Lao Cao jumped off the horse tiredly, threw the sword aside, and sat down on the ground in a very inconspicuous manner, breathing heavily. Running at high speed on horseback is also quite exhausting. Lao Cao is already fifty-three years old, and his body and bones are no longer so strong.
"I have heard of Ziyan's name for more than twenty years, but I never thought that you and I would meet like this."
Wang Yan also smiled and got off the horse, inserting the horse stick in his hand into the ground. Standing with his sword in hand, he looked at Lao Cao not far away: "I have heard about Meng De's name for more than 20 years. In the past, Meng De falsely ordered the princes of the world to attack Dong Zhuo together. He was a real hero. Today's battle, the commander-in-chief If you pretend to be a bodyguard and attack me secretly, you are also pretending to be a pawn, and you have lost the dignity of a hero."
Regarding Wang Yan's sarcasm, Lao Cao was not embarrassed at all. Instead, he laughed loudly: "The winner is the king and the loser is the bandit. If Ziyan dies in battle, who will know about my plan? The world only knows that Wang Yan died on the battlefield, but Cao Cao dominates the world!"
There was a bit of domineering in Lao Cao's words, but more of helplessness and relief. It was definitely not him who took the initiative to let go, otherwise this battle would not have started. He was helpless at first, but now that he has become a prisoner, he can only feel relieved. If he doesn't feel relieved, he has no other choice and cannot cry to Wang Yan. As for the so-called domineering, it is better to save face for himself. After all, he has been in power for more than 20 years and defeated many opponents.
Of course, this is the winner's interpretation, Wang Yan's interpretation. No matter what Lao Cao thinks in his heart, Wang Yan's interpretation will be whatever he says. As Lao Cao said, the winner is the king and the loser is the enemy.
Lao Cao laughed wildly, the morning sun reflected his face, but Wang Yan had his back turned. If this kind of scene is expressed in the lens of film and television, it seems that Lao Cao is the righteous party.
Wang Yan ignored him and turned around to look at the scene on the battlefield. After Wang Yan went out to break through the battle formation, Cao Jun's army collapsed. After the central army's commander's flag was moved or even thrown away, Cao Jun's army collapsed. They could no longer maintain the battle formation and ran for their lives. It was a mess. , this is the so-called defeat.
Under such circumstances, it is impossible to form a fighting formation again. Because the system of the military formation has completely collapsed, it is useless even if the flag is waving and smoking. They can only wait until they are completely out of the pursuit circle, gather the remaining troops again, and then form a battle formation. Just like Cao's army now has 50,000 soldiers, by the time the coach gathers them, 3,000 will be awesome enough.
Because Cao Jun had given up resistance, many people ran for their lives subconsciously, but after running for a while, they reacted, threw away their weapons, sat down on the ground, and did whatever they liked.
Normally, Lao Cao would be laughing here, and Wang Yan would be laughing along with him. Now only Lao Cao is laughing, which is very boring. Lao Cao smacked his lips, his mood waning.
Looking at Wang Yan's tall and mighty back, the sun shone in front of Wang Yan, which blinded Lao Cao. The lens expression of this kind of scene is much more harmonious. Does Wang Yan have a golden light on his body?
Lao Cao said: "How are you doing?"
"It's up to you how you treat it."
"To be honest, before the war, my civil and military subordinates intended to attack Tianzhu and open up the territory."
"It's very good. In the past, when Han Sui asked for peace, he went to attack Guishuang to survive. If you attack Tianzhu, you can also avoid being massacred. It is a good life to open up borders for China and make our democratic world of China, which will never be destroyed. achievement."
Lao Cao said curiously: "You have the ability to govern the world and the invincible courage, but you will eventually become a mortal. A hundred years later, your descendants will definitely be inferior. At that time, my descendants worked hard to rule and attacked the Central Plains again. Do you really have nothing to fear?"
"After I die, who will care about the raging floods?" Wang Yan said with a smile, "You don't need to think too much, the number of people who can be taken away from China is only four to five million. Work hard to cure it? How can these four words describe the hardships? "
In fact, what Cao Cao said makes sense, what you don't get is always the best. Even though the land in Tianzhu is actually very good, they must be thinking about returning to the Central Plains.
In particular, Lao Cao took those wealthy families with him. The wealthy families at this time were serious nobles. Going back even further, we can trace them back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and even further back to the ancient mythological period, and they are truly direct descendants passed down in an orderly manner. Seriously speaking, there are quite a few thousand-year-old families.
And they were humiliated and expelled from China by Wang Yan, thus allowing a group of common people to step onto the political and historical stage. How could they be willing to do so? Therefore, they will definitely call themselves Huaxia Zhengshuo, and they will remember to return to their ancestral land from generation to generation. And in this process, the direct inheritance system will be strictly implemented, and children born from intermarriage with Tianzhu barbarians will never be allowed to take charge of power to ensure the purity of blood and legal principles.
In this regard, Li Shimin has the most say, but I can't stop scolding him.
But even if they fight back, it doesn't matter. Because Wang Yan's transformation of the people has been completed, no matter how weak they are, they are not so easy to fight. Even if they were like the Manchus who fought hard from beginning to end, the people would have already completed their awakening, and there would always be people who were dissatisfied and stood up. After beating back and forth, the meat was rotten in the pot, and it didn't matter if it wasn't the Wang Empire.
Even those who have not experienced thousands of years like Wang Yan, but have only come from two thousand years later, have taken history and politics classes, and have a relatively normal mind should understand the basic principle of following objective laws. There is no dynasty that lasts forever, only one thousand years. All generations of people...
As for what Wang Yan said about letting Cao Cao take away four to five million people, this is naturally necessary. After all, how much can be done by relying on Lao Cao and other wealthy families. We still need to let Lao Cao take away a group of men and women, so that we can have the capital to expand our territory.
And although it has passed, the people will still be ruled by the wealthy families. But when we get there, the Han people are our own people. No matter how greedy the wealthy people are, they will always treat their own people better, and instead exploit the Tianzhu barbarians and subsidize the Han people. They are not stupid, of course they understand where their basic base lies.
The most important thing is that no one can survive for a long time when venturing abroad, and they may even be easily assimilated by others. It is necessary to ensure the number of Han people, occupy magpie nests with doves, and replace birds with cages, so as to effectively occupy Tianzhu...
These two sentences express a general idea. Wang Yan ignored Cao Cao and asked the guards who were following him to form a circle. He led Lao Cao onto his horse and followed his team forward.
The capture of Lao Cao was not the end of the war, but just a turning point in the war. The reason why Lao Cao was caught this time was because Lao Cao took the risk himself. It was just a coincidence caused by various reasons. Winning the war is inevitable, but catching Lao Cao marks the end of the war, which is not the case.
After all, Lao Cao still has a son, other civil servants and generals, and hundreds of thousands of troops, who are still guarding various passes. In other words, they still have the credentials and the basis for bargaining, which of course is not possible.
What we need to do now is to take all the passes and disintegrate most of their forces so that they have no other way to go, let alone let them think that they can still talk, and let them not think of good things.
Therefore, the battle was won. The militiamen behind them pushed forward, and the militiamen on the other side began to cross the river, transport supplies, and at the same time organize the surrender troops, approach Nanchang, capture Nanchang, and collect grain and grass. Cooperate with Lu Bu and others to end the battle in other places.
The front-line troops in front did not stop advancing. Instead, they marched urgently that day and arrived at the Qiupu (Chizhou City) garrison. Dian Wei, who came first, had already taken control of the situation.
The main strategy is as mentioned before, which is to go all the way along the river, completely control the river bank area, let the militia on the other side come over, control the situation in the south of the Yangtze River, and then continue to invade the territory. Completely shattering the hopes of Cao Cao's camp, they would then directly dispatch all those people.
Wang Yan did not march in a hurry, but followed slowly and took Lao Cao with him. He did not hide his orders or anything, and he ate and drank well. Lao Cao was not the only one. Xu Chu was captured alive earlier, and Wen Chou was unlucky and was killed.
Even if Lu Bu is surrounded by thousands of troops, and there are no soldiers behind him to rush into the battle, it will be in vain. What's more, Wang Yan's soldiers are very elite, proficient in battle formations, and can deal with the generals, so that the generals will not be really unparalleled in cutting grass.
In addition, Lao Cao did not come by himself, and was followed by his civil servants. Except for those who were really unlucky, they were all captured alive. So Lao Cao is not alone, he has someone to keep him company.
Following Wang Yan, eating and drinking every day, Lao Cao adapted quickly. In particular, he found that Wang Yan's food was really good, and the cooks around him were also better at cooking, much better than his old Cao, by several margins.
Of course, Lao Cao didn't really eat hard food all day long. He still observed Wang Yan's army operations at close range. Overall, the operation of his army was smoother than that of his. The army moves very quickly and behaves in a controlled manner. Not only did Wang Yan eat well, the food for the army was also far better than that for his army. It was all dry rice and minced meat every meal.
The soldiers laughed and cursed among themselves, and there was also some literary talent. Unlike uneducated people, they struggle to express themselves and what they say has no priority. The most egregious thing was that he saw a pawn writing a letter home with charcoal. He also asked specifically that he was just a pawn, not the team leader.
At this time, Lao Cao finally understood how awesome Wang Yan was, and also understood where he failed, which was Wang Yan's outstanding internal affairs ability. In terms of food alone, if Wang Yan's army had the same food as his army, judging from the current situation, they might be able to fight him forever.
If it weren't for the fact that Wang Yan had waited so many years to fight, Lao Cao would even be a little lucky in his heart, otherwise he would have been dead long ago...
The news that Lao Cao personally led an army of 50,000 men and had capable generals like Xu Chu and Wen Chou were defeated in one battle cannot be concealed. It's not that easy to catch more than 50,000 people. Someone will always tip off the rear.
Although a messenger was sent over to ask Wang Yan what he meant, he did not give up and was still resisting. Of course they knew Wang Yan's policy very well, how could they want to give up so easily.
Wang Yan detained the messenger, did not respond, and continued to advance troops in large numbers. Although Lao Cao's men are still resisting, the fact that the boss was captured alive has no impact. The wealthy families are once again packing up their belongings and preparing to run away with very skilled and professional methods. Although the big soldiers on the front line do not know the news , but the upper levels are panicked, and the lower levels are worried. It is too naive to expect them to have combat effectiveness.
Therefore, the overall advancement speed was quite fast. It only took ten days to end the war in Yangzhou, killing and capturing many of Cao Cao's generals, such as several surnamed Cao and several surnamed Xiahou. Because Shu does not attack, only defends, so all Cao Cao's men can attack is here.
He also captured Nanchang and surrounded Linxiang (Changsha City). At the same time, he captured Pengze and advanced on Jiujiang. As for the soldiers and horses in Jiujiang, they were all defeated by Wang Yan. Counting the soldiers and horses originally stationed on the river bank to protect the grain roads, there were about 100,000 of them.
However, a battle cannot be fought with just a large number of people, not to mention that a defeated army will lose its combat effectiveness. Moreover, many of the defeated soldiers came with the news that Lao Cao had been captured, which made the soldiers who were originally kept in the dark very uneasy. Such a situation made the already weak combat effectiveness drop even further. The reason why they were not pushed flatly was just because they adopted the tactic of shrinking back.
This is because the senior officials under Lao Cao do not want to completely lose their right to speak, and they are still trying their best to resist.
But currently, Cao Cao's 500,000-strong army in Jiangnan is basically useless. There must be less than 500,000 left in Shu, and only 200,000 to 300,000 will be left. Among them, if there are only one hundred thousand elite soldiers, it will basically end.
It can be said that it is only a matter of time, and it has only been more than two months since Lao Cao's raid to achieve this point. An originally protracted battle for reunification ended hastily because of Lao Cao's mischief.
On this day, Wang Yan was in charge of military and political affairs in the military tent. The front is victorious, and the management of the rear has begun. Spring plowing is about to begin, and all work must be steadily advanced. The work of counting the population, accounting for the fields, distributing land, dispatching supplies, and sending the surrendered soldiers back to their hometowns has already begun.
Not only that, because when Lao Cao swept the population across the river, he especially took away a large number of strong men. Many people's families are still in Henan. Maybe their wives and children were given to others by General Wang to be their wives. The work of finding relatives back home also needs to be carried out, and there are a lot of messy things in the process.
More importantly, for the development of Jiangnan. Although it has been developed to a certain extent, it is still far from enough. After all, the river system in the south of the Yangtze River is developed and the climate is suitable. Although there are many mountainous areas, the land is used very well with the application of various terraces. Now Wang Yan has not left the farming era. Even if the food output in Jiangnan is not as good as that in Northeast China, it is certainly not bad, so it naturally needs to be developed well.
For a long time to come, the main thing to do is to develop the south and adjust the population distribution.
At this time, the bodyguard came in and delivered a message: "General, Zhuge Liang sent people to deliver a message. They have broken through Jiangguan and blocked Cao's army's food route." As he spoke, he respectfully handed over the bamboo tube containing the letter with both hands.
Wang Yan raised his eyebrows slightly, a little surprised.
He knew that Zhuge Liang was going to cross mountains and ridges to attack Jiangguan in Yufu, but he didn't expect it to be so fast. It has only been more than twenty days now, not even a month.
For an important place like Jiangguan, Cao's army was heavily defended, so it was quite difficult to attack it. That was why Wang Yan was surprised.
Wang Yan took the bamboo tube and took out Zhuge Liang's autographed letter, and read it slowly.
After reading the letter, Wang Yan finally understood the process. It's not difficult to say, but the generals guarding the pass are not very serious. After all, there are still large armies outside, and Shu is their territory. What's more, the generals here also knew the news of Lao Cao's defeat and capture. Even if the senior civil and military officials tried their best to block it, it was useless. They could not share wealth and adversity with the wealthy family.
Because when they get rich, they will kill others to avoid sharing their wealth. And when times of trouble come, they tend to go first.
Therefore, after such a long time, the news spread, and only a large number of large-scale soldiers and middle- and lower-level officers were still kept in the dark. All senior civil and military officials knew the news of Lao Cao's capture.
In such a situation, how could the generals not panic? If you panic, you will lose your fighting spirit and become relaxed.
So Zhuge Liang captured the team escorting the grain and fodder and pretended to open the city gate at night. Although the plan was not very successful, the city guard neglected his duty and was drunk. He was unable to effectively prevent the resistance. The fake elites defended the city gate. At the city gate, the army soon arrived and took Jiang Pass lightly.
Zhuge Liang was also very confused. After all, it was very hard for him to lead an army over the mountains, but the result was that his opponent was like this. How could he not be confused?
Wang Yan shook his head and took Jiangguan. For them, the danger of Shu was broken. With this breakthrough, the army pushed straight inward. In front of the elite warriors, everything was in vain. Moreover, if this food channel is contained, Jiujiang's 100,000-strong army will not be able to hold out for long. This will avoid casualties in the war, which is undoubtedly a good thing.
After dealing with various affairs again in the evening, Wang Yan served wine and invited the captured Lao Cao and some of his men to have dinner together.
Wang Yan sat at the top, Cao Cao sat at the bottom, and the rest were Cheng Yu, Jiang Ji, and Lao Cao's generals. The atmosphere in the military tent was not very good. After all, they were all Lao Cao's people.
Their eyes exchanged back and forth, probably trying to seize the opportunity to catch Wang Yan and make a comeback in such an instant. Fortunately, there were two rows of personal guards standing behind them to wake them up.
"Meng De, please read this letter."
While the food was being served, Wang Yan laughed and drank a bottle of wine with Lao Cao, and asked his bodyguard to deliver Zhuge Liang's letter to Lao Cao.
Lao Cao took the letter with a smile, but after reading it, the smile disappeared from his face.
He read slowly, word for word.
The military tent suddenly became quiet. No one among Lao Cao's men spoke, no one moved their chopsticks, and no one drank. They all looked at Lao Cao, trying to figure out what the letter was.
Only Wang Yan, who was at the head, was content with himself. He ate the food and drank the wine first. It was clearly audible in the quiet military tent. This gesture was already very unpleasant, and the voice even wanted to kill Wang Yan.
After a long time like this, Lao Cao laughed and put down the letter.
"The situation is over, okay, okay, hahahahaha. Brother Ziyan, you should congratulate me for such a good deed. Come and have a drink..."
Wang Yan also laughed, this time it finally met Lao Cao's script...
A fifty-three-year-old man and a forty-two-year-old man, each serving as a leader, laughed and drank strong wine.
Lao Cao's men didn't understand why, and Wang Yan's personal guards were not interested in knowing why.
At this moment, only Lao Wang can understand Lao Cao's loneliness...
Thanks to brother (Shuangyue Wufeng) for the 1,500-coin reward.
I would like to express my daily gratitude to the good brothers who vote monthly for their support.
Thank you to all the brothers who recommended me for your support,
Thanks to the big brothers who read silently for their support.
(End of chapter)
