Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1144 Suspicion
Zhong Yao did not answer Xun You's question, but asked: "What do you want to do?"

Xun You was stunned, and said subconsciously: "I have to..."

Zhong Yao shook his head, quickened his pace, and walked out.

Xun You stood there in a daze. After a long while, he finally realized what Zhong Yao said and understood.

He looked back at Cao Cao's bedroom and thought, no way?

In the following days, Yecheng fell into chaos under calm, with various forces secretly struggling for power, and many people even considered changing their government.

Only Zhong Yao and Xun You acted as if nothing had happened. They declined the visits of the scholars from the Yingchuan School and instead focused on handling military affairs in the government every day, as if nothing had happened.

The attitudes of the two seemed out of tune with everyone else, so other officials began to wonder in their hearts, could it be that these two had received some secret orders from Cao Cao that allowed them to remain so calm?
But no matter what, the morale of the army in Yecheng, which had been in chaos, gradually stabilized. As Xiahou Dun and Cao Ren returned to Yecheng one after another, the behavior of the officials also restrained a little.

There were also a very small number of people who saw something strange in this. Why did Cao Hong, who was highly valued by Cao Cao, not come back?

The eastern front where Cao Hong was located was probably where the fighting was most intense, because the armies of Chunyu Qiong and Lu Su and Jiang Qin had been fighting a war of attrition with the Cao army led by Cao Hong and Zhang Xiu for several months.

However, as Cao's army increased its troops, it achieved a balance of power with the Jin army, and the battle between the two sides, like the other two routes, eventually turned into a fortification war.

At this time, Cao Hong should have been called back to take care of the young emperor, so why was he still left at the front line?

Due to all the unreasonable things, some people gradually began to suspect whether Cao Cao was showing weakness on purpose to lure Yuan Xi's army to take the initiative to attack. After all, Cao Cao had a headache and was bedridden, and only a few of his direct officials had seen him. Who knew if it was true?
But some people also suspect that Cao Cao is really in trouble and is just laying out confusion to stabilize the situation in Yecheng and deceive Yuan Xi's army.

All these mixed statements made Cao Cao's illness confusing. It was only at this time that the officials in Yecheng gradually figured out some of the truth.

They were too impatient and ended up at a disadvantage. They were immediately outshined by Zhong Yao and Xun You!
Now thinking back carefully, regardless of whether Cao Cao was seriously ill or not, the decisions made by Zhong Yao and Xun You were the most correct responses!

If Cao Cao was really ill, then these two people showed their loyalty and ability at the most appropriate time, which would clear many obstacles for his future path.

If Cao Cao was not sick, the diligent behavior of the two men would undoubtedly stabilize the hearts of the people in Yecheng, who were originally in chaos. Cao Cao would naturally see everything. Compared with the two of them, what would Cao Cao think when others behaved so poorly?
Miraculously, the situation in Yecheng gradually stabilized. When the news reached Tian Feng Zhuge Liang, who was in charge of Yijing, he beat his chest and said, "What a pity! We may have missed the best opportunity!"

"If Cao Cao's illness is real, and we launch a full-scale offensive, maybe Cao's army will collapse and retreat from Jizhou!"

Zhuge calculated and shook his head, "It should be too late."

"The Cao camp blocked the news of Cao Cao's illness, so the news of Cao Cao's serious illness has only spread now. At this time, the people in Yecheng have stabilized."

"Moreover, the truth of Cao Cao's illness has not been verified. If Cao Cao is faking his illness, then if we rush in rashly, he will take advantage of us."

Tian Feng said with a headache: "This really seems like something Cao Cao would do."

"When you're against a man like Cao Cao, it's sometimes really hard to tell who's really who. With Cao Cao around, the Cao army is several times more difficult to deal with."

Zhuge Liang said: "The art of war is about the true and false. Cao Cao has mastered the essence of it."

"Liang has benefited a lot from this incident. Sooner or later, I will catch up with Cao Cao."

Tian Feng suddenly spoke up, "Do you think Cao Cao is really dying of illness?"

"If that happens, you may not be able to wait for that day."

Zhuge smiled bitterly and said, "Who knows? But now that the lord is not here, we just need to follow the plan, build a camp and retreat, and slowly push to Yecheng."

Building a stronghold and retreating was the strategy Yuan Xi decided on before he left. This was actually not easy, because defending was always more difficult than actively attacking.

But now Yuan Xi's army was advancing much faster than Cao's army. This was because the supporting tactic for building a stronghold was to dig trenches and tunnels.

Relying on the protection of the camp, Yuan Xi's army used excavators to dig a large number of tunnels underground. The interconnected tunnels would put the enemy troops in a situation where they would be surrounded by enemies. Only diggers who were familiar with the tunnels could fully play their role.

Cao's army suffered repeated setbacks in the offensive. After they discovered Yuan Xi's army's tactic of digging the ground, they wanted to follow suit. However, they did not have the cooperation of an excavator and the digging speed was very slow, which led to Cao's army being led by the nose and the situation fell into a passive position for a time.

Fortunately, Xiahou Dun reacted quickly. Although he was not good at fighting, he had a good vision and knew that he could not use the same tactics to fight back, so he adopted another approach.

That is, retreat for a distance first, and when Yuan Xi's army is confident to dig the ground, launch a counterattack.

This approach was quite effective at first, but later Yuan Xi's army, under the command of Ju Shou, used soldiers as bait to dig the ground, and then ambushed soldiers in the underground passages, waiting for Cao's army to attack.

Cao's army was fooled and ambushed, and many of them were surrounded and annihilated. But Xiahou Dun's counterattack followed. He dug up the nearby river bank and led the river water into the tunnel.

This move had an immediate effect and drowned some Jin soldiers who were digging. Ju Su then responded by digging two passages, the higher one for people to pass through and the lower one for water to be diverted.

In this way, Yuan Xi's army regained the advantage by using the tunnel. Xiahou Dun then used smoke and fire to try to smoke people out of the passage, but there were exhaust holes in the tunnel, so the fire attack was useless.

Ju Su led his troops to take the opportunity to launch a surprise attack on Cao's army that had set fire on the ground, but they were caught in the gap and attacked by the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, causing heavy losses.

Ju Shou then realized that the other side was tricking him into attacking step by step, so he immediately led his soldiers back to the village and played defense.

Seeing this, Cao's army also wanted to take the opportunity to attack, but was counterattacked by Ju Su and was forced to continue retreating.

The two sides fought back and forth for several rounds, with casualties on both sides, and the situation once again fell into a stalemate, but overall, the battle situation was unfavorable to Cao's army.

The same was true for Cao Ren. Although he was good at defense, Ma Chao who was with him was badly targeted. Yuan Xi's army knew that Ma Chao was the murderer who massacred the villages and towns in Jizhou. When they saw Ma Chao in the battle, they all rushed towards him without caring about their lives.

Cao Ren learned that Ma Chao's head was very valuable to the Jin army, worth at least several of his own heads.

This made Cao Ren feel a little unbalanced. Is he so much worse than Ma Chao?

But he had no time to think about these things. After receiving the news that Cao Cao was seriously ill and summoned him, Cao Ren was shocked and rushed back day and night, leaving only Ma Chao's Xiliang army.

In the following days, Ma Chao, without the support of infantry, was unable to hold on on his own and was beaten back step by step. This made Ma Chao extremely depressed, and he thought to himself, could it be that Cao Cao was really no longer capable of doing this?

If we withdraw our troops at this time, the battle line will retreat half a county. Should I make the decision myself?
And if Cao Cao really died, would I, his adopted son, not even have the right to go back and see him?
The same question appeared not only in the minds of Ma Chao and Cao Cao's subordinates, but also in the minds of the advisers and generals under Yuan Xi. They looked at the drastically reduced defense line of Cao's army and wondered what was going on with Cao's army?

When the news reached Bu Zhi, who was still in Xuzhou, he said to him, "Cao Cao's approach is correct. Regardless of whether he did it himself, it is undoubtedly the best response to reverse the disadvantageous situation."

"He was defeated in a trench battle with me, and his troops were wasted in vain, so he simply withdrew his troops and retreated to Wei County."

“Unlike Qinghe and Changshan, Weijun is where Yecheng is located, and the surface rivers are extremely abundant, and rivers are also the best way to restrain trench warfare.

"So Cao's army simply withdrew and returned to Weijun to wait for a decisive battle with me."

Bu Zhi was puzzled and asked: "Why didn't Cao Cao recall Cao Hong from the east route, but let him defend the east line?"

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "It's very simple. He is afraid that after he retreats, I will use the same method to deal with Yanzhou."

"Since the water level in the upper reaches of the Yellow River can be reduced, it can naturally be increased. If Cao Hong gives up the Yellow River Jizhou defense line, I can dig a river on the south bank and release water from the upper reaches, turning Yanzhou into a vast ocean."

"This would put Cao Cao's Yanzhou and Yuzhou in danger. This is why Cao Zhen was beaten so badly by Lu Xun and still dares not retreat."

"On the surface, he was attacking Xuzhou, but in fact, he was defending Yuzhou."

"Although Cao's army behaves extremely fiercely, they are also afraid that the same method will be used against them."

Bu Zhi suddenly realized, "So that's it!"

He then said with embarrassment: "Compared with the lord, my military strategy is really not up to par. Whenever I think of the lord entrusting me with an important task, I feel uneasy. Wei Kang has failed the lord's expectations."

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "Zishan, don't put so much pressure on yourself. No one is born knowing everything. Besides, Zishan's strength lies in internal affairs. Xuzhou is a very complicated place. I hope Zishan can help me solve this problem."

"Bring the land division plan here this afternoon so we can discuss it together."

Bu Zhi agreed quickly. He knew that Yuan Xi stayed here to finish this matter. Because Bu Zhi did not have enough prestige, he would never do such an offensive thing.

Otherwise, with Jizhou in such a state, Yuan Xi should have returned to the front line.

Seeing that it was almost time for dinner, he quickly said goodbye and walked back to his own courtyard. During this period of time, Yuan Xi had been living in the Bu family. One of the important reasons for this was to support Bu Zhi and build momentum for Bu Zhi to take over as the governor of Xuzhou.

Because Chen Deng was seriously ill, he would not live for more than a few days.

Chen Deng had already developed health problems due to his stubborn disease of eating sashimi, and he often had a high fever.

But he had the medicine prescribed by Hua Tuo, which did help to slightly suppress his fever, so he kept taking the medicine to delay the worsening of his condition.

However, his illness recurred and he was placed under house arrest by the Lu family. Naturally, he stopped taking the medicine, and his illness flared up and could no longer be suppressed. By the time he was rescued, he was already running out of time.
(End of this chapter)