Chapter 107 Chapter Fourteen

The first river that Yuan Jun went south was the Yellow River. On this main front line, the Yellow River had three ready-made river crossing points from east to west: Baimajin, Yanjin and Dushijin.According to the original marching plan, Baimajin was the main river crossing point, and the other two were auxiliary. Along these three river crossing points, Yuan Shao built many camps a year ago, and more than twenty generals defense.The plan of attacking with Baimajin was quite beneficial to Yuan Jun's flanking tactics, but when Yuan Shao gave up attacking Zhencheng, he changed his original battle plan and made Yanjin the first battlefield in contact with Cao Mengde.

Cao Mengde originally placed his heavy troops on the south bank of Baimajin. "Prime Minister, Yanjin is in a hurry. Yuan Shao personally led an army to attack Yanjin." Cao Mengde suddenly received a report from Yu Jin.It turned out that when Cao Jun was waiting in full force at Baimajin, Yuan Shao set off from Liyang at the end of March, crossed the Yellow River, and attacked Yujin's defense camp in Yanjin. Cao Mengde said "not good" and quickly fetched the topographic map.He immediately understood the current situation: Yuan Jun must be held back in Yanjin, where large corps cannot fight, and the enemy's army is dozens of times larger than ours, so we can only rely on familiar terrain to deal with the enemy. The enemy will come to attack Baima when he is exhausted. Only in this way can Yuan Shao move towards Guandukou step by step, and our army can turn to counterattack and drive Yuan Shao to the north.

So, who can take on this important task and lead a light and sharp army to reinforce Yujin? Cao Mengde suddenly thought of Le Jin, who is known for his bravery. "Le Jin, I will draw 5,000 elite soldiers with you, and quickly reinforce Yu Jin. Don't fight Yuan Jun desperately, try to hold them back." Cao Mengde ordered. Le Jin took the order and left. "What's the situation in Runan?" After Le Jin left, Cao Mengde asked another question.Over the past few days, the two words "Guandu" have been in his mind, and all kinds of problems have been woven into a criss-cross network, which affects the whole body. If there is a slight negligence, the Yanzhou area will fall into military disasters, wars, hunger, The law of the jungle among the feudal lords...it's hard to imagine.

It can be said that the heroes see the same thing, Yuan Shao and Cao Mengde paid attention to the Runan area almost at the same time. Runan County is Yuan Shao's hometown, and there are many old officials, disciples, and guests. After receiving Yuan Shao's summoning order, they really rose up one after another and supported the independence.In fact, Cao Mengde had expected this move a long time ago, and he arranged the capable and witty Man Chong as the prefect of Runan just to prevent these rebellious actions. Sure enough, Man Chong lived up to his mission. In less than ten days after going to Runan, he recruited more than 500 soldiers there, and then went deep into the countryside, calling on the peasants and soldiers to protect their farmland and fight against the officials of Yuan's faction.This trick worked very well. The more peasant troops gathered, they successively broke through more than 20 camps of Yuan Shao's loyal fellow countrymen. Manchong also trained more than 2,000 of them as a special team, following Zaozhi's experience in farming in the Runan area.

Under the call of Yuan Shao, many counties and counties in the Yuzhou area openly betrayed Cao Mengde. In the minds of the people in the area, Liu Bei's image of benevolence and righteousness has taken root, while Cao Mengde always appears as a thief. In their eyes, Xun Yu, who stayed behind, and Li Tong, the defense commander of the capital area, were responsible for solving the troubles in this area.Li Tong was originally the captain of Yang'an County. At that time, most counties and counties in Yuzhou voted for Zhang Xiu. Only Li Tong insisted on supporting Cao Mengde, so he was reused.

Cao Mengde asked Xun Yu and Li Tongduo to adopt a policy of tolerance before marching into the Yellow River outpost. "Attack the heart first, strive for all forces to disintegrate Yuan Shao." Cao Mengde's words often hit the two left-behind generals like a heavy hammer.At that time, the cotton harvest in Yuzhou area was extensive due to insect damage.After discussing with Xun Yu, Li Tong and Xun Yu did not report to Cao Mengde, but decisively made a decision to exempt the cotton and silk tax, and publicized to the public that this was Prime Minister Cao's decision, which changed Cao Mengde's image to a certain extent and won Yuzhou. The support of the people weakened the relationship between these county guards and Yuan Shao. As long as they did not take military action, they would turn a blind eye and pretend not to know. military deterrence.Under both soft and hard measures, these county guards who had been active in supporting Yuan in the past only kept in touch with Yuan Shao in the end.

In Qingzhou on the east line of the Yellow River and Bingzhou on the west line, Yuan Tan and Gao Gan were severely harassed by Zang Ba's two guerrilla armies, and their marching speed was almost zero. Facing such a situation, Ju Shou advised Yuan Shao to stop marching, but Yuan Shao smiled arrogantly: "I have 700,000 troops to deal with Cao A's 70,000 troops, so why not be afraid." "Although our army is numerous, the battle line is too long and our forces are scattered; although Cao's army is small, it has strong fighting spirit and is brave and good at fighting." Ju Shou risked his life to persuade him.

The arrogant Yuan Shao scolded Jushou for bewitching people's hearts, increasing Cao Cao's ambition and destroying his own prestige. In a fit of rage, he wanted to kill Jushou.Ju Shou howled all the way: "My lord, if you don't listen to the good minister, disaster is imminent!" In April of the fifth year of Jian'an, Yuan Shao refused to listen to Jushou's dissuasion, and personally led his army, starting from Liyang, crossing the Yellow River, and attacking the defense village deployed by Yujin in Yanjin.Yu Jin judged that Yuan Jun's actions must be slow, so he discussed with Le Jin sent by Cao Mengde and decided to take the initiative.On the dark night of the moon, they crossed the Yellow River without anyone noticing, and under the plan of Yujin, they bypassed Yuan Shao's main force at a speed like a gust of wind, and attacked the twenty or so camps on the north bank of Yanjin to the west in a row. They set fire to it, beheaded thousands of Yuan's troops, and captured more than a dozen generals including He Mao.

Because Yu Jin's troops moved extremely quickly and were extremely familiar with the terrain, Yuan Jun couldn't capture them at all.The huge army that entered Yanjin could not find the enemy, and was stationed separately and was attacked by the Yujin guerrilla army. It neither entered nor defended, so they had to cross the river and return to Leyang. The guerrillas were suddenly attacked and collapsed.In order to avoid Yuan Jun's encirclement and suppression, Yu Jin and Le Jin broke up the troops and used the terrain to fight guerrillas in the Yanjin area, causing Yuan Shao's army a lot of trouble.Yu Jin's task force was not transferred back to the main battlefield by Cao Mengde until before the Guandu battle.