Twenty miles west of Suanzao City, within the Han army's camp.
During this period, Zhuge Liang received a lot of frontline battle reports, and by analyzing these battle reports, Zhuge Liang could basically determine what Sima Yi's true strategic purpose was.
On the Puyang side, Jia Chong led a superior force to retake the Baima Ferry, while on the Changyuan side, Sima Yi chose to abandon Changyuan and withdraw his troops to the direction of Jujube. If Zhuge Liang couldn't see such an obvious strategic purpose, then he really shouldn't mess around.
Sima Yi, an old boy, is planning to abandon Yanzhou.
As the same saying goes, we are all thousand-year-old foxes on the same mountain, and no one should play gossip with anyone else.
The problem is, Zhuge Liang seems to have figured it out, but he really doesn't seem to have any good way to stop Sima Yi from withdrawing his troops.
Before Wang Chang led troops to help, Zhuge Liang could only use less than 40,000 infantry to attack the Jujube City where more than 30,000 people were stationed. The biggest role of Pang De's cavalry was to cut off the Jujube City stationed by Guo Huai and Chen Tai. The relationship between Fengqiu can be fought, but without a month or two, even Zhuge Liang cannot make a breakthrough.
One or two months were enough for Sima Yi to withdraw most of Cao Wei's soldiers from Suanzao. At that time, it was not a question of whether Zhuge Liang could defeat Suanzao, but when Cao Wei would abandon the defense of Suanzao and withdraw from Yanzhou.
As for Xu Shu of Chenliu and Hu Zun of Jiyin, they are temporarily restrained by Soochow and will not be able to go north in the short term.
The only thing they could count on was the 70,000 soldiers of Deng Ai and Guan Ping's coalition forces. But their opponent was Sima Yi himself.
Zhuge Liang has already understood how difficult Sima Yi is, but Deng Ai and Guan Ping may be better. With his strategy and command ability, he may not pose much of a frontal threat to Sima Yi, but Sima Yi wants to Dealing with Deng Ai is not that easy.
Guan Ping was almost interested.
Zhuge Liang's biggest worry now is that Deng Ai and Guan Ping cannot cooperate fully. If the two separate their forces, they are likely to be taken advantage of by Sima Yi.
If something unexpected happens to the two people on the middle line, Zhuge Liang alone may be able to attack on the eastern front, and they may have to sit back and watch Cao Wei withdraw from Hebei.
For this reason, Zhuge Liang had to write a letter himself and sent Pang De's cavalry envoy to Xu Shu in Yongqiu. Xu Shu then forwarded it to the camps of Deng Ai and Guan Ping, reminding them not to Divide the troops.
This road is too circuitous, and Zhuge Liang himself doesn't know whether he can catch up.
But fortunately, Guan Ping and Deng Ai really didn't have any conflicts along the way.
After all, they are brother-in-law and uncle-in-law, and they have always had a good relationship.
No matter how Sima Yi tempted him when withdrawing his troops, Guan Ping and Deng Ai made no move to divide their troops.
In fact, the two of them had some differences of opinion during this period, especially when Sima Yi chose to separate his troops and evacuate with Cao Shuang after leaving Changyuan. Guan Ping once suggested whether to split his troops to pursue Cao Shuang's troops.
However, Deng Ai always felt that there was something fishy about this matter.
Of course, Deng Ai could not know about the turmoil and intrigue between Sima Yi and Cao Shuang, but when Sima Yi and Cao Shuang were guarding Changyuan County, one guarded the inside of the city and the other guarded outside the city. This defensive strategy echoed each other. If the two did not have The tacit understanding of mutual rescue is simply impossible to show off.
Facts have also proved that when they were in Changyuan County, Sima Yi and Cao Shuang cooperated well, and the two held the line of defense together.
It makes no sense that when they are in Changyuan County, the two of them can coordinate and support each other, but instead they go their own way in choosing the withdrawal route, right? !
In addition, neither Deng Ai nor Guan Ping knew much about Cao Shuang's abilities, but Sima Yi, whether Zhuge Liang, Zhang Xi, or Guan Yu, who was still alive in the early years, all spoke highly of him.
How could such a wise man and the commander-in-chief of an army lose control of his army? When withdrawing, he would suddenly split into two groups and withdraw their troops? !
Therefore, according to Deng Ai, this may be Sima Yi's plan to lure the snake out of the cave, pretending to divide his troops as bait to lure the Han army to also divide his troops to pursue, and then divert the middle route to set up an ambush, defeating the enemy in one battle.
Therefore, after Deng Ai explained his concerns to Guan Ping, Guan Ping finally chose to follow Deng Ai's advice. The two decided that no matter where Cao Shuang led his troops, they would follow him all the way without dividing their troops. With Sima Yi's army.
The coach of Wei Jun must be Sima Yi. If you keep an eye on this old boy, you can't go wrong! ! !
I am so angry at Sima Yi that I provoked whomever. Why do these two things keep staring at me? !
Sima Yi and Cao Shuang split their forces and retreated. It was really Sima Yi's idea. He could just go along with the flow. This idea was actually Cao Shuang's idea.
After holding on to Changyuan County for more than half a month, Cao Shuang was really scared, but at the same time, he felt that he could do it again!
This is actually a very contradictory psychological state.
He was afraid. After more than half a month of defending the city and seeing his soldiers die in battle after continuously defending the city, Cao Shuang truly felt that it was a good thing to be alive.
He cherished his life even more than before.
But when he felt that he was good again, in the face of Guan Ping's fierce attack, Cao Shuang finally held on to Changyuan County. When Sima Yi ordered the withdrawal, Cao Shuang suddenly realized that his ability didn't seem to be that bad, and he was pretty good. of.
Cao Shuang's biggest problem is that he can never see clearly where his true limits of ability lie, and he is very susceptible to outside influence.
Cao Shuang is not without ability, at least, his ability is not that bad.
If he really had no ability at all, Cao Shuang in history would not have been able to completely suppress Sima Yi and monopolize power in the early days.
As for Cao Shuang's series of stupid behaviors in the later period, that is Cao Shuang's second problem. After being praised for a few times, he really couldn't see how much he weighed.
Just like now, it's actually the same.
Ever since Sima Yi withdrew from Yongqiu, Cao Shuang had not said a word, mainly because he was afraid of saying something that would offend Sima Yi and increase unnecessary risks for himself.
At this time, Cao Shuang really felt that if he wanted to retreat to Hebei safely, he could not offend Sima Yi.
But now, Cao Shuang felt that his ability should be okay. He felt that he could get up again. Even if he didn't rely on Sima Yi, he would not die in Yanzhou.
Well, being able to defend Changyuan County is proof.
Therefore, when Sima Yi achieved his tactical goal and planned to evacuate Changyuan County, Cao Shuang took the initiative to find Sima Yi and put forward his own ideas.
Divide your troops and evacuate.
On the one hand, dividing the troops to evacuate can induce the Shu thieves to divide their troops, resulting in weak pursuers. The pursuit pressure faced by each other will be reduced, and the success rate of evacuation will be higher.
On the other hand, if the troops are divided and evacuated, if the Shu thieves pursue one party, the other party can also get rid of the Shu thieves and set up an ambush on the necessary road in advance, and maybe defeat the Shu thieves in a single battle.
Sima Yi, an old fox, thought about it carefully and suddenly realized that what Cao Shuang said seemed to make some sense.
Of course, the most important thing is that Sima Yi thought about it from his perspective. If he were Deng Ai and faced the enemy's divided forces, he would either divide his forces to pursue them as well, or he would concentrate his forces and pick an enemy that was easier to deal with.
Obviously, Sima Yi believed that he was more difficult to deal with than Cao Shuang.
Therefore, Sima Yi actually agreed to Cao Shuang's suggestion and each led 20,000 troops to evacuate Changyuan County.
But what Sima Yi didn't expect was that even if Deng Ai didn't divide his troops, he actually led an army of 70,000 to pursue his own army of 20,000.
No, that soft persimmon next door is always accurate. Aren’t you going to clean it up? !
The second thing Sima Yi didn't expect was that it was clearly a strategy proposed by Cao Shuang. If one side was pursued by the enemy's main force, the other side would have to ambush on the only road ahead.
But while Sima Yi was retreating, he didn't receive any news about Cao Shuang's ambush. This guy didn't even cover up. He left Sima Yi's army behind. He didn't even go to Yanjin. The direction retreated.
It was agreed that the troops would be divided and evacuated, but in actual action, it turned out that Sima Yi led 20,000 soldiers to "cut off the rear" and "cover" Cao Shuang's retreat to Yanjin.
Sima Yi was so angry that he was so wise all his life, but then he was tricked by a fool! ! !
However, Sima Yi was still Sima Yi, and his ability to lead troops was quite outstanding.
Although Sima Yi walked very slowly along the way and paid the price of more than 3,000 casualties, he still did not give Deng Ai a chance to defeat him.
Sima Yi relied on the 20,000 men in his hand and faced the 70,000 pursuers. He fought and retreated along the way. He actually led more than 16,000 people and safely retreated to the east of Suanzao City, and in Guo With Huai's support, he set up camp on the east side of Suanzao City to protect the flanks of Suanzao City.
Next, there is the issue of how to arrange the replacement candidates and withdraw the troops in an orderly manner.
(End of chapter)
