My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 562: A Fair Battle to Defeat Cao

With Wei Yan's cunning flanking attack and Zhang Fei and Gan Ning's fierce attack, the vanguard of Cao's army was finally in a precarious situation.

Cao's army was not as well-equipped as Liu Bei's army. Previously, they relied on the illusion of strength in numbers to maintain their morale.

As Liu Bei's army surrounded the enemy from both sides and launched a fierce attack, the attacking soldiers kept shouting "Cao has fallen into our trap! You are surrounded!" The defending team was inevitably shaken.

Many Cao soldiers began to sincerely believe: Is it true that their troops are inferior to the enemy? Have they really fallen into Zhuge Liang's trap?

Once this idea begins to emerge, combined with the Zhuge family's previous reputation, the military's morale will become more and more unstable.

Moreover, as the fighting continued, the physical disadvantage of Cao's army was gradually exposed - this morning, Cao's army continued to attack for a full three hours, until the hour of Wei, when they took a short rest for half an hour to eat dry food and drink water.

When Liu Bei's army launched a counterattack, Cao's army barely relied on inertia to regain their courage and fought for a while. However, as time passed, their courage gradually dissipated, and their shortcomings of physical exhaustion and unbearable heat were completely exposed.

In contrast, Liu Bei's soldiers had rested more fully, and their retreat was very orderly, so most of them had not used up much energy in the morning. Now that they were resting and fighting against the exhausted army, their advantage was naturally very obvious.

As Xu Huang's vanguard was defeated again by Zhang Fei, the morale of Cao's soldiers finally began to collapse. They tried to escape and then began to trample on each other.

Xu Huang tried his best to control the army, but he still couldn't. Wei Yan stabbed him hard in the waist from the side and behind. Even though Xu Huang was a famous general, he could only sigh helplessly.

……

At the same time, at the junction of Cao's vanguard and the central army, Le Jin's troops were fighting with Wei Yan's flank assault troops.

Le Jin tried his best to repel Wei Yan and reconnect the central army with the vanguard.

Because it was a matter of life and death, the desperate Cao army was willing to fight to the death, almost one after another, rushing towards Wei Yan's blocking position. Rows of soldiers fell in the bloody battle, and the follow-up troops still rushed forward regardless of the losses.

Wei Yan only had 4,000 men after all, and after being charged several times, his position became shaky. He wanted to do his best, but was so stubbornly fought by Le Jin, who had several times more troops than him, that Wei Yan finally recognized the situation and made a decisive decision.

He had to order the forwards who had been trying their best to penetrate and block the enemy to the north to retreat a little to keep the front line stable and avoid being surrounded and attacked if they were too exposed.

This slight retreat immediately reduced the pressure of the enemy attack on Wei Yan by more than half. Originally, many Cao troops just wanted to escape and reconnect with the central army. Now that Wei Yan gave them a little chance to survive, they naturally did not fight as hard as before.

The saying "Do not stop the returning army" is exactly this principle.

After repeated desperate struggles, Le Jin finally managed to connect the front army with the central army. How could he dare to continue fighting? Of course, he immediately rode his horse to Cao Cao and asked Cao Cao to break out first:
"Prime Minister! We don't know how many more ambushes the enemy has! General Xu in front can no longer withstand the fierce attack of Zhang Fei and Gan Ning. Prime Minister, please do not take any risks and retreat to the central army first!"

Cao Cao still wanted to hold on, and he knew that he was a little too arrogant today. In order to argue with Liu Bei and undermine his morale, he was a little too close to the front. Now suddenly retreating would inevitably lead to a further decline in the morale of the army.

Cao Cao rejected it resolutely: "No! Under such circumstances, if I retreat, it will surely harm the three armies!"

Le Jin urged: "If the Prime Minister is really worried about the situation, you can leave the big banners and flags in place and just retreat with light cavalry in plain clothes! The situation is urgent! I just fought a bloody battle and temporarily repelled Wei Yan's intercepting troops who were trying to block my way back!"

Cao Cao finally panicked. Seeing that his persuasion was effective, Le Jin winked at Xu Chu and said to him, "Xu Zhongkang! You are responsible for protecting the prime minister, are you so disloyal and unrighteous? You are not willing to bear this little infamy!
Everyone has their own strengths. The Prime Minister is busy with all kinds of affairs. How can he see clearly whether the situation is critical? You have been protecting the Prime Minister for nearly 20 years. Can't you judge for yourself? "

When Xu Chu was reminded of this, he immediately felt that the situation was indeed critical. The Prime Minister wanted to save face and refused to escape for his life, so he couldn't just let him do that.

In history, when Cao Cao was defeated at the Battle of Weishui, whether it was cutting off his beard and discarding his robe, or seizing a boat to avoid arrows, he was actually a little late in seeing the opportunity. Or, because Cao Cao was somewhat of a poet, he did not want to escape, and in the end he was dragged away by Xu Chu.

In this life, Cao Cao's fight against Ma Chao was much smoother. He did not have to go through such embarrassing situations as abandoning his robe and cutting his beard to seize a boat and avoid arrows. But now he was forced by Zhang Fei and Wei Yan, and the situation was critical. Xu Chu's talent for protecting his master was activated again.

He immediately grabbed Cao Cao, put him on his warhorse, and then led more than ten riders to clear the way and flee backwards.

In order to prevent the army from being disturbed, Xu Chu tore off Cao Cao's red robe and covered him with a gray and tattered robe to hide Cao Cao's identity.

"Zhongkang! Let me down! Our army has not been defeated yet!" Cao Cao shouted anxiously.

"Don't worry, Prime Minister! Once I get you to a safe place, I will naturally let you down and take command of the battle again!" Xu Chu ignored Cao Cao's shouting and directly protected him from Wei Yan's threat.

However, even if Xu Chu did it as secretly as possible, Cao Cao's retreat to the central army would still cause some additional instability in the front army.

Wei Yan on the opposite side was very sharp. Even if Cao Cao did not run away, he would try his best to shout and undermine the morale of Cao's army.

As the battle went on, Wei Yan accidentally made his own soldiers shout in unison, "The Cao thief is defeated! Cao Cao has escaped!" For a while, some of the Cao army soldiers who were fighting actually believed it, and the speed of collapse became faster and faster. Zhang Fei, Gan Ning, and Wei Yan worked together and quickly killed the Cao army's vanguard. Tens of thousands of Cao soldiers realized that the situation was hopeless, and swarmed along the gap in the battlefield that Wei Yan had not yet cut off to escape.

The three generals of Liu Bei's army took advantage of the situation to expand the victory. They pushed forward with determination, the sound of gongs and drums shook the sky, the shouts shook the valley, and the voices were heard for ten miles.

Xu Huang's army completely collapsed, and Xu Huang himself could only break out with a small number of cavalry, trampling on each other.

The Cao soldiers who were on the front line fighting with Zhang Fei and Gan Ning had no way to escape and could only kneel down and surrender in groups.

Cao's soldiers, who were stationed a little further back, were chased all over the mountains and plains as they tried to escape.

Seeing the front-line troops fighting vigorously, the second and third flank ambushes set up by Liu Bei's army in advance also rushed out from the forked valleys on the south side of Chencang Road under the command of generals such as Wang Ping. Like a tiger descending from the mountain, they cut off Cao's army bit by bit like cutting sausages.

All of Cao's troops that were surrounded lost their will to fight and quickly surrendered or fled in disarray.

Wang Ping's ambush strategy was actually similar to Wei Yan's, except that he set up the ambush earlier, having divided his troops to set up an ambush yesterday afternoon when Zhang Fei was retreating, which meant that he set up the ambush overnight and half a morning longer than Wei Yan.

However, Wang Ping's troops were smaller in number, and all of them were Bantun barbarian soldiers, who were more familiar with the terrain and more adaptable to the climate. It was not difficult to hide in a mountain valley at a dead-end road at least seven or eight miles away from the main road for a night.

It was not incredible that Cao's army was hidden on their flank for a whole day without being discovered.

At this moment, Wang Ping finally showed up, and took advantage of the opportunity that the friendly forces had already beaten Cao's army back, and fought a favorable battle to expand the results of the victory.

Creating new panic on the flank of Cao's army, making it impossible for Cao's army to stop retreating, can be said to be using the best steel on the blade.

"Impossible! This is impossible! How could I be defeated by Liu Bei head-on! This is all a despicable trick! My army is invincible in the world!" Cao Cao watched as new enemy reinforcements and new ambushes continued to appear on his left and right, while the soldiers in front of him had been cut off and were in disarray. He was completely stunned and could not believe what he saw.

But Xu Chu was already numb. All he could do was to use force to persuade Cao Cao to continue retreating to a safe position and not to put himself in danger again.

……

Liu Bei's army pursued and attacked fiercely, expanding their victory all the way, until it was completely dark, when they were forced to stop with a sense of unfulfilled desire.

The battle started at the end of the afternoon and the stalemate lasted for about half an hour. At 3:00 p.m., Wei Yan's ambush appeared. Within a quarter of an hour, Cao's army showed signs of defeat and began to fight and retreat.

The sky gets dark late in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and it is basically not completely dark until the end of the You hour, and it can last until the beginning of the Xu hour. Therefore, Liu Bei's army's frantic pursuit and fierce attack to expand the victory lasted for nearly two hours, which can be said to be very enjoyable and satisfying.

The entire army chased and fought, and chased Cao's army for more than thirty miles. Cao's army was completely unable to hold its ground, and directly lost all the positions that Zhang Fei had given up in the previous two and a half days while fighting and retreating.

In the end, Cao's army retreated to the vicinity of the old camp three days ago, that is, the old camp where Xu Huang and Pang De confronted Zhang Fei. Only then did they gain a firm foothold and rely on solid fortifications to temporarily resist the attack of Liu Bei's army.

Even so, Zhang Fei, Gan Ning, Wei Yan and other generals still drove away the rearguard troops of Cao's army who were trying to escape back to the camp, killing them so many corpses were everywhere and maximizing the losses caused by the infighting of Cao's army.

The final statistics showed that Cao Cao's main force had a total of 120,000 people. Except for a part of the rear army hiding in the back and setting up layers of defense, there were no losses. All the troops that Cao Cao sent to attack suffered extremely serious setbacks.

The troops led by Xu Huang and Le Jin in the attack suffered more than half their men, and the subsequent support and connection troops also suffered casualties.

In the end, Cao's army lost a total of 40,000 men, a third of Cao Cao's main force.

You know, Xiahou Yuan had lost five battles before and retreated 800 miles, which added up to a total loss of this many people.

When Pang De was killed and most of the Xiliang Army's vanguard defected, the total losses were only 20,000, which is only half of today's losses.

Considering the cramped environment of the battlefield, it was impossible to have a large-scale decisive battle, and they could only fight along the narrow contact surface of the valley. This result was already amazing. If it weren't for the presence of Wei Yan, Wang Ping and other ambushing generals, who cut off a few small dumplings, it would have been impossible to expect Zhang Fei and Gan Ning to fight from the front and annihilate 40,000 enemies.

Today's battle was the first duel between Cao Cao and Liu Bei. Forty thousand men were simply thrown away for nothing, and Cao Cao's energy was almost drained in an instant.

Moreover, compared with the loss of troops and manpower, the symbolic meaning of "Cao Cao personally led the army but still could not defeat Liu Bei" is more important.

After all, both sides still have hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, but once the courage of the three armies is taken away, the expectations of the people in the world will change, and various dissatisfactions will arise within Cao Cao.

Cao Cao's personal prestige had been seriously damaged.

(End of this chapter)