Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1319 Beheading
Sima Yi is now very panicked.

He was very sure that the other party's method of grafting was specifically aimed at him.

Although the enemy general Wei Yan was also very powerful, he was still less of a threat than Guan Yu, Sima Yi's target before the battle.

Sima Yi had also guessed where Guan Yu had gone. He now felt a chill on his back. If there was a problem along the Xu Du defense line, it would probably lead to a collapse in other directions!
But now he did not dare to retreat immediately under Wei Yan's watchful eyes. The other party would definitely chase him. Even if he could return to Xu Du, how many of his soldiers would be left?
But Sima Yi had to retreat. After all, if Xu City was really lost, he would have no way to retreat.

So one night, after receiving an urgent report from Xudu, he summoned Li Yan and said, "We will withdraw our troops tomorrow night, and you will cover our retreat."

Li Yan's heart tightened, but he still obeyed the order obediently. However, after walking out of the tent, his face suddenly became gloomy.

Fuck you, this son of a bitch wants you to be abandoned!

Or why not just surrender to the Jin army?

The next day, Wei Yan led his troops to challenge, and Sima Yi sent troops to fight. After fighting for most of the day, both sides were exhausted and returned to the camp to rest.

Sima Yi had already asked his elite soldiers to pack their luggage, and when night fell, he ordered his troops to march quickly from the rear of the camp and retreat towards Xu Du.

Naturally, this matter could not be concealed from the Jin army's spies. Within two hours, Wei Yan received the news. He did not delay and immediately assembled his troops and, with the help of lighting rockets, attacked the Wei army camp on the road overnight.

Li Yan stood on the arrow tower and commanded the soldiers to resist. The Jin army pushed the battering rams and towers to retreat. Wherever they went, the wooden walls collapsed and the moat was filled up. Li Yan's personal soldiers of Jing Yi were beaten back step by step and were unable to resist at all.

Seeing his own soldiers suffering rapid casualties, Li Yan felt extremely upset. Most of the Cao Wei generals relied on their personal soldiers and private soldiers to achieve merit. If all of their own soldiers died, what would they use to make a comeback in the future?
Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth and ordered his soldiers to concentrate on one side for defense. When Wei Yan saw this, he would not let go of this flaw. He immediately concentrated his attention on the weak side of the Wei army and soon broke through the camp.

This camp was built on the road. The influx of the Jin army forced Li Yan's army to retreat to the mountain on one side of the road. The Jin cavalry immediately rushed in on horseback.

Wei Yan took the lead, but ignored Li Yan's army who were fleeing around the mountains, and chased directly in the direction Sima Yi fled, leaving only his deputy general to pursue the fleeing Li Yan's army.

Liu Fu, the military supervisor beside him, quickly advised: "General, it is too dangerous to pursue at night. It is better to advance step by step and occupy the camp first."

After hearing this, Wei Yan said, "The Wei army has obviously abandoned the soldiers who were left behind. They must be fleeing with all their might. If we don't chase them now, when will we?"

"The man opposite is Sima Yi, the one the lord fears the most. If we can capture and kill him, the world will be in chaos and the Wei Kingdom will no longer be a threat!"

"Don't worry, Military Supervisor. Just cover my retreat!"

After hearing this, Liu Fu had no choice but to obey the order and led his troops to clean up the camp and clear the road. However, Wei Yan had already chased after them.

When Li Yan saw that the camp was lost on the mountain, he took his soldiers and fled north through the woods. Thinking that the Jin army should be chasing Sima Yi at this time, thoughts surged in his mind: Will Sima Yi be killed by the Jin army this time?

After much deliberation, he decided to fight and retreat in the woods while trying to find out news about Sima Yi. If Sima Yi died in battle, he would simply surrender.

On the other side, Wei Yan fired rockets to explore the way while chasing after them. After chasing for more than ten miles, he suddenly realized that something was wrong. When he was about to turn back, he heard a horn sound from both sides of the road, and arrows rained down, covering all the hundreds of Jin troops in the front.

Although Wei Yan rolled off his horse in time, he was still hit by several arrows. He knew that he had fallen into a trap, but the Wei army's arrows were so dense that he had to hide behind the dead horse and could not even raise his head.

Seeing the Wei army shooting arrows and surrounding him, with almost all the Jin army around him dead, Wei Yan looked up to the sky and sighed, wondering if he was going to die here today?

At this moment, shouts and screams were heard from behind. Wei Yan looked and saw that it was the military supervisor Liu Fu who led his troops to rescue. He was overjoyed and quickly ordered the soldiers to break out and retreat to the rear.

Just when the two armies were about to join forces, the Wei army's ambushers launched another wave of arrows, shooting Liu Fu, who was commanding on horseback, off his horse. But by then Wei Yan had already escaped the ambush, quickly rescued Liu Fu, and retreated along the way.

It was Sima Yi who set the ambush. He knew that although Wei Yan was quite strategic in battle, he liked to take risks. So he used the bait of sudden retreat to lure Wei Yan to chase him. Wei Yan was eager to make a contribution and was fooled.

Sima Yi led his troops all the way back and Wei Yan was forced to retreat into his previous camp. After attacking and defending for most of the night, he finally managed to hold on.

In this battle, Wei Yan's army won first and then lost, with more than a thousand casualties. He felt quite ashamed. Seeing that the Wei army's offensive had stopped, he had to keep his troops in place for the time being. However, he received news from spies that Sima Yi's main force had retreated northward again two hours ago and could no longer be caught up.

Wei Yan then realized that he had fallen into Sima Yi's trap of playing hard to get, and he could not help feeling regretful. He rested for half a day and was about to lead his troops in pursuit again, but he received a letter from Zhuge Liang in the north, saying that the Jin army was approaching Xu Du. Zhuge Liang ignored the southern passage of Xu Du to cut off Sima Yi's return route, and told Wei Yan to just entangle the enemy and not to act rashly.

Wei Yan held the letter with an extremely ugly expression on his face. Such a good situation had been ruined by himself!

At this time, a soldier urgently reported that Liu Fu was seriously wounded by an arrow and was about to die. When Wei Yan rushed to the tent, he found that Liu Fu was dying and had only one breath left.

Wei Yan half-knelt in front of Liu Fu's couch and said sadly: "General, I'm sorry for you."

Liu Fu shook his head and said, "General, you are extremely brave and will surely make great contributions in the future, but I hope you will think twice before fighting, so as not to let down the king's kindness."

Wei Yan held Liu Fu's hand, bowed his head and said in shame: "I will remember the words of the military supervisor." When he raised his head, he found that Liu Fu had died. He immediately stood up angrily and shouted to the sky: "Sima Yi, I will kill you!"

After this defeat, the Jin army could no longer stop Sima Yi's retreat. Sima Yi led his troops on a rapid march for two days and two nights, covering nearly 200 miles and only 200 to 300 miles away from Xu Du.

Seeing that the soldiers were tired, he decided to set up camp on the mountain after some thought to prevent the Jin army from cutting off their retreat from the direction of Xu Du. At this moment, the soldiers came to report that Li Yan had arrived with the defeated troops.

Sima Yi had Li Yan brought in and asked, "How many soldiers do you have?"

Li Yan replied: "I have tried my best and brought back more than 3,000 soldiers."

Sima Yi sneered and said, "With 5,000 soldiers left as the rear guard, more than 3,000 soldiers were able to return. The general is truly amazing."

Li Yan cursed in his heart. He wanted to argue a few more words, but he heard Sima Yi shouting: "As a surrendered general, you have been used by Ming Gong and His Majesty successively, but you don't think about serving the country, but repeatedly desert in battle, ruining the military plan of Wei!"

"You killed General Xiahou before, and now you want to kill me!"

He pulled out the token and threw it on the ground, "Come here, execute him according to military law!"

Immediately, Wei soldiers came up and dragged Li Yan out. Li Yan shouted, "General, General, I am innocent!"

Sima Yi waved his hand, turned around and ignored Li Yan. He had previously learned about Li Yan's plot to kill Xiahou Yuan, and had long been dissatisfied with Li Yan. Now Li Yan dared to pit him, so was he going to keep this kind of scourge?

On the night of the ambush on Wei Yan, Sima Yi took advantage of Li Yan's habit of escaping and lured Wei Yan into the ambush. Although Sima Yi had predicted it all, Li Yan's perfunctory resistance and his attitude of only trying to escape had already made Sima Yi want to kill him. If he kept such a person, he would sooner or later end up hurting himself!

Soon, a soldier brought up Li Yan's bloody head. Sima Yi waved his hand and said, "Hang the head on the gate as a warning. If anyone escapes in the future, they will be killed without mercy!"

After Li Yan's head was hung up, the three armies, including the soldiers of Jing and Yi, were all worried. Sima Yi took the opportunity to reorganize the soldiers and then issued an order for the entire army to march east.

This order was beyond the expectation of the chief clerk Meng Gongwei, who quickly advised: "Military Advisor, the Jin army is coming from the east, why don't we retreat to block it, but instead march towards it?"

Sima Yi said calmly, "I heard that you and Zhuge Liang, the military advisor of King Jin, were once called the Four Friends?"

Meng Gongwei said quickly: "Everyone serves his master, and Jian will not sacrifice personal interests for the sake of public interests."

Sima Yi laughed and said, "That's not what I meant. I just wanted to ask you, what kind of person is Zhuge Liang?"

Meng Gongwei hesitated for a moment and said, "Kong Ming once compared himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi. At that time, I thought his ambition was too high. Now it seems that he is indeed a man of great talent and strategy, and he lives up to his reputation."

"They have many clever ideas, which I cannot match."

Sima Yi: "Not to mention you, even I am ashamed of myself."

"In every previous fight, I was always at a disadvantage. He is very good at guessing people's minds. Now that I have retreated back to Xudu, he must have expected that, so he will definitely set up an ambush in advance."

"If I retreat westward, it may seem safe, but I will fall into their trap."

"So I did the opposite. I headed east to cut off his retreat. Only then could I turn the situation around and survive from a desperate situation."

After hearing this, Meng Gongwei was convinced and said, "General, your wisdom is truly admirable!"

At the same time, Zhuge Liang was also discussing the southern route with Yuan Xi in the tent. Yuan Xi said, "I always feel a little uneasy. Wei Yan may not be able to hold Sima Yi back."

Zhuge Liang said, "I think so too. And given Sima Yi's character, he will think that I will come to cut off his retreat, so he will definitely try to retreat. I hope General Wei can see through this."

"If we fail, it will be a bit troublesome. After all, the distance from Fancheng to Xudu is only 500 miles. If we walk fast, we can return in six or seven days."

Yuan Xi asked, "Then will the Prime Minister personally lead the troops to stop him?"

Zhuge thought for a moment and said, "No, he can guess that I am here to block him, so he will definitely change his route. We can guess each other's moves, and either of us may guess correctly or not. It's a waste of time and effort, and it has nothing to do with the overall situation."

"The only target of this expedition is Xudu. As long as we take it, Sima Yi will not be able to change the situation no matter how hard he tries to turn the tide in the battle."

"Previously, our approach has always been to attack Xu Du's heart, and now it's time to take a step further."

(End of this chapter)