Three hours later, early in the morning of the second day of the eighth month.

When Zhuge Jin was still asleep at home in Huaiyin City, in the camp of Yuan Shujun in the west of the city, the commander Ji Ling had just eaten the morning food, and leaned on the tiger skin couch of the Chinese army's big tent with a shiny face, and picked his teeth fiercely with a sharpened willow branch.

Ji Ling's mood is obviously not very good, since he arrived in Huaiyin yesterday, he has suffered two small setbacks in a row.

First of all, a small group of elite works he sent to fish in troubled waters were eliminated by Guan Yu.

Guan Yu also set a fire at the north gate, seducing him into thinking that he was expected to seize the door, and the enemy rushed forward, killing and wounding many cavalry with a crossbow, and even Ji Ling himself was injured by a stray arrow.

Fortunately, he wore a double layer of armor, and when the stray arrow was deflected by the iron and pierced through the rhino skin, it was already at the end of the crossbow, and he failed to break his ribs.

It is estimated that this flesh wound can heal in ten days and a half months, but the impact on morale is not small.

"You can't just wait, you have to find a way to get a little win. Otherwise, the morale that was finally boosted after breaking through Xuyi will be low again. ”

Ji Ling picked his teeth and thought in his heart.

Six days earlier, he had just broken through Xuyi, which was located further upstream of the Huai River, so that he could make his way down the river to Huaiyin.

But the actual situation Ji Ling was very clear in his heart: when Liu Bei gave up Xuyi, he retreated in an orderly manner, and there was no food left for him in the warehouse.

Obviously, Liu Bei felt that Xuyi was dilapidated and should not be kept for a long time. Therefore, after fully exhausting the tired enemy, he took the initiative to retreat to Huaiyin City, which was taller and stronger, and had convenient transportation.

At present, everything is still in Liu Bei's control, and this battle is not easy to fight.

However, just when Ji Ling's brows were furrowed and he couldn't think of a countermeasure, a general suddenly stumbled into the tent of the commander of the Chinese army.

Ji Ling raised his eyes and saw that it was the deputy general Liang Gang.

Liang Gang didn't talk nonsense, and shouted directly:

"General! God help me! The scouts captured some of the routers heading south along Surabaya!

After being tortured, I learned that Lu Bu had actually attacked Xiapi! Liu Bei even lost his old nest, and his backup was cut off, and he would definitely die! ”

"What? There won't be a fraud, right? When Ji Ling heard this, he couldn't help but feel ecstatic, and at the same time, he couldn't believe it, lest it was Liu Bei's trick to lure the enemy.

Ji Ling forcibly suppressed his impulse and asked Liang Gang to expedite and send more scouts to probe again.

After another hour or two, at noon that day, after many cautious verifications, Ji Ling felt that this information was most likely true.

That being the case, Ji Ling finally couldn't help but ponder:

"The nest was stolen, why didn't Liu Bei react? Could it be that no one reported to him? It is unlikely, Huaiyin City is adjacent to water on several sides, outside the north gate is the Huai River, and the East Water Gate is directly connected to the ditch, and our army has not been able to surround it on both sides.

The Xiapi defenders upstream, as long as they can seize the boat and go down the Surabaya River into the Huai, they can bypass the obstruction of our army. Unless Liu Bei himself strictly ordered the city gate to be closed in advance, and he was not allowed to open the door when he encountered his own people, it was possible to isolate the news......"

Ji Ling thought about it for a long time, but he couldn't understand why Liu Bei didn't react. But he pondered along this line of thought, and suddenly a flash of inspiration:

"How can I be so stupid! I don't care why he didn't respond!

Anyway, as long as this news spreads among the defenders, Huaiyin will be panicked!

Since he doesn't know yet, I'll find a way to help him know! ”

After making up his mind, Ji Ling's countermeasure was about to come out.

He hurriedly instructed Liang Gang: "You quickly order a battalion of soldiers and horses, divide into several teams to go to each gate to scold the formation, and shout in unison that you have lost your chances, shaking Liu Beijun's heart." ”

Liang Gang immediately took the order, and soon hurriedly gathered 3,000 men and horses, and went to fight outside the southwest and north gates in three ways, and Ji Ling and Liang Gangle each led a team.

Unfortunately, after the troops set up outside the west and north gates, the head of the city was quiet, and there was no reaction at all.

Seeing this, Ji Ling and Liang Gang had no choice but to choose a hundred scolding players each, lined up in a horizontal line with swords and cards, approached a hundred steps outside the door, and prepared to shout in unison.

However, before they could speak, the crossbows and arrows at the head of the city were fired, and more than a dozen of them were immediately knocked down. The rest of the people threw down their weapons and fled frantically and retreated, and Ji Ling and Liang Gang each spent a lot of energy to restrain them.

But the scolders did not dare to step forward again, and finally could only shout from a distance of absolute safety.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a loudspeaker, so they couldn't hear it in the city.

After scolding for a while to no avail, Ji Ling Lianggang had no choice but to collect his troops and return to the camp, saying that he would be more fully prepared tomorrow, hurry up to make some improvised siege weapons such as flying ladders, and build more big shields and wooden barriers.

And after returning to the camp, Ji Ling was shocked to find that the encounter between them and the two shouters was quite good.

Le who went to the south gate to fight was even worse than them, Le even lost his helmet, and the soldiers were killed and wounded.

Ji Ling was shocked and asked why, and Le explained in tears: "I was in a formation of 200 steps outside the city, and Liu Beijun dared to open the door, I thought that I could answer with the enemy general."

Who knew that after the enemy army only went out of the city with more than 200 horsemen, he dared to suddenly attack and charge at us, and Guan Yu was also mixed in. I was caught off guard for a while, and was killed by Guan Yu dozens of people in a row, and the formation was in chaos, so I had to order a retreat. ”

"Rubbish! Cowardly battle, drag this guy out, military law is engaged! ”

Ji Ling was furious when he heard this, a thousand horses were chased and cut by Guan Yu's two hundred horses, and he didn't even dare to fight and fled directly, how could this kind of iron waste have the face to come back alive?

Hearing this, Le immediately knelt down and begged for mercy, and Liang Gang next to him also helped to say good things:

"General! The big war is coming, and it is not good to kill the generals! Give General Le a chance to atone for his crimes!

Today, it is true that our army is not well prepared, and it is said that it is only going to fight, and the soldiers must have no intention of fighting, who would have expected that the enemy army would dare to counterattack? ”

Ji Ling listened to the persuasion, and only then did he restrain some of his anger, and he had to admit that it did make some sense.

Because when they hurriedly ordered troops out of the camp just now, they were indeed too rushed, and they also explained the purpose of this trip to the soldiers, so that everyone did not have to worry.

If not, it would have been necessary to prepare for half an hour, such as to feed the soldiers and take more heavy shields to cover their whole bodies before setting off.

In the end, the coach is also responsible for rushing too quickly.

Ji Ling had no choice but to order to step up the preparation of siege weapons, in order to spread bad news to the enemy army tomorrow.

It was called a grievance in his heart: it was obvious that Liu Bei's side had suffered a major disadvantage, why did he need to pay such a big price to remind Liu Bei of the synchronization information? Is there any reason for this?

……

By the time Ji Ling completely gave up the day's struggle, it was already afternoon.

In Huaiyin City, Zhuge Jin, who slept in the early morning, slept until this point, and finally got up, washed and dressed, and had breakfast and lunch.

Then when he had nothing to do, he asked Fan Jiang Zhang Da, who was sent by Liu Bei to protect him, to lead the way and go to the treasury to go around.

Just before leaving, let's see if there is anything to check and fill in the gaps, and by the way, remind you to sell more personal favors.

Fan Jiang and Zhang Da escaped from Xiapi with Zhang Fei, and like Shiren who guarded the north gate last night, he belongs to the object that needs to be quarantined. Liu Bei sent them to protect Zhuge Jin.

Along the way, they all wore hats, and they kept them low, lest they be recognized by the robes passing by on the street.

When Zhuge Jin arrived at the treasury, Liu Bei was really there. As soon as he saw Zhuge Jin, he comfortably pulled him to the side and reported in a low voice:

"What Mr. expected was not bad, Ji Ling must have known that something was wrong with Xiapi. Just now, the three gates all sent people to fight and scold the formation, most of which were intended to deliberately spread and shake the hearts of our army.

Fortunately, our army retreated from the enemy with an ambush crossbow, and Yunchang of the South Gate also took advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to open the door to cover the killing, using the 200 dead soldiers who knew the inside of Xiapi, and won a lot. Ji Ling suffered this setback, and he must stop for a day or two.

And my side has already arranged for the sand to be measured, and the soldiers in charge of digging the sand will finish digging and quarantining before dawn. At present, these sergeants who are counting points are all ignorant of the inside story, and by tomorrow at the latest, our army will definitely know that the military rations are sufficient, and even if Ji Ling comes to spread the news again, he is sure to denounce it as a false report. ”

When Zhuge Jin heard this, he was slightly comforted in his heart, and he also had a full understanding of Liu Bei's basic skills in commanding troops.

It seems that Liu Bei's commanding talent is still not weak, and his daily basic operations are quite solid, but he lacks the ability to scheming and adapt to major mutations.

And after hearing about Ji Ling's face, Zhuge Jin was also temporarily inspired, and gave Liu Bei a piece of advice half-sold and half-sent:

"If I use the army and am as eager to spread rumors as Ji Ling without success, then I will definitely carve more wooden slabs and throw them into the Huai River and Hangou, so that the water will rush the news of the fall of Xiapi to the water gate in the east of the city. If there were soldiers who drew water from the canal, they might see ......"

Huaiyin County is mostly facing rivers and has an extremely rich water system.

Zhuge Jin has more than 2,000 years of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign knowledge, and he has never seen any conspiracies and tricks, of course, it is easy to think of throwing drifting bottles into the water connecting the moat and hitting the enemy's morale.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang destroyed the Mingxia regime in Sichuan, Fu Youde on the North Road had already smuggled into Yinping to take Chengdu, but Dai Shou, the prime minister of the Ming Xia on the East Road, was still fighting to the death in Chongqing, and Fu Youde threw a large number of wooden signs that read "Chengdu has fallen" into the Minjiang River.

In the end, it drifted thousands of miles down the river to Qutang Gorge and was salvaged, which led to the collapse of the morale of the Xia army who was defending the Three Gorges on the east road, and Tang He, who was responsible for the waterway attack on the White Emperor City, was greatly boosted and broke through the Qutang Gorge in one fell swoop.

When Liu Bei heard about this policy, he was quite happy just now, and he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat slightly, and chanted one after another: "I immediately issued an order to prohibit drawing water from the water gate!" And be sure to strictly investigate and prohibit soldiers from salvaging foreign objects in the moat! ”

While saying, Liu Bei also secretly called it a fluke: Fortunately, Ziyu is on our side, if it is from the enemy's side, it is unimaginable......

It is estimated that most of this hand was prepared in vain, and with Ji Ling's brain, he should not be able to think of such a detailed poisonous move.

But there is nothing wrong with being careful, and it doesn't cost anything to prohibit soldiers from fishing anyway.

After Liu Bei pinched the cold sweat, he naturally looked more and more highly at Zhuge Jin, and asked him a lot of details and measures.

Zhuge Jin can also be regarded as having to answer all questions, seeing the moves, according to Ji Ling's latest movements, he has made a point like this, and Liu Bei thinks so.