The latest problem Zhuge Liang had for Cao Cao was roughly like this:

Cao Cao ordered Cao Ren in Huainan to draw some troops along the Huai River, and the Ru River went upstream to assist in the protection of the next day after Shangcai in Runan.

It was May 18th. Calculate the time, Cao Cao's messenger should have not arrived in Shouchun yet. Even if he was too quick to hurry up, it would take at least two days on the way.

But it was early this morning that Cao's scouts crossed the Rushui on both sides of the upstream and downstream of the defense line and tried to enter the Liubei defense zone and sent a team of scouts who secretly crossed the river from the downstream to investigate, actually caught a Han army messenger in the enemy-occupied area (Liubei defense zone).

The scouts of Cao's army naturally did not dare to neglect them, so they immediately brought the messenger back, and after Guo Jia read it, they submitted it to Cao Cao.

Guo Jia seemed to have predicted the authenticity of the letters of the Han army messenger in advance, and felt that the possibility of fraud was extremely high, so he also reminded him when submitting it:

"Prime Minister, here is a private message from Zhuge Liang to the fake Prime Minister Li Su. After being questioned, it is said that he was going to go south to Yiyang Road west of Rushui, crossing the Dabie Mountains to the north of Jiangxi to contact Li Su.

My subordinates thought there were too many coincidences and something strange, but this matter was very important and did not dare to conceal it, so they had to ask the Prime Minister to decide on it themselves."

Because the Cao army scouts captured the information source in the early morning, Cao Cao had just finished washing when he was sent to Cao Cao. He was combing his hair while waiting for breakfast under the service of his nearby servants, and his mind was not very clear.

It is said that the elderly should go to bed early and get up early, but Cao Cao, who is 47 years old, has suffered from insomnia recently and often can sleep in the middle of the night, so he gets up late.

After listening to the cause and effect of Guo Jia's report, Cao Cao subconsciously took the seized letter and glanced at it. In fact, he didn't read the content, so he predicted that this information must be Zhuge Liang's trick! It was a false information leaked to him on purpose!

This behavior is so weird. After all, how could it be so coincidental?

If your soldiers caught the messenger in a certain enemy messenger in their defense zone, it would be more credible.

If your scouts went to the other side's defense zone to investigate, they could catch the enemy's messenger. Isn't that the enemy deliberately leaked it for nothing? It must be that the Han army discovered the team of Cao's scouts, and then sent a dead messenger to deliver the message and hit the gun directly.

As for the messenger's route that Guo Jia asked about, there was no flaw.

Because now walking south along the Rushui River, although we still have to pass through some areas of Cao Cao in Runan County, due to the shrinking strength of Cao's army, the part west of the Rushui River in Runan County has actually basically given up, just a broken sieve.

After crossing Dabie Mountain from Yiyang, you can indeed reach the Lisu Defense Zone in Jiangbei. The Dabie Mountains have now been occupied by the mountain soldiers of Shamoke and Wang Ping before.

But this is not surprising. If even this basic skill has flaws, Zhuge Liang's counter-essay would be too clumsy, which would mean that he didn't even make a draft before lying.

But who made Cao Cao suspicious? Even though he knew that 99% of it was fake information, he still had to read and listen to the details.

As a result, when he looked closely, he called him a good guy.

This letter was said to be written by Zhuge Liang by Li Su, and the content is roughly as follows:

"Your Majesty originally agreed with his mentor that in mid-May, his mentor would lead the troops stationed in Jiangdong to attack Huainan in the north, and let the students (Zhuge Liang) go to the mentor to join the army and follow the military plan.

But because the war progresses on Your Majesty's side is slower than expected, but there are new opportunities to grasp, and the counselor of a wise man is urgently needed, so the students have to postpone their trip to Danyang..."

However, Zhuge Liang later boasted in the letter, saying that his mentor is the best in the world, and even if there are no students doing chores, he will definitely win. Therefore, the students will sue for the time being and offer a wonderful strategy:

"I heard that the Cao thieves had already fallen into our army's suspicion of military plans and dispatched troops from all over the country to reinforce the front line of Yuzhou. When they advanced and retreated, they were unable to defend themselves. The Cao army from all over Yan, Xu, and Qing did not dare to move lightly because of the harassment of General Taishi, General Mi Fujun, and Captain Tian Chou.

He had to drink poison to quench his thirst and call on Jizhou and Huainan troops to aid Henan. The mentor could take advantage of the suspicion of Cao's thieves and secretly sent people to contact Sun Quan of Hefei and Zhu Zhi of Wan County, and hoped to abandon the secret and turn to the light, and anyway, he was exempted from punishment.

In this way, if Cao Ren's direct troops were weakened due to the transfer of Cao's bandits, Cao's army's defense in Huainan would have to rely more on the tens of thousands of Jiangbei soldiers who had surrendered to Cao by Sun Quan. At that time, if Sun Quan was attacking inside and outside, Cao Ren could be defeated in an instant, and Huainan could be pacified for tens of months."

After reading it, Cao Cao was so angry that he slapped the table and yelled: "Counter-espionage plan! Zhuge Liang's shameless counter-espionage plan! Sun Quan surrendered to his own son for nearly three years, and lost money to pay for money, and was dispatched with him, so he did not take over military power.

And he was very affectionate with Juer, and he only studied with Pier or Zhier every day. Sun Quan was only sixteen or seventeen years old when he surrendered, and now he is just about to win the championship.

His deceased brother Sun Ce was brave and ruthless, and he could not tell at all about this. He was smart and clever and looked at him as a parent-child. How could he betray the orphan just because Li Su said a few words! It was impossible! It was absolutely impossible!

This is Zhuge Liang and Li Su who wanted Gu to be suspicious and let everyone in the old subordinates of the Sun family surrendered in Huainan be in danger. Or Zhuge Liang predicted that Gu would draw reinforcements from Huainan instead of Jizhou to assist in the defense of Yuzhou, but Zhuge Liang did not want Gu to do so.

Just because he set up a suspicion array to scare Gu, he was afraid that Sun Quan would be unstable, so he did not dare to smoke more soldiers and horses to assist in defense. Then he had to draw the troops from Miaocai in Hebei. It seemed that Liu Bei's next main attack was not in Huainan, but in Jizhou!

A few days ago, they deliberately let Tian Chou act and defeated Yu Lu Xun, and our army seized a batch of sand ships, which made our army know that Guan Yu lacked large ships, and wanted to pretend that they were temporarily unable to attack Jizhou!

Today's scam is to make us feel that they are going to attack Huainan! I just missed the plan of Li Su and Zhuge Liang!

They were afraid that if they were alone, they would not draw the Hebei Army, so they would not draw the Hebei Army! They hoped that if they would not dare to draw the Huainan Army, they would dare to draw the Huainan Army!"

As Cao Cao spoke, Guo Jia, who was listening to his arguments next to him, felt that his lord's thoughts were a bit too much and too suspicious.

But after careful consideration, it seems that this is true.

Guo Jia thought carefully for a long time before congratulating in admiration: "The Prime Minister's clever calculations are out of reach! Li Su, Zhuge Liang repeatedly deceiving the truth, but was still seen through by the Prime Minister's keen eyes!

However, my subordinates thought that since Zhuge Liang and Li Su had these ideas to use tricks, they could not be completely unaware that they would turn the weak into the real one... After all, Liu Bei's military strength is far better than me, so they could turn any feint attack into the main attack."

Cao Cao touched his beard and nodded with a rare smile: "Of course I thought of this. Didn't I temporarily set a national policy for the army to change defenses in another place? Yuan Shao's old subordinates were not allowed to garrison in Hebei, so as not to have resentment and people were unstable during the war.

Now it seems that this method can also be used to treat Sun Quan. Sun Quan was too respectful before, but Gu was completely unaware of him. Now, as the original plan, Zixiao sent tens of thousands of people from the Huainan Defense Zone to assist in the defense of Rushui underwater battlefield.

But the composition of these tens of thousands of people is considered. Today, Gu sent someone to add a military order to make Zixiao transfer troops as much as possible in the name of Sun Quan, and asked Zhu Zhi, Zhu Ran, Lu Fan and others to go north with the army.

The Sun family's Huai Si soldiers were transferred to Runan, and they could not be stationed in Huainan and Lujiang on the spot. Zhuge Liang, Zhuge Liang, if he knew that his clumsy counter-espionage plan would not only have no deception, but would remind the Gu to make a more stable arrangement. I wonder what he would feel?"

As Cao Cao spoke, he felt very happy and smiled inexplicably.

All deployments are arranged step by step according to his latest ideas.

...

Almost as Cao Cao finally made a decision, on the siege battlefield in front of Yancheng, with the preparations in the past few days, all the siege weapons had advanced and deployed, and Liu Bei's army also launched a comprehensive siege battle.

For a moment, arrows and stones flew over and under the city, and tens of thousands of soldiers attacked each other.

Liu Bei's army has practiced the tactic of digging traffic trenches and approaching the city walls several times, and deploying a large number of crossbowmen to approach the projectile, which has also been repeated.

Anyway, Zhuge Liang is not afraid of spending manpower. Nearly 200,000 troops are idle. When siege, most people have no work to do, so they just dig ditches. It is always good to reduce casualties.

At the same time, with all the high-level strategic deployments of the siege battle being properly coordinated, the rest is actually to fight time and attrition, and there is no room for strategy.

Zhuge Liang could even roughly deduce a plan and calculate that according to the current attack rhythm, Yancheng could be captured within one month. If Cao Cao still wanted to reduce the losses of the troops and could not withstand the pressure of transshipment and put Liu Bei's army in advance, it would be possible to end the siege in twenty days.

It is not because of how strong the city is, but because the city has a large number of defenders and strong troops, so it takes so long. If you don’t completely ruin the fortifications of the city walls, you can’t just go up and replace people’s lives, otherwise you can’t afford it.

After arranging all this, Zhuge Liang thought that the rest of the work was supervised by Lu Su, who was cautious by nature, would never go wrong. Ju Su had not left for the time being, so there was no need to worry at all.

According to his originally agreed time to join the army at his mentor Li Su, it has been delayed for more than ten days.

Zhuge Liang said goodbye to Liu Bei with peace of mind, and prepared to give a few words to the last sentence, and then go to another place to make better achievements.

Li Su's summer offensive in Huainan area has actually begun at this moment, but Li Su's IQ is also quite outstanding, so Zhuge Liang didn't have a big problem when he was not in charge of the staff at the first time, but it was not easy to slacke in work and be too late for too long.

Liu Bei also felt that he could only build a tough village and fight a stupid war. Zhuge Liang had all arranged technical issues, so he was very pleased to let Zhuge Liang be transferred.

However, before leaving, he asked him to drink a few glasses of wine and practice it, and listen to some opinions, just treat it as if nothing is left and encouragement.

While the king and his ministers were drinking, Liu Bei took the initiative to ask: "After the nephew leaves, if the army breaks through Yancheng, how should we choose the next direction of the attack?"

Zhuge Liang did not answer immediately, but took out the map carefully and showed it to Liu Bei. Obviously, during these last days, Zhuge Liang was studying the geographical advantage every day.

He pointed to the terrain of Yancheng (Luohe) to Ruyang (Zhoukou), and said to Liu Bei:

"Your Majesty, I think that since the main task of our army in Yuzhou is to restrain the main force of the Cao army, rather than relying on direct expansion of the territory, the expected attack and attack tasks this year will be mainly driven by the two wings of Hebei and Huainan, so it should be implemented to the end.

Cao Cao would definitely think that after our army broke through Yancheng, we would either go upstream to threaten Yingyin and Xuchang or go downstream to threaten Shangcai and take Runan all. Therefore, we had to divide our troops to defend.

Once our army has chosen a main attack direction, the main force of Cao's army can correspond to the mobility, focusing on blocking the new direction our army wants to attack, while the other route only leaves the necessary forces that threaten our army's Rushui Grain Road.

Therefore, for Your Majesty, the way to attack without choosing any path is to restrain Cao Cao’s main forces the most! Our army neither goes upstream to attack Yingyin Xuchang, nor goes downstream to attack Shangcai Quan and take Runan! Just stay in Yancheng!"

Liu Bei was stunned: "What should I do when I stay in Yancheng?"

Zhuge Liang pointed to the land from Yancheng to Ruyang on the map, dipped in wine and drew a line, and said:

"Since I was in charge of the Nanyang Canal several years ago, I have been studying the geography of Yuzhou for many years, and have sent me to survey the terrain to search for business travelers and exiled northern soldiers who are familiar with Yuzhou.

As far as I know, the easiest point between the Ru River and Yingchuan is the easiest point to dig up recently is the city from Yicheng to Ruyang. Ruyang is called Ruyang, but it is not based on Rushui, but it is in the southwest of Yingchuan and northeast of Rushui.

From Yancheng to Ruyang, it is only more than ninety miles away, and it has left the Dabie Mountains. It is purely the Yuzhou Plain, with soft geology and easy digging of soil. It is also digging ninety miles, and the labor cost is less than 10% compared to the Bowang-Ye County Canal that the court has worked hard to build, and the time it takes is only 10% enough.

Before this river, Yingchuan wanted to communicate with the Rushui River and all had to flow south into the Huai River. The Rushui River went down more than 300 miles, went to Liaoxian and entered Huai River, then went down more than 100 miles along the Huai River, went to Yangquan County, and then passed through Ruyin. Xiang County went upstream to Yingchuan and went north, and could also turn into the Honggou.

It takes more than 800 miles of water to cross the river, and it also takes two counties in Runan and Chen County. If you dig up Yancheng and Ruyang now, you can save 700 miles of water channels, which is also a supporting facility for the Nanyang Canal before.

The imperial court had 200,000 troops stationed here, most of which were engineers, and more than half of them had two years of experience in assisting in digging rivers, and they were very familiar with this.

If our army leaves the river and takes Ruyang east, and then digs these 90 miles along the way, according to the construction management experience summarized over the years, the deployment and allocation are appropriate, and the planning and incentives are in order, and the construction can be completed in a maximum of three months.

The army was stationed here, and Cao Cao was not afraid to leave. He had to eat military rations even if he didn't fight. Since this was the case, at most the soldiers were allowed to spend more energy and eat more food every day to continue digging rivers as a training exercise.

If Cao Cao wanted to destroy it, he could not count on any geographical advantage. He had to take the initiative to send troops to attack our army's defense line. In this way, it would be Cao Cao's turn to expose more and more flaws.

Even if I am not here at that time, I believe that with Zijing's adaptability, the Cao army, who is easy to seek war, will suffer a little. At the same time, the Cao army still dares not retreat, so I can only waste our lives. Your Majesty restrains the main force of the Cao army and drags the most food-consuming confrontation to this battlefield that is most convenient for our army's canal to facilitate the performance of the canal. Isn't it beautiful?"

When Liu Bei heard this, he was shocked and incredible, but he couldn't help thinking seriously. He told him that this method was quite possible.

However... Zhuge Liang really got the essence of Li Su. He actually planned to tell Cao Cao that in the world, the largest stalemate battle between the two sides with a total strength of 500,000, he would dig a canal on the stalemate battlefield!

Then tell Cao Jun: Didn’t you predict that after reaching Yancheng, there were only two attack directions, either going north to flow against the Ru River or going south to flow down the Ru River?

No! Zhuge Liang will tell you that there is a third way, that is, go straight east, open a map editor out of thin air and open a river, directly connecting to Ruying.

And this is really not a slap in Zhuge Liang's head, it is indeed thoughtful and operational.

In fact, in history, just over twenty years later, around the sixth year of Huangchu (225) during the reign of Cao Pi, the Cao Wei regime built this canal from Yancheng (Luohe) to Ruyang (Zhoukou), and its name was "?Yaoluqu".

The traffic between Rushui and Yingchuan was shortened by 700 miles, and there was no need to surround the Huai River. In history, Cao Wei built this river to transport the defense military supplies in the Huainan War Zone. More than a year before the construction of the canal, Cao Ren had just taken the lead. Cao Xiu attacked Wu, but Cao Ren was defeated and died of illness in a terrible state.

In history, the Cao Wei regime could use technical means at that time to build a canal in less than a year. It was not too easy to dig the team of Zhuge Liang in three months. Zhuge Liang did not take this kind of digging on the soft alluvial plains seriously at all now, and the soldiers were idle.

Moreover, Cao Pi took some detours when digging this river in history, mainly because the generals of Wei State did not know how to measure the altitude, so he wanted to directly walk the shortest straight line between Rushui and Yingchuan at the beginning.

The shortest straight line is actually enough to dig sixty miles, and it can be thirty miles shorter than the route Zhuge Liang chose now. But the biggest problem after digging that line was found that between the two points, the water level in Yingchuan was several feet higher than that of Rushui. Once the water that was dug through Yingchuan would surging into the canal and then pour into the Rushui.
To be continued...