My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 836: Execute Sima first, then Cao Pi

Cao Pi and Sima Yi were not stupid either. They knew that when Zhao Yun and Ma Chao had just besieged the city, the attackers must have been the most alert and patrolled the city most closely every day.

Therefore, we must not rush to break out. For both sides, the longer the time drags on, the easier it is for the other side to let down their guard.

Of course, Cao Pi's side had a life-and-death struggle, which was that they could not wait until the winter snow thawed and the weather warmed up. Because once the frost was lifted, it would be too easy for the enemy to restore logistics and bring up infantry and siege weapons to attack the city.

Cao Pi was able to barely survive by relying on the extreme cold of the northwest winter. Once the cold was over, he would die.

It will only be earlier, not later.

So since being besieged in mid-January, Cao Pi and Sima Yi had been carrying out construction in secret and in a low-key manner. They chose the city wall on the northeast side of Jincheng, found a weak spot, and began secretly digging and demolishing it from the inside, preparing to create a gentle slope, and then find a snowy night to climb over the wall directly.

In theory, the northwest city wall was closest to the direction they wanted to escape, but Sima Yi also knew that the enemy must know this and had the tightest defense in the northwest.

Therefore, choose to break out from the northeast, and after leaving the city, go downstream along the Yellow River for a while, and you can enter the vast desert on the northeast side. By then, as long as Zhao Yun and Ma Chao don't find it in the first time, it will be difficult to find them later.

In the vast desert, after the enemy has left, you can chase them with only a few thousand cavalrymen. Even if you cast a wide net, how large a range can you search? The chances of escaping will be much greater.

Cao Pi endured for more than half a month, and finally on the sixth day of February, a few days after the Dragon Raising its Head, he found another snowy night. As the city wall had been almost dug, he gathered all the horses he could find in the city, and then organized his elite guards to break out.

It didn't matter whether these soldiers were originally cavalry or not. They would take as many people as they could find horses - of course, they had to be allocated at least two horses per person or even three horses per person. This would ensure that they could make a long-distance raid across the desert back to Wuwei County, or even further west, and escape the pursuit of Zhao Yun and Ma Chao.

As for the remaining main force, it was of course lost by Cao Pi.

At this point, he couldn't even take care of the last 10,000 soldiers who had followed his Cao family for many years. He just wanted to survive, so he decided to convert them into cavalry and take away as many people as he could. If he couldn't take any more, he would leave them behind.

At this moment, he even felt a little resentful towards his third brother Cao Zhang (including his eldest brother Cao Ang who had died, Cao Zhang was his third brother).
If his father had not asked his third brother to take almost all of the Cao family's elite cavalry with him to march west, he would not be as miserable as he is today!
He was such a coward as an emperor, just in name only. In fact, he was just helping his third brother to attract hatred and buy time!
He actually succeeded to the throne, and lived happily for just over a year, including the year he spent as regent as the crown prince.

After his father's death, he lived less than a year longer than his father. For more than half of his time as emperor, there was an emperor emeritus above him.

Just for the last year or so of monopolizing power, he didn't have much power, but in the end he was hunted down. Who can he complain to?
My only value is that I helped my third brother buy at least one more year to escape, allowing him to expand further into the Western Regions and make it more difficult for Liu Bei to find him in the future!

What a loss.

However, things have come to this point, and there is no point in saying anything. Cao Pi, who has been tricked, can only take one step at a time.

On the sixth day of February, shortly after nightfall, just at the second watch, Cao Pi had his men dig up the city wall for the last time. They did not dig it completely flat, but just dug out a gentle slope so that the war horses could sneak out of the city quietly along the slope.

Then Cao Pi took the last 4,000 men and hurried out of the city, heading towards the northeast outside the Great Wall - that direction was actually roughly equivalent to Gansu Baiyin in later generations, but during the Han Dynasty, there was no county town, only some mixed Qiang and Hu tribes.

Cao Pi thought he had left as stealthily as possible, but in fact, he only delayed by less than half an hour.

Even in the middle of the night, even in the heavy snow, Ma Chao and Zhao Yun's cavalry still took turns patrolling. Even if Cao Pi saw that the patrol had just passed by and dug through the city wall to escape, he could only buy a little time.

At three o'clock in the morning, the cavalry patrol outside the city discovered something unusual and immediately rushed back to the camp to report. Zhao Yun and Ma Chao quickly organized their own troops to chase after them, which only delayed them for a quarter of an hour or two.

"Cao Pi actually dug through the city wall and escaped. He must have brought all his cavalry with him. This amount of time should be enough for him to run more than 20 miles. Our army must chase him with one man and three horses! Otherwise, we may be too late.

Free up the horses of the soldiers who stayed behind for the pursuit soldiers, and then divide the troops to guard the gap that has been dug to avoid the enemy's strategy of luring the tiger away from the mountain - what if Sima Yi is cunning and only pretends to dig a hole in the city wall and sends some soldiers to break through, but Cao Pi is not among them. When our main force is far away, Cao Pi will leave the city again, which will be troublesome, right? "

Zhao Yun was more cautious. After learning about the situation, he immediately suggested such a deployment.

Ma Chao was much more direct than him and suggested instead: "Although this method is safe, it will disperse the troops. If Cao Pi has already fled, the soldiers in the city will definitely not be willing to fight. Moreover, the city wall has been dug open. Our army will gather some troops and rush in directly from the gap. We will definitely be able to capture the city. As long as the defenders have no intention of resisting, it means that Cao Pi himself has left.

Isn't this much more convenient than leaving people to guard each gate and block the entrance? It's just the right way to cut the Gordian knot."

Zhao Yun thought about it and felt that Ma Chao’s statement made sense, but an immediate pursuit was definitely necessary.

So the two men divided the work. Ma Chao was more familiar with the local terrain, so he took 3,000 of the total 8,000 cavalry and divided them into several routes to search and pursue.

Zhao Yun took the remaining 5,000 men, and almost no war horses were retained, giving most of the horses to Ma Chao. Then Zhao Yun's troops mainly transformed into infantry, leaving 500 men to block each city gate, and the remaining 3,000 men concentrated on attacking the city through the gap dug by Cao Pi.

As long as the city is breached, all fancy tricks can naturally be resolved. If it is confirmed that Cao Pi and Sima Yi have escaped, Zhao Yun will try to catch up with them and pursue them with Ma Chao.

Of course, Zhao Yun would lack war horses at that time and would definitely not be able to respond quickly, but that’s a matter for the future and there’s no time to think about it for now.

What is needed now is not to plan before acting, but to act as soon as possible.

Fortunately, their psychological pressure was not very great. Everyone knew that as long as Jincheng was successfully captured this time, Cao Pi would not have any elite veterans left, only some personal guards at most. So even if he ran away this time, it would only take a few more months, and he would be killed sooner or later.

If you are worried about wasting national treasury, the worst that can happen is that you keep fewer troops. To deal with the few remaining men of Cao Pi, you don't need too many troops. Just 10,000 cavalrymen can definitely handle it.

Zhao Yun and Ma Chao immediately split up and took action. Ma Chao led his cavalry to pursue the enemy from several directions in the north, while Zhao Yun also immediately launched an attack on the city.

The five or six thousand Cao soldiers who were abandoned in Jincheng County were in a state of confusion. Facing the attack from the dug-open wall by Zhao Yun and his three thousand men, they were completely unable to organize a defense.

Even though Zhao Yun's soldiers were originally cavalrymen who were temporarily "converted" to infantry, and their technical and tactical levels were not professional, and even though the number of soldiers left by Cao Pi was twice the number of the siege troops directly sent by Zhao Yun, the fighting will of Cao's army was already terribly low, and they were still defeated one by one by Zhao Yun's charge.

After only a quarter of an hour of fighting, there was no organized resistance force left in Jincheng County.

After Zhao Yun's vanguard troops entered the city, they first surrounded the city from the front and back, opened the east gate, and then the entire army poured into the city, taking control of the prefectural government and warehouses.

Some of the remaining Cao soldiers did not want to surrender, but at least no one dared to resist. Those who did not want to surrender tried to open the north gate and break out from the north.

Zhao Yun left only 500 soldiers outside the north gate, who were temporarily transferred from war horses to infantry, to guard the camp and block the gate.

The defeated soldiers of Cao's army thought that the enemy had few soldiers and there was a chance of breaking through, so they rushed towards the camp which was guarded by only 500 people, hoping to tear open a gap.

The result was like a wave hitting a reef, smashing itself to pieces while the enemy camp remained unmoved.

Three or four thousand men charged at the camp guarded by five hundred men, but were still blocked by Zhao Yun. Hundreds of crossbows were fired crosswise, and the chaotic and disorganized Cao soldiers were shot back. The ground was littered with corpses, and those who survived by chance had to surrender.

Cao Pi's last direct troops were completely annihilated at this point. ...

On the other hand, Ma Chao, with 3,000 cavalrymen, cast a net to the north to pursue Cao Pi. He marched at full speed, divided his troops into several routes, and showed no fear.

Although Ma Chao's job seemed easy, it was actually not easy. The main reason was that Cao Pi had left more than a shift in advance, and Ma Chao could not predict which direction Cao Pi would take to break out, so he could only cast a net and chase him.

These 3,000 cavalrymen, each with three horses, had no way of forming an iron fist. They could only search in a continuous manner like five outstretched fingers.

Ma Chao divided the 3,000 men into five teams. The smallest team had only 500 men, and the largest team, which he led personally, had only 700 to 800 men. They were all spread out in a fan shape.

The further north you go, the greater the distance between each team becomes. At first, there are only five or six miles between them, but later on, there may be more than ten miles between them.

By dawn, Ma Chao should have shortened the distance considerably.

In the end, he was lucky enough that the pursuing troops led by Ma Chao himself ran into Cao Pi and Sima Yi who were about to turn west.

Of course, such a pursuit still came at a great cost, because Ma Chao cast a wide net, and when he suddenly encountered the enemy, he was at a disadvantage in terms of military strength.

Ma Chao had only more than 700 cavalrymen with him, and more than 2,000 cavalrymen had not yet arrived at the battlefield. On the opposite side, Cao Pi and Sima Yi had nearly 4,000 men.

"Our army marched so fast and chose a route that was unexpected enough, but we were still caught up by Ma Chao? What should we do?" When Cao Pi saw Ma Chao's flag appear from the south, he was shocked and regretted making a wrong decision.

You shouldn't have chosen this method to escape. Not only did you fail to escape, but you died even faster.

Sima Yi beside him was quick to see the situation. After a brief observation, he quickly discovered the characteristics of the enemy and encouraged him, "Don't worry, Your Majesty! Although Ma Chao is familiar with the geography of Xiliang, he must have divided his troops to search so quickly!"

"I think the pursuers are only a few hundred cavalrymen, so they must be alone. If our army is caught by Ma Chao and the march is delayed, he will call for reinforcements from all directions, which will be a disaster! Our only hope now is to take advantage of Ma Chao being alone. If he dares to rush up, our army will immediately turn around and fight! Kill Ma Chao and get rid of the other pursuers!"

Cao Pi was very unsure, but he also knew that Sima Yi was right. He hesitated for only a dozen seconds and finally made the decision with gritted teeth.

"Then follow Zhongda! I hope this strategy works, and we, the king and I, can survive Wuwei! Zhongda, I'll have to trouble you to lead this battle."

Sima Yi did not refuse. At this moment, even for his own survival, he had to fight hard.

Sima Yi immediately gathered together the nearly 4,000 cavalrymen under his command and hastily formed a formation suitable for a counterattack.

By the time he finished doing all this, Ma Chao had already formed his attack formation and rushed over.

"Cao Pi, the traitor, don't run away! Sima, old thief, today is the day you will die!"

Ma Chao drew his spear, jumped on his horse and galloped over.

When His Majesty captured Chang'an that day, Ma Chao brought Pang Hui from prison and cut the traitor to death with his own hands. However, not all other members of the Pang family were killed, and Cao Cao himself died in battle, and Liu Bei tacitly allowed his body to be cremated, so Ma Chao still held a grudge in his heart and wanted to seek revenge on Cao Pi.

The main reason was that Liu Bei was merciful. He felt that if he slaughtered them indiscriminately like Pang Hui did, wouldn't that be a case of one violence replacing another? More importantly, the Pang family was not the only one who followed Pang De and Pang Hui. Some of them followed Ma Chao to become officials in Shu. Since the family had made their bets separately, they must be given a chance to turn from darkness to light.

After all, in history, when Pang De was captured by Guan Yu, Guan Yu persuaded him by saying, "Your cousin Pang Rou followed Ma Chao into Shu, and now he is an official under my lord, why don't you surrender?" What would Pang Rou think if his clan was exterminated?
So when Liu Bei entered Chang'an, he only asked Ma Chao to kill Pang Hui and Pang De's other adult son who had participated in the murder of Ma Teng. As for Pang De's young and ignorant sons, they were allowed to choose for themselves. As long as they were willing to be adopted by their uncle Pang Rou, who had abandoned the dark and joined the light, they could live. If they insisted on being the sons of the traitor Pang De, they had to die.

The two children also expressed their willingness to distance themselves from their biological father and from then on recognized their uncle as their legal father. Liu Bei then pardoned their lives to show that "Cao was violent, and I am kind, both of us are the opposite of Cao."

Ma Chao had nothing to say about this decision. Since he had not yet vented his anger, he would use Cao Pi to get back at him today!

"Hurry up and stop Ma Chao! Attack with all your strength on both wings! Ma Chao only has a few hundred men, how can you not stop him!"

Seeing Ma Chao rushing closer, Sima Yi became extremely anxious and hurriedly ordered his troops to meet the attack in an attempt to stop Ma Chao.

Unfortunately, although he had a five-to-one numerical advantage, he had no fancy tactics to use in such a head-on battle and could only rely on real fighting skills.

None of the Cao army's personal guards who rushed forward could match Ma Chao. Dozens of them were killed and scattered in an instant, like waves splitting and clouds swept away by the wind.

Ma Chao was armed with a spear, and with hundreds of cavalrymen behind him, they formed a huge wedge formation and head-on confronted Sima Yi's cavalry formation.

Ma Chao was in high spirits of killing. At one point, there were even two or three corpses stabbed on his spear, with some stabbed into the chest and some out of the back. He had no time to throw the corpses off, so he had to drop his spear and grab the spears of the dead men and continue fighting fiercely.

Fortunately, Ma Chao had a spear in his right hand and a sword in his left hand. The two weapons worked together, so even if he had to give up the spear in his right hand and replace it with a sword, he would not be in danger.
On the contrary, there were several elite cavalrymen of Cao's army who thought they had spotted an opportunity and wanted to rush forward to take advantage of the situation, but Ma Chao took advantage of their weakness and caught the weapons that were stabbing at them. He then used his left-hand sword to kill them, and then directly snatched the weapons with his right hand to fight the rest of the bandits.

The whole process was as smooth as flowing water, perfectly interpreting what it means to "your gun is my gun, and my sword is still my sword."

Cao Pi's personal guards were so frightened by Ma Chao's mad tiger-like charge that they were completely unaware of the obvious numerical advantage on their side.

While Ma Chao was killing frantically, he cleverly shouted: "Reinforcements have arrived! Brothers, kill the bandits quickly! Don't waste this free credit!"

Some smart officers around him also shouted when they saw this. The content of their shouts varied, but they all meant "Our army is attacking from multiple directions to search for Cao thief, and each route is only a few miles apart. Now that we have delayed for such a long time, the friendly forces on the left and right wings will arrive soon."

The speech was too long, and it was difficult for the enemy to hear it clearly on the complex and noisy battlefield.

But it doesn’t matter. Ma Chao has plenty of time. As he fights, charges and shouts, more and more enemies will waver.

Anyway, the charge lasted less than half an incense stick, and the last cavalry guards around Cao Pi became more and more chaotic. Ma Chao finally broke through the enemy formation, and the first thing he saw was Sima Yi appearing in front of him, still in the flag formation commanding the left and right reserve troops to surround him.

Ma Chao did think about capturing Sima Yi alive and bringing him back for trial, but since Sima Yi was the enemy's commander, Ma Chao could not afford to be complacent. He just stabbed Sima Yi's shoulder with such force that it almost broke Sima Yi's arm and shattered his collarbone.

Sima Yi screamed and fell off his horse. Ma Chao immediately had someone shout, "The old thief Sima is dead! Kill Cao the thief again, and the rest will not be asked!"

The enemy did not suspect him and their morale became increasingly chaotic. Finally, three or four thousand men were defeated by Ma Chao's seven hundred men.

This time, Ma Chao had the time to leisurely sever the tendons of Cao Pi's legs with a spear, and also sever the tendons of both his arms and hands, and then had him tied up and sent back to Luoyang for trial so that the punishment could be carried out according to the law.

With Cao Pi tied up, the remaining enemy troops naturally collapsed, and except for a small number who fled in disorder, the rest all dismounted and surrendered.

(End of this chapter)