Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1133 Water Control
After listening to Zhong Yao's words, Cao Cao just smiled slightly and did not comment.

He naturally knew that Zhong Yao had a close relationship with the Sima family, so at this time, he naturally had to stand up and speak a few words for Sima Yi.

But the reason why Zhong Yao dared to do so was because Sima Yi made great contributions in the attack on Xichuan. Even Xiahou Yuan praised Sima Yi's contribution in the letter. Except for Le Jin who was the vanguard, Sima Yi was the best among them. So what Zhong Yao said was natural and there was nothing wrong with it.

Although Xiahou Yuan did not mention the details of the process in his letter, Cao Cao was still able to get a glimpse of it from the few words in it.

Sima Yi's strategies were mostly to show the enemy laziness, and then take advantage of the enemy's complacency to send out surprise troops and unexpectedly break through the enemy's defenses. Several times along the way, Liu Zhang's garrison was defending well, but suddenly the city was broken, and then Cao's army was unstoppable and fought all the way to the city of Chengdu.

If there were one or two cities in the middle that could hold out and block the advance of Cao's army, the morale of Cao's army would have been crushed, and they would not have been able to advance in one go. The result might have been completely different, and at least they would not have been defeated so quickly.

But then again, this result was also due to the fact that Liu Zhang's side was far inferior to Cao's army in terms of generals, counselors, and soldiers. If Yuan Xi, Liu Bei and other forces were to defend, Cao's army might not even be able to enter Jinniu Road.

This is how the world is. The remaining forces now are either lucky enough to hide in the border areas, or have enough power to confront other princes after the test of time. The weaker forces, once involved in disputes, would have been swallowed up by others long ago.

Cao Cao stroked his beard and said, "Taking Yizhou is like a timely rain for our Wei Dynasty."

"I intend to let Miaocai pacify the locals and stabilize the situation. Wenqian (Lejin) Zhongda is good at attacking cities, so it's time to let him come back to help me."

Cao Cao could no longer wait, and almost all of his generals were dispatched, but they were still unable to break Yuan Xi's defense line.

He also thought of some strategies, such as deliberately leaving loopholes in certain places in the defense line to attract Yuan Xi's army to attack, and then lure the enemy deep into the territory and destroy it. However, he did not know whether he was seen through by Yuan Xi's advisers, because the generals under Yuan Xi had no intention of counterattacking at all.

No matter how Cao's army provoked and showed weakness, Yuan Xi's army had no intention of advancing, but just honestly built camp trenches, and then hid behind the deep pits in the earth wall and threw stones.

Cao's army was helpless against this turtle-like tactic. If they attacked head-on, the enemy had already been waiting behind the camp. If they retreated, the enemy would not pursue them further, but would just send people to advance slowly, step by step, digging trenches and building a defense line for the camp.

Originally, this kind of defensive tactics was very inefficient in offensive and defensive battles. Cavalry could cause heavy damage to the fortification soldiers by bypassing them or even attacking them directly. However, Yuan Xi used some unknown tools, and the speed of digging trenches and filling trenches was several times faster than normal. Often, a simple defense line was built there before Cao's army arrived.

Relying on this method, Yuan Xi's army built hundreds of camps along the thousands of miles of defense line in Jizhou, connecting them with deep trenches, which made Cao's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, who had the advantage in mobility, very uncomfortable.

Although Xiliang sent another batch of war horses to make up for the losses of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, the problem now was that Cao Cao's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry were unable to break through or infiltrate the criss-crossing trenches of Yuan Xi's army, and were now completely useless.

So later in the battle, Cao's army was forced to set up a camp to resist, and the two sides fought a completely exhausting battle.

Cao Cao naturally understood that this was Yuan Xi's intention. The Cao army and the Yuan army could not win in a battle of attrition, and the cavalry's tactics of harassing the enemy's rear were also cracked by the deep trench tactics. If this continued, Cao Cao's side would be dragged down sooner or later.

Therefore, Cao Cao, who was racking his brains for a way out of the impasse, was naturally extremely happy when he heard the news of the capture of Yizhou. In this way, he could at least transfer Le Jin, Sima Yi and others over to find a way to break the impasse on the battlefield in Jizhou.

Cao Cao was also extremely curious about Sima Yi's performance and wanted to see with his own eyes whether this young man could bring him more surprises.

At the same time, because the situation in Jizhou was at a stalemate, Cao Cao prepared to open up other directions of advance, and his first choice was Qingxu.

Now, a month has passed since Cao Hong dug the Yellow River. Large areas of land in Qingzhou downstream have been affected and the people have been displaced. Where the river overflowed, corpses of people and animals were floating. Cao Cao received news that the morale of the Qingzhou defenders was deteriorating.

But news came that the vicious tiger had actually sent people to Qingzhou to control the flood!
Cao Cao found it absurd that the two sides were fighting to the death for the key place in the Central Plains, and you still had the energy to send people to take care of those insignificant lives of the people. Was it because you deceived yourself under the banner of benevolence and righteousness?
You can't tell the difference between the important and the secondary, and you don't even have this awareness. What qualifications do you have to compete with me for the world?
So Cao Cao felt that now was the time to use military force against Qingxu!

At the same time, in Yijing, Yuan Xi and Zhuge Liang were discussing how to deal with the flood caused by the Yellow River bursting.

Zhuge Liang said: "In a short period of time, Bingzhou has mobilized tens of thousands of people to dig ditches and widen the river. Now it has come to the end. There are earth dams left at more than a dozen tributaries. All we can do is give an order to break the dams and divert water."

"If the order is passed now, it will take at least seven or eight days, plus the time required to divert water, it is estimated that the water volume in the lower reaches of the Yellow River will be reduced by half within half a month."

"Then the flooding water level in Qingzhou will also drop accordingly. Now most of the ditches dug in Qingzhou have been completed. If the Qingzhou army and civilians are mobilized to divert the accumulated water at the same time, the Yellow River flood should be alleviated by at least 60% to 70%. "

Yuan Xi let out a long sigh, "70% is not a small amount. It's already beyond my expectations."

"But it still depends on the help of the steam engine invented by the military advisor. Otherwise, if we only rely on manpower, it will take at least three months to dig."

Zhuge Liang said modestly: "My lord is a genius. If I hadn't had a clear idea, I would never have thought that combining wind direction and water wheels would have such an obvious effect even if I had spent my entire life."

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "It's just a repetition of what others have said. However, most of the steam excavators have been transferred to Bingzhou and Qingzhou, so naturally the frontal trench warfare is not going well." "Although my original intention was to fight a war of attrition with Cao Cao, and he has wasted a lot of manpower and resources in the past few months, I feel very sorry about one thing."

"Many of Cao Cao's soldiers died, but Cao's generals were quite smart. After so many battles, no, even after so many years, the casualties among Cao's generals were very few."

"The most commendable achievement this year was the killing of Pang De, but he was not a direct descendant of Cao's army."

"If we can't strike at Cao Cao's core force, we won't be able to hurt them. When the water level of the Yellow River drops, Cao's army will definitely notice it and take the opportunity to attack Qingzhou, which is dealing with the flood."

"When the time comes, all the generals of Cao's camp will gather together, and Chen Deng Zangba will find it difficult to resist, unless they inflict heavy casualties on Cao's generals, just like Zilong did in the battle of Qingzhou."

"But now the generals of Cao's army have become more shrewd. What good strategies do you have for this, military advisor?"

Zhuge Liang was also a little troubled after hearing this and said, "Those Cao army generals were truly taught by Cao Cao. They are all well versed in the art of war and know how to advance and retreat."

“It’s not easy to let them die.”

The reason why Cao's generals are difficult to kill is that they are willing to lose face and escape, but the generals of many camps cannot do this.

Most of the generals from other camps had only two choices: either fight to death or be captured and surrender reluctantly. Very few of them would abandon their lords and run away.

The emergence of this phenomenon is closely related to the overall moral trends in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the moral requirements for officials and generals.

The scholars of the Han Dynasty attached great importance to their image, which included their moral image and external image.

Appearance was extremely important in the Han Dynasty. Good-looking people were admired by everyone, while ugly people were discriminated against. Later, when Sun Ce was assassinated and shot in the face, most of the people believed that he died of anger because of the injury to his face.

Pang Tong was so ugly that even Liu Bei, who was so generous, didn't want to use him.

A big part of the reason why Yuan Xi was able to win the favor of everyone was that he inherited Yuan Shao's world-famous handsome looks.

Not to mention the moral image. The reason why there are so many legends about scholars' morality that are seeking fame and are almost bizarre, such as Guo Ju burying his son, cutting off his flesh to feed his parents, etc., are all extreme phenomena stimulated by this moral standard.

But people all over the world buy into this, officials and military generals alike, believing that one must not betray their master and would rather die in battle, or run away without a legitimate reason.

Therefore, generals like Yan Liang and Wen Chou would have died in battle if they met Guan Yu. If they had met Cao's generals, they would have run away long ago.

However, the self-preservation approach of Cao's generals is most in line with the principles of military strategy. Many of them surrendered to the enemy. In the Battle of Guandu, many of them colluded with Yuan Shaoan.

But this approach would undoubtedly be criticized. This was the root cause of Cao Cao's practice of emphasizing virtue over talent. The Cao family was eventually bitten back by this practice.

That was Sima Yi's oath on the Luo River. This action completely broke the moral shackles of the old and young people of the Han Dynasty, and made those who were loyal to the Han court completely lose their last sense of shame.

From then on, the rites and music of the world were in chaos, the prestige of the Jin emperor was far inferior to that of the Han court, and there was even a phenomenon that Wang and Ma shared the world, which was absolutely intolerable in other unified dynasties.

This is also the reason why the later Wei and Jin scholars, although they had the appearance of the Han Dynasty, had lost its backbone, were panic-stricken and at a loss in their hearts, had lost their moral goals, and could only indulge themselves and let themselves go, which is called the Wei and Jin style.

In the fight for the world, sometimes the side with the lower moral bottom line is more able to occupy the moral psychological height, because they no longer care about morality, naturally have fewer concerns, and can be deceived by gentlemen.

What Yuan Xi is facing now is the unscrupulous Cao Cao. Zhuge Liang's moral bottom line is only higher, so the two of them feel helpless about Cao Cao's rogue behavior.

Zhuge Liang sighed, "I now understand why Emperor Gaozu was so ruthless when faced with Xiang Yu's threat to kill his family members. If I were in his place, I would have no better solution."

Yuan Xi nodded and said, "That's true. People in the world like to use the standards of bad people to judge bad people, and the standards of good people to judge good people. They don't blame Xiang Yu, who threatened the lives of Emperor Gaozu's family members, but instead blame Emperor Gaozu for not saving his family members. This is extremely ironic."

"Isn't it the same for us and Lord Xuande now when we face Cao Cao?"

"The difficulty of winning for both sides is fundamentally different from the starting point. What else is there to say?"

(End of this chapter)