Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1183 Falling into the trap
Xiahou Yuan, who was rushing here with thousands of cavalry and over ten thousand light infantry, was dreaming of using Madam Cai as bait to annihilate the Jin army that came to support him, and then taking advantage of the situation to encircle Yiling from the rear. However, he ran into an ambush of the Jin army head-on.

In order to reach the ambush site as quickly as possible, Xiahou Yuan did not bring heavy infantry. Under the attack of the well-prepared ambush of the Jin army, his vanguard troops were caught off guard and suffered heavy casualties, and their formation was in chaos.

Upon seeing this, Xiahou Yuan quickly withdrew his troops and used archers to block the formation, which slightly stopped the Jin army's offensive, but a lot of soldiers had been lost.

Moreover, after the unsuccessful attack, the Jin army decisively began to outflank the Wei army's flank. Xiahou Yuan immediately guessed that the enemy's strength was not inferior to his own, otherwise they would not dare to divide their forces in this way!
Thinking of this, Xiahou Yuan felt disappointed. If he had just thought that it might be an unexpected encounter, the series of actions taken by the Jin army clearly showed that they had known about their movements for a long time. This was a trap!

But Xiahou Yuan was, after all, the most capable commander in Cao's camp. He acted decisively and ordered his soldiers to fight and retreat at the same time, while he personally commanded the rear army to block the Jin army's pursuit.

He led his cavalry to sweep half a circle on the battlefield and found that the Jin cavalry began to encircle him. He knew that the other side was targeting him, so he immediately turned around and galloped away.

As the commander-in-chief, he was staying behind to boost morale, not to die in vain. Now that the enemy had discovered him, he would be a fool not to leave!

When the Jin cavalry saw this, they hurriedly chased after him. Xiahou Yuan lay tightly on his horse's back and heard the sound of arrows breaking through the air and flying past his head continuously. However, Xiahou Yuan was a skilled rider and soon blended into the crowd and disappeared.

Huang Zhong, who was shooting arrows from behind, cried out with regret. Judging from Xiahou Yuan's attire, he must be a general in Cao's camp. He wanted to shoot him to death in the chaos, but he didn't expect that the other party ran so fast that he disappeared as soon as he took out his bow.

Huang Zhong didn't waste any words. He waved his hand and attacked Xiahou's army.

At this juncture, the newly recruited Yizhou soldiers under Xiahou Yuan began to show their incompetence. When they were in Yizhou, they were all soldiers in Liu Zhang's army and had hardly ever fought in a major battle. Even when there were conflicts, they were against the private armies of local powerful men, but they still could not win. This was really not very good.

The reason why the Shu soldiers in later generations were so powerful was largely due to Zhuge Liang’s method of training troops.

When Liu Bei entered Sichuan, the Yizhou soldiers were very weak and could not defeat anyone. But it took Zhuge Liang seven years to train the Shu soldiers into a strong army, which enabled them to repeatedly defeat the Wei army in the subsequent Northern Expedition and make the Shu Kingdom famous.

After Zhuge Liang's death, Jiang Wei trained the troops according to the law and spent almost the same amount of time to retrain and integrate the Shu army. In the following twenty years, he managed to keep the Shu army at a high level of combat effectiveness.

After the fall of Shu, the Wei army entered Chengdu and obtained Zhuge Liang's Twenty Strategies of Military Affairs, which recorded military training methods. They then presented it to Sima Zhao, who was shocked after reading it. He searched all over Sichuan and burned all the Twenty-Four Strategies of Military Affairs. The work was thus lost.

In the thousands of years since then, there has never been a strong army in central Sichuan. As a result, rebellions in central Sichuan were easily suppressed, and separatist regimes in a corner of central Sichuan were also extremely easy to collapse. It has to be said that Sima Zhao had a very sharp vision.

Whether soldiers are strong or not all depends on the method of training. Yuan Xi purposefully let Zhuge Liang write military books and combine them with actual military training because he knew that Zhuge Liang was extremely talented in this area. Thanks to Zhuge Liang, Yuan Xi's soldiers were effectively trained and their combat effectiveness increased day by day.

In contrast, the Yizhou soldiers led by Xiahou Yuan were still in a very primitive stage. Facing the Jin army trained by Zhuge Liang, the situation was completely reversed. The Jin army was like a tiger entering a pack of wolves, chasing the Yizhou soldiers and killing them, leaving corpses all over the ground, and even fought all the way to Xiahou Yuan's camp.

Huang Zhong saw the crowded Wei army camp and guessed that the enemy had begun to mobilize troops to support them. He didn't know the number of people inside, and he might suffer casualties if he rushed into the battle line rashly. In addition, the enemy had a naval camp behind them and the support of Cai Mao's navy. It would be quite difficult for him to break in at once.

When he was hesitating, he received an order from Yuan Xi to withdraw his troops temporarily and reorganize the army. So Huang Zhongzhong sounded the horn to call back his troops, and led his men to clean up the battlefield while slowly retreating.

In this battle, Huang Zhong relied on an ambush to kill thousands of Wei soldiers, which was a great victory. However, he still felt a little regretful that he failed to take the opportunity to attack Cao's camp. When he returned to the camp to report to Yuan Xi, he expressed his doubts.

After Yuan Xi explained a few words, Huang Zhong finally realized that there was a problem with Guan Yu, and Yuan Xi made this decision just to be on the safe side.

Originally, Guan Yu's navy was suppressing Cai Mao in the battle. Maybe Cai Mao's performance was a little weak, so Guan Yu underestimated the enemy and advanced rashly. He even wanted to replicate the scene of jumping off the boat and defeating Wang Wei last time. However, he was shot and wounded by Cai Mao's archers who were ambushing under the deck, and had to retreat to his warship.

Guan Yu returned to the boat, only to find that he was seriously wounded by an arrow, so he had to temporarily let the navy retreat. Now the river was controlled by Cai Mao. Yuan Xi was afraid that Huang Zhong would be surrounded on both sides, so he ordered Huang Zhong to retreat first.

Seeing Huang Zhong's regretful expression, Yuan Xi said, "General, don't worry. General Guan will not let this go. When he recovers from his injury, he will definitely take revenge."

"And I have asked Boyan and Lord Xuande to send a letter, devising a strategy to lure the other side and try to capture them all in one fell swoop."

"In the next few days, we just need to follow the plan and fight against the Wei army."

Lu Xun said, "Please ask General Huang to go back and rest for two days. When the time comes, we can launch our plan and destroy the Wei army."

After hearing this, Huang Zhong took the order and went out to organize the troops for training.

Yuan Xi stood up and said to Lu Xun: "Leave this place to the military advisor. I will go back to Yiling to defend it first, so as to prevent the Wei army from reinforcing in the north."

Lu Xun knew that Yuan Xi's strength was defending the city. He handed this place to him so that he and Liu Bei could cooperate to defeat Xiahou Yuan. Lu Xun immediately accepted the order. Yuan Xi stood up, patted Lu Xun on the shoulder, and said with a smile: "A father-in-law and son-in-law jointly fought against the enemy, and it was in Yiling. It can be said to be a good story. Boyan, do your best. I am optimistic about you."

Lu Xun looked at Yuan Xi's departing back, wondering what happened in Yiling?
Yuan Xi led the army out of the camp and walked for dozens of miles until he returned to Yiling City at night. He had been controlling the overall situation and making great efforts in the past few days, and finally made Xiahou Yuan suffer a great loss. The key to all this was the counter-espionage plan used on Mrs. Cai.

The information obtained by Mrs. Cai had naturally gone through numerous screenings before she made the decision to betray the Wei army. Here, Yuan Xi only used simple intelligence screening to create an information gap between Mrs. Cai and Xiahou Yuan.

Including the fact that Xiahou Yuan was able to intercept the letter from Madam Cai to Yuan Xi, it was also specially arranged by Yuan Xi. In Xiahou Yuan's view, Madam Cai had defected to the enemy, but Yuan Xi was unaware of it. This was the best opportunity for Yuan Xi to fall into the trap. Little did he know that all the inside story was in Yuan Xi's control.

The letter intercepted by Xiahou Yuan was the result of Yuan Xi's deliberate guidance. How could Yuan Xi fail to take his response into account?

Yuan Xi had been running around all day and felt extremely tired, but he still forced himself to ask Sun Li and Zhang Fang to bring Wen Pin and Liu Cong and Madam Cai to him. However, Lu Lingqi had been running around for several days and felt unwell, so she went back to her room to sleep.

Soon, the two groups met in Yuan Xi's hall, and they stared at each other. Wen Pin did not expect Liu Cong and Madam Cai to appear here, and Madam Cai did not expect Wen Pin to be at Yuan Xi's place. She immediately raised her eyebrows and said, "You are so good, Wen Pin. My Liu family treated you well, but you threw yourself into the hands of a vicious tiger!"

Wen Pin is speechless. Everyone says that I surrender and never gives me a chance to speak. If I had known this earlier, I would have surrendered instead of just sitting here like an idiot and having everyone come to criticize me!
Yuan Xi said, "General Wen did not surrender, but he lost the bet with me. I'm afraid it will be no different from surrendering from now on."

Mrs. Cai turned to Yuan Xi, her face full of confusion, "Who is the general?"

Wen Pin quickly whispered, "This is the current King of Jin."

Mrs. Cai was horrified when she heard this. She had heard many rumors about fierce tigers, so she knew that the man in front of her was not to be trifled with. She quickly pulled Liu Cong to kneel down and said, "I am guilty. I see the king."

Yuan Xi saw that Mrs. Cai was quite strong-willed just now, but she knelt down immediately after hearing his name. He wondered in his heart, is he so famous now?

Little did he know that in Mrs. Cai's eyes, some of his actions were even more terrifying than Cao Cao's.

Yuan Xi cleared his throat and said, "When Lord Jingsheng was alive, he was still able to fight Cao Cao. Why did he surrender to Cao Cao and stab us in the back as soon as he died?"

"Don't you know that Lord Xuande and I are allies of Lord Jingsheng?"

"How is this behavior of backstabbing an ally different from that of the Wu Kingdom?"

When Mrs. Cai heard the word "Wu State", she thought of another rumor. Her face turned pale and she knelt on the ground, unable to speak.

Yuan Xi turned to Wen Pin and said, "Now that I have fulfilled my promise, what do you say, General?"

Wen Ping hesitated for a moment, and finally gritted his teeth and said, "I am willing to accept the defeat."

Since he knew that Cao's army wanted to kill Liu Cong and Madam Cai, and now that Yuan Xi had saved their lives, Wen Pin no longer had an excuse to refuse surrender.

Yuan Xi was overjoyed when he heard this, and he grabbed Wen Pin's arm and said, "With the general's help, there is no need to worry about the unrest in the world!"

Mrs. Cai saw all this and had even more distorted ideas. In her opinion, Wen Pin was obviously selling out his master for fame and fortune and had betrayed herself and Liu Cong!
Liu Cong was shaking and whispered, "Mother, are we going to die?"

After hearing this, Madam Cai mustered up her courage and raised her head, saying, "What does the king want to do with us, mother and son?"

Yuan Xi thought for a moment and said, "You should go to Shouchun for now. When the war stops, it would be best to go to Qingzhou."

When Mrs. Cai heard this, her face turned pale. Isn't this the same thing as Cao Cao did?
She lowered her head, and more than a dozen thoughts flashed through her mind. The other party also wanted to kill Liu Cong, so what else could she do?
She clenched her fingers, as if she had made up her mind, and said, "Your Majesty, please dismiss your attendants. I have something important to tell you."

Zhang Fang and Sun Li stepped forward. Their first reaction was that Madam Cai wanted to assassinate them. Yuan Xi saw this and smiled, "Don't be nervous. Madam Cai has a son here. I believe she won't do such a thing."

After hearing this, Mrs. Cai became even more certain that Xionghu really wanted to use Liu Cong to threaten her!
After hearing this, Sun Li and Zhang Fang were still worried, so they used the sheath of their knife to scratch Mrs. Cai's sleeves and legs to confirm that she had no weapon. Then they retreated with Wen Pin.

After everyone left, Yuan Xi looked at Madam Cai and said, "What's the matter, Madam?"

He didn't expect that Mrs. Cai would walk a few steps closer, slowly untie the belt of her gown, and take off the clothes.

(End of this chapter)