In the direction of Yanjin, a variable appeared. King Yan of the Wei Dynasty, Cao Yu.
Cao Yu is Cao Cao's son. In terms of seniority, he is Cao Rui's uncle.
But, Cao Yu is actually about the same age as Cao Rui. When Cao Rui was young, the two often played and studied together. They were childhood playmates and have always had a good relationship.
Therefore, when the generals of the Wei clan were withering, Cao Rui took the risk to recruit Cao Yu into the dynasty, gave him military power, and let him lead the army.
In fact, Cao Rui took a lot of risks by doing this.
After all, Cao Yu is the son of the serious Emperor Taizu Wu of the Wei Dynasty, and his bloodline is much closer to that of Cao Zhen and Cao Xiu.
Cao Rui handed over 30,000 people from the imperial army of Wei to Cao Yu. If Cao Yu himself was ambitious or someone was provocative, a mutiny would break out before Cao Yu left Yecheng.
But Cao Rui did it anyway. The reason is simple. Cao Rui believed in Cao Yu.
And Cao Yu did not live up to Cao Rui's trust.
In fact, Cao Yu's ability was not strong. As Cao Cao's son who was born after he pacified the north, Cao Yu was not personally trained by Cao Cao, nor did he follow Cao Cao on the battlefield. At that time, there was no need for this. Cao Pi was already the crown prince of Wei. .
So, Cao Yu actually lived the life of an idle prince.
However, Cao Yu has a good character and temper. He is relatively low-key and humble. He is willing to listen to what others say and is his supervisor. When Du Shu, who is also the Prime Minister of the Yan Kingdom, reminded him that "soldiers are valuable and quick," he immediately I humbly accepted this suggestion.
Let's talk about Du Shu. To be honest, although Du Shu has good political achievements, he is not famous in history, at least not comparable to his father and son.
No way, who told his father to be called Du Ji? He was a minister during the Wen Dynasty, and even presided over the government for a time, and his son was called Du Yu. He was one of the commanders in charge of destroying Wu, and the first great talent in history to enter the Wenwu Temple at the same time. .
However, this does not mean that Du Shu does not have the ability to teach a son who is versatile in both civil and military affairs like Du Yu. It is impossible for Du Shu to know nothing about military strategy.
The current situation in Yanzhou is very critical, and the most critical place is undoubtedly the line from Jujube to Mengjin. This place is the lifeline of Cao Wei's army and cannot be lost.
Therefore, when Cao Yu accepted Cao Rui's appointment and, as a former general, commanded 30,000 imperial troops to support Yanzhou, Du Shu immediately suggested to Cao Yu that he should first select 5,000 soldiers and set off to support Yanjin, and the remaining soldiers , led by himself and followed slowly.
And Cao Yu also happily followed the advice of his prime minister.
In this way, Cao Yu led the vanguard of the 5,000-strong Wei Imperial Army and rushed all the way to cross the Yellow River. At the most critical moment, he rushed to the Yanjin Ferry for reinforcements and helped Jiang Ji, who was already holding a precarious position, stabilize his defense line.
This was really an unexpected support force. It was not only beyond Guo Huai's expectation, but also beyond Jiang Wei's expectation.
Jiang Wei thought it would take at least five days before Cao Wei's reinforcements arrived, but he didn't expect them to arrive so quickly.
As for Guo Huai, he didn't have any other thoughts at the moment. He just felt that God bless the Wei Dynasty, and the Wei clan would have a successor after all. This Cao Yu, judging from this rapid rush for reinforcements, should not have achieved much in military strategy. Difference.
Guo Huai was relieved for the time being.
As long as Yanjin is saved, then Guo Huai can continue to hide in the wild jujube, and wait until all the follow-up reinforcements from the Wei Dynasty cross the river to come to the rescue, and the situation here will suddenly become clearer.
But on Jiang Wei's side, after the reinforcements led by Cao Yu arrived in Yanjin, he also ordered a temporary halt to the attack and began to think about countermeasures.
Jiang Wei didn't know how many reinforcements from the Wei army had arrived, but judging from the increase in Yanjin's defensive forces, there were at least 5,000 people. And with the arrival of this batch of reinforcements, subsequent reinforcements will definitely arrive one after another.
In a short period of time, it will be impossible to capture Yanjin Ferry.
For this reason, Jiang Wei made a decision after some thought.
First, Jiang Wei divided his troops into ten thousand, led by his general Yan Zhi, and returned to Suanzao to join Wei Yan.
Secondly, Jiang Wei asked for help from Puyang, hoping that Wen Qin could lead troops to help in the battle while ensuring the safety of Puyang.
And Jiang Wei's plan, to put it bluntly, is actually Wei Yan's plan - to surround the point and call for reinforcements.
However, when Wei Yan was encircling Yanjin for reinforcements, he surrounded Yanjin and defeated the reinforcements from Jujube. However, the change Jiang Wei made now is to surround Yanjin and fight the reinforcements from Yanjin.
Jiang Wei predicted that as the Wei army in Yanjin increased in strength, he would have to find a way to reconnect the jujube and Yanjin to ensure the smooth flow of this channel. In this case, the Wei army in Yanjin would definitely choose to take the initiative.
What Jiang Wei has to do is to block the Wei army's troop dispatch route here, so that the Wei army cannot attack with all its strength, and cooperate with Guo Huai of Suizao to attack Wei Yan's troops from front to back.
And allocating troops to Wei Yan will increase Wei Yan's troops to more than 20,000 and besiege Suanzao, which will force the Wei army in Yanjin to find a way to break through Jiang Wei's interception and go to Suanzao to stabilize the situation.
Under this dilemma, either the Wei army concentrated its forces to fight with Jiang Wei in the field, first defeated Jiang Wei's troops, and then went south to Suizao, or they divided their forces to attack, with some of them entangling Jiang Wei's troops, and others leading troops to support Sour dates.
In Jiang Wei's opinion, the possibility of Wei Jun choosing the second option would be higher than the first option.
Even if Jiang Wei allocates 10,000 troops to Wei Yan, he still has eight or nine thousand troops in hand. Coupled with Wen Qin's timely reinforcements, he can still ensure that more than 10,000 soldiers are available.
With his commanding ability and strategy, and the combat effectiveness of the Han Forbidden Army, Jiang Wei is still confident that he can contain two to three times the number of enemies if he does not seek a great victory, but only seeks to contain them.
Therefore, as long as Cao Wei does not gather more than 30,000 troops in Yanjin, he will not be able to break through his own interception and support Suanzao.
Therefore, for the Yanjin garrison, the most economical and cost-effective way is to send people to contain him, and then divide his troops to support the jujube.
And since they are dividing their troops to support Jujuba, the number of troops will not be too large, only about 10,000 men at most. Wei Yan has more than 20,000 soldiers, so he is relatively sure of ambushing 10,000 Wei army reinforcements in the field.
In this way, there will be room for a new round of encirclement and reinforcement.
As long as part of the Wei army's strength is consumed under such encirclement and reinforcements, at best, the battlefield advantage can be regained, and then Yanjin and Jujube can be taken separately. Thinking about the worst, at least the current strategic balance can be maintained and continue to create pressure on Sima Yi's retreat in Yanzhou.
This is the best solution Jiang Wei can think of now.
As Jiang Wei began to respond, the adjustment of the Han army's strength was also proceeding smoothly.
On Cao Wei's side, the first person to realize that something was wrong was of course Jiang Ji at Yanjin Ferry. The number of enemies in front of him was suddenly reduced by half. How could Jiang Ji not notice it?
Just Jiang Ji's strategic thinking, plus the direction in which Jiang Wei divided his troops, and a little thought, Jiang Ji probably guessed what Jiang Wei was thinking.
At this time, Jiang Ji's best moment to break the situation was to take advantage of Jiang Wei's lack of strength after he divided his forces, take the initiative and defeat Jiang Wei in one fell swoop, then the entire battle situation would be completely reversed.
But the problem is, Jiang Ji can't do it.
Cao Yu only brought five thousand soldiers over. Even if he added the remaining defenders of Yanjin Ferry, the total force was about the same as Jiang Wei's. He attacked rashly. With the fighting power that the Shu thieves had shown before, it seemed that they had no chance of winning.
Therefore, Jiang Ji could only hold back his temper and wait patiently until the remaining imperial troops led by Du Shu could arrive as soon as possible.
Obviously, Jiang Ji still did not have an intuitive understanding of the combat effectiveness of the Han Forbidden Army. In his opinion, with the same strength, the soldiers of the Wei Dynasty could not defeat the Shu thieves, but as long as they had enough troops, they could kill Jiang Wei.
Therefore, when the remaining 25,000 soldiers led by Du Shu arrived at Yanjin Ferry three days later, Jiang Ji immediately proposed a plan, hoping that Cao Yu would personally lead the troops to fight and defeat the enemy in front of him.
There was nothing he could do about Cao Yu's willingness to accept it again. Cao Yu really didn't understand this, but since it was Jiang Ji's suggestion and his country's Prime Minister Du Shu also expressed his approval, there should be no problem if he followed it.
When these three people came together, they only saw the advantage that their own troops were more than three times that of the Shu thieves outside the city. They never thought that none of these three people was good at commanding military formations.
In other words, Jiang Ji thought of it, but Jiang Ji didn't take it too seriously.
With more than three times the force, even if his own command is poor, he can defeat the opponent with force. This is Jiang Ji's most realistic idea.
Then, Cao Yu officially led 30,000 troops to fight, and he led 10,000 soldiers to guard the central army. The 10,000 soldiers of the left army were given to Jiang Ji's command, and the 10,000 soldiers of the right army were given to Du Shu's command.
As for Jiang Wei, Jiang Wei wanted to laugh a little when he saw this formation.
What kind of military idiots are these, actually putting up such a formation to fight? !
It seems that things are much easier than I thought! ! !
(End of chapter)
