People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 357 God wants to kill me!

As the sunlight shone down, Cao Cao felt sticky and hot all over. In fact, it was only late spring and it was far from that severe. However, the continuous escapes and retreats made his body tired, and he began to feel hot and sweaty.

In fact, he was relatively lucky, at least he was riding a horse all the way. Most of the soldiers ran on their own legs, and their condition was even worse.

When Cao Cao looked back, he saw that the soldiers were listless and weak, and people in the rear were beginning to fall behind. The army was visibly beginning to collapse.

He was anxious, but there was nothing he could do. Even he himself was eager to rest, let alone the soldiers.

But he had no way to rest. The Yellow Turbans behind him were like lingering evil ghosts. No matter how he ran, how he tried to cover his retreat, or how he tried to intercept them, they were always behind him. This forced Cao Cao to run for his life.

In fact, although the Puyang defense battle was a failure, thanks to Cao Cao's decisiveness in giving up, Cao's army was still relatively intact.

However, Cao Cao was unable to defeat the Yellow Turbans by defending the city walls, and he had even less confidence in fighting the Yellow Turbans head-on. All he could think about was getting to the next city as quickly as possible and relying on defending the city to continue blocking the Yellow Turbans' offensive.

Thinking of this, Cao Cao let out a long sigh in his heart.

Why is God so kind to this bandit Xu Chen? The Yellow Turbans are well-equipped and brave in combat, which is already very scary, but they are also given the method of breaking down the door with explosives. How can others cope with this?

Taking down a city in eight days is actually very fast.
During the march, Zhang Liao was seen driving his horse forward with a troubled look on his face: "Lord Cao, our soldiers have reached their limit. If we continue running like this, the army may collapse at any time!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Guo Jia, who was following Cao Cao, frowned and said, "General Wenyuan is right, but if we relax now, it will be difficult for the army to move. Besides, the enemy is chasing us closely, so there is absolutely no reason to stop and rest."

How could Zhang Liao not know these principles? But a good general must be able to feel the physical and mental state of his soldiers, and now he has sensed that the soldiers can no longer hold on.

The soldiers had been chased by the Yellow Turbans on and off for two days. During these two days, they could only take a short break at night. Apart from that, they had to march hard almost the entire time. This forced march was obviously not something that Cao's soldiers could withstand.

"Maybe we can slow down the pace a bit, at least to give the soldiers a break." Zhang Liao sighed.

Upon hearing this, Guo Jia simply stopped talking to Zhang Liao and turned to Cao Cao and said, "It is well known that the Yellow Turbans are good at rapid marching. Our army is already in danger. There is absolutely no reason to stop at this critical moment. We should even march faster. As long as we reach the next city, we can naturally rest!"

Cao Cao turned his head and looked at Zhang Liao, then at Guo Jia, and finally said nothing.

Silence is an attitude. Zhang Liao naturally understood what this meant and could only retreat dejectedly.

The army continued to move forward in silence. Although Cao Cao obeyed Guo Jia's words, he was also full of worries.

After all, what Zhang Liao said was not alarmist. This kind of high-intensity forced march, coupled with the high-pressure mental state of being pursued, would cause the soldiers to collapse sooner or later.

His hair was already disheveled and was blown by the wind as he rode his horse, but Cao Cao didn't care about his appearance at all.

In the afternoon, the sun had begun to set. Cao Cao looked at it from afar and couldn't help feeling that the sun was setting.

Guo Jia frowned and walked up to Cao Cao and whispered something. After hearing what he said, Cao Cao put away his pessimistic mood, then sighed and nodded.

Not long after, Cao Cao summoned Cao Ren and gave him some instructions.

After Cao Ren left, there was no movement in the army. The soldiers continued to move forward with gritted teeth.

In fact, groups also have emotions, and for a group like the military, emotions play an extremely important role. Good emotions can increase their combat effectiveness and willpower, while bad emotions, if contagious, will only accelerate the collapse of the army.

Unfortunately, Cao’s army now belongs to the latter.

The Cao army soldiers had suffered defeat and pursuit, and now their physical strength and willpower had been pushed to the limit and they were on the verge of collapse.

Resentment is slowly growing, and the mentality of compromise and submission is spreading. I don't know how many people have privately discussed surrendering. After all, it is said that the situation in Xuan Xia is not bad. If they surrender and take a gamble, maybe their lives will be much better than they are now.

As this atmosphere continued to grow, the entire army gradually began to seem a little weird, and this weirdness was soon noticed by Cao Cao and his men.

What Zhang Liao said turned out to be true. Under extreme circumstances, the morale of Cao's army really became unsound.

Guo Jia's expression was solemn: "We can't wait any longer, we must get General Cao Ren to hurry up!"

Cao Cao also agreed with this. When he was about to send troops to urge them to move forward, he saw a soldier covered in blood rushing towards them from the rear, shouting in fear as he ran.

"The Yellow Turbans are coming, the Yellow Turbans are coming, everyone, run quickly, if you run slowly you will die, our brothers who surrendered and fell behind were all killed by the Yellow Turbans, I just escaped from death, run quickly!"

The shout of this knight directly broke the original atmosphere of Cao's army. All the soldiers subconsciously stopped and watched the cavalryman fleeing on horseback in panic.

Gradually, some people in the army began to cooperate accurately and in a timely manner, and then shouted, "The Yellow Turban bandits are used to burning, killing and looting. If we fall into their hands, we will definitely die. Run!"

"We kill all the Yellow Turbans we catch, and they will definitely fight back. Don't be stupid, your life is your own, don't let others decide it!"

"The next city is less than a hundred miles away. If we run faster, we'll be there soon!"

As these voices began to take over the discourse, the soldiers' minds were soon distracted, and then most people began to panic and become afraid.

Most of the soldiers here are regular soldiers, and are just local farmers in normal times. If not for the war, they will never travel more than a hundred miles away in their entire lives. The information they can obtain from the outside world is very limited, and it is difficult for them to know the true situation of Xuan Xia.

Even some "hearsay" rumors about Xuan Xia seem fake because they are portrayed too beautifully and can easily be overturned.

This commotion immediately made the soldiers change their minds.

In their eyes, the Yellow Turbans were bandits after all. Not many people dared to risk their lives in the hands of bandits, and the blood-soaked soldier in front of them was too convincing.

Suddenly, the Cao army, which had been in a state of depression just now, seemed to be energized and began to rush forward desperately.

Behind them were the extremely ferocious Yellow Turbans, and in front of them was a so-called "less than a hundred miles" target that seemed within reach. This made them burst out with strength from their extremely tired bodies and start to speed up their march forward.

Cao Cao saw the remarkable effect of this operation, and his depressed mood finally improved a little. He even laughed: "Feng Xiao's brilliant strategy in desperate situation has greatly increased our army's chances of escape. This is a great achievement."

Guo Jia smiled and shook his head: "It is General Cao Ren's skillful work that has brought about this result. Guo Jia does not dare to take credit for it."

Cao Cao laughed heartily, and his spirits perked up. He rode his horse forward again: "It seems that God is not going to kill me, Cao Cao. As long as I can escape this disaster, I will still have a chance to defeat the enemy!"

Guo Jia looked at Cao Cao's back with even more admiration in his eyes. Such an indomitable character is a necessary trait for achieving great things.

Assisting such a powerful leader, even if you are ultimately defeated by a powerful enemy, there will be no regrets.

Guo Jia used a little trick to squeeze out the last breath in Cao's soldiers' bodies. This breath allowed Cao's army to run wildly for a long time. However, as time passed, the soldiers slowly realized that something was wrong.

It was clearly stated that the distance ahead was less than a hundred miles, so why did they grit their teeth and run for two or three days without seeing any shadow of the shadow?

Although the soldiers were illiterate, they were not fools and gradually they realized what was going on.

The so-called less than a hundred miles was simply a statement to deceive themselves. The distance they had run in the past two or three days had already exceeded a hundred miles, but the generals above were still saying that it was almost a hundred miles.

When all the soldiers realized that a hundred miles was a distance they could never run, they had no choice but to accept it.

After all, they were all just trying to escape. To a certain extent, if it weren't for this illusory goal that kept them hanging, they might have given up running long ago.

However, even such a desperate run was not enough, and the Yellow Turbans caught up with them.

When a dark line appeared behind Cao's army, and when Cao's army saw a large yellow flag in the middle of the line, everyone was in despair.
Cao Cao completely accepted his fate. After issuing the order for the entire army to prepare for battle, he sat powerlessly on a rock at the rear of the army, with no intention of paying attention to the battle situation.

When the enemy is visible to the naked eye, there is no room for retreat and one can only bite the bullet and engage in battle.

However, Cao Cao no longer had any confidence in fighting under such circumstances. Even Xun Yu and Guo Jia beside him had gloomy expressions. They knew that everything was in vain at this moment, and all they could do was wait for the verdict of fate.

"I have exhausted all my strength, but still reached a dead end. God wants to kill me!" Cao Cao looked up and sighed.

On the other side of the Yellow Turban Army, Wang Dang panted heavily, looking at the Cao army position in the distance, and cursed angrily: "Damn, they are really good at running. This is the first time I see that even the Yellow Turbans can hardly catch up. Let's see what you can do now!"

Wang Dang was so angry after chasing them all the way. He didn't know why Cao's army was running so fast as if they had eaten dynamite. It was almost his life that he had to chase them from behind.

But he finally caught up with him, and this time he would never let Cao Cao go.

Wang Dang slowly raised his hand and was about to issue the "attack" order.

But before he could say anything, he saw new movement in the distant sky.

It was a dense black line, so long that it seemed to fill up the entire horizon. One could imagine how huge the military force behind it was.

Although the distance was so far that even the telescope could not see clearly who the flag of the person coming was, Wang Dang could still guess.

That must be the reinforcements from Liu Bei and Sun Quan.
(End of this chapter)