My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 754 If you want to prove that you are stronger than Dong Zhuo, you have to accept the meat grinder

To put it bluntly, the rumor plan that Zhuge Liang came up with for Liu Bei is actually very easy to understand.

He took advantage of the fact that people tend to learn from history and squeezed Cao Cao out.

Back then, Dong Zhuo relied on Xu Rong to defend Yangcheng and Chenggao, and defeated Sun Jian and Cao Cao successively, but in the end he still abducted the emperor because of his cowardice.

At that time, no one thought about the question "If Dong Zhuo was not cowardly and saw that the territories outside Luoyang were defended, could he succeed in staying in Luoyang?"

But now, Zhuge Liang, through the rumor plan, has aroused the curiosity of scholars in the vicinity of Luoyang and even in the entire Henan Yin territory, causing everyone to involuntarily deduce and hypothesize.

In this way, everyone will naturally think: If Cao Cao is not as good as Dong Zhuo in military affairs and cannot even defend Yangcheng, will Cao Cao's fate in the future be worse than Dong Zhuo's? Will those who support Cao Cao now still work hard for him?
Once this kind of association spreads, the damage to people's hearts will be extremely terrible.

Moreover, there is a very vicious point about this set of rumors, which is that suddenly so many people started to spread the deeds of "Xu Rong" and even compared Xu Rong and Xu Huang.

Xu Rong was a member of Dong Zhuo's camp who defeated Sun Jian and Cao Cao successively. Cao Cao himself witnessed this incident. His horse was shot to death by arrows from Xu Rong's army. In the end, Cao Cao was able to escape death because Cao Hong gave his horse to Cao Cao.

This contrast was too slapping, and it forced Cao Cao to defend Yangcheng, which was located outside the three passes south of Luo and had a less dangerous terrain.

The military value of Yangcheng itself is not great, but with this kind of setting off, its political symbolic value becomes huge, and Cao Cao cannot afford to lose it.

Can Xu Huang compare to Xu Rong of that year?
Can Cao Cao compare to Dong Zhuo of that time?
Cao Cao must prove himself!
But to prove it, how many troops should be sent to this tiny city of Yangcheng?

Originally, if we put 20,000 to 30,000 troops at each pass, we might be able to defend the three passes of Luonan. Now we have to send an additional force to defend Yangcheng, which is not very important. Wouldn't we have to tie up at least 50,000 more troops?

Unfortunately, Cao Cao had no reserve troops to draw on.

When things developed to this point, Cao Cao, in despair, had no choice but to grit his teeth and make a temporary decision that went against his ancestors.

Pull the offensive troops from the Hebei war zone back to Luoyang! Pull the garrison troops in Luoyang to Yangcheng, and give Xu Huang a death order that he must defend Yangcheng and not retreat even a single step! Give as many soldiers as you need! Even if it means turning into a meat grinder, we must defend it!

The political significance of this battle was too great. Cao Cao wanted to use it to prove that he was at least as good as Dong Zhuo in militarily dealing with the anti-Dong coalition forces, and that he was also more resolute than Dong Zhuo politically. In this way, people all over the world would continue to unite around him.

After Cao Cao made up his mind, he decided to do it.

He also had some confidants or old friends who had known him for many years (such as Xun Yu) who tried to persuade him about this, but without exception they were rejected by Cao Cao.

These persuasions may be correct in military terms, but they are too wrong in politics. Cao Cao has been completely bound by political considerations. Even if his choice is not the most cost-effective in military terms, he can only go all the way.

He didn't intend to discuss this matter with anyone.

Of course, Cao Cao still had to look at the actual situation before carrying out the specific plan.

For example, he would send people to Hebei to check the battle situation and see what the recent progress of Xiahou Dun, Zhang He and Gao Lan was.

If Xiahou Dun and Zhang He were making good progress and were just one step away from success, and Zhou Yu was on his last breath, then Cao Cao might have gritted his teeth a little longer and allowed Xiahou Dun to accomplish his goal.

This gritting of teeth may last for ten days or eight days, or even half a month, but there must be a deadline.

But if Xiahou Dun is still a long way from a decisive victory and needs a long siege, then he will have no choice but to withdraw part of the troops.

……

After Cao Cao made the decision, he quickly sent his trusted aide as an envoy to Hebei to inspect the war situation.

Considering that Jia Xu was assisting Cao Ren in defending Yuzhou in Xu County, and Xun Yu, as the Shangshu Ling, could not easily leave the central government,

Moreover, Xun Yu and Xun You were from the same family, and Xun You was beside Xiahou Dun. If Xun Yu's people were asked to inquire whether Xiahou Dun and Zhang He could achieve a decisive victory in the short term, there was a possibility of transferring benefits and deceiving superiors and subordinates.

So after repeated screening, Cao Cao could only let Sima Yi do this task and asked Sima Yi to go to Hejian and Pingyuan to see the progress in Hebei firsthand.

An expedited courier could travel at the fastest speed of 600 miles a day, but Sima Yi was obviously not a professional courier, and he did not have the physical fitness or horsemanship, so he could only keep going to post stations to change horses along the way.

The journey was less than 300 li a day, and it took a total of five days to get from Luoyang to the Bohai Army.

Before Sima Yi arrived, a professional messenger arrived first and roughly informed Xiahou Dun of the situation in Yuzhou and Sili, asking Xiahou Dun to prepare for troop deployment and think about how to "report his work" in advance.

So when Sima Yi arrived, Xiahou Dun had already come to receive him personally with a solemn and rather indignant look. Zhang He, who was in charge of attacking the front line, was also called back to Dongguang County by Xiahou Dun to report to Sima Yi.

Seeing this scene, Sima Yi did not dare to be arrogant. He dismounted from his horse from a distance and paid great respect to Xiahou Dun.

Sima Yi knew very well what kind of important figure Xiahou Dun was. Even though he was now valued by the prime minister, he would never dare to put on airs in front of the Cao family and the Xiahou family.

Xiahou Dun was originally holding his anger in his heart, because he felt that Sima Yi was helping the prime minister to take back the military power in Hebei.

But seeing Sima Yi being so humble, Xiahou Dun didn't want to hit someone who smiled at him, and his anger subsided a little.

Regardless of Sima Yi's other abilities, he was the best in the world at pretending to be low-key and harmless.

In this unique niche field, even Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang have to admit defeat.

Once someone of Sima Yi's rank uses all his skills to lick someone, he will definitely feel comfortable doing so.

At the welcoming banquet, Sima Yi said that he was helpless and had no choice but to do what he was assigned to do. On the other hand, he also boasted about the proud achievements of Xiahou Dun and Zhang He.

Moreover, Sima Yi was not just bragging against his conscience, he also did his homework. For example, he knew that Xiahou Dun had never won any battles in his life. If he directly boasted about his military achievements and charged into battle, Xiahou Dun would definitely hate him.

Therefore, Sima Yi specifically boasted about Xiahou Dun's achievements in local governance, bragging about how the people were impressed wherever he went. He also boasted about Xiahou Dun's strategic vision, his knowledge of the overall situation, and his ability to serve the overall interests of the prime minister's hegemony over the years.

After being flattered so subtly and meticulously by Sima Yi during the banquet, Xiahou Dun quickly lost his wariness and hostility and told him the truth about the current situation on the battlefield in Hebei.

Sima Yi finally learned the truth from Xiahou Dun. He knew that Zhang He was still besieging Nanpi, and Zhou Yu was very tenacious. Zhang He's efforts always seemed to be just a little short of breaking through. Moreover, as time entered the late November, the Zhang River and the Yi River also began to freeze. (It was mid-November when Sima Yi set out from Luoyang to pass on the order. After arriving at the front line of Bohai County and conducting a preliminary inspection, it was already the end of the month.)

As winter deepens, it becomes increasingly difficult for the attacking side. Soldiers have been stationed and fighting on the wild land of the Hebei Plain for a long time, and the non-combat casualties are increasing.

The number of people who suffer direct frostbite and those who have difficulty recovering from combat injuries due to severe cold and lack of supplies are increasing day by day.

As for the defending side, because the Zhang River was completely cut off and frozen, there was no possibility of reinforcement from the water. Zhou Yu himself certainly had no ability to counterattack or break out, so he could only wait for the next spring.

Of course, if there were other troops in Liu Bei's camp, it would still be possible to counterattack by land to reinforce Zhou Yu.

But now it was freezing cold, and Liu Bei's army had not been able to get out of the mire in the autumn before, so how could they get out now when it was the coldest? Even if Zhao Yun's cavalry was withdrawn from Buyeo and Goguryeo, the horses would not be able to get fodder if they attacked in this season, and the losses would be very great.

After considering various factors, Sima Yi finally persuaded Xiahou Dun in a tactful way and asked Xiahou Dun to follow Cao Cao's instructions and temporarily withdraw half of the manpower in the Hebei war zone and return to the Henan battlefield to plug the leaks.

Sima Yi also gave Xiahou Dun some advice: Even if he only left half of his troops and was unable to break through Zhou Yu by force, it was completely possible to maintain a divided encirclement of Nanpi and Tianjin.

Zhang He had been besieging the city for a month or two, and barracks and corridors had been built outside the city. With the support of these increasingly solid fortifications, a small number of troops could block Zhou Yu and let him starve for another two months. Maybe by then there would be a turning point on the southern front.

In order to strengthen Xiahou Dun's determination, Sima Yi finally taught Zhang He a little trick to temporarily reinforce the siege fortifications.

"If you are still worried, General, I have a plan that can make our camp surrounding Nanpi even stronger, enough to ensure that Zhou Yu cannot cross the border throughout the winter.

I looked at General Zhang's camp and found that it had built a long wall with rammed earth and the excavated earth formed a trench. At night, river water could be poured on the earth wall. As it is cold and frozen today, by dawn the earth wall would have frozen into an ice wall, and its strength would have increased by several times, and it would have become increasingly slippery and difficult to climb.

The excess river water that is not frozen will flow into the dry trench in front of the wall, forming an ice slope at the bottom of the trench, making the enemy's feet slip when charging, and the battle will inevitably be chaotic and trampled on each other. With these tricks, why worry about not being able to seal Zhou Yu? "

Sima Yi spoke eloquently, explaining the little techniques of building fortifications and blockades one by one.

In this life, Cao Cao and Ma Chao did not fight a battle of equal strength at Tongguan as in the original history. Therefore, Cao Cao did not use the technique of pouring ice water on the wall to form an ice barrier in the process of fighting against Ma Chao.

Sima Yi thought of this trick and used it flexibly, which was considered a new method. Xiahou Dun and Zhang He were both enlightened when they heard it, thinking that they had gained an extra secret method to gain an advantage on the battlefield.

"Zhongda has put in a lot of effort. I am not unaware of the court's difficulties. Let's do this according to the Prime Minister's instructions. I will personally return to Yecheng and send half of the troops in Hebei to Henan for reinforcement."

Xiahou Dun finally expressed his position, and then ordered the army to make preparations immediately and try to return as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, Cao's army was fighting on its own territory, so there was no need to dispatch military supplies. The troops could eat wherever they went, so the preparation time before departure was relatively short.

Xiahou Dun's troops still had a lot of supplies that had not been eaten or used up, but he would not take them back, so he left them directly to Zhang He and Gao Lan. At most, he would not transport food and supplies to Zhang He's army for the next two months, and let Zhang He eat the remaining stocks of the withdrawn friendly forces.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it avoided the hardship of transporting supplies to the front line in Hebei during the cold winter months.

However, just two days when Xiahou Dun was preparing to withdraw his troops, another piece of bad news came from the south, which made Xiahou Dun even more anxious and forced him to speed up the process.

It turned out that on November 20th, a battle report was transmitted to the Hebei front, saying that Cao's army had suffered another defeat in the Huaibei battlefield.

The enemy of this attack was Guan Yu's troops who set out from Hefei and Shouchun. The specific date of the attack was the beginning of November.

Twenty days after Zhang Fei took action, Guan Yu finally crossed the Huai River from Shouchun to the north, entered the Woshui River, a tributary of the Huaibei River, and then went upstream along the Woshui River to attack the heartland of Qiao County.

The eastern part of Qiao County along the Woshui River mainly includes Longkang, Qixian, Zhuyi, Fuli and other counties.

Most of the audience should be familiar with this battlefield, because Cao Ren and Zhao Yun fought several tug-of-war battles on the Fuli battlefield. The last battle of Gaixia, fought by Xiang Yu before his death, was also located not far from Fuli.

This place is roughly located south of Pengcheng County in Xuzhou controlled by Liu Bei and north of Hefei Shouchun in Huainan. It is a bulge surrounded by Woshui, Suishui and Huaihe Rivers.

The east, south and north sides of this territory are all occupied by Liu Bei's camp, and only the west side is connected to the area controlled by Cao Cao.

In previous years, Liu Bei never took action against the Fuli area because the total military strength and paper strength of Liu Bei's camp were not as good as Cao Cao's at that time. Therefore, Liu Bei did not want to occupy an undefended plain in Huaibei, for fear of being dragged into a meat grinder by Cao's army and continuing a war of attrition.

But after many years, the situation has long been reversed. When the truce was called three years ago, Liu Bei's strength on paper had already caught up with Cao Cao. Now that another three years have passed, Liu Bei's total strength on paper exceeds Cao Cao's camp by at least a quarter.

Therefore, the consideration of "fear of fighting a war of attrition on the great plains and being trapped in a meat grinder" no longer exists for Liu Bei. Instead, it is Cao Cao who needs to be vigilant and avoid the meat grinder.

Since the offensive and defensive situations were different, Liu Bei ordered Guan Yu to go north from Shouchun and head straight north to Pengcheng, and swallow up all the counties occupied by Cao Cao to the east of the line connecting Shouchun and Pengcheng. This was just a foregone conclusion and was not worth making a fuss about.

It took Guan Yu only a dozen days to achieve this small goal of the first stage, and the whole process was extremely easy. Cao's army did not choose to make unnecessary sacrifices on the vast plain with no strategic location to defend, and they retreated as soon as they saw that they could not hold on.

Four counties along the route were drilled through, and Xiao County and Hong County to the east of this connecting line surrendered without a fight. From the map, the easternmost one-third of Cao Cao's hometown Qiao County was taken by Guan Yu within half a month.

Guan Yu also launched an offensive and occupied one-third of Cao's counties. This bad news was the last straw that forced Xiahou Dun to withdraw his troops quickly to save the situation.

Xiahou Dun didn't even bother to pack up his weapons and food, and directly urged the part of the army that could be withdrawn to withdraw as soon as possible. They forced their way back to Yecheng, and then rested in Yecheng for only one day before rushing to Liyang to cross the Yellow River to reinforce Cao Cao.

……

Xiahou Dun finally left, taking with him at least 50,000 to 60,000 new troops from Hebei.

Naturally, this information was quickly discovered by Zhou Yu in Nanpi City. Although Zhou Yu could not break out of the siege and report the news to the friendly forces, he firmly believed that the friendly forces would find out the situation themselves.

The performance of the friendly generals did not disappoint Zhou Yu's expectations.

Only three days later than Zhou Yu, the news of Xiahou Dun's withdrawal reached Ji County, the capital of Youzhou, and reached the desks of Zhuge Jin and Zhao Yun.

It's time to take action.

(End of this chapter)