Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1123 Battle
It's no wonder that Cao Zhen couldn't understand it. Logically speaking, military generals throughout history have climbed up step by step through military merit. The higher the official position, the more soldiers they will lead and the easier it will be for them to make achievements. This is in line with common sense.

However, in order to deal with Cao Cao's massive attack, Yuan Xi, Ju Shou, Zhuge Liang and others were looking for generals who were good at leading the army. They found that the above situation was suitable for generals who followed the procedures and were promoted step by step.

All generals are not able to lead a large army from the beginning. Instead, they have to grow through constant failures and setbacks, hone their ability to lead troops, and finally become the commander-in-chief of a side.

In other words, generals need to pay a price to grasp the essence of leading an army, and this price or tuition fee is mainly the number of soldiers.

In other words, many soldiers were consumed in this process, which means that one general's success is based on the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers.

This is not a big deal when fighting for the world, but it is only when facing an enemy weaker or equally strong as yourself that a general can accumulate experience. However, if the opponent is someone who is extremely good at leading troops, the general may be defeated and killed by the opponent before he can grow up.

And now Yuan Xi is in a situation where he cannot afford to lose. This time, Cao Cao has invested almost all of his military reserves in a decisive battle with Yuan Xi. Yuan Xi no longer has time for his generals to grow. This battle may directly determine the ownership of the world. In this situation, Yuan Xi cannot make mistakes, and he has no time to trial and error.

He and his advisers, including Ju Shou, were also extremely troubled by this difficult problem, but in the end, everyone figured it out. The so-called knowing people and assigning them to the right positions means measuring the abilities of generals and assigning them the most appropriate troops to bring out their abilities!
But this is easier said than done. Who knows the most appropriate number of troops for a general?

But at this time, Yuan Xi's later experience helped a lot. The first thing he could be sure of was that he had deviated from the practical application of Jizhou generals, especially the appointment of Zhang He, which was a serious mistake!
When the Jizhou generals served under Yuan Shao, they fought many battles. Many of them had experience in leading an army of more than 10,000 people. The Four Pillars of the Court often led tens of thousands of troops all year round, and large-scale army battles were commonplace for them.

In Yuan Xi's army, which adopted the elite troops route, most of the generals led only a few thousand soldiers, and no one had ever led tens of thousands of people in battle. In particular, among the several generals, Zhang He was the last to join Yuan Xi, so naturally he would not lead more troops than the others.

Therefore, Zhang He often led two to three thousand people to fight in the most dangerous blocking battles. Although this was Yuan Xi's trust in him, the troops Zhang He led were too few and he could not play his greatest strengths as a commander. In the end, he was defeated by Cao's army in the Shouchun blocking battle and seemed to have made no achievements for a while.

But later Yuan Xi recalled that in the later period of confrontation between Cao Wei and Shu, what Zhang He was best at and the times when he achieved the most brilliant results were when he led tens of thousands of troops into battle. This shows that Zhang He's ability to lead troops was far greater than his ability to charge into battle!
The situation with Zhang Liao was completely the opposite. Judging from his later military achievements, Zhang Liao could be regarded as a top-notch general who was good at charging into battle. Whether it was killing Tadun at Bailang Mountain or defeating 100,000 troops with only 800 men at Hefei, Zhang Liao was an example of a general who led the charge personally to secure victory.

But in contrast, Zhang Liao had never had the experience of arranging battle formations to win as the commander of a large army. The scenarios where he was most able to display his abilities were when he led one or two thousand people into battle.

After careful consideration, Yuan Xi believed that although Zhang Liao's position was higher than Zhang He's, the number of troops he led was the opposite, which was most suitable for both of them to play to their strengths. Others such as Gao Lan and Chunyu Qiong also had similar situations.

After figuring this out, Yuan Xi suddenly became enlightened. He personally summoned the generals and told them about his arrangements. He also promised that if there were any mistakes in this approach, Yuan Xi would be solely responsible for them.

Yuan Xi enjoyed a high prestige among the generals. After all, he had won all the battles in these years by personally going to the front lines. Therefore, his approach was understood and supported by the generals under his command. As a result, the arrangement of generals for the Battle of Jizhou led to a strange situation that Cao Ying had not expected at all.

The most direct manifestation of this was that when Cao Zhen's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry encountered Zhang Liao's You and Bing Iron Cavalry, they fell into a disadvantage in a short period of time. Faced with Zhang Liao's determined charge, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry suffered heavy casualties. Seeing that the situation was not good, Cao Zhen had to order the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry to retreat, while he himself fought to the death to cover their retreat.

Zhang Liao chased for more than a hundred miles and saw that they were getting close to Cao Ren's main camp. Fearing that the enemy had an ambush, he went to meet up with Gao Lan.

On the other side, Cao Zhen fled back to Cao Renzhen's camp and reported the situation. Cao Ren felt it was even worse because during the days when Cao Zhen and Zhang He were fighting, Cao Ren had tried his best but failed to gain any advantage from Gao Lan.

Cao Ren thought to himself, is Gao Lan such a difficult person? I have never heard that he is so powerful before.
Also, why was it that after being defeated by Cao's army, many generals fled to Yuan Xi's side and became generals? It was as if they had become different people and became increasingly difficult to deal with? What on earth did the fierce tiger do?
Cao Cao taught his generals the art of war such as Meng De's New Book, which showed that Cao Cao himself had extremely high military talent. However, Xionghu's strength was defending the city, and he was far inferior to Cao Cao in the art of war. Could he also follow Cao Gong's example and teach his subordinates the art of war?

Cao Ren was only half right. The military tactics of the generals under Yuan Xi were naturally not taught by Yuan Xi. Although Yuan Xi had experience from later generations, the people who were suitable to lead the soldiers of this era were naturally those who had studied the military tactics classics of this era.

The person he chose to teach his generals about military tactics was Zhuge Liang.

Zhuge Liang was a man of great intelligence and had learned a great deal, but he was able to integrate all of it. So when he joined Yuan Xi's army, Yuan Xi asked his advisers Guo Jia, Ju Su and others to write down their own insights on military strategy so that Zhuge Liang could study and understand it.

After absorbing the strengths of many advisers, Zhuge Liang eliminated the dross and retained the essence, simplified and applied them, and began to write his own military book, namely the Twenty-Four Chapters of the Art of War.

Although Zhuge Liang was busy with affairs in the past few years and did not complete the military book, the written parts were studied and discussed by the generals under Yuan Xi, which enabled them to make great progress in the deployment of troops.

This is why Yuan Xi's generals have been able to compete with Cao's generals in recent years. In comparison, Jiangdong relied on a few core advisers, but after this path was cut off by Yuan Xi, Jiangdong no longer had any way to go.

After several days of fighting between Cao Ren and Gao Lan, Cao Ren knew that he had met a tough opponent. Cao Ren also responded well. Since he could not win a quick victory, he adopted a defensive stance. While reporting the news to Yecheng, he began to collect information on the movements of several friendly forces in the surrounding areas.

But the news that came later made him feel very bad.

If he and Gao Lan were evenly matched, Xiahou Dun was in a disadvantageous situation!

Xiahou Dun had bad luck, as he met Zhang He, the best leader of Yuan Xi's army, and Zhang He's vanguard was Xu Huang. As the most important center for defending Yecheng, Xiahou Dun was placed here. In fact, according to Cao Ying's expectations, his pressure might be the least.

On the one hand, Cao's camp believed that Yuan Xi's army was at a disadvantage in terms of manpower, so it was unlikely to break through from the front. On the contrary, the pressure on the two wings would be greater.

Cao Ren's army on the left wing had to resist Yuan Xi's army at the Changshan Pass on the one hand, and guard against the Heishan Pass on the other hand, which meant that one army was guarding two directions.

Cao Hong's army on the right wing had to deal with attacks from both land and sea. Although they had the strategy of digging a river, if they were not careful, they would be trapped in their own web, and the pressure was enormous.

Therefore, Xiahou Dun's 30,000 troops were originally conceived to stabilize the situation in the middle and support the two routes. However, no one expected that Yuan Xi would bring out the corresponding forces for a head-on confrontation, as if he was ready to take down Yecheng!
These three armies fought at the same time, and the number of people fighting on both sides exceeded 200,000. Although Cao's army was slightly larger, Yuan Xi's side also had at least 70,000 to 80,000 people, the highest number in all history!

As soon as the battle started, Xiahou Dun and others knew that the situation was not good and hurried to report to Yecheng.

After Cao Cao received the news, he immediately sent Cao Xiu to lead thousands of Tiger and Leopard Cavalry to the north to assist Cao Ren. If they could repel the enemy, they could then join forces to attack Zhang He's local central army in an attempt to pacify both routes at the same time.

After Cao Xiu led his troops out of the city, Cao Cao sighed to his advisers: "The situation of Xionghu's mobilization this time was far beyond my expectations."

"The forces they deployed in each direction were similar to the deployment on my side. This shows that they have obviously given up on all their plans and are choosing to fight a war of attrition head-on."

"This is naturally a test of the strength of both sides. The longer it drags on, the worse it will be for me, so next, I have to find a way to seize the initiative."

"But!" Cao Cao's voice was filled with a hint of anger. "The two sides have similar forces. This is definitely not a coincidence. This means that Xionghu knew about the deployment of various routes before he sent out his troops!"

"And what about me?"

"Who told me about the detailed deployment of Xionghu's troops?"

Xun You was temporarily in charge of the school affairs office in Jizhou. He had no choice but to step out and say, "It was caused by my subordinates' incompetence."

"But there are indeed many remnants of the Yuan family in Jizhou who are loyal to the evil tiger, and the same is true in Yecheng."

"I will go to the city to search for the suspects."

"Forget it!" Cao Cao waved his hand unhappily, "I've been here for a long time, haven't I seen enough of this kind of thing?"

"The means behind the scenes are just minor tricks after all. Winning on the battlefield is all that matters!"

"I want to take the initiative this time, and so does Xionghu. Both sides have reached a balance of power. Now we can no longer sit and wait for death, but must take the initiative to attack!"

Everyone agreed, but after Cao Cao said this, there was no further words.

At first, several subordinates did not react and stared at Cao Cao stupidly, waiting for him to speak. But soon, a few of them realized that something was wrong and Xun You was about to speak.

He naturally thought clearly that Cao Cao was testing his ministers to see if they could come up with useful suggestions to see who could take on the heavy responsibility. Considering the fact that the crown prince had not yet been decided and Cao Cao's deteriorating health, this was most likely related to the selection of ministers to be entrusted with the care of the orphan!
So Xun You was about to step out and speak, but just as he was about to take a step, he found that Zhong Yao opposite him had his head down and eyes closed, looking as if it had nothing to do with him.

Xun You immediately felt that something was not right. Didn’t Zhong Yao want to be a minister entrusted with the care of the young emperor?

You know, this position is extremely important. If one is occupied less, it will determine the power in the court in the future.

Xun You's body suddenly shook slightly, as if he had figured something out. He immediately shrank back quietly and began to pretend to be dead like Zhong Yao.

Even if he didn't speak, someone naturally spoke up. Someone immediately stood up and said, "I think the most urgent task is to stop the offensive of the fierce tiger army."

"But the key point is not in Jizhou, but in Qingzhou."

When these words were spoken, everyone was stunned. What kind of logic was this?
(End of this chapter)