Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 732 Breaking into the city

Yuan Shu suddenly sat up due to the noise and roared: "Who is making a noise here!"

However, except for the panicked and confused woman around him, no one could answer him immediately. It wasn't until Yuan Shu roared a few more times that a guard came in in a panic and said: "Zhonggong, there are enemies coming in outside." Got it!"

When Yuan Shu heard this, he immediately got up in a panic and put on his clothes. At the same time, he roared: "Why didn't you come to pass the message just now!"

The guard said: "Generals Zhang and Chang have already gone to lead the troops to resist. We have sent people to order us to protect Zhonggong's palace with all our strength, so we don't dare to disturb him!"

After hearing this, Yuan Shu felt a little relieved. He listened to the constant shouts of killing and watched the sky occasionally illuminated by firelight. Then he became even more frightened and said aloud: "Who is the enemy?"

"Is it Cao Cao?"

What Yuan Shu is most afraid of at the moment is that Cao Cao in Yingchuan suddenly turns against him and attacks him. If this is the case, Yuan Shu will not even have the confidence to escape!

He was really afraid of Cao Cao. In the past few years of fighting with Cao Cao, he had never won a single battle. Instead, he was retreating steadily under Cao Cao's endless offensives, which left Yuan Shu with a shadow in his heart. When Cao Cao personally marched, he fled.

After many battles, Yuan Shu not only did not cause much damage to Cao Cao, but instead allowed Cao Cao to capture many soldiers of Yuan Shu's army and feed them with war. The more soldiers he fought, the more soldiers he fought, and Yuan Shu became a veritable transport captain.

To be fair, Yuan Shu's subordinates are not bad and his troops are much stronger, but there is nothing he can do against Cao Cao's army. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the Sun Ce faction with the strongest combat power has been plotting against Jiangdong and has not participated in the battles in the Jianghuai area.

That's all. After all, Yuan Shu's advisers and generals believed that Sun Ce was mainly good at water warfare, and he might not be able to use it in the Jianghuai area where infantry was the main force.

But the second factor is very fatal, which is Cao Cao's comprehensive strength. Any one of them is beyond Yuan Shu's reach, especially the strength hidden under the table.

When the two Yuans were fighting, no one paid much attention to Cao Cao, who only occupied Yanzhou, especially when the other party was rebelled by Zhang Miao brothers and Lu Bu and almost lost all his territory.

In the end, Cao Cao survived the crisis by cannibalizing human flesh. It is said that Yuan Shao secretly gave Cao Cao soldiers and horses, which became a topic of discussion with Yuan Shu's advisers and generals.

Therefore, Yuan Shu did not take Cao Cao seriously at that time, but it was not until the two sides began to fight and clash over the Chen Kingdom that Yuan Shu was shocked to realize that this was not the case at all.

Cao Cao is much harder to deal with than he thought!

After several battles, and even several of Yuan Shu's big cities were defeated by Cao Cao with water attacks or force attacks, Yuan Shu panicked, because it was extremely difficult to capture big cities in this era. This could not stop him and Cao Cao's army. There is a huge gap!

Only then did Yuan Shu understand that Cao Cao was able to fight back and forth with Lu Bu when there were only three cities left, and even defeated Lu Bu's army with trapped camps and eight strong generals on the frontal battlefield many times, which is enough to explain a lot of problems. .

When he first heard that Lu Bu had been defeated, he wondered if Lu Bu was exaggerating. But when he actually fought with Cao Cao, he realized that it was not easy for Lu Bu to hold on for so long.

Yuan Shu was puzzled at first, but after analysis by counselors and generals, he understood the huge gap between Cao Cao and himself.

Discounting the perceptions among the soldiers and generals, the most important factor is that Cao Cao is more ruthless than Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu increased the rent several times and accumulated a large amount of wealth, but most of it was used for enjoyment, and a small part was used for conscription and food and salary. However, the Jianghuai area was rich, and Yuan Shu was still able to form an army of more than [-] people.

But Yuan Shu never expected that through the farming system, Cao Cao would turn hundreds of thousands of Yanzhou people into farming soldiers and civilians. Not to mention turning in all the rent and taxes, the farming people could turn into soldiers at any time!

At first, Yuan Shu didn't understand this practice of all the people becoming soldiers. He simply thought that Cao Cao's troops were far smaller than his own. However, after a while, he discovered that Cao Cao's soldiers seemed to appear out of nowhere, in an endless stream!

Although most of these soldiers are poorly trained and their combat power cannot overwhelm Yuan Shu's army, they are enough to fill the line.

In addition, Cao Cao used the income from farming to build an elite army, which became the key to determining victory or defeat.

This elite army led by Cao Ren and Cao Chun, supplemented by generals with foreign surnames, played a great role in all the battles. They even defeated Yuan Shu, defeated Liu Bei and Tao Qian, and defeated Yuan Shao's army led by the general several times. In these years, they were the only ones who could defeat Yuan Shao. The only one that can compete with it is Yuan Xi's Youzhou Army.

People in the world have always had different opinions on Cao Cao's true strength in the Battle of Guandu in later generations, but most of them believe that Cao Cao's strength is far lower than that of Yuan Shao's army. Winning the Battle of Guandu was purely a fluke, but these cannot explain many military common sense.

Many people's understanding of Cao Cao's military strength comes from two reasons.

One is the record in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Yuan Shao had [-] and Cao Cao had [-], ten to one.

This is obviously very outrageous. There are [-] people including other auxiliary personnel, and the amount of food consumed every day is an astronomical figure. There is no battlefield in the world that can accommodate so many people.

The second is that "Three Kingdoms. Chronicle of Emperor Wu" records that Yuan Shao's troops participating in the Battle of Guandu were about more than [-], while Cao Cao's troops were "less than [-] soldiers, with twelve or three wounded."

The numbers of Yuan Shao's army here should be relatively close, but when it comes to Cao Cao's military strength, Chen Shou made a mistake. He was just bragging for the sake of bragging, but he didn't think about how Cao Cao could match his records with only a few thousand people on the battlefield. In this way, Yuan Shao's army can fight against Yuan Shao's army for more than a month on a front of hundreds of miles with fortifications. You must know that fortification warfare is the strength of the Jizhou army!

If it is true that he cannot win against the enemy on the ten-to-one battlefield, it can only be said that Yuan Shao and his generals who just defeated Gongsun Zan are pure waste. The negative evidence is Chen Shou's own record in the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms.

"Three Kingdoms. Biography of Xun Yu" records that before the Battle of Guandu, before Cao Cao defeated Lu Bu, he had an army of [-] soldiers. "The general attacked without hesitation and failed to gain anything. In less than ten days, the [-] troops were gone." Fight and trap yourself."

There are so many inconsistencies. It can only be said that Chen Shou caused huge flaws in the same book in order to flatter Cao Cao.

This number of troops is also in line with the number of people that Cao Cao could mobilize in Yanzhou in the two years after he adopted the farming system. After defeating Lu Bu, Cao Cao recruited a group of surrendered troops, and the number would only be more.

Another evidence is that after the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao killed [-] soldiers of Yuan Shao's army.

The prerequisite for entrapment and killing is to ensure that the resistance on the other side can be suppressed. Bai Qi had [-] soldiers to entrap and kill [-] Zhao soldiers. If Cao Cao really only had a few thousand soldiers, how could he have the courage and ability to entrap and kill [-] Jizhou troops?

What's more, in the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao, who was said to be short of food and soldiers, could not be defeated in the attack. He dared to defend the camp while attacking Wuchao. When thousands of soldiers attacked Wuchao, the opponent only had a few thousand. , where have Yuan Shao's soldiers gone?

Will only a few thousand of the [-]-strong army be left to defend the only granary?

Not to mention that the Jizhou soldiers commanded by the Four Court Pillars were defeated by Cao Jun one after another during this period of time, without any victory. Is there something wrong with this? Is there a lack of morale? Not enough troops? Not enough food? Weapons and armor are not good?

Therefore, the records of the Battle of Guandu are extremely watery. It is difficult for outsiders to understand the inside story through the revised records. Only those who understand the principles of war and have personally fought with Cao Cao can understand why Cao Cao is so difficult to deal with.

You must know that the distance between Xu County and Wuchao is even farther than the distance from Yecheng to Wuchao. Cao Cao's logistical pressure is even greater, so Yuan Shao hasn't won yet!

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, many people questioned it. Pei Songzhi, who wrote annotations for "Three Kingdoms", believed that "Wei Wu surrendered more than [-] soldiers and annexed the rest. The losers were only twelve or three. Although they were injured in the battle, they should not be like this." Few."

Song Yu and Shen Zuxiang also believed that during the Battle of Guandu, the strength of Cao's army should be about [-], which was slightly lower than or equal to Yuan's army.

This is also the reason why several counselors headed by Jushu strongly opposed the Battle of Guandu, but suggested using light cavalry to harass Cao Cao's rear for several years before starting a full-scale war.

People like Ju Shou have no confidence in fighting Cao Cao. Why would anyone really believe that Cao Cao's military strength is at a huge disadvantage?

There are many factors in war, and war mobilization is an extremely complex issue. Yuan Shu did not believe in evil, so he suffered a huge defeat. Even Yuan Xi, who was the only one to win a battle against Cao Cao's army, also understood Cao Cao through constant battles. confidence.

Although Cao Cao was actually in the Central Plains, he used the nomadic people's method of all soldiers in later generations. This wartime mobilization system was so effective that it affected the history of Chinese wars for thousands of years.

In this world, whoever is more willing to put down his or her worth and who is more ruthless will be able to go further.

War is not about treating guests to dinner. When fighting, it is about giving everything you have and risking your life and fortune in a desperate fight. On this point, Cao Cao realized it earlier than everyone else.

Compared with Yuan Shu, who was panicking in the city, Yuan Xi, who had been educated by the cruel reality, had now begun to wake up. He had led his soldiers into the city, occupied a damaged city wall, and commanded from a high position.

Fires broke out all over the city, most of which were set off by Yuan Shu's army in order to have light to resist. However, this also gave Yuan Xi a chance to see clearly the enemy's movements. He ordered his guards around him to continuously set off firework signals, commanding his own troops to fight against the surge in the city. Yuan Shujun came.

Yuan Shu's army entered Luoyang from three directions: east, west, and south, leaving only the north gate, allowing the opponent to think about escaping, thereby weakening the will to resist and minimizing the losses of the Youzhou army.

But even so, the resistance of Yuan Shu's army was somewhat beyond Yuan Xi's expectation, especially on the main road in the city, where a general was leading troops and fighting fiercely with Zhang Liao's army.

After Zhang Liao led his army into the city, the dilapidated streets of Luoyang became an obstacle to the cavalry. Facing the infantry that kept pouring out from both sides, Zhang Liao made a decisive decision. Except for dozens of heavy cavalry, all the others dismounted and fought with the rear army. The incoming infantry formed a defensive line and advanced together.

With strong bows and crossbows clearing the way, Zhang Liao's army quickly broke through two streets and met Chang Nu who was leading the army.

Although Chang Nu is not well-known, he is one of the famous generals under Yuan Shu, as famous as Ji Ling. He has fought with Cao Cao's army and Yuan Shang's army, and he was able to escape unscathed, which shows that he is still very capable.

Zhang Liao saw that the opponent was hiding behind the infantry and had no intention of coming up to challenge him. Knowing that the opponent was experienced, Zhang Liao's expression became solemn immediately.

You must know that in a night duel, accidents can easily occur due to various factors. Even if you win the duel, your own soldiers may collapse because they cannot see the leader. The opponent does not bet on making a success in one fell swoop, and is obviously preparing to fight slowly.

(End of this chapter)