The situation after that was indeed as Yang Duanhe said, there were no Wei soldiers blocking the way, and there were abandoned cities and villages everywhere.
In fact, let alone the road, when the Qin army arrived at Daliang City on the ninth day, they found that even the small fort outside the city was undefended.
These small forts were strongholds built by the Wei army outside the city that echoed those of Daliang City. Most of them were built on high places where they could be defended from a high position, and they were also close to rivers, so they could easily receive support from the Wei navy and infantry.
The Wei army even surrendered these dangerous small forts, which was incredible to the Qin army who took over it.
However, the Qin army was certainly not polite. They divided into several parts and spread out in several directions to seize the commanding heights and key points outside the city and surrounded Daliang City.
Among them, there is a place called Guangwu Mountain to the north of Daliang.
Guangwu Mountain is divided into two small hills on the left and right, with a mountain stream more than a hundred steps wide in the middle called Guangwu Stream.
The water of the Yellow River opens an estuary from here and flows into the Bianhe River surrounding Daliang City through the natural Guangwu Stream.
Like other places, there is also a small fort built in Guangwu Mountain:
There is a small fort built on the east and west hills respectively, which can accommodate more than fifty people. There are also several trebuchets in the fort.
This is a dangerous place that cannot be opened by one man. The small forts on the hill can reinforce each other with crossbows and trebuchets:
If the Qin army attacks the east fort, the Wei soldiers in the west fort can attack its flanks and rear with crossbows and trebuchets.
On the contrary, the same is true when the Qin army attacks Xibao.
At the same time, this place is only more than thirty miles away from Daliang City, which means that Wei's reinforcements can arrive in half a day, and the navy can even arrive in an hour.
You must know that the Qin army planned to attack Daliang by water.
If the Wei army insists on guarding this water inlet and sends out a steady stream of reinforcements, the Qin army's strategy may be aborted before it even begins.
But the Wei soldiers still retreated completely, leaving only a pile of burned-out buildings and trebuchets.
The structure of the small castle is quite complete and has not been damaged at all.
Shen Bing guessed that the Wei army thought that the Qin army would return without success soon, so they were reluctant to destroy the small fort and only waited for the Qin army to retreat before coming back to take over.
It's a pity that these Wei soldiers didn't understand what was going on. The castles they abandoned would never be returned to their hands.
Shen Bing's engineering unit was divided into two groups and temporarily stationed in these two small forts.
Zheng Guo then arrived with his team of water workers... Their task was to explore the hydrology of the estuary.
Then Yang Duanhe and his guards also camped nearby.
There is no other reason. This Guangwu Stream is the first section of the water attack, which is the interface between the Bianhe River and the Yellow River. It is related to whether the water can be strong enough to destroy Daliang City.
Shen Bing was assigned as Zheng Guo's assistant to follow the exploration, but Shen Bing didn't know much about hydrology. He only watched Zheng Guo and his party take a small boat there to measure the flow rate and water depth, and from time to time he would dive into the water to measure silt and the like.
After half a day, Zheng Guo had an idea in mind, and several people gathered in Yang Duanhe's handsome tent to discuss.
"How?" Yang Duanhe asked: "Is water attack feasible?"
Zheng Guo replied:
"As expected, the river mouth is seriously silted up. If we want to attack the river by water, we must first dig out the mud and remove the silt."
Yang Duanhe replied:
"It won't be too late. The plumbers can just give the order and we will start dredging immediately."
Zheng Guo hesitated for a moment and then said:
"I'm afraid it's not as simple as the general thinks."
Yang Duan and Qidao:
"Why?"
Zheng Guo spread a hydrographic map in front of him and said:
"General, please look at this. I'm going to divide the silt removal process into three sections."
"The first section is Guangwu Stream. We will widen the mouth of the stream and remove the silt from the river bottom, so that the water volume will be sufficient and the water will be strong."
The Guangwu Jianjiankou was deliberately blocked with rocks by the Wei people. This was not to prevent the Qin army's water attack, but to control the water volume... When the Yellow River flooded, too much water flowed into the Bianhe River, so the Wei people used rocks to block the Jianjiankou to regulate it.
.
If the Qin army wants to attack by water at this time, the stronger the water force, the better, so these rocks must be cleared.
"The second is the middle section." Zheng Guo continued:
"All we need to do here is clear the silt from the river bottom."
"The most difficult part is the third part... This section of the river is close to Wei Jun's Daliang City. How can we clear the silt under the enemy's city?"
Yang Duanhe couldn't help frowning when he heard this and asked:
“Does this section of the river have to be dredged?”
Zheng Guo replied:
"Although I have no on-site survey, I can judge from the trend of the river and the degree of sedimentation on the river bottom..."
"If the silt in this section is not cleared, the river water may overflow before it rushes into the beam."
"At that time, the water attack on Daliang will only turn the large fields outside the city into a swamp, which will make it even more difficult to attack the city."
What Zheng Guo said was authoritative, so Yang Duanhe could not help but not believe it.
But as Zheng Guo said, dredging under the city wall?
How to desilt?
Never died?
A random row of arrows fired from the top of the city can cause heavy casualties to the Qin army dredging up the silt.
So there is this question:
If the third section, that is, the section under Daliang City, cannot be cleared, is it necessary to clear the other sections?
If the other sections are cleared, but the third section is still unable to attack Daliang City by water, wouldn't it be a wasted effort?
After a moment of silence, Yang Duanhe said:
"Perhaps we can take advantage of the night to clear out the mud."
But even Yang Duan and himself felt unreliable when he said this.
That was the moat under the Wei army's city. Even if the Qin army didn't light the torches, the Wei army would just throw down a few torches, and then there would be a hail of arrows... How many Qin soldiers would be killed or injured in order to clear this section of mud?
This is only one of the difficulties.
Then Zheng Guo told another piece of bad news:
"I may only have more than ten days to wait!"
"If we can't do it in these ten days, I'm afraid we will have to wait until next spring."
Yang Duanhe asked puzzledly:
"Why is this?"
Zheng Guo pointed to the hydrograph and explained:
"The upper reaches of the Yellow River are located in the north, and the weather in the north is cold, so it will freeze."
"If the upper reaches freeze, the water volume of the river will decrease sharply. Then..."
Shen Bing knows something about this. There is a very strange phenomenon in the Yellow River called "Ling Flood".
"Ling flood" occurs on rivers flowing from south to north.
After winter, the northern section of the river will freeze and freeze, and the southern section of the river will continue to flow downward and be blocked, causing flooding.
This is also the reason why the Yellow River floods at every turn. Flooding is possible all year round, and the time is not certain. For example, the flood season in winter is related to temperature and cold currents.
The reason why the Yellow River is said to be "peculiar" is because its river course is in the shape of a "ji".
So there are two sections where the freezing flood phenomenon will occur.
One section is at the head of the word "ji", and the frozen location is in the Hetao Plain, which is the northern land settled by Li Mu of the original Zhao Kingdom.
The other section will be frozen at the hook at the end of the word "Jin", which is located in the Jinkou area of Yan State.
The Northland froze earlier, so there was less water in the middle and lower reaches during this period.
Only when temperatures rise in the north next spring and the ice and snow melt, will the amount of water increase again.
So Zheng Guo said that if it can't be completed within more than ten days, I'm afraid we have to wait until next spring.