During the negotiation, the Zhuozhou Army said that they would immediately stop the trench expansion. After Huangfu Song returned to camp, climbed up the arrow tower, and observed for a long time, the Zhuozhou Army removed the civilians who were digging the trench as promised, and completely stopped the trench expansion.

behavior.

Huangfu Song couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, with a look of deep exhaustion on his face.

Huangfu Song must have thought that the Zhuozhou Army's suspension of strengthening the trenches was the result of negotiations between the two parties, and that the Zhuozhou Army had given up in exchange for thousands of crossbows.

But in fact, it has nothing to do with negotiation.

Everything is planned by Li Mengxi.

If the Zhuozhou Army really wanted to annihilate all the official troops, it would naturally have to desperately widen the trenches and raise the earthen barriers no matter what.

The wider the trench, the greater the Zhuozhou Army's advantage.

However, from the first day when the trenches were dug, the ultimate goal was just to force the army back.

Unless forced to do so, the Zhuozhou Army will not merge with the official army. Whether there is peace talks with the official army or not, the Zhuozhou Army will withdraw.

If Huangfu Song had guessed the intentions of the Zhuozhou army, there would be no need to be anxious. As long as he waited, Zhuozhou would retreat.

It's a pity that Huangfu Song didn't dare to sit back and watch the Zhuozhou army dig trenches day by day and wait.

In the Zhuozhou Army, the entire army ordered to stop digging trenches and rest.

At the same time, the army began to mobilize vehicles, as well as barrels, basins, clay pots and other water utensils, forming a large convoy to fetch water several miles away.

The matter involves an ambush that will be forty miles long after tomorrow, and there is still one unresolved problem, which is the problem of logistical supplies.

Since the ambush was forty miles ahead, it would be difficult for the soldiers in the ambush to return to camp to eat.

It would take at least two days for the officers and soldiers to escape, and it would take at least two days for the Zhuozhou Army to completely get rid of the officers and soldiers. The supply of supplies between these two days became a problem that had to be faced head-on.

After deliberation with Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, the supply method is to provide firewood, cooking utensils and food to the ambushing troops in the vanguard to make them self-determined.

Another method is to set up a special logistics supply team to provide unified supplies.

As for the former, asking the soldiers responsible for ambush and encirclement to bring cooking utensils and prepare the meals themselves, Li Mengxi felt that this method was prone to problems.

Suppose it is meal time, and all the soldiers who should be forming an encirclement have gone to eat.

At this time, the official and army troops arrived, and a large flaw in the encirclement was exposed.

Huangfusong saw the Zhuozhou army's tightly encircled formation, and suddenly there was a gap. When he looked again, a group of Zhuozhou soldiers threw their bowls in a panic and ran over, trying to fill the gap. How could Huangfusong not know that this was the perfect time?

time for counterattack.

Therefore, the officers and soldiers took advantage of the situation to counterattack, and all the arrangements made by the Zhuozhou Army were in vain because a group of soldiers were busy eating and forgetting about military affairs.

In view of this, Li Mengxi felt that it would be safer to have a dedicated supply team.

The problem lies here, ensuring the logistics of tens of thousands of troops and delivering porridge and meals to these tens of thousands of people is a huge workload.

With this in mind, Li Mengxi thought hard about how to simplify supplies to reduce logistical pressure.

What Li Mengxi thought of was to distribute compressed biscuits, and each of the sergeants who went to ambush would be given two days' worth of compressed biscuits. This would ensure normal food needs.

The soldiers carried compressed biscuits, and the logistics convoy was only responsible for providing necessary water to the soldiers ambushing ahead. The logistics was simplified in half, and the logistics pressure was much reduced.

Compressed biscuits are a good thing, but compressed biscuits are not available.

Li Mengxi thought of fried noodles again, this one is fine.

But it is also difficult to make fried noodles. Firstly, most of the food in the army is millet, whole wheat and the like, and there is very little flour. Secondly, there is no iron pot suitable for processing fried noodles.

The cooking utensils in the army are all clay pots and jars suitable for cooking. These are good for cooking, but not useful for frying flour.

Stuck again.

The final solution to the problem was provided by Liu Bei.

Liu Bei said a method, which is to add a little water to the millet and cook it into a thick cake, then divide the tachyon into several pieces, and each person can take a few pieces and a bag of linen cloth, and take them away.

As soon as he heard this method, Li Mengxi remembered it.

It is said that Fan Zhongyan came from a poor family when he was studying. The only food he had for each meal was to boil millet into thick porridge, divide it into pieces with tachyons, and eat one piece with each meal.

Fan Zhongyan's classmate sympathized with him and gave him many delicacies.

But a few days later, a classmate came to visit and saw that Fan Zhongyan had spoiled all the delicacies and did not eat them.

The classmate was very angry and asked why he didn't eat even though the food was spoiled.

Fan Zhongyan explained that it was not because he was not curious, but because he was afraid that if he ate delicious food, he would not be able to eat simple meals in the future. Only then did his classmates understand.

Let’s not talk about the reason for the moment, but the most inconspicuous part is boiling porridge and turning porridge into cakes. This is a method of food processing that is easy to eat and easy to carry.

Li Mengxi never imagined that he could use linen cloth to serve porridge and even save a bowl.

Now that the supply problem has been solved, the army can immediately cook porridge, add more grain, and make the porridge as thick as possible to make the porridge more resistant to hunger.

As a result, not long after the peace talks, the officers and soldiers discovered that smoke was rising from behind the Zhuozhou Army's lines.

It was still morning, far from noon.

When the officers and soldiers saw this abnormality, they quickly reported to Huangfu Song.

After Huangfusong thought carefully, he thought that the Zhuozhou army had prepared food early, probably to plan an attack or prepare to evacuate.

Huangfu Song's guess was completely wrong. The Zhuozhou army stepped up their efforts to prepare food, not to plan an attack or to break camp, but to ambush.

The government army and the Zhuozhou Army fell into a quiet confrontation again.

Huangfu Song was unknowingly captured by the Zhuozhou Army again.

Today, the trenches and earthen barriers of the Zhuozhou Army were completely exposed to the eyes of the officers and soldiers, directly driving Huangfu Song to death.

In a desperate situation, veteran general Huangfu Song originally wanted to wait until tonight to fight to the death to see if he could successfully break through.

Huangfu Song originally wanted to fight to the death, but the Zhuozhou Army was actually willing to negotiate peace and withdraw from the siege. This gave the officers and soldiers, whose morale had rebounded in a desperate situation, hope again and no longer wanted to fight to the death to break out of the siege.

During the siege, there is a tactic of surrounding three and missing one.

Now, encircling the officers and soldiers to death gave them hope, which also weakened the will of the officers and soldiers to fight. Even Huangfu Song's will to fight was also weakened. It was similar to the encirclement of Sanqueyi.

After Li Mengxi finished arranging things, he considered that he would have to mobilize troops and horses at night and set up an ambush at night. He couldn't sleep all night, so he simply went to bed and got up again at night.

He went to bed in broad daylight. Li Mengxi casually lay down on a cart and tossed and turned but couldn't fall asleep.

At the same time, Li Mengxi went to rest, but Liu Bei was still busy.

Logistics replenishment methods have been arranged. The soldiers brought porridge and cakes as food, and the supply team sent water. The porridge and water were enough to last for two days.

Liu Bei had his own ideas about how to arrange the supply team. What Liu Bei thought of was that since the ambush had to be preceded by the official army, the supply team had to be delivered before the official army. If the water was delivered only by people carrying it on their backs, it would be super difficult.

Don't go in front of the officers and soldiers.

Therefore, there is a need for a quick supply method - the quick supply method is the traveling caravan.

By adding a packhorse and a cart with half a load of water on the cart, supplies can be completed quickly at a speed that far exceeds the speed of infantry marching.

The traveling caravan's fast mobility and sufficient material carrying capacity can also be used for rapid supplies.

Sometimes, grain and grass need to be transported to a certain place as quickly as possible. In this case, the grain and grass carrying capacity does not need to be too large, but the transport speed must be fast enough.

The carrying capacity of the caravan's half-loaded carriage is less than that of the ox-cart, but it is much larger than the carrying capacity of people. More importantly, the speed is much faster than that of the ox-cart and manpower. The half-loaded carriage is the fastest way to supply supplies.

.

Liu Bei improved his skills and discovered the use of a rapid supply team on his own.
Chapter completed!