Tiger Guards

Chapter 451 Guerrilla Warfare on Both Sides
On August 25th, the autumn wind was dry on the south bank of the Yellow River.

At dawn, scouts from both armies clashed in the abandoned fields and riverbanks west of Baima City.

Cao Ang falsely claimed that Yuan Shao had given orders, and coerced and urged the surrounding subordinate forces to advance towards Suanzao.

On the same day, the fleet entered Baima City and moved from Puyangjin to Baimajin.

At this moment, only the desolate Yan County remains between Baima and Suanzao... Yan County was abandoned long ago. When the allied forces of the Guandong warlords met in Suanzao, Suanzao and Yan County were almost destroyed.

Upstream of Baimajin, Yanjin.

After burning down the Yanjin water fortress and land camp, Zhao Yun, who was covering the rear, withdrew upstream along the Yellow River as planned.

The original plan was to withdraw to the Xingyang and Aocang area, where they would meet and coordinate the withdrawal of Zhao Ji's troops.

Now that Zhao Yun's fleet has set sail, they have not received any military orders. They can only travel another thirty li when they pass Suanzao and spend the night near the mouth of the Honggou River.

Nighttime, Suanzao Camp.

Zhao Ji, dressed in gleaming armor, sat before the map, lost in thought.

He now spends most of his day in front of maps, brainstorming and anticipating various unexpected factors.

There was no problem with defeating Cao Ang; his constant worries were about Yuan Shao and Lü Bu.

Wars cannot be waged only when one is gaining an advantage.

Once started, how to stop it is not something you can control.

When your positioning is not shrewd enough and your movements are not agile enough, the war orchestrated by others will come crashing down on you like a large tank with four fronts and eight rears.

If Cao Ang gets close now, but I fail to kick him to pieces, then the war will drag on, giving Yuan Shao and Lü Bu ample time to respond.

Therefore, this battle must be fought with precise and sharp strikes; we must not be greedy and try to annihilate all of Cao Cao's remaining forces.

The proper role of this Cao army should be that of a stepping stone to demonstrate military might.

I repeatedly reminded myself that I must not let myself get carried away.

As Zhao Ji was deep in thought, Guan Shang brought over a plate of dinner: "Grand Marshal, it's time for dinner."

"Yes, go and tell Wen Yuan and Xing Ba that I'll have dinner with them."

"Here."

Guan Shang left quickly, and soon after, Zhang Liao and Gan Ning, who were dining together outside, came in with their own plates, and Zhao Ji also picked up his plate.

The three men sat together. Zhao Ji took a sip of fish soup before saying, "Cao Ang is launching an attack with his army. What do you two think?"

Zhang Liao and Gan Ning exchanged a glance. Although they were both newly appointed officers, Zhang Liao was from Bingzhou and had extensive experience. He was a typical member of the capital garrison and was even granted the seal of General Who Pacifies Bandits by the imperial court.

Their eyes met, and Zhang Liao understood Gan Ning's intention to back down. He then cupped his hands and said, "Grand Marshal, in my opinion, the strength of the enemy and ourselves is clearly different. Cao Ang dares to raise an army, so he must be determined to die. We cannot take him lightly."

"I will not underestimate my enemy. General Wen Yuan, please speak frankly."

"Yes, in my opinion, Cao Ang may take a risky approach, thinking that our army is arrogant and careless and will inevitably be negligent, so he will launch a night raid."

Zhang Liao raised his right hand as if to make a detour to the south: "This humble general dares to lead his troops toward Wuchao Marsh and out of Baima Mountain. If the enemy army comes from here, they will meet me; if they do not come, I will cut off their retreat."

After saying this, Zhang Liao cupped his hands and asked for permission to take the order; his suggestion was somewhat out of line.

He had just come from Lü Bu's camp, and now that war was about to begin, he wanted to request to leave the central army and act alone.

Zhao Ji thought for a moment and said, "That's fine. If we don't encounter the enemy, General Wen Yuan can just wait for an opportunity to strike. However, if the enemy army is routed, General, you can lead your troops to pursue and kill half of them. Even a cornered beast will fight, so don't drink too much wine."

"Yes, I will understand!"

Zhang Liao answered loudly, his expression beaming with joy. He was well aware that the resistance they encountered when pursuing and annihilating the outer forces of Cao Cao's army was not great, just like catching fish with a net.

However, if they are not satisfied with absorbing these peripheral forces and want to pursue Cao Cao's core forces, they will definitely encounter fierce resistance.

The initial capture and interception of peripheral forces will consume and waste a lot of manpower and energy; when encountering the counterattack of the core forces, it will result in many casualties, but these casualties will not bring much spoils.

As a general, one must be able to assess the situation and act accordingly.

His main force of seven battalions, totaling five thousand men, could intercept and harass Cao Cao's outer forces, suffering fewer than three hundred casualties while capturing three to five thousand. If they continued the pursuit, they could only commit a maximum of three to four battalions, less than three thousand men, with an optimal casualty ratio of one to two.

One against two, you killed a thousand of the enemy, but lost five hundred of your own, and in the end you only gained five hundred... That's a huge loss.

The core strength of Cao Cao's army consisted of the local people and retainers of his generals and officers. When these fighting groups could run, they would run faster than anyone else; when they couldn't run, they would fight you to the death.

The logic of normal routed soldiers cannot be forced onto these people.

Zhang Liao has already proven his ability to command over 30,000 men in independent operations and to support the overall battle situation; what he lacks now is a solo performance.

The more one gains, the more one profits, and the less one loses, the higher one's overall evaluation will be.

In future military operations, both new and old officers are willing to cooperate with someone as skilled in battle as him.

Seeing that Zhang Liao had such an opportunity to perform, Gan Ning immediately cupped his hands and said, "Grand Marshal, I am willing to lead my troops to ambush the enemy in the reeds on the riverbank. If there is no good opportunity, I can also lead my troops to sail downstream in light boats and burn the camps at Yanjin, Baimajin, and Puyangjin to harass the enemy army."

"Are three thousand people enough?"

Zhao Ji asked directly, "If that's not enough, I'll allocate another five hundred elite cavalry to Xingba."

Gan Ning was overjoyed and immediately rose to his feet and bowed deeply: "If you have five hundred valiant cavalrymen to accompany you, I will surely kill the general and seize the flag and return! If not, I will bring you my head!"

"What do I need Xingba's head for? So that Xingba can have heads to eat in the future. This time, I'm assigning a thousand cavalrymen to Xingba. That way, Wen Yuan will be in the south and Xingba in the north, forming my left and right wings. I want to see how Cao Ang's military strategy compares to his father's."

As Zhao Ji spoke, he got up and took out ten military tallies representing the mobilization of the Hundred Cavalry of the Righteous Cavalry from a wooden box. Each tally was only the size of an index finger.

Each golden bronze tiger tally bears a serial number. After Zhao Ji checked that the serial numbers were consecutive and correct, he returned to his desk and handed it to Gan Ning: "Let's eat. Later, I will send Tiger Guards with documents to Xingba to transfer military power."

"Here!"

Gan Ning simply clasped his hands in a fist salute, his heart filled with a thousand words, yet he could say nothing at this moment.

The three of them sat down again and ate their meal in peace, though the atmosphere was slightly awkward.

It was like a competition; everyone was treating the food, meat, rice, and bread on their plates as enemies, eating heartily, and no one was willing to fall behind.

After they finished eating almost simultaneously, Zhao Ji wrote a troop deployment order and stamped it, selecting two Tiger Warriors to assist Gan Ning in handing over command of the ten 100-cavalry units.

After darkness fell completely, Gan Ning led his three thousand men, along with a thousand cavalrymen, northward. They were to board ships on the shore, sail downstream to find a suitable area to lie in ambush and wait for an opportunity to strike.

Zhang Liao did the same, leading his seven battalions southward to the west bank of Wuchao Marsh, where they were to ambush in the Baima Mountain area.

However, as Zhang Liao analyzed, Cao Ang did indeed send out a raiding force, led by Xiahou Yuan, with a size of nearly two thousand cavalry.

Instead of taking the detour through Baima Mountain and Wuchao Marsh as Zhang Liao predicted, they rushed along the mudflats on the south bank of the Yellow River to the north.

On the main road, the scouts of both sides clashed fiercely at night. Zhao's scouts, who were clearly in a retreating state, did not like to fight fiercely at night. They usually fired at the sound of gunfire. After firing two volleys of arrows, the scout squads would retreat and wait for a new clash.

The entire Cao army scout team continued to advance, creating as much safe and concealed space as possible for Xiahou Yuan to march.

Perhaps because of Zhao Ji's exceptional archery skills, his officers placed great emphasis on archery during their assessments, and the soldiers in the army also enjoyed studying archery.

During daytime clashes between scouts of both sides, Cao Cao's scouts often suffer losses in skirmishes and harbor resentment.

The poor visibility at night hindered archery skills, and Zhao's scouts disliked close combat, so they retreated almost continuously. When they were more than ten miles outside the main camp, more scouts joined them, and with their relative numerical advantage, they finally suppressed Cao's scouts.

Around the second watch of the night, Xiahou Yuan's troops approached the northeast corner of Zhao Ji's camp. All the officers and soldiers dismounted and began the final feeding of their horses and rest.

Xiahou Yuan, dressed in white robes and black armor, inspected the various teams in the dark, reviewing their readiness for battle.

Cao Ang and Cheng Yu did not place their hopes for victory on this hundred-mile raid, but rather hoped to boost morale with this raid, which was neither a success nor a failure, even if it was just average.

To put it bluntly, this was a "show of force" operation.

It would be best to achieve significant success, but even if the results are mediocre, it will still give Zhao Ji enough psychological deterrence.

This proves that the Kanto region is not without people.

The Central Plains are not a place that Zhao Ji can freely enter and exit!

(End of this chapter)