Three Kingdoms: Wolong's brother-in-law, tricking Liu Bei into seizing Jingzhou

In the summer of that year, Cao Ren died and Bingzhou changed hands.

After Cao Cao heard the news, all the Qin troops from north to south went on the defensive.

Cao Cao personally led a large army to station at Puban Pass to prevent Liu Bei from taking advantage of the situation and leading 200,000 main forces to cross the Yellow River through Puban and launch an attack on Guanzhong.

Xiahou Dun also retreated back to Tongguan, guarded the city strictly and dared not attack Guan Yu again.

As for Wuguan, Cao Xiu and Man Chong also defended the city gate and dared not go out to harass the Han army's Nanyang front.

At the same time, the news of the Bingzhou Army's annihilation and Cao Ren's beheading quickly spread throughout the Qin State.

The three states were greatly shaken and the army was in panic.

When Cao Cao switched from offense to defense, Liu Bei in Jinyang was still celebrating the achievement of regaining Bingzhou.

The generals felt that the killing was not enough, and many of them advocated that Liu Bei immediately lead his troops south, take advantage of the high morale, cross the river in one fell swoop, break through the Puban Pass, and enter Guanzhong.

The counselors led by Xiao Fang remained calm and were not as "arrogant" as the generals.

Xiao Fang believed that the Han army had been fighting from the beginning of winter to the end of summer, and while the morale of the soldiers was at its highest, their physical strength had been exhausted to the limit, and it was not appropriate for them to continue a long-term campaign.

If we attack Guanzhong, it will inevitably be a protracted war, which will last much longer than the capture of Bingzhou.

The soldiers' current physical strength is not enough to hold out for that long.

Moreover, Tongguan and Wuguan were difficult to break through. If one wanted to attack Guanzhong, one could only start from Pubanjin and cross the Yellow River to the west.

First, now that summer has arrived, heavy rains are falling and the Yellow River is surging, which is not conducive to crossing the river.

Secondly, Cao Cao had personally led the main force and stationed troops at Puban Pass on the west bank. He could use his absolute military advantage at any time to attack the Han army that had landed halfway.

It was obvious that there was little chance of success if we forced our way across the river to attack Puban Pass at this time.

The third reason is that after summer, the autumn harvest is approaching, and a large number of soldiers are needed to return to the fields for the autumn harvest.

If we attack Guanzhong at this time, we will have to mobilize the entire country's troops, and hundreds of thousands of young and strong people will be unable to participate in the autumn harvest, which will inevitably affect this autumn's grain harvest.

Food and grass are the foundation of a country, how can we ignore them?

Taking into account various unfavorable factors, Xiao Fang, Fa Zheng and other advisers all advised Liu Bei to withdraw his troops.

Recovering Bingzhou had achieved the strategic goal, but Liu Bei did not want to stop there. He immediately accepted the advice of Xiao Fang and other ministers and announced that he would return to the capital.

So Zhang Fei, as General of Cavalry and Governor of Bingzhou, stayed in Jinyang to take charge of the overall situation.

Liu Bei personally led an army of 200,000 troops south from Bingzhou and returned to the capital.

The Battle of Bingzhou officially came to an end.

After confirming that Liu Bei's main force had returned to the court, Cao Cao naturally breathed a sigh of relief, and only then did he dare to lead the main force back to Chang'an.

In the middle of summer, from Bingzhou to Jingzhou, along the battle lines stretching for thousands of miles, the two armies tacitly entered a state of truce.

The Han and Qin states entered a brief period of peace in this summer.

The war has stopped, but both sides are not idle.

After Cao Cao retreated to Chang'an, in order to stabilize the people's hearts, he officially issued an edict announcing that Cao Pi would be the crown prince.

At the same time, in order to make up for the loss of 70,000 soldiers in Bingzhou, Cao Cao had to order the conscription of young and strong men in the three states of Siliang and Yi to train a new army.

Especially Yizhou, a land of abundance with a population of one million, provided Cao Cao with a large number of troops.

However, the Qin State only had three states and limited national strength. Such a large-scale conscription of young and strong men as soldiers would weaken productivity and inevitably increase the burden on the people.

However, Cao Cao no longer cared about the people. In order to deal with Cao Cao's renewed massive attack on the heartland of Qin in the near future, he could only choose to drain the pond and give priority to strengthening his military strength.

As for the common people, we can only impose additional taxes to support the army, which will make them suffer a little.

On the Han side, Liu Bei was certainly not idle either.

The battle of Bingzhou was a great victory, and countless soldiers made contributions. The first thing they did when they returned to the capital was naturally to reward the meritorious officials.

The general who made the greatest contribution naturally had to be Ma Chao.

With such great contributions, all the Han generals were convinced of this brave general from Xiliang.

Liu Bei then had the final say and promoted Ma Chao to General Pingxi and conferred on him the title of Marquis Ting.

The rest of the meritorious generals will all be rewarded according to their merits.

After ennobling the meritorious generals, the next step was naturally to prepare for the attack on Qin, the destruction of Cao, and the capture of Guanzhong.

As for the military, the Han people were not short of strong men.

As of today, the total number of troops of the Han Dynasty has reached nearly 400,000. With the incorporated Bingzhou pseudo-Qin surrendered troops, the number can be increased to about 450,000.

This number still had an absolute advantage even after Cao Cao had exhausted all his resources and recruited new soldiers on a large scale.

If the military continues to expand, it will not have much significance except increasing the burden on the people and arousing public resentment.

Therefore, under Xiao Fang's reminder, Liu Bei focused on reorganizing the surrendered troops, training soldiers, and updating equipment, rather than blindly expanding the army and pursuing greater numerical advantages.

The second thing is scientific research.

According to Xiao Fang's idea, the imperial examination should normally be held every three years.

Otherwise, the imperial examinations would be too frequent, and the state would not be able to provide enough vacant official positions to appoint those who passed the exams, so it would have to create more official positions.

If this continues, it will inevitably lead to the disadvantages of excessive officials, drag down the efficiency of government operations, and increase the burden on the people.

However, the current situation is special. Firstly, the imperial examination has just been implemented. If it is held every three years, it will not be conducive to making the imperial examination system popular among the people as soon as possible.

Secondly, at a time when the Qin and Han dynasties coexisted, the Qin State had passed the Nine-Rank System, and was actively winning over the wealthy and powerful families in Guanxi and recruiting a large number of scholars to serve as officials.

Although there were good and bad among them, most of them were talented and learned, and they were easy to arouse the envy of scholars in the Han Dynasty. Therefore, in order to win the hearts of the people, Xiao Fang improvised and proposed that Liu Bei should set the imperial examination once a year before destroying Qin, so as to win the hearts of the people to the greatest extent.

This adjustment is indeed effective.

As soon as the news of the imperial examination came out, all the states, whether from scholar families or poor families, were excited and encouraged.

So at the beginning of autumn, the second imperial examination since Liu Bei ascended the throne was carried out as planned.

Two months later, those who had passed the provincial examinations in the nine provinces of the Han Dynasty gathered in the imperial capital Chang'an to take part in the metropolitan and provincial examinations.

The questions of the joint examination were exactly the same as those of the first imperial examination:
On attacking Qin!
As the name suggests, this question requires the talented people participating in the palace examination to explain their strategies for attacking Qin.

This topic was not proposed by Xiao Fang, but was Lao Liu's own idea.

In the first imperial examination, a great talent named Ma Su emerged. The theory of attacking Qin that he wrote was similar to the strategy discussed by Liu Bei and Xiao Fang, the emperor and his ministers. Both advocated taking Bingzhou first.

It was for this reason that Ma Su was chosen by Liu Bei as the top scholar.

Facts have also proved that Ma Su was indeed worthy of the title of top scholar. The Fire Bull Formation he presented in the Battle of Anyi defeated 40,000 Xiongnu cavalry and cleared the biggest obstacle for the Han Dynasty to capture Bingzhou.

Liu Bei had benefited from the imperial examination and wanted to do the same thing, so that he could not only dig out a good seedling like Ma Su from this examination, but also get a strategy to destroy Qin.

Kill two birds with one stone...

...

A few days later, in the Golden Palace of the Imperial Palace.

Liu Bei and several other advisers, including Xiao Fang, Zhuge Liang, and Fa Zheng, jointly reviewed the test papers of the candidates taking the palace examination.

Suddenly, Liu Bei's eyes lit up and his gaze rested on a test paper:

Cross the river on ice!

There were only these four big words written on the test paper, nothing else.

"This paper is interesting. It only has four words. Everyone, take a look."

Liu Bei showed the test paper to everyone.

When everyone saw it, they all looked surprised and started talking about it.

The papers of other candidates all elaborated on their strategies for attacking Qin in detail. Although most of them could not be called brilliant ideas and had no chance of success, they were at least long and coherent.

This person was very frugal with words and only wrote four words.

These are still four ambiguous words whose meaning is unclear!
Everyone looked at this unique test paper and didn't know how to evaluate it for a moment.

"Cross the river on ice, cross the river on ice..."

Xiao Fang seemed to have figured out something from these four words.

Looking at the candidate's name again, my eyes suddenly lit up:
Hao Zhao!

This is a great man.

In history, Cao Wei's door god, with only a few thousand people, defended Chencang and blocked an army ten times larger than his brother-in-law Zhuge Liang, and single-handedly forced back Zhuge Liang's second Northern Expedition.

This is a general who is good at defense.

If Xiao Fang remembered correctly, this Hao Zhao, like Guo Huai, was from Taiyuan County, Bingzhou.

Such a young man with the talent of a famous general, coupled with his identity as a Bingzhou native, the four words "walking on the ice to cross the river" written by him immediately made Xiao Fang think of something.

"This Hao Zhao and Hao Bodao are rare wise generals, and are indeed great talents."

"He risked deceiving the emperor by only writing these four words on the exam paper. I guess he probably didn't do it simply to attract attention, but to use this to attract the attention of Your Majesty and summon him to come and answer questions."

"I think he has a brilliant plan to attack Qin. Your Majesty may wish to summon him to ask him questions."

Liu Bei's eyes, which were originally full of suspicion, suddenly flashed with a gleam of light, and a look of joy appeared on his face.

Xiao Fang actually knew this Hao Zhao and could even describe him as a great talent!
This is a pleasant surprise.

With this in mind, Liu Bei happily ordered:

"Since the Prime Minister said this man is a great talent, then he must be right. Come, summon Hao Zhao to the palace to make an inquiry!"

Half an hour later.

A young scholar, led by a eunuch, stepped into the hall.

"Your Majesty, I, Hao Zhao, pay my respects to you!"

His voice was slightly trembling, showing his inner nervousness about meeting the emperor, but he was able to step forward and salute calmly, which showed his calmness.

"Be flat."

Liu Bei waved his hand slightly, and said:

"Hao Bodao, the Prime Minister said that you deliberately wrote only four words on this test paper. It means that you have a brilliant plan to attack Qin in your mind, and you want me to summon you and present it to me in person."

"Now that you have seen it, you can tell me in detail what you mean by 'walking on ice across the river'."

Hao Zhao was slightly shocked and glanced at Xiao Fang in surprise. He was obviously amazed that his "little thoughts" were easily seen through by Xiao Fang.

"The Prime Minister is very insightful and could easily see through me. I am truly ashamed..."

After Hao Zhao laughed at himself, he cleared his throat, clasped his hands and said seriously:

"These four words are simple to say. It means that while the Yellow River is frozen, our army will cross the river on ice and unexpectedly break through Puban Pass, and enter Guanzhong from Hedong!" (End of this chapter)