Chapter 253: Obvious advantage, Xiahou asks for a fight
At the end of September in the first year of Emperor Zhangwu of the Han Dynasty, the emperor of Cao Wei, Cao Pi, led an army of 80,000 people, claiming to have 200,000 troops, to arrive at Wancheng.
As the 80,000 Wei troops began to appear in Nanyang County in great force, the people in Nanyang County who were loyal to Cao Wei finally let go of their worries.
They even felt happy in their hearts.
Fortunately, I didn't surrender rashly before.
Before Cao Pi personally led his army into Nanyang County, news of his personal expedition had already spread throughout the Central Plains.
So when the emperor's imperial flag belonging to Cao Pi was placed all over the city of Wancheng, most of the county chiefs in Nanyang County sent their envoys to Wancheng to pay their respects to Cao Pi.
It is both a greeting and a show of loyalty.
Even Cao Tai and Sima Yi who were outside Wudang City quickly withdrew their troops from outside Wudang City and returned to Wancheng after learning the news.
They had been wandering outside Wudang before, just because they were worried that Mi Yang would march bravely to attack Wancheng.
Now that Cao Pi has personally led his army to Wancheng, they naturally no longer need to worry about the safety of Wancheng.
Under this situation, and because they are currently the ones who know the situation in Wudang City best in Nanyang County, they must return to Wancheng as soon as possible and tell Cao Pi personally the news they know.
Otherwise, how can we show what efforts they made before Cao Pi's army arrived?
After all, in the eyes of the world, Cao Tai and Sima Yi just led two thousand Wei cavalry troops to wander outside Wudang City. Apart from capturing a few Han army scouts, they never engaged in a battle with a Han army.
The cavalry was very fast. After Cao Tai and Sima Yi left some scouts outside Wudang City, they led most of the cavalry back to Wancheng.
When they returned to the outside of Wancheng, they found that in addition to the emperor's imperial flag representing Cao Pi, there were also many flags of Cao Wei ministers on the top of Wancheng.
Looking at those familiar flags, Cao Tai and Sima Yi's eyes condensed.
"Chiang", "Dong", "Liu", "Wu", "Guo", "Sun", "Chen",.
Any owner who is qualified to place the flag on the city head will be a high-ranking official with at least two thousand stones.
Looking at the number of flags, Cao Tai and Sima Yi were a little stunned.
In order to deal with Mi Yang, did your Majesty move the entire Luoyang Center?
Although they were surprised in their hearts, Cao Tai and Sima Yi quickly came to the Chariot General's Mansion in Wancheng to pay homage to Cao Pi.
When Cao Tai and Sima Yi arrived outside the lobby of the general's mansion, Cao Pi was discussing military affairs with the generals.
When Cao Pi was discussing military affairs, he heard the eunuch report that Cao Tai was waiting for an audience outside the lobby. A look of sadness immediately appeared on Cao Pi's face.
He asked the eunuch to quickly summon Cao Tai and Sima Yi to come in.
When Cao Tai entered the hall under the leadership of the eunuchs, all the civil and military officials in the hall looked at him with sympathy.
The moment Cao Tai saw Cao Pi, tears instantly appeared on his face.
He knelt down more than ten steps away from Cao Pi, and then walked step by step to five steps in front of Cao Pi's throne. He kept bowing his head to Cao Pi and said:
"I hope your Majesty will avenge my father!"
Cao Tai's plea immediately resounded in the huge hall.
Seeing Cao Tai's tearful appearance, the faces of Cao Wei's civil and military ministers in the lobby showed unbearable expressions.
The unbearable look on Cao Pi's face became even more intense.
As the emperor, he ignored the etiquette between monarch and ministers, and waved Cao Tai with his hand to continue to step forward.
When Cao Tai came to his throne, Cao Pi's face was already covered with tears. Cao Pi stroked Cao Tai's hat and said:
"Don't worry Zian, I will definitely avenge my uncle."
For Cao Wei, Cao Ren was a very high-status cavalry general.
For Cao Pi, Cao Ren taught him martial arts since childhood, so Cao Pi had feelings for Cao Ren.
Cao Pi was the eldest among the second generation of Cao Wei.
Now that Cao Tai's father, Cao Ren, is dead, as the saying goes, an elder brother is like a father, and Cao Pi is Cao Tai's king.
Therefore, when Cao Pi made an action of caressing Cao Tai's hat, who was about the same age as him, not only would it not make people feel disobedient, but it would also give people a feeling that Cao Pi was protecting his clan.
This made all the civil and military ministers present feel a warm feeling in their hearts.
Unlike later generations, in ancient times sometimes nepotism was a form of political correctness.
Because a monarch who treats Yuan Cong and clan members poorly can easily create an image of being mean and unkind to others.
The psychology of ancient people is that if they don’t even love Yuan Cong and their clan members, how can they still love and care for people like them who are neither relatives nor friends?
Therefore, Cao Pi's behavior was partly an expression of his true feelings, and partly an attempt to appease people's hearts.
The war is coming, and people's hearts are the most important thing.
But after all, the monarch and his ministers were different, and it was time to discuss military affairs, so Cao Tai slowly stepped down from Cao Pi's throne after being appeased by Cao Pi for a while.
When Cao Tai stepped down from Cao Pi's throne and sat down in his own seat, Sima Yi stepped forward and reported to Cao Pi the current situation outside Wudang City.
Under the narration of the minister who had just returned from Wudang City, and the information reported by the Wei army scouts, the ministers in the hall roughly understood the current specific information of Mi Yang's army.
The most important thing in intelligence is the number of enemy troops.
Mi Yang had previously withdrawn 10,000 troops from Wudang City, but he could not hide it from Cao Tai and Sima Yi, who were wandering outside Wudang City all day long.
In addition, according to the evidence obtained by the spies Cao Zhen sent from Hanzhong before, it is proved that the army currently held by Mi Yang inside and outside Wudang City is no more than 30,000.
After almost deducing the total number of troops in Mi Yang's hands, the ministers here who knew the soldiers almost instantly deduced the actual number of soldiers in Mi Yang's hands.
It should be around 20,000.
And if the total number of troops in Mi Yang's hands is only 20,000, then the number of regular soldiers of the Han army is only 15,000 at most.
The inferences made by the ministers of Cao and Wei present here are not drawn randomly, but based on the common practice of this era.
In historical records, the ancient army and civilians are often clearly distinguished, so many people mistakenly believe that the army is basically a soldier, and almost all logistical tasks are undertaken by civilians.
This is actually an inaccurate view.
The real situation is: every army with a high degree of formalization has many logistics soldiers who are responsible for logistics support, called auxiliary soldiers.
The proportion of soldiers accounts for roughly 20% to 30% of the entire army;
If it is a cavalry unit, the proportion of logistics troops will be higher; if it is an overseas expedition, the proportion of logistics troops will be even higher.
In addition, the civilian men who escorted the grain and grass were counted separately. It is impossible for the entire army's logistics work to rely on them.
It's not even as ordinary people imagine, the number of civilians must be several times more than the entire army.
Moreover, civilian husbands would follow the army and usually live in military camps.
Otherwise, there would be countless examples of wars involving tens of thousands of soldiers in Chinese history.
If the civilian population, which is several times more than the number of soldiers, lives in the military camp on a daily basis, then a night attack by the enemy will cause the camp to roar.
It's just that there are so many more civilians than soldiers. Faced with this situation, they will definitely be extremely panicked.
At that time, the entire military camp will collapse without even having the enemy troops invade the camp.
No matter how stupid a general is, he knows how terrifying Ying Xiao is, so he rarely does it.
Moreover, civilian husbands were mainly responsible for transporting grain and grass.
For a large army, there will never be too much or too little food.
Therefore, once the civilians transport the grain and grass to the camp, the auxiliary soldiers in the military camp will be responsible for handing it over, and the civilians mostly return to the original route to continue transporting the grain and grass.
Because civilians also have to consume grain and grass, from an economic perspective, it is definitely most cost-effective to allow civilians to be in the process of constantly transporting grain and grass.
For a large army, the proportion of civilians is not simply calculated by multiples, but requires consideration of many factors.
For example, whether the army's garrison is close to one's own granary, for example, whether the road transportation is convenient, etc.
Just like Jiangdong, because of the existence of the Yangtze River, as long as there is enough food and grass, he can mobilize an army of 100,000 to go out.
The difference between auxiliary soldiers and civilians is that auxiliary soldiers have certain combat capabilities and even participate in certain military training in the military camp.
Although the number of civilians is not certain, the number of auxiliary soldiers in the army is clearly recorded.
"Cao Cao's Notes on Sun Tzu's Art of War": "Chariots and four-horse horses, ten pawns and one heavy horse. Two people are responsible for cooking and keeping the family, one person is responsible for protecting and keeping the clothes, and two people are responsible for stables and raising horses, which is a total of five people."
There are ten infantrymen, mainly driving carts and oxen. Two people are responsible for raising food and cooking, and one person is responsible for keeping the clothes, so there are three people."
From this record, it can be seen that between the Han and Wei dynasties, Cao Cao's troops and cavalry logistics troops accounted for about one-half of the entire army, and the infantry logistics troops also accounted for about 30% of the entire army.
Moreover, it can be seen from Cao Cao's records that when the army usually goes out on an expedition, the auxiliary troops escort the baggage vehicles and follow the army on the expedition.
This is also the reason why some armies will not collapse immediately but can still hold on for some time even though their food routes are cut off.
Currently, out of the 80,000 troops brought by Cao Pi, the actual number of soldiers is only over 50,000, and the rest are all auxiliary troops.
And because Luoyang is not far from Nanyang County, and both places are located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, the transportation conditions are not bad, so the number of civilians used is not very large.
Just like Cao Ren's 50,000-strong army before, even with the existence of the Han River, Cao Ren did not have to carry a large number of civilians when he went on an expedition, but there were only 30,000 soldiers in his 50,000-strong army.
The remaining 20,000 or so are auxiliary soldiers.
It is precisely because the 50,000 troops led by Cao Ren at that time were not all regular soldiers, so their mentality collapsed quickly when attacked by the fire.
Judging from the strength of the enemy and our forces, Cao Pi's fear of Mi Yang became less severe.
His military advantage is obvious.
As time passed, Cao Pi also learned more and more about the battle in Xicheng.
At that time, Cao Ren's nearly 50,000-strong army was in an ambush and was surrounded by Han troops whose strength was not much inferior to Cao Ren's, which led to the annihilation of the entire army.
Now that Hanzhong is in danger, and Mi Yang may leave some of his army to garrison the west city, the number of regular soldiers of the Han army in Wudang City is less than half of his.
If he didn't fall into the trap, Wei Jun would still have a huge advantage.
It's just that Cao Pi fought with Cao Cao when he was young, so he knew that if it was a field battle, he would have the advantage.
But now Mi Yang is likely to hold on to Wudang City, so his military advantage is not so obvious.
Just when the monarchs and ministers of Cao and Wei in the lobby learned more accurate information about the strength of the Han army and were thinking about countermeasures, Sima Yi reported another bombshell news to Cao Pi.
That is when Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor.
When he learned the news, Cao Pi's originally happy face suddenly turned into a huge look of anger.
He couldn't help but said angrily: "How dare those who weave mats and sell shoes!"
Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor in Chengdu and restored the Han Dynasty not long ago, so Cao Pi, who had just arrived in Nanyang County from Luoyang, did not know about it at first.
Even Sima Yi only learned about this not long ago.
After learning about this, Sima Yi was not too surprised.
Because of the Great Victory of Xicheng and the fact that there was no great Han Zhengshuo in the world before, it was only reasonable that Liu Bei would proclaim himself emperor.
But Sima Yi was not surprised. When Cao Pi learned the news, his reaction was very big.
When Cao Pi's angry voice came out, all the ministers of Cao and Wei in the hall lowered their heads and did not dare to look directly at Cao Pi.
The reason why Cao Pi was so angry was that Liu Bei restored the Han Dynasty and proclaimed himself emperor at this time, which was a naked challenge to Cao Wei's status as the Zhengshuo of China.
The Cao Wei legal system established by Cao Pi was derived from the abdication of Han Emperor Liu Xie.
Now that Liu Bei has restored the Han Dynasty and proclaimed himself emperor in Chengdu, isn't that telling the world that he established the Wei Dynasty by usurping the throne?
Even Liu Bei's Han Dynasty was founded by stepping on the corpse of his Wei cavalry general!
The legal system of the dynasty was threatened. As an emperor, how could Cao Pi not be angry?
In history, when Cao Pi learned that Liu Bei had proclaimed himself emperor, he might have dismissed it because Liu Bei only had one place in Shu at that time.
But in this world, Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor based on the power of a great victory, so Cao Pi felt a threat at this time.
Cao Pi stood up in anger, looked at the ministers in the hall and asked:
"Today Liu thief dares to rebel and proclaim himself emperor. If I don't attack him, then where will the power of Wei Dynasty remain?"
"If you want to defeat Liu's thieves, you must first defeat Mi's thieves. Are there any of you who would like to be the vanguard of our army?"
After Cao Pi said his angry words, most of the ministers in the hall had frowns on their faces.
But there are not without militants among the ministers.
For example, Xiahou Ba, the Wei general who had just been transferred by Cao Pi.
Xiahou Ba, whose courtesy name was Zhongquan, was the second son of Xiahou Yuan, the former general who conquered the West. His mother was the sister of Cao Cao's wife, Ding.
In the 24th year of Jian'an, Xiahou Yuan was beheaded by Huang Zhong in the Battle of Dingjun Mountain. After learning about this, Xiahou Ba often gritted his teeth and determined to avenge his father Xia Houyuan.
In addition, Xiahou Ba had a strong character, so after listening to Cao Pi's words, he immediately stood up and said to Cao Pi:
"I am willing to use the sharp soldiers to fight against the enemy and break the barriers to achieve success. If there are no ministers, Your Majesty does not need to worry about it."
When he heard that he had just wanted to attack Mi Yang in Wudang, and a general from the clan came out to ask for a fight, Cao Pi's angry face showed some joy.
Nowadays, there is a powerful enemy in front of him, and what he needs is this kind of tiger and wolf minister!
(End of chapter)
This chapter has been completed!