Chapter 119 Chapter Seventeen

In May of the seventh year of Jian'an in 102, Yuan Shao, the overlord of the north, died of hemoptysis.The sudden collapse of Optimus Prime, which had dominated the north for more than ten years, objectively put the four northern states in a chaotic situation without a leader, and the grand foundation of the Yuan family went into decline. Yuan Shao had three sons, the eldest son Yuan Tan and the second son Yuan Xi were born to his first wife.The original wife died young, Yuan Shao continued to live in the Liu family, and gave birth to the third son, Yuan Shang, who was majestic in appearance and most resembled Yuan Shao, so he was deeply loved by Yuan Shao and stayed with him for many years. With Liu's instigation, Yuan Shao was more determined to make Yuan Shang his son. Heir.He only worried about the opposition of the elders and ministers and the leaders of the large army in the Yuan camp, but did not publicly speak out.In fact, a few years before the Guandu War, Yuan Shao planned to make Yuan Shang his heir. He appointed Yuan Tan as the governor of Qingzhou, intending to let him succeed his uncle Yuan Cheng as his heir.The first person to see Yuan Shao's intentions was Ju Shou.

"As the saying goes: 'Thousands of people chase the rabbit, one person gets it'. Who doesn't like power, if you don't follow the order of the eldest son and keep your own place, it will undoubtedly encourage those who are greedy for power to seize the opportunity to fight for it. Yuan Tan is the eldest son , should be established as an heir, if he is allowed to live in a foreign domain, there will be disasters." This is what Ju Shou persuaded Yuan Shao at that time. Yuan Shao's explanation was high-sounding. He said: "I want to let each child unify the state first, so as to test their management ability."

After the defeat of Guandu, the extremely selfish Liu urged Yuan Shao to make Yuan Shang his heir even more. She seemed to have seen that the day when Yuan Shao died would not be too far away.Liu's relentless pursuit forced Yuan Shao to summon Shen Pei, Feng Ji, Xin Ping, and Guo Tu to discuss.This time it became even more chaotic, Shen Pei and Feng Ji had always been at odds with Yuan Tan, and their stance tended to stand up for Yuan Shang.Xin Ping and Guo Tu were Yuan Tan's assistants in their early years, and of course they insisted on ordering the elders and the younger. Yuan Shao finally verbally stated his intentions under the pretext that Yuan Tan was strong and easy to kill, had a violent temper, and his second son Yuan Xi was weak and difficult to take on the important task.

Guo Tu immediately raised his voice and said: "Among the three sons, Yuan Tan is the longest, and now he has a large army in the front line, and is deeply respected by the people of the state. If he rashly discards the elders and replaces the younger ones, it may be difficult to convince the soldiers and the people. What's more, the army's prestige has been frustrated. The enemy's army is overwhelming, how can there be a situation where father and son brothers seize power? I think the fight against Cao should be the first priority, and the matter of successors should be discussed later."

Since Cao Mengde's Northern Expeditionary Army had already pointed to Cangting at that time, Yuan Shao had to suspend the action of establishing an heir.After the Battle of Cangting, Yuan Shao suffered a sudden illness and passed away. As soon as the superstar fell, the Yuan's camp began to stage a farce of fighting for heirs.Fearing that Yuan Tan would lose his attachment and be harmed by Guo Tu and Xin Ping after Yuan Tan succeeded to the throne, Fengji and the Liu family made Yuan Shang his heir under the guise of Yuan Shao's will and succeeded him as the general.Yuan Tan returned from Qingzhou to Yecheng to pay his respects. Seeing that Yuan Shang could take the position of general, he refused to return to Qingzhou. Then, on Guo Tu's suggestion, he stationed in Liyang and proclaimed himself General of Chariots and Cavalry.Since Cao's army showed signs of going north again, Yuan Tan asked Yuan Shang to send more troops to Liyang.Yuan Shang symbolically sent Fengji to lead a small number of troops to support, and Yuan Tan asked for more troops, but the trial and matching failed. Yuan Tan killed Fengji in a fit of anger, causing a high degree of tension between Yecheng and Liyang.

103 Cao Mengde was not very clear about the situation in the north after Yuan Shao's death.If there is a large-scale northern expedition, it is obviously not in line with the principle of using troops to know the enemy and know yourself. In autumn and September of the seventh year of Jian'an, Cao Mengde crossed the river and attacked Liyang. Many civil and military officials in Cao's army were puzzled by the plan of this northern expedition.The scale of this operation was small. Although Cao Mengde personally conscripted, only Zhang Liao's army had actually crossed Hebei. Lieutenant Le Jin was appointed as the adjutant, and Guo Jia and Xun You were the staff officers.In addition, Li Dian, who has always been cautious, is stationed in Anmin, and Zhenwei General Cheng Yu is still guarding Zhencheng, responsible for logistics and supplies.Obviously, this formation was completely opposite to the Battle of Cangting. Not many troops were used, but a large number of staff officers were dispatched.

Needless to say, Cao Mengde already had the intention of this northern expedition, that is: to understand the changes in the situation in the north after Yuan Shao's death, and use it as a reference for the complete annihilation of Yuan's group. Since Yuan Shang did not send more troops to Liyang, Zhang Liao's army crossed Liyangjin without much effort, and soon surrounded Liyang City.Yuan Tan appealed to Yuan Shang again. In order to show the prestige and power of his first general, Yuan Shang left the judge to guard Yecheng, and personally led his troops to Liyang City to relieve the siege.

The two sides fought several small-scale battles outside Liyang City. Although Yuan's army was large in number, their combat capability was not strong. After several battles, they could not resist and retreated to Liyang City.Cao Mengde saw that Yuan's army was large in number and it was inconvenient to carry out a too tough siege, so he ordered to set up camp three miles south of Liyang City, pretending to be fighting for a long time. How to solve the siege of Liyang?For the time being, the Yuan brothers didn't care about the previous suspicions, and called their staff to discuss countermeasures.

Guo Tu said: "We might as well borrow the strategy used by Cao Cao in the Guandu War, send people to attack Cao's logistics supplies, cut off Cao's food supply, and use his own way to deal with his body. On the other hand, attack the Hedong side, and another Battlefield, divert Cao Jun's attention." Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang made up their minds and decided to send Gao Gan, the governor of Bingzhou, to attack east of the river, and Gao Fan, the prefect of Weijun, to cut off Cao Jun's grain road. 104 Cao Mengde saw that Yuan Jun in Liyang City was only defending but not attacking, and the atmosphere was relatively calm and calm. He realized that Yuan Jun might be implementing a plan to escape the shell, so he asked Guo Jia and Xun You what the situation indicated.

Guo Jia said: "If the two armies are in stalemate for a long time, then both sides must have something in mind." Xun You analyzed: "Guo Tu was a participant in the Guandu War from the beginning to the end. Maybe he has turned the lessons of failure into some kind of winning experience." Cao Mengde was awakened by the words of the two senior officials.He thought, Yuan Jun probably had the idea behind my back.Therefore, Cao Mengde immediately ordered a Yuan Jun to be captured alive to find out the truth before he could formulate a new attack plan. "Did the army in Liyang City go out on a large scale in the past two days?" Cao Mengde personally interrogated Yuan Bing who had been captured alive.

With the knife resting on his neck, Yuan Bing said: "Yesterday, General Gao led an army of about 2,000 people out of Liyang City. As for where we are going, we soldiers are not in a position to ask." Zhang Liao wanted to cross-examine him, but Cao Mengde said, "There's no need for interrogation!" Cao Mengde immediately wrote a secret letter and asked someone to send it to Li Dian and Cheng Yu who were in charge of transporting grain and grass on the south bank of the Yellow River.