Daqin Engineers

The Qin army stopped in Bucheng, south of Chencheng.

This is because Bucheng is the intersection of Bianshui and Yinghe. If the waterway is to be used for navigation, the intersection of the two rivers must be a battleground because it can control both rivers at the same time.

The other is that Bucheng is exactly fifty miles away from Chencheng.

The distance of fifty miles can be reached by infantry marching in one day, so it is equivalent to relying on Chen Cheng.

As said before, Chen Cheng's defense is a dead city and it is not suitable for defense.

A city with a moat, such as a beam, is similar. Although this type of city is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is very easy to be trapped and difficult to launch a counterattack.

In ancient times, most cities required "advance, retreat, and defense", that is, no moat. If you want to counterattack, soldiers can go out of the city under the cover of the range of the city wall and crossbow.

This is the wall that the army and soldiers really need.

On the contrary, in dead cities like Liang and Chencheng, the army cannot enter the city and can only be stationed outside the city to fight the enemy. The outcome is actually determined outside the city. Ordinary soldiers hardly need the defense facilities of the city wall.

This kind of extremely defensive city wall is, in the final analysis, a psychological comfort for the nobles and nobles to save their lives, and only a faint emperor like Wei Wangjia can gather all the troops in the city and defend it.

Of course, the Qin army at this time could not deploy its troops in Chencheng.

If this is the case, the Chu army only needs to deploy thousands of crossbowmen or trebuchets at the exits of the city gates to block the trails out of the city... you can easily seal hundreds of thousands of Qin troops in the city.

Qin Jun's arrangement made Xiang Yan rest assured.

Because he believed that the Qin army at this time must be able to maintain a defensive posture because of insufficient grain and grass, and Chen Cheng was kept to attack again when the grain harvest next year.

So when Xiang Yan followed the Qin army to the front of the city, he ordered the Chu army to build fortifications.

Xiang Yan said to the map on the case:

"I must hurry to build three fortifications before the harvest next year."

Xiang Bo is a little puzzled:

"Why build three fortifications?"

Xiang Yan pointed to the map and explained:

"The season of next year's harvest will surely attack Chu again."

"And this place is four hundred miles away from Ruyin. For every one hundred miles of fortifications, you need three."

"At that time, our army can use the fortifications to fight against the Qin army, and fight and walk all the way back to Rushui, so that the country of Chu can be safe!"

The generals nodded in agreement.

It is well known that the Chu army is not as effective as Qin.

For example, this time, Xiang Liang first attacked the Liang army in Chencheng and lost tens of thousands of horses, and Xiang Luo cavalry was defeated, forcing Xiang Yan's army to withdraw to Chengfu's defense.

Therefore, if the Chu army wants to fight with the Qin army in the field, it must rely on fortifications to occupy the ground.

Just like Xiang Yan said, for every one hundred miles of fortifications, you can use the fortifications to shield each other from retreat. When the Qin army hits the Rushui line of defense, it will be exhausted and become exhausted...it will be like now Can only withdraw troops.

Some ministers even suggested:

"The subordinates think that one fortification per hundred li is not enough to resist Qin, and one should be one per fifty li."

"Because the infantry marches fifty miles a day, if one is a hundred miles away, there will be no fortifications available for one night, for fear of being besieged by the Qin army."

Xiang Yan explained:

"If the fifty-mile road is beyond our military's ability, it will not be completed in a few months."

"Therefore, it is possible to build fortifications in cities and towns in Baili, and fortifications in Muzhai in fifty miles."

So the generals had nothing to say.

The fortifications of the city are built with earth walls to prevent trebuchet attacks, while the fortifications of Muzhai are simple fortifications for temporary resistance against the enemy.

The fortifications that Xiang Yan built in Bucheng were quite special. He planned to build Muzhai first and then the city.

The reason was that it took more time to build the city. In case the Qin army suddenly launched a counterattack, Xiang Yan worried that the Chu army would not be able to resist it without fortifications.

Then, in order to strengthen the defenses around the city and the construction of subsequent fortifications, Xiang Yan almost emptied the troops and labor on the Rushui line...

This approach is obviously wrong for modern warfare.

Because modern times only need to use helicopters and transport planes to drop a group of troops to Rushui to occupy the Chu army.

But at this time, there are no helicopters and transport planes that cannot implement three-dimensional operations.

So Xiang Yan could do this with confidence. Anyway, the main force of the Qin army was in Chencheng. As soon as the Qin army attacked the Chu army, it would retreat step by step, and would always retreat to Rushui and stabilize the position.

On the basis of this strategy, constructing more fortifications on the front line can give the Qin army more troubles and more troubles. If you can recover more lost ground, you can recover more lost ground, so there is nothing wrong.

And this is exactly what Shen Bing hopes for.

Information came from Chu Realm like snow flakes.

This intelligence network was deployed in Chu Realm when Yang Duanhe withdrew.

The intelligence of this era is not easy to say, because reconnaissance methods are relatively backward.

It is not difficult to say, because anti-reconnaissance methods are also backward.

But if you just want to know how many troops the enemy has transferred to the front line or how many troops there are still in the Rushui line... these are just at your fingertips.

What Yang Duanhe had to do was to get some soldiers to dress up as Chu people on the spot, and then send some dry food and homing pigeons to hide in the dense forests on both sides of the road, and just look down the mountain all day long.

Yang Duanhe checked the map while looking at the intelligence:

"The Chu army has assembled more than 300,000 troops on the front line of Bucheng."

"The other 100,000 troops are located on the Taocheng and Lincheng lines, and a large amount of labor has been recruited to build defenses on these two lines."

"On the Rushui line, there are only a few troops left to garrison, including Chengfu and Ruyin, or more than 5,000 people each."

Shen Bing nodded.

This is exactly what he wants to see.

The ancients of this era are often like this. When a war is fought, it is to build fortifications or city walls, so a large number of Great Walls will appear between countries.

In order to guard against the Xiongnu, Yingzheng connected these Great Walls together.

If this project is put in the modern era, it would be a proper "Machino Line of Defense", which is a passive and backward thinking of absolute defense.

But in ancient times this kind of plane warfare was really useful. For example, the Great Wall kept the Huns back again and again.

However, Shen Bing is not from this era, and he certainly knows how to deal with this passive defense.

At this time, a messenger sent a secret letter.

Yang Duanhe opened it and saw it was sent by Ying Zheng.

After reading it, he frowned slightly and said:

"The king asked about the situation of our army, especially the grain and grass."

"How should I reply?"

In the past, in order to avoid information leakage, Yang Duanhe sent someone to send a letter to Ying Zheng, saying that this was a plan carefully arranged by Shen Bing to lead the snake out of the hole...

Once the messenger was intercepted by the Chu army or thieves on the road, it would be a failure.

This situation is very likely to happen, because all the way from Yang Duanhe to Handan is the three realms of Chu, Wei, and Zhao. Not long ago, they were all enemies of the State of Qin.

If it were to give Yingzheng false information, it would be the crime of deceiving the emperor.

So Yang Duanhe didn't say anything at all.

Now Ying Zheng sent a letter asking, but it won't work if he doesn't reply.