Chapter 19 9. Gain and loss

After the Northwest was settled, Cao Cao planned to conquer Sun Quan in the south, and he was ashamed of Chibi.Before sending troops, Cao Cao first wrote a letter to Sun Quan, in which he said, "If you promise me to kill Zhang Zhao and Liu Bei, then Jiangdong will belong to you in the future. If you don't want to kill Zhang Zhao, kill Liu Bei alone." also can.But Sun Quan did not agree, he was ready to fight against Cao Cao.Sun Quan moved his administrative office from Jingkou to Jianye, that is, from Zhenjiang City in Jiangsu Province to Nanjing City.In addition, he built a water fortress in Ruxukou, which is today's Wuwei County in Anhui Province, named Ruxuwu, where he hoarded a large amount of military equipment, food and grass, and planned to resist Cao Cao there.

Cao Cao saw that Sun Quan had no room for negotiation, so in the seventeenth year of Jian'an, he personally led an army of 400,000 to conquer Sun Quan.However, after Cao Cao arrived at the place, he found that the military port was too strong, and the 400,000 army could do nothing, so Cao Cao had no choice but to hold out in his military stronghold, and Sun Quan's repeated challenges were in vain.Sun Quan thought, if you don't come to beat me, I will visit you. He drove a boat into Cao Cao's water army camp. Cao Cao knew that Sun Quan was coming, so he ordered his opponents not to act rashly or shoot arrows. Let's see what Sun Quan wants to do.So Cao Cao's army was waiting in full force, and Sun Quan seemed to be coming for a military inspection. He swaggered around in Cao Cao's military port, then ordered to play music, and left in the accompaniment of the music.Cao Cao sighed in admiration: "Having a son should be like Sun Zhongmou, like Liu Jingsheng's son, porcupine dog ears!" Zhongmou is Sun Quan's word, which means that if you have a son, you should have someone like Sun Quan. They dare not sail into the enemy camp.

After Sun Quan went back, he wrote a letter to Cao Cao, which said: "Spring water is born, and the public should go quickly." ?After reading it, Cao Cao found that there was still a note in the envelope, which said: "If you don't die, you can't be alone." Cao Cao simply asked the generals to read the letter, and sighed: Sun Quan does not bully the orphan.Then he ordered the class teacher to return to the court. In the nineteenth year of Jian'an, when Cao Cao returned without success, Liu Bei took Yizhou from Liu Zhang.Zhang Lu, a separatist force near Yizhou, is weak and will be annexed by Liu Bei sooner or later, which will pose an obstacle to Cao Cao's unification of the country.Therefore, in the 20th year of Jian'an, Cao Cao sent troops to attack Zhang Lu.

Cao Cao was already 61 years old, so he was really old.When the army came to Yangping Pass, Zhang Lu was frightened by Cao Cao's prestige and planned to surrender, but his younger brother Zhang Wei insisted on fighting, so a fight broke out.This war is very interesting, and it is a rare and bizarre war in history. Yangping Pass stands on a high mountain, and the city wall is built along the ridge. Outside the city wall, more than ten military fortresses are stationed, forming a barrier to protect Yangping Pass tightly.Cao Jun exhausted his physical strength to climb the mountain. He was at the end of his strength and could only be beaten. The enemy's bows and arrows came down like a rain of stones.The attack had a dead end, so Cao Cao ordered the army to retreat. He said to his subordinates: Hanzhong is just a country of demons and delusions. What can we do?Liu Ye disagreed. He sent flying cavalry to report his opinion to Cao Cao, while rectifying the troops, and went up the mountain with Xiahou Dun and Xu Chu.

The mountain road was sparse and the night was foggy. The group of people actually went the wrong way. When they saw the light, they approached in a daze. They didn't expect to break into the camp of Zhang Wei who was guarding the gate by mistake.When Zhang Wei's sentinels saw Cao Jun approaching, they thought they were being attacked by surprise, so they yelled and screamed. The sleeping soldiers in the camp woke up in a daze, and fled in panic.This is really unintentional, Xu Chu and others are still in a daze, why did they all run away?Liu Ye said: "Our army has captured the enemy's camp, let's take advantage of the situation and enter the pass."Only then did the crowd wake up, and took a big deal for nothing. They sent someone to report to Cao Cao, and then followed Zhang Wei's defeated army into Pingyang Pass.The soldiers in the pass were equally useless, and they ran away without a trace, leaving an empty city waiting for Cao Cao to come up.

Regarding this inexplicable war, there are several theories in the history books: some say that Cao Cao secretly ordered to kill the carbine; some say that Liu Ye suggested to kill the carbine; When the incident rushed to Zhang Wei's camp, Zhang Wei's soldiers thought that Cao Cao was coming, but they scattered in a crowd. Seeing that they had dispersed, Cao Cao's army took the opportunity to kill them back.In short, this war was fought in a muddle. Afterwards, Zhang Wei surrendered, and Zhang Lu first ran to Bazhong. Later, he thought there was no way out, so he asked the left and right to seal up the treasure house and granary, saying, I was going to surrender to the central government, but the time has not yet come, and now I am just temporarily avoiding Fengrui , Donate the precious food to the country.Zhang Lu also surrendered, Cao Cao gave him a very high treatment, and Hanzhong was pacified like this.

Hanzhong is the throat of Shu County. If Cao Cao takes Hanzhong, if he takes advantage of the victory and pursues, it will directly threaten the safety of Shu County.Cao Cao's subordinates Liu Ye and Sima Yi persuaded Cao Cao to continue attacking Shu County.Liu Ye analyzed to Cao Cao that although Liu Bei is a hero, he has a weakness, that is, his reaction is not fast enough. Now we are going to beat him, he must not be able to react. If you haven't completely surrendered, and haven't gained a firm foothold, it's the right time to hit him. If you wait until he has established a firm foothold, it will be difficult to deal with.

Sima Yi said a famous saying, "A sage cannot go against the times, nor lose them."That is to say, a wise person will not go against the timing and opportunity, and insist on acting when the timing is not ripe, but he will not sit back and let the opportunity slip away when the timing and opportunity come, and give up the best opportunity to act. Both Liu Ye and Sima Yi made sense, but Cao Cao didn't accept it.According to the history books, Cao Cao also said a famous saying at that time: "People have enough suffering, and once they get Long, they want to get Shu again." Cao Cao said that the problem of people is that they are not greedy enough.The implication is, don't be so greedy, it's enough to get Long, don't look forward to Shu.So he ordered the withdrawal of troops and returned to Yecheng.

Once Cao Cao left, Liu Bei had no tigers in the mountains, and monkeys became kings.Liu Bei was afraid of only one person in his life, and that was Cao Cao. Liu Bei fought countless battles in his life, but all of them were bound to be defeated, but he was not afraid of Cao Cao's men.At that time, Liu Bei was on the front line of Jingzhou, competing with Sun Quan for Jingzhou. When he heard that Cao Cao had won Hanzhong, he quickly made peace with Sun Quan, divided Jingzhou equally with Sun Quan, and then hurried back with his troops. After Cao Cao left the battlefield, Fazheng, Liu Bei's subordinate, suggested to Liu Bei: "The sky is overshadowed by me, and the time must not be lost." This is God's gift of Hanzhong to us, and this opportunity must not be missed.Liu Bei obeyed Fazheng's advice and personally led troops to attack Guanzhong, with Fazheng accompanying him.

After arriving in Hanzhong, Liu Bei encountered stubborn resistance from Cao Cao's subordinates, so he hurriedly wrote to Zhuge Liang who stayed in Chengdu, asking him to dispatch troops for reinforcements.Zhuge Liang was always cautious, so he went to ask Yang Hong if we should send troops?Yang Hong said: "If there is no Hanzhong, there will be no Shu, and this is a disaster for the family. In today's affairs, men should fight and women should be lucky." Without Hanzhong, Shu would not be able to survive. This is a disaster at the door of the family!At this time, every man has to go to war, and every woman has to do logistics, so why should the military adviser hesitate?

So Zhuge Liang sent troops to the front line. Now that Liu Bei had a strong army, the war immediately turned in a direction favorable to him.By the time Cao Cao arrived for reinforcements, the situation was out of control.After a stalemate for a while, the situation did not improve. One night, Cao Cao changed the password for the army to check the sentry at night to "chicken ribs".It didn't take long for Cao Cao to withdraw his troops, and Hanzhong fell into Liu Bei's hands. Liu Bei won both Long and Shu, and the whole Yizhou belonged to him, so he stopped being polite and called himself the king of Hanzhong.As for Cao Cao, he lost the possibility of unifying China forever.So, why did the famous Cao Cao give up the opportunity and rush back? The success or failure of things is often tied to a thread - timing.It can't be against the time, and it can't be lost. Correctly grasping the time is the key to making things mature and develop.Cao Cao had strategized all his life, but he missed a good opportunity in this war.He won the victory against Zhang Lu and obtained Hanzhong. If he took advantage of the victory to attack Liu Bei at this time, it should be a good time, but he defeated Hanzhong and did not continue to attack Shu County, and ordered the withdrawal of troops. This gave Liu Bei the opportunity and it was fulfilled Liu Bei's hegemony in Hanzhong.