At this moment, a man walked up to me, saluted, and shouted, "By order of Marshal Yue, the 300 men of the Beiwei Army are at your command!" It was Xu Delong.
I smiled and returned the greeting, saying, "Captain Xu, it's nice to see you again."
Xu Delong smiled and said, "Yes."
Having just returned from the front lines against the Jin invaders, they exuded a renewed aura of steely resolve. I waved my hand and said, "Let's go, let's eat first."
Xu Delong said, "There's no time now, let's talk about the situation first."
I pointed to the opposite side and said, “That’s Jin Wuzhu’s 800,000-strong army. Behind them are 600,000 Tang troops helping us, and to the north are 300,000 Mongols. You’ve seen this side too, that’s our 250,000 Liangshan troops. Right now, we only know that Jin Wuzhu is going to launch a surprise attack on us, but we can’t figure out his main focus and methods.”
Xu Delong looked up at the sky and said, "Jin Wuzhu usually launches surprise attacks at night. We have a lot of work to do from now on, and I don't know if we'll make it in time. Hehe, I didn't expect to fight him again in a different place. Let's fight a war of time with him!"
As he spoke, he shouted, "Li Ergou and Wang Laosan, get to work!"
The two soldiers responded and ran off. They were responsible for scouting enemy positions.
I asked, "What preparations are needed?"
Xu Delong asked, "Where is our headquarters?"
"Right here, Liangshan is the headquarters."
Xu Delong nodded and asked, "How are the combat capabilities of the allied forces on both sides? Can they withstand the attack?"
I said, "It should be fine, they're all elite soldiers."
"Then their task is simple. Jin Wuzhu will send a group of men to launch an attack. They only need to withstand one attack to complete the mission. Just tell them to prepare to meet the enemy as soon as the sun sets."
I asked, "What about headquarters?"
Xu Delong chuckled: "This will take some effort. Send me 5,000 strong laborers and prepare several hundred cubic meters of giant timber. At the same time, withdraw the main force of Liangshan five miles back, leaving only empty tents in front."
This time, Liangshan mobilized its entire force, with no shortage of men or supplies, and quickly gathered all the men and timber Xu Delong needed. Xu Delong picked up a stick, bent down, and drew a large circle about 10 meters square on the Liangshan camp. He instructed the soldiers who came to obey his orders: "Dig a pit one and a half people deep in the circled area, three pits per row, and then dig another row every 30 steps, for a total of 10 rows."
Li Yun, a civil engineering expert, quickly grasped Xu Delong's meaning. While working in groups, he leaned over and asked, "Even at night, will the Jin soldiers be fooled by digging so many pits?"
Xu Delong looked up at the sky again and pondered, "If we have time to make a disguise, this problem is not a problem. What I fear most now is that Jin Wuzhu will act prematurely."
Before long, Li Ergou and Wang Laosan returned. Xu Delong asked, "How did it go?"
Li Ergou nodded mysteriously: "There is a plan to launch a sneak attack."
I asked in surprise, "How did you figure that out?"
Wang Laosan said proudly, "This was originally created by our Marshal Yue Fei back then."
Seeing my utter confusion, Xu Delong smiled and said, "Xiao Qiang, have you ever heard the saying, 'A horse won't get fat without night grass'?"
I asked, puzzled, "I've heard of it, but does it have anything to do with Marshal Yue's pioneering work?"
Xu Delong slowly said, "When our marshal first faced off against Jin Wuzhu's army, neither side knew the other's strengths and weaknesses, and scouts from both sides were flying around like shooting stars. Among the many reports, our marshal finally discovered a useful clue: Jin Wuzhu hadn't ordered anyone to prepare hay for his horses. This is the reason we just mentioned that horses won't get fat without night fodder. Horse breeders always feed their horses at night, especially the horses in our army, which are specially fed by dedicated personnel. The hay for the night is prepared next to the stables during the day. The fact that the Jin army didn't prepare night fodder means they will need horses for nighttime operations. In this way, our marshal saw through Jin Wuzhu's trick."
I sighed, "Being a marshal is really tough. So, does that mean that kid Jin Wuzhu didn't prepare hay for the horses again today?"
Xu Delong laughed and said, "Yes, I didn't expect this kid to be so incorrigible. But ever since his failed sneak attack last time, he probably hasn't figured out how we saw through him."
I asked, "Last time you used digging pits to deal with Jin Wuzhu?"
Xu Delong nodded with a smile: "It works quite well."
Digging holes is quite effective; I wonder how effective it is in games like Dou Dizhu and Tractor.
More than 5,000 people worked in shifts to dig, and another 1,000 people transported the soil. By three or four in the afternoon, they had finally dug ten rows of giant pits. I circled the edge of one pit twice and asked Xu Delong, "Would the Jin soldiers jump into such a big pit?"
Xu Delong rolled up his sleeves and jumped into the pit, saying, "To get them to obediently jump in, we need to do some technical work." As soon as Xu Delong reached out, Li Jingshui handed him a square log that she had prepared beforehand. Xu Delong took it and stood it in the pit. Then, using this log as the center, he placed several more square logs on either side of it, and then placed a crossbeam on top of these logs.
The more I looked, the more confused I became. I squatted down at the edge of the pit and asked, "Are you building a trap or an overpass?"
Xu Delong secured all the logs, climbed out of the pit, and gradually covered the opening with thin wooden planks, finally covering it with a layer of sand for camouflage. He had a few soldiers run and jump on it to test it, and said with satisfaction, "Hmm, that counts as one."
I stepped on it too, and it felt almost like flat ground. I wondered, "I understand what you mean, but isn't this trap a bit too sturdy? What if the Jin soldiers step on it?"
Xu Delong said, "This first row is meant to be crossed by them."
As we spoke, the rest of the 300 men also got busy. Gradually, I figured out the trick. The first few rows of these ten giant pits were supported by square timbers more than a person's thickness, with planks three or four centimeters thick, which basically ensured that people and horses could pass through them without hindrance for a short time. However, the further the pit went, the thinner the supports and the thinner the planks became. By the last row, it was barely enough for a person to run through. I felt much more at ease and stood at the edge of the last row of pits, carefully testing the trembling traps with my feet, and laughed, "It really is a technical job."
Xu Delong looked up at the sky one last time, watching the sun set. He patted the dirt off his hands and said, "It's almost time. Now there's only one last difficult thing left."
"What's up?"
Xu Delong said, "If we want to make use of all our pits, we need a bait that can make the Jin army charge forward recklessly."
I said, "Then what do you think would be suitable?"
Xu Delong asked me, "Who is the commander-in-chief of our allied forces?" I was annoyed; it turned out they still didn't know who they were working for.
I looked around, and finally pointed to myself, saying embarrassedly, "It looks like...it's me."
Xu Delong stared at me for a long time with wide eyes, and then stammered, "This is not the time to joke."
Wu Yong and the heroes chimed in noisily, "It's definitely him!"
Xu Delong suppressed a laugh and said, "Alright, Marshal Xiao—we'll need your cooperation for tonight's operation."
I asked, puzzled, "Is there anything I need to do here?"
Xu Delong said, "To make all the Jin soldiers fall into the pit, we need a trigger that they'll covet at first sight..."