The flow of Mian River to the west of Nanzheng is not large, and winter is the dry season. Of course, the Han army easily crossed Mian River near Dingjun Mountain, forcibly wedged between Yang'an Pass and Mianyang City, and like a pack of wolves rushing into the sheep pen, breaking into the hinterland of Hanzhong where the Jin army was empty in the garrison.

However, the situation is not entirely beneficial to the Han army. First of all, the Han army did not attack the Jin army's vitality. Eliminating the garrisons in Yang'an Pass and Baishui Pass, the Jin army still has at least 70,000 to 80,000 mobile troops available, which is still a significant threat to the Han army.

Secondly, the intelligence support was too poor. Before this, although the Han army also sent some detailed works to the hinterland of Hanzhong to explore the enemy situation, these detailed works were scattered in various parts of Hanzhong and could not contact the Han army who were walking in the small path into Hanzhong in a short period of time. Naturally, the military intelligence collected was not available for reference by the Han army's decision-making level, which led to the Han army becoming blind in the hinterland of Hanzhong. It was entirely up to scouts to find out the enemy situation. Even if they guessed that the Jin army was definitely empty, they could not know the specific deployment of the Jin army.

In addition, the Han army could not know the adjustment of the mobile army of the Jin army. They did not know the current location of the mobile army's mobile army, nor did they know when the enemy could arrive and encounter it. This naturally restricted the tactical use of the Han army.

In view of these objective reasons, after crossing the Mian River, Yan Yu, who is more familiar with Hanzhong geography, put forward a tactical suggestion to Zhang Zhi, saying: "The latter general, given the unclear situation of the enemy, I believe that we should first attack Mianyang City in the east, capture the prisoners and grasp the enemy situation, and try to siege the city of the city to attack reinforcements, lure the mobile army of Jin thieves to rescue Mianyang, and take the opportunity to fight with it."

Zhang Zhi's military talent is indeed outstanding. After thinking for a moment, he shook his head and said, "You can't fight Mianyang first. Even if you fight Mianyang, you can't create fighter jets to siege the city and attack the aid. Because Mianyang City is not important, Jin thieves can afford to lose it. If we fight Mianyang first, Jin thieves may choose to wait and see for a while, and give priority to concentrating the mobile forces that were disrupted by us, and then calmly advance to rescue Mianyang. Therefore, if we want to create fighter jets to siege the city and attack the aid, we must first attack and rescue them."

"What you must save when attacking the enemy?" Yan Yu raised his white eyebrows and asked, "Hou General, do you want to attack Nanzheng directly?"

"No," Zhang Zhi nodded and said, "Nanzheng is the capital of Hanzhong County, and it is definitely the largest granary in Hanzhong. If Nanzheng is now empty in troops, we will bypass Mianyang and take Nanzheng directly. Whether it is Shi Bao, Sima Liang or Hu Fen, they will definitely rush back to Nanzheng for rescue as soon as possible, so that we can defeat them one by one."

"But what if Nan Zheng's troops were not empty?" Yan Yu asked: "Nan Zheng is so important, it is impossible for Jin thieves to not deploy heavy troops to guard?"

"Then we will adapt to the situation and find another way." Zhang Zhi replied: "In short, we can't waste time for a small Mianyang city. The Jin thieves in Mianyang city can afford to lose it. We will useless to take it down. We have to waste our troops and separate our troops to guard the guards. So if you want to fight, you should first attack the most useful places."

Seeing that Zhang Zhi had made up his mind, Yan Yu no longer objected, but suggested: "We were penetrated under Shi Bao's eyelids into the hinterland of Hanzhong. In order to prevent it, Shi Bao would definitely have adjustments and deployments. These situations would definitely be difficult to hide from the people along the way. We might as well take more delicious food to buy the people along the way and learn from them what adjustments and deployments have been made in the thief army these days, and there may be unexpected gains."

When Zhang Zhi heard that he was right, he nodded his head and agreed. He immediately ordered the Han army to set out eastward immediately, bypassing the military fortress Mianyang City built by the Shu army that year, and directly eastward. With the physical support of junk food, the Han army soldiers were quite tired, but they still followed the order and set off immediately. At the same time, the Han army soldiers took out some junk food and distributed it to the people along the way to win people's hearts, and also to inquire about the enemy's situation.

This also achieved results soon. In order to thank the junk food given by the Han army, the people along the way quickly reported two important situations to the Han army. One was that an army arrived at Mianyang two days ago to garrison, and the other was that another army crossed Mianyang and went directly to the east. Zhang Zhi also judged through this situation that the Jin army going east must have gone back to Nanzheng, and then inferred that there would definitely not be many defenders in Nanzheng - otherwise, Shi Bao would not have to send troops back to the defense first.

It was precisely because of this discovery that Zhang Zhi decisively gave up the plan to seize the towns along the way to supplement horse feed and vegetables, and led the Han army to travel all the way, heading straight to Nanzheng at full speed. He also arrived at the city of Nanzheng two days later and saw with his own eyes the Nanzheng city where Zhuge Villager and Jiang Wei had been stationed in the town for a long time.

It surprised the decision-making level of the Han army. At this moment, there were many flags on Nanzheng City, and every arrow bush was guarded by soldiers in the four gates. It was extremely difficult for the Han army to determine how many troops there are in Nanzheng City. It was impossible to tell whether the Jin army was bluffing and deliberately let all defenders come to the city to threaten the Han army, or whether they really had enough troops to guard it.

It is normal for humans to seek profit and avoid harm. Even Cuan Gu said to Zhang Zhi: "The Later General, Nanzheng City is strong, and I don't know how many troops there are to guard it. If we attack head-on, we may suffer a great loss. Otherwise, we can adjust our tactics and first attack to the north to gain a foothold. At the same time, we try to contact the detailed work we placed in Nanzheng City in advance, and explore the enemy situation and then attack."

Zhang Zhi shook his head again decisively and said, "You can't fight Baozhong first, you can only surround Nanzheng first. If you waste time on Baozhong first and give the thief army time to return to Nanzheng to obtain food, we may fall into a passive position. Therefore, the best way is to encircle Nanzheng immediately so that the food here cannot be transported out, so that we can take the initiative."

After saying that, Zhang Zhi immediately dispatched troops and ordered Cuan Gu and Wu Ma to lead 12,000 troops to establish a camp on the west bank of Baoshui, responsible for cutting off the water and land connection between Nanzheng and the main force of the Jin army. He also ordered Yang Ji to lead 5,000 troops to guard the south gate of Nanzheng, and Dong Yuan led 3,000 troops to guard the west gate. He led the main force to station outside the north gate of Nanzheng, and surrounded the fortifications on all sides to cut off the roads, destroying the bridge and docks under Nanzheng City, making the food in Nanzheng City unable to be transported out. At the same time, he rushed to build siege weapons and tried every means to inquire about the virtual and realities of the troops garrisoned in the city.

In addition, Zhang Zhi adopted Xue Rang's suggestion and asked someone to go north to Baozhong to hold a letter and make a heavy reward to the magistrate of Baozhong County, and do his best to try to persuade Baozhong to surrender directly through the means of surrendering. If this is successful, then Baozhong will not only no longer provide food and grass to the Jin army, but also directly cut off the Baoxie road, making it difficult for the Jin army to rely on Guanzhong to replenish supplies.

…………

Zhang Zhi's move to attack Nanzheng and his deployment arrangements were made by intuition without intelligence support. However, Zhang Zhi's keen intuition still made the poor Jin army suffer. The news that the Han army surrounded Nanzheng City from all sides reported to Shi Bao. Shi Bao, who had moved to Mianyang, immediately complained, "Oh no, there are only more than 7,000 troops in Nanzheng City now. Even if they can defend the city, they cannot transport the food. Without Nanzheng's grain supply, how many days can our more than 100,000 troops (including the defenders of each pass) last?"

"Father, let's go forward quickly." Shi Chong said quickly: "Before the thief army had no time to build the fortifications in the siege, hurry up and open up the contact with Nanzheng to ensure that our food channels are unobstructed."

"Go to die?" Shi Bao scolded angrily: "The bandit army surrounded Nanzheng City from all sides, and it was clearly preparing to siege the city and attack aid, with a force of up to 40,000. Our 20,000 troops rushed over to clear the passageway, which was just a chance to give the pseudo-Han thief army a headache to attack us?"

"What should I do?"

Shi Chong asked a little aggrievedly, and Shi Bao closed his eyes and thought for a while, saying, "First, contact King Fufeng immediately, tell him the situation, and ask him to bring back the main force on the outside to rescue us. Second, let the news go out, and we say that we also have a large granary in Mianyang, and the grain and grass are enough to support for more than half a year. Third, contact the governor of Yongzhou, Xi Xian immediately, and ask him to prepare food and grass, vehicles and livestock, and prepare for transporting grain from Guanzhong to reinforce Hanzhong."

After making these arrangements, Shi Bao personally picked up a pen and wrote a letter to the Hanzhong prefect Wang Xin, asking Wang Xin to just guard and not fight, patiently wait for the Han army to run out of food and grass to rescue the siege, and then immediately arranged for the envoy to send it out. Shi Chong quickly reminded: "Father, be careful, the thief army siege is surrounded by the city on all sides, and our messenger may be intercepted."

"I did it on purpose." Shi Bao said coldly: "I hope this letter falls into the hands of the thieves' army, so I did it on purpose. As long as the thieves' army sees this letter, they will definitely suspect that we have enough food and supplies, so they dare to patiently waste with him."

The heavens follow the wishes of others. After Shi Bao sent a messenger eastward to Nanzheng, he was indeed stopped by the Han army who was guarding the death penalty. He was escorted to Zhang Zhi with the people and the letter. After reading the letter from Shi Bao to Wang Xin, Zhang Zhi, who was somewhat suspicious, was somewhat worried, but he quickly sneered: "So what if it is true? You can calm down, I can calm down. Compared with me, I can fight for your grandchildren! I will be surrounded by Nanzheng, and see which of us can't calm down first!"

In this way, a rather ridiculous scene appeared. The Han army was far away from the local area and had no food channels. They surround the enemy's strong city but had enough food and drink. They opened a bonfire every day to boost the morale of the army and were full of energy. The Jin army was fighting in the local area, close to the granary, but instead fell into a food shortage crisis. They had to order food savings and no longer dared to reward soldiers at will to boost morale.

This situation became even worse. First, under the persuasion and temptation of the Han army envoy, Xiong An, the magistrate of Baozhong County of the Jin army, greedy for Zhang Zhi's huge reward, chose to surrender, helping the Han army cut off the Baoxi Road, which was closest to the Jin army and Guanzhong, and also exchanged him for money that could not be accumulated for several generations of embezzlement and bribery and personal safety protection of the Han army. Secondly, with the withdrawal of the two Jin army teams, Sima Liang and Hu Fen, the problem of insufficient food and grass in the Jin army became more serious, so that even if the food in Yang'anguan and Baishui was transported, the Jin army would never be able to support for forty days.

"Three hours?" The Han military and civil and military officials took a breath, and then Zhao Quan quickly said, "Hou General, are we sure of taking Nanzheng within three hours?"

"Yes." Zhang Zhi replied: "It's just that the preparation time will take longer. I estimated that it will take at least ten days to prepare before we have the hope of doing this."

"Hou General, what are you going to fight?" Cuan Gu asked curiously.

Zhang Zhi smiled and said, "Hanzhong was once the largest weapon workshop in our Han Dynasty. In order to forge weapons, the Prime Minister and General hired people to mine a large amount of local carbonite (coal) and iron ore, leaving behind many skilled miners. These days, I have also hired some miners from nearby at high prices..."
Chapter completed!