Shu Han Confucian General of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 317
Cao Pi was a little silly.

The series of blows made this Wei Wendi a little overwhelmed.First, the iron chains and hidden reefs were completely removed, and later, the Yellow River water villages were completely burned down.In this way, with more than 20 troops stranded in Henan, it will be difficult to come back.

And just now, another bad news came: Zhang Fei, Ma Chao and others led a sudden detour to Saibei and entered Youzhou and Bingzhou.Tian Yu, the prefect of Yanmen in Bingzhou, surrendered, and the defenses in Youzhou were insufficient.By the time Cao Pi received this information, only Shangdang was left in Bingzhou, and only Zhuojun was still in his hands in Youzhou.In a panic, Cao Pi quickly sent his clan brothers Cao Xiu and Xia Houhe to lead troops to garrison these two places to ward off the enemy.

"Everyone, Liu Bei has many tricks and tricks, and actually sent people to surprise Bingzhou and Youzhou. Now the emperor's army is sluggish in Henan, and the Yellow River waterway is also patrolled by Liu Bei's navy day and night, like a moat. What good strategy do you have to deal with the current situation? "

At the court meeting, Cao Pi's words were already quite anxious, almost losing the majesty of the emperor at all.It can't be blamed on him for being impatient, who would have thought that the situation would suddenly take a turn for the worse. He originally wanted to go south, but now his old nest is about to be taken over.

All the ministers looked at me, I looked at you, and finally said tentatively: "Your Majesty, the military situation is urgent at the moment, you can order the King of Zhongshan and General Xu Gongming to suspend the army, and first send the army to defend the cities of Nanyang and Yanzhou. Even abandon the land of Henan, and try to lead the army back to aid the land of Hebei, so as to be safe."

"I also know that if the land of Hebei is lost right now, everything will be over. But now that the waterway of the Yellow River has been blocked, how can the second brother and Xu Gongming be allowed to return to the army?" Cao Pi said anxiously.Man Chong didn't speak, but Jia Xu, who had been silent on the sidelines, said: "Although Liu Bei has sent naval forces to seal off the Yellow River ferry, the shore of the Yellow River is very vast. How can we cover everything? Why don't we break up the army into pieces and send troops from all over the place?" The small ferries are scattered across the river and back, so as not to be caught by the net.”

Jia Xu's suggestion seems reasonable, but in practice, it is not very feasible.As soon as he finished speaking, Man Chong had already begun to object: "Wen He's remarks are very inappropriate. Once the army is broken into pieces, how can they gather quickly after returning to Hebei? If they can't gather, then a group of What is the use of deserters returning to Hebei?"

"Your Majesty, don't worry. Although the soldiers are away on the expedition, their families are still in Hebei. You can tell the soldiers that if they can return to Hebei, the elders in the family will not only be exempted from taxes, but will also be rewarded. In this way, even if you can't gather everyone Most of the soldiers can be gathered together." Jia Xu continued.Having said that, everyone understands.With such a temptation of interests, it should be possible to gather more than half of the troops.

The military system of Wei and Han is the same, and they all implement the military system of the world.Every person who serves as a soldier will be specially registered.This was done in the past to prevent deserters.Once anyone escapes, the family will also be implicated.But doing this now is to gather people's hearts.Cao Pi also knew that Jia Xu's trick was helpless, and there was no other way.As for the nearly [-] troops of Cao Hong, the Lieutenant of Sili, because it is located on the front line of Guanzhong, Liu Bei may cross the Yellow River to attack at any time, so it cannot be easily mobilized.

At that moment, Cao Pi urgently sent an order to Cao Hong, asking him to summon troops to prepare to return to Yecheng.At the same time, according to Jia Xu's suggestion, try to bring back part of the Henan army as much as possible.Of course, even if the whole army is reduced to zero and transferred back, it may not be very successful.

First of all, under the day and night inspections of the Jingxiang Navy, it is definitely not an easy task to cross the river safely; secondly, what the 20 troops stranded in Henan now have to face is Guan Yu's menacing 40 troops. Soldiers and horses, in this way, if the troops are divided up and go back, Nanyang and Yanzhou will not be able to defend.If there is less going back, it will be difficult to help, and it will be a dilemma; moreover, facing Guan Yu's pressing, even if the troops stranded in Henan just want to stick to it or withdraw their troops, Guan Yu may not give them this opportunity.So in any case, Cao Pi suffered a disadvantage this time.It's just that it's hard to say how much he suffered, and even to a large extent, it depends on Cao Pi's character.

Just like now, most of Youzhou and Bingzhou have been lost. If he loses the land of Henan, Cao Pi will only have a few counties such as Jizhou and Hedong to defend.But after retreating steadily, it is hard to say whether Cao Wei still has enough morale to defend.Moreover, after this battle, the strength contrast between the two sides has reached an extremely disparity.If Cao Pi wants to win now, unless there is a miracle.Not to mention that Zhuge Liang still has the last ultimate move, which he hasn't used yet.

Unlike the Shu Han in history, most of the land in Hebei occupied by Cao Wei now is a flat plain, with no danger for the army to defend, but the opponent is the Han State, which has almost unified the whole country.It can be said that from the moment Guanzhong belonged to Liu Bei, the fate of Cao Wei's destruction was already doomed.If you rely on your strength to slowly crush and fight towards Hebei, Hebei will be pacified within two years.And the reason why Zhuge Liang designed to lure the main force of Cao's army to go south was to avoid a crushing style of play, resulting in a tragic situation in which one thousand enemies were killed and eight hundred self-injured.Even if the four prefectures of Hebei were taken by then, all they would get would be a piece of scorched earth.

So now, Cao Jun is in a dilemma, and this situation has become a foregone conclusion.But at this moment, both Guan Yu and Liu Bei moved.Guan Yu's army, which had been stationed in Runan for many days, began to divide into two groups. Guan Yu personally led a large army to advance to Nanyang, while Zhang Liao led an army to recover Yingchuan.And Liu Bei's Guanzhong army also began to leave Tongguan to attack Hangu Pass in order to capture Hongnong and the two counties of Henan.Liu Bei wanted to cut off Cao Jun's return, but he would not rely solely on the Jingxiang Navy.

When Guan Yu marched into Nanyang, the first to bear the brunt was Xu Gai who stayed behind in Fancheng.After receiving the news of the enemy's killing, Xu Gai immediately notified Xu Huang, who was attacking Xincheng, to give up attacking Xincheng and other places, and return to the army quickly to keep Fancheng.

"What?" Seeing the urgent letter sent by his clan brother, Xu Huang broke out in a cold sweat.Originally, I was about to take down the new city, but I didn't expect the enemy to come to such a trick, and now my back is almost cut off.Although Xu Huang was very unwilling, he had no choice but to withdraw his troops first.

In the early morning of the next day, Zhang Xiu, the prefect of Xincheng, was surprised to find that the enemy had not attacked the city again, and the camps under the city were all empty. The enemy had withdrawn overnight.While Zhang Xiu was surprised, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.Xu Huang's fierce siege these days has brought him great pressure.

Xu Huang withdrew very quickly, almost moving forward lightly, along the north bank of the Han River eastward, to join the clan brothers who were sticking to Fancheng.The distance between the two places was not very far, and three days later, Xu Huang had killed only a few tens of miles away from Fancheng.But for some reason, Xu Huang always felt that something was missing in his heart, as if he had overlooked something.

"General, Fancheng has been besieged by the enemy brigade!" At this time, a scout sent by himself came back to report. Xu Huang was shocked when he heard his words, and understood what he had been ignoring all along.

These days, during Xu Huang's march, he has been sending people to inquire about the news about Fancheng, and the news he got is that Fancheng has not fallen under Xu Gai's insistence.It is true that Fancheng is a strong city, and his brothers are also quite proficient in military strategy.However, Fancheng has only [-] defenders, facing Guan Yu's hundreds of thousands of troops, how can it persist for five or six days without being attacked?

There is only one explanation, that is, Guan Yu is using Xu Gai as a bait to lure himself to come to the rescue.If he had gone from Nanxiang to Cao Zhen in Wancheng from the beginning, then things would not be like this.

These thoughts almost flashed through Xu Huang's mind, but at this moment, he heard the report from the rear army, saying that there was an army of no less than tens of thousands of people who suddenly crossed the river from Xiangyang and appeared in his rear army.Looking at the banner, it was Guan Ping who had evacuated Fancheng a few days ago.At the same time, there was also an army ahead.I now have enemy troops on the east and west sides, with mountains in the south and rivers in the north, and I have been surrounded by groups.

"Guan Ping is here now?" Xu Huang gritted his teeth and said, this little brat is here now, really caught Xu Huang by surprise.At this time, the enemy army in front had gradually appeared in Xu Huang's eyes. Looking at the flag, it was another huge word.

"Guan Yu?" Xu Huang felt a chill rushing into his mind. No matter how confident he was, he was still not sure that he would win in the face of Guan Yu's father and son's front and back attacks under the premise that his troops were not dominant.

"General, what should we do?" Seeing the enemy troops appearing before and after, the generals beside Xu Huang were a little panicked.A sense of tragedy suddenly rose in Xu Huang's heart. At that moment, Xu Huang waved his hand to signal everyone to be quiet, then crossed the big ax in his hand that had been with him for decades, and said in a deep voice: "Now that Guan Yu's army is here, I will wait for you to be killed before and after. The siege has reached a desperate situation. All the soldiers, we have received the great favor of His Majesty and the late emperor, and we have nothing to repay, so we can only die in battle to show our loyalty."

At this time, there were nearly [-] soldiers around Xu Huang, and many of them were Qingzhou soldiers who were loyal to Cao Wei.After Xu Huang made up his mind to fight to the death, these Cao army elites quickly assembled, formed a persistent circular formation, shrunk themselves into an iron-shelled tortoise, and prepared to fight Guan Yu to the death.

"General, it seems that Xu Huang wants to fight us to the death." Seeing Xu Huang's actions, General Zhou Tai who came with Guan Yu also said with emotion.Guan Yu nodded, just looking at the resolute figure in the army, Guan Yu also sighed slightly in his heart.

"Kill!" Following Guan Yu's order, Zhou Tai, Chen Wu, Dong Xi, Liao Hua, and Guan Ping led their respective troops and began to attack Cao Jun's formation.Xu Huang looked at the enemy army who was getting closer and closer to him, the ax in his hand was still tightly clenched, but the corners of his mouth began to twitch.

(End of this chapter)