Sima Yi's withdrawal plan had actually already begun.
Jia Kui and others in Puyang were the first batch of people to withdraw their troops. The total number was about 20,000. They retreated to Jizhou from the direction of Baima Ferry, which took about four days.
This time is not long, and this is the result of Man Chong desperately collecting ferries along the Yellow River in Jizhou. Man Chong has been working very hard. Even for this withdrawal, Man Chong was forced and had to be a soldier again. He hired a handful of cruel officials just to collect enough ships for Sima Yi to withdraw his troops.
The Yellow River is not a small river, and the ferry capacity is limited these days. Being able to evacuate 20,000 people in four days is considered a very successful retreat.
The second group of people who were arranged to withdraw were Cao Shuang's 20,000 soldiers who evacuated to Yanjin Ferry.
This batch was actually not part of Sima Yi's arrangements. After all, Sima Yi did not expect that Cao Shuang would shamelessly evacuate directly to Yanjin Ferry.
According to Sima Yi's original arrangement, he should have waited until the remaining 80,000 soldiers gathered in Suanzao, and then held a stalemate with Zhuge Liang and others for a period of time, and then arranged for Cao Yu, Xia Houhe and others to form the second batch of withdrawal troops.
Unfortunately, this arrangement was broken by Cao Shuang.
Since Cao Shuang had already arrived at Yanjin Ferry, it was naturally impossible for him to come back with wild jujubes to help him fight. Sima Yi asked himself that he still had some idea of what kind of courage Cao Shuang had.
In this case, instead of letting Cao Shuang stop his army at Yanjin Ferry and shake the morale of the army, it would be better to simply arrange for Cao Shuang to cross the river first and join Man Chong and Jia Kui.
Out of sight is pure.
As for jujube, Sima Yi is really feeling very troublesome now.
It's not that you can't hold on, you can still hold on. It's just that the risk of holding on is not small.
On the one hand, the opponent this time is Zhuge Liang after all. Now no one thinks that Zhuge Liang is just a civil servant engaged in internal affairs. Several battles in Heluo have proved that Zhuge Liang also has no shortage of ability and talent in military planning.
At least, when Sima Yi faced Zhuge Liang, he basically never took advantage.
On the other hand, both sides had accumulated too many troops near the small county town of Suanzao.
As Deng Ai led his troops to Suanzao and joined Zhuge Liang's army, the Han army already had nearly 130,000 infantry and cavalry troops in total.
On Sima Yi's side, as Chen Tai abandoned Fengqiu and escaped from Pound's cavalry to intercept and retreat back to Suanzao, the total strength of the Wei army was about 63,000.
In terms of the strength gap, the ratio between the two sides is about two to one. If this ratio is judged according to conventional military common sense, Sima Yi still has a slight advantage in the battle to defend the city.
But the problem is that the current jujube battlefield is no longer a conventional siege and defense battle.
The total number of troops from both sides, totaling nearly 200,000, gathered near Suanzao County, which was not a big city. What kind of siege battle was this? It was a big battle.
In the Battle of Guandu that year, the total military strength of both Yuan and Cao was only 200,000.
As long as one is not careful, both sides may encounter unexpected situations, and as far as the current situation is concerned, the probability of encountering unexpected situations is greater on Sima Yi's side.
The current defensive situation of the Wei army in Suanzao City is basically that Guo Huai's troops are stationed on the east side of Suanzao City to fight against Zhuge Liang's main camp, while Sima Yi's troops are stationed on the west side of Suanzao City to protect the flanks and the northern retreat channel, and at the same time contain Deng Ai, with Chen Tai in charge. Stick to the jujube and face Guan Ping, Kou Feng's troops led a fierce attack.
It is quite similar to Cao Cao's posture when he was beaten by Yuan Shao and could only passively defend during the Battle of Guandu.
But in the Battle of Guandu that year, Cao Cao was like God's help. Yuan Shao turned an even battle into a war of attrition. Xu You, an important strategist under his command, also chose to rebel at the critical moment, giving Cao Cao a night attack. Nest opportunity.
Now Sima Yi's opponent is not Yuan Benzhu, but Zhuge Kongming, and no one will betray him midway and send him important strategic information.
Therefore, Sima Yi now has only one choice, and that is to hard-top.
And with this one, the casualties came up.
Not only did the casualties of the Wei army increase, but the casualties of the Han army also began to slowly increase.
However, in just four or five days, both sides suffered more than 2,000 casualties each.
The main casualties on the Han army's side were caused during the hard attack on jujube.
The wild jujube is the core area of the entire defense line. If the wild jujube can be conquered, both Guo Huai's and Sima Yi's troops will become rootless ducks. At that time, there will be no other option except retreat.
Therefore, Guan Ping and Kou Feng really did not care about the cost in their attack on Jujube.
Especially Kou Feng, his fighting style is known for his ferocity. Once he becomes ruthless, his casualty rate will never be too low.
As for the jujube guarded by Chen Tai, he may be at a disadvantage when facing Deng Ai and Zhuge Liang, but he can still manage to parry against Guan Ping and Kou Feng.
In addition, in a siege battle, the defenders have the advantage after all. The attackers have to pay at least twice the casualties before they can cause some damage to the defenders.
In the attack and defense of Suanzao City, the casualties of the Han army were actually greater than those of the Wei army.
However, on the other two fronts of the battlefield, the Han army's casualties were much smaller than those of the Wei army.
On the Eastern Front battlefield, Sima Yi not only had to face Deng Ai's attack, which was twice his own, but he also had to worry about sneak attacks from the elusive Pound Cavalry at any time.
Without the protection of the city wall and having to occupy the camp for defense, the cavalry's mounted fire was quite lethal to the defenders in the camp.
As for abandoning the camp and taking the initiative to attack, Sima Yi would only do this if he was mentally retarded.
This is basically to give merit to the cavalry on the opposite side.
Therefore, under Yimo's passive defense, the eastern front defense commanded by Sima Yi caused the Wei army to suffer greater casualties than the Han army.
As for the Western Front, the concept is actually similar. Guo Huai also did not dare to leave the camp and go head-to-head with the Shu thieves.
After all, Guo Huai is a Han Imperial Guard who knows his opponent's combat effectiveness very well. Under normal circumstances, one versus two is not a problem at all.
Not to mention, Guo Huai's opponent is Zhuge Liang. This old fox, if you relax a little, he will find opportunities to bleed you. It is better to stick to it honestly.
In this way, although the Wei army passively defended on the two flanks and suffered higher casualties than the opponent, fortunately, the jujube defense battle was okay, resulting in similar battle losses for both sides.
If you continue to keep it like this, although it will be hard, it is not impossible.
As long as they hold on for another ten days or so, the Shu thieves' spirit will be dampened. After the Shu thieves cannot attack for a long time, they will inevitably take a break and rest. This is the opportunity Sima Yi is waiting for to withdraw.
But Zhuge Liang also knew what Sima Yi had planned.
Although Zhuge Liang did not expect that the Wei army's defense would be so tight, as an excellent commander, taking precautions is an inevitable choice.
After five consecutive days of attacking without results, Zhuge Liang ordered the entire army to suspend the attack for one day to rest and recuperate.
When Sima Yi saw that there was suddenly no movement on the other side, he began to wonder whether he should take the opportunity to arrange a withdrawal.
This really made Sima Yi very hesitant about the time point at which the Shu thieves paused their attack. It was very subtle.
Indeed, in the past four or five days, the Shu bandits' attack was indeed unfavorable, but it was not to the point where they could not attack for a long time and damaged their morale. If they chose to withdraw at this time, the morale of the Shu bandits would not change significantly, and they could pursue them directly with a little preparation. Coming up, it will definitely be another hard battle.
Secondly, according to the military reports sent back by the scouts, it was learned that the Shu bandit reinforcements from Luoyang would arrive at the Jujube front line in about one or two days.
At this time point, the stuck is very clever.
Even if the Shu thieves really rested their entire army, they would not be able to arrange a pursuit in a short time. But it would take at least a day for Sima Yi to arrange a withdrawal.
If we retreat early tomorrow morning, won't we just catch up with the arrival of the enemy's reinforcements? I'm afraid Zhuge Liang has already made these calculations, so he ordered to suspend the attack today and take a temporary rest, right? !
Withdrawing, I'm afraid they will inevitably be pursued by the enemy and suffer heavy casualties. But if they don't withdraw, the Shu bandits will definitely attack more violently next time after they have rested and recuperated, and their own casualties will still be considerable.
Sima Yi frowned and paced back and forth in the military tent, carefully weighing the pros and cons and finally decided not to move.
Sima Yi himself could not estimate the casualties caused by withdrawing his troops, but he had some idea of the casualties caused by continuing to hold on.
Continue to hold on for ten days and wait until the morale of the Shu thieves drops before withdrawing.
This opportunity may not be an opportunity, but just a bait put out by the old thief Zhuge.
(End of chapter)
