Sima Yi withdrew to Luoyang, but the number of soldiers who withdrew was less than 5,000. Including Xinpi's troops who stayed behind, there were only about 9,000 soldiers in total.
Sima Yi really did not have the confidence to rely on these soldiers to defend Luoyang with his soldiers defeated and with low morale.
But...where can we find reinforcements for a short while?
The imperial court's reinforcements have disappeared so far. Only God knows how long it will take to arrive in Luoyang.
The surrounding Wei troops are basically in important positions. Although Meng Jindu is temporarily safe, he doesn't know how long he can hold it. Hulao Pass is the channel for Hebei reinforcements to come to the rescue, and it is also the last retreat for himself and others. Can't be lost easily.
There are no more soldiers to deploy.
Since Sima Yi was defeated and returned to Luoyang, Xinpi's attitude was not mentioned. Sima Yi believed that no matter what happened, Xinpi would not choose to surrender to the Shu thieves.
But whether the aristocratic families in Luoyang City, or even the aristocratic families in Hedong and Hanoi across the Yellow River, could still support the Wei Dynasty as before. Sima Yi himself was not sure.
Anyway, if he, Sima Yi, were not the defender of Luoyang, but the head of the Sima family in Hanoi, he would really wonder at this time whether there was a possibility of surrendering to the big man.
The situation of each aristocratic family is different. Unlike the Sima family who put their chips on Cao Wei early, there are many aristocratic families in Hedong, Hanoi, including Luoyang City, but they have not completely turned to the Wei Dynasty.
Once these people make trouble and give it a go for their own interests, Sima Yi may really be unable to suppress them.
After all, Sima Yi still lacks enough troops.
Therefore, after much deliberation, Sima Yi decided to mobilize troops from Mengjindu.
The worst thing is, I don’t want Mengjindu anymore, and I don’t want the connections and supplies of the aristocratic families in Hedong and Hanoi, so I just live in Luoyang.
As long as Luoyang is defended until Hebei County soldiers come to rescue from Hulao Pass, the Shu thieves will retreat. At that time, Meng Jindu will naturally come back.
It doesn't even matter if they can't wait for the arrival of the Hebei County soldiers. As long as Soochow gives some strength and really threatens Xiangyang or Jiangling, then the Shu thieves will inevitably withdraw their troops in order to prevent loss of retreat. At that time, Luoyang It can be regarded as holding on.
As for Hulao Pass, this really cannot be adjusted. Sima Yi always wanted to leave himself the last backup.
If Luoyang really cannot be defended, then we can only withdraw our troops from the direction of Hulao Pass and withdraw to Yanzhou.
After careful consideration, Sima Yi gave an order to Mengjindu, who could still maintain contact, to abandon Mengjindu and retreat to Luoyang to defend it.
In Sima Yi's view, after he sent 10,000 reinforcements to Mengjin Ferry, there should still be about 20,000 people defending Mengjin Ferry, and the Shu bandits who attacked Mengjin Ferry probably had about 17,000 to 8,000 troops. Even so. The cannon fodder temporarily recruited by Hongnong County will not exceed 25,000 people.
As long as his two sons don't waste their money, it shouldn't be a problem to withdraw more than 15,000 people.
In this case, the total number of Shu thieves in the periphery is about 50,000, and the number of troops guarding Luoyang City is also about 25,000. In this way, Luoyang can still be defended.
As for the imperial court, Sima Yi had no hope.
After all, the Shu thieves have launched the Northern Expedition for more than three months. They have fought from the fifth year of Taihe to the sixth year of Taihe. There is no movement from the court. What can you expect Sima Yi to do? !
Actually, Sima Yi really blamed the Wei court a bit wrongly on this point.
In November of the fifth year of Taihe, when news of the Shu bandits' siege of Luoyang reached Yecheng, Cao Rui urgently summoned Chen Qun, Liu Ye, Man Chong and others to discuss a plan to rescue Luoyang.
According to Cao Rui's idea, he once again used the methods he used in Luoyang, summoned the peasants as soldiers, formed a temporary army, and went south to rescue Luoyang.
The farming system left by Cao Cao can really save the Wei Dynasty at critical moments.
But the problem is that the land of Hebei is different from Heluo. The Heluo area was the first place where Cao Cao implemented the system of farming people, and it was also the place where it was implemented most perfectly. In addition, Cao Rui was desperate to draw one from the third ding and gave up a year's work. Only with this agricultural income could one hundred thousand troops be stationed in the fields within a month, which frightened Zhuge Liang and others into not daring to march to Luoyang easily.
But in Hebei, this was originally Yuan Shao's territory, and the power of the aristocratic families was very huge. In the early years, Yuan Shao did not have any farming system.
Later, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao, recovered various parts of Hebei, and moved to Yecheng, treating it as his home base to govern. Although he gradually promoted the farming system, at that time, Cao Cao was no longer the leader he was during the Yanzhou and Xuchang periods. Cao Cao is ironclad.
Cao Cao is well aware of the characteristics of this era. Without the help of aristocratic families, even he cannot fully control everything.
If Cao Cao had won a complete victory in the battle of Chibi and conquered the south of the Yangtze River in one fell swoop, then with the prestige of the victory, Cao Cao might have been able to suppress some of the aristocratic families in Hebei and other places and promote policies that were beneficial to Cao Wei.
But in the battle of Chibi, Cao Cao was defeated. Later, facing the interests of the Hebei family, Cao Cao also made a lot of concessions.
Otherwise, how could Cao Cao recover his strength after the defeat of Chibi in such a short period of time, and be able to use troops against the Liangzhou Group entrenched in Guanzhong the next year.
Not to mention other things, there are only 300,000 rural households in the entire Hebei region, and they are distributed in the four states of Jizhou, Qingzhou, Youzhou, and Bingzhou.
Even Cao Cao could not easily shake the fertile land occupied by the noble families in Hebei. He could only carry out the work of resettling the refugees in some unowned or mountainous lands.
Now, if we need to gather the farmers in these places and gather them in Yecheng, it may not be a problem that can be solved within a month.
Not to mention, they have to distribute ordnance and conduct some simple drills. After all, the farmers are farmers. They don’t understand military formations and cooperation. If they are just sent to the battlefield like this, they will probably disperse in a hurry if they encounter a little setback. .
This also takes time.
After all these training and drills, the marching distance from Yecheng to Luoyang will take at least a month. Added together, it is impossible to complete these things in less than three months.
In these three months, Cao Zhen might have led Hebei County soldiers to put down Gongsun Yuan's rebellion, and went south to support Luoyang.
After all, according to the military report sent to the court by Cao Zhen, he rushed directly with light troops after entering Youzhou, fought a battle with Gongsun Yuan's generals Bei Yan and Yang Zuo in Liao Tunnel, and won a complete victory.
Now Cao Zhen has turned around and is approaching Gongsun Yuan's home base of Xiangping, and is forcing Gongsun Yuan to a decisive battle near Shouyang Mountain.
Cao Zhen even swore to the court that he would be able to quell Gongsun Yuan's rebellion by the end of December, and then return to the south, returning to Yecheng in one month, and going south to support Luoyang in one month.
Therefore, Cao Zhen hopes that Sima Yi, who is stationed in Luoyang, can last until the end of February or early March next spring.
After receiving Cao Zhen's battle report, Cao Rui carefully calculated the time and found that even if he summoned the people to form an army now, it seemed that it would take mid-March at the earliest to reach Luoyang.
In this case, it is better to wait for Cao Zhen to return to the army.
But the premise is that Cao Zhen must be able to defeat Gongsun Yuan as soon as possible. If there is any delay, it will still be very troublesome.
For this reason, Cao Rui decided to wait and see for the time being. If Cao Zhen's battle report in early December was still in a stalemate with Gongsun Yuan, then he would have to issue an order to summon the people in the fields as troops.
In early December, Cao Zhen once again sent a battle report on Liaodong, and this time, it was a complete victory - on November 28, the fifth year of Taihe, Cao Zhen defeated Gongsun Yuan's main army at Shouyang Mountain. Yuan and his son Gongsun Xiu fled with only a hundred cavalry guards.
Cao Zhen personally led his troops to pursue him, and finally caught up with Gongsun Yuan and his son eighty miles southeast of Xiangping City, and killed them with his own hands.
At this point, the rebellion of Gongsun Yuan and his son in Liaodong is basically over.
Of course, there are other things in the battle report. For example, in order to put down the rebellion of Gongsun Yuan's remnant party as soon as possible and frighten the careerists in Liaodong and the surrounding Qiang and Hu foreign tribes, Cao Zhen killed more than 2,000 prime minister-level officials appointed by Gongsun Yuan in one fell swoop. Cao Rui just pretended that he didn't see it.
There is no way. Under the current situation, Cao Zhen does not have enough time to station in Liaodong all year round to appease the place. What he can do is to shock everyone for a while, so that all people with dissident intentions dare not take action. In this way, Cao Zhen can defeat the enemy in the shortest possible time. Within this time, troops were withdrawn from Liaodong and moved south to support Luoyang.
Cao Rui also understood what his clan uncle meant. In other words, if Cao Zhen did not do this and caused frequent riots in Liaodong, then Cao Rui would have to blame this clan uncle in the end.
It's not that there isn't a better way, it's just that the timing is wrong. Cao Rui also understands the principle of using extraordinary means at extraordinary times.
And in this way, Cao Rui could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Cao Zhen put down the Liaodong rebellion, and soon he could send his troops south to support Luoyang, so Cao Rui wouldn't need to use any farmers.
After all, Cao Rui didn't want to lose another year's income from farming like he did in Luoyang. He was forced to bow his head to the Hedong and Yingchuan families and exchange profits for enough money and food to ensure the stability of Heluo. .
Since Cao Zhen could go south as planned, Cao Rui immediately issued an order to Sima Yi, who was stationed in Luoyang, telling him to stay in Luoyang until March.
If Luoyang is defended until then, even if Luoyang is lost in the end, it will not be Sima Yi's responsibility. But if he cannot defend it, then even if Luoyang is not lost in the end, Sima Yi will still be held accountable.
After all, the complaints of the Heluo family have now reached the ears of the emperor through the channels of certain aristocratic families.
When it came time to find a scapegoat, Cao Rui really didn't mind and pushed Sima Yi out.
When Sima Yi received such an edict, he almost threw the edict to the ground in front of Xin Pi.
Really, Sima Yi almost couldn't hold it back.
Why the hell am I not even sure if I can wait until the end of January, but you still want me to wait until March? !
Emperor, no, it is in the middle of the court. There must be traitors in the middle of the court, who will deceive the emperor! ! !
(End of chapter)
