My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 348 The Curtain Has Risen
Zhuge Jin's secret trip to the north was quite timely.

Because just three or four days after he and Guan Yu agreed on the deployment ideas for the Battle of the East China Sea, Xiahou Yuan launched this autumn offensive.

The 50,000 or 60,000 Cao troops did not rush into the Yidong area of Donghai County at the first time. However, at least nearly 20,000 cavalry troops, under the banner of Langya and Taishan bandits, rushed in frantically on the first day of the war, interspersed and surrounded, and kicked off this grand sneak attack.

On the first day alone, Cao's cavalry penetrated a hundred miles into the northeastern part of Donghai County, Zhuqi and Licheng, south of the city. They separated these two counties from the rest of the Liu Bei army-occupied areas in Donghai County, and their might was unparalleled.

Guan Yu's army was indeed unable to stop this surging sneak attack, because Cao's army had already controlled the northern side of the eastern border of Langya and Donghai counties and had crossed to the east of Yishui.

The defenders of Liu Bei's side in Langya County, whether it was Gao Shun's troops or Lu Su's troops, were still hiding in Ju County and other county towns, unable to come out to obstruct the mobilization of Cao's army.

In the absence of strategic locations to defend the eastern section of the border between Donghai County and Langya County, and without rivers to cross, it was very normal for the cavalry army to bypass the cities on the vast plains of northern Jiangsu and march exclusively in the wild fields, advancing more than a hundred miles a day.

The two counties of Zhuqi and Licheng, which were temporarily surrounded on three sides by Xiahou Yuan's troops, roughly corresponded to Ganyu District of Lianyungang City in later generations, that is, the northernmost district of Lianyungang in later generations, and were already at the border between Jiangsu and Shandong.

In contrast, Mi Zhu's family's hometown, Qu County, is equivalent to the main urban area of Lianyungang in later generations. Cao's army inserted itself between Ganyu District and the main urban area, cutting off the communication between the two places, and the threat to Qu County was already very obvious.

At this moment, the autumn harvest in Huaibei is almost completed, but it still takes time from "autumn harvest" to "winter storage". A lot of the newly harvested wheat has not yet been centrally transported to warehouses for storage and is still in the hands of ordinary people.

Even though Guan Yu, Chen Gong, and Mi Zhu had done their best to speed up the concentration of supplies and clear the fields before the battle, they could not prevent a considerable amount of food from being taken away by Xiahou Yuan's army.

There was nothing that could be done about it. Xiahou Yuan was not stupid. He saw this opportunity and started the war. No matter how much Liu Bei's army valued the autumn harvest and winter storage, or how far in advance they prepared, Xiahou Yuan would dispatch troops before Liu Bei's army had completed the battle and would eventually be able to grab some.

The counties along the front line of the border were inevitably robbed, and no one could do anything about it. The only thing that could be changed was the money and food in the deep areas behind.

After taking Zhuqi and thousands of civilians from the wilds of Licheng hostage and robbing tens of thousands of shi of grain and wheat, Xiahou Yuan was quite proud. He felt that Guan Yu had never expected that he would expand the war under the banner of the Taishan bandits.

He finally got some relief from the frustration he had endured in the Langya and Yimeng Mountains.

On the second day after the war broke out, Xiahou Yuan himself led the main force of the rear army infantry and passed through the original borders of Donghai County and Langya County one by one. He also brought with him the military adviser Guo Jia and his generals Li Dian and Gao Lan.

Xiahou Yuan rode on a tall horse, watching the majestic troops marching southwards, and his heart was filled with excitement. He pointed to the south with the tip of his whip and said to Guo Jia:

"I didn't expect that Feng Xiao's plan really fooled Guan Yu. He didn't set up any defenses at the Langya and Donghai borders. It seems that our army should have launched an attack on the Huaibei Plain under the banner of Zang Ba Sun Guan. The lord was timid and afraid of a war on the north and south fronts, so he wasted more than two months in Langya."

Xiahou Yuan and Cao Cao were buddies, so he could say such things in private. But Guo Jia certainly didn't dare to agree, and he also knew that the situation was not as simple as Xiahou Yuan thought, so he was very restrained and poured some cold water on him:

"General, you are wrong. If our army had not followed the strategy of attacking Langya and not attacking Donghai for the past two months, how could Guan Yu relax his guard? Alternating between tension and relaxation is the correct way of military strategy. Cao Gong has great plans, and every step has his own unique considerations, which are beyond our guess.

Moreover, the border between Donghai and Langya is not well defended. Guan Yu chose to fortify the city and clear the fields at the beginning, and let us enter. He had no choice but to do so. His troops were far less than ours, so how could he start a field battle and actively seek a decisive battle?
We must not take it lightly, because the next step is crucial. It depends on how Guan Yu responds. Will he abandon the people of Huaibei and completely clear the land in Donghai, or will he be forced to fight us after being plundered to the point of being unable to bear it? "

Xiahou Yuan felt a little disappointed after hearing this, and he pulled the whip downwards. With a "snap" sound, the warhorse felt pain and stood up.

Fortunately, he had amazing horsemanship. Even without the high-bridge saddle and double stirrups, he was able to sit firmly on the upright horse's back until the warhorse returned to the state of four hooves on the ground:
"Then tell me, if Guan Yu insists on clearing the countryside, how should we respond?"

Guo Jia had a plan in mind for these problems: "If Guan Yu insists on building high ramparts and deep trenches and refuses to fight, we should first pick out the counties that are surrounded by us and see which ones have weak defenses and can be captured within a month or two. Then we can take advantage of the opportunity to capture them.

Guan Yu's army is far smaller than ours, and the East China Sea has an open terrain, unlike Langya which is located in the mountainous area. Therefore, it is impossible for Guan Yu to defend everywhere. We will take over the places that he cannot defend.

Our army has the advantage of cavalry, so even if the battle lines are intertwined in the end, it doesn't matter. When our army returns to the north in the future, even if Guan Yu organizes a counterattack, we can rely on the advantage of cavalry to rescue the isolated city on the front line.

After taking these cities with insufficient troops, we have two options. One is to see if there is any key point that the enemy must rescue, besiege the city and attack the reinforcements, force Guan Yu to come to the field and destroy his main force.

This choice is based on the premise that there is plenty of time, that is, Gongda and Yuan Chang in the north are making slow progress in contacting Ma Teng to attack Bingzhou, and Cao Gong and Yuan Shang have not resumed the war. If the north is progressing quickly, we will have to withdraw troops to the north to fight Yuan Shang immediately after the spring of next year, and Xuzhou cannot involve too much manpower and time. We can only choose the second set of faster strategies to force Guan Yu to fight, severely damage his main force, and bring peace to the south for several years. "

Xiahou Yuan listened attentively. After hearing this, he could not help but ask: "How do you implement the so-called 'quick battle' strategy?"

Guo Jia seemed a little embarrassed and lowered his voice and said, "Well... we still have to consider it. I just said it casually. General, you don't have to do this unless it is absolutely necessary. I also saw that Cao Gong slaughtered a lot of people in Xuzhou back then, and he couldn't win back the hearts of the people in Xuzhou anyway...

Therefore, if we want to fight Guan Yu quickly and cannot find any weak points that our army must rescue to attack the enemy, we should forcibly relocate all the people in Huaibei who we can plunder back to the western part of Donghai and Pengcheng and settle them in the land.

In this way, even if our army cannot capture too many cities, as long as we can take away the civilians who are unable to retreat to the city, the gains of this battle will not be small. After years of war and two massacres, Xuzhou has gradually become sparsely populated. As long as we can capture hundreds of thousands of people and build up the barren fields of Pengcheng County, we don’t necessarily have to seize the land. ”

Since Guo Jia was able to stay with Cao Cao, his moral bottom line must have been quite flexible.

But even among a group of flexible people, their flexibility can be divided into different levels. Compared with Cheng Yu, who is a top-notch person, Guo Jia is not that flexible after all.

He couldn't come up with any vicious plan to massacre the city and force a fight, but he could still force Guan Yu to fight a decisive battle by threatening to relocate the people in the wild.

No matter what, forced exile and relocation is much more merciful than killing people directly. Moreover, relocation from Donghai to Pengcheng is not far away. The neighboring counties are still within the scope of Xuzhou.

In Guo Jia's opinion, even if Guan Yu's side was prepared for war and wanted to fortify the city and clear the fields, it would be difficult to gather all the people in the county back to the city to avoid being captured. There were only five county towns in the eastern part of Donghai County, and the distribution was quite sparse, so it was impossible to accommodate everyone who came to the city to eat for free for a long time.

If Cao's army could not capture too many cities, then relocating the wild population in other cities that had not been conquered would be a deterrent. If Guan Yu wanted to stop it, he had to jump out and fight, which could be regarded as forcing a fight by threatening the people.

Of course, Guo Jia also said that this is the last backup option.

If you have the conditions to choose the former, and can attack the place where the enemy must rescue, then you should attack the place where the enemy must rescue first.

It is really because Guan Yu has "no desires or requests" and he will not save you no matter where you attack him, so you have no choice but to use this last vicious option.

In Guo Jia's opinion, if it really came to that, he couldn't be blamed entirely. If there was anyone to blame, it should be Guan Yu's cowardice, who refused to take the initiative to jump out to fight and die, but insisted on retreating to defend the city and clear the fields. It was Guan Yu who forced him to do this.

Xiahou Yuan's moral bottom line is obviously much more flexible than Guo Jia's.

After listening to this, he skipped the moral considerations and started to discuss with Guo Jia how to proceed:
"In that case, we can first capture small places like Licheng and Zhuqi, and then try to besiege Tancheng or Quxian to see if we can force Guan Yu to come for a decisive battle in a short period of time?

If that is not possible and time does not allow, then we should forcibly relocate the people of several counties in Huaibei back west? In this way, we can force Guan Yu to go to war?"

Guo Jia thought about it and helped Xiahou Yuan further refine the plan: "I think the general can personally take charge of the situation and set up camp between Tancheng and Quxian.

Tancheng to Quxian is only 150 li from east to west. If they camped in the middle, they would only be 80 li away from each end, just within a day's journey for the cavalry. The general used the main force of 40,000 infantry to defend the middle, digging trenches and ramming earth to build fortifications, and 20,000 cavalry were divided into the east and west.

Guan Yu's cavalry is insufficient, so he will certainly not be able to hold on to any of our cavalry and defeat them one by one. Then our army can cut off the traffic between Tancheng, Quxian and Houqiu, making it impossible for them to support each other. Then we can see where there are obvious flaws, weak troops and Guan Yu is concerned about. Then we will move the whole army to slowly approach and besiege, and Guan Yu will definitely need to be rescued. "

Xiahou Yuan was marching on horseback, so he couldn't look at the map immediately.

However, he had been preparing for this battle for some time, and the general situation of the map of Donghai County and Xiapi County was already imprinted in his mind. After just a little imagination, Xiahou Yuan realized that Guo Jia's strategy was feasible.

"Okay, then I will adapt to the situation and set up camp in the middle between Tancheng and Quxian, 80 miles to each side. Then Zhang He will lead half of the cavalry to the west to encircle Tancheng, observe the enemy's movements, and cut off the enemy's retreat.

Then let Zang Basun lead half of the cavalry to encircle the south of Qu County to the east and cut off the enemy's route back to Qu County. See how Guan Yu reacts, and then make plans! If Guan Yu wants to bite any of our cavalry, our army must not fight to the end, and should use the advantage of the cavalry to quickly retreat and lure the enemy! "

(End of this chapter)