Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1391 Mutual Calculation
Guo Huai wondered if the Jin army on the opposite side had changed its military advisor, because as far as he knew, Zhuge Liang usually acted cautiously and would never take risks when he could reduce losses.

This is also why Guo Huai was able to guess the movements of the Jin army when they rescued Guan Ping. After Guo Huai succeeded, he really thought that he had seen through Zhuge Liang.

Moreover, according to Guo Huai's idea, after suffering two setbacks, the Jin army should be more cautious in their actions, not seeking merit but avoiding mistakes. In addition, the other two routes of the Jin army were making rapid progress. In order to avoid being criticized for competing for credit and advancing rashly, Zhuge Liang would only be more cautious and adopt a conservative stance.

What Guo Huai had to do was to take advantage of the Jin army's mentality and pretend to fight to the death with the enemy in Wancheng, so that the Jin army would tend to wait for breakthroughs from the other two routes. By then, at least Jingzhou could be defended, thus completing the task assigned by Cao Pi.

As for the other two routes, we naturally have no power to take care of them. Guo Huai just needs to ensure that Sima Yi can suppress other competitors.

However, this time the Jin army adopted a radical tactic of bypassing Wancheng and attacking Wuguan directly, which left the difficult choice to Guo Huai: should he chase or not?
If they did not pursue, the Jin army would cut off their logistics along the way, and within a month, Sima Yi's tens of thousands of troops would be defeated without a fight.

But if he chased, who knew whether the enemy would lure him into an ambush? If he lost the battle in the wild, even if he could run back, he would not have enough troops to defend Wancheng. If the Jin army captured Wancheng at that time, they could seize Nanyang, which meant that Wei had completely lost Jingzhou.

Guo Huai thought about it and felt overwhelmed. For the first time, he realized that things were out of control. The biggest weakness of the Wei army was their lack of strength, so they could only use strange strategies. However, the opponent had calculated this and strangled the Wei army's initiative, putting this side into a dilemma!
To the north of Wancheng, Zhuge Liang had already set up camp with his troops, and all the roads to the north of Wancheng were blocked. He and Guo Huai had different views on the brilliant plan. What Guo Huai considered a brilliant plan was not a strategy at all in Zhuge Liang's view. He just stood in front of Guo Huai, making it impossible for the other party to jump out of the trap he had set.

Zhuge Liang figured it out. Now that the Jin army had the upper hand in terms of manpower, it meant they had the right of first choice, so there was no need to play rock-paper-scissors with the other side. He just advanced step by step, and the other side could only be led by the nose.

Zhuge Liang had far more cards than the Wei State. He sent Wei Yan out and had Huang Zhong in his hand, but the Wei army only had Guo Huai. If he wanted to do anything, he had to defeat Huang Zhong.

Zhuge Liang left Wen Pin to deal with Sima Yi. Although it was a bit risky, the purpose was only to delay Sima Yi. As long as he did not act rashly, there should be no major problems.

As for how to proceed, Zhuge Liang gave the same advice as Yuan Xi had mentioned before: when the enemy advances, I retreat; when the enemy retreats, I advance. He did not seek to defeat the opponent, but only to tire him out, harass him, and stick to him so that he could not use his troops at will.

As for Sima Yi, if he wanted to break the impasse, he would need to penetrate deep into the heartland of the Jin army and occupy at least half of the state to have room to maneuver his troops. However, the strategic depth of the Jin State was extremely long, and with Sima Yi's military strength, he could not take over so much territory of the Jin State.

As for the Hannan Kingdom, there was an unstable factor. Zhuge Liang felt that Guan Ping lacked experience in battle and would easily suffer at the hands of Sima Yi. If Sima Yi abandoned the Jin army and took Guan Ping and occupied the three counties of southern Jing, it would cause considerable trouble.

However, Zhuge Liang's worries did not last long. A few days later, news came from the south that Sima Yi's attack on Xiangyang was thwarted and he fell into Pang Tong's trap, resulting in a lot of casualties in his troops.

The reason why Sima Yi suffered a loss was that he did not expect that Pang Tong was in charge of Xiangyang. He used the same strategy as he used to deal with Guan Ping, but was tricked by Pang Tong instead. When his soldiers were crossing the river, they were ambushed under Pang Tong's command, and dozens of boats sank. Sima Yi had to retreat in embarrassment.

As for Guan Ping, Pang Tong sent someone to deliver a letter saying that he had gone north to Wuguan and Qingni Pass.

After receiving the letter, Zhuge Liang couldn't help but sigh. He and Pang Tong thought the same thing. The key to Sima Yi's journey was not to find a way to defeat his main force, but to cut off his way home, which would naturally make him less moraleful.

Facts have also proved that Zhuge Liang made the right choice. When Sima Yi learned that both Hannan Kingdom and Jin Army had sent people to attack Wuguan, he immediately abandoned Fancheng and Anzhong, and the entire army retreated to Wancheng.

Sima Yi also saw it very clearly. The narrow strip of land from Fancheng to Wancheng where the Wei army was located had two rivers on both sides, which was like a bottle, and Zhuge Liang's army was the lid. If he wanted to seal the Wei army in the lid and suffocate them, Sima Yi would naturally not choose to sit and wait for death.

In fact, Sima Yi was even more cautious than Zhuge Liang. He said that he believed in Guo Huai, but with his character, he did not dare to bet his entire fate on Guo Huai. So after repeated consideration, he decisively led his troops to retreat, preparing to defend Wancheng and prevent the Jin army from passing.

Zhuge Liang also anticipated this idea, because if he were in Sima Yi's position, he would have no other choice. After all, no matter how many victories he won in the south, he could not keep Chang'an.

Sima Yi's move was to abandon the Shangyong Fangling line and hand over the eastern gateway from Yizhou to Jingzhou. This was tantamount to cutting off one's own arm, because if either Hannan or Jin State directly broke into Hanzhong from this road, it would be possible to cut off the road from Chang'an to Yizhou.

Now that Wei has lost the passage to Liang Province, if it loses the passage to Yi Province as well, it will have no choice but to wait for death in Chang'an!

If Cao Pi investigated the matter later, would Sima Yi be held accountable?
Facing Xu Miao and Liang Ji's question, Sima Yi said, "How can I spare the energy to take care of this now?"

"The Jin army has already made breakthroughs in the other two routes. If we continue to defend Shangyong Fangling, we will be the first to die!"

"So we must defend Wancheng to the death and make sure we can retreat back to Chang'an one day. If the soldiers knew their retreat was cut off and the army was in chaos, what was the point of fighting?"

Xu Miao smiled bitterly and said, "No one expected that not only the Qiao-Han Pass in Guanzhong, but also the Marquis of Yanling in Liangzhou would be defeated so quickly."

"They are known for their bravery and had the help of powerful men and cavalry from Xiliang, but they still fell into the trap of the Jin army. Now Tianshui County has been lost. Even if we can stop them all the way, Chang'an is no longer safe."

Liang Ji nodded and said, "That's right. In fact, we have long lost all hope of a comeback." "The general is right. Even if we can capture Xiangyang and Jingnan, what will happen?"

"The other side has pulled back their defenses, ceded dozens of cities to us, and relocated all the people. With only tens of thousands of people, we can't even occupy them, let alone hold them!"

"But General, even if we defend Wancheng, we will be surrounded by the Jin army reinforcements from Luoyang sooner or later, right?"

"Why don't you just retreat to Wuguan instead of occupying Wancheng, which is already of little use?"

Sima Yi said in a deep voice: "Because the former's intention is too obvious, it is easy for Zhuge Liang to see through it and ambush us on the road."

"When fighting against Zhuge Liang, you must think a few more steps ahead, otherwise you will be outmaneuvered by him."

Xu Miao said, "Guo Huai calculated the opponent's thoughts accurately twice. Is it because he thinks more than the general?"

As a military advisor, he could only make some suggestions to fill in the gaps. However, the Chief Clerk Guo Huai, who was not favored at the beginning, came to the fore and even thwarted the intentions of the Jin army. This made Xu Miao secretly jealous.

Sima Yi said: "No, Guo Huai was able to grasp Zhuge Liang's ideas the first two times because Guan Ping was the weak point of the coalition forces at that time."

"Now that Guan Ping is gone, he has been replaced by Pang Tong, who is difficult to deal with. Zhuge Liang no longer needs to protect the Hannan Army. In fact, there is no weakness that can be exploited there."

"The current confrontation with the Jin army has become a pure contest of strength. They have not concealed their intention to divide their forces to attack Wuguan and cut off our retreat. They just want us to behave in a panic and reveal our flaws."

"We must not rush at this time. The safest way is to rely on Wancheng and fight a war of attrition with the Jin army. We must not reveal our intention to retreat to Chang'an, otherwise we will definitely be caught in our hands."

Liang Ji said, "But what if the other side sees the situation clearly and does not move, but only fights with us in Wancheng?"

Sima Yi said: "If things don't go well, we can only retreat."

"But the direction we take is also very important. First, we should suddenly move diagonally westward to defeat the Hannan National Army and reoccupy Fangling Shangyong."

"Second, we will go directly north, cross the Luo River, and head straight to Luoyang to cut off the retreat of the Jin army's central army!"

Xu Miao and Liang Ji opened their eyes wide in surprise. Isn't this a desperate gamble? Luoyang is the base for the Jin army's central troops. If they can't take it, the Wei army will be surrounded by the Jin army and be in danger of being wiped out!

Sima Yi said: "Put yourself in a desperate situation and then survive. The way of military strategy is to attack the enemy and then rescue him. Only by leading the enemy by the nose can you predict the enemy's actions."

"Luoyang is the rear base camp of Xionghu's expedition. If we capture it, we can rush along the Xiaohan Road and block Xionghu between Tongguan and Sanmenxia."

"No one in the Jin army, from top to bottom, dares to take this risk. They will definitely do their best to rescue us. Then we can tear apart the Jin army's originally tight defense line and expose its flaws."

"Then we can go wherever we want without being restrained by the Jin army and retreat safely."

After hearing this, Xu Miao and Liang Ji were convinced and said, "General, you are wise!"

Zhuge Liang set up layers of defense lines along the hundreds of miles of battle line between Wancheng and Luoshui, and deployed his troops in sequence to deal with the incoming Jin army.

The distance of this defense line is very important. If it is too far, they cannot support each other and will be defeated by the enemy one by one. If it is too close, they cannot guard all the checkpoints and will let the enemy slip through.

The big net that has been laid out now is like a sieve full of holes, which will be broken with a single blow. If it were any other prince, they would indeed be unable to defend themselves and would only expose their weaknesses in vain.

But only the Jin army could do it, because they could use rocket signals to identify the enemy's movements in a very short time, and surround them on all sides, just like the line on a fishing net, once it was pulled the entire net would immediately tighten, trapping all the fish in it.

Zhuge Liang pointed to a certain spot on the map and said to Huang Zhong, "Sima Yi is likely to launch an attack here to break our defense line."

(End of this chapter)