My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 803: Unprecedented Luxurious Lineup

Cao Cao carried out all these operations to conceal the truth and replace the original with the new, trying to temporarily retain the useful people and stabilize the position of the Qin Dynasty. It must have taken at least four or five days.

Of course, Liu Bei's camp on the opposite side would not wait for him for four or five days.

Ever since Zhou Yu and Zhao Yun successfully landed and released Zhang Fei and Wei Yan outside Hulao Pass, Liu Bei's army's offensive has become faster and more vigorous day by day.

If it weren't for the fact that there was still a distance of 150 miles from Chenggao to Luoyang, and if there were not two counties that he had to pass through along the way, namely Gongxian and Yanshi, which gave Cao Cao a certain buffer space of "trading space for time", he would probably not have been able to hold on until he could safely withdraw from Luoyang.

Zhou Yu landed on the eighth day of August. When he and Zhao Yun worked together to kill Cao Zhen, it was already evening. They could not do much at night and had to rest well.

It was early in the morning of the ninth day that they began to turn back and attack Hulao Pass. After a day or two of operation and fighting, the details of which need not be elaborated, on the evening of the tenth day, Zhang Fei and Wei Yan entered the pass.

Then Liu Bei's army spent another day cleaning up the battlefield, eliminating the remaining enemies and opening up the food supply route. On August 12, they turned back and attacked Chenggao County.

When Cao's army in Chenggao heard that Hulao Pass was indeed lost, Zhou Yu showed the head of the commander of Hulao Pass to the Cao's army in Chenggao. The Chenggao defenders, who were beaten badly, were completely discouraged and surrendered.

Counting the days, Chenggao County lasted only four days, which was enough to repay Cao Cao's kindness.

On August 13, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun took the lead and advanced towards Gong County. At the same time, they sent people to the north bank of the Yellow River to report the victory, telling the lord that the army had firmly captured two county towns on the south bank and was now advancing to the third county town along the way, Gong County. By the way, they asked the lord, the prime minister, and the prime minister for any instructions on adjustments to the military deployment.

At the end of the request, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun jointly put forward a suggestion, saying that the bridgehead on the south bank had been completely stabilized, and they could consider sending another group of troops from the Hanoi army to cross the river from Chenggao and join the frontal attack team.

After receiving the request from Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, Liu Bei naturally would not make a decision immediately, but immediately find the Zhuge brothers to discuss it privately.

"Ziyu, Kongming, in your opinion, what should we do next? Should we pull all the troops on the north bank to Chenggao to cross the river? If we cross the river, how should we advance? Should we attack Luoyang directly?"

Zhuge Jin didn't think much about the details of whether to cross the river, but just focused on the subsequent tactics, and then made a few brief suggestions:

"My lord, I think we should not attack Luoyang directly. Luoyang is strong. If we do not cut off its retreat route at the beginning, the defenders will inevitably dare to defend it to the death. Because as long as they are willing to defend it, it will be no problem to defend it for a month or two. Even if they are not strong enough in the battle and gradually lose their strength, they can consider retreating.

Therefore, our army must give a severe deterrent, and from the beginning we must show the posture of clipping the wings, clearing the periphery, and then completely encircling Luoyang. This is the only way to force the enemy to panic and not dare to fight to the death - of course, if our army is slow to act, it will give Cao Cao a chance to escape, but I think that with Cao Cao's cunning and resourceful mind, he will definitely be able to escape if he wants to. If he doesn't run, it must be because he doesn't want to, not because he is incapable. In this case, it doesn't matter if he is given more time. "

Zhuge Jin's deduction was a bit long-winded, and he never gave advice to Liu Bei like this. But there was nothing he could do about it. After all, this matter was of great importance, involving whether the traitor Cao Cao himself could break through, and Zhuge Jin had to plug this loophole first.

Even if Liu Bei would not let him take the blame, he still had to make it sound smooth in order to stop the gossips of the people.

As expected, Liu Bei did not question the question "Will Cao Cao escape if our army arrives too late?" He also assumed that if Cao Cao wanted to leave, he could definitely do so, so there was no need to worry about it.

Liu Bei just focused on another point and discussed it: "But, since ancient times, hasn't it been the case that besieging a city on three sides and leaving one side open can prevent the enemy from fighting to the death? If they are surrounded on all sides, will they resist stubbornly and fight to the death?"

Zhuge Jin was very confident about this, and he immediately responded without thinking: "Don't worry about it. The morale in Luoyang City is not too high now. The temporary false high morale is bought by Cao Cao's large amount of gold, silver and grain, and it can't last long.

Therefore, after completely encircling the city, once the enemy's fighting is weak and their morale is low, they are more likely to surrender. Even if some people resist stubbornly, we can withdraw a corner of the encirclement after a period of siege and fully demonstrate our army's offensive strength, and deliberately expose a flaw. At that time, the enemy will also be in chaos. Even if the generals strictly control them, the officers and soldiers below will definitely sneak away at night. "

Zhuge Jin’s idea was very clear: our army may not have to completely encircle the enemy in the future, but we need to fully and comprehensively demonstrate our strength first, so that the enemy knows that you have this strength. You can then not use it, but you cannot not show off right from the start.

Liu Bei quickly accepted this statement and did not dwell on it any more.

“In this case, let Yide, Zilong and others form a separate encirclement. Tell them to first capture Gongxian, then either take Yanshi, or encircle from the north or south to cut off the Cao army’s route back to Luoyang. By the way, you can also separate the enemy troops who are stubbornly defending the dangerous passes outside Luoyang and are unwilling to leave.

Well, it looks like there are quite a few enemy troops that can be divided. To the north of Luoyang, Ping County has Xiaopingjin and Mengjin, just across the river from us. If the Cao army there is reluctant to give up these river crossings, and Zilong penetrates and cuts between them and Luoyang, won't these troops be attacked from all sides and become trapped?
Unless Cao's army in Luoyang is willing to fight to the death and fight with my army in the field to rescue these troops, they will have no choice but to wait for destruction. If Cao is willing to leave Luoyang and fight with me in the field, that would be exactly what I want!"

Liu Bei also analyzed the idea to himself, and the more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.

Cao Cao still has an army of over 100,000 in the Heluo Basin, but Liu Bei would never let Cao Cao put all of these troops into defending Luoyang.

The wall of Luoyang City is seven zhang high and thick. If there are more than 100,000 troops defending it, even if the attacking side has sophisticated siege weapons, the defenders are not afraid to fight a war of attrition with you, and both sides will suffer heavy casualties.

If there were really more than 100,000 people defending the city, Liu Bei could only choose to besiege the city and consume food until Cao Cao himself ran out of food and collapsed. But that would definitely lead to serious damage to Luoyang City, which was the capital of the Han Dynasty. Liu Bei still hoped that the scale of the battle in the city would be as small as possible.

Therefore, Liu Bei's army would try their best to implement any method that could help lure Cao's army out for a field battle.

As a result, the "Eight Gates of Luoyang" that originally protected the city have now become a cage for Cao's army.

If Liu Bei's army had not attacked, would Cao's army have been willing to give up these strategic locations that were useless to keep and a pity to abandon before they were surrounded?

Thinking of this problem, Liu Bei took the initiative to review it with Zhuge brothers and said, "Ziyu, Kongming, you should discuss it together and see which other places in the eight passes of Luoyang are easy to facilitate our army to encircle and weaken Cao's army when we penetrate it.

Among the eight passes in Luoyang, Hulao Pass and Xuanmen Pass in the east have been breached by our army, so there is no need to talk about these two. Hangu Pass is the westernmost, which is the gateway to Guanzhong in Cao Cao's rear, and there is no way around it. The remaining five passes are Mengjin and Xiaopingjin in the north, and Huanyuan, Taigu, and Yique, the three passes of Luonan in the south. How should our army choose these five places, how to prioritize them, and which places should we encircle specifically?"

(Note: Xuanmen Pass is the road that goes through Zhongmu to Yingchuan. There is also a fortress there, one of the Eight Passes, but it is not as famous as Hulao Pass. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is set that Cao Cao was discovered in Zhongmu on his way out of Luoyang after his assassination of Dong Zhuo was exposed. In the Romance, Chen Gong is set as the magistrate of Zhongmu County, and then he released Cao Cao.)
Zhuge brothers followed their lord's question, listened and looked at the map, thinking about countermeasures in real time. Zhuge Jin thought for a while and said helplessly: "Although I really want to divide and surround more of Cao's troops on the periphery, this kind of thing is still a rare opportunity, so we can't expect too much.

I heard that the person who is now staying at the two ferry crossings of Mengjin and Xiaopingjin on the northern line is Li Dian. Even Le Jin has been transferred to the front battlefields of Gongxian and Yanshi to delay our army.

The person in charge of Huanyuan, Taigu and Yique on the southern front has always been Xu Huang. He has persisted there for one or two years. Outside the three passes, our army's General Huang has been holding off Xu Huang and sticking to his troops.

If our army advances, Li Dian of Mengjin and Xiaopingjin will definitely not defend to the death, but will retreat in advance to avoid being surrounded. After all, these two places are ferry crossings, not dangerous enough, and they have no defensive advantage at all if attacked from land.

Moreover, the main purpose of guarding the ferry was to prevent our army in Hanoi from crossing the river. But now our army has successfully crossed the river in Chenggao, and only one crossing point is enough. More would be a waste, so Li Dian's vow to fight to the death is meaningless.

If that moment really comes, he may not necessarily retreat into Luoyang City, but may retreat to the county town behind Luoyang, such as Gucheng County and Henan County in the west.

These two counties are located between Luoyang and Hangu Pass, and are also very important. If our army captures these two counties before attacking Luoyang, the Cao army in Luoyang will no longer have the hope of withdrawing to Hangu Pass and taking the Xiaohan Road back to Guanzhong. "

After some analysis, Zhuge Jin believed that Li Dian might have become a frightened bird. Even if Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao moved quickly, Li Dian would retreat as soon as he got wind of the news. It would be impossible to catch up with him. It would be a bit too much to expect to launch an annihilation war against Li Dian.

Liu Bei thought about it and agreed with it.

"So, if we hope to divide and surround Cao's army and eat up some of it first, we can only eat Xu Huang's troops in Huanyuan, Taigu and Yique first? If our army attacks Xu Huang, there are sufficient reasons, and the benefits are more obvious than attacking Mengjin, because in that case, we can also put General Huang's troops into the Heluo Basin to participate in the final decisive battle.

However, I am afraid that Xu Huang is not strong enough. If he is willing to abandon Huanyuan and other places and no longer defend them, it will be difficult for our army to attack him from both sides and annihilate him. "

Huang Zhong and Xu Huang were in a stalemate at the three passes south of Luo for one or two years, and they were just playing a supporting role. However, Huang Zhong's contribution cannot be denied. Because at the beginning of the Northern Expedition, the Zhuge brothers took into account that Liu Bei's army's territory belonged to external operations, and it was more difficult to gather troops and dispatch logistics than Cao Cao.

At times like this, a nail like Huang Zhong is needed, who can be stuck not far from Cao Cao's heart to tie down Cao Cao's large number of manpower and prevent it from rushing to support other battlefields.

Although Huang Zhong has not made any substantial progress in the past two years, he has replaced Xu Huang's tens of thousands of troops who were unable to perform.

Liu Bei's military strength and talent pool of generals were much stronger than Cao Cao's. This exchange of mutually consuming each other's temporarily discarding a chess piece was definitely a win for Liu Bei.

Although Liu Bei used Huang Zhong less, his strength did not decrease much.

The fact that Cao Cao used Xu Huang and his troops less had a relatively more obvious impact on his weakening.

But now is the final moment, and the enemies Huang Zhong and Xu Huang are finally going to be liberated and participate in the decisive battle together.

By then, Liu Bei's army finally had Guan, Zhang, Zhao, Ma, Huang, Zhou Yu, Taishi Ci, Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, and a luxurious lineup to attack Cao Cao. Among Liu Bei's high-ranking officers, only Gan Ning and Wang Ping were left to guard the rear of Yizhou to prevent instability in Shu, and the other main generals could play.

On Cao Cao's side, only he, Cao Ren, Xu Huang, Li Dian and Le Jin were able to participate in this battle. Cao Zhang and Xiahou Dun were both in Hebei and Bingzhou and could not make it.

What Liu Bei feared most now was that Xu Huang was too lazy to defend and would retreat like Li Dian, leaving Liu Bei's army no chance to surround him.

Of course, no matter what, the probability that Xu Huang is willing to defend to the death is definitely higher than the probability that Li Dian is willing to defend to the death.

Because there was no dangerous pass in Li Dian's territory, it was just a ferry. After the ferry lost its value in preventing the enemy from crossing the river, the rest was completely worthless. But the pass still had some pure military value, and the defense depth of Huanyuan Taigu Yique was also longer than that of Hulao Pass.

If Liu Bei's army really blocked both ends of the Yique Valley, Huang Zhong would attack the southern part of the valley, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and Wei Yan would attack the northern part of the valley entrance, and Xu Huang would be trapped in the middle of the valley and could hold out for a while.

In the end, even if the army ran out of food, he theoretically still had the possibility of abandoning all food, supplies, vehicles and armor, and continuing to retreat westward over the mountains with light equipment. It was possible that he might be able to enter the Wugu Pass or the Xiaohan Pass.

"What do you think is the possibility that Xu Huang would still be reluctant to give up these three dangerous passes and want to defend them when our army is about to arrive behind him?" Liu Bei could not help but ask this core question.

The Zhuge brothers evaluated it, and finally Zhuge Jin could only say truthfully: "This possibility is probably less than half, but no matter what, it is definitely much greater than the possibility that Li Dian will hold out in Mengjin.

"It's a rare opportunity to penetrate and annihilate the enemy, but we should do our best and leave the rest to fate. If we can annihilate some of them, then so be it. If we can't, then there's nothing we can do."

Liu Bei could only sigh with regret.

However, at this moment, Zhuge Liang seemed to have thought of another trick: "My Lord, since we also think that Xu Huang is the most likely to refuse to leave and therefore the most likely to be cut off by us, why don't we follow this plan and do it with great fanfare.

At the same time, in order to support Xu Huang's penetration, our army can let the lord's flag formation withdraw from Wen County, return to Huai County, then cross the Yellow River from Chenggao to the south, turn back and approach Gong County or Yanshi. It shows that the lord wants to lead the main force and hold off Cao Cao between Yanshi and Luoyang, while also monitoring Cao Cao.

We should detach Yide, Zilong and others, march lightly on horseback, bypass Luoyang from the south, and cut off Xu Huang's retreat. In this way, the Cao army in other places will definitely think that Xu Huang is the primary target of our army in the next stage, and thus relax their vigilance.

But in fact, we can do this and that in other directions..."

(End of this chapter)