Weird Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3373 A Little Choice

Xu Chu and others extinguished the torches, and relying on their own abilities and their previous understanding of Cao's camp, they quietly moved through the gullies on the earthen plateau and moved towards the camp gate area where Bao Zhong was.

Of course, Xu Chu would not take the passages full of traps and fortifications, but instead cross the loess plateau and pass through the dugouts of the civilians in Cao's camp.

Then Xu Chu discovered a very interesting, but also very confusing problem.

Xu Chu had already vaguely discovered this when he was at the foot of Anyi City, but he didn't have time to explore it further. However, at the moment, Xu Chu felt it was very obvious...

He was unable to incite or even drive away the civilians in Cao's army camp!

In Xu Chu's original understanding, even if these common people would not rise up and follow Xu Chu and others to resist Cao's army, they would run around driven by instinct and create better fighting opportunities for Xu Chu and others.

But, no.

These laborers would just hug each other and tremble. Even if someone passed by them, they would not cry out, shout or run around.

It's like they are all deaf and dumb...

This is very strange.

This surprised Xu Chu and made him alert. He stopped and squinted at the dugouts of the civilians.

In the darkness, each of these dugouts looked like a hole dug out of the underworld. The civilians who were awakened in the dugouts did not take a single step out of line, but just lay in the dugouts with their eyes open in the dark. In the darkness, only their eyeballs reflected the little light of fire, which made them look like they were still alive.

"These guys..."

Xu Chu frowned, looked around, and felt more and more that something was wrong.

It was called a camp for laborers, but in fact it was a gathering place for dugouts. There were no fences or walls, only pits on the ground, and faces and eyes exposed in the pits, which seemed to prove that the people in the dugouts were humans, or animals that looked like humans.

These people who were kidnapped, driven, and enslaved watched Xu Chu lead his men away, and then watched Xu Chu lead his men back. They did not move, did not run, did not shout, but remained silent and abided by the law.

Xu Chu waved his hand, "Check these dugouts!"

The soldiers under his command immediately rushed into the dugouts and opened the covers of several dugouts one after another.

The laborers in the dugouts with their roofs lifted were like groundhogs with the soil above their heads pried open. They screamed and hugged each other, but they did not resist or run away.

"No weapons!"

"There is no Cao army!"

"No!"

"..."

The successive reports did not dispel Xu Chu's doubts, but made him even more confused.

"Strange..." Xu Chu walked to a dugout with its roof opened.

The civilians in the dugout hugged each other tightly and huddled in a corner. If it weren't for the occasional shivering and the whiteness of their eyelids when they turned towards Xu Chu, Xu Chu would have thought that these guys were dead.

The stench in the dugout was overwhelming, and even after the roof was lifted, it took a while for the stench to dissipate.

Xu Chu was very familiar with this smell.

This is the smell of death, the smell of decay.

these people……

Still alive, or dead?

In the distance, there was still chaos in Cao's army camp. Figures of people were swaying in the firelight, running, shouting, and roaring.

Screams and blood.

The wailing sounds rose and fell.

Those things made Xu Chu feel normal...

These civilians are very abnormal.

Xu Chu looked around. He was not worried that Cao Hong would be able to find him. After all, it was a large camp with a radius of 20 miles. Although it was not as exaggerated as Liu Huangshu's 70 miles, it was normal that the fighting had started in the front and people's heads were beaten to pieces. It was also nighttime, so whether it was using messengers or using drums, gongs and flags to command the soldiers, there would be a considerable delay.

Therefore, even if Cao Hong wanted to launch a large-scale counterattack, it would take some time. Moreover, the more panicked the Cao army soldiers were, the more reassured Xu Chu would feel. However, these civilians in front of him were so "law-abiding" that Xu Chu felt weird...

"Why don't you run away?"

Xu Chu asked.

"..."

silence.

No one answered him.

All the civilians in the dugouts were like deaf people or fools. They could not hear or understand what Xu Chu said.

"Speak! Answer the general!"

A hussar waved his bloody sword.

Seeing the blood-stained sword, someone whispered: "You can't run... If you run, you will die..."

Xu Chu was stunned.

  What's the reason?

If I don’t run, won’t I die?

"General, we didn't find Cao's ambush..."

After patrolling around, a hussar soldier came to report.

Xu Chu was still puzzled, but he didn't think too much about it. "Drive all these people out and let them run! Burn these sheds and let them run out!"

Since there are no weapons or ambushes, just let these people escape on their own.

The hussars responded in unison, and then immediately lit torches and threw them on the roofs of the dugouts to point out the direction for the laborers, "Go in that direction! Quickly, quickly!"

In the eyes of Xu Chu and the cavalry soldiers, these were all innocent civilians. Although they did not have the time to take them away from Cao's camp, they could just point out a way for them to escape by themselves.

What Xu Chu had never expected was that these civilians were indeed driven out by the hussars at first and dispersed. However, as soon as Xu Chu and his companions left and turned around the plateau, Xu Chu looked back and saw that these civilians had returned to their original place...

"This..." Xu Chu frowned.

  What's happening here?

But at this moment, Xu Chu had no time to look back and pay attention, so he could only go around the earthen plateau and reach behind Bao Zhong.

It’s not that Xu Chu likes chrysanthemums, but that he is cautious.

……

……

In the central camp of Cao’s army.

The most critical thing in night battles is the effective transmission of information, and Cao's army obviously has big problems in this regard.

There were many camps of different sizes in the Cao army camp, and the central camp where Cao Hong was located had not only higher fences and walls, but also deeper trenches. There were four gates, high platforms, watchtowers, and arrow towers.

Other camps would only have one or two sentry towers at the camp gate, but in the central camp of Cao's army, there were not only defensive platforms for stationing archers, but also weapon platforms specifically for setting up crossbow carts.

If you only look at the crossbow carts on the high platform, their cold light staring at the fire and blood in other places, they seem to be calm and unmoved. But if you look down close to the ground, you will find that in the camp, the soldiers who are urgently traveling back and forth are sweating profusely, rushing back and forth, and conveying orders in the night...

  So, is this as still as a mountain or as frightened as a bird?

Looking at the flames burning in the camp, the splattering blood, and listening to the sounds of fighting and screams everywhere, Cao Hong's face was as gloomy as water.

"You thief! You really deserve to die!" Cao Hong cursed angrily, "People like you who betrayed their ancestors should be killed by everyone!"

Before Bao Zhong rebelled, Cao Hong wanted Bao Zhong to shout loyalty every day, thank God for his blessings every night, and volunteer to work overtime until he died suddenly, contributing his last drop of bone marrow to the Han Dynasty Cao Group Co., Ltd. Even when Cao Hong had already noticed complaints, grumblings, and even resentment among the lower levels, he still didn't care, and even pointed out from a high position, "I don't know what's wrong with this person now, why is there so much resentment?"

  You really don’t know?

Or are you pretending not to know?

  Now, Bao Zhong has rebelled, and Cao Hong is furious again. He said that Bao Zhong is a traitor and he had expected him to do so!

The company has given him such a good platform, such a good opportunity to show himself and such a good growth environment. I didn’t expect Bao Zhong to be so ungrateful, vulgar and mean!

Then he felt strange again. Why were the soldiers and military academy he arranged to monitor Bao Zhong dealt with so easily?

Finally came to the conclusion, what a bunch of rubbish!

However, Cao Hong also made some arrangements and mobilized some Central Guards to block the positions in front and behind Bao Zhong as a precautionary measure. Now it seems to have worked and blocked the movement range of Bao Zhong's troops.

Now, Cao Hong needs to determine the next move of the cavalry...

In this way he can make more targeted arrangements.

"General! The bandit cavalry troops seem to be heading east! They burned the civilian camp!"

The soldier on the watchtower shouted.

Because it was night time, it was not very clear.

But the crying and the burning flames would more or less reveal some information.

"Heading east? To Anyi City again?" Cao Hong was stunned. "Did you look carefully?!"

"Look carefully! It is indeed the fire in the civilian camp to the east!" the soldier reported.

"This..." Cao Hong was confused.

After all this time, is it for Anyi City again?

  Isn't it directed at yourself?

What does this mean?

Cao Hong now had a leg injury and could not climb up the platform, so he could only stretch his neck as far as possible to look into the distance.

The Cao army camp covered a very large area, and there were small camps interconnected within the camp.

In the flickering firelight, I could only see many shadows swaying between the camp, wooden stakes, and fortifications, but I couldn't see clearly what they were...

Cao Hong gritted his teeth and asked, "Have the cavalry outside the camp moved?"

The Cao army soldiers on the watchtower tried to stare at the darkness in the distance, and then tried to distinguish whether there was the sound of horse hooves in the air. After a moment, they lowered their heads and shouted, "General, I didn't detect any movement!"

The guard said: "General, could it be that... you didn't send out the cavalry?"

Cao Hong was silent for a while, then shook his head, "Impossible! This cavalry has always been cautious, how could it be possible that they only use infantry? It is definitely impossible! These cavalry may have covered the horseshoes!"

"But..." The guard said two words and didn't continue because there was no need.

Anyone who is not a fool can understand the current situation.

The riots continue.

At night, there is something scarier than the enemy: marketing...

  Oh, wrong, Ying Xiao!

In fact, marketing and marketing seem to have a lot in common. They both involve one's will, falling into an inexplicable frenzy, and losing reason...

If the chaos continued at night, even if the cavalry and the rebels were eliminated or repelled, it would still cause considerable losses and might even make it impossible to resolve the situation the next day.

Therefore, Cao Hong had only two choices. One was to quell the riots as soon as possible, and the other was...

Cao Hong looked up.

The stars in the sky are still as pure and gorgeous as ever, without a trace of the blood and dirt of the world.

He couldn't act rashly without knowing the main force of the cavalry...

  But the consequences of not taking action will be even worse!

Because if the commotion continues at night, the damage might be even greater than if the enemy stormed the camp!

If he holds on any longer, there’s no need to wait for Fei Qian to arrive. Maybe Cao Hong will collapse first!

  Dilemma, another dilemma!

A familiar feeling surged into Cao Hong's heart again.

"The cavalry is such a good opponent..." Cao Hong subconsciously wanted to go up to the watchtower, but he stumbled slightly because of the injury on his foot. However, he quickly pushed away the guard's hand and looked towards the north, "What a good opponent!"

  That’s how it is on the battlefield, you have to make a choice no matter how difficult it is!

Cao Cao's tactics were already very clever and could not be calculated by common sense, but Cao Hong did not expect that the corresponding tactics of the cavalry would be so unconventional...

Generals usually only arrange tactics based on basic or habitual knowledge. For example, they often say that if you want to arrange a formation, then you should put cavalry on the two wings, and long-range troops such as heavy armored infantry and powerful crossbows in the middle. This understanding is certainly not wrong, but in fact it is not a rule or a law, and this arrangement method is not unbreakable.

Since Fei Qian's arrival, the entire cavalry army has been struggling to cope with the basic tactical changes, not to mention the momentum issues.

At the beginning, everything seemed normal.

It was just like the formation Fei Qian had set up at the beginning.

For this reason, Cao Hong was proud for a while, thinking that the cavalry was nothing special.

But unexpectedly, his pride did not last long.

It didn't even last half of what was originally expected, no, not even one-third.

When did this change occur?

  There was still noise in the camp, as if every moment was urging Cao Hong to make a decision as soon as possible!

Yes, that's it!

It’s like this every time, every time it’s urgent!

Cao Hong suddenly grinned, "Haha! What a great cavalryman!"

"General?"

The guard was a little confused.

"Horsemen, horsemen!"

Cao Hong nodded and sighed.

Fei Qian never sticks to fixed tactics. Sometimes he arranges traditional tactical formations just to confuse his opponent. Just like when Cao Hong discovered Fei Qian's division of troops, he thought he had a chance to surprise attack Xu Chu's troops and defeat the enemy with more people, but he ended up capsizing...

  At this moment, the whole situation was like a rolling snowball, getting further and further out of Cao Hong's control. When Cao Hong looked back and thought about it carefully, he could not find out what he had done wrong!

This is not to say that Cao Hong is stubborn and unrepentant, but Cao Hong discovered that even if he returns to those crossroads, he will still choose his previous choice!

When the cavalry first arrived, Cao Hong chose to defend the camp instead of going into battle immediately. Judging from the current results, perhaps a direct attack by the entire army at that time might have had a different result, but in fact, the morale of Cao's army was scattered, and after Cao Cao secretly transferred part of the troops, they were no longer in a position to fight Fei Qian head-on. Instead, relying on the camp fortifications to consume the enemy's energy was a rational choice and the best tactic.

  Did Cao Hong make the wrong choice here?

correct.

  But later on, Cao Hong couldn't help it, and abandoned his original plan of relying on the consumption of the camp. He disobeyed the order given to him by Cao Cao and led his troops to attack!

The reason why Cao Hong couldn't hold back was that the cavalry revealed a "flaw"!

How can we miss such a great opportunity?

Cao Hong felt that he could seize the opportunity and change the situation...

Is he wrong?

  That’s not wrong, it’s just like the present moment, things are urgent!

The situation on the battlefield was changing rapidly. As soon as Fei Qian divided his troops, his formation became weak, and he also sent troops to attack Anyi camp!

Simply...

Fei Qian's apparent military strength was relatively small. According to common sense, he should have concentrated his forces, but he chose to divide them! This move that went against common sense made Cao Hong unable to sit still.

But if Cao Hong were allowed to choose again now, he would at most wonder whether he should have attacked Fei Qian's central army directly instead of sitting back and watching Anyi.

  So what if Cao Hong endured it?

Although failure will not necessarily occur immediately, morale will suffer a further severe blow!

  If the Hussars gathered together, it could be said that the enemy was strong, but what about Fei Qian's splitting of his troops? Moreover, Fei Qian didn't dare to go out if he split his troops into three, so if he split his troops into five again, would he go out or not? What would the defeated Cao army think if they split their troops to attack Anyi without rescuing it?

The morale of Cao's army was not high to begin with. Faced with such a situation, Cao Hong had no choice but to send out troops, either to rescue the Anyi camp or to directly "besiege Wei to save Zhao"!

Cao Hong did not choose to raid Fei Qian's center formation at that time because Cao Hong felt that Fei Qian's cavalry on both wings could outflank and come back at any time, so Cao Hong chose to attack a flank cavalry first, and only after eliminating a certain threat did he try to kill Xu Chu. As a result, Cao Hong failed to defeat the cavalry on the wing first, but was defeated by Xu Chu's infantry.

Eventually, the current situation came into being.

And now...

Cao Hong faced a choice again.

Should he choose to chase after the bandit cavalry troops heading east, or go to the main camp gate to wipe out the traitor Bao Zhong?

The cavalrymen headed towards Anyi. Although Cao Hong was somewhat puzzled, it made sense after thinking about it. After all, only a small number of people were rescued in the previous battle in Anyi. It was natural for those who escaped now to want to rescue more relatives.

So is it more important to kill the people from Anyi, or is it safer to strangle Bao Zhong first?

Some people have been taken out of Anyi City, and its importance has been greatly reduced, so now...

Cao Hong gnashed his teeth and said, "If that's the case, why not kill this traitor Bao Zhong first, and then come back to deal with the bandit cavalry soldiers!"