Cao Ren's conscience is still there, at least he will not abandon his comrades.
After returning to Chang'an, meeting Cao Pi and understanding the current overall situation, Cao Ren's first suggestion to Cao Pi was that Xu Huang and Cao Zhen, who wanted to retreat to Youfufeng to rest first, sent out troops again and divided their troops into two groups.
One part of the army quickly occupied various counties and strategic locations on the east bank of the Wei River to prevent Liu Bei's army from advancing eastward.
At that place, Cao Ren retreated too quickly. He really didn't think of arranging a guard for a while. When he retreated to Chang'an, he realized that the east bank of the Wei River was completely undefended. Now he had to make up for it quickly.
The other part is to quickly reinforce Zhang He and Guo Huai who are stationed on the west bank of the Wei River to block Zhao Yun's offensive route to Chang'an.
After Cao Ren took a brief rest in Chang'an City, he once again led 50,000 troops to Baoxie Pass for a decisive battle with Liu Bei's main army.
This is Cao Ren's next strategy to deal with Liu Bei's army.
But Cao Pixin said to you, please bring him down quickly, a decisive battle is a waste! ! !
The more than 20,000 troops of Cao Zhen and Xu Huang who had just retreated to Youfufeng were dispatched by you in the blink of an eye. The 50,000 Chinese troops you brought back by yourself will go back to rest for a while before going to Liu Bei for a decisive battle. Co-authored by me Do we still have to rely on these improvised "country warriors" to defend Chang'an? !
Before, Liu Bei's army entered Guanzhong as a lone army, but these noble families were still reliable. Now Liu Bei's army, totaling 70,000 to 80,000 people, has entered Guanzhong. Do you really think that these noble families in Guanzhong are completely reliable? !
Don't look back. As soon as you left the city, they launched a rebellion and tied me up and gave it to Liu Bei as a meeting gift.
Well, even if these Guanzhong families will not betray Cao Wei, what about the direction of Wancheng? !
Zhang Liao has sent an envoy for the third time this month to request reinforcements. If Guan Yu were to capture Wancheng, Chang'an would really be undefendable.
Under this situation, Cao Pi no longer thought about how to fight Liu Bei. He just wanted to defend Chang'an and have a stalemate with Liu Bei.
Anyway, whether Liu Bei is transporting grain from Baoxie Road or Qishan Road, his supply line is too long, and it is impossible to confront him for a long time. In this case, as long as he holds Chang'an, Liu Bei will definitely not be able to hold on in the end, and will have to Retreating.
What's a decisive battle? It's good to just hold on to the bottom line.
This is what Cao Pi is thinking now, and it is also the biggest difference between him and Cao Cao. Cao Cao really dares to take risks when necessary, but Cao Pi, who has been trained since childhood to take over his father's family business, is no different from Cao Cao in terms of courage. .
Therefore, Cao Pi ordered the Chinese army brought back by Cao Ren to rest for ten days.
Ten days later, Cao Ren personally led 20,000 Chinese troops to Wancheng to rescue Zhang Liao and presided over the defense of Wancheng. He must block Guan Yu's attack and defend Wancheng.
As for Chang'an, Cao Pi continued to be in charge of Chang'an and asked his crony Xia Houshang to lead the remaining 30,000 Chinese troops to defend Chang'an.
As for Cao's army along the Wei River, Cao Pi also gave the order to "hold on as much as possible. If things are not harmonious, retreat to Chang'an for temporary refuge."
Cao Pi made it clear that he wanted to delay, delay time, delay logistics, and rely on Chang'an to fortify the city to defeat Liu Bei.
This tactic is very conservative and seems a bit cowardly. But as long as Liu Bei is delayed until he retreats, Cao Pi can also say that he defeated Liu Bei, which is not a shame.
Moreover, Cao Pi is still guarding Chang'an after all. At least he did not run away in front of the battle, and he is still somewhat of a gentleman.
Cao Pi made such a strategic adjustment. Cao Ren could only sigh and said nothing in the end.
On the one hand, as a subordinate, Cao Ren could not make irresponsible remarks on his master's decision. On the other hand, Cao Ren could not criticize whether Cao Pi's decision was right or wrong.
Even if he was determined to fight Liu Bei, he could not win. In fact, Cao Ren was not sure that Cao Cao was gone after all, and Cao Pi could not give Cao Ren the feeling of a backbone. Maybe such a conservative choice was not necessarily a good one. bad thing.
In fact, Cao Pi's decision to give up the decisive battle with Liu Bei's army and stick to Sanfu and Chang'an made Liu Bei a little uncomfortable.
The war has been going on for half a year. During this six months, Liu Bei's army's logistics supplies have been starting from Qishan Road, entering Tianshui County, then hoarding in Xi County, and finally transferring from Xi County to Longshan Road. This supply line is really It's too long.
Although doing this is helpless, and it is also to ensure the safety of the supply line, transporting grain and grass these days not only requires a large number of civilians, but also the food and drink of these civilians consume part of the grain.
The longer the supply line, the more food and grass will be consumed by civilians, and the less food and grass will be sent to the front line.
Therefore, even with Zhuge Liang, a man who is good at calculations, in charge of logistics, Liu Beijun's logistics pressure has always been great.
Now that the Baoxie Road has been opened, Zhuge Liang no longer needs to go through the distant Qishan Road to organize the transportation of grain and grass. He can directly transport grain through the Baoxie Road. However, there is also a problem with transporting grain on the Baoxie Road, that is, there are not enough storage points, which is risky. It will be larger.
The exit of Baoxie Road is in Guanzhong. Cao's army is still very powerful here. You cannot hoard too much food and grass in the military camp. Otherwise, once the food and grass are burned by Cao's army, it will be a wasted loss.
Although the road at the exit of Baoxie Pass is narrow, as long as you go out for a while, you will enter the Guanzhong Plain. If you build a granary here to store grain, it will basically be undefeable. Once the granary is burned down by the enemy, the entire army will be destroyed. Falling into a situation where there is no food available.
Therefore, when transporting grain and grass from Baoxie Road, it is necessary to strictly calculate the daily grain consumption and arrange the time for transporting grain back and forth. There cannot be too many mistakes, otherwise it is easy to cause delays.
This is not a test for the people transporting grain, but it is a very big test for the computing power of the logistics team headed by Zhuge Liang.
If Liu Bei stayed in Longshan, he would at least have the food garrison in Xi County as a buffer. But once he left Longshan, all the logistical pressure would be on Baoxie Road, that is, all the pressure would be on the computing power of Zhuge Liang and others. .
This kind of logistical transportation had such a low error tolerance that Liu Bei did not dare to leave Longshan easily.
As for the west bank of the Wei River, after Zhang He and Guo Huai received the rescue from Xu Huang, the forces of the two sides temporarily restored the balance. Cao Jun, led by Zhang He and Xu Huang, also stabilized the defense line. For a while, the two sides were in a stalemate.
When things got to this point, Liu Bei was a little hesitant whether he should continue to march into Guanzhong and attack Chang'an.
Attacking Chang'an was the ultimate strategic goal of the Northern Expedition. Liu Bei's goal was to occupy Chang'an, the old capital of the Han Dynasty. But now, the situation is completely different from when the battle was first planned in Hanzhong.
In the Guanzhong area, Cao's army still has nearly 100,000 troops. It has shrunk across the board and retreated to Sanfu and Chang'an.
Liu Beijun, on the other hand, has only 70,000 to 80,000 troops. With such a strength comparison, Liu Beijun's desire to capture Chang'an is somewhat wishful thinking.
In addition, Liu Bei's army has been fighting for more than half a year, and the logistics pressure is very high. The accumulation of rest and recuperation in the previous two years has been consumed in this half-year of fighting.
It's not that you can't continue playing, after all, there is still a little bit of foundation left, but if you continue to fight and wait until the foundation is used up, you will really hurt your muscles and bones again.
This "stretching one's muscles and bones" does not refer to Liu Bei's group's "stretching one's muscles and bones", but refers to the entire aristocratic families in Shu. They will strain one's muscles and bones.
This is very detrimental to the rule of Liu Bei's group.
Even after occupying Chang'an, the most elite area of the Liu Bei Group is still Yizhou. If the Yizhou family takes a confrontational attitude towards the rule of the Liu Bei Group, then what Liu Bei will do next is probably to do his best to maintain internal stability, which will not happen at all. There is another chance for the next Northern Expedition.
Now Liu Bei is no longer young. Decades of war and displacement have made Liu Bei realize that in the current world, you can restrict and suppress aristocratic families and make the people live as well as possible, but it is impossible to completely eliminate aristocratic families. , and sometimes you have to rely on aristocratic families to maintain your rule.
Liu Bei is also old and doesn't want to offend the Yizhou family too much. This will not do him any good.
And when Liu Bei was still hesitating whether to march into Guanzhong, Zhuge Liang wrote a letter of apology to Liu Bei.
The content of this apology letter is that Zhuge Liang apologized to Liu Bei for his failure to mobilize the people of Shu to participate in the war.
As early as the moment when Baoxie Road broke through, Zhuge Liang sent a conscription order to Yang Hong and Qin Mi in Shu, asking them to launch a general mobilization in Shu, with men leading the battle and women taking the lead to support the Guanzhong battlefield.
However, the response of the aristocratic families in Shuzhong was very slow. It had been almost half a month since Zhuge Liang's mobilization order was sent to Chengdu, and the aristocratic families in Shuzhong began to write letters to Zhuge Liang one after another, complaining about various difficulties.
As for the soldiers, not a single one was seen.
Regarding the attitude of these aristocratic families in central Shu, Zhuge Liang actually knew very well what was going on, so while he strictly ordered Yang Hong and Qin Mi who stayed in Chengdu to issue general mobilization orders, he also sent a letter of apology to Liu Bei.
Along with this apology letter, there was also a secret letter written by Zhuge Liang to Liu Bei, seeking Liu Bei's opinion.
After all, Zhuge Liang was not on the front line and did not understand the actual situation on the front line, so he just asked Liu Bei if he still had the strength to attack Guanzhong.
If Liu Bei is determined to march into Guanzhong, then Zhuge Liang will hand over the logistics management to Yang Yi, temporarily leave Hanzhong and go to Chengdu in person to supervise the general mobilization and transport soldiers and grain and grass supplies to Guanzhong.
But if Liu Bei still intends to stay on Longshan Road and stand still, then Zhuge Liang suggests that since the end of Longshan has been completed, Chang'an is ready to attack at any time, so it is better to accept it as soon as possible.
Don't forget, there is Liangzhou behind us, which is not completely eaten.
Don't go back and keep Liangzhou in the dark for too long. People's hearts have changed. Take advantage of our attack on Guanzhong to stab you in the back. This is no small matter.
(End of chapter)
