After Cao Ren was transferred to Dingtao, Liu Bei's pressure on Yuzhou dropped sharply. Although the reason is unknown, he was able to transfer the troops at Shenyuan Pass to Chenggao. As a result, the situation at Hulao Pass was greatly improved. Even though Cao's army rose up from the mountains and beat drums day and night to attack, they were eventually repelled by the Han army. As Liu Bei rested for a long time, the rest of his troops gradually recovered from the Battle of Bohai, and Cao Jun's offensive became increasingly weak, causing the battlefield to gradually become evenly balanced.
Unable to overcome such a difficult attack, Cao Cao then issued an order to Xun Yu, and would successively recruit young people from all over Hebei Province. It was expected that more than 60,000 people would be obtained. At the same time, he would open tombs in various places in Henan Province to dig for gold, and many of them would be stationed in Xingyang. , and Liu Bei were spending money and food, competing for national strength.
But in the current situation, what is most unacceptable to Cao Cao is that Dingtao City has contained as many as 30,000 Cao Ren's troops, and there are still no signs of breaking the city. The setback in Dingtao also greatly affected the offensive against Hulao. Cao Cao was extremely dissatisfied, so he urgently ordered Cao Ren to break through the city and return to the army quickly.
However, Cao Ren's dilemma was far worse than that of Cao Cao. Cao Ren had already lost thousands of troops when he destroyed the short wall built by Zang Hong. Afterwards, he tried to rebuild Tushan. Unexpectedly, Zang Hong went out of the city several times to fight back. Cao Ren was unable to support him and lost thousands more troops. In desperation, Cao Ren had no choice but to give up the idea of filling in the soil and divided the entire army into five teams. Four teams took turns to join Zang Hong in a bloody battle, hoping to find the weak points in the city's defense and then use his own formation to break through the city.
However, this idea was also seen through by Zang Hong. He played hard to get, deliberately reduced his troops, exposed several flaws in the city wall, and waited for Cao's army to swarm up, thinking that the city was about to be broken. Zang Hong led his formation to counterattack suddenly, wiping out all Cao's soldiers on the upper city like a violent storm. After fighting like this for more than twenty days, Zang Hong took the lead, wore armor, ate food, and fought with his wounds. The morale of the army was still stable. However, Cao's army below the city was exhausted and could hardly launch a decent offensive.
At this time, Cao Ren could only discuss strategies with Guo Tu, but Guo Tu also felt that he was exhausted. He said to Cao Ren: "The soldiers are extremely tired right now, and there are more and more fleeing soldiers. The ban will not stop. If we don't rest for a while, we can fight together again." If we go down, I’m afraid we won’t even be able to stay under the city.”
Therefore, he suggested to Cao Ren that he should first move the camp to rest and recuperate, and then divide his troops in Puyang to escort the newly arrived grain and grass from Hebei. After the grain and grass arrived in Xingyang, he would tell Cao Cao the truth and invite additional reinforcements.
Cao Ren had no other choice. Even though he was unwilling to do so, he had no choice but to withdraw ten miles to the west. Then he used Lu Zhao as his general and sent three thousand soldiers to Puyang, telling him to invite reinforcements.
However, every move he made fell into Zang Hong's eyes. In the previous bitter battles, he also captured some prisoners of Cao's army one after another. From the torture, it was known that Cao's army would have a batch of grain and grass in Puyang in the future. Due to the heavy floods in the Yellow River, Cao's army was temporarily unable to transport it by water and could only use pack horses to transport it in Puyang. Zang Hong took this matter seriously. When he saw Cao Jun retreating, he immediately sent scouts to spy on Cao Jun's movements. As expected, the scout came to report that thousands of people from Cao's army had gone north. It was not difficult for Zang Hong to guess that the batch of food and grass had arrived.
At present, the food in the city is insufficient for more than a month. If you want to continue to hold on, you must seize some food no matter what. Even if they couldn't capture it but burned it, it would probably shake the morale of Cao's army.
Zang Hong made up his mind and picked out the 600 cavalrymen in the city. Taking advantage of the sunset and darkness, they secretly crossed the Pu River and galloped northward. After riding their horses for more than a hundred miles in one night, they saw Cao Jun's grain team camping on their backs. As a result, there were not many people in the grain team. Zang Hong immediately realized that he was walking in front of Cao Jun. There were only five or six hundred people guarding the grain at the moment!
With a thought, Zang Hong immediately chased his horse and approached. Cao's army was alerted. Suddenly there was a big fire and people screamed and horses neighed. Zang Hong quickly dispersed Cao's soldiers, then went straight to the packhorse team and several soldiers who drew their swords and opened the bags unloaded on the ground. The soybeans inside flowed out. Seven or eight more bags were emptied one after another, and the millet and wheat were scattered all over the ground, and there was even some rice.
Just when I was happy, someone came to report. It says that Cao Jun from the south seems to have arrived. What should we do? Zang Hong heard this and cursed: "What a thief, you didn't come earlier and you didn't come later, but you caught up at this time!" Zang Hong originally wanted to drag away the packhorse and grain, but now it was too late. He could only order the soldiers to tear off their robes, wrap some food in towels and take them with them, and burn the rest that could not be taken away with fire. All the pack horses were hacked to death on the spot. Inside the city.
During this night attack, Zang Hong burned nearly 30,000 hu of dendrobium of food and rice for Cao's army. Cao Ren was shocked when he learned about it and immediately led his troops to
Puyang fell into the trap again. Zang Hong's army went out of the city to pursue him and met him at Lihu. Cao's army was unprepared and lost all their energy. They then suffered a major defeat. In one battle, Zang Hong beheaded 4,000 people, and finally withdrew into Puyang in embarrassment.
When the news reached Xingyang, Cao Cao could hardly believe it. Except for himself, no one of his generation could compare with Cao Ren in terms of military prowess. Who would have thought that he would suffer another disastrous defeat after Cao Hong?
He discussed this matter with Guo Jia: "Zixiao is defeated by Zang Hong, who can be sent to attack Tao now?"
Guo Jia carefully counted the candidates for him and said: "The only ones in the army who can lead an army alone and are better than conquering the south are Fenwu (Jushou), Anwu (Shenpei), and Zuo Changshi (Tian Feng). But they are all dignitaries of Zhuo County, and if they perform meritorious service now, I am afraid that the position of Ming Gong will be endangered."
Cao Cao was convinced. He thought carefully and said, "You mean, I personally lead the troops to defeat it? But who will guard the front?"
Guo Jia nodded and said in a low voice: "At present, the bandits have insufficient armor and few horses. They can still rely on the city wall to defend themselves, but if they want to go out of the city to fight in the field, they will die. Ming Gong can make Zhenwu (Bao Xin) a general. , just wait here."
Cao Cao kept saying wonderful words, and he continued what Guo Jia said: "The only thing to worry about is how to break the city." At this point, he lowered his head and muttered to himself a few times. Thinking of the defeats of Cao Hong and Cao Ren, he felt an inexplicable feeling in his heart. He was a little nervous, but then he joked to Guo Jia: "Let me see, does Zang Ziyuan have four eyes or two mouths."
After that, Cao Cao sent this order to all the armies, and ordered Bao Xin to lead a total of more than 30,000 infantry and cavalry from Dongjun, Jibei, and Dongping counties to guard the camp. Cao Ang was appointed as the governor, and he led the remaining nine soldiers. The main force of ten thousand returned to attack Dingtao.
When the army arrived at Yuanju, Cao Ren learned about it and rode alone to see him. It was raining heavily, and Cao Ren stood outside the camp gate in the rain. He stood there for three hours before he could see Cao Cao. Cao Cao said to Cao Ren, who was soaking wet, "You have worked hard, and you can rest for a while before you take out the fortified city. But now that the whole army has been turned around, it is not a trivial matter. The generals are not without criticism, so they have to punish you. The position of conquering the south should be given up." You condescend to be a miscellaneous number." After saying that, he changed it to Dang Kou General, and then pointed at Cao Hong and said: "Even Zixiao can't win, so it's no wonder you are here. So I'm the captain again and go to lead you. People. There can be no next time!" He appointed Cao Hong as the Cavalry Commander and went to reorganize the old army.
Soon after the rain stopped, Cao Cao led his army to the foot of Dingtao City. At the same time, the first batch of 20,000 reinforcements from Hebei also arrived across the river from Hebei. The leader was Zhu Ling, the general who led the army. When Cao Cao saw him, he was very surprised. He laughed and said, "Even Wenbo is here. I think Zang Ziyuan is going to be scared." Since then, the size of Cao's army has reached 130,000, and the black crowd has poured into the city from the four directions of southeast, northwest and northwest. The defenders looked up from the city. I saw that Cao's army's line stretched continuously for more than 20 miles, completely surrounding Dingtao City.
Zang Hong led the crowd to patrol the wall, trying to see Cao Jun's formation. When he saw the banner of Cao Jun's headquarters, a group of noisy crows suddenly flew over the sky, screaming as they flew over the city. At this time, someone in Cao's army gave the order. Cao's soldiers on the ground suddenly cocked their arrows and fired arrows at the crows in the sky. The cloud-like crowd of crows were caught off guard. After being shot, they fell to the ground like falling rain. Looking from the sky again, they saw only a dozen or so few crows whining and circling. They quickly changed direction and flew to the east. . For a time, all the guards in the city were in awe. They all understood the meaning of Cao Jun's move: surrounded by a large army, they would not let even a bird fly into Dingtao City.
Upon seeing this, Zang Hong ignored the huge enemy force and took advantage of Cao's army's unstable foothold. He led the defenders to suddenly open the city gate and attack the camp in the early morning. The two sides soon started a fierce battle on the banks of the Jishui River.
The sound of killings on the battlefield in the distance was so loud that Cao Cao himself was awakened from his sleep. He was now in the west, looking at the fire in the southwest sky. He turned to Xu You and asked, "Ziyuan, which one is there?" ?" Xu You was also wearing a fur coat and looking hard. When day and night came together, the Dingtao city wall was hidden in the mist. He couldn't see the flag in the distance, so he could only listen and think, and quickly replied: "The person there should be Lu Weihuang."
Cao Cao frowned when he heard this. He called Xu Zhu and whispered a few instructions to him. After he left, he continued to stand and listen. Unexpectedly, the sound of fighting did not weaken, but became more intense. It seemed that the guards were With all the elite troops coming out, Lu Weihuang could no longer resist.
After standing for a while, Cao Cao felt cold all over.
Incomparable. The raindrops became more rapid, pattering on the leather hat. He stretched out his palms to catch the raindrops falling from the sky, but was surprised to find that the sky was full of small hailstones! Hailstones bounced around in my hands, making me feel a little painful. Cao Cao looked back and saw Dian Wei and dozens of his trusted knights standing silently in the hail, waiting for his orders.
However, Cao Cao was unwilling to mobilize the army. The disparity in strength between the two sides was nearly twenty times. He did not believe that Zang Hong could break through the encirclement. If he led the army to act rashly, he might open an opening for the enemy, so he only allowed Xu Zhu to lead hundreds of troops. He rode forward to assist, but the rest of the troops did not move.
After a while, a knight came to report, saying that Zang Hong led 3,000 soldiers out of the city to fight, and Lieutenant Lu led an army to defeat them. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. As for Cao Jun, Zang Hong led his troops to kill more than 2,000 people, and Lu Weihuang also beheaded him. Fortunately, Zhu Ling was nearby and led his troops to fill the gap. Then they forced the enemy back into the city. They inspected the corpses and found that about 500 enemy soldiers had died in the battle.
Cao Cao was silent for a long time. He looked at Dingtao City not far away, which had just returned to calm. He finally said with emotion: "I understand a little bit. Zang Ziyuan seems to be like a gentian!" In order to boost morale, Cao Cao ordered Lu Weihuang's cronies to be removed from the cavalry. Ten people were cut in half and executed, and Lu Weihuang's soldiers were ordered to wear white linen and serve as the vanguard of the main attack on the west of the city.
