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Chapter 45 Tao Gongzus Ambition

Thinking of Xuzhou and Tao Qian's unprovoked attack on Cao Cao, Chen Mu said, "By the way, do you know why Tao Qian attacked Cao Cao for no reason?"

"Oh, fourth brother."

Zhang Fei listened for a long time and didn't understand what they were saying, but he couldn't help but became anxious and immediately shouted: "Why are you asking so many questions? Brother is still waiting for you in Linzi. It's getting late. It’s time to set off.”

Chen Mu was confused and said: "There are still many things that have not been dealt with. Why does the third brother always urge me to set off and do something?"

"It's getting late now, so let's set off as early as possible."

Zhang Fei urged again.

Chen Mu waved his hands repeatedly: "When it gets late, I can just stay in Jinan for one day. It's not a big deal. Could it be that I can't live here in Jinan?"

"But my eldest brother has not seen you for more than half a year. He once wrote to me, saying that he was very concerned about you and asked you to go back soon."

Zhang Fei stood up, gearing up, and already wanted to push Chen Mu out.

Seeing his appearance, Chen Mu said suspiciously, "Something's wrong."

Seeing that he was suspicious, Zhang Fei stopped and asked, "What's wrong?"

"There's something wrong with you."

Chen Mu saw Jushou Tian Feng covering his mouth with the sleeves of his robe, seeming to be snickering, and frowned: "You are hiding something from me?"

Hearing Chen Mu's question, Zhang Fei denied it at the time: "No, I just hope you go back early to see big brother."

Chen Mu asked doubtfully: "Really?"

Zhang Fei knew that he acted too impatient and made Chen Mu suspicious. He quickly waved his hand and sat down again: "Of course it is true. Since you have important things to talk about, forget it and continue."

"It's nothing serious. It's just that Mr. Ming really misses you."

Jushou smoothed things over and turned the topic back to Tao Qian: "Cao Cao was attacked by Tao Qian and lost the Jibei Kingdom. Duke Ming wrote to question him, but Tao Qian said that it was Cao Cao who made the move first and he was just a Just fight back."

"This matter is quite unusual. Both sides hold different opinions. It is indeed difficult to judge who made the first move. However, when I looked at the situation on both sides, I found something strange."

Tian Feng took over the conversation.

"What's weird?"

Jushou looked at Tian Feng.

Tian Feng laughed, with a hint of pride on his old face. He looked at Chen Mu and said, "Zi Gui is a first-class wise man in the world. Why don't you take a guess?"

Chen Mu smiled and said, "Isn't this fair? Since you said it's a situation, I know nothing about the situation. There's information asymmetry."

"Okay, let me tell you."

Tian Feng said: "At the beginning of last month, Tao Qian fought with Cao Cao. A few days later, Tao Qian's letter arrived in Qingzhou first. This is understandable. After all, Xuzhou is very close to Qingzhou, but Jibei Kingdom is just south of Jinan Kingdom. During the war, some people from Lu County fled to Licheng. I sent someone to inquire and learned that last month there was no sign of Jibei Kingdom sending troops, horses and food supplies. Instead, Xuzhou suddenly launched an attack, heading north from Lu State. Within a few days, Cao Cao occupied the entire territory of Jibei Kingdom. Cao Cao was unable to defeat the enemy, so he had to retreat to Dongjun to defend himself, and asked me for help from Jinan Kingdom. After I received the letter, I felt something was wrong, so I immediately sent troops to the border of Jinan Kingdom and made plans to attack. Tao Qian's Xuzhou Army was afraid of Jibei's posture and stopped attacking."

"Then it's obvious."

Chen Mu spread his hands: "It was Tao Qian who took the initiative to attack."

Jushou also nodded in agreement.

The three armies have not moved, and the food and grass go first.

If Cao Cao wanted to attack Xuzhou, how could the Jibei Kingdom show no signs of dispatching soldiers, horses, and supplies?

What's more, Cao Cao was so poor that he had to borrow food from Liu Bei, so how could he still have the strength to send troops?

In addition, Jibei State is actually separated from Xuzhou by Taishan County in Yanzhou, and Lu State in Yuzhou does not border Xuzhou.

However, Ying Shao, the prefect of Taishan, did not obey Cao Cao's leadership and took charge of a county by himself. Cao Cao was unable to send troops from Taishan County.

If we want to attack, we can only attack from the Lu State in the south, which has a very small territory and has no officials or soldiers to defend it.

But the state of Lu was in a state of anarchy. Even if Cao Cao wanted to send troops and Tao Qian sent people to resist, the war should have happened in the state of Lu. How could it happen in the state of Jibei?

Moreover, Tao Qian was able to drive Bao Xin out of Jibei Kingdom in just a few days. There are various signs that Tao Qian came prepared and made preparations in advance.

So the real situation should be that Tao Qian suddenly went north from Donghai County of Xuzhou, passed through the small and sparsely populated Lu State, and attacked the Jibei State.

Cao Cao did not expect that Tao Qian, a 61-year-old man with no martial ethics, would sneak attack on his 37-year-old comrade. As a result, his nose was bruised, his face was swollen, and his head was covered with bruises.

In the end, he had no choice but to say, "Mouse is fed," and then the whole army returned to Dongjun, where they went to Liu Bei to cry out and ask for some food, grass, weapons and equipment.

This is actually in line with the troop movements of both sides.

Jushou said: "Looking at Tao Qian's actions, it is obvious that he was well prepared. Otherwise, if Cao Cao took the initiative to attack, how could he be instantly defeated and lose the Jibei Kingdom?"

"It seems that this old man is a little restless."

Chen Mu narrowed his eyes.

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" portrays Tao Qian as an honest man.

But throughout his life, Tao Qian competed in the Central Plains War several times, and he did not seem to be an honest and honest person.

He chose Xuzhou simply because his two sons didn't want to take over, and they didn't even want to be officials, so he had no choice but to choose Liu Bei.

Moreover, historically Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and Liu Biao were allies, and Gongsun Zan, Tao Qian, Yuan Shu, and Lu Bu were allies.

Liu Bei was quite miserable among them. At first, he followed Gongsun Zan to fight against Yuan Shao, but in the end, he was invited by Tao Qian to join Xuzhou and became the shepherd of Xuzhou.

Then Yuan Shu and Lu Bu colluded together, coveted Xuzhou, and began to attack him together. As a result, Liu Bei was defeated. He had no choice but to join forces with Cao Cao to fight against Lu Bu. Finally, after the incident with the imperial edict, he went to Jingzhou to rely on Liu Biao.

In the Central Plains War, the alliance of these various princes was actually quite loose, and they were infighting with each other. From the beginning to the end, except for Liu Bei, Tao Qian, Gongsun Zan, who never fought each other, the others were entangled with each other.

Eternal friends have only eternal interests.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Judging from Tao Qian's current performance, I am afraid that he has either united with Wang Fen in the north, or has become a close friend with Yuan Shu in the south. From a historical perspective,

Yuan Shu is more likely, but Wang Fen cannot be ruled out, because Qingzhou poses a greater threat than Jizhou.

It seems that there is a high probability that it is the historical strategy of making friends at a distance and attacking closely. Tao Qian is probably joining forces with Wang Fen or Yuan Shu to attack the weakest Cao Cao first and cut off Qingzhou's arm.

And one thing must be explained: many people thought that Cao Cao beat Tao Qian because Tao Qian killed his whole family.

But in history, it was Tao Qian who took the initiative to attack Cao Cao.

"Three Kingdoms" records: "There was a gap between Yuan Shu and Shao, so Shu asked Gongsun Zan for help. Zan sent Liu Bei to garrison Gaotang, Shanjing to garrison Pingyuan, and Tao Qian to garrison Fagan to force Shao. Taizu and Shao met and defeated them.

"

Faqian County is the territory in the north of Cao Cao's Dongjun. It is next to Liaocheng. Tao Qian took the initiative to attack Dongjun for the first time. This happened in the third year of Chuping, 192 AD.

Then in June of the third year of Chuping, Tao Qian took the initiative to attack again and occupied Taishan County in Yanzhou.

"In the summer, Taizu returned to Dingtao. Xuan gathered thousands of people in Pique and claimed to be the emperor. Tao Qian, the pastor of Xuzhou, raised troops with him, took the flowers and fees from Mount Tai, and took charge of the city."

After that, Cao Cao began to fight back, attacking Tao Qian several times and severely defeating him. It was not until the spring of the first year of Xingping that Cao Song died. Before Cao Song's death, Tao Qian and Cao Cao had already had several battles, so

Cao Song's death was only the catalyst for Cao Cao's subsequent massacre of Xuzhou, not the cause of the conflict between them.

Now history has changed. Tao Qian did not choose to occupy Taishan County this time, but went north from Lu State to occupy Jibei State. In this way, Taishan County was directly cut off from Yanzhou.

But in fact, it doesn't matter whether it is cut off or not, because Cao Cao's territory now is very small, only Dongjun and Jibei Kingdom.

The reason why there are multiple Jibei kingdoms is because Bao Xin is the prime minister of Jibei. Zhang Miao, the prefect of Chenliu, is very different from him. Jiyin County is also in the hands of Zhang Miao. Now there are no court officials in several counties in Yanzhou. The war is in chaos. Cao Cao is also living now.

Quite difficult.

"I was thinking, why did he attack Jibei Kingdom?"

Tian Feng suddenly raised a question.

"Jibei Kingdom does not border Xuzhou. Tao Qian crossed Taishan County and Lu State and took the initiative to attack Jibei. I am afraid there is..."

Jushou also touched his chin and thought.

Chen Mu thought for a while and suddenly opened his eyes wide: "Not good."

"What did Zigui think of?"

Tian Fengjushou came to see it immediately.

Chen Mu said solemnly: "Get a pen and paper."

Zhang Fei shouted: "Here comes someone."

"General!"

An attendant came in from outside.

"Get a pen and paper."

"only."

The attendant took the order and left, and came over a moment later with a pen and paper.

Chen Mu spread out Zuo Bo paper, which had been improved to be closer to rice paper, dipped his brush in ink, and thought carefully.

After a while, with his amazing memory, he drew the outline of the six states of Ji, Qing, Xu, Yan, Yu, Yang and Jing on the paper and marked them.

"You see, the current situation in Guandong is that Wang Fen is in Jizhou, his eldest brother is in Qingzhou, Yuan Shu occupies half of Jingzhou, half of Yangzhou, and half of Yuzhou. Sun Jian has just arrived in the northern part of Yuzhou, Liu Biao is in northern Jingzhou, Cao Cao is in Yanzhou, and Tao Qian is in

Xuzhou.”

Chen Mu wrote down the names of all the forces one by one. On the drawing, people were intertwined and forces were competing against each other, forming a very complicated situation.

Jushu Tian Feng and Zhang Fei both came over and looked at the map on his desk.

Chen Mu continued: "Judging from the map, Yuan Shu and Wang Fen are the most powerful, so the first strategy I customized was to team up with Tao Qian, Sun Jian, and Cao Cao to deal with Wang Fen together, and then finish the matter after Wang Fen is dealt with.

Yuan Shu, if Guandong is now at peace, we can conquer the world."

"But Tao Qian obviously doesn't think so. I didn't expect that this old man is already sixty years old and has quite a lot of ambition. As I expected, the person behind him must be Yuan Shu."

"Yuan Shu must have promised Tao Qian benefits and invited him to attack Yuzhou and Yanzhou together. Afterwards, Yuan Shu captured Yuzhou and completely surrounded Liu Biao, occupying a large area in Henan and even Jiangnan. Tao Qian occupied Xuzhou and Yanzhou, two people and one person.

He has become a great prince who can compete with his eldest brother and Wang Fen."

"This temptation is irresistible to Tao Qian. And the reason why he sent troops to Jibei Kingdom is probably to drag Wang Fen into trouble and to march troops at the junction of the three places. This old boy's plan is so insidious.

Very good."

At the end of the sentence, Chen Mu sighed. He had always said that heroes in the world should not be underestimated, so he always dealt with those with high intelligence.

However, Tao Qian's image as a good old man was so ingrained that he forgot that he was also a ruthless person in his early years, and almost fell into his scheme.

If Tao Qian hadn't recalled in his mind the memory of attacking Cao Cao and Yuan Shao together with Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shu, he would have been almost confused by his actions and didn't understand what he meant.


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