Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1161 Reinforcements
After receiving the order from Yi Jing, Zhang He immediately began to organize his troops and prepare to break through Cao's defense line at the agreed time.

He called Xu Huang to discuss the matter and said, "Because the eastern route was unfavorable, you and the military advisor led the troops to support General Chunyu. Tomorrow, the Jin army will be led by you and me."

"But the Cao army in front of us has two passages on the left and right wings in addition to the central army. We must break through them at the same time to completely tear open the Cao army's defense line."

"But a few deputy generals are not enough as vanguards. The general must lead the charge himself. But if that happens, neither you nor I can command the central army."

"So after the war starts, it will be difficult for you and me to communicate. We can only fight on our own. Let's see which side has better luck."

Xu Huang said, "This is the only way. But I'm worried that if there's no one in the center, we might be caught by Cao's army. After all, although Xiahou Dun on the other side is not good at attacking, he is very skilled in defense and has more generals than us. Let's not talk about Yu Jin. Even though the new Cao Zhang is young, he's also difficult to deal with."

"And I suspect that the enemy has more than just these two generals. If another fierce general like Ma Chao appears, our generals will probably be cut down in battle."

"And the Lord also said in the letter that after we break through Cao's defenses, Cao's army will most likely launch a naval attack. By then, our retreat will be blocked and we will have to fight a bloody battle with Cao's army for a while. In this case, will we have fewer people who can serve as the backbone of the team?"

Zhang He was also a little troubled. He said, "Let me think about it carefully. This time, we are really in a desperate situation. Although Yi Jing's order can break Cao's defense line, it is also a very severe test for the soldiers who have been fighting for several months."

While the two were talking, a soldier reported that thousands of reinforcements had arrived from Yijing.

The two thought that these were probably newly trained soldiers. Although they were not as good as veterans, they were still helpful. However, when they saw the person leading the troops, they could not help but stand up at the same time and asked in surprise, "Why is Zhuge Military Advisor here?"

The person who came was Zhuge Liang. He said, "No matter how fast the message is delivered, it will take three days to get to Yijing and back. We will miss the opportunity in vain."

"So I brought the thousands of elite soldiers that the lord left behind to garrison here to assist the generals and give the two of you a hand."

Zhuge Liang was being polite, but Zhang He would not really let Zhuge Liang do odd jobs, because the position of military advisor was originally to replace Yuan Xi and take full control of the situation, so Zhuge Liang's power was above Zhang He's.

But Zhang He would not think that Zhuge Liang came to claim credit. After all, the front line was so dangerous and the prospects of tomorrow's assault were unpredictable. Zhuge Liang went to the dangerous place in person not only to show his attitude, but also to stabilize the morale of the army.

So Zhang He immediately said: "Tomorrow Gongming and I will break through from two directions. There is no one in the central army. The military advisor has come at the right time. Please give the order and we will obey it."

Zhuge Liang said: "The two generals and I will advance together. We will not retreat. The three of us will advance at the same time and completely defeat Cao's army!"

Zhang He and Xu Huang quickly accepted the order. Zhang He asked, "Chun Yuqiong of the East Route and Gao Lan of the West Route should also send out their troops tomorrow, right?"

"Will this approach prevent Cao's army from defeating them one by one?"

Zhuge Liang nodded and said, "That's right. If we miss a route, Cao's army may enter our lord's territory and wreak havoc."

"The purpose this time is to make a gesture of besieging Yecheng, forcing Cao's army to retreat and have no time to spare."

"This approach may result in more casualties in the short term, but in the long run, it can prevent Cao's army from dragging the entire Jizhou people into the quagmire, thus avoiding more casualties."

Zhang He and Xu Huang both nodded in understanding. This was indeed the case. If Cao Cao had forced hundreds of thousands of Jizhou people to fill the line, the losses of the Jin army would have been difficult to predict.

Zhuge Liang said: "The key to this battle is how to break through Cao's defense as quickly as possible tomorrow, and then defeat the Cao army digging a river behind them."

"The best case scenario is that Cao's army's plan to dig the river fails, but Cao's army should have been prepared to deal with it, so the river will most likely be destroyed."

"At that time, we had to find a good route in advance and avoid floods to reduce casualties. So in order to contain Cao's army, I brought a batch of new array-breaking equipment."

When Zhuge Liang talked about the chariots he brought, Zhang He and Xu Huang felt more confident. With these things, they could suppress Cao's army in the camp and greatly increase the possibility of victory!
At dawn the next day, Zhang He's army launched an attack on three fronts at the same time, and the three passages guarded by Cao's army were attacked fiercely at the first moment.

Amid the explosions, Yu Jin stood on the fort and shouted, "Hold on!"

"Everyone, find a place to hide and avoid arrows. Wait until the enemy's attack is over before counterattacking!"

He held up his shield and looked at the rain of arrows. He thought that although his defense was not impregnable, it would be enough to hold out for a few days. Then he would see how many arrows the other side had!

Suddenly he looked up at the sky and narrowed his eyes slightly. It seemed that there was something else mixed in the rain of thousands of arrows?

Cao Zhang on the left was leading his cavalry to bypass Xu Huang's army and attack them, but he saw more than a dozen iron carts being fired out in a row. In front of the carts, on the crossbow wheel, there were dense crossbow arrows.

Cao Zhang beside him saw this and shouted, "Hide!"

Such a situation occurred simultaneously in more than a dozen directions in Wei County. The Jin army launched a full-scale attack at an unexpected time, and the Cao army was forced into a full defense.

When Jizhou was involved in the war, Sima Yi had already led his troops from Yizhou to Xu Du, and then headed towards Yecheng.

He actually felt a little regretful, because according to his suggestion, they should have taken the opportunity to take Jingzhou Liu Biao from Xichuan in the east, and the situation in the southwest would have been settled.

But Cao Cao asked him to go to Yecheng. Wasn't this a missed opportunity?
Although Sima Yi felt regretful in private, he had to obey Cao Cao's orders. He understood that since Cao Cao was so anxious to transfer him back, the battle situation in Jizhou must be not optimistic.

He took the previous troops and the newly gathered soldiers from Yuzhou, and gathered more than 10,000 people, and hurried to Yecheng. He traveled day and night and it took him more than half a month to reach the border of Jizhou. The soldiers were already exhausted.

He was so anxious that he originally wanted to enter Jizhou to rest, but just as he arrived, he received a series of urgent reports asking him to lead his troops into the battlefield immediately.

Sima Yi thought that the soldiers were almost dying from running all the way, so he should at least let them rest for a few days. Why was it so urgent?

In this case, even if the soldiers go into battle, I'm afraid they won't have much fighting power, right?

But when he learned about the current war situation in Jizhou, he understood why the order came so urgently.

The Jin army had already penetrated Wei County in an all-round way. Although the Cao army used water attacks to cut off various border passages and disrupted the Jin army's logistics, the Jin army seemed to have been prepared for this. Not only did they not panic, but they had the courage to fight to the death and launched a fierce attack and battle with the Cao army at various passes.

In response to the Jin army's resolute reaction, the Cao army seemed to be unprepared for the water attack. Several lines of defense were lost at one point, and the army was even broken through by two routes of the Jin army and attacked a position more than 200 miles away from Yecheng.

The Cao army had to shrink its defense and started a fierce tug-of-war with the Jin army. Both sides were desperately sending in people, and there were tens of thousands of casualties on more than a dozen battlefields every day.

The battle lasted for half a month. Seeing that they could not surround Yecheng due to their long supply lines, the Jin army began to shrink slightly and set up camps at various passes again, intending to advance step by step.

In this round of confrontation, both sides suffered heavy casualties. Cao's camp did not have the casualty figures of the Jin army, but it was very clear about its own side. After this short battle, the 140,000 or 150,000 people mobilized at the beginning were less than 100,000, and there were at least 50,000 to 60,000 casualties.

Although most of these casualties were used by Cao's army to fill the line, and there were still many main forces of Cao's army, they were no longer able to maintain the front line. So when Sima Yi came, he received an order to immediately go to the front line.

The direction Sima Yi was heading was due north where Xiahou Dun was the commander-in-chief. After he led his troops to the military camp and handed over the soldiers, Xiahou Dun's brow, which had been furrowed from beginning to end, finally relaxed a little.

Although Xiahou Dun was in a high position, he was not arrogant. Moreover, Sima Yi had made many military achievements in the battle of Yizhou, which made Xiahou Dun look at him with new eyes. He asked Sima Yi to sit down and said, "The military advisor has arrived at the right time."

"I don't know about other directions, but more than half of my men have been killed or wounded along the way. If the military advisor doesn't come, I'm almost unable to hold on."

"Also, almost all of my generals, from Cao Zhang to Yu Jin and other forwards, are injured. We can only take a defensive stance for the time being. It will be difficult for us to take the initiative to attack."

Sima Yi was shocked when he heard this. "The battle is so fierce?"

"Besides, the generals are all powerful warriors of the time. Who can hurt them if the other side sends them?"

It is no wonder that Sima Yi found it unbelievable. When attacking Yizhou last year, Cao's army only sent two generals, Xiahou Yuan and Le Jin, and they marched all the way into Chengdu. Le Jin, who had been the vanguard, was not even injured in the siege.

Yu Jin is also a general of Cao's camp who is equally powerful as him, and Cao Zhang is a fierce general of the new generation of Cao family. Although he is young, his fighting power can even be ranked among the top three of Cao family's generals. How could such a person be injured and unable to fight in a defensive battle?
Xiahou Dun sighed, "The Jin army's offensive this time was too fierce, both for the generals and soldiers. Cao Zhang and Yu Jin faced the Jin army's great generals Zhang He and Xu Huang. They were inferior in skills, but the most important thing was that the Jin army's weapons made it difficult for the generals' armor to defend themselves."

Sima Yi frowned and said, "I heard that the Jin army has bamboo tubes that can injure many people. If they are thrown by catapults, it is indeed difficult to defend. If the enemy adopts this method, I think we cannot retreat. We must rush into the enemy's formation as soon as possible and destroy the throwing equipment. This is the only way to deal with it."

Xiahou Dun sighed, "Military advisor, it's as if you saw it in person. If you were here at the beginning, Cao Zhang and the others would not have been so flustered."

"But this approach requires the soldiers to be in high spirits and march forward bravely. But now they are bombarding the camp day and night with these things. The soldiers' morale is low and they can't organize a counterattack. What good ideas do you have, military advisor?"

Sima Yi pondered for a while and said, "I want to go to the front line first."

(End of this chapter)