautions!" ”

Yan Xiang said: "What the lord said is very true, there is a way to get some grain and grass in the next place, but it is ······."