Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3 A Fool, A Madman

On March [-]th in the first year of Xingping, in the north of Kaiyang County in Langya Kingdom, a group of soldiers and horses with only a few thousand people slowly moved south along the official road.

Liu Bei was riding on horseback, occasionally turning his head to look at the followers following him in the distance behind him.

It is said that it is a tribe, but it is actually thousands of hungry people.

They had no armor, no weapons, no horses, ragged clothes, and pale faces, and they slowly followed the large army and advanced with difficulty.

Qingzhou is not peaceful now, yellow scarves are rampant, and bandits are everywhere.Kong Rong, the Prime Minister of Beihai, was besieged by the Yellow Turban. Liu Bei, then Prime Minister of Pingyuan, was invited by Kong Rong to relieve the siege of Beihai.

As a result, because of Cao Song's incident last year, Cao Cao and Tao Qian fought in Pengcheng.

After the Battle of Pengcheng, almost all of Tao Qian's main forces were wiped out. Currently, there are less than [-] soldiers and horses trapped in the East China Sea, and Cao Cao's army attacked again.

In this case, Tao Qian could only send Mi Zhu to help his old friend Kong Rong. Kong Rong only expelled the Qingzhou Yellow Turban and couldn't take care of himself.

After learning about Cao Cao's atrocities of massacring Pengcheng last year and threatening to conquer Xuzhou this year to avenge his father, Liu Bei understood the righteousness and immediately borrowed some troops from his old classmate Gongsun Zan. Maruhu rides to Xuzhou.

Along the way, many people who lost their land due to the war wanted to join his team, but everyone knew that these people did not have the ability to fight, and they followed Liu Bei just because they could barely eat a bite.

Only more than 1000 of his troops were armed, and only a dozen of them could be equipped with horse armor. The rest were unarmed and hungry people. It was not easy to use this manpower to rescue Xuzhou.

But Liu Bei did not regret doing so. Even though there were many old and weak women and children in his army, the food and grass brought from the plain were running out, and Kong Rong didn't have much food and grass to supplement him.

"Brother, look."

Guan Yu called Liu Bei and motioned him to look southwest.

Following the direction he pointed, Liu Bei saw a city not far away, which was Kaiyang County.

Mi Zhu who was on the side immediately reminded: "Master, be careful. That Zang Ba gathered his troops and stationed troops in Kaiyang. He thought he was handsome, and he didn't listen to Tao Gong."

"Well, I see."

Liu Bei nodded, reached out to touch the sword at his waist, and said to Zhang Fei: "Third brother, you lead 300 people to go ahead and lie down in the road. If they come out of the city to attack our army, you can support them from the side."

"Don't worry, brother."

Zhang Fei greeted him, led 300 men and horses to go ahead quickly, and hid in the forest outside Kaiyang City.

In terms of military ability, Liu Bei may not be as good as Cao Cao, but after all, the Yellow Turban has been fighting for ten years, and some basic marching knowledge and formation of troops can still be done well.

Seeing Liu Bei's well-organized arrangements, Mi Zhu immediately nodded in satisfaction, and thinking of Tao Qian's old age, he couldn't help but look at Liu Bei.

If Liu Shijun is the lord of Xuzhou, he should be able to keep Xuzhou safe.

He thought so.

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On March 22, Pengcheng State, Lu County, Cao Cao lived in the county government.

At this time, his strength has not yet grown, and there are only four advisers around him: Xun Yu, Cheng Yu, Chen Gong, and Xi Zhicai.

The generals included Xia Houdun, Xia Houyuan, Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Yu Jin, Le Jin and so on.

But this time he came to attack Xuzhou, Cao Cao did not bring a single counselor.

Because he had already made up his mind.

Kill everyone in Xuzhou!
Xun Yu, Chen Gong, Xi Zhicai and the three of them have always been benevolent women. If they knew what he was thinking, they would definitely oppose it.

Therefore, Cao Cao simply let them stay behind and supervise the transportation of food and grass for the front line.

At this moment, in the county government mansion, Cao Cao had only Cao Ren and Cao Hong, two close relatives of the Cao family, by his side. Xiahou Dun was also left behind by him, and Xiahouyuan was transporting food.

The three sat side by side, and Cao Cao asked Cao Hong, "Zi Lian, how much food and grass do you have now?"

"Brother, now it can be used by the army for half a year."

Cao Hong replied.

Cao Cao's long and narrow eyes were full of murderous intent, and he said softly, "Okay, last time I couldn't break Tao Qian because I ran out of food, this time, I must bloodbath Xuzhou to avenge my father!"

Cao Ren stood up and said, "Brother, give the order. Uncle's hatred, even if we risk our lives, we must avenge it!"

"Ah."

Cao Cao nodded: "Zixiao, I order you to lead an army of [-] troops to cross Surabaya and take Liangcheng. Zilian will respond with [-] soldiers and horses. I will lead the main force to go south and break Xiapi first."

"Ah?" Cao Ren asked puzzled, "Brother, why did you break the lower pi first?"

Cao Cao said coldly: "I want to avenge Tao Qian, but I also want to win Xuzhou. However, Yuan Shu's strength is far superior to mine. If I win Xuzhou, he will attack, so first slaughter Xiapi, and he came from Huainan Going north, the military rations cannot be replenished for hundreds of miles along the way, if there is an attack, our army will lie in ambush."

This is Cao Cao's plan. At this time, his strength is not strong, and his total force is only more than 4, while Yuan Shu already has an army of [-].If he invaded Xuzhou, Yuan Shu would definitely not miss this opportunity and go north to attack.

The two Yuans fought, and Cao Cao and Yuan Shao formed an alliance. Yuan Shao faced Gongsun Zan in the north, and Cao Cao faced Yuan Shu in the south. The two sides had a big battle at Kuangting last year, and Yuan Shu also attacked from a long distance.

At that time, Runan was already in dire straits. Yuan Shu and Jin Shang, the governor of Yanzhou appointed by the imperial court, sent troops to attack Yanzhou. It was more than 1000 miles from Huainan to Yanzhou. important battle.

After that battle, Cao Cao also realized another problem, that is, the world is in chaos and there is a shortage of food and grass everywhere.Although he defeated the Yellow Turban of Qingzhou the year before last, he gained a population of one million, adding a large number of people to Yanzhou.

But Yanzhou has been fighting for the past two years, and there is no time to manage it, so the food and grass can barely support the army, and it can't let him work on an expedition, and at most attack the surrounding areas.

Therefore, although Cao Cao is eyeing Xuzhou, he also knows that it is impossible to annex Xuzhou with his own strength.

However, if Yuan Shu wins Xuzhou, using Yin Fu in Huaibei as a springboard will seriously threaten his rear, so Cao Cao made up his mind to slaughter Xuzhou completely.

This is to artificially form a buffer zone.

The reason why Runan County was so barren was that the hardest-hit area of ​​the Yellow Turban Rebellion was in Runan. Millions of Runan Yellow Turbans were killed by Huang Fusong in Changsha, which caused the population of Runan to drop sharply, and Henan became a wilderness.

Yuan Shu attacked Yanzhou from Runan. The road was covered with white bones, the farmland was barren, the villages were dilapidated, and the army rations could not be replenished. Naturally, he was defeated.

Now that Cao Cao slaughtered Xiapi again, if Yuan Shu chooses to attack Yanzhou from Huaibei to the north, it will have the same effect.

The territories of the two sides do not border each other, Yuan Shu has to travel long distances every time he comes to attack, Cao Cao has the advantage.

For Cao Cao, if the population is gone, he can plunder and grow again. If his territory is gone, he will have nothing. Therefore, compared to the population of Xuzhou, he cares more about letting Yuan Shu win Xuzhou. Nor can he be allowed to grow again based on Xuzhou.

Cao Ren and Cao Hong didn't care about morality as much as Xun Yu and Chen Gong did. Since Cao Cao gave them an order, he just carried it out, so the two didn't have any objections, and immediately led the troops to act according to the plan.

(End of this chapter)