My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 742: The problem is thrown to Cao Cao
In the early morning of September 20th, the sixteenth year of Jian'an.

This was about seven or eight days after Liu Bei’s military leaders made their decision.

Luoyang, inside the Prime Minister's Mansion.

Cao Cao, who had suffered from insomnia for a long time, woke up at four o'clock in the morning, then paced in the yard to relax. He also drew out his sword and practiced it for a few times before preparing to eat and handle official business.

After two and a half years of truce, Cao Cao, now 58 years old, has become completely gray-haired, and even his beard is only half black.

This appearance and mental state are very different from those of Liu Bei at the age of 52 - the Liu Bei in this time and space not only has no white hair, but even his thigh fat has not grown back, and he is in very good condition.

If a time traveler came and told Cao Cao at this time: Your health should be better than Liu Bei's, and your natural lifespan should be a few years longer than Liu Bei's.

He definitely wouldn't believe it.

All I can say is that desire makes people young and power makes people excited.

Originally, Cao Cao's increasing power and position made him more energetic. But when his future was as bleak as Liu Biao's, his health condition might be similar to that of Liu Biao in his later years.

Suspicion and fear can be triggered by external factors.

Cao Cao watched the sky gradually brighten, and slowly walked back to his study. As he got older, he was no longer used to having breakfast properly, because his biological clock rhythm had been disrupted due to insomnia, and when he felt hungry, it often did not correspond to mealtime.

So he would ask the maid to prepare some mung bean porridge and some strong-flavored pickled vegetables in the morning and bring them to the study. He would eat slowly while spreading out documents on the desk.

In short, there was basically no freshly cooked hot food for the meal at dawn. At most, there was some porridge or soup that had been kept warm on the charcoal basin. It had been stewed for at least a night and was very mushy.

This level of exquisiteness of life is inferior to Liu Bei, who loved beautiful clothes and delicious food, and is also much worse than Cao Cao himself when he was young.

Cao Cao had just finished his porridge and washed his hands with the help of his maid. The attendant waiting outside the door saw the opportunity and came in to whisper:

"Prime Minister, the Chief Clerk Sima wants to see you. He said there are some rumors about the enemy..."

Cao Cao frowned slightly, but soon returned to normal. Without saying a word, he waved his hand gently, gesturing for someone to be brought in.

The Sima Changshi he mentioned is naturally Sima Yi who has emerged in recent years.

Sima Yi's elder brother Sima Lang was originally more trusted by Cao Cao and had more experience. However, Sima Lang was not good at strategy after all, so he could only govern by the right way. In history, in his later years, he was transferred by Cao Cao to be the governor of Yanzhou and sent to the local area.

Now, Sima Lang's trajectory is not much different from the same period in history, and he was also exiled by Cao Cao. Sima Yi, because he rose faster and helped Cao Cao do the dirty work in many major events before, was able to take over the position of his elder brother Sima Lang, and even went a step further.

Before Sima Lang was sent out, he had not even become the prime minister's chief secretary.

It can only be said that different situations require different people. In the past two and a half years, the careers of many high-ranking officials in Caoying have also undergone great changes.

The situation Cao Cao faced in this life was more critical and tense, and he had to be more unscrupulous in his response. It was easier for people like Jia Xu and Sima Yi to be promoted and reused.

Sima Yi was brought in quickly. After seeing Cao Cao, he exchanged a few greetings and reported in a low but clear voice:
"Prime Minister! In the past two days, the commanders of Ye County and Liang County have reported that Liu Bei is secretly gathering troops in Bowang and Luyang across the way..."

Sima Yi chose his words very carefully and did not make his own judgment immediately. Instead, he first told Cao Cao the verifiable objective facts.

After working together for several years and serving Cao Cao in making decisions, Sima Yi had a good understanding of the Prime Minister's character.

The prime minister is suspicious, and when encountering small matters, he may be willing to let his subordinates give a preliminary judgment to save his own brainpower.

But when it comes to important military secrets, the prime minister absolutely does not want his subordinates to give him the answer first. He must think about it first and think about it independently without any external judgment or interference.

If anyone expresses his opinion first, even if it is just a preliminary insight, and interferes with the prime minister's thinking, he will be more or less disliked by the prime minister.

After hearing this, Cao Cao was indeed not in a hurry to ask Sima Yi for his opinion. Instead, he rubbed the acupuncture points on the bridge of his nose, as if to relax his eyes, and then murmured softly:
"Xuan De finally couldn't sit still anymore and wanted to go to war with me again? But two days ago, the school officials and the spies reported that Liu Bei was trapped in the persistent resistance of the local natives in Yizhou and Youzhou, which tied up a lot of his troops and he has not been able to escape yet?

In comparison, our army recovered Hetao and subdued the Xianbei earlier and faster than Liu Bei dealt with the four barbarians, and our army has now received more rest than the enemy.

Time should be on Liu Bei's side. If I were Liu Bei, I would definitely delay it for a few more months until he has completely cleaned up and rested before we fight again."

Liu Bei's army had been spreading news and intelligence for a while, so Cao Cao had heard rumors two days before that Liu Bei's army was stuck in a quagmire in the northeast and southwest.

Of course, it was just a rumor, and Cao Cao didn't believe it at all. Moreover, only a few channels reported this rumor to Cao Cao, such as Sima Yi.

Cao Cao had other intelligence channels, but they did not respond at all at the time. Perhaps they had not heard of it, or perhaps they heard of it but thought it was unreliable and too bizarre, so they did not report it at all.

But today, Sima Yi brought him newer news, and this new news was obviously in conflict with the old news. Cao Cao had to point out the logical problems in it and asked Sima Yi to give him an explanation.

This is like two people fighting, one of them has rested enough after the previous fight, while the other has just finished fighting and has not rested yet, and is even still cleaning up the enemy. At this time, the one who rested less will definitely hope that the next fight will be postponed until he has rested enough.

Who wants to be attacked by the enemy? This is unreasonable.

However, since Sima Yi dared to come and ask for a meeting today, he was obviously well prepared and had already thought of his words in his mind.

"Prime Minister, I think that Liu Bei's army might be stuck in the quagmire in the northeast and southwest, which does not contradict their gathering of heavy troops in the direction of Nanyang."

Cao Cao raised his eyebrows slightly: "Oh? Please tell me in detail."

Sima Yi said with a smile: "Liu Bei should also know that the situation he is currently using troops in two places is not as good as expected, so Yizhou and Youzhou may be left empty.

Even if Yizhou was slightly empty, the imperial army would have little chance to take advantage of it. This was because the Qinling Mountains were dangerous and had been proven time and again. As long as Liu Bei left enough troops in Hanzhong who were good at mountain warfare, he could stop General Wen Lie from marching south with his troops from Guanzhong.

However, if Youzhou was really empty and was really exhausted and burdened by the expedition to the barbaric lands in the northeast, the imperial court might launch a counterattack on the You and Ji plains and completely cut off Liu Bei's northeastern lands.

It was for this reason that Liu Bei had to gather heavy troops in Jing and Yu in order to launch an attack and tie down the main force of the imperial court. This way, the imperial court would have no spare energy to attack the northeast.

In fact, the prime minister should have seen it clearly a long time ago, but he just didn't say it - the main force of the court did fight Liu Bei repeatedly in northern Jing, and finally suffered heavy losses and had to retreat.

But that was not because Jingbei was the best battlefield for the war between the imperial court and Liu Ni, but because Liu Biao had just died and Jingbei was empty. The imperial court and Liu Ni had to seize this place and could not let the other side take over several fertile counties.

But now, northern Jing has been pacified by Liu Ni, and the Nanyang Basin is completely occupied by him. Between the imperial court and him, there are dangerous passes such as the Funiu Mountains and the Tongbai Mountains.

Although these dangerous passes are not as steep as the Qinling Mountains and Taihang Mountains, they are still much easier to defend than the flat plains of You and Ji. Therefore, from then on, if the imperial court and Liu Ni wanted to fight again, the best battlefield would be You and Ji.

Liu Bei wanted to start a war in northern Jing again in order to "besiege Wei to save Zhao", attack the place that the court must rescue, and buy time for Zhao Yun because his northeastern combat power originally wanted to quickly defeat Fuyu, but was finally held back because of the remote and dangerous border.

Because Liu Bei's territory was narrower and longer than that of the imperial court, it was difficult for him to take care of both ends. If something happened in Youzhou and Jizhou in the northeast, it would be difficult for the garrisons of other states to quickly bypass and reinforce. Even if they did, Youzhou was cold and had little food, which was not enough to support the long-term stationing of heavy troops. Sooner or later, they would have to retreat due to transportation consumption.

Therefore, for Liu Bei, the best way to save You and Ji is not to go there directly, but to open up a battlefield somewhere else directly, so that he can save the cost of transporting troops and food. The troops stationed in each state can attack the court's states and counties wherever they eat food. "

Sima Yi's additional explanation finally made his argument completely consistent.

After hearing this, Cao Cao couldn't help but nodded.

Indeed, this logic points out two key points, that is, "Liu Bei's territory is narrower and longer than Cao Cao's."

Today, the arable land and population owned by Cao and Liu are still about 50-50, with a difference of less than 10%. At most, Cao Cao has 4.5 and Liu Bei has 5.5.

However, the actual total land area occupied by Liu Bei, that is, including the undeveloped areas, is definitely much larger than that of Cao Cao. Because the development level of the south was relatively low during the Eastern Han Dynasty, in other words, Liu Bei's territory was obviously more vast and sparsely populated.

In addition, Liu Bei's territory was in a long crescent shape from southwest to northeast, surrounding Cao Cao's territory.

Cao Cao's jurisdiction was even more "solid", with the northwest of the world behind it, and seven solid states squeezed together.

Therefore, Cao Cao had an obvious advantage in terms of efficiency in the assembly and dispatch of troops. His large troop groups could fight on the interior lines and move troops to wherever there was a shortage. However, if Liu Bei wanted to resist in a targeted manner, he had to go around in a big circle, and his transportation conditions were not as good as Cao Cao's.

Of course, Liu Bei also had a backup guarantee in terms of transportation, that is, he could use sea transportation. Now Liu Bei occupied the entire coastline of the Han Dynasty, while Cao Cao was a landlubber hiding inland.

If Liu Bei makes full use of sea transportation and supports each other along the entire coastline, he can also make up for the shortcomings in external operations to a certain extent.

However, Cao Cao had never encountered the sea and had no chance to write "Viewing the Sea" in his lifetime, so his knowledge and understanding of sea transportation must have been relatively superficial. Cao Cao could never fully imagine to what extent Liu Bei could use this factor.

This is not a problem of intelligence, but a human being cannot fully evaluate something that he has never actually seen. Moreover, the transmission of information in ancient times was so slow, and there were no other channels for scientific and technological information.

Taking all these factors into consideration, it is not surprising that Cao Cao ultimately felt that Sima Yi's analysis was indeed reasonable.

“It seems that if we had seen the opportunity earlier, as soon as we heard that Liu Bei might be empty in You and Ji, we would have concentrated our forces and attacked Bohai to eliminate Zhou Yu. This might have been a good opportunity... Unfortunately, we missed it.

However, things are unpredictable. Before the Battle of Jingbei, our army launched a feint attack in Guanzhong and Bohai. As a result, Wen Lie led Guo Huai in the feint attack, but was defeated by Ma Chao, and Guo Huai was also killed.

At that time, Jun Yi also led his troops to attack Bohai, but was defeated by Zhou Yu, and his partner Lü Kuang was also killed. In the two battles in the east and west, 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers were killed! How can we ensure that this is not another trick of Liu Bei to lure the enemy, so that the main force of the court can take the initiative to attack, and then they can take advantage of the defensive battle to inflict heavy damage on our army! "

(Note: That was before Liu Biao died. If you have forgotten, you can go back and read the plot around Chapter 632, which is more than chapters ago. Some book friends reminded me that my book is quite ruthless and the later historical changes are quite drastic. So when I encounter a major node in history that was changed or chapters ago, I will remind you and give you a portal when you use it later, so that everyone will not forget the prerequisites and fail to connect.)
Cao Cao's doubts were reasonable and not excessive.

If Sima Yi had made that suggestion three or four years ago, Cao Cao would have definitely accepted it in its entirety, and would have felt that he had missed a good opportunity to attack Bohai County and cut off the land communication between Youzhou under Liu Bei's rule and Qingxu.

But the problem is that Sima Yi's suggestion was only made now. Cao Cao's camp had made a mistake in this regard three or four years ago. Guo Huai died and Lü Kuang was defeated. The loss was not small.

Success will form path dependence, and failure will also form path dependence.

People always hold on to their successful experiences, but are also paranoid about the lessons of their failures. Once bitten by a snake, they become afraid of ropes for ten years.

Sima Yi knew that this question was difficult to answer, and he alone could not change the prime minister's mind. Given his position, there was no need for him to make every effort to change it.

So, after taking a few deep breaths, he expressed his concession just right:
"What the Prime Minister said is very true. I am not completely sure. Liu Bei was indeed left with nothing in You and Ji before. If our army had attacked Bohai immediately, we would have succeeded.

The victory or failure of a war is not determined by seizing the opportunity. It also depends on whether the soldiers at the front are willing to fight and whether they can respond appropriately to the situation. After all, the calculations made thousands of miles away are just the foundation.

But I would like to say that if the Prime Minister still wants to pacify Liu Bei without taking any risks, that is already... extremely difficult, after all, Liu Bei's potential is already established.

The main force of the imperial court in the battle against Liu Bei was nothing more than the three routes of east, west and center. The west route had been proven to be impossible to cross the Qinling Mountains. The center route only became the best choice temporarily because Liu Biao died of illness.

Now that there are no third-party princes to hold back the world, if the Prime Minister wants to attack Liu Bei, Youji will always be the best choice in the future. If you try your best there and still can't win... I'm afraid you will be even more defeated in other battlefields."

When Sima Yi finished speaking, he realized that he had sounded a little too straightforward, so he took off his hat and kowtowed to show his respect.

When Cao Cao first heard him say this, he was a little angry.

After all, Sima Yi's subtext is already quite explicit. It simply means "he feels that there is no problem with his strategies and the general direction is correct. Even if the execution is not good, it is because the front-line generals fought poorly, not because of poor planning."

In terms of planning, there is no better plan! The hard power of Cao Cao's camp is there, what else can be done?
Sima Yi's words actually had some similar meaning to Zhuge Liang's "The Second Letter to the Emperor" in the original history.

In Zhuge Liang's "The Second Letter to the Emperor", there was a helpless lament, "However, if we do not attack the enemy, the king's cause will also be lost. Rather than just sitting and waiting for death, why not attack them? That is why I entrust you with my trust and do not doubt you."

As the relatively weaker party, if they continue to drag it out, they will eventually die a chronic death, just sitting and waiting to die, "sitting and waiting to die."

It is better to give it a try. Even if you cannot win, the offensive decision makers should not be blamed. It is not a decision-making problem.

Cao Cao slowly pondered Sima Yi's words, and for a moment, he was actually moved by Sima Yi's "loyalty".

Yes, in the past two and a half years, the strength of the enemy and us has changed. What a huge reversal has taken place?

However, in the Luoyang court, how many confidants dared to tell Cao Cao openly that "the enemy is strong and we are weak now, and the time has come for our army to give it a try"?
No, in the past two and a half years, no one dared to offend Cao Cao - this may also be because the power gap between Cao and Liu was not obvious at that time.

Although Liu Bei's military strength increased by at least 20% after two and a half years of farming, because the battle had not yet begun, everyone was still thinking about the problem based on the old calendar from two and a half years ago, and had a unclear understanding of the enemy's real strength changes. When everyone chatted, it was still based on the pre-set background of "Cao and Liu are 50-50".

This time, Sima Yi made a bitter remonstrance in private and pointed out the truth. At the same time, this was an occasion where Cao Cao would not be publicly embarrassed. Moreover, everything he asked for and said was for the public good. Even though Cao Cao was suspicious, he felt that Sima Yi was truly loyal and righteous.

"It doesn't have to be that serious! You get up first! I won't blame you for telling the truth! If I do that, I will become like Yuan Benchu, who won't listen to honest advice that may be unpleasant to the ear!"

Cao Cao waved his sleeves generously, telling Sima Yi that he didn't need to apologize. Sima Yi also stood up properly, but his expression was still respectful and serious.

Cao Cao stood up, walked in front of him, patted Sima Yi on the shoulder, and then asked gently: "In Zhongda's opinion, now that things have come to this, how should the court respond to Liu Bei's possible attack?

The opportunity for war on the northern front should have been completely missed, right? Now, should we gather heavy troops in the southern front, around the Huai River, Tongbai Mountain, and Funiushan Mountain, to deal with Liu Bei's possible "encircle Wei to save Zhao"? "

Sima Yi was very tactful and did not show off at this time. Instead, he said calmly and modestly: "This matter is of great importance. The Prime Minister can summon the Shangshu Ling, Yushi Dafu and others to discuss it. How dare I, a senior official, speak nonsense!"

Cao Cao thought about it and didn't think it was wrong, so he asked people to find Xun Yu, Xun You, Jia Xu and others, and asked them to come and see him to discuss the strategy for preparing for war against Liu Bei.

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PS: Sorry, I was dragged by a book friend to watch the new movie about the Battle of Cheorwon yesterday... and we also had a dinner together, so I was delayed for half a day.

(End of this chapter)