Chapter 135 Sun Ce was assassinated, and the emperor’s uncle went south (Thanks to Mr. Zisu Ling for the reward)
The sunshine in early April has lifted off the warm veil of spring, revealing its fiery face, spitting out passion and scorching the earth.
When the eastern sky turns white, the war is over.
On the land east of Ziyun Mountain, burning vehicles, broken shields, weapons, flags, and fallen corpses can be seen everywhere within a few square kilometers.
No one wins this battle, everyone is a loser.
Shen Chen lost to Huangmenting Elite and lost almost a third of it, and almost everyone else was injured, including Shen Chen himself.
Cao Cao lost because he was defeated.
Yes.
He was defeated.
This ambush was already the limit for Cao Cao. It would be best if he could eliminate Shen Chen in a short time. Once Shen Chen survived, he himself would collapse.
So under the charge of Gan Ning's chariots, Cao Cao's infantry basically collapsed, and he could only lead his cavalry to flee north.
Many people think that since the enemy is strong and we are weak, why should we choose to chase?
Because pursuing the enemy when he retreats is the best opportunity to expand the results of the battle. A great man once said, "It is better to chase the enemy with courage and not to be known as the overlord."
Fu Jian was beaten to the door of his home by Huan Wen. When Huan Wen withdrew his troops, Fu Jian still dared to pursue him and defeated the Jin army.
Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan and provoked Sima Yi in this way, but Sima Yi could not avoid the battle. But when Zhuge Liang retreated, Sima Yi dared to pursue him. Is he just a lunatic and mentally retarded?
So the same principle.
Shen Chen studied the feasibility of pursuing Cao Cao and decided to pursue him because he thought it was possible.
The pursuit served two strategic purposes.
The first is to expand the results of the war. If Cao Cao's troops deployed on the southern front can be crippled, after the Guandu war begins, he will have less resistance to continue heading north to harass Xudu.
The second is to stabilize the defense line. Only when the strength of Cao Cao's army weakens, they will have no extra troops to go south to deal with him. Otherwise, if Cao Cao is allowed to retreat, after ten days and a half, he will come back to attack Kunyang after he has rested.
There are five reasons why you can pursue it.
First, Cao's army had been fighting hard these days and was extremely exhausted. His military morale and morale were not stable.
Second, the soldiers and horses that Cao Cao leads are not his own elite. His main force is now in Guandu. Most of his soldiers are soldiers recruited by Li Tong in Runan. Their own quality is worrying, and their fighting will should not be too strong.
Third, even if Cao Cao sets up an ambush, the intensity will never be as fierce as in the past few days. Instead, it may be because of "one surge of energy, then weakening, and three exhaustion". Once defeated, defeat can be turned into victory.
Fourth, once Cao Cao's army was attacked on the way to retreat, they would not be able to fully deploy their formation. At most, they would encounter Cao Cao's rear army, with little resistance.
Fifth, and the most important point is that Cao Cao is anxious to go back and defend Yuzhou to prevent Sun Ce from leading his troops northward.
Compared with Shen Chen's thousands of men and Sun Ce's tens of thousands, it's self-evident who poses a greater threat, so it's very possible that Cao Cao himself doesn't have much will to fight.
For example, Zhang Xiu pursued Cao Cao and was defeated, but Cao Cao did not annihilate him, but instead rushed back to Xudu to defend the north.
Under the threat of stronger enemies, the threat of weak enemies is not that high. Cao Cao is a very smart man, so naturally he must first grasp who is the main contradiction and who is the secondary contradiction.
Therefore, based on all factors, Shen Chen believed that Cao Cao was now unable to determine when Yuan Shao would go south and when Sun Ce would go north. If the pursuit delayed him for even one more minute, Cao Cao would have to worry for a minute, and the chance of winning would be very high.
It is a pity that Cao Cao's military capabilities are indeed strong. Even though the soldiers were tired and he was leading second and third line troops, he still made arrangements and caused huge casualties to Shen Chen's army.
This also made Shen Chen clearly realize that Cao Cao, as a hero who could achieve great things, his personal military ability was undoubtedly very top-notch and should not be underestimated.
By daytime on the second day, Li Tong, Cao Hong, Xia Houyuan and others gathered up the defeated troops. Only more than 16,000 people were left out of the original 20,000 troops. 4,000 people were either killed in battle or missing, and there were also many injured people. Duo went back to Xudu in despair.
Shen Chen and Gan Ning also withdrew their troops and returned to Kunyang. After the war, statistics show that from the time Duyang sent troops to attack Cao Hong until now, Gan Ning's troops originally numbered 7,000, but now there are less than 5,000 left, about 4,800. about.
The casualty rate of Huangmenting soldiers was even greater, reaching nine out of ten, and the death rate reached one third, leaving only 1,900 out of 3,000.
In half a year, they had lost more than 3,000 horses.
But the results are also extremely significant.
In the Battle of Ye County, they wiped out more than 2,000 Cao Jun. In the Battle of Kunyang and Wuyang, they killed and captured more than 3,000 Cao Jun. They killed the Kunyang guard, Cao Cao's Sikong Chief Shi Liu Dai; the Wuyang Guard, and later Cao Wei Qingchao. General Wang Zhong.
Linying ambushed Xia Houyuan and killed hundreds of people. They also fought against Cao Cao. After several days of siege and the battle at Ziyun Mountain last night, Cao Cao's army suffered casualties and missing people close to 10,000 people. This was an urgent need to defend against Yuan Shao, Sun Ce and others. Cao Cao , is a huge loss.
After Cao Cao returned, all kinds of messy things came up because of the failure of the attack on Kunyang. The undercurrents in Xudu itself were surging, and a lot of trivial matters gave him a headache. He could only sit in Xudu to stabilize the situation.
Moreover, the last time he attacked Shen Chen, Cao Cao thought that he was too hasty and failed to solve many problems.
Therefore, we immediately rested the team and adjusted the status of the soldiers.
It's just that although he really wanted to try to attack Shen Chen again after reorganizing his troops, but due to Sun Ce's threat, he had to send Li Tong back to Runan to guard against Jiangdong.
At the same time, Xiahou Yuan was stationed in Xiangcheng, Cao Hong was stationed in Linying, Man Chong was transferred from Xincai to Dingying, and the southern defense line was reorganized.
Now it is a huge headwind for Cao Cao, with internal and external troubles and enemies on all sides.
Henan itself was the site of the Four Wars. Nanyang was not pacified due to his inability to control his lower body, Yuan Shao's army was about to move south, and Jiangdong was in danger of sneak attacks on Xudu, which made him anxious and exhausted to deal with it.
But it's not entirely without good news.
Zhong Yao from Guanzhong wrote a letter to help him persuade Han Sui and Ma Teng to send protons to Xudu to surrender to Cao Cao. At the same time, he also sent two thousand war horses to help him increase his cavalry by two thousand.
This matter has certain strategic significance for Cao Cao, that is, at least while he is worried about Yuan Shao, Liu Biao, and Sun Ce, he does not have to worry about the princes in Guanzhong getting involved again.
But the top priority now is to deal with the threats from Yuan Shao and Sun Ce. The temporary stability in Guanzhong can only be regarded as better than nothing, not as important as two thousand war horses.
However, if the peace in Guanzhong and the acquisition of two thousand war horses can only be regarded as moderately good news, then the other news is great joy.
In June, a news reached Xudu, which made Cao Cao so happy for several days that his dreams became sweet.
Sun Ce was assassinated!
At the beginning of last month, as Guo Jia expected, Sun Ce went out hunting alone and was attacked by Xu Gong's retainers. Although he was not dead at the time, he died of serious injuries not long after he returned.
There was panic within Sun Ce's forces.
Zhou Yu, Zhang Zhao and others immediately responded. First, they kept the funeral secret, and then joined forces with the four Jiangdong generals and other generals and counselors loyal to the Sun family to support the 19-year-old Sun Quan and inherit his legacy in front of Sun Ce's body.
Location.
It was not until the end of May that the news spread. The whole Jiangdong was shaken for a while, and Sun Quan, who had just succeeded to the throne, was immediately in the midst of internal and external troubles and faced huge challenges.
You must know that Sun Ce was able to pacify Jiangdong because he relied on his murderous nature to force countless small princes in Jiangdong to surrender.
But who are you, Sun Quan, who also want us to obey?
As a result, there were countless people who disobeyed Sun Quan's orders, separatized local areas, and fled north.
Not only the external forces in several counties in Jiangdong, but also within the Sun family.
For example, the clan members Sun Fu and Sun Hao, who were Sun Jian's nephews and Sun Quan's cousins, both wanted to rebel and seize power.
There is also Li Shu, the governor of Lujiang appointed by Sun Ce. He was respectful and respectful when Sun Ce was there. As soon as Sun Ce died, he immediately had the idea of rebellion and separatism, and almost ignored Sun Quan's orders.
Therefore, Jiangdong now can be said to be in chaos.
After hearing the news, Cao Cao almost laughed out loud and immediately transferred Li Tong from Yang'an to Xiping.
In this way, he only needs to guard against Shen Chen and Zhang Xiu in Nanyang, and does not need to consider the issue of Jiangdong going north.
It has to be said that some people may really be the children of destiny.
Many people say that Liu Xiu's luck is invincible.
But Cao Cao is not bad either.
Occupying Yanzhou, a land of four battles, there are enemies everywhere. Even if they use the emperor to control the princes, they are only slightly stronger.
On the eve of Guandu, his situation was very bad. Yuan Shao from the north and Liu Biao Sun Ce from the south wanted to cause trouble for him.
As a result, just when he was in dire straits, the four counties in Jingnan rebelled, and Liu Biao was forced to go to the south to quell the rebellion.
There was one less enemy among the three, and the pressure dropped drastically.
And at the critical moment when Yuan Shao went south and Sun Ce went north, Sun Ce was assassinated again, which suddenly changed the start of Hell difficulty to Hard difficulty.
When we arrived at Guandu, although the battle was difficult, Xu You sent information and changed the difficulty level to easy level.
Compared with the old unlucky Uncle Liu Huang, Cao Cao's luck can be said to be real, not much worse than Liu Xiu's.
Just when Cao Cao was happy, the situation in the north began to become critical.
Yuan Shao's main force had already arrived at Liyang in April. After Cao Cao killed Yan Liang and Wen Chou and retreated to Guandu, his main force crossed the Yellow River and divided into two groups to launch an offensive.
Along the way, we crossed the river from Liyang, occupied Baima, Yan County, Fengqiu, and stationed troops in Yangwu County, north of Guandu, which was only forty or fifty kilometers away from Guandu.
The other route was across the river from Huojia County in Hanoi County, which was later known as Xinxiang City. The army, led by General Han Meng, went south to the old city to the Jiluo Mountain area to harass Cao Cao's rear.
Jiluo Mountain is located to the north of Mi County and to the west of Guandu. Going south past Xinzheng, you will reach Yingchuan, which almost threatens the safety of Xudu.
When Cao Cao heard that Yuan Shao's main force had arrived at Yangwu, he hurriedly returned to Guandu to prepare to meet the enemy. At the same time, he sent Cao Hong to take advantage of the situation and lead some troops north to Jiluo Mountain to face Han Meng who was attacking with a partial division.
Historically, this matter was completed by Cao Ren, but now that Cao Ren is dead, Cao Cao has lost his right-hand man, and can only let Cao Hong take the blame and perform meritorious service.
At the same time, Liu Bei followed Yuan Shao across the Yellow River and arrived at the Guandu front line.
In April, he received Shen Chen's suggestion from the people sent by Shen Chen that he should resign from Yuan Shao and go south to form an alliance with Liu Biao.
So in May, Liu Bei officially explained this to Yuan Shao, and in June, he arrived in Runan.
Thanks to the boss leader for the reward. Now 10,000 words per day is the limit. I will continue to work hard to update next month. In addition, I feel that I made a mistake and did not write down the reason why the protagonist pursued me when the protagonist was thinking about it. The result was unexpected. Some people think that the protagonist will chase after Weibo, I will pay attention next time.