Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

Xi Zhicai's words were undoubtedly insightful and every sentence made sense.

Even though Cao Cao was about to lead his army to withdraw from Xu Province, and had continuously plundered within Xu Province and replenished a lot of food and grass in some special ways, the remaining food and grass in the army was not enough for three months.

Even if it was approaching autumn, Qing Province would soon be able to harvest another batch of grain to alleviate the problem of Cao Jun's food shortage.

But once a war with Yuan Shao started, this little food and grass seemed far from enough on the surface.

More importantly, Liu Bei and Yuan Shao could be described as forming a hegemonic trend in the south and the north respectively.

Previously, Cao Cao's policy was to lean towards the Yuan family to resist Liu Bei, which caused the relationship between Cao Cao and Liu Bei to deteriorate to an irreparable point.

Under such circumstances, if Cao Cao went to war with Yuan Shao, wouldn't that be tantamount to seeking his own death?

Therefore, not to mention that Xi Zhicai felt that Zhu Ling's sudden pointing out that Yuan Shao was the murderer of Cao Song was very suspicious, even from the overall situation, Cao Cao should not tear his face with Yuan Shao.

Only by enduring for a while can we take care of the overall situation.

However, what Xi Zhicai didn't know was that this was a play arranged by Cao Cao himself.

Where is the way out for Qing Province?

Now that the attempt to seize Xu Province has failed, and seizing Yan Province will only be besieged by all sides, Xun You's suggestion is to go north... to launch a surprise attack on Ji Province!

This is to be reborn from the dead.

If Yuan Shao had won a great victory in the Battle of Jieqiao and occupied Ji Province, and then turned to consolidate the local accumulation of strength, then Cao Cao's surprise attack on Ji Province would be like hitting a stone with an egg.

However, after Cao Cao attacked Xu Province in the name of avenging his father, stirring up the general trend of the world, he successively involved Lu Bu, Yuan Shu, and Liu Bei in the situation.

Yuan Shao saw that a war had started in the Central Plains, and no one had the spare strength to threaten the rear of Ji Province.

In order to solve the problem once and for all, Yuan Shao launched a large army again after initially settling Ji Province, taking advantage of Gongsun Zan's unhealed injuries, intending to take all of You Province and completely pacify future troubles.

In Yuan Shao's view, in addition to sending Zhu Ling to lead 10,000 troops to Qing and Xu to aid Cao Cao, he could also monitor the movements of all parties.

Moreover, north of Yan Province, across the Yellow River, near Sili and Liyang in Yan Province, Chun Yuqiong also had 10,000 troops stationed here to be on guard.

With Zhu Ling and Chun Yuqiong guarding one side each, Yuan Shao never worried about the problems in the rear, and was concentrating his forces to prepare to fully attack You Province before the arrival of winter, and then try to gradually erode and annex the land of You and Yan.

And this is undoubtedly the opportunity for Cao Cao to be reborn from the dead and seize Ji Province.

Compared to trying to get rid of Zhu Ling so that Zhu Ling would not have the opportunity to report to Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's approach was undoubtedly more brilliant, and he had already substantially won over Zhu Ling.

Not only did he make Zhu Ling work for Cao Cao, but even the Yuan army led by Zhu Ling was annexed by Cao Cao.

In this way, north of Qing Province, in fact, Yuan Shao no longer had a force that could stop Cao Cao from crossing the Yellow River and entering Ji Province.

Now, although Yuan Shao has initially settled Ji Province, his rule is not stable.

In particular, the surrendered Han Fu has been killed by Yuan Shao, causing many of Han Fu's old subordinates to feel resentment, but Yuan Shao has not had time to appease and win them over one by one.

And after Cao Cao crossed the river, the first place he entered was Bohai County.

That is, Bohai County, where Yuan Shao's foundation in Ji Province lies, and it is also Bohai County, where Yuan Shao is now storing a large amount of food and grass.

Even now that Yuan Shao is concentrating his forces to attack You Province, most of the food and grass is still stored in Bohai County, which Yuan Shao trusts the most.

At the same time, that is also the food and grass that Cao Cao urgently needs!

Cao Cao's army now has less than three months' worth of usable food and grass, including dried meat.

Therefore, crossing the Yellow River, entering Ji Province, and seizing Bohai will cause earth-shattering changes in the situation.

The chain reaction caused by Cao Cao's attack on Xu Province allowed Yuan Shao to take the opportunity to concentrate his forces to attack You Province, but now it is also a great opportunity for Cao Cao to turn around and seize Ji Province.

Immediately, Cao Cao, in the name of commemorating Cao Song, distributed meat and rewarded the three armies outside Dongwan County, inspiring the originally sluggish morale of the army, and then led his troops north straight to Ji Province.

With Zhu Ling's concealment, the empty Ji Province in the rear had no idea that Cao Cao was leading an army of 70,000 people to begin a rapid crossing of the Yellow River.

Originally, Cao Cao did not have enough large ships to cross the river quickly, but when Zhu Ling led his troops south, Yuan Shao arranged a lot of ferry boats for Zhu Ling.

These ferry boats have now been handed over to Cao Cao by Zhu Ling, which has given Cao Cao enough ships to easily cross the Yellow River at once.

It's just that Yuan Shao doesn't know this news.

Even if the Embroidered Uniform Guard stationed in Qing Province noticed the strange movements of Cao Jun returning to Qing Province, and hurriedly sent out the intelligence, it would not reach Liu Bei and Li Ji's hands for a while.

At this moment, Li Ji's energy was also fully focused on the army led by Ji Ling outside Pengcheng.

Within five days, he quietly laid down a large net called "Ambush from All Sides".

At this moment, it is time to pull the net.

In this regard, Ji Ling was also completely unaware, and even after failing to see subsequent reinforcements arrive in Pengcheng for a long time, Ji Ling once again launched a fierce attack on Pengcheng.

Facing the Yuan army's fierce attack after four days of recuperation, Zang Ba resisted extremely hard, and large swaths of the city wall once again became a cruel meat grinder, burying the lives of soldiers one by one.

In order to defend Pengcheng, Zang Ba led his personal guards on the city wall of Pengcheng, running back and forth, constantly providing emergency relief, and several times drove the Yuan army who had climbed onto the city wall and gained a foothold back down.

But even so, the battle situation is still deteriorating at a visible speed.

It is true that Zhang Fei has arrived in Pengcheng, but Zhang Fei can't possibly let the cavalry dismount and defend on the city wall, which means that Zang Ba has not actually had any replenishment in the defending forces.

Most of the defending forces in Zang Ba's hands, which barely exceeded 10,000, were already injured, not to mention that they also needed to take care of large swaths of the city wall, which meant that Zang Ba didn't even have the manpower to rotate.

In addition to the personal guards led by Zang Ba, there were only three thousand-man teams left for emergency relief in various places.

But as the battle situation continued to deteriorate, the other two thousand-man teams that were originally used for running around for emergency relief had to be directly deployed on the city wall to resist the Yuan army's fierce attack.

Even the personal guards led by Zang Ba himself were gradually exhausted and everyone was injured.

"Crazy! Crazy! The Yuan army is crazy!"

Sun Guan, covered in blood and with a simple bandage on his arm, did not change his former banditry and said to Zang Ba.

"General, we can't hold it anymore. Ji Ling is crazy. There are 30,000 soldiers on each of the three city walls taking turns to attack fiercely, and all kinds of siege equipment are complete. The brothers can't hold it anymore."

Zang Ba wiped the liquid on his face, mixed with blood or water, and chopped off the head of a Yuan soldier who had climbed up the city wall nearby, panting heavily, and said.

"We have to hold it even if we can't!"

Sun Guan's expression changed slightly and he tried hard to persuade him. "General, we can't fight anymore. If we continue to fight, all the brothers will be gone."

Zang Ba has never been Tao Qian's direct descendant. The reason why Tao Qian did not待见Zang Ba was that the direct descendants led by Zang Ba were actually Mount Tai bandits who had割据one side. (End of this chapter)