In the west of Shangqi City, the Shu army is out of camp in an orderly manner, as calm as it does every day, getting up every morning, eating, leaving the camp, arraying, attacking the city, and then throwing away the mess in the next place, collecting the bones and returning to the camp.

Even though Zhang He was already a stone's throw away, they were still like this, and they couldn't see too much abnormality.

Five thousand foot soldiers lined up outside the west gate of Shangtai City, and they pushed their baggage carts to the front of the formation, unloaded their wheels, and used the huge carriages as cover. Between the two carriages, they are connected by iron chains and are connected as a whole, which can block the impact of the war horse.

Behind the baggage trucks were a series of crossbow trucks. These ballistae were covered with iron sheets on the outside and had two huge wheels on either side that looked like upside-down wheels. But Guo Huai knew that those were the runners used for winding. These repeaters had different ranges, ranging from 300 paces at a distance of 300 paces to 100 paces closer, at intervals, and the speed of their firing was astonishing. So far, Guo Huai has not figured out how they supply arrows, such a fast rate of fire, the number of arrows consumed is huge, if it is temporarily placed by people one by one, it is too late.

Behind the ballista were tall thunderbolts, each ten paces apart, and five soldiers were in charge. One gunner, two players, and two wheelmen, cooperate tacitly and methodically. Behind each thunderbolt cart were two carts transporting stone bullets, taking turns to supply stone bullets and clay pots filled with oil in a timely manner.

After so many days of attacking, what impressed Guo Huai the most was these ballista and thunderbolt cars, compared to the lethality of these two sharp weapons, the Shu Han army's landing in the city was obviously not interesting at all. Under the blow of stone bullets, after more than two months of attack, Shangtai City has been in tatters, and it seems that it can collapse at any time.

Tianshui Taishou Ma Zun looked at the Shu army in array, and his face couldn't help but twitch for a while. The daily battle of attacking and defending the city had made him tired and unable to sleep at night. The circles under the eyes are dark every day.

"Envoy, the reverse Shu is going to attack the city again." Ma Zun said weakly, I don't know if it was to remind Guo Huai. Or tell yourself about this daily event.

Guo Huai put his hands behind his back and shook his head: "No." They will not attack the city today. ”

Ma Zun was stunned for a moment: "You won't attack the city?" He thought about it, became happy again, and clapped his hands vigorously: "That's right." General Zhang has already arrived at Xianqin, and they are leaving. But ......," he pointed out of the city, his mouth open. I feel a little puzzled, where the Shu army wants to retreat, they clearly still want to attack the city.

"They're not attacking the city, they're not retreating, they're trying to prevent us from taking advantage of the opportunity to get out of the city." Guo Huai smiled bitterly and sighed softly.

Shangtai City faces water on three sides, and the exit is only to the west. To the north is the Weishui, and to the south is the Bencheon water, which originates from the mountain and flows into the east of the city. In the past, from Shangtai to the east to Guanzhong, or to the west and then to the north to cross the Weishui, through Longshan. Either go east from Weishui and take a boat straight into the valley. Zhuge Liang besieged the city for 100 days, and all the boats were searched by him, and the waterway was impassable.

Zhuge Liang guarded the west of the city, and Shangtai City was a turtle in an urn. Zhang He is here, but if he wants to go out of the city and fight Zhuge Liang with Zhang He, he must first face the array laid by Zhuge Liang.

So he said that Zhuge Liang was not attacking the city today, but attacking with defense, and saw him die in the city. Needless to say, his main force today will definitely be to guard against Zhang He. Defeating Zhang He is to extinguish their hope of Zuihou, and Shangtai City will collapse without a fight.

Everyone understands this. It stands to reason that Guo Huai should take the initiative to attack and cooperate with Zhang He to defeat Zhuge Liang. But he didn't do it, and Zhang He didn't let him do it, Zhang He just asked him to guard Shangqi and stand by to move, saying that Zhuge Liang would be broken within ten days. Although Guo Huai believed in Zhang He's ability, he didn't know how Zhang He would do it, so he could only take this sentence as inspirational propaganda to inform the whole city.

The soldiers and people of the city were very excited, but these high-ranking officials were very familiar with the situation in the city, but they could not be happy at all.

Guo Huai is waiting for an opportunity. Since Zhang He doesn't need his cooperation, he won't take the initiative to take risks.

As Guo Huai expected, in addition to the blocking formation of the Shu army's baggage carts, crossbow carts and thunderbolt carts, those huge siege trucks did not push to the front of the formation, and the ladder carts did not appear, but the tall nest carts appeared as usual. On those nest cars, you can see the city defense when you go to Tai City.

It doesn't matter if you can see clearly, at this point, everyone knows each other's tricks.

Guo Huai is waiting, and Zhuge Liang is also waiting. He tried his best to disagree with the public, neither retreated according to the opinion of the majority, nor accepted Xiang Lang's suggestion to withdraw into Guanzhong, he still stayed under the city of Shangqi, waiting for Zhang He to relieve the siege of Shangtai. He can't leave Shangti, once he withdraws, Guo Huai in the city may come out of the city and join Zhang He's army, so that Zhang He has nearly 10,000 foot soldiers, and Zhang He may also enter Shangtai and use the food in Shangtai City as a temporary supplement to recover his vitality. He had to stay outside the city of Shangtai to cut off their contact so that none of them could help anyone.

Then, he met Zhang He's attack outside the city of Shangtai.

In addition to arranging a formation of 5,000 people at the west gate of Shangtai City to monitor Guo Huai, he used all the remaining 40,000 or so main forces to deal with Zhang He. For more than two months, before discovering Guo Huai's flaws, he had not forcibly climbed the siege city, but used powerful siege equipment to continue to put pressure on Shang Tai and patiently gnaw a little bit. He knew very well that most of the soldiers under his command were still new recruits, and although their courage was commendable, their combat ability needed to be improved. He needed to temper them with this war.

As the 100-day deadline approached, the skills and tactics of these soldiers had improved significantly, and the fear of the battlefield was slowly fading. If it weren't for Zhang He's sudden arrival, he would really launch the fiercest attack and quickly disintegrate Shangtai's city defenses.

Now that Zhang He is here, he will use these already sharpened armies to deal with Zhang He first and cut off Guo Huai's Zuihou glimmer of hope.

He had a large number of thunderbolts, ballistae, and a rapidly growing army of 40,000 people, and he was confident enough to block Zhang He and defeat Zhang He.

If Zhang He dares to come.

Unlike those frightened subordinates, Zhuge Liang had enough confidence in his own strength, and he was not worried that the large array of 40,000 people would be broken through by Zhang He's 10,000 elite cavalry. What he was worried about was that Zhang He would not come.

Zhuge Liang sat on the command car and gently closed his eyes. He could hear his own heartbeat, and he could feel his fingers tingling. Defeating Zhang He is very important to the current battle situation and how important it is to him, he himself knows very well.

Fei Yi stood beside Zhuge Liang, glanced at Zhuge Liang's fingers that lightly tapped on the case, and frowned slightly. He was just about to say something when a horse came from a distance, and the knight turned over and dismounted in front of the great array, threw down his horse, and walked quickly towards the command platform.

Zhuge Liang opened his eyes, looked at the knight's face, and sighed secretly.

The look on the knight's face was relaxed. Although he was sweating profusely and panting, he walked calmly and did not have a nervous look on his face.

This shows that Zhang He didn't come, otherwise he wouldn't have been so relaxed.

"Prime Minister, Zhang He didn't cross the water." The knight walked quickly to the command stand and said loudly to Zhuge Liang, as if this was good news to be happy about.

Indeed, for most people, this is good news. Although he knew that the decisive battle with Zhang He was inevitable, it was always haode to make this day come a little later. In their opinion, it was a very risky thing to deal with 10,000 elite horsemen with 40,000 foot soldiers, and the battle had already decided the outcome from the beginning, and only a scholar like Zhuge Liang would think that he could defeat Zhang He.

"Where did he go?" Zhuge Liang sat on the couch, motionless. He sat on the command platform, and his voice was not loud, of course the knight could not hear it, Fei Yi immediately walked to the command platform and repeated it loudly.

"Along Weishui, to the west." The knight replied aloud, thought for a moment, and added: "He is on the north shore and has not crossed the water." ”

Fei Yi was stunned for a moment, turned around, and walked in front of Zhuge Liang: "Prime Minister, he is ...... to the west What is the purpose? ”

The corners of Zhuge Liang's eyes trembled, he pondered for a while, and said indifferently: "If you go west, it is naturally an ambush for young people." ”

Fei Yi was taken aback, and immediately understood what he was worried about just now. Zhuge Liang set up a formation under Shangtai City, dragged Zhang He, Ma Tan led the army withdrawn from Yuzhong to outflank Zhang He's back road, and the two worked together to kill Zhang He and his 10,000 reinforcements in front of Shangtai City and Guo Huai, which was the most favorable result for the Shu Han army. With Zhuge Liang's superiority in strength and armament, he was enough to support Ma Yan's arrival.

However, Zhang He was not fooled, he did not attack, and turned west to meet Ma Yan. Ma Tan claimed to be 30,000, but in fact, there were only more than 20,000 people left, surrounded Yuzhong for more than two months, and lost at least four or five thousand people.

"Prime Minister, we ...... Catch up? ”

"We ...... Can you catch up? Zhuge Liang asked rhetorically.

Fei Yi opened his mouth, beads of sweat on his forehead. He glanced at Zhuge Liang, but found that Zhuge Liang didn't have any nervous look in his eyes, but had some self-deprecation, and couldn't help but swallow back the words that came to his mouth. "Prime Minister...... Already expected this change in Zhang He? ”

Zhuge Liang smiled slightly: "Zhang He is listed as a good general of the five sons of the anti-Wei Dynasty, and the ancestors are quite jealous of him, if he leads the army to attack directly, how can he have today's status." Wen Wei, don't worry, this change in him was expected by me and Youchang. ”

Fei Yi breathed a sigh of relief and laughed: "How will the prime minister deal with it?" ”

"Wait and see." Zhuge Liang closed his eyes again, paused for a moment, and sighed again: "It seems that this first merit is in the bag of the young." ”

Jiang Wei, who was standing on the other side of Zhuge Liang, raised the corners of his mouth and showed a mysterious smile.

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The second is to ask for a guaranteed monthly pass!

Yesterday I made a slight adjustment, and as a result, my ranking on the monthly pass list continued to decline, and today it has slipped to 60 places, so I can't ask for a monthly pass anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as a monthly ticket for the new book, and the top six in the classification are a little out of reach, but the top 10 in the classification and the top 50 in the total list, Lao Zhuang still has to fight for it.

Ask for a guaranteed monthly pass! (To be continued.) )