Chapter 3190: The long iron armor and sword are still unforgettable
"What did you say?!!"
Cao Hong's anger was even like a flame that was exposed, and even the surrounding air was burning hot.
Sima Yi's surprise attack on Cao Hong's camp in Zhangyangchi caused serious damage to the camp, but he did not kill all the soldiers left behind Cao's army. Simply put, not many people died, but the materials and supplies were greatly damaged.
Most of the soldiers of Cao's army who escaped from the camp also threw away their armor and did not carry much luggage.
Looking at the Puban County town that was so close to you, Cao Hong gritted his teeth.
The Cao army soldiers who came to report the news fell to the ground and trembled all over, for fear that Cao Hong would kill him to vent his anger.
Cao Hong took a deep breath, pressed down as much as possible in his chest as possible, and then a word popped out from the gap between his teeth, "Get out!"
The Cao army soldiers who reported the news quickly ran away with their heads in their arms, fearing that Cao Hong would repent in the next moment.
After leaving his anger, Cao Hong began to realize that he was wrong.
He was too anxious.
The land of Hedong was not as simple as he had thought before, and the soldiers of Cao's army were not as tenacious and brave as he originally thought.
pity……
Lessons are often bought in blood.
"Send the order..."
Cao Hong was silent for a long time before he said with some difficulty, "Prepare to withdraw his troops."
Cao Hong suspected that the strategy Cao Cao had originally formulated was seen through by Fei Qian, so that Fei Qian did not jump into the preset Yuncheng Basin battlefield, which made Cao Hong and Cao Xiu hug each other loneliness.
If Cao Hong's baggage is still there, then Cao Hong can continue to attack Pubanjin and threaten Guanzhong to force Fei Qian to move. However, now that the baggage is destroyed, even if Cao Hong is willing, he is powerless. Now he can only retreat first, then meet with Cao Cao, and then think of other ways...
Perhaps there is no other way.
『Come!』
Cao Hong thought for a long time, then shouted in a deep voice.
The guard walked in.
Cao Hong pointed to the armor at the corner of the big tent, "Put it on, then take half of the troops and horses under my banner, and rushed to Zhangyangchi! Purchase the remaining soldiers and return to the army!"
The guard was stunned, "I'm wearing the chief's armor?"
Cao Hong nodded.
After a series of setbacks, Cao Hong no longer underestimated Sima Yi and began to abandon the prejudices in his heart and reexamine the previous battle.
Now that the future road is attacked and the food and grass are destroyed, Cao Hong should withdraw his troops.
But Cao Hong was unwilling to accept it.
So Cao Hong decided to take a gamble.
Sima Yi is now wandering outside Zhangyangchi and Puban County as a cavalry, like a vicious wolf, staring at the flaws exposed by Cao Hong at any time.
If Cao Hong is unwilling to withdraw his troops now, there will undoubtedly be only three directions of attack.
1. Fight the aid and attacked Cao Hong's troops who returned to the aid.
2. Continue to attack towards Zhongtiao Mountain and cut off the connection between Cao Cao and Cao Hong.
Third, he came back and attacked the new camp that Cao Hongcai had set up under Puban County.
The first thing to be ruled out is to continue to attack Zhongtiao Mountain.
Because on the one hand, Sima Yi did not have many troops, even if the connection between Cao Cao and Cao Hong was cut off, it would not be possible to maintain this state for a long time. Once Cao Cao sent some people to come, Sima Yi had to retreat. Therefore, for Sima Yi, the offensive gains in this direction were undoubtedly the worst.
Then there are only those who fight aid and return to attack the new camp.
Cao Hong felt that Sima Yi would have more than 80% of the time, and would attack Cao Jun’s new camp here in Puban County.
On the one hand, Sima Yi's main defense responsibility must be from Zhang Yangchi to Pubanjin, and Puban County is undoubtedly a core focus of defense. Although Sima Yi destroyed Cao Hong's food and supplies in the rear camp, Cao Hong's queue to march into Puban County was originally carrying some food and grass, so if Sima Yi destroyed the new camp food and grass here in Puban County again, Cao Hong would have to retreat and there was no other way.
Unless Cao Cao can deliver food and grass in time...
But this possibility is too low.
If Cao Hong's troops returning to the rescue are directly attacked and Cao Hong was killed in one fell swoop, the war in this area can also be ended. However, this requires Sima Yi to have enough force, and also to find a suitable ambush location.
Of course, this is not completely impossible.
After all, if Sima Yi summoned some other generals...
After thinking about it, Cao Hong still felt that squatting in the grass in Puban County would have a more chance of catching Sima Yi.
In addition to the probability consideration, Cao Hong also had some resentment and some shame in his heart. He wanted to give it to Sima Yi when he met Sima Yi!
...
...
Before the sky was dawn, Cao Cao had already stood up and put on a piece of armor.
He walked out of the Central Army's tent, turned over his horse, and then wandered around the Central Army camp.
Cao Cao knew that although he could use a few swords and guns, he was still much different from the warriors. However, as long as he walked around in such a suit of armor, the army would naturally settle down. Even if there were still many difficulties at the moment, the weather was still cold.
At several ferries in the river, the floating bridge cannot last long under the impact of flowing ice. It needs to be repaired and reinforced frequently, which undoubtedly adds to the already heavy transportation tasks.
Shandong has many people, which is an advantage, but the problem is that it requires more materials.
Feiqian is a defender, and most of the troops are stationed, which makes Feiqian's areas with high consumption only Tongguan Wuguan and other places, and Tongguan Wuguan and other places have strategic reserves on weekdays, so the consumption of transportation is not large.
In comparison, the biggest problem of Cao's army's expedition to Guanzhong was consumption.
As the saying goes, "Food is the most important thing for the people." Soldiers are also humans, especially soldiers who fight abroad. Not only does the food consume huge amounts, but the rest of the supplies are also very expensive.
The baggage trucks are big and small.
It is not that the load truck cannot be made larger, but the axle material is not good. Moreover, because the wooden axle is often damaged during transportation, which leads to serious restrictions on the amount of food transported.
During the process of large army marching, shipping is the only effective way to solve the upper limit of the number of soldiers.
But unfortunately, it is only possible to reach Shan County when transporting along the Dahe River from Shandong. It is very dangerous and difficult to cross the Dahe Three Gorges. It is better to take land transportation. But even so, the road from Shan County to Tongguan is still ups and downs and is not easy to walk.
Generally speaking, a grain transport team is the configuration of at least one baggage battalion, with a hundred large trucks, of which 80% are used to transport grain and grass, and the rest are consumables carrying armor and equipment.
When Cao Cao's army was in Tongguan, even if the auxiliary soldiers only ate half of the regular soldiers and reduced their labor service by half, they would consume eight or nine hundred stones of food a day. For the sake of easy calculations, it is probably 10,000 people who consume two meals a day, 200 stones, and each person consumes an average of two kilograms of food and grass, two cents of salt, and five taels of supplementary food per day.
Sufficient food is a prerequisite for maintaining the combat effectiveness of the army, so the transportation of food has always been a big problem that has caused Cao Cao a lot of headaches.
Land transportation requires vehicles and mules and horses, and people and horses need to consume food and grass when transporting. The longer the distance, the more consumption. Although water transportation is large and less, it also has disadvantages. That is, the food is easily wet by water, and is limited by navigation technology, and the transportation speed is not fast, especially when it is necessary to go upstream.
Of course, the troops of Feiqin also need food and grass, and in terms of consumption orders, Feiqin's consumption is even greater than Cao Cao, because many of Feiqin's commands are cavalry.
War horses also need food.
It probably counts that the war horses have to eat a bunch of grass, plus three liters of beans, as well as some coarse salt and other complementary foods a day.
So if Fei Qian really pulls out his troops to fight Cao Cao as he hopes, no matter whether he can win or not, no matter how he fights, just say that the daily consumption will be enough to drag down the economy of Hedong Guanzhong.
This is really not because some people in later generations think that they eat at home, so they measure the amount of food soldiers by their own standards. How much can they eat? They say that they can't eat every small bowl of rice! They completely forgot that in addition to the carbohydrates for the regular meal, they also eat various snacks, milk tea, small snacks, and red meat and white meat protein...
And it's not enough exercise.
If you are doing civil engineering in the wild and consume a lot of physical energy, the demand for food will increase sharply.
Of course, the ancient army would not consume much food in normal times. If it had support for military farming, it could even hand over food to the court. But when fighting, it would not be possible to completely dispose of 2 kilograms of food a day.
If Fei Qian really raised his troops and fought against Cao Cao, Cao Cao would be very happy because this was completely in line with Cao's previous conception of war.
Consumption.
Whether it consumes people, money, food, hearts, economy, etc.
But now only Cao Cao's side is consuming, while Fei Qian's large troops are at the pass or at the garrison, and have not fully entered the field combat readiness state, which makes the consumption of both sides completely disproportionate.
When Cao Cao went out of the army, he originally had three goals: top, middle and lower.
The top, naturally, he defeated Guanzhong and won in one fell swoop. The first time he dragged Fei Qian and defeated him, causing the decline of Hedong in Guanzhong...
And now, Fei Qian seemed to have seen through everything and had already made arrangements.
The upper part is not enough to find it, and the middle part is gradually no hope, so I can only go to the bottom three ways.
...
...
Wuguan.
Wen Pin had been struggling to attack the dangerous road for six days, and he was unable to make any progress. He was so anxious that he had sores on his mouth and some rotten corners of his mouth.
The valley and mountain roads are full of corpses left by Cao's army's attack.
Blood seemed to have stained every piece of soil and every rock.
He knew that he had to withdraw and rest. If he didn't retreat, even if the morale of the army was not disintegrated, his soldiers would be wiped out.
The key is that the vast majority of those who died were from Jingzhou and soldiers from Jingzhou.
But I just can't beat it.
Liao Hua's defense of Wu Pass, coupled with Huang Zhong's assistance, was like a wall of iron, and his head was covered in blood.
At this point, even if he can conquer Wuguan, he will not be able to explain to the fellow villagers in Jingzhou.
I felt a little fishy in my mouth. I don’t know if it was a ruptured mouth sore or a bleeding gum, which made it even more uncomfortable...
Suddenly, the sound of gold sounded.
Wen Pin was so scared that his soldiers were completely disbanded and he thought they had completely dispersed and rebelled. Without waiting for his instructions, he called out the gold and retreated.
As a result, he looked carefully and found that it was not his own side who was crying out the gold, but the defenders of Wuguan took the initiative to retreat.
From a distance, the three-colored flag of the cavalry slowly moved northward in the mountains and headed towards Wuguan City.
"The cavalry and the others retreated! They retreated!"
The soldiers of Cao's army shouted loudly.
There is no excitement, only a faint relief, or the fatigue of living in death.
Whether it was Cao's soldiers or Wenpin and other military academy generals, they all knew that it was not that they had won the Wuguan Guards here, but that the Wuguan Guards were voluntarily retreating.
These are two completely different concepts.
If the other party wants to defend, he will defend and retreat. This is a distinction between high and low. Even if there are many false words, it cannot be modified.
Wen Pin looked around the mountain road. His remnant general seemed to want to say a few words to encourage the soldiers, but in the end he said nothing. He just sat slowly on the ground like other military academy soldiers, took off his helmet, and showed the same tired look.
They tried their best.
...
...
Night gradually came.
In the new camp of Cao Jun outside Puban County, Cao Hong's general flag was withdrawn and replaced with Zhang Xi's surname flag.
The camp was closed and the surrounding trenches were only half dug because they were back to help.
Everything was like Cao Hong really withdrew.
This time, Cao Hong spent a lot of money.
When he was engaged in general battles, he would not easily use his direct troops, especially his two hundred armored soldiers.
But today, Cao Hong not only used it, but also used it all in one breath. He placed all the heavy armored soldiers in the camp and hid among ordinary Cao's soldiers.
They are divided into two types. One is responsible for the front row, holding a large shield and a spear, hiding in a tent, and garrisoning the horse, mainly resisting the impact of the cavalry. The other is responsible for the battle in the back row, holding a long halberd, cutting the horse's legs, and cutting the heads.
This kind of tactic can indeed effectively restrain the impact of cavalry.
After all, the Han Dynasty had been fighting against nomadic people for a long time. There were already many mature tactics of how to kill cavalry with heavy infantry.
In addition to using horse-rejecting, you can also use a car array.
But if you use the car array, it is too obvious, so Cao Hong just uses the horse-rejecting ban.
In fact, nomadism is not that scary, nor is it the natural enemy of the farming nation as many brick beasts claim.
For a long time, for some purpose, the Bricks have always claimed that nomadic peoples are cruel and often take advantage of the weakness of the Central Plains dynasty, but this statement is incomplete and incomplete.
In fact, if peace and stability can be achieved, most of the time, no one will think of starting a war. The main reason why nomads go south is often because they can't survive!
Throughout history, the climate is always the sword of Damocles that is shared by the Central Plains dynasty and the northern nomads.
Moreover, nomadic peoples will soon decline even if they rise on a whim due to cultural gaps. The Central Plains dynasty was suppressing nomadic peoples for most of the time.
The Five Barbarians of the Han Dynasty are not false.
The problem is that the pace of farming expansion stops in farming.
When the farming people drove the nomads to the north of the 400mm precipitation line, they stopped.
During the changes in the territory of China in history, the actual ruling area of ​​the Central Plains dynasty has always been within the Great Wall. The land north of the Great Wall is always lost and regained, because of this 400-square-mm precipitation line.
The reason why the subsequent Central Plains dynasty seemed to be at an increasingly disadvantage in the nomads was actually a fundamental reason, that is, the internal exploitation of the Central Plains dynasty was actually gradually deepening.
The system of small peasant economy has long suppressed commercial development, resulting in serious insufficient nutrition intake and physical weakness in poor people.
Without oil, no protein, only carbohydrates and various plant fibers, how can you have a strong body?
In the Qin and Han dynasties, when commerce was not so severely suppressed, the people of the Central Plains could wear heavy armor and heavy crossbows to fight head-on with nomadic cavalry. After the Song Dynasty, although there were also heavy armored soldiers in the army, there were fewer burly men. It was basically impossible to make most of the soldiers of the Song Dynasty wear more than 100 kilograms of equipment and fight in a formation. Even if they barely wear heavy armored arrays, they would often be dragged down by nomadic cavalry.
Therefore, if you want to be strong, you can't rely solely on the scriptures, you must have meat.
Cao Hong can now have 200 armored soldiers, of course he can also eat meat.
If you want to have meat, you need stronger warriors.
Huaxia originally had the opportunity to eat more meat, but unfortunately some people changed it to eating vegetarian food...
Now, Cao Jun wants to eat a bite of meat.
A bite of Sima Yi's meat.
They were like evil wolves, hiding in the camp, waiting for their prey to appear.
Cao Hong himself also wore heavy armor.
Unlike the previous set of armor decorated with gorgeous patterns, this set of heavy armor looks gloomy and gray.
The battle axe was standing in front of him.
In the quiet dark night, there seemed to be only the sound of the howling cold wind.
Cao Hong's eyes were firm. He believed that Sima Yi was not far away and was observing the camp.
In this battle, Cao Hong knew that even if he won, he might not be able to change the disadvantage, but he was still waiting here.
Because at this moment, after several setbacks, Cao Hong also woke up from the angry father's state. He recalled the battle experiences between him and Cao Cao, those moments of bloody battles on the battlefield...
This was a huge test, for him and for Cao Cao.
Although Cao Hong's previous answer was not well written, he still has the opportunity to rewrite it a little more now.
Even though there is not much space left for him.
But he could not let Cao Cao down.
He is from the Cao family, so of course he has to gain more breathing space and more opportunities to eat meat for the Cao family.
The cold wind is still there.
Cao Hong suddenly opened his eyes and heard some noises appearing in the wind.
Cao Hong lowered his head and stared at the battle axe in front of him.
Chapter completed!