Chapter 60 4. Fierce Battle on White Wolf Mountain

Today, there is a Dayang Mountain in Kazuo County, Liaoning Province. Its altitude is only more than 800 meters, but it gives people the feeling of towering into the sky. This is because the surrounding area is not high, which reflects its magnificence and height.There is a white stone lazi on the mountain. Lazi is a dialect, which means a big stone.This big stone looks like a sheep and a wolf, so in the Han Dynasty, this mountain was also called White Wolf Mountain. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Boyi and Shuqi lived in seclusion in Shouyang Mountain because they did not eat Zhou millet, and finally starved to death there.According to the research of scholars, this Shouyang Mountain is Bailang Mountain.At the foot of the White Wolf Mountain, there is the White Wolf Water, which is now the Daling River, and there is a military town called White Wolf City on the bank of the river.

After crossing Baitan and Pinggang, Cao Cao led his army and approached Bailang City. Two hundred miles northeast of this is Liucheng, the headquarters of the Wuhuan people.Only then did Wuhuan realize that the main force of Cao's army had arrived, so he immediately sued him. Ta Dun was taken aback, and hastily assembled his troops, and hurried to White Wolf City to meet the enemy.Along with Yuan Xi, Yuan Shang, Wuhuan Shanyu Louban of Liaoxi County, and Wuhuan Shanyu Nengchen Dazhi of Youbeiping County, the total number of troops reached tens of thousands, basically cavalry. In August of the twelfth year of Jian'an (207), Cao Jun's fast column met the Wuhuan coalition forces. Cao Cao himself took the lead in occupying Bailang Mountain and occupying favorable terrain.

At this time, tens of thousands of Wuhuan cavalry also arrived, very powerful.Cao Jun's follow-up troops hadn't caught up yet. Cao Cao was surrounded only by Zhang Liao's troops and the tiger and leopard cavalry led by Cao Chun. Because they marched in a hurry, most of them didn't wear armor (few armored ones).Facing the Wuhuan cavalry that was several times larger than their own, some people felt a little scared. Cao Cao told everyone not to panic. He boarded the White Wolf Mountain and looked from a distance, and found that the enemy formation was in disarray. Cao Cao saw that they had come from a long way and were exhausted. If this is the right time to attack.

Many years later, under the orders of Zhuge Liang, Ma Di, a general of the Shu Han Dynasty, was ordered by Zhuge Liang to guard Jieting, an important military site. Facing the attack of Cao Wei's famous general Zhang, Ma Di ordered to retreat to the mountains on both sides to be on the safe side, trying to form a confrontation based on danger and achieve the purpose of blocking Cao Wei's army. .Because the task Ma Di received was to stop the enemy and buy time for Zhuge Liang's military operations in the Longyou area.Ma Di resisted the danger and defended, and the enemy had to attack on his back if he wanted to pass by. The difficulty can be imagined.

But Zhang is very sophisticated, he did not attack hard, but found the weakness of the Shu Han army on the mountain: the source of water.The water cut off on the mountain forced Ma Su to take the initiative to attack. As a result, the Shu army rushing down became a moving target for Cao Wei's archers, and the Shu army was defeated. If Cao Cao didn't give the order to attack at this time, the ending would be the same as Ma Di, or even worse than Ma Di, because they had penetrated deep into the hinterland of Wuhuan, and even if the follow-up troops arrived, the combined number of troops would be only a fraction of the number of the frontal enemy. As time goes by, Wuhuan's large troops will continue to arrive.If there is any hesitation now, and the fleeting opportunity to win is missed, Cao Jun can only sit and wait for the enemy to reorganize his formation and set up a formation.

Cao Jun came in a hurry and didn't bring much water and food. It was difficult to last long on Bailang Mountain. His fate was estimated to be similar to that of the Shu army in Jieting. Cao Jun did not become Shu Jun in Jieting, because Cao Cao was not Ma Di. Standing on the White Wolf Mountain, Cao Cao only took a few glances at the Wuhuan people at the foot of the mountain, and decided not to wait for the follow-up troops to arrive, but to launch a fierce attack immediately when the enemy's formation was not stable. Cao Cao's ideas coincided with Zhang Liao's, and Zhang Liao was full of spirits and took the initiative to ask for a fight.Cao Cao awarded the command flag in his hand to Zhang Liao (Taizu Zhuangzhi, who was awarded Liao because of the command he held), and ordered him to command Cao's army with full authority to organize an attack on the enemy.

According to the book "Fu Zi", when Cao Cao decided to conquer Wuhuan, Zhang Liao was also one of the opponents.Zhang Liao persuaded Cao Cao that Xu County is an important place in the world and must not be thrown away easily, and that Liu Biao should guard against sneak attacks.Cao Cao finally decided to march north.Zhang Liao did not get angry because his opinions were not adopted by the leaders. As the vanguard of the Northern Expedition, he resolutely carried out orders. When faced with danger, he dared to fight and go up. This is the quality that a general should have. Zhang Liao rectified his men and horses in front, and Cao Chundu led the tigers and leopards in the rear, and charged directly at the Wuhuan cavalry. As a result, the Wuhuan people were defeated.Cao Jun won a big victory with a disparity in strength, and the tiger and leopard cavalry led by Cao Chun even showed their faces: cut Tadun under the horse!

In fact, the Wuhuan people are quite capable of fighting. It would be a big mistake to think that they are vulnerable to a single blow. The Wuhuan people can gallop in the north for a long time. Conspiracy is very appealing among the Wuhuan people. The reason why the Wuhuan people were defeated was that Zhang Liao and Cao Chun's troops were all the most capable fighters in Cao's army. They fought bravely and vowed to fight to the death.On the other hand, and the most important thing, is that Cao Cao seized the opportunity, the enemy came from afar, lack of men and horses, poor formation, poor communication with each other. Unexpectedly, Cao Jun didn't give them such an opportunity, and charged as soon as they came up, which caught them off guard.

Cao Jun's complete victory was also due to the fact that the tiger and leopard cavalry were too vigorous.This powerful force that had beheaded Yuan Tan outside Nanpi City found another chance to make a name for themselves on the battlefield. They killed Ta Dun, causing the resistance of the Wuhuan people to collapse quickly.The Wuhuan people did not have a unified command, and soon scattered. Cao Cao was very happy. According to the "Heroes", Cao Cao tied Ta Dun's head to the saddle, just like the last time he killed Yuan Tan, and danced on the horse again (tied the saddle to the horse dance).

Lou Ban, Nengchen Dazhi, Yuan Xi, Yuan Shang and others did not dare to fight, and there were about thousands of people entangled together. Instead of retreating to Liucheng, they fled southeast and went to Gongsun Kang, the governor of Liaodong.Cao Cao led his army to take advantage of the situation and went straight to Liucheng. There was no major resistance here, but there was another controversy about the massacre of the city. There is a sentence in "Three Kingdoms: Emperor Wudi Ji": "There are more than 200,000 people who descended from Hu and Han descendants below the famous king." The ancients wrote articles without punctuation marks, so problems arose. This sentence can be read together. It means: more than 200,000 Hu and Han people who surrendered under Tadun and the famous kings of Wuhuan.

For the ethnic groups living on the northern grasslands, 200,000 is definitely a huge number, which means the destruction of several or even dozens of settlements or the extinction of a tribe. However, there is another interpretation of this sentence, which is to add a punctuation mark in the middle to become: "Zhan Tadun and below the famous king, Hu Han surrendered more than 200,000 mouths." It means: kill Tadun and famous kings. Below the kings of Wuhuan, there were more than 200,000 Hu and Han people who surrendered. Only a small number of tribal leaders were killed, and more than 200,000 Hu and Han people surrendered.Hu people is the collective name for the Wuhuan, Xianbei, Xiongnu and other northern ethnic groups at that time. The presence or absence of this comma seems to make a big difference. It means whether more than 200,000 lives are dead or alive, and it also means whether Cao Cao has massacred the city.Opening most of the editions of "Three Kingdoms" published now, there is this comma in the middle, which means that most of them tend to think that Cao Cao did not do the massacre of the city here. But some people think that there should not be a comma in the middle. Cao Cao killed more than 200,000 people in Liucheng.In various historical theories, the records of "Tu Liucheng" are still often seen. Cao Cao had a literati named Miao Xi, who was not included in the list of the Seven Sons of Jian'an because of his late birth, but he was as famous as the Seven Sons of Jian'an.After Cao Pi proclaimed himself emperor, Miao Xi used twelve old songs of the short flute and cymbal songs of the Han Dynasty, changed them to new names, and re-compose lyrics and music, including "Chu Zhiping", "Zhan Xingyang", "Huo Lu Bu", "Ke Guan Du" , "Ding Wu Gong", "Tu Liucheng", "Ping Nan Jing", etc., to record the achievements of Cao Wei. "Slaughtering Willow City" sings: "Slaughtering Willow City, hard work is hard, and the road to cross Longsai is long."The north is beyond Pinggang, but the north wind is sour.Ta Dun awarded the head, then climbed the White Wolf Mountain.Shenwu overseas, never worry about the north. Even his own people are not shy about slaughtering Liucheng, which adds to the authenticity of Liucheng. Actually, this is a misunderstanding.For Cao Cao, using the Wuhuan people is more in line with his own strategic interests than exterminating the Wuhuan people. "Three Kingdoms Wuhuan Biography" records very clearly that after the Battle of White Wolf Mountain, Cao Cao ordered Yan Rou, who had a certain influence among the Wuhuan people, to integrate the various tribes of Wuhuan, and Yan Rou led the Wuhuan tribes in Youzhou and Bingzhou. , as many as more than ten thousand tribes.Cao Cao ordered Yan Rou to move them inland gradually, and recruited young and middle-aged people to form a minority army regiment, which was still led by Wuhuan tribal leaders at all levels, and accompanied Cao Cao in the southern and northern wars. The Wuhuan army became famous and became a powerful force in Cao's army. (Wuhuan from the three prefectures is a famous horse in the world). If Cao Cao ordered the slaughter of Liucheng, it would be seriously inconsistent with his later policies.Moreover, if he owed Wuhuan more than 200,000 lives for no reason, no matter how capable Yan Rou was, if she wanted to integrate more than 10,000 Wuhuan tribes and willingly fight with Cao Cao, that would be impossible. As for Miao Xi's song, unless he was out of his mind and dared to sing the massacre as a great achievement, it would be impossible to call it "Tu Liucheng".Looking at the poem he wrote, the main content is also to express the difficulties of the Northern Expedition and the achievements made, without exaggerating the meaning of massacre. So there is only one possibility that this piece of music has been tampered with.