My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 301: The Power of Xun You and Jia Xu's Joint Deception
Liu Bei sent Sun Qian to Xiangyang to condemn Liu Biao's "separate peace with Cao Cao" in order to create an additional claim for future conflicts with the pro-Cao faction in Jingzhou.

In order to make good use of waste and do favors for both sides, Liu Bei would of course send people to catch up with Zhuge Jun, who had been gone for ten days, and synchronize the latest information from Liu Biao to him.

This would give Zhuge Jun an extra bargaining chip to show his goodwill when he went on a diplomatic mission to Yuan Tan.

There must have been resentment within Yuan Shao's camp that "the other princes in the world who followed the imperial edict to fight against rebellion, but when we were fighting to the death with Cao Cao, they just talked but did nothing, did not help us, and did not send reinforcements to stab Cao Cao in the back."

Although Liu Bei doesn't care about offending Yuan Shao now, who would complain about getting a more friendly external environment for free?

When the time comes, as long as Liu Bei sends someone to warn, it will be in stark contrast to Liu Biao, and make Yuan Shao and his sons realize:
"Liu Biao made peace with Cao Cao alone, and after the peace he made a fortune without saying anything, without reminding us as his allies. He was hoping that Cao's main force would be free to fight us, so that we would both suffer losses and Liu Biao would gain the upper hand.

As for Liu Bei, he did not deliberately not fight Cao Cao, but was tripped by Sun Ce's backstab. After discovering that Liu Biao and Cao Cao had made peace alone, he at least sent someone from afar to warn us, telling us to be careful of Cao Cao's free hands.

In this comparison, Yuan Shao will hate his friendly army for not helping him in the future, and will most likely hate Liu Biao even more, thus reducing the hatred value on Liu Bei.

Once anything happened to Yuan Shao, Liu Bei's consistent friendly relationship with Yuan Shao's camp would make it easier for Liu Bei to win over one of Yuan Shao's sons. It was always a good idea to establish good relations in advance.

It’s a pity that no matter how hard Liu Bei tried to warn people, he would definitely not be able to catch up.

When Liu Bei learned the news of peace between Liu Biao and Cao Cao, more than half a month had passed since Liu Biao and Cao Cao actually made peace.

After all, Liu Biao knew that it was shameful to make peace alone, so he would not actively publicize it. Liu Bei confirmed it after observing the withdrawal of Cao's army and Liu Biao's army from the northeastern war zone of Nanyang County and conducting in-depth investigations, which took time.

After Liu Bei learned about this, it took him several days to make a decision. He also had to send people to chase Zhuge Jun and then take a long detour to Qingzhou.

The time required to complete all this would definitely be much slower than that of Cao's army taking the inner route.

By the time Liu Bei notified them, the second battle between Cao and Yuan was probably over and the opportunity was gone.

Liu Bei just went there to get a favor for giving a warning. As for whether the warning was effective or not, it was none of Liu Bei's business.

……

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

March 20th, Yingchuan County, Xudu.

The timeline goes back to three days after Cao Cao made peace with Liu Biao.

After curbing Liu Biao's attempt to continue northward from Bowang to Ye County, occupy the dangerous pass of Tongbai Mountain and threaten Xu Du, Cao Cao, who had been troubled in recent months, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he won the Battle of Guandu three months ago, it was an extremely thrilling and lucky win.

Cao Cao thought that he would not have won the Battle of Guandu if any one of Xu You, Zhang He and Gao Lan had not surrendered.

It was hard to win, but it was actually a pyrrhic victory. In the direction of Nanyang behind, the important town of Wancheng was stolen by Liu Biao at the end of the stalemate at Guandu.

This butterfly effect, which originally did not exist in history, also forced Cao Cao to withdraw and curb Liu Biao. He had to make sure that Liu Biao was hurt and temporarily lost his ambitions before he could expand his victory over Yuan Shao.

But at this critical juncture, Xun You, who had advised Cao Cao not to care about Liu Biao and just pursue Yuan Shao, jumped out and offered a completely different but very reasonable strategy:

"Mingsir, now that our army is openly forcing Liu Biao south with a large army, once Yuan Shao finds out, he will certainly look down on us and think that he has seized a golden opportunity. He can take advantage of the fact that our main force is being pinned down by Liu Biao and take over our prefectures and counties by attacking other fronts.

Since our army was able to quickly make peace with Liu Biao, we will certainly be able to return quickly and strike Yuan Shao head-on when he is alone and deep in the enemy's territory, further weakening his forces. Then we will counterattack Hebei with unstoppable force.

Although Yuan Shao was defeated, Jiang Qi's troops escaped unscathed, and Youzhou generals such as Jiao Chu and Zhang Nanbu also successfully withdrew. Only Zhang He and Gao Lan's troops all surrendered to our army. If our army immediately counterattacks Hebei and launches an offensive, it may not be strong enough to quickly defeat the enemy.

But if Yuan Shao underestimates the enemy and advances rashly again, and is weakened by our army in the active attack, then our army will take advantage of the situation and counterattack, and will surely seize a large area of fertile land in Jizhou, making Yuan Shao unable to fight us in the field. At that time, Yuan Shao can only defend the strong city, and Jizhou will only have Yecheng, Nanpi and other places to rely on.

As for the rest of the undefensible land, as long as Yuan Shao is not our opponent in the field battle, we will certainly capture it. And now it is the end of March, and when our army takes action, it must be April, and May is the winter wheat harvest season. Our army fought hard last year, mainly due to the lack of military food. If we can enter the fertile land of Jizhou before the winter wheat harvest, and take food from the enemy, our army will become stronger and Yuan Shao will become weaker, and the outcome will be determined at this point. "

In history, Xun You should have suggested to Cao Cao to fight the Battle of Cangting. Obviously, this was because there was a slight change in the course of history, and Xun You also adapted to the situation and came up with a strategy that was more suitable for the actual situation at the moment.

As a result, the original "Battle of Cangting" changed from a battle in which Cao's army took the initiative to attack to a battle in which the army first showed weakness to lure the enemy to attack and weaken them, and then defended and counterattacked.

This makes perfect sense and is completely consistent with IQ logic.

The Battle of Cangting in history broke out in March of the sixth year of Jian'an. It is already late March now, so even if it broke out, it would probably be April. But the Battle of Guandu in history ended in October of the previous year, and now it has been delayed to the twelfth month.

As the end of the previous battle was delayed by two months, the next battle was also delayed by more than a month, which was in line with the preparation needs of all parties.

Cao Cao's willingness to accept advice also continued to be stable, just like in the same period in history.

After Xun You's advice, he immediately accepted it in its entirety and asked Xun You for more details:
"Gongda thought, if our army can successfully trick Yuan Shao into underestimating the enemy, where will Yuan Shao attack from? Where should our army set up an ambush? Along the Yellow River, the border between our army and Yuan Shao is thousands of miles long from east to west, and there is a possibility of attack everywhere."

Xun You had obviously done his homework on this question before coming here, so he didn't think much about it and immediately added:

"I think if Yuan Shao really takes the bait, he will most likely attack Dong'e and Fanxian areas."

Cao Cao: "How do you prove it?"

Xun You: "There are three reasons. First, Yuan Shao knows that our army is in a stalemate with Liu Biao, so he must know that our main force is concentrated on the western front, between Wan, Luo, and Yingchuan. If Yuan Shao launches an offensive on the western front of Yuzhou as he did in the Battle of Guandu last year, our main force will come back to support us quickly. Yuan Shao may not be able to gain enough time to expand his victory, so he will definitely choose to attack the eastern front of Yanzhou.

Secondly, after choosing Yanzhou on the eastern front, Yuan Shao could further select from the four prefectures of Taishan, Jibei, Dongping, and Dong. However, Dong was closer to the western front, and Puyang and Juancheng were strong cities, so Yuan Shao would probably not choose it. Although Taishan was the farthest, the terrain was rugged and not conducive to rapid advancement. As a compromise, Dongping and Jibei were naturally the most suitable.

Thirdly, my lord, do you still remember that seven years ago, when you were on an expedition to Xuzhou and Tao Qian, Lu Bu attacked Yanzhou. You were once beaten by Lu Bu to the point that only three cities, Juancheng, Dong'e and Fanxian, were left. They were all defended thanks to the planning of Wen Ruo and Zhong De.

Yuan Shao also knew about this past, and knew that these three places were the key points for you to keep Yanzhou. Therefore, he stationed troops and built water forts at Cangtingjin on the north bank of the Yellow River, opposite Dong'a and Fanxian. Now that he was going to attack Dongping and Jibei counties, the first to be hit were these two counties bordering the Yellow River. "

After listening to Xun You's overall reasoning, Cao Cao's eyes narrowed into slits, revealing a bit of ruthlessness. A vicious strategy of luring the enemy deep into his territory and making a big attack had already formed in his mind.

"That would be the best. I will let famous generals guard Dong'e and Fan County. Yes, Juancheng can also be defended. Then pretend that the three counties along the river in Yanzhou are empty, and lure Yuan's army stationed in Cangting to enter. However, the defenders of these cities insist on holding on and refuse to surrender, which will attract Yuan Shao. When my main force makes a detour to encircle Yuan's army, we will cooperate internally and externally to inflict heavy damage on Yuan Shao again!"

The plan for the Battle of Xincangting was thus formed.

After making up his mind, Cao Cao immediately began to spread false information, even at the cost of causing panic in the Xu Du court - he blocked the news of the peace talks with Liu Biao internally, and even in the court meeting of Xu Du, he continued to talk about "increasing troops to defend Ye County, guarding the Tongbai Mountain Pass, and blocking Liu Biao from going north."

As a result, some civil servants in Xudu who were not Cao Cao's confidants were kept in the dark.

This vicious trick that even deceived some of his non-direct descendants made it much easier to deceive Yuan Shao.

In fact, when Cao's army pretended to transfer troops to Nanyang, every troop that left Xu Du was heading towards Yanzhou, ready to ambush Yuan Shao's invading troops at any time.

At the same time, because of the butterfly effect of the Dong Cheng/Lu Bu incident, Jia Xu, who was forced by Cao Cao to work hard to make plans, also came forward to help Cao Cao and Xun You improve some details after realizing the strategy that Xun You came up with for Cao Cao.

On the third day after Cao Cao began to mobilize his troops, Jia Xu met with Cao Cao alone and privately offered a plan:
"I have a humble opinion that I would like to ask the Minister of Works for advice. I think that perhaps we can let our troops in Pengcheng County stir up trouble and pretend to besiege Wei to save Zhao and attack Liu to save Sun. Then let the garrisons in Dongping, Jibei and Taishan counties pretend to move south to Xuzhou to reinforce the Xuzhou army. In this way, Dongping and Jibei will appear more empty, making it easier to lure Yuan Shao into the trap."

Cao Cao only briefly sorted out the advice, straightened out his thoughts, and then adopted it in its entirety.

In this way, Cao Cao set up two smoke bombs on the east and west lines to deceive Yuan Shao into thinking that "the defense line on the south bank of the Yellow River is empty." The smoke bomb on the west line was designed by Xun You, and the smoke bomb on the east line was designed by Jia Xu.

Although Yuan Shao still has some wise and resourceful men under his command, facing the joint fraud of Xun You and Jia Xu, and Yuan Shao's relatively isolated information, it is difficult to avoid being tricked.

(End of this chapter)