Seeing this situation, Cao Jun naturally knew what it meant and hurriedly came out to cause trouble. However, the archers who were paired with him were already ready and shot back all their bows and arrows.
This matter was very urgent. Cao Cao once again summoned his advisers to ask for a solution. Liu Ye came out and said, "We can just make some carts that can throw stones."
So Cao Cao asked Liu Ye to take the lead, built some catapults, and then distributed the positions inside the wall, and then directed the shooting direction towards the small mound that Yuan Jun was building, and then sent a small number of soldiers out to pretend to attack , guided the judge to order the arrows to be released, and then asked other soldiers in the camp to operate the catapult together, and then throw out the stones.
Since the archers were shooting arrows at fixed places, there was no way to dodge. The attack range of the stone was very wide. All kinds of stones flew randomly for a while, and Yuan Jun was killed and injured in large areas.
Yuan Jun was also stoned to death many times, and many of them were afraid. They gave Cao Jun's weapon a name, "Thunderbolt Chariot."
Seeing that Yuan Jun was gradually afraid to come out to shoot arrows, Shen Pei went to Yuan Shao and offered another plan, saying: "I'm afraid it won't be effective to use earth mounds in this situation. Why don't we secretly send some people to dig a passage directly to Cao Jun's place?" Bian, we are called Dizi Army."
Yuan Shao didn't have any ideas to begin with. Someone came up with a plan and it happened to be useful, so he adopted it.
So Cao Jun discovered that Yuan Jun did not continue to make small mounds of earth, but began to dig pits. He told Cao Cao about this situation, and Cao Cao immediately asked Liu Ye for questioning.
Liu Ye said: "This is because Yuan Jun could not attack openly, so he turned to digging a passage secretly, trying to tunnel underground to our camp."
Cao Cao said: "Then how should we deal with it?"
Liu Ye said: "This is very simple. We can dig some trenches around our camp and install some earth walls. Then their secret passage will be meaningless."
So Cao Cao ordered his soldiers to do this work overnight. Yuan Jun dug half of it, but found that it could not be dug anymore, and wasted some time.
So the two armies began to confront each other, with Guandu as the dividing point. Cao Cao defended Guandu, while Yuan Jun launched some attacks from time to time. Starting from August to the end of September, for a month, the sergeants gradually began to tire. , food and grass began to be somewhat insufficient.
Cao Cao was very troubled every day and hesitated. He was ready to abandon Guandu and return to his base camp Xuchang to guard it. However, he still wanted to find some people to discuss the matter, so he asked someone to write a letter to Xun Yu.
After Xun Yu read it, he immediately wrote a reply, the content of which was: "I will answer the question of whether to go or to defend according to your request. I know that Yuan Shao has now mobilized the entire power of Hebei and wants to fight his lord for a decisive victory. Negative, the lord must turn the weakest force into the strongest force. If he cannot suppress the opponent with momentum, he will definitely give the opponent some opportunities. This is also an opportunity to determine the world. Although Yuan Shao has a large number of soldiers, they cannot completely Use it, my lord, although I don’t have many soldiers, I am a brave man, so there is nothing to worry about! Our strength now is very small, not as good as the strength of the Chu and Han armies compared to the Qin army when Chu and Han were fighting. My lord, now Draw the ground as a prison and grab the opponent's throat to prevent them from moving forward. As long as this momentum is maintained, there will be great changes. This is the time to use cunning tactics. You must not miss this opportunity. I hope the lord can notice clearly. "
Some of Xun Yu's words confirmed Cao Cao's confidence to continue to persevere. He was very happy and ordered his soldiers to do their best to guard Guandu.
Because Yuan Jun couldn't take advantage for the time being, he retreated more than thirty miles. Cao Cao sent his generals out to patrol. One of Xu Huang's generals caught a spy lurking on Yuan Shao's side and tied him up with a rope to see him. Xu Huang asked Yuan Shao about the situation in the army and replied: "There is not much food and grass in the team now. Every morning and evening, a general named Han Meng comes to transport food and grass. He will order us to come and explore the road."
Xu Huang thought this information was very important and immediately told Cao Cao.
Cao Cao asked his adviser Xun You for advice and replied: "I know Han Meng. He is a brave man. If a thousand men and some cavalry are sent out from halfway to intercept their food and grass, then Yuan Shao's army will definitely be in chaos. .”
Cao Cao nodded and asked, "Who is more suitable to do this?"
Xun You replied: "Let Xu Huang go, there will definitely be good results."
So Cao Cao sent Xu Huang and his generals to intercept Yuan Shao's supplies. In order to prevent other situations from happening, he sent Zhang Liao and Xu Chu to assist.
That night, Han Meng escorted thousands of transport vehicles to the front line to transport grain and grass, and the priority was naturally Yuan Shao's camp. While walking, suddenly Xu Huang and his troops appeared in the valley and intercepted the way. .
Han Meng rode a horse to come to Xu Huang for a duel, and the two immediately fought together. Xu Huang's general went to the grain and grass side to cause trouble, and burned the other side's grain and grass with a fire.
Han Meng was not as good at martial arts as Xu Huang. After fighting for several rounds, he couldn't bear to eat anymore and was ready to escape. Xu Huang thought that there was too much food and grass and there was no way to transport it, so he asked everyone in the team to light a fire and burn Yuan Jun's food and grass. clean.
Yuan Shao's army saw fire filling the northwest and a strong smell of smoke. They were wondering when suddenly some defeated soldiers shouted: "The enemy has intercepted the food and grass."
Yuan Shao quickly sent Zhang He and Gao Lan to check the situation to see if there was any way to remedy the situation. They happened to encounter Xu Huang and his soldiers who had burned the food and grass and were about to go back, so they continued fighting. Suddenly, soldiers brought by Zhang Liao and Xu Chu attacked from behind. Yuan's army was surrounded and killed and fled in all directions. The four generals sent by Cao Cao gathered their troops and horses together and returned to Guandu together to describe how they intercepted the grain and grass.
This incident boosted the spirit of Cao Jun. Cao Cao was very happy and rewarded him heavily. Then he asked the soldiers to march around the camp in the form of horns in front of the camp.
Han Meng returned to Yuan Jun's camp in disgrace. Yuan Shao happened to be hungry. He was very angry when he knew that the food and grass had been intercepted. He was about to kill Han Meng. Everyone quickly begged for mercy and was absolved.
Shen Pei said: "In the process of marching, food is a very important thing. We must find ways to guard against it. Wuchao is an important place for us to store food. We must find ways to send out handlers who are seriously ill."
Yuan Shao said: "I have made a plan to prepare grain and grass. You can go back to Yecheng to supervise the situation of grain and grass. This must not happen again."
Shen Pei sighed and left, so Yuan Shao sent General Chunyu Qiong, Han Tiaozi and other generals, and more than 20,000 troops to guard Wuchao, the place where grain and grass were transferred.
Chunyu Qiong was not very happy at first, thinking that he could not get the glory of killing the enemy, so he went to the least interesting place, which was guarding the food and grass, so his attitude was much more negligent.
He thought that nothing would happen in Wuchao. After a few days, he even warned people to buy some good wine and started looking for people to drink. At first, Yuan Jun was very disciplined and was willing to drink with Chun Yuqiong. But Chunyu Qiong relied on his status as the commander and beat and scolded the soldiers at every turn, finally forcing some of them to become drinking buddies. So everyone gave up and held a drinking party in Wuchao.
