To be fair, between Sima Cuo and Bai Qi, Meng Zhong actually prefers Sima Cuo to become his enemy.

It’s not that Meng Zhong subjectively believes that Sima Cuo is not as good as Bai Qi in leading troops to fight, but because he considers the age of both.

As the saying goes, ignorant people are meaningless. Young people have learned fewer lessons. They are often more striving and enterprising. Older people are different. They think more carefully than young people, but they will inevitably have some concerns.

For example, Bai Qi used his military action to almost defeat two famous generals involved in the Battle of Yique. If it weren't for Meng Zhong's appearance, the 300,000 coalition forces of Wei and Han might have been defeated by Bai Qi with only 130,000 Qin troops. But if Sima Cuo had it been Sima Cuo, Sima Cuo might not have been able to do this.

Could it be that Sima is not as good as Bai Qi?

Of course not. I can only say that Sima Cuo, who is over 50 years old, has been gradually worn out over the years. He will eventually choose to put the overall situation first. He will most likely not dare to take risks like Bai Qi. He will use 130,000 Qin troops or generals to bet on the defeat of the 300,000 coalition forces of Wei and Han countries. In short, Sima Cuo will choose a more stable strategy to fight Gongsun Xi and Bao Yuan, and will never take risks.

This means that he cannot do what Bai Qi can do, not because of the wisdom of the two, but because one dares to gamble, while the other dares not.

And this is precisely why Meng Zhongle thought of Sima Cuo as the commander of the Qin army.

But Bai Qi is different. Bai Qi, who is just starting out, is fearless and full of spirit. He regards famous generals like Gongsun Xi and Bao Yuan as nothing. He puts 100,000 Han troops in front of him and leads 80,000 Qin troops to sneak attack 180,000 Wei troops. This kind of courage is indeed rare in the world.

For example, when she was afraid of foxes last year, Bai Qi pretended to coerce tens of thousands of Chu people to retaliate against Bao Yuan's army, but in fact, the Qin soldiers hidden among the Chu people made a fatal sneak attack on the Han army. If Meng Zhong had not seen through Bai Qi's trick at that time, Bao Yuan's 30,000 troops would have been defeated at Bai Qi.

In short, a Qin general like Bai Qi who has no bottom line and dares to use his own safety to gamble for victory with the safety of the entire Qin army, has to be said to be an extremely dangerous opponent, because you can't predict his actions at all. God knows that Bai Qi was still fighting in a regular manner the previous second, and will he suddenly use an unexpected strategy in the next second?

And such a thing is almost impossible to see if it is a veteran like Sima Cuo.

If Meng Zhong was the attacking side, he was more inclined to Bai Qi as an opponent, because Bai Qi's "dare to take risks" character would inevitably reveal flaws, rather than veterans like Sima Cuo, who are half-life veterans, who are basically indifferent to the defense. He will use his own experience to slowly suck your sharpness and patiently look for opportunities to counterattack.

Therefore, in this case, Sima Cuo is more difficult to deal with than Bai Qi.

But Meng Zhong was the defensive side this time, so the situation was just the opposite: he was not afraid of competing with Sima by mistake, because the longer it dragged on, the more favorable it would be for Wei and Han countries; on the contrary, he was most afraid of encountering opponents like Bai Qi who dared to take risks and gambling luck, if one is not good, it would fall into the hands of the other party.

As the saying goes, killing the master's tutor by random punches, this is what it means.

But unfortunately, Bai Qi had already sent a letter of war to Meng Zhong. The sentence in the book, "I will punish you in the past and now I will do it." It deeply reflects Bai Qi's conceit for the capture of Fang Cheng.

"Stop the matter of cutting off the Qin army's rations road..."

After thinking for a while, Meng Zhong and Meng discussed.

In fact, before this, Meng Zhong had discussed with Meng Sui specific strategies to deal with the Qin army, that is, to attack the shortage of food and grass of the Qin army.

The first step was to try to destroy the food, grass and supplies of the 160,000 Qin and Chu coalition forces. Fang Cheng had already accomplished this incident in the sneak attack last night.

The next second step was to attack the grain routes of the Qin and Chu coalition forces and cut off the transportation of food and grass.

Although it is not very clear, Meng Zhong can roughly guess that the food and grass of the Qin and Chu coalition forces at this moment should come from Qin and Chu. The Chu State must transport food and grass from Chu and Ying, while the Qin army is probably from Wu Pass. In other words, as long as Meng Zhong can roughly calculate the food and grass transportation routes between Wu Pass and Chu and Ying, sending Meng Hu, Hua Hu and Mu Wu to lead cavalry deep into the enemy-occupied area, he will have the opportunity to attack the grain transport troops of the Qin and Chu coalition forces.

As long as there were several times in which the Wei army successfully robbed the Qin and Chu coalition forces and burned the food and grass of the Qin and Chu coalition forces under Sima Cuo would inevitably fall into trouble due to the lack of food and grass.

It is worth mentioning that in this matter, Meng Zhong also considered Bai Qi's attitude. He knew that Bai Qi had a cavalry of about 2,000 people under his command, but he felt that before the Qin and Chu coalition forces were in absolute dilemma, Bai Qi should not do his best to help Sima Cuo, and this gave Meng Zhong the confidence to attack Sima Cuo's food road.

But unexpectedly, the small victory of the two Fangcheng against the Qin army last night made Sima Cuo and Bai Qi reach an agreement judging from the fact that Bai Qi wrote a high-profile letter to him and issued a letter to war, Bai Qi should have already grasped some say, at least in the attack on the two Fangcheng.

Therefore, Meng Zhong felt that his second step of attacking the Qin and Chu coalition rations should be temporarily stopped. Let’s take a look at Bai Qi’s actions first. After all, that guy’s actions were much more unpredictable than Sima Chou.

After discussing with Meng Sui for a while, Meng Zhong summoned Meng Hu, Hua Hu and Mu Wu and told the general situation to the three of them: "I know Bai Qi's character very well. Unless he is on an equal footing with me, he will never send someone to send this letter of war with his arrogance. This means that what we face in our city is no longer just 160,000 Qin and Chu coalition forces, but also 70,000 Qin troops stationed in Wancheng and 2,000 Qin cavalry under his command... Ahu, Hua Hu, Awu, I hope you three will step up their surveillance of the Qin army from tomorrow. I will always know the Qin army's every move and use this to speculate on Bai Qi's intention."

"I understand." Hua Hu and Mu Wu nodded.

From the side, Meng Hu grabbed his hair and said, "It's no point to just monitor the Qin army. Ah Zhong, why not ask the new cavalry soldiers to follow us. The three of us practice them well, and it's better to be boring riding training..."

The new cavalry soldiers he mentioned, namely the 5,000 cavalry recently expanded by Fangcheng, were also a trump card that Meng Zhong had not been exposed to the Qin army so far.

“It’s not the time yet.”

After hearing this, Meng Zhong shook his head and said with a smile: "Look at the time when the two thousand cavalry under Bai Qi dared to wander around our city, I guessed that Bai Qi didn't know that there were five thousand new cavalry added to our city. I was going to hide it for the time being and give him a surprise in the future..."

Hearing the word surprise, Hua Hu laughed: "I'm looking forward to it."

After saying that, he asked Meng Zhong: "What I mean is that if I meet the cavalry under Bai Qi in recent days, will it be the same?"

What he said was the same, that is, if he had the opportunity, he would take the opportunity to shoot and kill the Qin cavalry under Bai Qi. If he had no chance, he would give in temporarily. In short, there would be no large-scale conflict.

"Well." Meng Zhong nodded and instructed: "Before I figure out Bai Qi's plan, you should restrain yourself a little. If necessary, you might as well show weakness in front of his cavalry to help increase his pride so that he can annihilate him in one fell swoop." As he said that, he turned to look at Mu Wu and said: "Awu, is it your command of them? Is there any problem?"

Hearing this, Meng Hu and Hua Hu hooked Mu Wu's shoulders one on the left and one on the right, and said in unison: "Of course there is no problem, don't worry, leave it to us. Do you think so, Awu?"

Looking at Meng Hu and Hua Hu, Mu Wu forced a little smile: "Um... well, maybe..."

Under the threatening look of these two tigers, he finally chose to surrender.

Since then, Fangcheng has remained silent and watched the movements of the Qin and Chu coalition forces.

Unexpectedly, after only half a day, Meng Zhong received the news sent by Meng Hu and others. It seemed that a Qin army retreated more than ten miles and moved to Yinshan in the southeast of Fangcheng, and stationed on the west side of Yinshan.

After learning about this, Meng then said to Meng Zhong: "A Zhong, the Qin army's actions were a bit abnormal. I suspect that they might attack Yangguan."

Hearing this, Meng Zhong frowned and pondered for a moment.

To be honest, he was not very worried about the Yangguan guarding Lejin. Although the pass in the Yangguan area was still in the early stages of construction, there were only one Wei camp blocking the road at the intersection, but there were also many troops stationed there. In addition to the thousands of people under Lejin, there were also Sima Cai Wu, a soldier from Yancheng, and 8,000 Wei soldiers under his command.

What's more important is that Fangcheng is only seven or eight miles away from Yangguan. If the Qin army intends to attack Yangguan, as long as Yangguan is not attacked by the Qin army immediately, Fangcheng will have time to support Yangguan.

But he felt that the Qin army would not do that.

After pondering for a while, Meng Zhong shook his head and said to Meng Sui: "I don't think Bai Qi will attack Yangguan immediately... You also know that the intersection of Yangguan is narrow. If the Qin army sends fewer troops to attack Yangguan, it may not be able to threaten Yangguan. If the Qin army sent more troops, the terrain there would not be enough to accommodate many troops to fight... What's more, if he really dared to abandon our city and attack Yangguan, we have the opportunity to lock the Qin army that attacked Yangguan in the valley and attack them on both sides. Even if we cannot win completely, it will inevitably cause heavy losses to the Qin army... I think Bai Qi will not do such a thankless thing, I guess he has no intention."

"Don't have any intention?" Meng Sui was stunned for a moment, and then seemed to have thought of something, and asked in surprise: "Did he want to cross Yinshan and attack Wuyang?"

"It may not be possible."

When he said this, Meng Zhong himself frowned.

The reason is nothing else, just because Wuyangyi is the place where his children and their families live, and his mother, wife and sister live there. If the Qin army really crossed Yinshan, the consequences will be unimaginable.

At this time, Meng Sui also changed his expression and said, "Bai Qi... Just look at him who was in Fear of Fox City that day, forcing and forcing tens of thousands of Chu people in the city to attack the Korean army, you will know that this person has no morality. If the Qin army really crossed Yinshan, the consequences would be unimaginable. A Zhong, you need reinforcements immediately!"

"Don't hurry."

Seeing Meng Sui was a little panicked, Meng Zhong comforted him and said, "I have considered this matter for a long time, and I also reminded Le Jin to ask him to pay attention to the defense of Yinshan while guarding Yang Pass. By the way, don't you also know that he has two thousand soldiers stationed on Yinshan?"

After hearing this, Meng Sui recalled: "Yes, I forgot..."

But when he said this, he frowned again: "But just two thousand soldiers are not enough to stop the Qin army, right? I think I still have to send someone to reinforce."

After hearing this, Meng Zhong thought for a moment, then said, "Call Wu Ying and Wei Xu to come."

A moment later, Wu Ying and Wei Xu came to the house. Meng Zhong told them about the situation, and then said to them: "According to the news sent by Meng Hu and others, Sima Cuo's general Jin Kuang, today led more than 10,000 Qin troops to retreat more than ten miles and stationed on the west side of Yinshan. I suspect that the Qin army had the intention to cross Yinshan and attack Wuyang, so I hope that one of you two will lead your army to guard Yinshan."

Wu Ying thought for a while and said, "Let Wei Xu go, he is a rare brave general."

Hearing this, Meng Zhong turned his head to look at Wei Xu, but saw Wei Xu hesitatingly said: "I am willing to lead troops to guard Yinshan, but if I leave, what should I do here in Fangcheng?"

Not to mention, although Meng Zhong and Meng Sui are both in Fangcheng, the garrison of Fangcheng is mainly Wu Ying and Wei Xu. If Wei Xu is transferred to Yinshan, Fangcheng will inevitably lack manpower.

After hearing Wei Xu's words, Meng Zhong smiled and said, "It's okay. Compared to Fangcheng, Yangguan, Yinshan, Wuyang is more important. And if necessary, Fangcheng cannot be handed over to the Qin army..."

“…”

Wei Xu was stunned for a moment, then seemed to have thought of something, nodded thoughtfully, clasped his fists and said, "Since that's the case, go to Yinshan immediately!"

"Um!"

Meng Zhong nodded and ordered: "I will give you five thousand soldiers. You will take them to guard Yinshan. During this period, if the Qin army really intends to go through Yinshan, you might as well find an opportunity to sharpen the soldiers. By the way, Yu Ying is also in Yinshan at this moment, you can meet with him... If the Qin army invades a large amount during this period, you can immediately ask Yangguan for help. I will remind Le Jin and Cai Wu will send troops to support you and Yu Ying at any time."

"Here!" Wei Xu took his fists and took the order away.

Afterwards, Meng Zhong, Meng Sui and Wu Ying discussed for a moment, and immediately sent someone to notify Le Jin and Cai Wu who were stationed in Yangguan, asking them to be vigilant.

Just half an hour later, Le Jin received news from Meng Zhong, asking Sima Cai Wu to discuss with him.

"Zei Sima, A Zhong sent someone to send news, saying that he didn't know what was going on, Bai Qi might replace Sima Cuo and lead his army to attack our city..."

"oh?"

After hearing this, Cai Wu couldn't help but be curious: "How did Fang Chengling know? Does Fang Chengling have private letters with Bai Qi?"

Le Jin shrugged and said, "I don't know if there are any private letters, but I know that Ah Zhong sent a letter to Bai Qi a while ago..."

When Cai Wu mentioned this letter, he couldn't help laughing.

Because he had already learned the content of this letter from the Lejin who could not hide his thoughts.

In Le Jin's words, it is: Let me tell you a joke. Bai Qi once made an oath outside Fangcheng that he would destroy Fangcheng next time he came...

Seeing Sima Chou say this, the two generals Changchi and Wu Rong could only accept Bai Qi's orders.

But it can be seen that these two Qin generals were still a little reluctant.

The reason is very simple. Who asked Bai Qi to let all the troops under Sima Cuo take action? Jin Kuang is like this, Changchi and Wu Rong are like this.

I think that in Sima Cuo's army, only Sima Cuo himself doesn't care.

Yet, given Sima Cuo's age and his status in Qin, he really didn't need to compete for any credit with Bai Qi, who was younger than his son. As long as Bai Qi could indeed capture Fangcheng and open up this passage between Wanfang and Wei, Sima Cuo could of course tolerate Bai Qi's favoritism towards his army.

It was just a meritorious contribution to a mere city. Sima Cuo, but he conquered the entire Bashu for Qin!

The only thing that made Sima Chou have some opinions is Bai Qi's use of the woods in the army.

These woods were brought back by the army of Changchi and Wurong. Sima Cuo originally planned to use them to build a military camp, but now Bai Qi uses a large part of them to build siege equipment, leaving only a part of them for firewood when the weather is cold in the future.

Yes, Bai Qi had no plan to build a camp at all. He just ordered people to increase the earthen walls around the main business.

Although Sima Chou could understand that Bai Qi did this because of the lack of wood, he still did not recommend it.

Considering his agreement with Bai Qi, he tactfully persuaded: "If the camp is not built, if the battle is not good, our army will have no place to stand, and may be attacked by the Wei army again."
To be continued...