Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 824: Taking the opportunity to enter the game

Yuan Tan was not idle when he asked Cao Cao for help. He also made many responses at the same time.

Yuan Tan issued an urgent order to various counties in Qingzhou, asking them to leave enough defenders on the three cities as a boundary, then send all other soldiers to join forces, and then sweep the triangle area formed between the three cities. If Yuan Xi's army is detected, If they receive news of the small group of troops, these soldiers will immediately rush to attack.

These areas cover most of the places where Yuan Xi's army hides its troops, and with the areas drawn by the three cities as boundaries, other cities can also intercept and support each other at any time.

This method was very effective in the first few times. Yuan Xi's cavalry was targeted several times, but fortunately it had strong maneuverability and managed to escape at some cost.

But the Taishan thieves hiding in the mountains were not so lucky. Zangba and others were obviously not as familiar with the mountainous areas of Donghai County as Taishan County. After Yuan Tan's army blocked several passages, they were forced to fight a tough battle and suffered heavy losses. Small.

This also made Zang Ba feel shameless. Unfortunately, he had boasted about Haikou like Yuan Xi before, and the result was so disastrous!

At this point, he became more careful and dispersed his soldiers into small groups to act, but this turned out to be a mistake.

Because they were scattered too much, the whereabouts information returned to Yuan Tanjun doubled, which made it difficult for Yuan Tanjun to screen. Moreover, the small units moved flexibly. After Yuan Tanjun made several false starts, he gradually slowed down.

However, as a result, communication within the Taishan bandits became difficult, let alone teaming up with the Youzhou cavalry to rob grain and grass. Yuan Tan's grain roads were once again open, and the grain collected from various counties could continue to be transported to the Beihai front line.

At this time, Yuan Xi's fleet, under the command of Lu Xun, had joined forces with Tian Yu and completely controlled the coastline of Qingzhou. After receiving the message from Pingyuan on the ship, he said to Zhuge Liang and Lu Xun: "Yuan Tan is really difficult to deal with. .”

Zhuge Liang and Lu Xun looked at each other and smiled bitterly. Before the war started, they had imagined various situations, and the current one was considered to be the worst one.

However, Yuan Tanjun's tactics were not without flaws. They relied on towns to send troops and used them to search for Yuan Xijun's harassing troops. In comparison, the consumption was too much.

What Yuan Xi has to do now is to wait for the day when Yuan Tan is exhausted and the logistics and supplies are cut off.

But Yuan Xi was worried about whether Cao Cao's army would intervene in the Battle of Qingzhou.

For this reason, he asked the Taishan bandits to lurk at the junction of Qingzhou and Yanzhou. If Cao Cao sent troops, the Taishan bandits would notify Yuan Xi in the shortest possible time.

Yuan Xi was not wrong. Cao Cao was no longer in Xu County, but led his troops back to Dongjun, his previous base camp.

This was what he had planned before. After all, he stayed in Xu County and he and Liu Xie liked each other, so it was better to occupy a city by himself. Now Cao Cao's temporary headquarters in Yanzhou is Puyang City, which was previously occupied by Zhang Miao brothers.

The reason for this is that when Zhang Miao supported Lu Bu in raising troops, his base camp was Puyang. The people here were most resistant to Cao Cao, so Lu Bu was also the most active in raising troops.

After that, Lu Bu fought with Cao Cao for half a year. After losing the battle, he transferred to Sili, leaving Puyang to Zhang Miao and his brothers to stay behind.

Then, after Cao Cao welcomed the emperor to Huaicheng, Puyang was flooded before Liu Xie's edict arrived. Except for Zhang Miao brothers who were rescued by Kong Rong's edict, almost all the soldiers and civilians in the city died.

Later, Cao Jun occupied Puyang again. It was the rainy season and the river surged. The already flooded Puyang was flooded with water, destroying four gates. The river flowed out and took away the corpses of military civilians and livestock in the city. As a result, Puyang City was completely washed away.

After Cao Cao returned to Yanzhou, he found that although most of Puyang City was destroyed, the walls and roads were still there, and all those who opposed him were dead. In addition, Puyang was in an important position, so he took a rest and rebuilt Puyang City.

Nowadays, most of the residents in the city are family members and relatives of Cao Cao's soldiers. Because of Cao Cao's soldiers' system of sitting together, these people are actually no different from hostages. Cao Cao placed them in Puyang City to prevent the soldiers from escaping, killing two birds with one stone.

This is also the reason why Cao Cao's army has relatively strong combat capabilities. In this era, soldiers did this. For the sake of their families and parents, they could only fight to the death on the battlefield and deserted very few soldiers.

In contrast, some princes who claim to run the army with benevolence and righteousness, such as Liu Bei, Liu Biao and other soldiers, have lax military discipline. They will flee once they are in decline. If they encounter Cao Cao's army, they have almost no chance of winning.

This is also the reason why the ancients said that kindness is not in charge of the army. Although Yuan Xi treats his soldiers well, military discipline has not been relaxed. If the soldiers make mistakes, they will be dealt with according to the military law, which is not accommodating. Otherwise, it is impossible to become a strong army. Military.

Now Cao Cao has taken most of his advisers to Puyang, leaving only Xun Yu in Xu County to handle the emperor's political affairs. It seems that Xun Yu is on his own, but everyone actually understands that there may have been a conflict between Xun Yu and Cao Cao. There are cracks and gaps.

Cao Cao took Yuan Tan's request for marriage and was willing to hand over Qingzhou's letter, showed it to everyone, and said with a smile: "What do you think?"

He was somewhat complacent. Yuan Benchu's eldest son humbly wanted to ask for help. This proved that he had escaped from Yuan Shao's shadow and had become the guest!

Xun You said: "This is a good thing, and a lot can be done in it."

"The lord can then use the emperor's edict to give him a title of vassal and declare Yuan Tan as the head of the Yuan family. This will not only further divide the relationship within the Yuan family, but also make the Yuan family become a vassal of the lord. "

"When everyone in the world sees it, they will surely respect the lord's majesty and virtue even more, and then they will join him one after another. In a few years, the lord will achieve great success!"

Everyone also spoke in agreement. Cao Cao was also happy in his heart, but there was still a look of worry on his face, "Having said that, the other two sons of the Yuan family are not easy to deal with."

"He will never surrender to me willingly. Sooner or later, the Cao family will have a big battle with him." "But the time is not yet ripe. If I divide my troops to rescue Yuan Tan, I may be dragged into the war by my two sons and unable to recuperate. .”

"But since Yuan Tan has made such a gesture, I can't help him even if he dies. Can you guys have a solution to both problems?"

Chen Qun spoke up: "Yuan Tan is the best way to deal with the two sons, and he is very capable on the battlefield. He is the only one who can drive tigers and devour wolves."

"So we need to prevent it from getting too big, but we also don't want to leave it alone, so we must at least make a gesture and give it some help, so as not to be destroyed by the vicious tiger."

"If the fierce tiger is allowed to capture Qingzhou, it will be even more difficult to deal with him!"

Everyone agreed, and Cheng Yu agreed: "Whether we can get Qingzhou is not very important at the moment. Yuan Tan only has one place, and he can't cause any trouble with his identity."

"Only Fierce Tiger poses a great threat. If he is allowed to take Qingzhou, all his lands will be connected. Moreover, it is bordered by the lord's territory everywhere, making it extremely easy to raid the rear. We must not let him succeed!"

"But if we attack Fierce Tiger with all our strength, I am afraid that Yuan Shang of Jizhou will take advantage of it. So if we want to deal with Yuan Xi this time, the bottom line is that we cannot let him take Jingzhou."

"Under this premise, extraordinary things can be done."

Cao Cao's eyes flashed, "What is this extraordinary thing?"

There was a hint of ruthlessness in Cheng Yu's eyes, "Like the fierce tiger, he sent a small group of soldiers to harass and attack his territory!"

"He preaches benevolent government to the outside world, so he cares a lot about the people in his territory. As long as we loot, kill, and force his people to flee, or simply capture them back to Yanzhou, their hearts will definitely be unstable and they will be hit hard!"

"He is using this same strategy to deal with Yuan Tan now. It's time for us to treat him the same way he did!"

After everyone heard this, they thought that this plan to draw out the firewood from the bottom of the cauldron was really poisonous.

However, this strategy was not originally thought up by Chen Qun. It was Tian Feng and Ju Shou who first came up with the trick, and this strategy was also used by them to deal with Cao Cao.

When Yuan Shao was still alive, he saw that Cao Cao was growing stronger, gained Sili, and avoided the natural danger of the Yellow River entering Jizhou. At the same time, he had the intention of plotting Ye City, so Yuan Shao asked a group of counselors to make suggestions in order to deal with Cao Cao's offensive.

Except for Tian Feng and Ju Shu, other counselors agreed to attack Yanzhou with all their strength and achieve a quick victory.

Jushou believed that the people of Jizhou were tired and should rest and recuperate, so he sent envoys to make good friends with the emperor, consolidate the territory south of the Yellow River, prepare ships and equipment, and implement the strategy of holding on and harassing.

Tian Feng proposed the strategy of "wearing out the enemy in three years", believing that Cao Cao was good at using troops, and Yuan Shao should unite other princes to prepare for war internally, select elite troops, and use the strategy of seizing the east to attack the west to wear down the enemy and finally win.

This strategy was opposed by most people because it placed Yuan's posture very low and was on the defensive. They thought it would harm the morale of the army, so it was not implemented.

Later, Yuan Shao died, and when the inside story of the plan reached Cao Ying, Cao Cao was so shocked that he broke into a cold sweat.

Only Cao Cao knew that this strategy was extremely difficult to deal with. It was essentially the practice of nomadic people harassing farming people. There has been no effective countermeasure for thousands of years. If the Yuan family really did this, Cao Cao would be overwhelmed and fall into a great situation. disadvantages.

Fortunately, the Yuan family relied on their identity and did not use this method to target civilians. Although Yuan Xi used similar tactics, they were still aimed at Yuan Tan's grain transport troops. The countermeasures adopted by Yuan Tan were also aimed at Yuan Xi. The small group harassing the troops has not yet affected the attitude of the people.

What Cao Ying wants to do now is to directly target the civilians, which is also the most effective move. If Xun Yu were here, he might even object a few words, but the several counselors present are masters of weighing the pros and cons, so they would naturally choose The least expensive and most effective countermeasure.

Cao Cao thought for a while, then made up his mind and said: "This is very good. Not only the fierce tiger's territory, but also Jizhou will be treated in the same way to prevent it from accumulating strength."

"Since the death of Zihe, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry has been without a leader. Now is an opportunity. I plan to select the best young men from all ethnic groups to lead a hundred cavalry. Within a month, whoever achieves the highest results will be the leader in the future. Who will be the leader of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry!"

As soon as the news came out, the descendants of the Cao family and the Xiahou family all cheered, because personal guards like the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry would definitely appear among them!

Within two days, dozens of small groups of cavalry separated and headed toward the Jianghuai River in Xuzhou, Jizhou.

(End of this chapter)