My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 360: Two top masters fight, and those who die are just spectators
"Miaocai lost territory in Donghai and Langya successively, and had to retreat to Pengcheng before he could stabilize it. Liu Bei's momentum has been very rapid recently, and he is really a big worry for me.

I didn't expect that just half a year after Yuan Shao's death, Liu Bei would become a threat no less than Yuan Shao. It's really like a tree that wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop. For now, what do you think the court should do to deal with the urgency and respond to the current problems? "

Cao Cao placed the report of Xiahou Yuan's defeat and the reports of victory sent by Zhong Yao and Zhang Ji on the desk and rubbed his temple with one hand.

I vaguely felt that the headache that had eased after the Battle of Guandu seemed to be getting worse again. This disease is really closely related to a person's mood. When the mental stress is high, it is easy to get a headache.

Xun Yu and Xun You had already fully understood the situation before they arrived, so they were not surprised by the progress of the war.

Xun Yu was still so mature and prudent, and advised Cao Cao not to lose the big picture for the sake of small things: "My lord, please do not think about the loss of the moment, but focus on the big and let go of the small, and make a concerted effort to attack the north first and then the south.

Our army's attack on Bingzhou was so smooth, on the one hand because of the cold weather, Taihang cut off the valley road between Ji and Bing, and Yuan Shang was unable to reinforce Gao Gan. On the other hand, it was also because the Yuan family had lost the support of the people in the north.

Due to the civil war between the two Yuans, the people of Hebei were in a panic and didn't know where to go. It seemed that the territory still belonged to the two Yuans. But in fact, as long as the imperial army marched north next year, except for Yecheng, they would be able to surrender after hearing the news.

In the past few months, I have also been secretly observing and collecting battle reports between the two Yuans in Hebei. I have observed that many of the generals in Hebei are unwilling to fight to the death.

From Lu Kuang, Lu Xiang, Jiao Chu to Ma Yan and Zhang Yi, when the imperial army marches north again, these people may all be available for competition. All you have to do is promise them high positions and generous salaries and ensure that they retain their military power.

There are also those Xianbei generals from Youzhou who surrendered to Yuan Shao because they wanted to kill Gongsun Zan to avenge Liu Yu, such as Qian Zhao and Yan Rou. They would not die for the Yuan family when they were in danger.

Therefore, the court's strategy of advancing northward after the beginning of next spring must not be changed. Even if Liu Bei might take advantage of the situation to attack Xuzhou, it would not affect the attack on Hebei.

In contrast, you should seek out people with extraordinary strategies and try to capture Yecheng as soon as possible and make a quick decision on Yuan Shang. Only by attacking Hebei quickly can we best protect the Xu and Huai directions. "

In the past few months, Xun Yu had thought a lot about how to resolve the problem of being attacked from both sides as soon as possible by attacking the north first and then the south, and he had already made a plan in his mind.

He also noticed that Cao Cao had been a little hesitant recently, worried that the interests he had already grasped would be loosened again, so he always thought about "this, this, and this". Xun Yu keenly reminded him to avoid this and to be decisive when necessary.

Historically, it took Cao Cao three years to attack Yecheng, but this does not mean that with Cao Cao's absolute strength, he really had to attack for three years. In the middle, he wasted a lot of time in order to provoke the two Yuans to fight internally and withdraw troops back and forth.

This is also because in history, Cao Cao did not need to rush. After Yuan Shao's death, he felt that the world had been settled, and there was no need to be so ugly as to completely destroy the mountains and rivers and turn them into a wasteland.

From this perspective, although Cao Cao was committing massacres in cities and writing poems such as "White bones are exposed in the wild, and no roosters crow for thousands of miles", he was not a purely brutal person like Dong Zhuo and Jue Si.

When Cao Cao was sure that a piece of land was in his hands, he would still protect it well, hoping to get it intact with as little loss as possible. This was fundamentally different from Li Jue and Guo Si, who did not cherish the land even after they got it and controlled it.

Cao Cao would not cherish those things that he could not get. After all, they belonged to others and he could just break them.

Therefore, with Liu Bei by his side in this life, Cao Cao must of course speed up.

Speeding up will definitely mean more casualties, as well as more unscrupulous means. While taking over territory, it is possible that the territory will be destroyed and more damage will be caused.

Cao Cao thought about it for a long time, and finally had to admit that Xun Yu was right.

"I have made up my mind. As for Jizhou, don't worry about the damage caused by war. The most important thing is to take it as quickly as possible. Does Wenruo have any good ideas for attacking?" Cao Cao looked at Xun Yu meaningfully.

"Attacking and killing are not my forte, I hope you can forgive me." Xun Yu did not want to come up with any specific tactical strategies that would require any means necessary, he was not good at it, so he graciously acknowledged the limitations of his abilities.

"Everyone has his own strengths. It's true that no one can be forced." Cao Cao seemed to have expected this result. He just laughed at himself and waved his hand to signal Xun Yu to leave.

After Xun Yu left, Xun You originally planned to follow him, but Cao Cao signaled him with his eyes to sit for a while.

Xun You wanted to pretend he didn't see it, but their eyes had already met in this subconscious glance. They were all smart people and knew they couldn't avoid it, so Xun You had no choice but to help come up with these bad ideas of exhausting the resources.

"Gongda is good at making extraordinary plans. If you have any tricks that can speed up the battle against Yuan Shang, you can teach me." Cao Cao dismissed his attendants and asked Xun You to sit closer to the front, leaving the front seat vacant for questioning.

Xun You thought for a long time and sighed, "If we want to achieve the goal in one battle, without considering other things, I am afraid that we will have to wait for the flood to rise in the spring of next year, and then dig the Zhang River to flood the city. Then, when the city becomes a swamp and the foundation of the city wall is softened, we can use boats to attack directly.

However, this method requires the secret gathering of a large number of laborers and auxiliary troops in advance, and the construction work must be carried out in advance. When the work is completed, the investment must be increased. In this way, when the fierce attack begins next year, it will inevitably have an impact on the military and civilian forces on other fronts. "

Cao Cao stroked his beard, struggled a little, and then agreed directly.

This is not surprising. In history, Cao's army conquered Ye City by using water. This strategy was also the joint contribution of Xun You and Cheng Yu.

The terrain of Yecheng is not high. Moreover, the location of the city was chosen for its convenient transportation. It is close to the Zhang River, so the potential for water attack is quite large.

Many large rivers on the North China Plain, such as the Yellow River, Zhangshui River, and Jishui River, also have the risk of "hanging rivers". Because the Hebei Plain is too flat, the river drop is too small, the water flow is too slow to wash away the silt, and the riverbed is prone to siltation. Over thousands of years, the water level of many rivers is higher than the cities along the river, and it is necessary to continuously raise and reinforce the embankments to protect the cities.

The history of flood control by building high river embankments in Zhangshui began in the Warring States Period when the Wei State "Ximen Bao governed Ye". This should be familiar to later readers, as we learned about it in elementary school Chinese textbooks. It has been more than 700 years since the end of the Han Dynasty. The river embankments of Zhangshui River have been raised from generation to generation, and the water level has been very alarming. It is normal that Xun You could think of this strategy in advance.

The only difference between the current situation and the same period in history is that in history, Cao Cao besieged Yecheng for more than a year, but he was forced to use water attack when he could not take it down. Now, he directly launched a big attack right from the start, leaving no chance at all.

It is true that "the big boss went directly to the Novice Village to block the door, not giving Yuan Shang the opportunity to kill monsters and level up."

This was also forced by Liu Bei.

Today's Cao and Liu are like Wanglaoji and Jiaduobao fighting each other to the death, and ended up washing out Heqizheng.

Another example is when Ouyang Feng and Hong Qigong competed in internal strength on the top of Mount Huashan, but each of them only needed to use one palm, and they both kept another palm as a backup, so that they could kill any third party who approached them at any time - after all, the real world is not a novel, and there is no situation where "two masters used up 100% of their internal strength and could not withdraw, and ended up both suffering losses and being taken advantage of by the third party who watched the fun."

Those are all made up by novelists for dramatic conflict. Who in the real world can get Yang Guo's life script? Even if you think you have replaced Yang Guo, when it comes to the real action, you will only find that you have actually got the wrong script of the Five Ugly Men in Tibet.

Cao Cao was a wise man. He was of course very clear-headed and knew his situation. He also knew how to deal with the priorities of the conflicts among all parties.

Xun You saw that Cao Cao had already adopted this strategy in principle. For the sake of his own personal historical reputation, Xun You had to give one more reminder:
"Although the water attack method can break the city, it will inevitably cause serious harm to the people. Yecheng is the heart of Jizhou, and it will definitely be severely damaged after this battle. And your reputation among the people of Hebei may also be affected...

If there are other wise men who can come up with another way to capture Yecheng and maintain the dignity of the court, that would be the best. I would rather not have this achievement."

Cao Cao slowly raised his hand to stop Xun You's explanation: "Unless it is absolutely necessary, I will not use this method easily. Anyway, there are at least three months to plan. I will not give up any hope of saving the people."

Both sides had come to this point, and it would be a bit too much to be hypocritical. Xun You was very tactful and shut up, and left in silence.

……

Cao Cao was forced by Liu Bei to take more radical measures to deal with the Yuan family. He had to take back from the Yuan family double what he had lost from Liu Bei, and he took advantage of the weak to gain advantage.

On the other hand, in the twelfth month of the same year, in Jiangxia County of Jingzhou, Liu Bei's mentality was quite similar to that of Cao Cao.

Although Liu Bei was the victorious party in the Battle of Donghai and Langya, he won the first large-scale frontal battle with Cao Cao and gained a territory of one and a half counties.

After receiving Guan Yu's victory report and Zhuge Jin's request, Liu Bei was extremely excited.

But his inner feeling that time is running out is similar to Cao Cao's.

Because he also couldn't stand the situation where "my lifelong enemy can defend the front and fight with me with only 70% of his strength, while his other hand can still kill a few weaklings with low health behind him to enhance his own strength."

Cao Cao only had to use more than half of his energy to hold him back, and then he could harvest high-ranking officials with a little more energy behind him. He could not find any flaws on the front battlefield for the time being, and could only watch Cao Cao expand his territory.

In Zhuge Jin's secret letter, he did find something for Liu Bei to do this winter, such as completely conquering Yuan Tan diplomatically, winning over the top advisers around Yuan Tan one by one, and ultimately ensuring that Yuan Tan was a puppet.

But Liu Bei felt that this matter would not require too much energy. As long as he gave Zhuge Jin full and absolute authorization, he, Guan Yu and Taishi Ci would be able to do it.

Liu Bei himself stayed in Jiangxia, where there was no room to deploy troops. After this year, Liu Biao's forces in Jingnan were almost eliminated. Lai Gong and Wu Ju had completely defected to Liu Bei after two years of subtle influencing and winning them over. There was no suspense anymore.

Therefore, Liu Bei also came up with the idea of moving the base. He did not want to stay in Jiangxia anymore. He wanted to move to a city that was closer to the front line and more convenient for him to coordinate the war situation, and set up his shogunate as the General of Chariots and Cavalry.

To this end, he also sought out Zhuge Liang to discuss the strategic deployment for this winter and the first half of next year, as well as the relocation of the shogunate.

-

PS: The above is more than 3,000 words. Normal updates will be resumed from today... There will be another update before dinner.

Also, regarding yesterday's comments, I would like to explain two points. I never said yesterday that "Yuan Shang had never known that Cao Cao had conquered Bingzhou", I just said that there was a delay of more than a month in the news. And I didn't write that Bingzhou had been conquered, only that Shangdang County had been conquered. So those who comment should not make up their own ideas and drag my description forward a big step to change the concept.

Secondly, we have learned in junior high school geography textbooks that my country's terrain has three levels. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the first level, the northern part of Shanxi and Shaanxi is the second level, and the Taihang Mountains between Shanxi and Hebei are the dividing line between the second and third levels.

Therefore, the area most seriously affected by the heavy snow blocking the mountains in winter is of course the area between Shanxi and Hebei. Between Shanxi and Shaanxi, the Fenshui and Qinshui River valleys are both passable, as they are both inside the second tier, not the boundary between the second and third tiers. There are routes to Taiyuan and Shangdang from Hedong and Hanoi in the winter. However, it is very difficult to get to Taiyuan and Shangdang from Yecheng.

For details, please see Baidu Maps/Earth.

Cao Cao's previous move of exchanging the four counties of Hejian for the land of Hedong was a conspiracy. He had already laid out a back-up plan, but Yuan Shang was short-sighted and didn't see it, or he saw it but didn't take care of it (I didn't explain this point in detail at the time, and as a result, not only Yuan Shang didn't see it, but some readers didn't see it either).

(End of this chapter)