Chapter 1010 Fight or flee?

  In fact, Governor Feng told Liu Hun that he was not in a hurry to cross the river, but he was telling half the truth.

  The complete sentence should be, when the Wei thief is determined to stick to it, he moved to the Liangzhou army thousands of miles away, so unless it is absolutely necessary, he will not attack the fortifications.

   Otherwise, when Guan Ji was rushing to cross the ferry, she would not have used the dimensionality reduction attack of gunpowder blasting at the mere ferry.

  Because at this time, the Liangzhou Army had no supply troops at all, only temporarily assembled crude siege equipment, so its ability to attack fortified cities was insufficient.

  Ants attack the city, that is to use the lives of the soldiers.

   But the elite soldiers of the Liangzhou Army are more expensive, and it is a waste to use them in this kind of place.

  Of course, what Feng Inspector said to Liu Hun was not a joke.

  At least in the arrangements for the five Huns in Bingzhou, they basically told the truth.

   Bingzhou and Hedong are the later Shanxi.

  Who doesn't know that Shanxi is the hometown of coal and iron?

   But Feng Yong's main purpose is not all coal and iron.

   Of course, coal and iron are also one of the main purposes.

  His other main purpose is the associated mine of coal mine, pyrite.

   As we all know, although China has large coal reserves, future generations will still import a considerable portion of high-quality thermal coal every year.

  In addition to coastal areas needing to use sea transportation to reduce costs, most of the domestic coal is of low quality and contains too many impurities, which is also an important reason.

  Among these so-called impurities, sulfur is a substance with a relatively high content.

  At least since the Han Dynasty, the ancients have discovered that places where coal is produced are often places where sulfur is also produced.

   According to Feng Yong’s experience in the Three Kingdoms for more than ten years, sulfur in this era basically only has two uses, one is used as medicine, and the other is used for alchemy.

  The problem is that China has never been a country that produces natural sulfur—including the industrial age, and there is no natural sulfur with sufficient reserves.

   According to the knowledge of Feng Tubie, an amateur historian, he only knows that even in the Ming Dynasty when gunpowder was widely used, China had to import a large amount of sulfur from an island country that lived a good life from a small... small age.

  So in the Three Kingdoms era, there was very little sulfur, very little.

   So where did these small amounts of sulfur come from?

   Most of them are the products of the failure of the ancients to refine alum stone.

  The question comes again, what is alum stone?

  It is actually a kind of mordant, which is used to fix the dye of clothes.

  There is no mordant, and the dye on the clothes will easily fade after washing with water.

  So it was a very important daily item in ancient times.

  In ancient times, the raw material for refining alumite was pyrite.

  Feng Yongneng knew that these things originated from a small piece of ice cream made for Zhang Xiaoluoli.

  This thing needs tanning.

   Then Zhao Guang found Feng Yong some leftover nitrate from the alchemy room left by Zhuge Jun, that is, the younger brother of Zhuge Old Demon who went somewhere to cultivate immortality.

  In the alchemy room, there is still some unused sulfur.

   Then there were fireworks during the Southern Expedition, and at the same time, Feng Tubie learned how the sulfur of this era came from.

  Why did he go to Nanxiang in Hanzhong to open a textile workshop?

  Because there is coal there, and the textile workshop needs to use a lot of dyes and mordants.

  Pyrite associated with coal is just used to extract mordant—this is the superficial reason.

  The deeper reason is that Feng Cishi can use this to try to improve the process of refining alumite and transform it into a process of refining sulfur.

  Then Governor Feng discovered that this thing actually involves a series of projects such as fire control, temperature, and materials.

  So we can only extract coke first, improve the blower, improve water drainage...

  Just the paper records made on the improvement of the process of extracting alum stone are enough to fill a room.

   These tasks cannot be done by Feng Cishi alone. It requires a lot of manpower and material resources, as well as sufficient power.

  That’s why I had to establish the Xinghan Association, personally train Amei, set up a school, and become a big man with real power…

  Based on the semi-finished process, it took nearly ten years for Governor Feng to improve the standard process and let it extract high-purity sulfur that can be used.

  That's why Governor Feng concluded that those guys who immediately produced gunpowder as soon as they crossed, and can promote it indefinitely, they must have a system!

   With a "ding" sound, the points can be redeemed, and high-explosive gunpowder can be obtained out of thin air.

   For a loser like Feng Tubie, he can only figure out everything by himself.

   After reviewing countless classics and collecting countless information, I can confirm that there are three places where the predecessors have found the most sulfur ore.

  One is Hanzhong, the other is Hexi Corridor, and the other is Bingzhou.

  Although Liangzhou is now able to produce qualified black powder, until now, the production of sulfur is still a bottleneck.

  The reason is also very simple.

   Refining efficiency is too slow.

  It takes at least ten days to refine and condense five hundred catties of ore, because the process is too primitive, and the sulfur obtained is pitifully small.

   Anyway, for Feng Shishi, who has seen industrialization, it is really pitifully rare.

   How much was five hundred catties of ore in the Han Dynasty? Less than half a ton.

   How much can be extracted from half a ton of ore?

  The only advantage is that there is condensation in the refining process, and the sulfur obtained is of high purity.

  So I can only save slowly, and from time to time secretly set up explosives to blast and play tricks, and I can barely support it.

   But if you want to let go of it and use it like a red cannon, you have to continue to improve the refining process.

   This can only be counted on when the main person in charge, Amei, will have another wave of IQ explosion.

  Anyway, Inspector Feng is ready to wait another ten years.

   At the same time, we must find ways to continue to increase steel production, and more importantly, quality.

   Otherwise, if the cannon exploded, it would not be the opponent who cried, but himself.

   Moreover, not all the sulfur currently produced can be used in actual combat.

  First of all, the soldiers should be tested first, so that they are familiar with this thing. The amount of sulfur used in this process alone is enough.

   What's more, some of the signal flares in the army have to be separated.

  Things that are commonplace in later generations, I think it is just a matter of effort to take them out.

   But in fact, if you don’t have a relevant industrial system, then you can only get what you want in your dreams.

  No matter how elementary or crude the industrial system is, it is also an industrial system.

  As long as it can continue to develop, let alone wait another ten years, even fifty or sixty years, it is worth it.

   Standing on the bank of the big river, Governor Feng is already qualified to think about the future of the great man.

  The person who can really decide the fate of the big man is standing beside the martial arts water, frowning, his face is extremely ugly, as ugly as eating shit.

  After more than ten consecutive days of autumn rain, the Wugong water habitually surged, roaring towards the Wei River.

   Not to mention that the ground was so soft and muddy from the rain.

  In this case, not to mention war horses, even soldiers can't stand firm.

  The prime minister of the Han Dynasty who had been watching the other side had been paying attention, and the rain barely stopped, so he immediately sent an envoy, intending to reschedule the date of the decisive battle.

   is actually a temptation.

  How could I know that this time, the envoys of the Han army could not enter the camp at all, let alone see Sima Yi.

  The reason given by Wei Jun is that the decisive battle is imminent, and the layout of the camp is all military secrets, and outsiders are not allowed to enter.

   Although the etiquette is not right, the attitude is good.

  Regarding the Han army envoy's proposal to re-schedule the date, the Wei army envoy who was in charge of the reception fully agreed.

  Things seemed to be going well, but it was precisely because it was so smooth that Prime Minister Han immediately felt something was wrong.

   "Come on!"

   "Prime Minister?"

   "Go, let General Wei come and see me."

   When Wei Yan heard the prime minister's call, he didn't delay for a moment, and hurried over to see him:

   "Prime Minister, did you call me?"

   "You lead a battalion immediately and get ready to cross the water."

  When Wei Yan heard this, he was surprised and delighted: "Then Sima Yi has agreed to a decisive battle?"

  Zhuge Liang suddenly turned his head and stared at him firmly. Under the seemingly calm expression, there was raging anger:

   "Don't ask so many questions, go!"

   Wei Yan was bored with the discussion, and didn't dare to ask more questions, so he had no choice but to go on.

  Leading the army to the water's edge, he still hesitated. With such a fast current, it would be difficult to build a pontoon bridge. Would Sima Yi really let himself pass?

   Is there no fraud?

  With such thoughts in mind, Wei Yan watched helplessly as the people from the engineering battalion drove the boat to the other side.

   On the other side, no one came out to stop him.

   Before Wei Yan could react, the prime minister on Wuzhang Plain had already sent Chuanqi over in a hurry:

   "General Wei, the prime minister has an order, don't wait for the pontoon bridge to be built, take a bamboo raft to cross the water immediately!"

  As an old man in the army, if Wei Yan still can't see that there is a problem on the other side at this time, then he has lived for so many years in vain.

   "Cross the water, cross the water now!"

  Wei Yan was the first to jump on the water raft, urging to paddle to the opposite bank.

  The raft was staggered by the rushing Wugong water, but because there was no arrow rain from the opposite bank, it was much easier than before.

   Reaching the east bank, Wei Yan jumped out without waiting for the water raft to stop.

   Hastily gathered hundreds of soldiers, and he led the people to rush towards the Wei army camp.

  The muddy water under the feet was sticky, and a group of people stepped on it, creaking and creaking, making them feel very uncomfortable.

   During the running process, soldiers fell from time to time, but this did not make Wei Yan slow down at all.

  His gaze was only focused on the front, on the camp where the Wei army had stood up ahead of time and was preparing for a decisive battle.

   Until he rushed to the front of the Wei Army camp, the gate of the Wei Army camp was already wide open. An old soldier bowed his waist and held a white flag, standing in front of the gate, nodding and bowing:

   "This general, we have surrendered, we are willing to surrender..."

   Wei Yan stared blankly at Wei Ying, who had the gate of the village wide open in front of him. It took him a while before he came back to his senses.

  He looked at the old **** in front of him who seemed to be blown down by a gust of wind, his face gradually distorted, and he said sharply:

   "What about people? Where are your people?"

   "Go back to the general and run away. I ran away a long time ago. I ran away in the heavy rain ten days ago."

  What the envoys of the Han army saw outside the camp were only a hundred people who stayed behind to make a show.

  After they saw the Han army starting to cross the water, they also ran away with their feet.

   "How could you run away? How could you run away?"

  Wei Yan rushed into the camp, looked at the empty everything, and muttered to himself.

  What about the decisive battle?

   Actually ran away secretly in the rain?

  Like a wounded beast, he circled around the empty village a few times, growling with red eyes:

   "How could Sima Yi run? How dare he run?"

   In front of the two armies, it was agreed to a decisive battle, and he just ran away, isn't he afraid that the world will laugh at him?

   Not to mention Wei Yan, even the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, when he heard Wei Yan's report that Sima Yi had already run away, he was stunned for a long time on the spot.

   "A man cannot stand without faith. Sima Yi, in front of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, has abandoned his faith and lost his foundation of life. Even if he fled back, what face would he have to stand in the world?"

  Although the prime minister of the Han Dynasty had already seen that something was wrong on the other side, he just thought that Sima Yi was trying to come up with some tricks in the decisive battle.

  He never thought that Sima Yi would run away quietly.

  Born in a family, representing the face of the Kanto family, doing such a thing is already shocking the world.

   More importantly, to the west of Wuzhangyuan, there were originally 20,000 Wei troops in Sixian County, and Qin Lang brought another 50,000 troops there.

  These 70,000 horses, Sima Yi actually said he would abandon them, and he abandoned them maliciously.

  Qin Lang's 50,000 horsemen are Cao Rui's imperial guards!

  The face of the puppet emperor of the Cao family is so insignificant in front of Sima Yi?

  As the prime minister who is a loyal minister of the Han Dynasty, it is impossible to imagine:

  Someone deliberately let the Royal Guards come to his death in order to cover his escape when he had an advantage in military strength and was still able to fight.

   "Prime Minister, what should we do? Should we chase after?"

   Wei Yan asked anxiously, obviously angrily.

  Zhuge Liang stood in front of the sand table, staring closely at the shapes of mountains, rivers and rivers on the sand table. Hearing what Wei Yan said, he shook his head sullenly:

   "I can't catch up. If Sima Yi really wanted to run away, he might already be in Wuguan by now."

   "Additionally, the road is muddy and the ground is slippery. How can we pursue it? The most we can do now is to send out scouts to see if Sima Yi retreats to Chang'an or goes to Wuguan, or even Tongguan..."

  Before he finished speaking, Zhuge Liang didn't know what to think of. He suddenly turned around and said loudly:

   "Come on!"

   "What is the prime minister's order?"

   "Immediately send someone to notify General Wu, and ask someone to send a manpower to investigate the thieves' camp and see if the thieves in the west have also escaped in the rain!"

   "No."

  If Qin Lang also runs away, then Sima Yi is determined to escape from Guanzhong.

  However, the 70,000 horses in the west need to go around a big circle to get to Wuguan, and they may not be able to escape.

   "If Qin Lang didn't run away, then Sima Yi didn't necessarily run away."

  Zhuge Liang's face became more and more gloomy, "It's also possible that he went to Hexi."

   "Hexi?"

   "That's right, it's Hexi." Zhuge Liang held a long whip in his hand and pointed it at the area between the Dahe and Luoshui, "If Feng Mingwen has already crossed the river at this time, it is very likely that he will run into Sima Yi's army head-on."

  The more the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty spoke, the lower his voice became: "Or, where will Sima Yi ambush the Liangzhou army led by Feng Mingwen..."

  No matter what the facts are, Sima Yi is clearly the winner in this fight.

  This person has been in Guanzhong for a long time and is familiar with the climate in Guanzhong, so he made perfect use of this autumn rain.

  If Feng Mingwen had really entered Hexi, facing the sudden appearance of Sima Yi's army, the river behind him would become a deadly rope.

  There is a big army in front, a big river in the back, and the exhausted army that has fought for thousands of miles...

  Zhuge Liang's face was so gloomy that it was about to drip water.

  Wu Ban’s camp is only a few tens of miles away from Wuzhangyuan, and it’s not that far away on weekdays. At this moment, the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty feels that life is like a year, and his heart is already on fire.

   Just when he was about to lose his temper and was about to send out more troops, Wu Ban finally sent back the news: Qin Lang's army was still stationed in place.

  This news, instead of making the Prime Minister happy, made him even more worried.

   In this way, unless Sima Yi completely abandoned the 70,000 horses in the west.

   Otherwise, the possibility of the main force of the Wei army going to Hexi will only be greater.

   "Feng Mingwen is good at counterattacks, and he is not afraid of back-to-back battles. Jieting is like this, Jincheng is like this, and Xiaoguan is like this. I believe that this time he will not disappoint!"

  If you catch up at this time, not only will you not be able to save Feng Mingwen, but the thieves in the west will probably run away.

  Zhuge Liang gritted his teeth and said, "Master Wen, you quickly lead 20,000 horses, cross the Wei River, take down the Weibei plateau, and prevent Qin Lang from escaping from Weibei."

  Since Sima Yi's army has retreated, the defenders on the Weibei Plateau probably also retreated.

   Otherwise, it would be a lone army. In this case, it is just to let one more team die.

  Because of the Wei Guo Imperial Guard Army led by Qin Lang, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty is determined!

  (end of this chapter)