Vol 2 Chapter 2877: Cao Cao's cumbersome tactics, Kong Xuan attacked and beheaded

Chapter 2877 Cao Cao’s cumbersome tactics, Kong Xuan kills Fan Li in a sneak attack

Chapter 2873: Cao Cao’s cumbersome tactics, Kong Xuan kills Fan Li in a sneak attack

To deal with the 100,000 Cao troops who cut off their retreat, there was naturally no need to dispatch 200,000 Qin troops and so many fierce generals to act at the same time. Cao Ren was obviously not worthy of such treatment.

 But this time, Da Qin gave Cao Ren such a high standard of treatment. Naturally, its purpose was not just as simple as annihilation, but to force the surrender of these 100,000 Cao Ren troops.

Cao Ren is loyal to Cao Cao, and he may not surrender even if he dies, but Cao's army in Chenliu has a hundred thousand people. When the retreat is cut off and there are no reinforcements from outside, and defeat is only a matter of time, it is impossible for everyone to be unafraid of death.

Bai Qi used the cage siege tactic to squeeze Cao's army's activity space to the death, until he finally trapped the isolated city and ran out of ammunition and food. Even if Cao Ren didn't want to surrender, his men would tie him up and surrender to the city.

The advantage of doing this is of course that you can defeat the enemy without fighting and minimize the casualties in this battle, but it also has the disadvantage that it takes a lot of time.

To put it bluntly, the Qin army has established an absolute advantage. Even if they directly join forces to attack Chenliu, it will not take long to forcibly break the city.

 But facing Cao Ren, who has the "Iron Wall" skill, is very good at defending the city, and sits in the fortified city of Chenliu, with a hundred thousand defenders, the casualties of a direct attack will definitely be high.

In order to prevent the situation of a trapped beast still fighting, and because Ying Hao was also worried about the casualties, he chose a method that was more time-consuming and labor-intensive, but could defeat the enemy without fighting, which was Bai Qi's cage siege tactic.

The day after Bai Qi occupied Dingtao, he ordered Qu Yi and Wei Rui to each lead an army of 10,000 to attack Yuanju City and Zhuzao City in the west of Jiyin County respectively. At the same time, he sent Xiao Yan to lead an army of 10,000 to sweep away the eastern part of Jiyin. The city abandoned by Cao Cao.

 Under the persuasion of Liu Tichun and Zhang Nai to surrender, the guards of Yuanju City and Zhuzao City did not dare to have any intention of resisting after learning that Dingtao had been lost, and directly opened the city to surrender.

The Qin army captured the two cities without bloodshed, and then Qu Yi led his army to continue the attack. Changheng County in the northeast of Chenliu, while Wei Rui was responsible for attacking Jiyang County in the east of Chenliu.

 As for the situation on Xiao Yan's side, on the surface it seems that the first two are similar, but the actual situation is very different.

After Cao Cao retreated from Dingtao, he transferred all the county soldiers from the eight counties in the east of Jiyin to Changyi. At the same time, he took away all the money, food and equipment that could be taken away, and burned those that could not be taken away. Eight empty cities with little strategic value and hundreds of thousands of people who were about to run out of food were given to the Qin army.

The people of the Wei State were really unlucky. In order to support the 30 frontline troops, Cao Cao instituted a wartime supply system, forcibly confiscating the grain and grass from the people and supplying it centrally. This also resulted in the grain storage in the people's homes being at most Eat for seven days.

Such a system can only be implemented in the Wei State, because the Wei State is used to being poor, and the people are used to eating one meal at a time. In addition, they did this during the Great Famine, and relied on centralized supplies to tide over the difficulties, so Only then will the people be willing to hand over rations voluntarily.

In this case, once the city falls and the granary is burned, once the food in the hands of the people is used up, the people in the whole city will be without food.

Previously, Cao Jun generals had a bottom line. Except for Le Yi who ordered the burning of the Puyang granary before committing suicide, and Cao Bin who was prevented from burning the Xuchang granary after the city was broken, most of the Cao Jun generals did not burn the granary because it was a serious sin. It's too big.

In addition, the Qin army's offensive was too fierce. In just two months, nearly 200,000 Cao's troops were wiped out, and a large number of cities on the western front were quickly occupied, without giving Cao's army much chance to react, and a large amount of grain and grass was also seized.

 Therefore, the people in the areas occupied by Qin were not short of food. The captured grain and grass were enough to supply, and there was still a surplus.

But as Chen Liu's 100,000 Cao army was about to be destroyed, Cao Cao naturally couldn't care about so many. In his madness, he prepared to use the people to divert the conflict.

I have to say that although Cao Cao was a little irrational after losing in a hurry, when he calmed down, his tactics were still quite vicious.

Cao Cao will have less food and grass that he cannot take away, which will have two consequences:

First, the Qin army provides food to the people, which will undoubtedly increase the logistical pressure on the Qin army, which is exactly what Cao Cao is happy to see.

Second, the Qin army did not provide food to the people, and did not even accept these empty cities. Then Cao Cao asked the people from the Demon Sect to go over, guide the hungry people in Jiyin to launch an uprising, and then use the rebel army to cause trouble for the Qin army.

The demon sect revolted in Yingchuan and Dongjun, and the people they instigated were basically believers of the sect, and the hungry people were obviously better at being deceived than the believers, and they would do anything just to get a bite of food.

Facing this situation, Xiao Yan did not dare to enter the city rashly. Firstly, he did not bring so much food and grass. Secondly, if he really took over the city, he would be responsible for the people in the city.

If you don’t provide disaster relief food to the people, the hungry people will rebel.

The Demon Sect rebels in East County have not been completely wiped out yet. If an uprising breaks out in the eight eastern counties of Jiyin County, it will undoubtedly hold back part of the Qin army's strength.

Faced with this dilemma, Xiao Yan was obviously not good at making decisions at his level, so he sent a letter to Bai Qi and asked Bai Qi to make a decision.

 After Bai Qi received Xiao Yan’s letter, he saw through Cao Cao’s sinister intentions at a glance.

Compared with the increased logistical pressure, the uprising of hungry people is the most troublesome thing, because it will cause great damage to local production.

After Chen Liu's 100,000 Cao army is eliminated, the Qin army will have completed the victory in the first stage of the Eastern Expedition. By then, the four counties of Dongjun, Chenliu, Yingchuan, and Jiyin will also resume production and become the front line of the Qin army. Logistics supply point.

The reason why both Ying Hao and Bai Qi are eager to join the Demon Sect rebel army is that they are worried that the rebel army will cause too much damage to the local area, and Da Qin will have to spend a greater price to control and restore it.

 The two are harmful to each other, whichever is less. Just by paying some disaster relief food, an uprising can be avoided. In this way, the Qin army must have made a profit.

So, Bai Qi directly wrote back to Xiao Yan, asking him not to worry about food and grass, and to accept as many empty cities as there were. As for food and grass, he would order another batch of food and grass to be transferred from Jizhou for emergency use.

After Xiao Yan received the reply, he no longer had any worries. In the next three days, he successively took over eight empty cities, including Chengshi, Chengwu, and Chengyang. At the same time, he personally came out to appease the people who were about to run out of food and sent the general food Give it to the people who have run out of food.

"Don't worry, folks, Da Qin will not ignore you. The subsequent disaster relief food is already on its way." Faced with the surging crowd, Xiao Yan shouted loudly for propaganda. However, under his comfort, he was about to run out of food. The restless people actually believed his words and calmed down.

It is not necessary to choose Xiao Yan to receive the eight counties in the east of Jiyin, or it is really the right person. If this is replaced with a high -righteousness of political attributes, he really can't cope with such a situation.

At the same time, Hao Zhao and Wu Wenhua, on Bai Qi's orders, led an army of 5,000 infantry and cavalry to annihilate the Dongjun rebels. After more than ten large and small battles, they finally wiped out all the Demon Sect rebels in Dongjun.

Like the rebels in Yingchuan, the Dongjun rebels are also a ragtag group. With Hao Zhao's five thousand troops in hand, and Wu Wenhua, the **** of war, facing the rebels who use farm tools, kitchen knives, and even bamboo as weapons, it is simply impossible. It was a crushing massacre.

In this battle, Hao Zhao and Wu Wenhua killed a total of 6,000 rebels and captured 31,000 prisoners, but their own casualties were less than 500. It can be said that they won a great victory, and 90% of the rebels were basically wiped out.

As for the remnants of the rebel army who fled to various places in Dongjun, it was natural that Hao Zhao did not need to take action, and the local county soldiers alone were enough to wipe them out.

After the war, Hao Zhao first escorted the prisoners of war to Puyang. Together with tens of thousands of prisoners of Cao's army, the number of prisoners in the Puyang prisoner of war camp reached 40,000.

 After solving the problem of prisoners of war, Hao Zhao immediately led his troops southward, preparing to join Bai Qi, but on the way he met Li Cunxiao, Qin Niu and other generals who had failed to pursue Lan Yu.

There were not only Niu Mowang but also Yuan Jiuling in the Lan Yu Army. It was the joint efforts of these two people that blocked Li Cunxiao, which led to the failure of the first pursuit. However, Li Cunxiao, Qin Niu and other generals obviously would not let go just like that. Passing Lan Yu, he quickly launched a second pursuit, and therefore missed the Dingtao battle.

Li Cunxiao's second pursuit failed as expected, but this time it was not because of Niu Mowang and Yuan Jiuling, but because of Lan Yu.

Bai Qi had easily beaten Le Yi and Lan Yu's team-up before, so Li Cunxiao didn't think Lan Yu was that powerful. But when he led his army against Lan Yu alone, even if the opponent led a defeated army with low morale, it would be difficult. The degree of entanglement still gave Li Cunxiao a headache.

Li Cunxiao originally thought that Lan Yu would not make any stop, and directly fled into Dongping County to carry out repairs. However, he did not expect that Lan Yu would do the opposite and directly carry out repairs after escaping into Juancheng.

Li Cunxiao also learned the news and decided to pursue a second time. After all, with the mobility of his 2,400 cavalry, he could completely block Lan Yu's remnant army in Juancheng and prevent them from escaping. However, Unexpectedly, he fell into Lan Yu's trap and was attacked from both sides by Niu Mowang and Yuan Jiuling.

If Li Cunxiao hadn't reacted quickly enough and broke out before the enemy encircled them, the losses in this battle would have been huge, but even so, the Qin army lost 400 cavalry.

Of course, Lan Yufang must have had more people killed in the battle.

After losing two pursuit battles, the morale of the Qin army inevitably declined. It is estimated that they will not be able to win Lan Yu in another battle. In addition, he only carried ten days of food and grass, so Li Cunxiao could only retreat and return to Puyang to replenish food and grass, but he happened to encounter Hao Zhaowu. Department of Culture.

 After Li Cunxiao and Hao Zhao joined forces, with a total of 6,500 infantry and cavalry troops, the two armies headed south to join Bai Qi. With their arrival, the shortcomings of Bai Qi's fierce generals would be made up for.

 The perspective returns to Kong Xuan, who is chasing Cao Jun alone.

Kong Xuan was riding Ying Hao's snow dragon horse. He traveled thousands of miles in a day. It only took him one day to catch up with Cao Jun in Changyi.

Kong Xuan originally thought that Cao Cao would enter the city. After all, Changyi was not only the seat of Shanyang County, but also a large granary for Cao's army. It was also Cao Wei's first fortress against the Qin army. Cao Cao should go to the city to make arrangements out of emotion and reason, so it was There is no rush to take immediate action.

Kong Xuan was injured and pursued. Although he was running on the road, he also used secret techniques to heal his wounds. However, the healing effect of running around was obviously better if he concentrated on healing. He planned to find a hidden place to heal his wounds first, and then found the place after adjusting his condition. opportunity to capture Cao Cao.

What Kong Xuan didn't expect was that Cao Cao and his army did not enter Changyi. They only replenished food and grass, and then divided their troops into three groups. One thousand cavalry stayed in Changyi.

As for the remaining 13,000 cavalry, 3,000 of them with fewer people withdrew to the east, while 10,000 more cavalry withdrew to the southeast.

Kong Xuan didn't know which army Cao Cao was in, but he felt that Cao Cao most likely went to the southeast. There was no other reason. Cao Wei's new capital, Qiao County, was in the southeast.

But when Kong Xuan caught up with him, he realized that he was chasing the wrong one. Cao Cao did not return to Qiao County. Instead, he took Yin Shou and other generals to Taishan County. He was obviously going to the Demon Gate to bring reinforcements!

Hong Xuan was helpless in this regard and could only change direction and continue chasing.

According to the calculation of the distance, Kong Xuan was able to catch up with Cao Cao before he arrived at Mount Tai, but he was no longer completely sure, because after so long, the three generals Yin and Shou must have recovered, and they would definitely be entangled by then. Another big battle.

Kong Xuan knew this, but still decided to continue chasing, because this time he was not going to attack forcefully, but planned to conduct a sneak attack.

After another day and a half of non-stop driving, Kong Xuan finally caught up with Cao Jun in Liangfu County in the west of Taishan County, and quietly sneaked into Cao Jun's camp under the cover of night.

After some searching, Kong Xuan finally found the outside of Cao Cao's tent, and through the candlelight, the figure of the person inside was similar to Cao Cao's.

Hong Xuan was about to sneak in to confirm, but was noticed by Yin Shou who was guarding outside the camp.

 “Who is it? Come, catch the assassin.”

After hearing Yin Shou's voice, Kong Xuan decisively gave up the idea of ​​capturing him alive, and directly used the golden sword to cut down Cao Cao with all his strength. The tent and Cao Cao inside were all cut into two sections by the golden sword energy, and he could no longer die. died.

Seeing this, Yin Shou ignored the assassin and rushed into the ruins, shouting: "Military advisor..."

Um?

Kong Xuan was stunned, military advisor? How come the person inside is Fan Li?

Where did the Cao Cao people go?

 (End of this chapter)