Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

When Zhou Yu, with a worried expression, led Cheng Pu, Zu Mao, and Han Dang to the lookout post upon receiving the news.

Cao Ren, having abandoned his intention to attack, had already begun deploying scouts around the small hill, intending to trap Zhou Yu and his men on it.

Cao Ren knew that the troops led by Sun Ce were a lone force, with limited supplies.

He only needed to trap them on the hill for five or six days, and they might starve to death.

Zhou Yu and his men, standing on high ground, also observed the Cao army appearing nearby in a large number of light boats.

"The Cao army has indeed come as Gongjin predicted…"

"The Yellow River's flooding must be the work of the Cao army; otherwise, they wouldn't have arrived so quickly and prepared so many light boats in advance."

"This is troublesome. This Cao general probably intends to trap us here to starve us to death."

…

Unlike Han Dang, Cheng Pu, and Zu Mao, whose voices betrayed their worry, Zhou Yu's eyes showed a hint of joy after looking around.

"Good! Good! Our chance of survival lies with them."

At that moment, Zhou Yu looked at the light boats monitoring the hill from afar, his eyes gleaming.

Zu Mao, upon hearing this, couldn't help but ask anxiously.

"Gongjin, why do you say that? Do you have a plan?"

"Let's go back to the tent and discuss it in detail."

Zhou Yu nodded, then led Han Dang and the others back to the central army tent.

Even though the army's supplies were scarce, the layout of the camp was still properly arranged to maintain morale.

With Sun Ce absent, Zhou Yu undoubtedly became the temporary commander of this force, presiding over the gathering of other officers in the army to discuss matters.

When the various officers arrived, Zhou Yu carefully observed each of their expressions.

As a result, Zhou Yu couldn't help but admire Li Ji's "military household system" after letting out a sigh of relief.

The soldiers cultivated by the "military household system" had a level of cohesion and stability of morale that ordinary soldiers could not match.

Even though the army was trapped on the hill by the flood, and the army's morale had clearly declined.

The morale was still quite stable, and many officers showed no signs of chaos or desertion, which undoubtedly made Zhou Yu secretly relieved and laid the foundation for breaking the situation.

In front of all the officers in the army, Zhou Yu dropped a "bombshell" as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Everyone, I have thought of a way to break the current predicament…"

…

Cao Ren, who had deployed heavy forces around the hill to monitor the enemy's movements, was constantly observing the enemy's movements within the hill.

On that day, the two armies faced each other across the water, with no changes.

The next day was the same.

Cao Ren knew he didn't have enough troops and didn't dare to attack.

Zhou Yu lacked boats and couldn't get out of the hill at all.

However, the careful Cao Ren noticed a detail.

The smoke rising from the Liu army's camp was subtly decreasing, and based on the number of Liu troops Cao Ren observed, the amount of smoke was far from enough.

This undoubtedly verified the fact that the Liu army's food and supplies were insufficient, so they had to choose to reduce their consumption.

'Just struggling before death!'

Cao Ren couldn't help but feel happy, understanding that the Liu army's collapse due to running out of food was imminent.

That night, the boats that Cao Ren had deployed around the area captured more than a dozen Liu soldiers who were clinging to logs.

After Cao Ren sent people to interrogate these deserters one by one, he obtained an even more exciting piece of information.

Of course, Cao Cao had suffered a great loss in interrogating prisoners before, so Cao Ren did not forget to verify the information on the captured prisoners again and again, ensuring that there was no possibility of forgery.

That was that the original commander, Sun Ce, had disappeared, and Zhou Yu, Sun Ce's sworn brother, had been appearing everywhere to appease the army's morale for many days, and the Liu army's food and supplies were indeed running low.

"Zhou Yu? Zhou Gongjin?"

This name was undoubtedly unfamiliar to Cao Ren.

Liu Bei's camp was full of talents, and there were countless civil and military generals who were famous in the Han Dynasty, but Zhou Yu really didn't have any outstanding achievements to show off.

At least, Cao Ren hadn't heard of Zhou Yu's name very much.

He only knew that Zhou Yu was Sun Ce's sworn brother, and their relationship was very close. They were inseparable, and Zhou Yu was quite young, a mere youth who had just come of age.

Gaining this information made Cao Ren feel much more at ease, and he planned to wait for the Liu army to collapse and perish on its own.

However, perhaps the appearance of deserters stimulated Zhou Yu.

The Liu army, which had been inactive for two consecutive days, began to make frequent moves on the third day, not only starting to cut down the few remaining trees on the hill, but also dismantling wooden facilities such as arrow towers, lookout posts, and camps.

After careful observation, Cao Ren came to a conclusion.

Zhou Yu undoubtedly knew that continuing to drag on like this would lead to death.

Therefore, Zhou Yu had to start trying to break out of the encirclement.

"Or, to be more precise, he is preparing to escape under the cover of the army."

Cao Ren secretly judged Zhou Yu's thoughts.

Now, Zhou Yu didn't even have a single boat in his hands.

Even if there were many trees on the hill, without various tools and shipwrights, he could only build some crude rafts at most. Zhou Yu had no ability to fight the Cao army in the water.

If Zhou Yu wanted to escape, the only way was probably to order the soldiers of each unit in the army to escape by clinging to logs on their own.

In this way, the generals, including Zhou Yu, could hide among them and escape in the chaos.

This couldn't help but make Cao Ren frown slightly. It was naturally important to destroy this elite force of twenty thousand.

But Cao Ren knew even more clearly that capturing a large number of Liu generals would also have great benefits.

At least, those Liu generals could become political chips in Cao Cao's hands to negotiate with Liu Bei.

Liu Bei had always established himself on the basis of benevolence and virtue, and he would definitely not ignore the captured generals.

But if the Liu army was allowed to scatter and escape with logs, Cao Ren only had two hundred light boats, a limited number, and there would inevitably be many who slipped through the net, failing to achieve complete success.

Just as Cao Ren was thinking about how to stop them, he suddenly noticed that Zhou Yu, either for convenience or because he was sure that the Cao army had few troops and wouldn't dare to attack.

The position of the wood was not far from the waterline, not even an arrow's distance away.

This made Cao Ren overjoyed, and he immediately had an idea in his mind, quickly arranging for people to prepare flammable materials and a large number of arrows.

In order to avoid falling into any ambush, the cautious Cao Ren would naturally not risk going ashore, but instead prepared to burn the wood with fire arrows from afar in the water.

For Zhou Yu, who was trapped on this small hill, wood was a non-renewable resource.

Burning this batch of wood was equivalent to destroying Zhou Yu's hope of escaping.

(End of this chapter)