Cao Cao was also a man of knowledgeable military affairs. Of course, he could easily understand Li Su's promotion strategy and intentions.

Obviously, Li Su received an order from Liu Bei to assemble all the mobile troops and go north to reinforce the battlefield in Qiao County, so he launched a large-scale move.

However, Li Su lacked strong generals around him. Zhou Tai had been sent to Sishui by him, while Gan Ning was pulled to support Liu Bei in advance. So Li Su chose the most stable way to advance. The entire army took a warship to attack on water and fought along the Whishui northwest. (Dian Wei was still by Li Su's side, but that was not a famous general in charge of the army, but his personal martial arts skills were outstanding and could defend Li Su's flagship)

After all, there were 500,000 or 600,000 Cao's army in Qiao County, and Li Su only had 40,000 to 50,000 people. He was also afraid that he would go north by land. If he had not had a strong general, he would easily be defeated by Cao's army.

With Li Su's prudence and composure, of course, he pursues the most stable and invincible tactics to support the main battlefield of the middle lane.

Woe is a small and medium-sized river, and its width and draft are of course much smaller than that of the Huai River, so the Five-Tooth Battleship and Tower Ship are probably not allowed to enter.

According to the rewards of Cao's messenger, Cao Cao learned that the warship used by Li Sujun to advance, which he had discovered, was the largest battleship.

But even if the fighting ship is placed in the Whishui River Basin, the Cao army's civilian boats are no match for it at all. Li Su clearly wants to fight steadily and give full play to the advantages of the Han army in Yangzhou to the extreme, and he will not go ashore to fight land wars with you at all.

After Cao Cao analyzed the threat from the South Road, he asked his subordinates to get a map and estimate the homework on the map:

"Li Su ignored the food routes and did not want to clear the county towns far away on both sides of the Wo Water, so he followed the Wo Water to support Liu Bei. In this way, he could at least advance the distance of one county town every day.

In this Qiao County, if you keep siegeing the city from Long Kang to Chengfu, three days will be enough, and Chengfu will only be there for one day when he arrives in Qiao County. Therefore, after four days, Li Su can cut off the vortex water near Qiao County.

If our army is finally defeated by Liu Bei on the front battlefield, it means that even the Wo Water will not be able to retreat, and Qiao County will be the burial place of the lonely..."

After saying these words, Cao Cao closed his eyes in despair, leaving only a few long sighs.

Guo Jia, who accompanied him to analyze the map, was already planning to be poor.

Despite this, Guo Jia has been treated as a courtesy for so many years after all. Even though he knows that there is no available strategy, he still wants to provide advice:

"Prime Minister, the enemy came faster than we expected. After all, they could bypass the city and advance with just food. Even if there were still defenders in the southern counties of Qiao County, they could not leave the city to cut off the river and intercept Li Su, he just wanted to come.

In this situation, it is better to think about how to fight the time difference and pretend that our army was afraid of being surrounded by Li Su and cut off the vortex water, so we had to withdraw our troops to Qiao County in advance.

Yesterday, Liu Bei refused to chase out of the defense line, and today he refused to attack us. He simply felt that we still have the intention to fight the army and he didn't want to waste his life.

But if our entire army retreated, and he really had to retreat out of fear of being cut off by Li Su, could Liu Bei still bear it? Even our army retreated to Qiao County, and then acted as if we wanted to cross the Wo River in Qiao County and continue to retreat to the Sui River Basin in the northeast.

Liu Bei could not resist chasing him! As long as he came to chase him, he had to give up his pre-set position. Our army would lean on Wo Water and form a formation outside Qiao County, and fight with Liu Bei for the last battle! This time we defended, Liu Bei attacked! He put it to death and survive!"

Cao Cao raised his eyes in confusion and looked at Guo Jia seriously for a long time. He patted Guo Jia on the shoulder without recognizing it: "Wangxiao, with your wisdom, you have made such a clumsy plan. Han Xin formed a formation on the back of the water, and it was not the one with the back-to-back water soldiers who defeated the Zhao people. The key was to attack Jingxing Camp.

Our entire division is here now, and we have no way to retreat. We have no key places to rescue the enemy and can seize it. If we really fight, the only chance is to attack Liu Bei and kill Liu Bei. In addition, there is no need to save the enemy.

Liu Bei could even retreat in the last battle. As long as he did not die, the Han army would be able to hold on. There were so many new recruits in our army, and forming a formation with the backs of water can indeed leave the soldiers with no way out, but will they not surrender in chaos?"

Guo Jia also sighed: "I have been favored by the Prime Minister and have been trusted and used for many years, but I have no other plan now. Liu Bei's engineering soldiers' benefits are far beyond our imagination. Unless our army is put to death, they will not be seduced at all, and in the end they will be consumed to death."

Cao Cao sighed for a long time: "What you said is not bad, I really have no choice. I sent an order to test the feint attack on Liu Bei's defense line for one day today. If it is weak, it is not enough. Liu Bei can't see our intention to retreat to Qiao County overnight tonight. Then, after night, he quickly retreated.

Tomorrow, at the edge of the Wo Water in Qiao County, I pretend to cross the river in batches. I don’t believe that Liu Bei can resist the opportunity to cross half of the cross!"

"Here!" The generals of his subordinates quickly took the order to execute.

The war during the day was really unreasonable. Cao Cao continued to organize several waves of tentative offensives, but the proportion of casualties was extremely bad, and he could not break through the defense line of the Han army at all.

But the total loss is not high, just exaggerated in exchange. Liu Bei didn't think much about it, and the strategists around him also felt that Cao Cao was just unwilling to give up, so he was testing it in a different way.

Among the strategists, only Fa Zheng noticed something abnormal and felt that Cao Cao might have to retreat overnight, so he pretended to continue attacking before retreating to paralyze the Han army.

But in addition to Fa Zheng, other strategists, including Lu Su, were all focused on it, thinking that this was Cao Cao's trick to lure the enemy, and he could not believe it, and would rather miss the opportunity to fight than chase.

Liu Bei then adopted Lu Su's statement that he did not arrange a robbery that night, nor did he let the cavalry troops be prepared to pursue at any time, but instead let most of the troops sleep well.

This cannot be said that Lu Su is wrong. After all, if you are ready to chase him anytime and anywhere, you may indeed be able to get Cao Cao's plan to lure the enemy. Some things cannot be judged by the reverse result. As long as you do not open your eyes, you cannot calculate Cao Cao's true intention based on the existing evidence.

It is both a 50% chance to lure the enemy and not to lure the enemy. Lu Su's caution itself is not wrong.

The next day was New Year's Eve. Early in the morning, when the Han army sent scouts to Cao's camp to test, they found that a large number of main forces of the Cao army had been withdrawn. Although there were too many Cao's army, there were still scattered pieces of fish and badges that didn't have time to leave, but it did not affect the overall situation.

"Being Cao Cao is actually a vain! The Cao thief must have heard that the Wo Water or Sui Water coast in the rear were threatened by the Prime Minister or Zhuge on the back of the flanks! I don't know which one succeeded!"

Fa Zheng immediately judged this situation and reported it to Liu Bei, Lu Su and others.

This cannot be blamed for the fact that the Han army's intelligence transmission was slower than Cao Cao. After all, Cao Cao was in the interior defense operations, and the entire territory of Qiao County was controlled by Cao Cao.

Li Su broke through Dangtu and Long Kang, and could not directly let the messenger of victory pass through the enemy-occupied area to deliver a message to Liu Bei, so he had to take a detour.

Therefore, it is normal for the war reports of the Han army from other roads to be delivered to Liu Bei two or three days later than Cao's army. The messenger had already tried his best.

Therefore, until this moment, Liu Bei didn't know whether Li Su or Zhuge Liang was the one who won first. Anyway, it must be that there was another problem with the key points of the waterway behind Cao Cao.

After analyzing the situation, Fa Zheng tried his best to persuade Liu Bei:

"Your Majesty, chase me! Cao Cao has suffered severe losses for two consecutive days. On the first day, tens of thousands of soldiers were killed or injured! On the second day, there were tens of thousands or more! Maybe there were countless Cao soldiers who were frozen to death and frostbite and lost their combat effectiveness during these two nights.

The Cao army is now worth less than 500,000 troops! In addition, the Cao army will definitely have a large number of new recruits and strong men taking the opportunity to escape. This number can be discounted, perhaps only 450,000 or 60,000.

In the past few days, our army has lost less than 20,000 combat power, and Cao's army has dropped by more than 100,000. The remaining 240,000 elite soldiers are chasing for 450,000 remaining enemies, so we can chase them! And if Cao Cao really wants to run away, he will definitely leave a flaw that was attacked by us halfway!"

(Note: Fa Zheng said that the Han army still has 240,000 active combat soldiers, not that 20,000 people were killed or injured, but also that frostbite and temporarily lost their combat effectiveness.)

Liu Bei looked at Lu Su, and Lu Su also admitted most of Fa Zheng's analysis, but pointed out one thing: Cao's army may still be seducing, and when he arrived in Qiao County, he was not ready to cross the Wo Water, so he fought with his back and fought to the end!

After Liu Bei weighed the pros and cons, he felt that he could chase him this time. Cao Cao was defeated and lost 100,000 yuan. He also heard that there were reinforcements from the Han army on the flanks that would cut off his retreat at any time. How could the morale of the army be maintained?

As soon as Cao Cao retreated, he immediately bit and chased him. It was very hopeful that he would end the battle completely.

Liu Bei just needs not to go up easily. Let Ma Chao and Huang Zhong lead the cavalry to assault, and Guan Yu lead the main force of the central army to command the front line.

On the morning of that day, the Han army immediately began to march and pursue, and the cavalry first tried to bite the Cao army's rear formation and continuously consumed the Cao army during the mobile war.

During a daytime battle, Cao's army was cut and chased and annihilated at least 20,000 to 30,000, and the battlefield moved from Luyi to Qiao County.

Qiao County, Cao Cao's hometown. He probably never expected that the last decisive battle in his life would start in his hometown. He retreated from Luyi, fought and retreated, and fought to Qiao County, which stretched for seventy or eighty miles.

On New Year's Eve, the Han army temporarily camped and rested twenty miles away from the shore of Woshui, but did not waste manpower to dig temporary fortifications. After all, on New Year's Eve, it would be too inhumane to let the soldiers build again.

Moreover, the attack the next day should be the main attack of the Han army, to encircle and annihilate the main force of the Cao army backed by the Wo Water. Since Cao Cao seduced Liu Bei to attack at the cost of his own death, Liu Bei certainly had to give this face. Liu Bei would play the role of the attacking party as promised, and the fortifications would be completely worthless.

God seems to be more respectful. The heavy snow a few days ago stopped one day before New Year's Eve, and the speed of soldiers on both sides continuing to freeze to death and frostbite suddenly decreased.

The difficulty and construction of camping and tents this night have been greatly reduced, and it seems that God wants everyone to have a peaceful New Year.

Early on the first and first day of the Lunar New Year, the Han army recovered slightly and walked the last ten miles of the voyage along the WoShui coast. After rectifying the formation, the Han army, under the unified command of Guan Yu, took steady steps and advanced in an array, launching a general attack on Cao's army.

The Cao army was not afraid of fighting and was asked to hedge against the Han army. Considering that behind it was the vortex water and the river, even the new recruits could not escape, and they either fought or died or surrendered in the end.

At the same time, because it took another two days, Li Su, who came from Shouchun and Dangtuyan Wo Water on the southern line, had already arrived in Woyang, and one day he could reach Chengfu and two days he could reach Qiao County. In fact, Cao Cao had no other choice.

The final fierce bloody battle broke out quickly, because both sides attacked each other, so the Han army had no fortifications.

But the Han army's divine arm crossbow and other powerful crossbows are absolute advantages after all, so the Han army's advance seemed very stable and not anxious at all. They were moving forward slowly and took orderly forward and shot arrows.

Before the close battle, Cao's army was shot in a terrible sight by arrows, so they had to use an impatient and frivolous charge formation to fight against the Han army that was slowly advancing and neatly arranged.

Rows of messy Cao soldiers were like waves hitting a reef and were shattered in front of the Han army formation, but they could not shake the elite formation of the Han army. The power stimulated by the battle against the back to the water was the effect of the absolute combat power and military discipline crushing.

"The ambition to be trapped in the battle is to die without life! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Guan Yu and Gao Shun supervised the square array of guns, shields, and guns of ten thousand people. They all used four-pyramid guns made of steel and sharp beryllium guns with two feet long blades, and were unyieldingly oppressing the enemy's living space.

Huang Zhong and Ma Chao patrol frantically along the banks of the Woshui River from the distance from the two wings. First, they used archers and cavalry to shoot arrows to disrupt the formation, and then the cavalry charged forward and drove rows of Cao's soldiers down like cutting wheat.

Soon, a military formation of 10,000 people broke down in Cao's army, trying to run away along the Wo-shui River to both sides of the straits. He was intercepted by Ma Chao and even surrendered thousands of people in batches, put down his weapons and knelt on the ground in order to survive.

Seeing all this in the Central Army formation, Cao Cao finally realized that the situation was completely out of reach. There were too many new recruits and strong men, and it was useless to form a formation to block their way out of escape.

With the vortex water, which was not very large, the river section that was stained with corpses and blood red, the remaining Cao army almost completely collapsed.

Cao Hong roared wildly on the right wing, trying to suppress the soldiers' surrenders in batches. He even waved his big sword and brought the military legal team formed by his personal guards, and killed several middle-level officers who led the surrender. He fought with his own people in a melee, but he still couldn't stop the entire collapse of the troops.

Cao Hong killed indiscriminately without discrimination, and finally was installed by Ma Chao, who was razor-like harvested along the river bank of the Upper Water. Ma Chao's plate-armored iron cavalry charged forward. Cao Hong was soon defeated by the Iron Cavalry and was shot by Ma Chao himself.

On the other side of the battlefield, Xiahou Dun was also frantically blasting over the collapsed troops, but he bumped into Huang Zhong who was harvesting from the downstream and upstream on the river bank.

Huang Zhong's archers and cavalry frantically ran around Xiahou Dun's flag formation and shot down layers of Xiahou Dun's personal guards.

Finally, Huang Zhong led his army to assault. In the final stage when both sides approached, Huang Zhong did not forget to use the skillful mane-dividing style of shooting forward and aimed at Xiahou Dun's continuous beads.

Xiahou Dun's left eye, which was shot blinded by Huang Zhong again, shot into the empty eye socket, which had no eyeballs and penetrated directly through his brain.

Xiahou Dun didn't even have the chance to scream, so he was already dead, but his body was still shaking and he didn't have time to land. Huang Zhong, who was shot by the horse, made a knife with his head and shoulders, swung it into two pieces.

It seems that he was killed, but in fact he was shot to death and then finished stabbing the body.

Cao Hong and Xiahou Dun were both killed, and no one could control the completeness of the two wings of the Cao army. They collapsed completely. Hundreds of thousands of new Cao army soldiers fled along the riverbank like a tide, or swam along the riverbank, and were blocked and knelt down and surrendered in groups.

Before this decisive battle on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Cao Cao actually counted his troops. He had 560,000 people before. He fought in Luyi for several days and finally retreated to Qiao County. In fact, there were 460,000.
Chapter completed!