Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1260 Obstructed
Yuan Xi felt a little regretful that he could not witness the Battle of Bailang Mountain with his own eyes. After all, if he had been there, he might have witnessed Zhang Liao display his supernatural power.

However, history has changed now, and Yuan Xi has no idea what will happen in the future. Facing this new battlefield, Yuan Xi's later experience has lost its effect, so after much thought, he still feels that Zhuge Liang is more suitable than himself.

Moreover, Zhuge Liang also needs experience in leading an army alone. After all, in the years to come, Zhuge Liang will be the backbone of Yuan Xi's pacification of the world, and the State of Jin also needs him to grow up quickly in order to suppress the growing Sima Yi of the State of Wei.

Moreover, in Yuan Xi's view, the advantages of the Xianbei people are their mobility and numbers, while their disadvantages are their single type of troops and easy morale collapse. They are much worse than Cao's army in fighting positional warfare, making them a perfect training ground for Zhuge Liang.

So he focused on mobilizing logistical supplies in Yijing and collecting intelligence from all sides. Dozens of urgent reports were sent to Yijing from all directions every day, allowing Yuan Xi to grasp the general situation in the world in a timely manner.

Because Yuan Xi was busy dealing with the Xianbei some days ago, after hearing the news of Cao Cao's death, he did not have time to lament the loss of his most powerful opponent. It was not until this time that he could calm down and think carefully about the impact of Cao Cao's death on the world.

His feelings towards Cao Cao were quite complicated. Although he was the culprit that led to the downfall of the Yuan family, Yuan Xi still admired Cao Cao's talents. It must be said that the Three Kingdoms became so famous in later generations, and Liu Bei and Cao Cao made great contributions.

In particular, although Cao Cao does not conform to the values ​​of modern people in later generations, he also has his own unique personal charm. It can be said that without Cao Cao, there would be no history of the Three Kingdoms in later generations.

The unification of the Wei State relied to a large extent on Cao Cao's personal abilities over the years. It must be said that Cao Cao was very lucky. Although he experienced various crises, he did not die on the battlefield and finally died in bed. The reason for this was that Yuan Xi used some similar methods to Cao Cao, which greatly accelerated the process.

The Jin and Wei dynasties competed with each other, and in the end there was a spectacular and soul-stirring duel between the two kings, but there were only small tricks that were not visible on the surface, and not much was left for future generations to sing about.

Yuan Xi felt no guilt about this. In the fight for the world, people would do anything to achieve their goals. He could not learn from Liu Bei, and he had a clear understanding of his own abilities. If he was put on the same starting line with Cao Cao and Liu Bei, how could he possibly beat them? If he did not make good use of the advantages of being a time traveler, he would be doing himself a disservice.

Now Yuan Xi has set his sights on the longer-term future. Although the power of Wei has been greatly weakened by him, with the expansion of Yuan Xi's territory, the problems he will face in the next few years will be more.

The Three Kingdoms fought for such a long time in later generations, and it cannot be said that it was all Cao Wei's fault. It occupied the Central Plains, and although it had the largest population and land resources, it also had the widest border line, so it faced the most problems.

Just taking the north as an example, from the Qiang people in Liangzhou in the west to the Northern and Southern Xiongnu in Bingzhou, to the three Xianbei and Wuhuan tribes, and finally to the Gongsun family and the Korean Peninsula, during the decades of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Wei used a considerable amount of manpower and material resources to suppress the northern border. From this point of view alone, it can be said that while Cao Wei was fighting for the world, it also ensured the stability of the Central Plains.

Now that Yuan Xi has taken over Jizhou and connected Bingzhou, Youzhou, Qingzhou and other places together, replacing Cao Wei in later generations and becoming the barrier of the Central Plains against foreign invaders, he will inevitably have to invest a considerable amount of military forces to solve these extremely troublesome problems.

Relying on the experience of later generations, Yuan Xi had already started planning. After he conquered Baekje, he left Tian Yu to continue attacking the Three Han states, while threatening Goguryeo to the north.

Now Tian Yu has basically forced the Three Han to surrender. At the same time, according to Yuan Xi's arrangement, he re-elected officials in the local area and changed all the written language to Chinese, popularizing it to all classes as much as possible.

This kind of radical approach is the real way to resolve the barriers between ethnic groups. Fortunately, the Korean Peninsula does not have its own writing system, so it is relatively easy to promote it. However, education cannot be achieved overnight. Yuan Xi estimated that it would take at least ten or twenty years to educate one or two generations in order to lay the foundation for future integration.

Therefore, before Tian Yu left, Yuan Xi gave him the idea that military action could be fast, but education could not be hasty, and it needed to be steadily advanced to completely set the tone for the sinicization of the Korean Peninsula.

With this idea in mind, Tian Yu took one step at a time and pushed the front line to the border of Goguryeo. At the same time, he strengthened the local administration of the Three Han States and achieved good results. At the same time, he replanned the Three Han regions and merged them into Handong County. Although it was nominally annexed by the Han court, everyone in the world knew that this was already Jin's own territory.

As for Goguryeo, the situation it faced was even worse than that of later generations. It had already been fighting with the Gongsun Du family. At this time, with the fall of the Three Han regions in the rear, Goguryeo was attacked from all sides, and its demise was only a matter of time. Therefore, its king was likely to collude with the Xianbei, which would also affect the anti-Gongsun family and the Wuhuan.

Yuan Xi had been prepared for this. While he sent people to divide and persuade Goguryeo to surrender, he had also planted a large number of spies in the Wuhuan and Gongsun families. He was well aware of the intelligence on both sides, so he and Zhuge Liang made a plan to lead the Xianbei in the direction of the disloyal Wuhuan tribe in an attempt to capture them all in one fell swoop.

Before Zhuge Liang set out, Yuan Xi guessed that Na Bin from Bailang Mountain was definitely not as simple as the Xianbei and Wuhuan coalition forces.

As expected, news came later that not only Lou Ban of Wuhuan, but also reinforcements from Goguryeo and even people from the Eastern Xianbei tribe had appeared. They all gathered in the Liucheng area of ​​Bailang Mountain and sent letters to force the Gongsun family to surrender.

Yuan Xi was not surprised by this. In his opinion, the timing of going to war now depended on how long the Gongsun family could withstand the pressure.

Moreover, even if the Gongsun family rebelled, Yuan Xi would be confident because he had mobilized troops from Bingzhou in advance and had already joined forces with Zhuge Liang.

Gao Shun went to Bei and led his troops personally, including Southern Xiongnu and Bingzhou cavalry infantry. They rushed all the way along the Bingzhou-Youzhou Passage and arrived near Xuwushan to await Zhuge Liang's orders. The war was about to break out.

Yuan Xi knew that at this time, he had done what he should do. All that was left was to wait for news. This war broke out in the severe winter, and the Xianbei had no way to retreat. They could only fight to the death. This would be a winner-takes-all battle. As the days passed, the news finally came.

Yuan Xi looked at the long battle report written by Zhuge Liang and finally breathed a sigh of relief. Although the Jin army failed to achieve a complete victory, the result was already very ideal as many unexpected events occurred on the battlefield.

He read the contents of the long letter carefully, and the scene at that time seemed to be vividly replayed before his eyes.

Zhuge Liang led his troops northward and reorganized his troops when passing through Jicheng. By then, Qu Bei and Gao Shun had already led their troops to the junction of Xuwu Mountain and Bailang Mountain in advance and had been on the march for three or four days.

After hearing this, Zhuge Liang summoned the Jicheng defender Qian Zhao to lead the rear infantry and the baggage train. He also requisitioned all the horses in Jicheng, turned the front army into cavalry, and started a rapid march.

This move was extremely sudden. Although Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao, who led the army, were full of confusion, they still strictly followed the order. The cavalrymen each had three horses and began to march rapidly. Five days later, they joined forces with Gao Shunqubei more than a hundred miles away from Bailang Mountain.

At that time, Gao Shun Qubei was the vanguard with only more than 5,000 people. At this time, Ju Luohou had joined forces with Wuhuan Louban, and the total number of people was 50,000 to 60,000. After finding out the number of people in Gao Shun Qubei's army, he did not take it seriously and even sent out more than 10,000 cavalry to harass and attack.

The Southern Xiongnu who went to Beiling were also light cavalry, and had no advantage over the Wuhuan and Xianbei. After they met and fought, they saw that the momentum was not good, so they decided to retreat temporarily. In the end, they relied on the infantry formation trained by Gao Shun to repel the Wuhuan and Xianbei coalition forces.

When Qubei saw that he had been discovered, he had no choice but to lead the soldiers together with Gao Shun to cut wood and dig trenches on the spot to temporarily block the Wuhuan and Xianbei coalition forces. However, the weather was cold and digging was extremely difficult. The Southern Xiongnu soldiers also had some complaints. Even if Qubei suppressed them with military law, they still had the morale of the army fluctuating.

Qu Bei felt quite ashamed when he saw this, and told Gao Shun about the situation, saying angrily: "These soldiers are the most elite soldiers selected by the Southern Xiongnu, but I didn't expect them to be so incompetent!"

Gao Shun listened and comforted him: "Fighting in winter is difficult. This is human nature. There is no need to rush."

"My soldiers have been trained for three full winters before they can follow orders. At the same time, the enemy is not simple. The Wuhuan are fine, but you have also seen the situation of the Xianbei cavalry, right?"

Qu Bei nodded and said, "Those Xianbei cavalry are obviously much more brutal than the Wuhuan cavalry. Why?"

Gao Shun said in a deep voice: "On the one hand, they have no way to retreat. If they don't advance, they will die. On the other hand, these remaining Xianbei cavalrymen were once forced to abandon their families and eat human flesh when they ran out of food. They have no bottom line anymore."

"Now they are just a bunch of lunatics who kill anyone they see. Although they are at a dead end, in this situation, they can actually unleash great destructive power."

Qu Bei said depressedly: "It's my fault for being reckless. When the reinforcements hadn't arrived yet, they had time to fight back. What should we do now?"

Gao Shun thought for a moment and said, "We can temporarily retreat a dozen miles back to the exit of Xuwu Mountain, but once we get to that place, we can no longer retreat."

"We came here through the Xuwushan Passage. In recent years, Xuwushan has been opened up and can accommodate cavalry to pass quickly. If we can pass, the other side can also pass. If we clear the passage at that time, we will not be able to stop them."

Qu Bei said depressedly: "It's really strange. Xu Wushan released the garrison before, but they didn't come here!"

Gao Shun said: "According to the news, in the past few years, Louban bypassed Xu Wushan in the name of trade and opened a road in the northwest."

"The Xianbei cavalry came from that direction, so our previous traps were useless. Now we can only wait for reinforcements to arrive."

Qubei sighed, "But the Xianbei cavalry have already been at Bailang Mountain for two days. If we continue like this, it will be difficult to deal with them when they have rested."

When he and Gao Shun learned that the Xianbei cavalry bypassed Jicheng and rushed to Bailang Mountain, they immediately decided not to wait for Zhuge Liang's arrival, but to go out of the city and pursue them. However, the two did not expect that the Xianbei would march so fast. There were dead horses and soldiers everywhere along the way, and they could not help but sigh at the Xianbei's determination.

In addition, the two did not expect that the Xianbei did not leave Xu Wushan, so in the end the two did not catch up, but were instead counterattacked by the Xianbei.

Qu Bei said worriedly, "It will take at least six or seven days for the reinforcements to arrive. I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to hold on."

As a result, that afternoon, the two received a letter from Zhuge Liang's messenger saying that the vanguard army would arrive the next day. This surprised the two. How could they arrive so quickly?
(End of this chapter)