I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 244 The agency is too clever

Yuan Shu was cautious and prudent, and so were the Han troops he led.

Among the 5,000 Han troops, a full 4,000 were members of the Yi Xin Society and old farmers in Liangzhuang. They were full of fighting will to protect Yuan Shu and fight to the death.

Lian Da and Shao Yuan have already given orders that every battle should be treated as the last battle to protect Yuan Shu, and that every battle should be fought with the momentum of the last battle.

They want to tell everyone in the world who wants to harm Yuan Shu - if you want to harm Yuan Shu, just step over our dead bodies!

This group of people held weapons and shouted in unison. Their fighting power and loyalty were off the charts. If anyone wanted to hurt Yuan Shu, they would just crush them and grind them into mud.

The momentum displayed by the 4,000 Yi Xin Hui armed forces with extremely high fighting will directly stunned Fan Li and the 1,000 elite Northern Army cavalry.

Even Fan Li, who had spent a long time with Yuan Shu in the past few days, didn't know why the people on Yuan Shu's side were so high-spirited and so loyal to Yuan Shu.

Even if they were ordinary assassins, they wouldn't go to this extent, right?
Of course, the assassins are willing to die for the master of the family. This is their mission in life, but these people...

How should I put it? There was a strange feeling. It was quite different from the impression he had of a death warrior.

It's not that he hasn't seen suicide warriors before. Some of his superiors in the past had such suicide warriors around them. They seemed like they were born to die, and the very first sight of them made the living feel uncomfortable.

But the four thousand "death warriors" in front of him were completely different.

What's this feeling of being upbeat and motivated?

Although this short period of time together made Fan Li like Yuan Shu more, and he had a vague sense of belonging, he was still surprised by the enthusiasm of this group of people.

After thinking about it for a long time, Fan Li still couldn't figure it out. He could only attribute it to the power of cultural knowledge.

Yuan Shu was the teacher of these people, the one who imparted knowledge to them. He was a famous classics teacher and cultural figure in the Han Dynasty, so these talents were so fanatical and loyal.

But no matter what, with such high fighting spirit, the chances of winning this battle are greater, and the possibility of gaining military merit is greater.

Soon, Yuan Shu and Fan Li climbed up to the observation tower together. Looking out from the tower, they saw the rebels approaching in large numbers.

Well, there are a lot of people and the scale is large. It looks like there are no less than 10,000 people.

but……

Very messy.

The rebels were not arranged in vertical or horizontal columns, but in groups, like cotton scattered on the ground, with no pattern to follow. They approached the Han army camp in a scattered and disorderly manner, completely unlike what Yuan Shu had imagined an army should look like.

They are even inferior to the ordinary Han army.

The infantry did not form a formation, but appeared openly and carelessly in the wild. The number of cavalry was very small, and they could not provide effective protection for the infantry.

Could it be... a trick?
Yuan Shu felt that from a military perspective, even if there were enough cavalry as guards, the infantry should also pay attention to forming a formation when in the wild. Otherwise, if they were ambushed by enemy cavalry, it would be no joke.

I’ll break down in a minute!

This is how a crushing defeat occurs.

This army was so arrogant, either they were trying to trick the Han army into going out for a field battle and then make enemies.

Or it's pure incompetence.

In view of the previous experience of the vanguard battle, Yuan Shu felt that the latter was more likely.

But he immediately thought of Duan Xing's warning, and realized that his primary task in this battle was not to play as a jungler, but to play as a support. In order for Duan Xing to successfully capture Zao City, getting the limelight and grabbing kills were not the main things.

When going out to fight, the most important thing is to complete the mission. If you act recklessly, it's ok if you win, but if you lose, you will be too embarrassed to face anyone.

Thinking this way, Yuan Shu gave up the plan of arranging two thousand cavalry to attack the camp.

Fan Li, who was standing next to him, actually also had the idea of suggesting that Yuan Shu attack from the village, but he also thought of Yuan Shu's safety and their main mission at this time, so he swallowed the words and did not mention them.

The two achieved a wonderful unity on this level.

But it must be said that although this army has a large number of people, it looks like a mess as a whole. If they behave like this when they are marching, Yuan Shu dare not imagine how many people will take the opportunity to run away along the way.

When the army got closer to the Han army camp, Yuan Shu learned that there were several big words written on the flag raised by the army.

General Cao who was responsible for suppressing rebellion.

These five words made Yuan Shu a little stunned.

If you say "General Cao, the Western Expeditioner", then Yuan Shu can barely be classified under Cao Cao, but who is your General Cao, the Suppressing Rebellion? Isn't the General Cao, the Suppressing Rebellion, Sun Jian?

Is it possible...

Is it the Dongjun Prefect Cao Shao?
But this is not the core of the problem. The core of the problem is - where did you get the position of the general who fights against rebellion? Who gave you the title?
Could it be that my dad was bored and gave you the title of general to play with?
It is easy to explain why Yuan Shu didn’t understand this matter, because Yuan Feng was indeed not bored enough to do such a thing.

The person who conferred the title of General Suppressing Rebellion on Cao Shao was Liu He.

Liu He, a member of the Eastern Han royal family and the prefect of Jiyin County.

After he decided to join the rebel team, he waited for the joint forces of Wang Ji, the prime minister of Pei, and Wen Mu, the prime minister of Pengcheng. Then the three of them met in Jiyin County, and then went north to Dongjun together, where they met Cao Shao in Puyang County of Dongjun.

The four of them formed a coalition with great momentum, sufficient weapons and plenty of food, and for a time they had no shortage of anything.

What's more, they all tacitly agreed to recruit soldiers through militarism, even looting counties and capturing able-bodied men along the way. By the time they arrived in Dongjun, the three of them had already led more than 60,000 people to Dongjun.

In Dongjun, their troops received weapons from Cao Shao, and after some screening, they selected 60,000 "elite soldiers".

These 60,000 people were the coalition forces formed by Liu He and four others to fight against the Yuan regime in Luoyang.

Of course, there were more than just four of them who rebelled.

Yuzhou Governor Jiong Fei was arranged to attack from Qiao County and advance into the State of Chen.

Zhang Hao, the prime minister of Liang, attacked from Liang and captured Chenliu County.

The two men's troops served as detachments and decoys to distract the imperial army.

The main force of the rebels set out from Dongjun and attacked Luoyang directly.

This was the tactic proposed by Liu He. He believed that this tactic was the most appropriate tactic at present. Moreover, if they gathered their main force in Dongjun, they could further get assistance from Jizhou Governor Li Shao and Bohai Prime Minister Gao Cheng.

These two people also planned to join the rebellion, but they were slow in action and had not yet arrived in Dongjun by the time Liu He and others took action.

But it didn’t matter. The four of them first completed their first alliance meeting in Dongjun.

At the meeting, it was clearly determined that Liu He, a relative of the Han Dynasty, would be the leader of the alliance, and the banner of "attacking the Yuan family and restoring orthodoxy" was raised. A public manifesto was issued to the whole world, calling on "people of insight" in the world to set out for Luoyang together to attack the Yuan family.

They declared that they would restore Liu Hong's throne as emperor and eliminate Liu Kui who usurped the throne and the Yuan family who sought supreme power.

However, in private, Wang Ji, Wen Mu and Cao Shao all recognized Liu He's position as emperor and expressed their willingness to support Liu He in his bid for the throne.

As long as he wanted, he could just kill Liu Hong and put the blame on the Yuan family. That would be no problem for them, and Liu He could then naturally ascend the throne and become emperor.

Liu He was very satisfied with this and began to dream of becoming the emperor.

However, he still had some self-awareness and knew that the overall situation was undecided and he could not rashly reveal his true intentions, so he decided to conceal it a little.

At present, everyone is an official of the same rank of two thousand stones, which is not conducive to establishing a unified leader, so the four people agreed that Liu He would take charge of the General of Cavalry, set up a government to handle affairs as a General of Cavalry, and lead Wang Ji and others and all the troops to attack Luoyang.

He then appointed Cao Shao as the General for Suppressing Rebellion, Wen Mu as the General for Destroying the Enemy, and Wang Ji as the General for Exerting Power.

Then they conferred a bunch of titles such as Colonel and Lieutenant General, regardless of other things, and gave out these free titles first to win people's hearts and calm those wavering people in their respective teams.

Finally, Liu He announced that he would continue to recruit soldiers and expand the army.

Sixty thousand men were not enough, and the army had to be expanded further, even if it meant forced conscription or conscription of able-bodied men, in order to recruit as many troops as possible in the shortest possible time.

At the same time, Liu He did not forget their main goal.

They must take the initiative, seize the initiative, and use offense as defense.

Among this group of people, only Cao Shao was known for his bravery. He was tall and strong, with a majestic aura, and looked like the most elegant and majestic military general. Therefore, Liu He decided to entrust him with an important task.

He let Cao Shao lead an elite army of 20,000 as the vanguard and go into battle first.

Cao Shao's goal was to quickly enter the Sili region, occupy a city, and establish a forward position before the imperial army completed its assembly.

In this way, they would be able to successfully push the front line forward, forming a strong deterrent to the Luoyang court, forcing it not to act rashly.

Liu He believed that although the Luoyang court and the Yuan family appeared powerful on the surface, they were actually weak inside and had a fierce appearance but a weak courage.

As long as they learned that the rebels had already invaded the Sili area in large numbers, and that the State of Chen and Chenliu County were also under serious threat, they would surely become frightened, go on the defensive, and not dare to attack rashly.

In this way, Liu He can buy time to recruit new soldiers, further expand the size of the army, improve overall combat effectiveness, and at the same time wait for Li Shao and Gao Cheng to arrive.

During this period, if there are any remaining eunuchs who want to join them, they will have enough time to arrive.

At this point, Liu He had planned everything.

(End of this chapter)