Chapter 2794: Bai Qi destroyed Baima City and Cao Cao was forced to abandon Guandu
There were many peasant uprising armies in the late Ming Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, such as the Thirty-sixth Battalion, the Thirteenth Families, etc., but they were basically wiped out by Cao Wenzhao, Sun Chuanting, Lu Xiangsheng and Hong Chengchou.
Although Cao Bianjiao was not as good as the above-mentioned four generals in terms of status, he followed Cao Wenzhao when he was young and sent troops to fight. He accumulated military exploits and became a guerrilla general. Later, he made repeated military exploits in the process of suppressing the rebel army.
Wang Jiayin, the leader of the peasant uprising army in the late Ming Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, once defeated the main force of the Ming army led by Hong Chengchou, but was easily defeated by Cao Wenzhao and Cao Bianjiao's uncle and nephew. He was eventually killed by a Ming army spy after the defeat.
In the battle of Qiutou Town, Cao Wenzhao was defeated and committed suicide due to being outnumbered. Hong Chengchou took over his position and appointed Cao Bianjiao as his deputy general. The two teamed up to continue to suppress the rebels.
Rebel leaders such as King Zijin Liang, Gao Yingxiang, the first king of Chuang, Lao Huihui, Guo Tianxing, Datian Wang, Scorpion Block, Chuang Taotian, etc. were basically all defeated by Cao Bianjiao.
As for Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others, they only started to rise after Gao Yingxiang's death. Before that, they could only be regarded as juniors. They were not even qualified to fight Cao Bianjiao. They would automatically take a detour when they saw Cao Bianjiao's banner.
The combination of Cao Bianjiao and Hong Chengchou was very easy to deal with the rebels, but it was not enough against the Manchu Qing Dynasty in its early days.
After Songshan City was captured by the Manchus, both Hong Chengchou and Cao Bianjiao were captured. Hong Chengchou directly chose to surrender, but Cao Bianjiao was killed because he would rather die than surrender, which fully shows his moral character and bloody nature.
In addition, the late Ming Dynasty was no longer an era of advocating personal bravery, but Cao Bianjiao was a rare general with both wisdom and courage. His evaluation in the history books is: he is the bravest of the three armies.
With such a well-equipped civil and military commander, he only needs famous generals with both skills. In addition, Zhongmou City's defense is not weak. There are sufficient supplies to defend the city and there are four thousand troops. It stands to reason that it will not be impossible to defend the city for two days.
You know, the distance between Zhongmou and Guandu only takes half a day for cavalry and two and a half days for infantry.
At Fan Li's reminder, Cao Cao had sent Xia Houyuan and his army to support him in advance, and Xia Houyuan's marching speed was notoriously fast.
Cao Bianjiao only had to wait until Xiahou Yuan's reinforcements arrived. Even if he could not repel the invading Qin army, he would definitely be able to defend Zhongmou Yueyu. So what made Cao Bianjiao defeated so quickly and even unable to escape?
The culprit is still Jia Xu.
On the surface, Jia Xu asked Li Dingguo to attack Kaifeng, but in fact it was a false shot, and the real target was Zhongmou City.
It was indeed Li Dingguo who led the army to Kaifeng, but the number of troops he led was not 40,000, but 20,000, but he pretended to be a 40,000-strong army to mislead the Wei army.
At the same time, Xu Huang and Gao Shun led 20,000 Qin troops and divided their troops into four groups to sneak to Zhongmou.
When Cao Cao sent reinforcements to Zhongmou, Li Dingguo's 20,000 main army immediately abandoned Kaifeng and rushed to Zhongmou at full speed. He deliberately exposed the whereabouts of 5,000 troops along the way, making Cao Bianjiao think that the Qin army on this side was going to ambush Xiahou Yuan.
The intelligence received by Cao Bianjiao was that Li Dingguo's main force was still in Kaifeng, and the Qin army in Zhongmou only had Gao Shun's five thousand troops.
Gao Shun originally wanted to ambush Xiahou Yuan's reinforcements, but after their whereabouts were leaked, he gave up setting up an ambush and prepared to retreat and join Li Dingguo.
Naturally, Cao Bianjiao could not let Gao Shun escape easily, so he led three thousand defenders out of the city, planning to attack Gao Shun from both sides with Xia Houyuan.
Cao Bianjiao had 3,000 soldiers and Xiahou Yuan had 5,000 soldiers. In this battle, the Wei army had 8,000 soldiers and the Qin army had 5,000 soldiers. It was still a two-sided attack. The Wei army could be said to be victorious.
The silly boy Cao Bianjiao thought he had seized the opportunity, but what he didn't expect was that the opportunity in his eyes was actually a trap carefully prepared by Jia Xu for him. Gao Shun and Xu Huang's 20,000 troops were waiting for him to leave the city.
Cao Bianjiao fell into the trap. He led 3,000 defenders out of the city before Xu Huang led his army to raid Zhongmou City.
After receiving the message from Feige that Zhongmou City was under attack, Cao Bianjiao immediately realized that he had fallen into a trap, so he decisively led his army back. After all, if he continued to march, he would only run into Gao Shun alone. He was not sure of winning against three thousand against five thousand.
When Cao Bianjiao arrived at Zhongmu City, Xu Huang had already seized the city and was waiting for Cao Bianjiao on the city tower.
Seeing the changing flags on the city tower, Cao Bianjiao was furious, but he could do nothing. He knew that he had lost completely, and at this moment Gao Shun also chased after him.
Cao Bianjiao only had 3,000 Wei troops, but he was blocked by Gao Shun's 5,000 Qin troops at the foot of Zhongmu City. The Qin troops in the city were still surrounded from outside the city, and it was obvious that they could not escape.
If the numbers of both sides were equal, the Wei army would naturally dare to fight the Qin army. But the current situation is that the Qin army has 10,000 or 20,000 people and 3,000 of them are besieging them. This is obviously a battle that must be defeated and killed.
Therefore, after seeing this situation, the morale of the Wei army soldiers naturally dropped sharply, and many of them had their legs shaking with fear.
Gao Shun walked out at this time and shouted to the Wei army: "Wei Jun across the way, listen, as long as you put down your weapons and surrender, I will promise to spare your life..."
Gao Shun had a set of words to persuade him to surrender. He had to say it before every battle. It had basically had no effect before, but this time before he finished speaking, the Wei army took the initiative to put down their weapons and surrender.
Seeing this, Cao Bianjiao subconsciously raised his bow and arrow, intending to shoot the deserter to death, but the arrow still missed.
The power of example is infinite. After the first surrender, the three thousand Wei troops quickly fled and only 800 were left, of which 200 were Cao Bianjiao's personal soldiers.
Looking at the trembling soldiers around him who still did not put down their weapons, Cao Bianjiao sighed and said: "If you want to surrender, just put down your weapons and run to the Qin army. I will not blame you. "
As soon as these words came out, all the soldiers looked at me and I looked at you, and then a lot of them ran away. Only 300 people were left, and they shouted: "I am willing to fight to the end with the general."
Cao Bianjiao's eyes were moist. He was ready to die alone. He thought everyone would run away, but he didn't expect that there were still 300 people willing to fight alongside him.
"If I can fight side by side with all of you brothers, I, Cao Bianjiao, will die without any regrets."
After saying this, Cao Bianjiao's eyes were filled with determination. He led three hundred dead men and took the initiative to charge towards thousands of Qin troops. However, before they could get close, nearly half of them were shot to death by the Qin army's archers.
Later, Gao Shun personally took action and captured Cao Bianjiao alive, and the remaining dozens of soldiers had to put down their weapons.
In the previous battles, due to Li Cunxiao's good start, the Qin army basically showed no mercy to the Cao Wei clan.
Cao Cao's uncle Cao Yin, his younger brother Cao De, as well as Cao Anmin, Cao Shuang, Xia Houfeng and other clan members all died in the battle with the Qin army.
In fact, these people could have been captured alive, but because Cao Cao was determined to resist Qin, many Qin generals were dissatisfied. Therefore, when they met Cao Wei's clan members, they would not capture them even if they could, but directly killed many of them. After all, Li Cunxiao was in front. Even if they are held accountable, they cannot be held accountable.
It can be seen from this that the Qin generals are disgusted with Cao Wei's attitude, and the only general named Cao who has been captured alive is Cao Wenzhao.
Gao Shun could of course kill Cao Bianjiao directly, but when he saw that he did not stop the soldiers from surrendering and that he still had the courage to fight the Qin army to the end even though he knew he would die, he was moved and decided to give him a chance to live and personally captured him alive. .
After Gao Shun's continuous improvement, although his base strength has now reached 101, he is not a brave general after all, so his overall combat power is actually weaker than Cao Bianjiao, who has a base strength of 100.
The reason why Gao Shun was able to capture Cao Bianjiao alive was mainly due to the blessing of the combo skill "Five Sons Concentric".
'Five Sons of One Heart' requires at least three people to be present to activate it. In addition to Gao Shun and Xu Huang, Yu Jin is also in the army, so the combo skill can be triggered.
However, even with the blessing of the "Five Sons of One Heart", it took Gao Shun of 101 basic skills nearly a hundred rounds to defeat Cao Bianjiao of 100 basic skills and capture him alive.
Since Jia Xu's plan was to kill Cao Bianjiao, he naturally would not let him go to aid Xia Houyuan.
However, compared to Cao Bianjiao, Xia Houyuan, who was on the right side of Hubuguan, was obviously much more cunning. He immediately returned to Guandu when he realized something was wrong, without giving Xu Huang and Gao Shun a chance to attack him.
Xu Huang and Gao Shun followed Jia Xu's strategy and easily defeated Zhongmou City with only fifty-six casualties. After Li Dingguo arrived, they left three thousand defenders behind and led all their troops to Guandu to join Zhang Liao's army.
Cao Cao originally thought that Zhongmu was close to Guandu, which would be very convenient for sending reinforcements and transporting supplies. As the southern barrier of Guandu, it could hold on for at least a month or two, but he did not expect that it fell after being unable to hold on for two days.
Of course, what drove Cao Cao crazy the most was not the fall of Zhongmou or the capture of Cao Bianjiao, but the bad news coming from Cao Bin on the Yingchuan battlefield.
The Wei army in Yingchuan retreated to Xuchang, the Zhao and Song reinforcements had not yet arrived, and Yuan Jiuling was afraid of the battle and ran away. The battle situation on the southern front was facing collapse at any time.
If Xuchang is slightly lost, the Yingchuan Qin army can attack Chenliu directly, and Cao Cao's persistence in Guandu will be meaningless.
As for after Yuan Jiuling left, could Cao Bin defend Xuchang without the arrival of reinforcements from Zhao and Song?
To be honest, not to mention Cao Bin's lack of confidence, even Cao Cao didn't have much confidence. After all, although Xuchang was strong, because it was the former capital of the Wei Kingdom, it was also the most severely infiltrated city by Da Qin.
Cao Cao didn't know how many spies there were in Xuchang, let alone how many people in the city were liaising with Da Qin, but it was obvious that the number was not small. If Cao Bin hadn't kept a close eye on it, someone might have opened it from the inside and dedicated the city to Ying. Hao.
In his letter, Cao Bin advised Cao Cao to abandon Guandu and even the western defense line, and retreat to the east to continue resisting, but Cao Cao had two major concerns.
First, the essence of Wei lies in the west. If the west cannot be defended, the east will be even less defendable;
The second is how to get rid of the Qin army's pursuit. After all, Li Dingguo is about to join forces with Zhang Liao. There are hundreds of thousands of Qin troops in Guandu. It is impossible to watch the Wei army retreat.
At present, the Guandu defense line is still very strong, and there is no sign of being broken by the Qin army. However, if they give up Guandu and retreat, there is a risk that the entire army will be annihilated once Zhang Liao catches up with them on the way.
This risk was so great that Cao Cao could not help but hesitate and found it difficult to make up his mind for a while.
But soon came the news that Bai Qi had conquered Baima City and Le Yi had retreated to Puyang. This prompted Cao Cao to make up his mind and voluntarily abandon the Guandu defense line.
After all, once Baima City was broken, only one strong city in Puyang was left to defend the Dongjun defense line in the north.
But once Puyang is also captured by Bai Qi, the Qin army can directly attack Jiyin County and cut off the Wei army's retreat to the east, thus besieging and annihilating all the Wei army in the three major battlefields in the west.
Once the Wei army on the western front is annihilated, the consequences will be really unimaginable. After all, it is impossible for the troops in the east to stop dozens of Qin troops. By then, the Qin army may even send a message to decide Wei.
At this thought, Cao Cao instantly shuddered and immediately decided to abandon the Guandu defense line that he had painstakingly built. However, an even more troublesome problem emerged for him, that is, how to get rid of Zhang Liao's pursuers?
Cao Cao actually despised Zhang Liao at the beginning. He believed that Zhang Liao's ability to command troops was last among the eight founding governors of the Qin Dynasty. It was a complete mistake for Ying Hao to send Zhang Liao to deal with him. Cao Cao made a mistake.
But after Li Cunxiao was transferred, Zhang Liao's performance on the battlefield made him no longer dare to look down upon him, let alone Zhang Liao with Jia Xu as his assistant.
Cao Cao wanted to lead his army to retreat safely from Guandu under Zhang Liao and Jia Xu. This was obviously not an easy task.
(End of chapter)
