Over the past few months, the situation in Kansai has continued to become chaotic, while the situation in Kanto has not become clear.
After two months of the Bohai War, Cao Cao's initial violent advance had ended. During this period, Cao Cao had occupied the entire Qingzhou, recovered most of Yanzhou, and occupied a small amount of land in Yuzhou and Xuzhou, achieving hegemony on the offensive.
The results of the comprehensive suppression by the government army can only be summed up in two words: brilliant.
However, with the lengthening of the front line and the rapid expansion of territory in a short period of time, various new problems have also arisen: supplies and baggage are gradually becoming tight, newly occupied lands are constantly infested by bandits, and many remnants of the hegemony take the opportunity to cause chaos, not to mention
Material consumption increased sharply after winter. All these tests involved a lot of energy and military strength of the Hebei shogunate, and the war in Kanto gradually entered a stalemate.
Cao's army on the north route stopped at Wude County in Hanoi. It could neither break through Tianjing Pass to the north and invade Shangdang County, nor could it break through to Heqiao in the south and approach Luoyang, the eastern capital. Cao's army on the middle route also stopped at Juyang.
Ye and Changyi were unable to break through Chen Gong and Zhang Miao's defense line in Jiyin. Cao Jun on the east road was busy suppressing the Wubao bandits in Qing and Xu counties, and had no time to attack Yuzhou.
Under this deadlock, Hanoi coach Shen Pei wrote a letter to Cao Cao analyzing the situation.
Shen Pei believes that after all, Liu Bei is powerful and powerful. Even in the situation of such a great victory in Bohai, the current situation in the world has just changed from Jinyang's dominance to two heroes confronting each other. It is difficult for both sides to defeat the enemy in one battle.
We still need to prepare for a long-term struggle, striving for hegemony first and unification later.
The original layout of Cao's army was to imitate Lulin's strategy of establishing the Xuanhan. Taking advantage of Bafu's defeat, he divided his troops into three routes to counterattack, hoping that each route would be overwhelming, and then converged on Hanoi, Chenliu, and Yingchuan.
They attacked the eastern capital from three sides and then took advantage of the victory to enter the Pass, killing Liu Bei.
But now it seems that this is too ideal. Let's not talk about the North Road and the Middle Road for the time being, just talk about the battle situation of the East Route Army. Even if Cao Cao himself is in charge, the troops have been exhausted to quell the bandits in each county, and they are completely unable to intervene.
Yuzhou, let alone lead the army to seize Yingchuan and threaten Shenyuan Pass. Shen Pei reflected here and said, it can be seen that if we did not concentrate the entire army to attack Luoyang, we would have lost the opportunity to pursue Liu Bei.
In fact, it is a misstep.
But the reality is that if an opportunity is missed, it is a missed opportunity, and no one can regret it. Only by adjusting the appropriate strategy in time according to the current situation can it be considered a wise move. Based on what he saw and heard on the front line, Shen Pei said to Cao Cao in the letter,
After the defeat of Bafu, a large number of horses and baggage were lost on the road, leaving only a lot of manpower. These manpower were enough to defend the city, but with the military morale low and the people's strength wasted, if they wanted to launch a counterattack, it would take a short time.
It is difficult to do this within a year, and there won’t be any big moves within at least one or two years.
Shen Pei judged from this that under such circumstances, if Cao Jun wanted to further expand the territory, it would be difficult to achieve results. But on the other hand, they only need to leave a small number of troops in the frontline cities, and they can easily maintain their current situation.
There is absolutely no need to divide the troops into three lines. "The Art of War: Planning and Attack" says: "The method of using troops is to surround an enemy with ten, attack with five, and divide it if doubled. The enemy can fight and if there are few, he can escape.
If not, then we can avoid it." It can be seen from this that the primary way to use troops is to win with superior force, so the top priority right now is to gather scattered forces and make progress at Bafu's weak points.
For this reason, he advocated concentrating the main force of the three armies in Qingzhou first, and then with great fanfare, marched south to capture Xuzhou. Shenpei believed that capturing Xuzhou had three major benefits: First, the defense of Xuzhou was weak, and most of Bafu's troops at this time were concentrated in Pei State.
The defense of Xuzhou is out of reach and is extremely easy to capture; secondly, the Qingxu bandit and bandit companies are integrated into one. If Xuzhou can be captured with unprecedented military strength, the Qingzhou bandits will be afraid and dormant, and will not dare to take the opportunity to cause trouble; thirdly, it can
Take this opportunity to show off your power in the north of the Yangtze River and weaken Bafu's reputation in the south of the Yangtze River. You can also use the Yangtze River as a natural barrier to prevent the heroes in the south of the Yangtze River from peeking north.
The judge was very attentive to this change of plan. He wrote it for two days and nights, then sealed the plan and handed it over to his nephew, Judge, to forward it to Linzi. After Cao Cao received the report, he attached great importance to it and immediately discussed the matter with the government official Zuo
After deliberation, many famous Guandong wise men read it. Whether it was Xun Yu, Tian Feng, Zheng Hun, or Cheng Yu, they all agreed with the opinion of the judge. Cao Cao also liked it very much, so he prepared to reply to the judge and planned to transfer to the west.
The army and the Central Army gathered in the State of Lu, and after the generals gathered together, they discussed the strategy of conquering Xuzhou.
However, the plan could not keep up with the changes. As soon as the letter was sent, Cao Cao received news of the great changes in Guanzhong and Lu Bu's surprise attack on Chang'an. At the beginning of winter, another messenger came from Wuguan through Jingzhou, specifically bringing an edict from the emperor recognizing Liu He's throne.
There was also a lot of praise for Cao Cao in his words. Cao Cao was overjoyed after receiving this edict, thinking that the opportunity for victory that had been lost had reappeared today!
He immediately overturned the original plan to conquer Xuzhou and led his troops to leave the state of Lu. At the same time, he sent messages to various ministries and changed the meeting point of the army to Juyang. By the 13th of the winter lunar month, nearly 150,000 troops had gathered in Fan County.
In addition to the 30,000 people who are still mopping up bandits in Qingzhou and the garrison troops stationed in various places, this is almost all the field forces that Cao Cao can mobilize at present. From Youzhou's sudden cavalry in the north to the Qingzhou bandits in Xinna in the south, there are almost no
Not included, there are even thousands of Xianbei Qingqi sent by Kebi to help.
After meeting with the generals again, Cao Cao never mentioned the attack on Xuzhou. Instead, he took out the emperor's edict and talked about the chaos in Guanzhong. Then he once again mentioned his previous strategic concept: kill Liu Bei, seize the eastern capital, and welcome the emperor.<
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Cao Cao learned from Shen Pei's previous suggestions and believed that it would be difficult to break through the Bafu Army's front if divided into three groups. It was better to start from Yanzhou where the terrain was relatively open and flat. At this time, only Jiyin and Chenliu counties were left in the Zhang Miao and Chen Palace in Yanzhou.
, based on several months of exploration, it can be roughly known that its strength is around 30,000, with the focus being on the three cities of Dingtao, Chenliu, and Suanzao. By breaking through these three cities, Cao Cao's army can march straight into Henan County. Cao Cao was worried
I think Liu Bei's military strength is no longer enough to defend Aocang, Chenggao and other places. No matter how he reacts, Cao Cao firmly believes that he can win the final victory.
In order to achieve this effect, Cao Cao made the following plan with reference to the ancient precedent of the Battle of Sun Bin Maling: First, a lone army of 10,000 people would go south from Puyang and go straight to the enemy at the junction of Chenliu and Jiyin counties.
Jucheng. The garrison of Enjucheng should be less than a thousand, but it can be captured very quickly. Even if it cannot be captured, this army can form a stronghold on the spot to defend itself, but the defenders of Dingtao must not be allowed to leave.
Once this step is successful, most of the remaining Cao Cao troops will launch from the north and south to completely encircle Dingtao. In this way, Chen Liu's defenders will inevitably face the decision of whether to rescue Dingtao. If so, Cao Cao will
An ambush has been set up on the road, and they can take the opportunity to annihilate the few remaining field troops in the Bafu. If they are not rescued, Cao Jun can repeat his old tricks and seize the city one by one. In this way, the Bafu army will have little morale.
, I’m afraid it will collapse even more.
None of the soldiers in the Marshal's Mansion had any objections to this arrangement. Only Xun Yu said: "Although Liu Bei is in a desperate situation, he has many capable men under his command. Now, in a fight between trapped beasts, it is possible to hurt people. Although the Marshal has the upper hand, he should be vigilant."
One or two."
Cao Cao laughed it off and replied: "There are indeed capable people under Liu Bei, but there are only a few outstanding people who can save the crisis. In my opinion, there are only two people. The so-called literary skills are not as good as Chen Tingjian, and the military skills are not as good as Guan Yunchang
.Now that Yunchang is captured by me, and Ting Jian’s life and death are unknown, what can Liu Xuande do? A person like Chen Gongtai only has one or two quick wits, so there is nothing to worry about!"
At this point, Cao Jun finally regrouped and launched the second wave of major offensive since the end of August.
The person responsible for the task of breaking through the injustice was Cao Ren, who was famous for his bravery. Because he had led other troops to flank Liu Bei in the Bohai War, Cao Cao specially promoted him to General of the Southern Expedition and made him the capital of Tinghou, the same as Jiuwu.<
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Cao Ren led his troops to march slowly to Lihu, and then suddenly dispatched troops with fast cavalry. They ran for more than a hundred miles in one day and appeared at the gate of Yuanju City like a divine soldier descending from heaven. The garrison of Yuanju City was unaware of the situation and mistakenly thought that the military situation was in bad condition, so they immediately attacked the city.
Please drop.
Cao Ren's speed was so fast that not even one of Bao Xin's envoys was sent to the city. Zhang Miao, who was under Chen Liu, only realized something was wrong on the third day, but by this time Cao Ren had already launched an all-out offensive against Jiyin.
Cao Hong, the captain of the school, led his army to attack Juyang; Xiahou Yuan, the governor of Youzhou, led his army to attack Chengwu; Cao Ang, the governor of Yanzhou, attacked Chengshi; it was Dingtao's order Zang Hong who informed Cao's army before the encirclement was complete, and he learned that the situation was extremely critical.<
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Chen Gong analyzed Zhang Miao and said: "Cao Cao is approaching with a large army because he is determined to defeat the leader. If he continues to defend according to the original arrangement, it may be difficult to resist. When things have reached this point, it is no longer feasible for Zang Ziyuan to defend the city in Dingtao.
Therefore, it is better to lead Cao's troops to pick him up before they can encircle him, and then gather in Chenliu City to hold on."
Zhang Miao strongly agreed with this, so he personally led more than 6,000 cavalry out of the city, planning to pass through Waihuang, send samples and grievances, and go all the way to Dingtao to respond. Unexpectedly, this played into Cao Cao's plan, and Zhang Miao's cavalry encountered an unexpected enemy on the road.
Cao Ren ambushed and was defeated. Zhang Miao had not even seen Dingtao's city, so he had to retreat to Chenliu in a hurry.
Liu Bei, whose condition had improved significantly at this time, sent a letter, ordering Zhang Miao, Chen Gongbian and three others to lead everyone back to Henan County within five days. According to Xun You's opinion, it is best to repair the defense line in Aocang to continue to preserve it.
Strength.
Bian Rang was unwilling to withdraw, but after Cao Ren's victory, Cao's army showed signs of crossing Dingtao and attacking Chenliu. Under the persuasion of Zhang Miao and Chen Gong, he had no choice but to agree. Over the next few days, more than 10,000 people hurriedly rushed westward.
Li left, and what was left to Cao Jun was a fire in Chenliu City. The people fled in all directions, and the entire city was reduced to ruins.
Cao Jun did not stop him. Except for Cao Ren who led his troops to station in Chenliu, Cao Cao also ordered his 140,000 men to march eastward, leaving only Cao Hong to continue the siege of Dingtao.
At this time, looking at the entire Yanzhou, there are eight counties and eighty cities in the state, and only Dingtao is left. Even though Zang Hong still led the army and the people to support Cao Jun's continuous offensive, but ordinary people think that there are no reinforcements outside Dingtao.
Without food and fodder, it is only a matter of time before the country falls.
No one expected that this city would save Bafu's fate.