Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1159 Attack and Defense
After Cao Ren explained a few words, Ma Chao finally understood the whole plan.

Use cavalry and infantry to entangle the Jin army, fight a positional battle against the advancing army, lure them into low-lying terrain, and tempt them to dig trenches and tunnels.

Then they dug a river to fill the battle area with water from other tributaries and ditches, causing the Jin army to be flooded. The Cao army then took the opportunity to block their escape route, causing all the Jin army to die in the water.

After hearing this, Ma Chao didn’t believe it at all. Could this really be achieved?
Not to mention that it was already very difficult to entangle the Jin army, why were they willing to dig trenches in the low-lying areas rather than break out?

Moreover, once the flood comes, the Jin army may not be able to escape, but the Cao army and the Xiliang army can escape?
Facing Ma Chao's questions, Cao Ren patiently answered them one by one, and at the end, a look of displeasure appeared on his face.

Because this strategy must have bait.

The battle area must be located near a river, so that when the river is dug, the Jin army will not have time to react.

Secondly, in order to tie down the Jin army, Cao's army and Xiliang's army would naturally have to fight to the death, but the most important thing was to make the Jin army afraid to leave, so they had to use the villagers and townspeople along the river as a threat.

Cao's army took advantage of the opportunity to attack and loot villages and towns to lure the Jin army to come to the rescue, and then took the civilians hostage and forced the Jin army to rescue them. At the same time, Cao's army attacked the Jin army fiercely, forcing it to use trench tactics, and then dug open the river mouth to drown it in one fell swoop.

This requires close cooperation between Cao's army and the Xiliang army. Casualties are inevitable in the process of digging the river, but these are all necessary.

Cao Ren finally said: "General, you are a cavalry, so you still have a chance to withdraw, but I am all infantry, so the chance of withdrawal is even slimmer."

"And in this battle, in order to attract the main force and generals of the Jin army, I will lead the Qingzhou army to the battlefield and hold on until the last moment. I don't know whether I can survive!"

"But this time, you and I must destroy the Jin army in front of us, so that Yecheng can have hope of counterattack. At this time, I have already put my life and death aside. What about the general?"

The infantry led by Cao Ren was the Qingzhou Army. Ma Chao did not know the origin of the Qingzhou Army, so he did not expect that this time Cao Cao wanted to kill two birds with one stone and eliminate the hidden danger of the remaining Qingzhou Army. He was shocked by Cao Ren's awareness. The other party was one of the top three generals in Cao's camp, and now he was using himself as bait. It can be seen that Cao Cao was determined this time!
He immediately clasped his fists and said, "I am very willing to follow the general and fulfill the lord's order!"

Cao Ren finally felt relieved this time. He asked Ma Chao to retreat and reorganize the troops first, and then ordered the entire army to set out and ambush at a place that had been chosen long ago.

He felt quite unhappy as he watched the Qingzhou army marching hurriedly beside him. Over the years, he had been in charge of the Qingzhou army on behalf of Cao Cao, and had fought many battles. Now, Cao Ren could not bear to let these people die without knowing it.

But he also understood what Cao Cao was thinking. The Qingzhou army only obeyed Cao Cao, and no one else could be restrained. With Cao Ren's prestige, he could only barely intimidate them.

This is because the Qingzhou army originally surrendered to Cao Cao because they regarded Cao Cao as the Taoist master of Taiping Dao, but this has nothing to do with other people in Cao’s camp. Once Cao Cao passed away, the Qingzhou army would definitely not submit to others and thus cause chaos.

Cao Cao also saw this hidden danger, so in this counterattack, he divided the tens of thousands of Qingzhou troops into several groups, each led by a general from Cao's camp, and then used them as bait in the battle to fight against the Jin army and consume them in order to eliminate future troubles.

In addition to Cao Ren's group, others such as Xiahou Dun, Cao Hong and others also brought soldiers recruited from Yanzhou, Yuzhou and other places, began to deploy defenses on the border, and once again launched an attack against the approaching Yuan Xi army.

Among them, those who confronted Cao Hong in the east were Chunyu Qiong and Lu Su and Jiang Qin, and the two sides had been fighting for several months.

Chunyu Qiong was fine because his subordinates were mainly infantry and cavalry from Jizhou, but Lu Su and Jiang Qin were in a bit of an awkward situation.

Because the Yellow River had stopped flowing, all the naval ships were stranded, so they were forced to go ashore and convert into infantry. However, these naval forces were mainly composed of soldiers from Jianghuai and Xuzhou. They were used to naval battles and were not used to it, so they suffered a lot in the battle with Cao's army.

The soldiers also complained about this, which made Lu Su and Jiang Qin very anxious. Fortunately, the two men managed the army well, patrolled and supervised day and night, which gradually restored the morale.

But it must be said that without the waterway, logistics were extremely inconvenient. Although the two men were not out of food, most of the time they could only eat dry and hard bread to fill their stomachs.

Now the two of them were sitting on a tree stump facing the campfire, holding a piece of bread in one hand and a wooden bowl in the other, which contained goose soup with some salt.

In the iron pot above the campfire, there was a wild goose that Jiang Qin had just shot down being cooked. The aroma wafted out and entered the nose, and even the hard-to-swallow bread seemed to taste a lot better.

Lu Su sighed, "When I was in Jiangdong, I also ate goose meat at a banquet, and it was carefully cooked, but it seemed far less delicious than this one."

Jiang Qin smiled bitterly and said, "Zijing is just very hungry."

"We have been hunting for so many days and have been exhausted all day. It has been a long time since I last smelled meat. Now it is delicious to eat a piece of tree bark that the wild geese have sat on."

The two men smiled bitterly at each other. These days, the battles had been extremely miserable. They had never fought against Cao's army before. Now that they had joined the battle, they discovered that sometimes Cao's army was even more difficult to deal with than Yuan Xi's army back then!
Especially, land warfare is different from river warfare. If the navy cannot win, they can just run away. But if the land warfare fails, it is easy for them to be hunted down and killed by the enemy. Not to mention that if Cao's army escapes, their entire family will be implicated.

Therefore, even if Cao's army was at a disadvantage, they would often fight to the death, not to mention that they were facing Cao Hong, who was extremely strict in military discipline. Therefore, the battle would often last until both sides suffered heavy casualties and had to rest before they could retreat.

Lu Su and Jiang Qin were exhausted from the battle, only then did they realize that the intensity of the war in the Central Plains was far beyond that of Jiangdong. This made the two of them sigh that it was no wonder that the 100,000 Jiangdong troops in Hefei could not defeat 800 people. The wars experienced by the soldiers on both sides were not on the same level at all!

Nowadays, all the soldiers in the north who can charge on the battlefield are veterans of many battles, but most of the soldiers in the Jiangdong Army have not experienced a decent war, which can be clearly seen when killing people. This gap is reflected on the battlefield and it is easy to become a one-sided situation. Therefore, Lu Su and Jiang Qin went from being full of confidence at the beginning to being humble and taking every step carefully and steadily. They experienced a very difficult transformation, which made the Jianghuai Navy, which was originally not ranked well, gradually able to fight back and forth with Cao's army. The significant progress must be attributed to the ability of the two to manage the army.

At the same time, the two men also understood that Jiangdong's failure was not accidental. At the beginning, the king and ministers of Jiangdong thought that the Wei and Jin armies were mediocre in the court, and they were still thinking of sweeping the Central Plains with the advantages of warships and soldiers. Thinking about it now, the two men just find it ridiculous.

Jiang Qin called the guards over and pointed at the iron pot, saying, "Take it down and divide it up. After you finish eating, continue to build the camp with me."

Seeing the guard's grateful look, Lu Su took the iron pot down and said, "Gong Yi has changed a lot in the past six months."

Jiang Qin sighed, "I was a frog in a well before. After coming to the Central Plains, I finally understood the world. Jiangdong is only a small part of it."

"If you don't learn from the Northern Army and humble yourself and fight with the soldiers, you won't be able to adapt to this kind of war."

Lu Su nodded and sighed, "Indeed, the Northern Army has no slave soldiers. The soldiers are tough and many of them were bandits in the past. It is quite troublesome to win their hearts and minds."

"But with Gong Yi's talent, he would be a famous general wherever he is."

Jiang Qin shook his head, "I'm still far behind. Just like the trench warfare now, I've never heard of it before. It's indeed a unique idea, forcing Cao's army to imitate this tactic."

He looked around and saw that there was no one around, and whispered, "But I always feel that this approach also has hidden dangers."

"The essence of trench warfare lies in the speed of digging, breaking through the enemy's defense before the enemy can react, thus causing the enemy's formation to collapse."

"But if it drags on for too long, it will become a trench warfare like today, which will not be very meaningful."

"It's okay to put it in the mountains, but our area is an area where the Yellow River once flooded. What if the water flow upstream is restored and the enemy diverts water to flood the trenches?"

"Even if there is no Yellow River, there are still many other tributaries. Any one of them would lead into the trenches and make it difficult for the soldiers to escape."

Lu Su nodded and said, "Gong Yi is right. He is indeed a leading general in Jiangdong. Cao Cao must have thought of this possibility. Didn't you notice that their trenches were dug around the border of Wei County?"

"I guess that Cao's army is likely to use trenches to divert water and set up defenses layer by layer, turning Wei County into a huge city. The trenches are filled with water to form moats, and the battle area is full of water, which naturally makes it difficult to fight."

Jiang Qin was shocked and said, "No way, what good will this do them?"

"Even if they can stop us, they can't really put up a big fight."

Lu Su said: "They don't need to fight, they just need to consume our forces, form a balance of power, stabilize the rear, and digest the troops and money and food of Jingzhou and Yizhou at the same time."

"The Cao army has now reached its limit. Even if Cao Cao conquers Qingzhou, he will not be able to govern it. If this continues, he will sooner or later be dragged down by the Jin army, which has a deeper foundation."

"But now the two sides are engaged in battle. The Wei army has been frustrated in its offensive and knows it cannot enter the lord's territory, so it has adopted a defensive position, hoping to see if it can hold out until things turn around."

"My lord, I think it's hard to conquer Jizhou, so he went to Yuzhou to destroy Cao's rear."

"My lord and Cao Cao are both skilled in military tactics. Their offensive and defensive skills over the past six months can be said to be far superior to those of Jiangdong. From now on, the outcome of the world's battle will be decided between the two of them."

Jiang Qin nodded and then said, "If Cao Cao diverts water to fill the trenches, will he use it to launch a water attack on us?"

"On other fronts, our troops are deep in the trenches. If water floods in, the consequences will be disastrous."

Lu Su said, "I have already sent a letter to Yi Jing to remind him."

"What you and I can think of, the Lord and Yi Jing and the others should also be able to think of."

"This intention is not hard to see, so Cao Cao must have another trick up his sleeve."

"But this is what I cannot see."

"That depends on how Yi Jing and the others respond."

(End of this chapter)