Yes, Meng Da raised an army privately.
There is a saying, even if the current times are troubled, Meng Da's approach, no matter which force he is in, is a head-turning thing. Raising an army privately is basically equivalent to rebellion.
But under the current circumstances, if Meng Da wants to make a difference, he really can't continue to wait step by step.
Although it is taboo to raise an army privately, if you can help Liu Bei completely open up the situation and become a major contributor to the success of the Northern Expedition, then raising an army privately is a dispensable matter. Whether he will pursue it or not depends entirely on Liu Bei. how to think.
Besides, Meng Da is not stupid. No matter how this matter ends, Meng Da also leaves a way out for himself.
Before he raised his army, he wrote a letter to Kou Feng, explaining his plan in detail. On the surface, he was seeking Kou Feng's permission to lead his troops north.
Although Kou Feng is also under the command of Guan Yu on the southern front, Kou Feng himself has the responsibility of governor of the three eastern counties, which allows Kou Feng to have a certain degree of autonomy. When necessary, he can dispatch Meng Da of Yidu County to assist in the defense of the three eastern counties. That makes sense.
It's just that Meng Da wrote a letter to Kou Feng, but he didn't wait for Kou Feng's response before sending troops. He sent troops directly after writing the letter. When Kou Feng saw Meng Da's letter, Meng Da had already led his troops to Shang. Yong is close.
This is actually a kind of behavior of killing first and then showing off. Meng Da saw that Kou Feng was in a difficult situation now. Since he has reached the upper level, Kou Feng will definitely not pursue his behavior of killing first and then showing off when he needs to break the situation.
After that, as long as Meng Da can help Kou Feng to perform meritorious service again, after the war, Kou Feng, a straight-tempered boy, will definitely help him cover up the matter of sending troops without permission.
After all, the silly Kou Feng was obviously much easier to fool than Guan Yu.
Furthermore, Kou Feng's status within the Liu Bei Group is not too low. He is at least a member of the governor of Dongsan County. In addition, he has a brother. His status within the Liu Bei Group is probably only below that of Guan Zhang. Even Zhuge Liang and others are just equals.
If Meng Da is really involved in sending troops without authorization, then Meng Da will have a way to drag Kou Feng into the water. And once Kou Feng is also suspected, can Zhang Xi watch his brother suffer? !
This is the escape path Meng Da has found for himself.
But now, the first half of Mengda's plan can be said to be going very smoothly.
Because of Meng Da's sudden appearance, Wang Jing was unprepared and lost four times in a row, almost retreating to the hinterland of You Fufeng.
Now Meng Da and Kou Feng are joining forces and are marching toward Chang'an in great strides. However, Cao Pi in Chang'an City has only more than a hundred honor guards at hand, and he can't even raise half of his troops.
Because the war in Wancheng was tense, Cao Pi had sent all the last 10,000 elite Chinese troops to Zhang Liao. Now Cao Pi was just a polished commander.
Although Xu Huang and Cao Zhen were ordered to lead troops to return reinforcements, retreating troops and returning reinforcements did not mean that they could just turn around and change direction to return reinforcements.
Xu Huang has already fought against Wang Ji, and now the two sides are in a confrontation. If Xu Huang wants to retreat, he must arrange the rear troops and retreat slowly and orderly, so as to ensure the combat effectiveness of the army.
Otherwise, if a retreat is suddenly announced, the soldiers are unprepared, and Wang Ji leads the troops to pursue and kill them, the retreat will turn into a defeat, completely ruining the possibility of retreating to rescue Chang'an.
In fact, Cao Zhen faced a similar situation. Cao Ren gave Cao Zhen a stall with more than 10,000 original Chang'an garrison, holding on to various dangerous passes and blocking the advance of Zhao Yun and Chen Dao on the Baoxie Road.
Cao Zhen was already fighting hard and had to defend a lot of places. If he rashly withdrew his troops without making any arrangements, and Zhao Yun and Chen Dao fought out from Baoxie Road, then things would be really serious.
Therefore, it will take time for Xu Huang and Cao Zhen to return reinforcements, but the coalition forces of Kou Feng and Meng Da have already approached Chang'an less than 200 miles away.
In other words, if the Shu army ran faster, they would be able to reach the city in four or five days. But now, the entire Chang'an is empty and unprepared. Counting the government officials who maintain law and order, there are no more than 200 guards.
Can Cao Pi not be anxious?
However, despite being anxious, Cao Pi did not panic.
There is a saying that Cao Pi is far behind Cao Cao in terms of political achievements. In terms of military command, he is not popular at all. In terms of academic achievements, he cannot compare with his brother Cao Zhi. But Cao Pi is really not a coward.
If you don't compare with the gang of heroes in the first generation, Cao Pi is actually very good at it.
Therefore, despite the crisis in Chang'an, Cao Pi did not make the decision to leave Chang'an. Once Cao Pi was forced to leave Chang'an, whether it was the Western Front battlefield or the Southern Front battlefield, the morale of Cao's soldiers would be greatly dampened, which would trigger a chain reaction and lead to a complete defeat. .
Cao Pi knew that he could not retreat, so now he could only find a way to gather an army to defend Chang'an.
And Chang'an actually has an army.
Chang'an is the old capital of the Han Dynasty. Although it has gone through wars over the years, its heritage is still there. Whether it is Zuo Fengyi or You Fufeng, or the Jingzhao area, or even a little further away in Hedong, there are a large number of old aristocratic families. exist.
And these aristocratic families must have some hidden Dingkou in their hands. In order to cope with this troubled times, these aristocratic families may even directly hide private soldiers in their hands.
What Cao Pi has to do now is to talk to these aristocratic families and try to organize their private soldiers to fight the Chang'an defense battle together.
In fact, Cao Pi had an advantage in this regard.
Liu Bei appointed Zhuge Liang as Chief Superintendent of local governance. Zhuge Liang adopted Legalist ideas and believed that heavy laws should be used in troubled times. Therefore, the laws enacted were quite strict. The aristocratic families in Shu were very dissatisfied with this. From time to time, there were Rumors spread to Sanfu and Guanzhong, causing discussions among the Guanzhong families.
On the contrary, Cao Pi's side is much better.
Although the aristocratic families had a hard time during Cao Cao's reign, in order to gain the support of the aristocratic families, Cao Pi usurped the Han Dynasty and proclaimed himself emperor. During the period after he succeeded to the throne, Cao Pi continued to ease the relationship with the aristocratic families and made considerable efforts. Despite the big concession, the aristocratic families still had a very good impression of Cao Pi.
If the Liu Bei Group were allowed to occupy the Sanfu area in Guanzhong and use Zhuge Liang's method to govern the place, the aristocratic families in Guanzhong would rather choose Cao Pi.
After all, Cao Pi may not lose. What Cao Pi lacks now is time. As long as he survives the most critical three to five days, when Cao's army returns to support, Cao Wei still has the upper hand in the Guanzhong area.
Therefore, Cao Pi used the five days before the arrival of Kou Feng's army to send people everywhere to lobby the Sanfu and the noble families in Hedong, and pieced together more than 10,000 armored soldiers to guard Chang'an.
This amount even shocked Cao Pi. You must know that he is in Chang'an.
Cao Pi didn't believe that these so-called "country braves" were the heritage of those aristocratic families.
He is in Chang'an, and under his nose, this group of aristocratic families can gather more than 10,000 soldiers, and they are fully armored. If one day he is no longer in Chang'an, and the third auxiliary rebels, he will not be able to raise more than five people. Will tens of thousands of people come out? !
At this time, Cao Pi felt a little regretful, regretting whether he had indulged these aristocratic families too much. Sure enough, his father's approach may be the right one. He must both cooperate and suppress the aristocratic families, and he must not give them the greatest chance.
But it is useless for Cao Pi to think about this now. Not only does he have to rely on the aristocratic families to tide over the current crisis, and he can't stand on his own in the future, he also cannot do without the support of these aristocratic families. He can only wait for everything to stabilize before thinking of ways to weaken these aristocratic families. of influence.
Therefore, Cao Pi could only pretend that he had not seen it for the time being, and handed over the recruited "country warriors" to the command of his most trusted Xiahou Shang, making him the guard general of Chang'an to fight in the defense of Chang'an.
Xiahou Shang took over this important task without hesitation, and then began to set up defense seriously.
With only a force of more than 10,000 people, Xiahou Shang would choose to fight in the field with Kou Feng Mengda's force of more than 20,000 people unless he was out of his mind. Now his purpose is to guard Chang'an and wait for his own soldiers to return for reinforcements.
Then the choice is clear - rely on Chang'an City's tall city defense and just fight a purely defensive battle.
The number of enemy troops is not large, and it is impossible to completely separate the various channels leading to Chang'an. Although there are not many troops in Chang'an City, there is no shortage of food, grass and weapons. It will not be a problem to hold on for a year. Guanzhong Chang'an is so easy to fight.
Xiahou Shang was very confident in guarding Chang'an.
As for conquering Chang'an, Mengda said that he really didn't have the confidence.
Let me emphasize again that Meng Da's character is indeed bad, capricious, and unjust for profit, but his military and political skills are not low.
When Meng Da joined forces with Kou Feng to march into Chang'an, he was actually betting that the newly appointed King of Wei, Cao Pi, was a coward and would abandon the city in such a critical situation. In this case, as long as the troops marched quickly enough, Chang'an could really be defeated. Drum down.
After capturing Chang'an, Cao's army will inevitably lose morale. As long as they hold on to Chang'an for a while, Zhao Yun of Baoxie Road and Guan Yu of Nanyang can quickly advance to join Meng Da in Chang'an. In this way, the entire Guanzhong and Sanfu areas can be captured. Cao Ren's army on the western front was trapped in the Longshan Road. Without food and grass supplies, it would be completely defeated in less than a month.
But now, Cao Pi has proved that he is not a mediocre master. Not only did he not abandon Chang'an and escape, but he organized "Xiang Yong" on the spot to defend Chang'an. Now it was Mengda's turn to have a headache.
Unless Meng Da can break through Chang'an City within three to five days with little loss, he will be caught between Xu Huang and Cao Zhen.
Obviously, Meng Da does not have this ability, and none of the famous generals in the world have this ability.
Xu Huang had more than 10,000 soldiers. Even if Cao Zhen had to guard against Baoxie Road, the soldiers he brought back could only kill a few thousand people. But once the two armies were encircled, their strength was no less than his own.
In addition, if the defenders in Chang'an City cooperated tacitly and attacked themselves from both sides, they would not even have a place to retreat.
This city of Chang'an really cannot be attacked.
(End of chapter)
