After the Battle of Huoshibu, Liu Bei and Chen Chong rested in Pengcheng and finally restored their organizational structure, thus accounting for their post-war losses. The losses were extremely shocking. In just one day, the 140,000 troops brought from Guanzhong had killed over 10,000 people. Nearly 30,000 people were missing and captured, and those whose families were seriously injured and could no longer fight. Among them, Bingzhou The armies were particularly brutal. Dingxiang, Taiyuan, Shangdang and other counties all lost more than half of their elite troops. Liu Xuan, the Southern Xiongnu king who was chasing Zuo Ri, was also killed in the battle. This was almost unacceptable to the Overlord.
Liu Xuan was in his thirties, but he had a gentle temperament, was courteous to others, and had extensive knowledge. He was always known as a wise king among the Southern Huns. After Liu Bei took control of the Southern Huns, Liu Xuan served as Liu Bei's right-hand man, often mediating the conflicts between the country and the overlords. In addition, he was Liu Bei's brother-in-law, and he was also very famous in the army and was regarded by the generals. Zuo was the perfect choice to control the northern frontier, but unexpectedly he died on the battlefield in Xuzhou. When the generals heard about it, they all felt sad.
Especially Liu Bao, the left virtuous king of the Southern Huns, went out to study at the same time as Liu Xuan when he was young, and became a disciple of Sun Yan at the same time. After completing his studies, he returned and took charge of everything in the country together. Although they were called uncles and nephews, they were more affectionate than brothers. When he learned that Liu Xuan could not even save his body, he was extremely sad and grieved all night long, to the point of weeping blood. Liu Bei also felt sad. He comforted Liu Bao and said: "A warrior will always die on the battlefield in his life, but Asuan died for me. I will never forget it in this life. I will build a tower to worship him to appease the heroic spirit."
Over the years, Buddhism has become popular among the Huns, and Liu Xuan has always been very fond of it. In Buddhism, there is a saying that erecting a pagoda can achieve merit, so Liu Bei promised to build a pagoda to offer sacrifices to him. He hoped that Liu Xuan had a spirit underground and could be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.
In addition, there are still many corpses in the army lost on the other side. Judging from the current situation, it is difficult to recover them temporarily. Therefore, some people suggested that it would be better to have soldiers from all ministries plant willow branches here. In the future, seeing the willow trees here will be regarded as a kind of commemoration of the dead martyrs.
The entire army fell into a gloomy and pessimistic atmosphere. After Zhou Yu saw the Western Army lieutenants binding their wounds and wailing all over the place, he couldn't help but sigh in a letter to Sun Ce: "The battle at Huoshi Port made the world dark and the rivers and mountains eclipsed. , the Westerners were almost frightened, thinking that the Easterners were gods and ghosts, Cao Cao had received Tianzhao, and no longer wanted to fight, but he was afraid that the Easterners would take advantage of the opportunity to get in, so he had to listen. The Han Dynasty cannot suddenly rise, we can know from this."
These words can be said to hit home the key point of the Western Army. The Western Army had a small number of people, but it suffered more serious losses than the Eastern Army. The blow to the morale and morale of the army was almost devastating. But at this time, we must not be the first to retreat. Otherwise, once the last breath is released, the same situation as the Bohai War will be formed, leading to an overall collapse, retreating to Guanzhong in one fell swoop, and never leaving the east again.
Fortunately, the Eastern Army's losses in this battle were not small. For more than ten days in a row, the scouts came back with news of the Eastern Army's mourning and collection of corpses. Obviously, the Eastern Army could not reorganize its army in a short time and fight again. This gave It took the Western Army time to regroup, and the two sides were preparing for the next war in this silent tacit understanding.
Today, there are still about 100,000 combat-ready personnel in the Western Army, and the infantry losses are extremely serious. Fortunately, the cavalry losses are still acceptable. There are still about 30,000 cavalry in the army, which is not inferior to the Eastern Army and is sufficient. Launch another joint war led by the Western Army. However, after discussing with Liu Bei, Chen Chong believed that this was obviously an unwise move.
In the subsequent summary, everyone believed that the most critical battle to seize the bridge failed because the subsequent infantry did not catch up with Qu Yi's cavalry in time, making it impossible to stop Cao Cao's main force from advancing, and then easily led to a rout. . During the previous battle at Yuwang Mountain, the Eastern infantry also caused great trouble to the Western Army. Now that the infantry losses are so serious, even if they join forces to fight again, the probability of victory will probably be even slimmer.
Therefore, Chen Chong suggested to Liu Bei: "The current plan is to confront the enemy with deep ditches and high fortresses to wear down their energy. Then we can lure the enemy into surprise, and our army can strike later."
So the Western Army moved north along the Jishui River and officially moved to Lu County. They cut down trees under the city to build a fence, took soil and piled rocks to build a fortress. Xiying stretched for nearly twenty miles, with hundreds of towers and banners built in the middle. It was extremely spectacular for a time. Seeing that the Western Army moved its camp, Cao Cao also led his troops into the base and camped for thirty miles on the east bank of Zu River. At the same time, he sent people to bring beautiful women and jewelry to the Western Army on the pretext of paying tribute to the emperor, and then took the opportunity to attack the Western Army. The generals in the army sent letters widely, and the words in the letters were still the same, saying: "The emperor is in trouble, and the loyal ministers of Jiuzhou are heartbroken. If there are righteous men who can change their evil ways and reaffirm their righteousness to the world, they will be treated as national soldiers."
When Chen Chong saw this, he did not collect the letters from the generals. Instead, he asked someone to write back and asked: "How are the Yuan clan's disciples unknown?" After Yuan Shao's death, Cao Cao's method of dividing the Yuan clan in Runan was known to everyone. Now, Yuan Shang has died again, and Yuan Xi cannot be reused. The Yuan family in Runan, which was once prominent in the past, is now in great decline. Chen Chong used this to warn the generals not to take Cao's words as truth.
After Cao Cao got the reply, he immediately understood Chen Chong's intention. His heart was alarmed, but his face was quite smiley. He circulated the letter among the generals, and then said with a smile: "Thanks to Chen Chong for reminding me, otherwise I would have forgotten this." ." Then the commander's office sent an order to promote Yuan Xi to be the general of Kaiwu and the governor of Xuzhou.
After both sides' camps were completed, Cao Cao began to send cavalry to challenge in front of the Western Army Camp every day. At first there were ten knights, then more than a hundred, and after more than ten days, the number of knights who came to call for formation reached a thousand. He wanted to use these knights as bait to lure the Western Army out of camp to fight. But the Western Army turned a deaf ear. No matter how obscene the Eastern knights were, as long as they did not enter within the arrow range of the fortress, they would ignore them as if they were seeing birds and rabbits.
Seeing that the challenge failed, Cao Cao decided to attack at night. He selected tens of thousands of soldiers and set out at midnight. At Yinshi, he arrived five miles east of the Western Army Camp. He saw that the lights in the Western Camp were brightly lit and the soldiers were arrayed in order. Apparently, he had already discovered the Easterners' plan for a night attack. Cao Cao could only withdraw his troops. But he was unwilling to give up, so he tried again and again, but the Western army saw through them all. Every time he arrived, he could see the Westerners preparing for battle and fighting fiercely, and he could never find a good opportunity to break the camp, which made him Extremely helpless, he sighed to Shen Pei and the others: "Longshou is cautious in using his troops. I know that today."
This time was delayed until October, when the autumn wind blew, everything withered, and the weather gradually turned colder. The soldiers of the two armies also put on cotton-padded jackets and leather hats, lit braziers in the army, and their food expenses also greatly increased. This had little impact on the Western Army, which had fewer troops, but on the Eastern Army, which had nearly 170,000 troops, the pressure was increasing day by day.
Cao Cao urgently needed to open up the situation. For this reason, he discussed with Shen Pei, Ju Shu and others many times, thinking that since he could not storm the Western Army's camp at the moment, the only option left was to divide his troops. However, after dividing the troops, the direction of attack was also quite controversial. The original plan of the Eastern Army was to go straight to Xuzhou, but now Xuzhou is occupied by Sun Ce, and Zhou Yu who is defending the city is also a good warrior. He divides his troops to attack, and the chance of winning in a short period of time is not high, and it is easy to produce variables. After several plans, Cao Cao finally decided to give up the attack on Xuzhou. Instead of attacking the Wu people as planned, it was better to side attack the Western Army's baggage from the direction of Yanzhou. If he could make them retreat without a fight, Xuzhou would naturally be unable to hold on alone.
I don’t know whether it was God’s blessing. Less than seven days after making this decision, Yanzhou’s scouts sent news that they had caught tongues in the Suishui area of Suiyang. They learned that the Western Army’s food baggage was now stored in Pei. Guoxiang County.
The credibility of this news is quite high. After all, the Suishui River is the main artery of the Western Army's water transportation. Grain ships can often be seen passing by in an endless stream. The prisoners captured are also the commanders of the Western Army from Hongnong. The transportation of grain has been This happened three times, and he was very familiar with the routes for transporting grain and the deployment of troops.
Even so, Cao Cao was still very cautious. After all, Xiangxian County and Pengcheng were hundreds of miles apart, so the risks were extremely high. Although the benefits were extremely high, if the attack failed, it would be difficult for the entire army to return. Therefore, before he sent out troops, he sent Yu Jin and more than a hundred people to pretend to be bandits to Pei State to inquire for information.
Yu Jin took advantage of sunset and dark to set out, secretly crossed Jishui from the upper reaches of Pengcheng, and headed southwest. Around dawn the next day, he saw a Western food team resting on the roadside. Without hesitation, they immediately chased and approached, grabbed a few bags of rice and left, but the Western Army guarding the food saw them go away again before they had time to mobilize their troops to react.
Yu Jin took the bags of rice and noodles back to the camp and opened them in person before Cao Cao. Cao Cao took a look and saw that there were soybeans, wheat, and corn inside. The yellow color was very attractive. After hearing Yu Jin's report, Cao Cao grabbed a handful of corn and looked at it in his hands. He said with a hum, "This is the plain of Guanzhong." The corn from the top is most suitable for making porridge."
At this point, Cao Cao had no hesitation in his heart. He turned and joked to Shen Pei, Cao Ren and others who were surrounding him: "It seems that there is indeed food in Xiang County. Let's burn him clean first and see if Liu Bei can hold on!"
He turned to Xia Houyuan and said, "I will leave Fenwu to guard the camp with you. If there are changes in the Western Camp, you should discuss it with the generals and act as appropriate. If I have no news of my return in one day, you should also lead the army to attack for the sake of peace." I contain the enemy."
The tone of Cao Cao's words was calm, but the content shocked everyone. The implication of Cao Cao's words just now was that he was going to lead the army personally, but everyone had thought that he would leave this matter to generals like Cao Ren or Li Zheng.
Cao Cao then said to Cao Ang: "When Liu Bei and I were discussing matters in the capital, we thought we were going to build extraordinary honors and shine on our lintel. Now he is in charge of Guanxi and I am in charge of Guandong. It is the time to show off. The more now, You must never sacrifice your life when doing great things, otherwise how can you convince the soldiers?" After that, he patted Cao Ang on the shoulder and asked him, "Zixiu, are you willing to go with me?"
Upon hearing this, Cao Ang immediately responded: "I will live and die with you!"
Cao Cao immediately ordered the elite of the army and personally led 2,000 tiger and leopard cavalry, 10,000 Yuyang fine cavalry, and 20,000 Jizhou light cavalry. They crossed Jishui that night and headed straight for Xiangxian County.
