Chapter 21 Chapter 21 The Battle of Guandu

When a certain force spreads, there will be another force to contend with it. This is an inevitable phenomenon.The situation in Xudu is no exception. Compared with Cao Cao, the mainstream faction, the anti-mainstream faction has gradually risen.Since Cao Cao was a powerful faction with overwhelming power, the opposition was formed in secret. Emperor Xian has reached adulthood, and is extremely dissatisfied with the decline of the Han royal family, and earnestly looks forward to its revival. "As the Son of Heaven, I am an adult, how can I always be under Cao Cao's guardianship?"

Emperor Xian desperately wanted to be independent, and wanted to truly rule the world as the Son of Heaven.In order to achieve his goal, he must remove obstacles.But how can Cao Cao, who has strength, be easily ruled out? Dong Cheng, the chariot general, was considered to be the nephew of Emperor Xian's grandmother.Therefore, Dong Cheng certainly understood the emperor's mood quite well, and therefore, he ran around to organize a secret anti-Cao group.The members of the group include Zhong Ji, Wu Zilan and Wang Fu. When Liu Bei was dispatched to Xuzhou, the so-called "Secret Edict Incident" occurred.

Emperor Xian deliberately issued a secret edict to the anti-Cao Cao faction, conveying the purpose of "crushing against the traitor Cao Cao".Because the emperor's edict will give great power to the anti-Cao Cao faction.But around Emperor Xian, Cao Cao sent people to watch closely, and secretly handing in the imperial edict was not an easy task. Emperor Xian thought of a way.At that time, the emperor often gave the things he had used to those around him.Emperor Xian then gave Dong Cheng the imperial clothes with secret edicts sewn in the belt. Giving things to Dong Cheng alone is easy to attract attention, so Emperor Xian distributed many things to the ministers at the same time.When the imperial clothes were given to Dong Cheng, Emperor Xian specially reminded him: "This clothes has a belt, do you know?"

Dong Cheng thus knew where the secret edict was hidden. ——With the edict, it is like adding wings to a tiger... The anti-Cao Cao faction was extremely excited after receiving the secret edict.But the result of the excitement is that the secret is leaked.Cao Cao had expected this move a long time ago, so he sent spies to monitor the main characters. All in one sweep - the anti-Cao Cao faction was wiped out without leaving a single one.In the first month of the fifth year of Jian'an (200 AD), Dong Cheng and others were all killed. After clearing out the anti-Cao Cao faction, Cao Cao called the military leaders and held a meeting.

"After Liu Bei was sent to Xuzhou, he betrayed me and killed Che Zhou. Liu Dai and Wang Zhong who went to pursue them were repulsed. This ungrateful guy with big ears must be punished. I am going to send troops immediately. Everyone agrees with this Any comments?" Cao Cao asked the cadres for their opinions. "Liu Bei and others are just a bunch of wild dogs. It doesn't take much effort to deal with these people. What we need to pay attention to is Yuan Shao, the greatest enemy in the world. If we attack Xuzhou in the south, Yuan Shao in the north may take advantage of it. This has to be guarded against.”

Someone so objected. "No, Liu Bei must not be underestimated. If he ignores it, he will become a serious disaster in the future. Therefore, he must be eliminated as soon as possible. It is easy to subdue Yuan Shao. Besides, Yuan Shao is a person who likes to put on airs. He definitely did not take advantage of the vain to attack us. Courage, you can rest assured of that.” Cao Cao went to attack Liu Bei according to the original plan. ——Cao Cao's archenemy is Yuan Shao. This was common sense at the time. When the enemy Yuan Shao advanced to the north bank of the Yellow River, Cao Cao had no reason to ignore it and sent troops south to attack Xuzhou-Liu Bei thought so, so he was quite relieved.

"What? Cao Jun came to attack! Is this true? Is there really such a thing?" When he heard the report, Liu Bei couldn't believe it was true. "I want to see it with my own eyes!" Liu Bei only brought dozens of riders to the outside of the city.If Cao Jun really attacked, he was going to run away. Cao Jun really came to attack in a big way. Liu Bei saw Cao Jun's trace, so he acted as planned and fled directly to Qingzhou.Yuan Shao's son Yuan Tan was stationed in Qingzhou. With Yuan Tan's help, Liu Bei moved to Yuan Shao's residence in Chengye and became a guest minister again.

Liu Bei's wife is still in Pei. Guan Yu was stationed at Xiapi, but the situation was tantamount to being abandoned.Under Cao Cao's onslaught, Guan Yu finally had to surrender, and Liu Bei's wife, who was left in Pei, also became a prisoner. In short, during the above-mentioned process, the battle was not tragic, and the outcome was determined soon.Cao Cao quickly reorganized his troops and moved to Guandu, a base along the Yellow River. Along the Yellow River at the junction of the spheres of influence of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, there are three large ferry crossings, from south to north, they are Guandu, Yanjin and Baima.

The white horse is garrisoned by Cao Cao's general Liu Yan, the prefect of Dongjun.Yuan Shao sent Guo Tu, Chunyu Qiong, Yan Liang and several other generals to attack Baima. The commander-in-chief Yuan Shao also personally led the army to the south. Had Yuan Shao launched the operation a month earlier, Cao Cao might have been in a desperate situation.Fortunately, Cao Cao had already seen that Yuan Shao had always been procrastinating in his work, so he was saved from bad luck.In addition, Liu Bei fled without a fight, which greatly benefited Cao Cao. The end of the Later Han Dynasty was a period of frequent wars, and there were wars everywhere.Among the many battles, there are two particularly important battles: one is the Battle of Chibi in the year after next year, and the other is the Battle of Guandu this year.

These are all battles that determine the trend of the world situation. Yuan Shao was the lord of the four states of Jizhou, Qingzhou, Youzhou, and Bingzhou.On the other hand, Cao Cao is a powerful force that owns Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Xuzhou and Sili. Among the thirteen prefectures in the world, regardless of the border Jiaozhou (Vietnam), Cao and Yuan Xiong, who annexed eight prefectures, are far ahead of other competitors. Liu Biao owned Jingzhou, Sun Jian and his sons owned Yangzhou, and Liu Zhang owned Yizhou—and they all tried their best to own a state.Several warlords such as Ma Chao and Han Sui even appeared in the Liangzhou area.

The power of Yuan and Cao is prominent, which can be seen. In April, Cao Cao began to mobilize troops to rescue Liu Yan who was stationed in Baima.The Yuan army who attacked the white horse will be led by Yan Liang, and the Cao army who will fight against it will use Zhang Liao and Guan Yu as the vanguard. Zhang Liao used to be Lu Bu's general, and Guan Yu, needless to say, was Liu Bei's subordinate.Cao Cao is indeed a large number, boldly using enemy generals, and completely trusting them. Yuan's army is a large army, so Cao Cao's basic strategy is to induce the enemy's troops to disperse.In Yanjin before Baima, he only allowed some troops to cross the Yellow River. Seeing this, Yuan Jun thought that the enemy was attacking behind him, so he immediately dispatched half of the troops attacking Baima to the west. In fact, Cao Cao's river-crossing troops were only designed to lure the enemy. Zhang Liao, the commander of the cavalry regiment who was stronger than Lu Bu, went to Baima with his fast attack method.Guan Yu, not to be outdone, followed closely behind. Cao Cao was then able to engage only half of the enemy forces. At this time, Guan Yu, one of the captains of Cao Jun's vanguard, had an extremely complicated state of mind.After Yu Xiapi became a prisoner, Guan Yu was treated very favorably by Cao Cao, and he must not ignore Cao Cao's kindness to him.However, Liu Bei, whom Guan Yu admired as his lord and admired as his righteous brother, was in the hands of Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's enemy.I believe that Liu Bei will also lead the army to attack. ——What should I do? With Liu Bei right in front of him, Guan Yu really wanted to run over to see him immediately, but the fact that he had received Cao Cao's kindness cannot be ignored.He never wanted to be accused of being ungrateful. "Yes! Let me make an outstanding military exploit!" This is the only way currently conceivable.Making an outstanding contribution to Cao Cao may be able to write off the kindness.After that, go back to Liu Bei's place, so there should be nothing to say.What's more, I didn't go back alone, but I had to take Liu Bei's wife with me. Baima City was surrounded by tens of thousands of Yuan Jun. When Guan Yu looked at Yuan Jun's formation, he immediately saw the position of the general Yan Liang.Because there are carriages with countless banners in that place. ——The Lord is here! Yan Liang was probably sitting there in an arrogant manner, right? Guan Yu rode his horse and ran towards the carriage alone. Because things happened suddenly. No one could think of such a thing as riding alone into tens of thousands of enemy lines.It was actually the enemy who was galloping up with the dust——even Yan Liang himself did not expect this before the carriage was overturned. The carriage was knocked over by Guan Yu's mount. When Yan Liang climbed out of the destroyed carriage, he saw a flash of sword light, and his head had already fallen to the ground. Guan Yu grabbed Yan Liang's head and galloped back to his army's position. This happened in front of tens of thousands of soldiers.Everyone doubted their eyes, the impossible thing happened! ——The main general was killed! Although this was a scene they witnessed with their own eyes, it took a while for everyone to understand this indisputable fact.And once they suddenly realized, they immediately fell into a state of panic. The main general was killed, how could the soldiers still have the will to fight?Yuan Jun suddenly panicked. When Cao Jun's cavalry captain Zhang Liao shouted "Assault", Yuan Jun's morale had already been lost.Under such circumstances, the battle has not yet kicked off, and the outcome has already been decided. When Guan Yu made great achievements, Cao Cao said: "It is a pity to lose Guan Yu, but he is definitely not someone who will stay in our army forever.... When Guan Yu leaves, we must never make things difficult for him!" Afterwards, Guan Yu took Liu Bei's wife and went straight to Liu Bei's place in Yuan Shao's camp.Cao Jun, who had obeyed the order, let him go without anyone chasing him. In August, Yuan Shao led his army forward, and when he reached Guandu, he built an earth barrier there to confront Cao Cao. The standoff lasted for three months. Both sides are adopting strategic warfare, and the key to victory will be determined by the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy. Yuan Shao incited Liu Pi, who had previously surrendered to Cao Cao, in an attempt to induce him to raid Xudu, which had become an empty city after Cao Cao sent troops.But Cao Cao had already seen that Liu Pi was not trustworthy, so he did not relax his guard against him.At the same time, Yuan Shao sent troops to assist Liu Bei, which relatively reduced the strength of his troops when confronting Cao Cao. Liu Bei, on the other hand, was disappointed with Yuan Shao's character, and repeatedly wanted to take the opportunity to leave Yuan Shao's army, and he basically held a perfunctory attitude towards aiding Liu Pi. Cao Cao sent Cao Ren to defeat Liu Pi's army in one go. Cao Cao's strategy is to win over capable officials in Yuan Shao's army to join him. Yuan Shao, who is not popular, can't fully grasp the cadres.There are quite a few cadres in Yuan Shao's camp who want to escape if they have the opportunity. Cao Cao's spies have detailed reports on the inside information of Yuan Shao's barracks.Cao Cao, who knew himself and the enemy, finally succeeded in drawing Yuan Shao's staff officer Xu You to his side. "As long as one area is captured, Yuan Shao's army of more than 100,000 will collapse immediately..." Xu You, who defected to Cao Jun, revealed important information.This might be extremely important information. "What? According to Yuan Shao's style, is it possible for him to leave such a weakness?... What are you going to say?" Cao Cao leaned forward and asked. "This weakness was set by me." Xu You pursed his lips and answered. "You set it up?" "I take it as a gift to join your army." Xu You said calmly. bird's nest. 10,000 vehicles of Yuan Jun's military rations are stored in this place, and the security of the place is not strict.It's just a place to store soldiers and rations, so there's no need for special vigilance—maybe this is what they think.Cao Cao's army, who implemented the garrison system, knew that rations were not easy to come by, but to Yuan Shao, rations were just transported things. "Send a group of elite light cavalry and burn the bird's nest!" Cao Cao immediately began to select elite soldiers.Because of the need to pass through the enemy's lines, it was decided to use Yuan Jun's flag.If they are interrogated on the way, they will answer: "The bird's nest lacks guards. We are ordered to go to support." This is their planned plan. As a result, the rations of 10,000 vehicles were burned clean.Yuan Jun had no food in store and could no longer fight.The burning of the Bird's Nest had a great impact on Yuan Jun's cadres, because they knew the internal situation of the expeditionary army very well. ——Tomorrow there will be no food! Under such circumstances, how can the battle be won?The frustration of cadres will of course directly affect the subordinates. General Zhang He, known as "Yuan Shao's number one", attacked Cao's army under Yuan Shao's order.In fact, he was going to surrender this time. Cao Jun also launched a general attack. Yuan Shao was defeated and fled. Yuan Shao, Yuan Tan and his son were in such a state of distress that they crossed the Yellow River and fled without taking anything.Only 800 riders followed the father and son to flee the battlefield. — Beheading more than 70,000 people. Cao Jun recorded the victory at Guandu in this way. Yuan Shaojun left all the supplies and documents behind.Cao Cao summoned the whole army and piled up Yuan Jun's documents in front of the whole army. "I didn't read a word of the documents left by Yuan Shao. Now I want to burn all these documents intact." Cao Cao declared this and ordered the soldiers to light the fire. This is Cao Cao's approach. To survive in the troubled times, everyone must try their best, but no one knows what is the safest to rely on.Those who were successful yesterday may not be successful tomorrow.Didn't Lv Bu, who was all the rage with his bravery, Dong Zhuo, who was unparalleled in power, and Yuan Shu, who pretended to be the emperor, all perished? One has to think about "what if".Of course, there are also people in Cao Cao's camp who are worried about "what to do if Cao Cao falls".Therefore, it is conceivable that some people would communicate with Yuan Shao in secret, just in case. In other words, in the document box left by Yuan Shao, there must be letters secretly written to Yuan Shao by officials in Cao Cao's camp. Cao Cao burned all the documents without reading them. Some breathed a sigh of relief.This group of people admired Cao Cao's personality and admired him infinitely. —their strengths were then tightly bound together.