Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1343 Character
The news of Cao Pi's personal expedition soon reached Zhuge Liang, who had already arrived in Luoyang and was arranging the marching route to encircle Xu Du with Gao Lan and others. At this time, all the generals learned of Cao Pi's actions and expressed their concerns.

Zhang Xun said: "Cao Pi has never led troops into battle before, where does he get his confidence from?"

"Is this a trick? In fact, he is using me as bait and arranging a large army to ambush us?"

His statement was agreed by Gao Lan, and even Zhang He, who was the most confident, thought it was not easy to act rashly.

Zhuge Liang responded, "My Lord once told me that Cao Pi is a madman."

"From my perspective, his decision to lead the army in person was probably just a bluff, and he just wanted everyone in the world to play along with him."

"Rather than saying he was personally leading the army, it's more like he was sightseeing."

Zhang He was incredulous and asked, "How many tens of thousands of people are needed to do this?"

"Isn't this a bit too unbelievable?"

Zhuge Liang said: "It can't be said that he was completely reckless. At least he knew to trick us and slow down our advance. If he had besieged Xudu later, we would have had no choice but to withdraw when winter came."

"So we did the opposite and rushed to Xudu as quickly as possible, so that Cao Pi's army would not be able to arrive in time and would have to return empty-handed."

Gao Lan asked, "What if, as Junyi guessed, the Wei army had set up an ambush in advance?"

Zhuge Liang said: "The only one who can deceive me is Sima Yi."

"But Liang guessed that for various reasons, Sima Yi might not be willing to lead the army at this time. Anyway, the outcome will be clear in a few days. Now we just need to march forward."

In Chang'an, Sima Yi was lying on the bed, stretching lazily. Zhang Chunhua said, "My dear, the sun is so high, why don't you get up?"

"I heard that His Majesty is going to lead the army in person. I'm afraid he will call on my husband. Will my husband make some preparations?"

Sima Yi said leisurely: "Your Majesty will not call me this time."

"He was just pretending to fight and had no intention of engaging the Jin army, so at most he asked me to stay behind. How could he send me to lead the troops to fight?"

Zhang Chunhua was surprised and asked, "Pretending?"

"No way, this is a national issue, how can we treat it like a joke?"

Sima Yi smiled and said, "This is your Majesty's character."

"I haven't met your Majesty very often in private, but from what I can see, he is a very free-spirited person and doesn't care about his reputation at all. He just wants to do what he wants to do. In this respect, he is more like a poet than an emperor."

"I'm afraid that Your Majesty is very tired of the meaningless disputes among officials in the court, so he came up with this idea to make the civil and military officials suffer."

Zhang Chunhua was dumbfounded. "Just for this reason?"

"What does he think of the country?"

Sima Yi sighed: "I'm afraid our emperor has lost the will to carry on the late emperor's legacy."

As expected, a small-scale battle broke out around Xu Du. After Cao Pi, who was halfway there at a speed of more than ten miles a day, received the news, he immediately ordered his army to turn around and circle between Xu Du and Chang'an.

If it were someone else, they might have considered whether Cao Pi was going to encircle Xu Du from other directions, but Zhuge Liang learned from the intelligence that Sima Yi did not send troops this time, so he immediately made a decision to surround Xu Du with all his strength.

During this period, Zhuge Liang's offensive was not fierce, but he did not use the strategy of surrounding three sides and leaving one side open. Instead, he blocked the city on all sides and adopted a two-pronged tactic. While putting pressure on the defenders of the city wall, he also used a lot of psychological warfare tactics to persuade them to surrender.

Logically speaking, the person in Xu Du at this time was Cao Hong, who had finally returned after being defeated and fled last time. As a die-hard war advocate among the Cao family, he would naturally fight to the death. However, the current situation was that, in his opinion, Cao Pi did not come to his rescue, and the Jin army surrounded him, so he had no way out.

Cao Hong was mentally ill. He had offended Cao Pi before. If Cao Cao was alive, it would not be a big deal, but Cao Hong knew that Cao Pi was a lunatic who did not care about the Cao family's ties at all. Especially this kind of imperial expedition which was just a decoration, wasn't this just watching himself die?
Thinking about the loss of Yecheng and Luoyang and the threat to Xu City, all of which were related to his own defeat, Cao Hong felt even more unsure. He also guessed that if he was captured, Cao Pi would not care about him.

Take the example of Yu Jin mentioned above. When Yu Jin was defeated and captured by Guan Yu, the State of Jin wanted to use him to exchange for members of the Liu clan in Xu Du. However, Cao Pi only released Liu Xie and did not mention the exchange of Yu Jin at all, resulting in Yu Jin being imprisoned in Luoyang until now.

Thinking of this, Cao Hong felt even more depressed. He was surrounded this time and it was impossible to win. Surrender was out of the question. He could only think of a way to break through and escape. But even if he ran back to Chang'an, he was afraid that Cao Pi would accuse him of a crime!
Just as he was hesitating, a rebellion broke out in the city. Many people felt that the situation was hopeless and did not want to be tied to Cao Wei. Seeing that he could not suppress the situation, Cao Hong finally decided to break out and escape.

This was also something Cao Hong had thought about carefully. He had done his best in the city, but Cao Wei had lost the support of the people, and Cao Hong definitely did not want to be buried with Xu Du.

As for whether Cao Pi would punish him after he escaped, Cao Hong no longer cared. He had a relatively high status in the Cao Wei royal family. Cao Pi would always give him some face, right?

So on a dark and windy night, Cao Hong gathered all the troops in the city, suddenly opened the east gate, and tried his best to break out to the west.

Zhang Xun was the one guarding the route. He was preparing to rest when he was caught off guard by Cao Ren. Although he tried his best to mobilize troops to resist, Cao Hong's army still broke through the defense line. Zhang Xun had no choice but to send someone to inform Zhuge Liang, who then sent Zhang He and Gao Lan to lead troops to help. The two sides fought until dawn, and more than half of Cao's troops escaped under the cover of night.

Facing Zhang Xun's apology, Zhuge Liang said: "General, don't blame yourself. Now we have a complete Xudu, which is the greatest victory. We have fully met the expectations of the lord."

Zhuge Liang knew very well that although the attack on Xu Du seemed to be a simple process, a lot of hard work had actually been done behind the scenes. It was the result of Jin's comprehensive suppression of Wei in all aspects.

The complete defeat of Cao Hong's line of Cao generals will cause Cao Pi to completely lose confidence in the ability of the Cao clan. From now on, he will embark on a path of relying on generals from other clans to comprehensively suppress the Cao clan.

This result was exactly what Yuan Xi wanted to see. He and Zhuge Liang had deliberately planned to do so in order to completely destroy Cao Pi's confidence in the clan generals, so as to allow officials from other families like Sima Yi to take power.

Based on the ideas provided by Yuan Xi, Zhuge Liang made calculations and came to a conclusion that the Cao Wei court would inevitably undergo several major reshuffles within ten years, and the forces that remained at that time might not be a good thing for the Wei State.

As Zhuge Liang had expected, when the news of Cao Hong's escape reached Cao Pi, he immediately gave up his plan and retreated back to Chang'an.

At the same time, he put Cao Hong, who had fled back to Chang'an, in prison and interrogated him for his incompetence in battle. His interrogation was more severe than that of others. Even the officials of Cao Wei felt that the crime was so serious that Cao Hong might not be able to save his life.

Officials and generals who were on good terms with Cao Hong all pleaded for him, but were all rejected by Cao Pi. He angrily said in the court: "I personally led the army to fight. If Cao Hong had not escaped without permission, how could the Wei army have suffered so much trouble and returned empty-handed?"

"Cao Hong has committed a capital crime. Even though I am a descendant of the Cao family, I cannot show any mercy to him. He must be severely punished according to the law!"

Everyone knew that Cao Pi was definitely taking the opportunity to retaliate. After all, Cao Hong was the backbone of the Cao family. Why did Cao Pi abandon him?

There were only a few people in the Cao Wei court who could accurately grasp Cao Pi's psychology. Apart from the extremely low-key Sima Yi, there was Zhong Yao.

At this time, he was concentrating on writing. He did not immediately answer the question from Chen Qun who came to visit him. Instead, after finishing writing a bamboo slip, he looked up and said, "I heard that the Jin State uses mulberry and bamboo to make very good paper. The ink rhyme written on it is much better than that on bamboo slips."

Chen Qun didn't expect Zhong Yao to say something irrelevant, so he subconsciously said, "But I've heard that if there are mistakes on paper, there's no way to fix them, but if there are mistakes on bamboo slips, you can use medicine juice and water to wipe them off. In any case, bamboo slips are more convenient."

Zhong Yao smiled and said, "That's it."

"In fact, the same is true for court affairs. Your Majesty remembers clearly what people have done in the past."

"In his eyes, we are like pieces of mulberry and bamboo paper, not bamboo slips that can be smeared."

"Once something is written on a piece of paper, it cannot be changed unless you change it to another piece of paper."

Chen Qun seemed to understand something, and then he blurted out, "But Zhongda doesn't look like a blank sheet of paper either."

Zhong Yao smiled and said, "Perhaps in your Majesty's mind, he is that bamboo slip?"

Chen Qun couldn't help but ask, "Isn't this a matter of judging people differently?"

Zhong Yao said calmly: "Things in this world are just like this. There is no reason for it."

"It's hard for us to write anything else on these papers that are filled with words, just like Cao Hong. I'm afraid he still can't figure out why Your Majesty didn't forgive him."

“To hate someone, you only need a small reason, or even no reason at all.”

"In your majesty's eyes, the Cao clan is no different from those with other surnames. He is a very interesting person, but Cao Hong was unlucky and ran into him."

The news that Zhuge Liang had captured Xu Du reached Jicheng. It was already winter at this time, and Yuan Xi was sitting by the stove, watching the military situation and Cai Zhaoji writing.

Cai Zhaoji finished writing a bamboo slip, then put down her pen and said, "After taking over Xudu, we are one step closer to unifying the country. Your Majesty is in a good mood, so you are taking some time off, right?"

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "It's just a combination of work and rest. As for the situation over at Cao Wei, I just need to give a push from behind, and things will naturally go as I expect."

"In comparison, the Xianbei outside the Great Wall are a big problem. I get a headache every time I think about it. Only by watching you write can I maintain a good attitude."

Cai Zhaoji looked down at Yuan Xi's claws reaching into her arms and said angrily, "So your majesty is using this method to cultivate his sentiments?"

Yuan Xi said shamelessly: "That's right, Madam has a broad mind, it encompasses everything and can accommodate everything."

Cai Zhaoji glanced at Yuan Xi and said, "Okay, I'll write down your words and put them in the daily notes."

Great Khan Yuan Xi, if he were to leave his name in history in this way, he would probably be a bad influence on future generations.

(End of this chapter)