Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 495
Facing Cao Cao's question, Cheng Yu hesitated. He knew that his opinion would affect Cao Cao's decision and determine the final outcome on the battlefield.

He felt that he would not be better than Xun You in terms of battlefield strategy, but Xun You failed to get a bargain in several fights with fierce tigers, let alone himself?

So this time Cao Cao simply brought the two of them together. Cheng Yu assisted Cao Cao and Xun You who assisted Cao Ren, in order to maximize all their strength and defeat Yuan Xi in one fell swoop!
Xun You thought for a while, then slowly said: "As long as the fierce tiger is not stupid, the possibility of him appearing in such a complicated and unknown situation should be less than half."

Cao Cao nodded slightly after hearing this, with a little regret on his face.

For him, Yuan Xi grew up too fast, and he was a child of the Yuan family. The most important thing was that this person had great ambitions, and it was absolutely impossible for him to be drawn into him, so the two of them would meet each other sooner or later.

Among the Yuan family's children, Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang, who have a higher status than Yuan Xi, have very obvious tricks and shortcomings, and they have been mastered by Cao Cao and can be used for unexpected purposes in the future.

Only Yuan Xi, this person is not only ambitious, but also has a very clear mind. He knows what he wants, and is more dangerous than the other two. Cao Cao seems to see his own shadow in him.

So never let it grow!

Seeing that Cao Cao looked unhappy, Cheng Yu hurriedly said, "But Yu thinks that if the fierce tiger can't be killed in this battle, it would be good to cut off its two claws."

"It is said that the ones he brought from Youzhou this time are his direct descendants who have painstakingly managed. All of these thousands of people can command arithmetic, which is the ability only possessed by the positions of centurion and above!"

"The ferocious tiger should have brought these people to Guangling to conquer Yuan Shu, and expanded their troops to tens of thousands of troops on the spot!"

"As long as you train for a month or two, you will be able to join the battle against Yuan Shu, and your combat strength will not be low. If the soldiers die, they will be replenished on the spot. The advantage is to save food and grass. As long as these mid-level officers don't die, we can continue to expand our troops!"

"I have to say that Jihu is a talent, but at this time, he also has a flaw!"

"Guo Jia, the advisor he relies on the most, did not come with him!"

Speaking of this, Cheng Yu also paused for a moment, thinking of the quarrel with Xun Yu at the beginning, he felt quite embarrassed.

On the day of Dongwuyang negotiations, Yuan Xi named Guo Jia who had a grudge against the Yuan family. At that time, Guo Jia was not yet famous. Cheng Yu thought about exchanging the lives of Guo Jia's family for Cao Pi and Cao Zhi not to be hostages. After buying and selling, they decided to arrest Guo Jia's family and hand them over to Yuan Xi.

However, what happened in the next two years really slapped Cheng Yu in the face. During this period, Yuan Xi helped the Yuan family defeat several powerful enemies and won several battles. The only counselor is Guo Jia!

Every time Xun Yu brought up this matter, he would be very angry, which made Cheng Yu quite uncomfortable.

Cheng Yu also knew that he had made a loss-making business, so he had to find a way to wash away his stigma, defeating and even eliminating Yuan Xi became his goal.

Now that Guo Jia is not in Xuzhou, it is a great opportunity!
Cao Cao said: "There is also Jushou."

Cheng Yu hurriedly said: "Indeed, but Jushou leads his troops steadily and is not used to surprise troops, so his strategy is probably to fight steadily and step by step."

"At this time, the fierce tiger only has a maximum of 3000 people. As long as we concentrate all our troops and kill them all with a lightning strike, even if the fierce tiger survives, within five years, he will no longer have the ability to compete for world domination!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "What Zhongde said is exactly what I want."

"But it still needs an opportunity to draw out its troops."

Cheng Yu smiled and said, "Now the opportunity has come."

"At this time in Houqiu City, I am afraid that Tancheng has been besieged and the news that Liu Bei's army going north has been defeated."

"They have lost all courage now, and now they are using the method of encircling three and missing one, so that they can abandon the city and flee."

"After they escaped, they had no other choice. The other direction was either a swamp or a lake. They could only go back the same way and flee to Qucheng or Haixi."

"Originally Houqiu and the fleeing teams south of Xiapi were far away from each other, and both sides expected Tancheng to rescue them, but now the troops in the direction of Tancheng are completely lost by us. After Mi Fang gets the news, she should flee to the direction of Guangling."

"The direction of its escape is also very predictable. It can only bypass the Great Lake (the name of the ancient Taihu Lake), and it is also heading towards Haixi!"

"If we drive properly in the back, the 10,000+ defeated soldiers on both sides will meet up more than a hundred miles west of Haixi."

"At that time, the vicious tiger will relax its vigilance and come out to meet Liu Bei and Mi Fang's retreating troops. At this time, our soldiers and horses from three groups will come after them and fight to a decisive battle!"

"With our dozens of strong generals and [-] Qingzhou soldiers, even if we can't wipe them out, we can still seriously hurt their vitality!"

"Of course the best situation is to kill the fierce tiger, so that our confidant's serious troubles will be wiped out!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "Having Zhongde's help makes me feel much relieved."

"Let's do it, and we're fighting in the name of destroying Liu Bei's army. If we can kill the fierce tiger, we have to shirk it afterwards, saying that the fierce tiger entered the battlefield without permission, and we can't tell it apart. Killing him was really an accident."

"Then find a not-so-honest general with a foreign surname to behead and give the head to Yuan Shao, which should calm his anger."

"However, in this matter, the contradiction between the Yuan family's children was exploited."

"The fierce tiger has already posed a great threat to Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang. If we promise benefits, they should argue for us."

"Furthermore, the fierce tiger has been adopted. Strictly speaking, he is no longer Yuan Shao's son, and if the fierce tiger is dead, he is useless to the Yuan family. Yuan Shao probably won't do anything to me at this juncture."

"When we secretly alienate the relationship between the Yuan family's children, while eliminating Yuan's postoperative, our strength will increase greatly, and we will be able to fight against the Yuan family!"

After hearing this, Cheng Yu praised, "It's hard for your subordinates to guess what's going on in people's minds!"

"When you go to the army to attack and plan, the people who fight in the end are the hearts of the people. The fierce tiger already has a way to kill!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "Okay, this time we will gamble with all our strength!"

"Order Xia Houyuan who is besieging Houqiu to open the gap and drive out Mi Fang and tens of thousands of people in the city!"

If you can overlook the earth from a high place in Xuzhou, you can see a magnificent and cruel scene.

Long dragons of soldiers meandered between the cities, and a large group of ant-like people fled in all directions. They were eaten by the long dragons that swam over from time to time, and a piece was missing.

These dozens of long dragons are not in a hurry to nibble away at the delicious food, but follow behind leisurely, taking a bite every once in a while, so that the ants fleeing in front are even more panicked and change constantly. Looking at the shape, he fled in a panic among the mountains.

After two days and two nights, the long dragon behind turned into straight arrows, like a herdsman's precise leather whip, falling on the grazing sheep one by one, causing them to converge slowly in a certain direction.

Mi Fang rode on the horse in a panic, and said to Mi Zhen who was also riding on the horse: "Little sister, if the enemy troops attack later, I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on anymore, so I'd better run away!"

Mi Zhen bit her lips tightly, "Brother, don't you think we should have died a long time ago?"

"These enemy troops in the back did not pursue us with all their strength!"

Mi Fang shouted: "Don't worry about it!"

"Liu Yuzhou is defeated, I just want to survive!"

"We are two hundred miles away from Haixi Sea, Yuan Shijun will definitely come to rescue us!"

Mi Fang wanted to continue talking, but saw a lot of dense black spots appearing on the horizon in the distance ahead, and she was terrified. Could it be that Cao Jun has already surrounded herself?

He subconsciously wanted to run away, but found that the other party didn't seem to be approaching, but was also turning in a panic. Mi Fang thought about it and sent spies to check.

Not long after, the spies brought back a person. After Mi Fang asked, he found that he was a commoner who had fled from Xiapi!
The other side cried out that after Liu Bei led them to escape from Xiapi, they were suddenly attacked by Cao Jun overnight. The army was defeated.

After they fled desperately all night, at dawn, they found that Liu Bei's army had completely collapsed and disappeared. The people suffered tens of thousands of casualties overnight, and the rest had to flee desperately in the direction of Guangling.

But Cao Jun is still chasing after him, and it has been several days now!
After hearing this, Mi Fang's eyes darkened. It would be a bad luck to be defeated in the night battle. Liu Bei couldn't have been killed, right?
If so, where should I go?
Thinking of this, he hurriedly said to Mi Zhen: "Let's go!"

But Mi Zhen asked the common people: "The families of the soldiers under Liu Yuzhou's command are all lost?"

The commoner hesitated for a moment and said, "I heard that Mrs. Shijun is still here."

Yuan Xi looked at the dozen or so wooden barrels in front of him, there were still several barrels of white things that had not been processed yet, but it was already too late.

Next to the wooden barrel, there are hundreds of neatly arranged bamboo tubes.

He stood up and said to everyone: "We can't wait any longer."

"Nearly half of the 10,000+ people who escaped from the two cities were killed or injured on the way. If I don't send troops again, how can I have the face to use the name Xuzhou Mu?"

"According to the previous arrangement, prepare to send troops!"

Yuan Xi's personal guards filed in, silently picked up a bamboo tube and hung it around their waists, and then walked out.

The harvest of conquering Montenegro is actually far beyond the imagination of people of this era.

Although in the eyes of Jizhou, in Bingzhou, the grain harvest of Montenegro with complex terrain is much worse than that of the plains, but it has two extremely useful resources for future generations.

One is the coal mine.

An inevitable problem brought about by population growth is energy consumption. Without energy, even if there is food, the population will not be able to grow rapidly due to fuel shortages. After all, forests that can be used as fuel are consumed extremely quickly.

Studies have shown that after the Tang Dynasty, in the densely populated Kanto region, due to excessive deforestation, the forest coverage rate has been less than 5.00%, and even reached [-]% in some areas, which is worse than the worst time in modern times.

This later seriously affected the development of the local population. It is not unreasonable for the ancients to say that firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea, firewood comes before rice.

Therefore, if coal mines close to the surface can be exploited as soon as possible and coal is used instead of firewood, it will also be a great improvement for society.

The second is that in the Heishan area of ​​​​Bingzhou, there are later generations of Shanxi Lake Salt rich in nitrate.

The by-products of denitrified salt are sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, etc., which are the source of saltpeter.

If you want to get nitrate, apart from collecting from toilets or old houses, this is the most effective source in ancient China.

From this point of view, the invention of gunpowder in China is a historical necessity, because the raw materials are produced naturally.

Without raw materials, technology will not advance, and related products will not appear.

Just like China invented glass during the Warring States period, but lacked the necessary natural raw material of sodium carbonate, which was called trona in ancient times. This thing was abundant in the arid Middle East desert area, but it was rare in China, where rainfall was abundant, so China had to use production Rich terracotta is used to fire porcelain instead.

At the same time, because steelmaking blast furnaces appeared in the Han Dynasty, the temperature can be raised to 1400 degrees, so firing 1100 degrees of porcelain is not a problem.

In the West, until the Middle Ages, there was no blast furnace capable of firing porcelain, so they could only use soda-lime glass with a melting point of about 600 degrees as a substitute.

Therefore, the emergence of products has an extremely complex logical relationship with technology, and it is not born for no reason.

Now what Yuan Xi relied on this time was the gunpowder made by separating the saltpeter produced from the Black Mountain Lake Salt.

Of course, due to the rough craftsmanship and many impurities, it is unknown how effective these bamboo tubes can be.

(End of this chapter)