Chapter 48 Chapter 6 The Warlords of the Rising Storm Restart the War (7)

Liu Biao's defeat of Yuan Shu's allied army, Sun Jian, was equivalent to Yuan Shao's victory.Yuan Shao relied on Liu Biao to contain Yuan Shu, so he no longer had to worry about Yuan Shu helping Gongsun Zan.Therefore, when the weather turned warm and Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan started their respective military operations, Yuan Shao focused on leading the army to deal with Gongsun Zan himself.Twenty miles south of Jieqiao, north of Wei County, Hebei Province, the army encountered Gongsun Zan's army. Gongsun Zan personally led 30,000 elite soldiers to march southward, and the onslaught was very fierce.Yuan Shao sent his general, Qu Yi, as the vanguard, followed by two other generals, Yan Liang and Wen Chou.Pioneer Qu Yi first tested it with a small number of troops, and only brought 800 archers to deal with Gongsun Zan's army.And Gongsun Zan deployed 30,000 strong soldiers here, so he didn't pay much attention to Qu Yi's 800 men.

Yan Gang, who was guarding the boundary bridge, led a team of cavalry across the boundary bridge. Looking forward, there were only such a few enemies. He immediately ordered an attack, and rushed towards them like a hungry wolf.Qu Yi's 800 elite soldiers held their shields to protect their bodies, squatting on the ground motionless, like a large group of clams on the beach hiding from a storm.Yan Gang's cavalry approached, getting closer and closer, less than two hundred steps away, only a little more than a hundred steps away, less than a hundred steps away! Suddenly the crouching elite soldiers jumped up with a loud cry like a thunderbolt.At the same time, dense arrows shot straight over like a torrential rain.Most of Yan Gang's soldiers and horses in front were shot, and fell to the ground with arrows, while the soldiers and horses behind them retreated hastily.Qu Yi seized the opportunity to charge forward and ran straight up, and ran into Yan Gang, both generals, and fought back and forth on horseback for more than ten rounds.Qu Yi had the upper hand, saw the opportunity, swung his sword round, and knocked Yan Gang off his horse. Yan Gang's defeated soldiers had to retreat towards Jieqiao.

At this time, the other two Yuan Shao's fierce generals Yan Liang and Wen Chou, when they saw the vanguard Qu Yi winning, they galloped to Jieqiao.Gongsun Zan's soldiers and horses panicked and crowded across the bridge. Those who couldn't get on the bridge fled along the river on the south bank. Yan Liang and Wen Chou chased across the bridge and arrived at Gongsun Zan's camp, but when they saw that the barracks had been purged and there was no sign of panic, they reined in their horses and stopped, not daring to venture deeper, lest they fall into the trap.But the two cut down a flag at the gate of the camp, and swaggered around the gate of the camp twice.

The news of Jieqiao's victory had already been reported to Yuan Shao by soldiers.Yuan Shao was overjoyed when he heard that, he didn't expect to win in the first fight, so he ordered the soldiers to rest on the spot, and he brought a hundred guards and dozens of archers, and walked out of the camp without any scruples.He was chatting with the counselor Tian Feng while strolling.He looked up at the sky, laughed loudly and said, "Gongsun Zan is actually incompetent!" The laughter hadn't stopped yet, but Gongsun Zan's more than 2,000 cavalrymen who ran along the river arrived unexpectedly. When they saw Yuan Shao's small group of soldiers, they rushed forward and surrounded them several layers.At the same time, they shot with arrows one after another.

Yuan Shao was startled and almost fell down, Tian Feng hurriedly supported him, and quickly went into a short wall next to him to hide.Yuan Shao must have been terrified. While looking at his guards and archers, he took off his helmet, slammed it on the ground, and shouted, "A man should die in battle. How can he hide behind the wall for his life?" He drew the bow and arrow and reflected it at Gongsun Zan's surrounding soldiers.Other archers followed suit, and more than a hundred guards resisted desperately with their halberds. In fact, this was a kind of bravery Yuan Shao had to do, because he was surrounded, no matter how he tried to cover him, he would not be able to escape, the only thing he had to do was to encourage the soldiers to fight bravely, maybe there was still a chance of survival.

Sure enough, firstly, Gongsun Zan's soldiers did not know that Yuan Shao was among those surrounded; No tenacious fighting power; the third is seeing Yuan Shao's general Qu Yi has come here from a distance at this time, so the two thousand cavalry left quickly. Yuan Shao had a false alarm and was already sweating profusely.A group of people came to protect him and returned to the camp. A few days later, after Gongsun Zan rested his army, he came out to attack Yuan Shao again, but this time, he was still defeated.Gongsun Zan looked up to the sky and sighed, "Heaven will not help me!" Then he led his troops back to Jicheng.From then on, he no longer came out to fight Yuan Shao himself.

Yuan Shao repelled Gongsun Zan, the territory of Jizhou was secured, and Yuan Shao's ruling power in Jizhou was stabilized from then on. Liu Dai, governor of Yanzhou, had contacts with both Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan. During the confrontation between Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao, he repeatedly asked Liu Dai to express his position.Due to Gongsun Zan's powerful army, Liu Dai was hesitant to make a decision.He heard that Cheng Yu from Dongjun was very resourceful, so he went to ask for advice. After hearing this, Cheng Yu said, "Gongsun Zan is far in the north, and Yuan Shao is nearby. If you want to rely on friends far away, you will never be as reliable as your neighbors. Besides, although Gongsun Zan's army is strong, it is definitely not Yuan Shao's opponent."

Liu Dai returned after deep thought, and decided not to act for the time being. Sure enough, not long after the news of Gongsun Zan's defeat came, Liu Dai was completely convinced by Cheng Yu's argument, and established a military alliance with Yuan Shao. After a period of chaos and integration, Yuan Shao has dominated Jizhou, Gongsun Zan barely held the southern part of Youzhou, Bingzhou and Sili District were controlled by Dong Zhuo's army, Yanzhou and Yuzhou were mixed with legions, Yuan Shao controlled most of Yuzhou and northern Yangzhou, and Jingzhou Under Liu Biao's vigorous integration, it has gradually stabilized.In addition, Tao Qian in Xuzhou, Liu Yan in Yizhou, and Zhang Lu in Hanzhong also gradually formed independent forces.

The general trend of the world, long-term unity will inevitably divide, and the whole of China has fallen into a situation of warlords and warlords. The continuous wars have almost completely bankrupted the rural economy that was the foundation of the country, and the people who suffered the most were naturally the common people.Cao Cao, who had always sympathized with the sufferings of the people, felt very sad and indignant when faced with the tragic scene of the war disasters suffered by the common people, and wrote the poem "Walking in Hao Li": There are righteous men in Kanto, and they raise troops to fight against the gangsters.

In the early days, he ordered the Alliance to Jin, but his heart was in Xianyang. The army is not in the same strength, hesitates and walks wildly. Power makes people fight, and heirs kill each other. The title of Huainan's younger brother is engraved in the north. The clothes and armor are full of gnats, and the people die. The bones of the dead are exposed in the wild, and there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles. Living people leave behind one hundred and one, and the thought of it breaks people's hearts. Cao Cao wrote in his poem: "The righteous men in the Kanto area jointly launched an army to attack the brutal Dong Zhuo regime. In the early days, all the armies and horses joined forces in Mengjin, with the purpose of rebuilding the country of the Han Dynasty. Although the army has been ordered, it has its own ghosts. Hesitantly, no one is willing to take the lead. In order to fight for power and profit, the original comrades turned against each other and fought with each other."

Cao Cao pointed out in the poem: "The Yuan brothers, the chairman of the alliance army, have changed their minds. The younger brother Yuan Shu conspired to proclaim himself emperor in Shouchun, Huainan, while the older brother Yuan Shao carved a golden seal in the north, preparing to embrace Liu Yu as emperor. , to establish a new regime. Due to years of continuous fighting, the soldiers did not even have time to untie their armor, and their bodies were covered with lice. During the war, many people were deprived of their lives, and the mountains and plains were piled with bones, thousands of miles away. The crowing of roosters was not heard. There were more than one in a hundred people who survived, and the miserable scene made people feel extremely sad and heartbroken." Indeed, among the heroes at the end of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao was one of the few military leaders who sympathized with "the sufferings of the people".Strange to say, Cao Cao's career development in his life has an inextricable chance with the uprising party members.He also seems to be the leader who is best at handling uprisings among the heroes in the late Han Dynasty.Cao Cao's concern, sympathy, and enthusiasm for working hard to solve the uprising also brought his career back to life from the crisis.