Chapter 1,158 Details determine success or failure
However, Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang nodded. Although some people were confused about this strategy, not many people questioned it.
If you follow the steps of the two military advisors, there will never be any low-level mistakes. This is what everyone thinks.
But for Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang still needs to explain.
On the way from Guangchang to Yixian, Zhuge Liang explained in detail the basis for his decision to separate from Pang Tong.
"I wonder if my lord has noticed the special feature of the sporadic resistance in those cities along the way from Guangchang?"
"What's... special? Kong Ming, are you saying that the defense forces are very tough?"
Zhuge Liang had something to say, but Liu Bei didn't understand it.
"This is just an appearance. My lord, maybe none of you have noticed. Except for Peng Ze, we have been attacking several cities in the past two days. There is another mystery in the arrows shot from the city."
"Oh? What do you mean by Kong Ming?"
Pang Tong followed the army and was not with Liu Bei. At this moment, those gathered around Liu Bei were Liu Feng, Chen Dao, Zhao Yun, Wei Yan and others.
After hearing Zhuge Liang's words, everyone became interested and couldn't help but move closer.
Zhuge Liang smiled slightly and pointed at the guard beside him. The guard understood Zhuge Liang's intention and took out a bag of "miscellaneous items" from the luggage on the horse.
"What's this?"
Seeing this scene, Liu Bei naturally asked questions.
However, Zhuge Liang raised his hand for a moment and was able to get through. He raised the cloth bag in front of his eyes and slowly opened it.
However, to everyone's surprise, what emerged from the cloth bag was an extremely ordinary arrow.
This naturally caught the crowd of spectators a little off guard.
"Commander, is there something wrong with this arrow?"
Wei Yan on the side was a little confused, so he naturally stepped forward and asked.
"Take a closer look."
But Zhuge Liang did not rush to explain, and just let everyone continue to observe.
Sure enough, many people gradually showed expressions of enlightenment.
Zhao Yun was the first to speak up and pointed out the strangeness:
"The shaft of this arrow... seems to be made of straw?"
"What?"
After Zhao Yun made his discovery, many people who were a little further away hurriedly came forward, raising their necks and stretching their heads to look.
And the shaft of the arrow, although extremely straight, does not seem to be much different from an ordinary feathered arrow in appearance, but its fine texture all shows the fact that the shaft is indeed made of straw.
Made of wood instead of general purpose wood.
So...what can this seemingly trivial fact mean?
Now that everyone has discovered the weirdness, Zhuge Liang finally begins to explain:
"Through the casualties reported during the siege in the past few days, I didn't find anything strange at first. However, when I was observing the siege on the battlefield, my attention was attracted by the tenacious resistance of the Jiangdong people."
"However, the question is, why are the people of Jiangdong resisting so firmly, but their behavior is not reflected in the actual casualties?"
"Ordinary soldiers don't have that kind of realistic acting skills. After ruling out the possibility that they were seeing the enemy as weak, I started working on other aspects of the battlefield, and sure enough, I discovered this problem."
"The reason why the other party failed to cause damage to our army is not entirely because of their own weak defenses, but because of their equipment -"
Zhuge Liang seemed quite confident, and his words inspired everyone.
Zhao Yun thoughtfully pointed to the arrow shaft in Zhuge Liang's hand and said:
"They don't want us to see that their equipment is rudimentary, so they can only work hard on arrow shafts? In fact, it is difficult for the people of Kodong to manufacture high-quality arrows in large quantities, right?"
"Zilong is right."
"That's why."
Zhuge Liang nodded, confirming Zhao Yun's guess.
"It's okay to have one city or two cities. Now that we have entered the new capital, the situation is still the same - the only possibility is that the other party wants to use this to hinder our progress as much as possible."
"I guess that Lu Xun and others should already know that we will abandon our alliance with Zhang Zhao and lead the army into Jiangdong..."
"But since they themselves are at the end of their strength, do you still remember what Zhang Zhao said? Lu Xun and the others have poured all their financial resources into this election, and naturally they are no longer able to maintain a sizable army."
"I'm afraid that at this time, they are trying their best to gather elite troops from all over the country and plan to build up a defense line as much as possible in Wuhui and Huizhou."
"Let the small town on the border be used as a cover-up to make us cautious and not dare to rush. In fact, it is just to try to delay time."
"Then the countermeasure will be clear."
Zhuge Liang shook his feather fan. Even though it was already autumn, he still kept fanning himself. It seemed that only in this way could he stay calm at all times.
"That's what I said we parted ways."
The person who answered the call was Pang Tong.
Now everyone understood why Pang Tong still insisted on dividing his troops into two groups even though the army was facing strong resistance.
It turns out it was all about rushing for time.
"Kong Ming, from this point alone, can we conclude that the other party is trying to delay us?"
"this…"
At this moment, Liu Bei raised a rare and valuable question.
Probably because he had visited Jiangdong not long ago and witnessed with his own eyes the fact that a good situation could be turned around in an instant, so Liu Bei had to be cautious.
It's not that he doubted Zhuge Liang's ability, but he felt that it was somewhat unsafe to deduce such facts from just one detail.
However, even this scene was anticipated by Zhuge Liang.
Hearing Liu Bei's question, Zhuge Liang was not angry, but immediately explained:
"Of course it's more than that."
He shook his fan, and the breeze blew on his face, causing some of his scattered hair to sway.
"There is another detail that most people in the military cannot imagine, but this detail is the real reason why I dare to draw a conclusion."
Hearing Zhuge Liang's explanation, everyone couldn't help but be a little surprised, and eagerly waited for Zhuge Liang to continue - but Zhuge Liang seemed to have suddenly become silent, and didn't know what to wait for, so he just silently followed the army.
Everyone thought Zhuge Liang was thinking, so they didn't dare to interrupt him.
But half an hour later, Wei Yan was impatient to wait. He scratched his head anxiously and had to get closer to Zhuge Liang and kept hinting to him:
"Ahem...strategist...so...what is the other detail you mentioned?"
"Wait a little longer, we'll be there soon."
Zhuge Liang said this, so there was no other way. Everyone could only calm down and wait for Zhuge Liang's so-called "opportunity" to appear.
