On the way to withdraw his troops, Ying Zheng began to discuss attacking Wei with Wang Jian and Yang Duanhe.
Ying Zheng's first consideration was Wei's foreign aid, which was also the most important point in the battle of wits and courage with the Six Kingdoms over the years... Although the Six Kingdoms continued to fight among themselves, when one country was about to perish, other countries would often come to its aid.
"The Yan State has no food and grass and cannot send reinforcements."
"Dai Guo is nothing to worry about."
"The State of Qi will not even send troops to join forces invited by the State of Yan, let alone the State of Wei."
"It's just that this Chu country..."
Wang Jian replied:
"The alliance between Chu and Yan is just a show."
"And the internal situation is not stable, and my subordinates think that Chu will not aid Wei."
Ying Zheng frowned and shook his head:
"I'm afraid not necessarily."
"When the Yan State invited me, the Chu State was far away from the Zhao State, and the three counties had no close contact with the Chu State."
"But this is not the case with the State of Wei. The State of Wei is adjacent to Chu, so protecting Wei means protecting Chu."
"What's more, the Chu State has a vast territory and many soldiers and generals. The King of Chu is not as stupid as King Xi of Yan..."
After some analysis, Wang Jian was convinced, cupping his fists and saying:
"What the king said is true. Daliang, the capital of Wei State, is only a few dozen miles away from the Wei-Chu border."
"If Chu soldiers come to help, our army will be attacked from both sides."
Yang Duanhe added:
"Moreover, the Daliang city wall is thick and densely surrounded by water networks. It is not easy to attack the city."
This is a characteristic of Daliang, the capital of Wei State.
The Wei State has been strengthening the city wall since it moved its capital to Daliang City in the sixth year of King Hui of Liang Dynasty. It has been more than a hundred years.
Now this city wall is considered a world-famous fortified city. In history, Qin and Qi attacked Daliang City several times, but they all returned without success because they could not break the city.
The thick walls of the city were only one of the reasons. What was more important was that the Wei State had been digging canals in the Daliang area to divert water from the Yellow River for irrigation.
These canals and ditches fan out around the girders, dividing the open ground into small pieces.
This causes a lot of inconvenience to the attacking side.
The Wei army even counterattacked from the city from time to time and combined the city and water network to defend, leaving the enemy helpless.
Wang Jian said to Yang Duanhe:
"I'm not too worried about attacking the city. Don't you have an engineer named Shen Bing next to you?"
Yang Duanhe quickly replied:
"General."
"Shen Bing has been promoted to a stingy man!"
Wang Jian nodded and said:
"So good."
"It is said that he recently built another one called... a pontoon bridge?"
Yang Duanhe replied:
"What the general said is true."
"This pontoon is made of logs, so it floats on the water like a raft."
"It only takes a few hours to build a bridge for soldiers to cross."
Wang Jian nodded and said:
"That's it."
"In the past, our army's inability to capture Daliang was mostly due to the water network."
"Now why don't we use pontoons to conquer the water network and trebuchets to attack the city walls?"
"You know, under Shen Bing's trebuchet, even the fortified city of Handan can be easily defeated. How many days can Daliang resist?"
Yang Duanhe thought for a while, then nodded and said:
"What the general said is true, this method may be feasible."
Ying Zheng nodded and said:
"Then it's done."
"If our army can build a pontoon bridge to capture the water network, the water network can be used by me."
"In this case, even if the Chu army comes to help, we will be blocked by the water network and there is nothing we can do."
Then he laughed again and said:
"Looking back, it was Shen Bing who destroyed Daliang City..."
"I don't know where this Shen Bing got all his ideas."
"Waterwheels, rollovers, trebuchets... and now there are pontoons."
"It's really breathtaking."
"You two must keep an eye on Shen Bing and not let him make any mistakes."
"Otherwise our Great Qin will lose one of its blessed generals!"
Wang and Yang quickly nodded in agreement.
Yang Duanhe was secretly alarmed, he couldn't send Shen Bing to any dangerous place from now on, otherwise the king would blame him...
Therefore, when Shen Bing and his party returned to Handan, they received an order to build a pontoon bridge before they had even taken a breath.
Shen Bing didn't know the significance of learning to make pontoons in large quantities. He only knew that he just followed the orders given by his superiors.
To be precise, he did not make pontoon bridges, but taught the methods of making pontoon bridges to other craftsmen and soldiers.
To be more precise, it is not about teaching pontoons but training.
Because the pontoon is relatively simple to make, the trouble lies in quickly splicing it together.
If there is any trouble in the production, it is that the rafts tend to be uneven in height and tilted.
I encountered a similar problem when I crossed the river last time.
However, the river was not in a hurry that time and there were urgent repairs. In the end, a pontoon bridge was built that would not affect crossing the river.
Thinking back to Shen Bing at this time, he felt a little scared.
If the troops were unable to cross the river smoothly due to these problems, I might not be able to save my head.
However, these two problems are easily solved.
Shen Bing said to Fatty Tun and Cang while drawing pictures on the sheepskin:
“If you find that the part of some rafts above the water is too high, don’t think that you can lower the height by removing some of the parts that are higher than the surface!”
Cang and Fatty Tun both nodded in agreement.
Many of them made this mistake last time.
Shen Bing continued:
"Instead, we should add weight to the higher parts."
"Of course the weight has to be on the edges and not in the middle."
This is actually a question of balance between buoyancy and gravity.
Fatzitun and Cang don't need to understand it so deeply, they just need to know how to operate it.
Seeing that the two of them had no objection, Shen Bing continued:
“What’s more difficult is the balance issue!”
This is the most important thing, because if the wooden talisman itself is unbalanced, such as one side is high and the other is low, its resistance to waves and sinking will be very poor.
If the plank is forced to be raised, the raft may begin to roll in the water and the pontoon may overturn.
It's not easy to solve either.
It is indeed possible to add counterweight.
But the question is how much counterweight to add?
Where should the counterweight be added?
This all requires calculation and is not simple to calculate or operate.
Not only is it time consuming, but it is also prone to accidents.
Shen Bing knows that everything on the battlefield should be simple and easy to do. Once it becomes complicated, things can easily go wrong in a tense environment.
So Shen Bing thought of a practical method:
"Unify the raft into a long shape."
"The wood is staggered end to end and stacked on top of each other."
The imbalance of the raft is mainly caused by the uneven buoyancy at the two ends caused by the wood being thicker at one end and thinner at the other.
If the heads and tails are staggered and interchanged, the weights can be offset to a certain extent, making the whole more balanced.
Even if the imbalance remains in the end, it will not be too large and it will be easier to adjust.
Fatzitun and Cang wrote them down one by one and followed Shen Bing's instructions. As expected, the situation was much better than before.
It doesn't matter to Cang, he just needs to know the method and is satisfied.
But Fatty Tun was a man who wanted to know the principle. He stared at the raft by the river and made calculations, scratching his head and scratching his head but still not able to figure out what was going on.