Liu Bei rectified the city of Liaotun and trained for about half a month until mid-May, and finally prepared for the battle.

As his troops expanded to 20,000, and he practiced and repaired weapons day and night, the consumption of money and food in Liu Bei's camp was also very amazing.

When Liu Bei had just bought the Wuhuan Captain and the Marquis of Liaodong, he had about 300 million to 400 million yuan in public funds. With this 10,000 new troops expanded, plus military farms and labor-for-relief, even if there were subsidies for horse sales, by mid-May, the remaining money had shrunk to 200 million yuan.

Two hundred million yuan is theoretically enough for a unit of 5,000 cavalry, 15,000 infantry, and about a year of military expenditure.

In other words, if taxes and military farm income in various parts of Liaodong are not considered, Liu Bei will be so poor that he will go bankrupt by raising troops in the middle of next year.

From this perspective, Liaodong is indeed easy to recruit strong and strong men and horses, but the population is too small and the resources are too poor. If the war is not used to support the war and self-discipline, the economic cycle will soon collapse.

This is an easy to calculate account. The population of 300,000 is converted into 150,000 full taxpayers, each person has 4 shi per year, and only 600,000 shi of military rations. Even if 100,000 of them are farmed, the exploitation ratio is a little higher, and the total annual income of the government is more than 1 million shi of grain.

It is definitely very hard to raise 20,000 full-time standing troops.

Unless all the soldiers are sent to cultivate military camps and spend most of their energy on farming and self-sufficiency, the professionalism and combat effectiveness of the troops will decline again, and it will not be the elite soldiers' route.

Liu Bei also knew that with the current financial situation, it was not a solution to prepare. And Zhang Chun must not be delayed until he received the autumn harvest of the Liaohe Plain this autumn, otherwise he would be too passive.

Therefore, the decisive battle must begin in the fifth world. We must strive to end the battle completely before August and do not delay the autumn harvest and tax collection.

...

On May 12th, the three intersection of the Liaohe River under the Liaotun City.

Liu Bei personally brought more than 10,000 troops and horses to form a formation between the rivers and challenged Zhang Chun's rebels first according to the rites.

However, this is just a gesture, because Zhang Chunjun refused to respond at all. They had just been defeated by the Han army a few months ago, and before Changli County was recovered by the Han army, they began to dig long trenches outside the Liao Tunnel City along the north bank of the Liao River, and piled up the soil dug out of the trenches to form a wall of earth behind the trenches.

A simple earth wall has been built for more than ten miles.

They all put on this posture, and of course they refused to fight Liu Bei head-on.

In fact, this move was similar to when Gongsun Yuan defended Sima Yi decades later, but it was not exactly the same. The core idea was to "cut off the attacking water routes and grain routes."

"What are these ten miles of trenches and earthen walls? This kind of earthen wall is built outside the city, and you can bypass it by just detour, right?" Liu Bei did not want to take risks with his own troops, so he did not directly attack tentatively. Instead, he first asked the advisers of the army, hoping to roughly guess the enemy's deployment without paying a price.

Lu Su, who was with the army, was well versed in the way of logistics supplies. After observing for a while, he took the lead in suggesting:

"The water level in the middle reaches of the Liao River is already shallow. After the fork here, the water level of each tributary suddenly became several hundred%. Mi Juncheng's dual-purpose sand ships cannot navigate the fork tributaries above the Liao Tunnel. Therefore, the military rations transported by sea are transported to the camp and stored.

In the future, if we attack Liao Tunnel and Xiangping, we will have to transport it to the front line by boat. The small boats collected on site in Liaodong counties are far less solid than Mi Family ships, and there are no ship towers. The cabins can cover arrows. The enemy built long trenches on the north bank and ambushed the crossbowmen behind the earthen walls, which is enough to suppress the river surface, so that I cannot detour and transport grain around here and directly attack the counties in the deep Liaohe Plain."

If you take a detour and steal your home directly, the troops will be able to get through but the food and grass will not get through.

In ancient times, the transportation of grain was not performed in many costume dramas. It mainly relies on ox carts and donkey carts - ox carts and donkey carts are equivalent to the "last mile" of ancient logistics. It is only when the distance from the dock comes out to the camp is relied on ox carts.

If you use a ox cart for hundreds of miles, it would be like a waste of modern express delivery companies giving up the highway truck and directly using the courier's electric donkey to drive hundreds of miles to deliver express delivery.

Otherwise, the strategic points of Cao and Sun would no longer be entangled in Shouchun, Ruxukou, and Hefei in previous battles. It is precisely because these points control the intersection of rivers in the Huai River system entering the Yangtze River system, so if you don’t fight, you will not be able to transport grain by water and continue to advance.

Liu Bei thought about the problem Lu Su saw, turned to Li Su and asked again: "Is there any solution to what Zi Jing is thinking about?"

Li Su didn't dare to be arrogant and thought about it seriously: "There are some ideas, but they are not guaranteed to work. I can only say it's a try. If the enemy doesn't fall into the trap, we won't lose much."

Liu Bei: "Let's talk about it."

Li Su: "The best strategy is to ask Zilong to lead thousands of cavalry, bring seven or eight days of dry food, and go up dozens of miles to the tributary east of the Liao River, pretending to cut off the connection between the enemy army in the Liao Tunnel and the enemy army in Xiangping.

It even created an attitude of "our army's main force gave up transporting grain by water and was willing to bear the loss of 200 miles of grain transported by ox carts by land, and rushed to Xiangping to attack the city', forcing the enemy in the Liao tunnel wall defense system to pursue us, thus forcing the enemy to fight in the field. The advantage of this strategy is that it can be tried at any time. If it fails, it will only let Zilong run away without any other losses."

When Liu Bei heard this, he immediately made a decision: "It's a good plan. Although the enemy may not be trapped, it's not much. Let Zilong prepare immediately and make a roundabout feint today."

Regardless of whether the enemy believes in it or not, Zhao Yun wants to steal the house, he will act first and then talk about it.

This is also the easiest thing to think of when dealing with the enemy's division of troops and garrisons in two places. It is to surround the site to attack the aid, pretend to threaten the important stronghold with weak troops and lure the strong troops to rescue.

Li Su's best strategy is actually a direct copy of Sima Yi's method of destroying Gongsun Yuan. If Zhang Chun's intelligence value is higher than Gongsun Yuan, then he will probably be fine.

"Let's talk about Zhongce again." After giving the order, Liu Bei turned around and continued to ask Li Su.

Li Su: "If the enemy is indifferent after the best strategy is completed, then he has to use his plan to really divide his troops to detour Xiangping, or even tentatively attack the city. The intensity of the attack is not important. The key is to ensure that the internal and external news from Xiangping and Liao Tunnel are cut off, so that the enemy troops in Liao Tunnel know that we are attacking Xiangping, but they don't know how fierce we attacked and how many people were invested.

In this way, in time, the enemy troops on the Liao Tunnel will definitely be unable to calm down. Even if they dare not give up on the Liao Tunnel and rescue Xiangping directly, they will at least wait for an opportunity to cross the river to the south bank and cut off the grain route for us to transport grain to the front line of Xiangping by land.

At this time, our army's ability to deceive and deploy is tested. As long as they can mistakenly think that the reserve force and grain team we stayed at the Liao Tunnel are insufficient, they will come out to rob the grain.

Compared with the best strategy, the success rate is higher. The disadvantage is that if it fails, such as if it can be performed, the rescue and grain transport team cannot defeat the enemy's grain robbery team, then our army will inevitably suffer losses and the food and grass will be burned or even robbed."

The best strategy is to have a low success rate, but if you fail, you will lose, which is equivalent to short betting.

The success rate of Zhongshou is high, and failure can also lead to losses.

The probability of the enemy coming to rob grain is relatively high - because Xiangping is equivalent to the Liaoyang city in later generations, the road from Liao Tunnel to Xiangping to transport grain by land is actually not large, and basically only leaves the Liao River for up to ten miles.

Because further southwest is the Anshan Mountains in later generations. In this era, the ox carts traveled to the mountains and swamps to transport grain, which was almost a death. The Han army could only travel along the Liaohe River Valley Plain, and the whole route was very narrow and long.

Liu Bei touched his beard: "What's the worst way?"

Li Su spread his hands: "The worst strategy... I can only divide my troops to cross the river, then go back and besiege the fortifications of the Liao Tunnel from the front and back directions. No matter what, this is a higher chance of winning than just crossing the river from the south bank and then attacking the treachery wall, so it is barely considered a strategy. After completely annihilation of the enemy troops in the Liao Tunnel, I will attack the thief Chao Xiangping."

After listening, Liu Bei sighed: "Boya's best strategy is good, and there is no conflict between them. You can try it one by one. The more you go, the more you make money, the more you won't succeed, you will be second to the next."

Li Su smiled but said nothing about this praise.

Maybe this is his habit of thinking beyond this era. He never made plans like other Han Dynasty strategists, but followed the "first arrangement from the strategy that would be the highest profit" and then retreated step by step just like the modern staff's combat plan.

"If the conditions are not met, what should I do next?"

This seems to be much more organized than other Han dynasties' strategists, and they always think about defeat before they are concerned about victory.

Unlike other strategists who came up with the upper, middle and lower ones, they chose one of them, and the other two were invalidated and it was impossible to use them one after another.

This is like the plan of Pang Tong and Guo Jia, who asked the lord to ask the lord to "Choose, there are three beauties here, one is more beautiful than the other, and one is more difficult to chase after. Which one do you choose to chase after?"

Li Su, on the other hand, "Children make choices first. Adults are lords. You should follow the most beautiful ones first. I have a way to keep the secrets and not let the ugly two know that you have ever chased the most beautiful ones. In this way, if the most beautiful ones cannot be chased, you can still chase the ugly ones, so that the ugly ones will not be jealous and turn aside."

After enjoying the service of a scumbag like Li Su, who wants all adults, can chase after all the shotgun skills. Who is still patient to make a choice for children?

...

Since Liu Bei decided to try it one by one, Zhao Yun had no choice but to work hard.

The day after the military negotiations, the main force of the army shook flags and shouted in the front of the Liao Tunnel Fortification as usual, pretending to attack hard, and even shot arrows to consume each other. Zhao Yun had already brought 3,000 out of the 5,000 cavalry, pretending to be a detour to steal the house, and intercepted and killed several groups of enemy envoys who were inquiring about military information.

Zhao Yun worked diligently and followed Li Su's plan for a few days. However, it seemed that Zhang Chun's intelligence value seemed to be higher than Gongsun Yuan in later generations. They did not believe that such a light army could steal the house, so they were unmoved. Both strongholds were shrank and could not be held out, and they were not worried that Zhao Yun would lose the house in another place.

Liu Bei was not discouraged. The best plan was to buy lottery tickets without any money. There was nothing to regret if he didn't win the lottery. Let's continue to win the plan.
Chapter completed!