For several months, the situation in Kansai has continued to become chaotic, while the situation in Kanto has not become clearer.
After two months of the Bohai War, Cao Jun's initial furious advance was over. 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. He achieved full suppression of the Bafu Army on the offensive, and the results were beyond the scope of the word "brilliant".
However, with the lengthening of the front line and the rapid expansion of the territory in a short period of time, various new problems have also emerged one after another: the supply and baggage are gradually becoming tight, the newly occupied land is 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 in the middle also stopped at Juye and Changyi, 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 Liu Bei is powerful after all. 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 a confrontation between two heroes. It is difficult for both sides to defeat the enemy in one battle. We still need to prepare for a long-term struggle, first for hegemony and then for unification.
The original arrangement of Cao Jun was to imitate Lu Lin's strategy of establishing the Xuan Han Dynasty. Taking advantage of Bafu's defeat, the troops divided into three routes to counterattack, hoping that each route would be overwhelming, and then converged on Hanoi, Chenliu, and Yingchuan, 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 now, just talk about the battle situation of the East Route Army. Even if Cao Cao himself is in charge, the troops are exhausted to quell the bandits in each county, and they are completely unable to intervene in Yuzhou, let alone lead the army to invade Ying. Sichuan, threatening Shenyuan closed. Shen Pei reflected here and said that it can be seen that if he did not concentrate the entire army and attack Luoyang directly, he would have lost the opportunity to pursue Liu Bei. This was actually a mistake.
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 according to the current situation in a timely manner can it be considered a wise move. Based on what he saw and heard on the front line, Shen Pei told Cao Cao in his letter that after Bafu's defeat, a large number of horses and baggage were lost on the road, leaving only a lot of manpower. These manpower are enough to defend the city, but when the military morale is low and the people's strength is exhausted, it is difficult to launch a counterattack in a short time. There will be no major moves for at least one or two years.
Shen Pei judged from this that under such circumstances, it would be difficult for Cao Jun to achieve results if he wanted to further expand his territory. But on the other hand, they only need to leave a small number of troops in the frontline city, and they can easily maintain the front line in front of them. There is no need to divide the troops into three groups. "The Art of War: Planning and Attack" says: "The method of using troops is to surround it with ten, attack it with five, divide it with twice the enemy. If the enemy is small, you can fight it, if it is small, you can escape from it, if it is weak, you can avoid it." It can be seen that the first way to use troops is to win with superior force. Therefore, the most urgent task at the moment is to gather scattered forces and make progress in 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, went south to capture Xuzhou. Shen Pei believes that taking Xuzhou has three major benefits: first, the defense of Xuzhou is weak, and Bafu's troops are mostly concentrated in the Pei area at this time, which is beyond the reach of Xuzhou's defense, making it easy to capture; second, the Qingxu bandits and bandits are united as one, and if they can By conquering Xuzhou with an unprecedented military force, the Qingzhou bandits will be afraid and dormant, and will not dare to take the opportunity to cause trouble; thirdly, they can take this opportunity to show off their power in the north of the Yangtze River and weaken the reputation of the Bafu in the south of the Yangtze River. Moreover, the Yangtze River can be used as a natural barrier. The heroes in the south of the Yangtze River did not dare to peek north.
The judge was very attentive to this change of plan. He wrote it for two days and nights, then sealed the plan and gave it to his nephew, judge, to forward to Linzi. After Cao Cao received the report, he attached great importance to it and immediately discussed the matter with the officials in the government. After reading it, many famous Guandong wise men, whether it was Xun Yu, Tian Feng, Zheng Hun, or Cheng Yu, all agreed with the opinion of Shen Pei. . Cao Cao was also very impressed, so he prepared to reply to the letter and plan to mobilize the West Route Army and the Central Route Army to gather in Lu State. After the generals gathered together, they would discuss the strategy of conquering Xuzhou.
However, the plan failed to 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, and he also had many words of praise for Cao Cao. When Cao Cao received this edict, he was overjoyed, 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 a message to various ministries and changed the place where the army would meet to Juyang. By the 13th day of the winter lunar month, nearly 150,000 troops had gathered around Fan County. Except for the 30,000 troops who were still clearing out bandits in Qingzhou and the garrison troops stationed in various places, this was almost all the field troops that Cao Cao could mobilize at present. Youzhou sudden cavalry and Qingzhou bandits as far south as Xinna were almost all-encompassing, and among them there were even thousands of Xianbei light cavalry 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.
Cao Cao learned from Shen Pei's previous suggestions and believed that it would be difficult to break through the Bafu Army's line by dividing his troops into three groups. It was better to start from Yanzhou where the terrain was relatively open and flat. At this time, Zhang Miao and Chen Palace in Yanzhou only had Jiyin and Chenliu counties left. Based on several months of investigation, it can be roughly known that its military strength should be about 30,000, with the focus being distributed in the three cities of Dingtao, Chenliu, and Suanzao. After conquering these three cities, Cao Cao's army can march straight into Henan County. Cao Cao thought that Liu Bei's military strength was no longer enough to defend Aocang, Chenggao and other places. No matter how he reacted, Cao Cao firmly believed that he could win the final victory.
In order to achieve this effect, Cao Cao made the following plan with reference to the ancient precedent of Sun Bin's Battle of Maling: First, a lone army of ten thousand people would go south from Puyang and go straight to the enemy at the junction of Chenliu and Jiyin counties. Jucheng. The garrison of Yuanju City 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 troops will launch from the north and south to completely complete the encirclement of Dingtao. In this way, Chen Liu's defenders must face the decision of whether to rescue Dingtao. If they do, Cao Cao will have an ambush on the road and can take the opportunity to annihilate the few remaining field troops in the Ba Mansion. If not, Cao Cao's army will But they can repeat their old tricks and pull out the cities one by one. In this way, the Bafu army's already low morale will probably become even more disintegrated.
None of the officers and 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 a quick wit, 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 cutting 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.
Cao Ren led his troops to march slowly to Lihu, and then suddenly sent out 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 the sky. 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 surrender.
Cao Ren's speed was so fast that not even one of Bao Xin's envoys was sent in the city. Chen Liu's Zhang Miao only realized something was wrong on the third day, but by this time Cao's army had already launched a full-scale offensive against Jiyin. Cao Hong, the tiger and leopard captain, led his army to attack Juyang; Xiahou Yuan, the governor of Youzhou, led his army to attack Chengwu; the governor of Yanzhou, Cao Ang attacked Chengshi; it was Dingtao's order Zang Hong who informed him before Cao's army was completely encircled, that he learned that the situation was extremely critical.
Chen Gong analyzed Zhang Miao and said: "Cao Cao approaches with a large army because he is determined to defeat the leader. If he continues to defend according to the original arrangement, I am afraid it will 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 encircle him, and then gather in Chenliu City to defend."
Zhang Miao strongly agreed with this, so he personally led more than 6,000 cavalry out of the city, planning to go all the way to meet him via Waihuang, Jiyian, Yuanju, and Dingtao. Unexpectedly, this played into Cao Cao's plan. Zhang Miao's cavalry was ambushed by Cao Ren on the road and was severely defeated. Zhang Miao had not even seen the city of Dingtao, so he had to retreat to Chenliu in a hurry.
At this time, Liu Bei, whose condition had improved significantly, received a letter, ordering Zhang Miao, Chen Gongbian and the three of them to lead everyone back to Henan County within five days. According to Xun You, it is best to repair the defense line in Aocang to continue to preserve strength.
Bian Rang was originally 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. After a few days, more than ten thousand people hurriedly fled westward, 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 one 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 in ordinary thinking, Dingtao had no reinforcements outside and no food inside, so it would only be a matter of time before Dingtao fell.
No one expected that this city would save Bafu's fate.
