Chapter 68 4. Cao Jun launched a winter offensive

Yuan Shao didn't wait for Cao Cao's family to be a little angry, but he is a smart man, and he will sit back and watch the situation in Yanzhou regardless, which will bring dire consequences. If Lu Bu wipes out Cao Cao, Yuan Shao will directly compete with Lu Bu and Yuan Shu, two powerful opponents on the southern front face to face. Yuan Shao decided to give Cao Cao support.He ordered Zang Hong, the governor of Qingzhou, to lead his troops into Dongjun, and shortly thereafter appointed him as the prefect of Dongjun. After the death of Jiao He, the former governor of Qingzhou, Zang Hong competed with Tian Kai, the governor of Qingzhou appointed by Gongsun Zan, in today's Shandong Peninsula.Participating in the competition for this area was Liu Bei, Prime Minister of the Plains in the early stage, and Kong Rong, Prime Minister of the North Sea in the later period.Kong Rong was once driven out of Qingzhou by the Yellow Turban Army and ran to Tao Qian to seek refuge.After Liu Bei took control of Xuzhou, he supported Kong Rong to return to Beihai.

Zang Hong led his main force in Qingzhou into Dongjun, and Yuan Shao appointed his son Yuan Tan as the governor of Qingzhou. This shows that Zang Hong is not yet Yuan Shao's direct line. Yuan Shao ordered Zang Hong to assist Cao Cao to hide his selfishness. He thought he was proud of himself, but this decision would soon cost him a very heavy price. Yuan Shao's second order was to let Zhu Ling lead the three battalions that had supported Cao Cao last time, directly under Cao Cao's command, assist Cao's army to attack north from Juancheng and Dong'e, and carry out a north-south attack on the defenders in Puyang.

The war started in the winter of the first year of Xingping (194) and lasted for nearly three months. Under the attack of Yuan Jun and Cao Jun, Lu Bu gradually failed in Puyang. Although Puyang is a strategically important location, it has a flaw: it is too far away from Zhang Miao's main force. Cao's army was between Lu Bu and Zhang Miao, separating them, and Puyang was too close to the main force of Yuan's army on the north bank of the Yellow River, so the geographical location was very unfavorable.Lu Bu decided to abandon Puyang, which was his wrong first step. The correct choice should be to defend Puyang, and let Zhang Miao outflank Cao Jun from behind. It will be a scuffle, and the outcome is hard to predict.

Just like the Northeast battlefield that year, the Kuomintang army often fell into the painful choice of attacking or retreating, and the result was often wrong.From the perspective of the art of war, both defense and withdrawal contain opportunities for combat, but withdrawing when it is time to defend, or continuing to stand firm when it is time to withdraw, are taboos. There was a chance for Lu Bu to withdraw from Puyang. He could withdraw to Jiyin and Chenliu County to join Zhang Miao in the summer of that year, and consolidate a base area to confront Cao Cao.Now that the enemy surrounds and retreats, it is tantamount to admitting defeat. Once the enemy retreats, you will not be able to choose the route to take, and the loss will be even greater.

After Lu Bu withdrew from Puyang, he retreated to Chengshi County in Jiyin County. This was Lu Bu's second wrong step.It was close to Juyeze. At that time, it was a natural lake with an area of ​​thousands of square kilometers, surrounded by a network of rivers, and the cavalry raid tactics that Lu Bu was good at could not be used here. Li Jin, a native of the Cheng family, leaned towards Cao Cao. He commanded an armed force similar to a militia to defeat Lu Bu.Lu Bu retreated to Shanyang County. This was his third wrong step. At this time, Lu Bu should still be heading towards Chenliu County. There are many mountains in Shanyang County, and rivers such as Sishui and Jishui flow through it. Lu Bu should try to turn to the plains as much as possible.Chenliu County's jurisdiction area is flat and vast. According to historical data, it seems that Cao's army seldom moved in that area. This is the territory controlled by Zhang Miao.Instead of going west, Lu Bu chose to go east, getting farther and farther away from his friendly forces.

Lu Bu marched towards the Cheng family, probably because he wanted to join Wu Zi, the prefect of Jiyin County.Wu Zi's situation is unknown, either Lu Bu's or Zhang Miao's. He is guarding Dingtao, the seat of Jiyin County.Even if Lü Bucheng didn't join Zhang Miao in Chenliu Commandery after his defeat, he should at least continue to march towards Dingtao to get ahead of Cao Jun. But Cao Jun was one step faster, and soon hit the city of Dingtao. Wu Zi fought back vigorously, but Cao Jun's attack on the city was not good.At this time, Lv Bu, who had already entered Shanyang County, seemed to have come to his senses and returned to Dingtao for help.

Cao Cao's old tricks were repeated, and then he played around to fight for reinforcements. First, he put Dingtao in a position of non-attack, so as to confirm Lv Bu's decision to rush to help, and then set up an ambush on the way Lv Bu marched, defeated Lv Bu, and defeated Dingtao in one fell swoop. After the Battle of Dingtao, Cao Jun continued to expand the results of the battle, allowing Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Xia Houyuan, Yu Jin, and Dian Wei to "divide troops to flatten the counties" and occupy Jiyin County.After that, the focus of the attack was shifted to Sanyang County, looking for Lu Bu's main force for a decisive battle.

Juye County, the northernmost part of Shanyang County, is an important stronghold of Lu Bu, where Xue Lan and Li Feng under Lu Bu guard.Li Gan who had defected to Cao Cao was a Juye man. Before Cao Cao sent Li Gan back to his hometown to appease the people, Lu Bu sent Xue Lan and Li Feng to occupy Juye first.Xue Lan and Li Feng defeated and arrested Li Gan. They tried to recruit Li Gan, but Li Gan refused and was killed. Cao Cao attacked Juye, defeated Xue and Li, and beheaded them all.Cao Cao collected Li Gan's old troops and let Li Gan's son Li Zheng continue to lead them.Not long after, Li Zheng also died, and Cao Cao asked Li Gan's nephew Li Dian to lead the army.This army, mainly composed of people from Sanyang County, later developed to thousands of people, led by Li Dian all the time, and made many military exploits.

During the launch of the Battle of Juye, Cao Cao estimated that Lv Bu would come to rescue, so he performed the technique of besieging the city and fighting for aid, setting up an ambush on the way Lv Bu marched, and defeated Lv Bu. After withdrawing from Puyang, Lu Bu had already lost four times in a row. He finally realized that it was impossible to continue fighting like this. Only then did he think of joining forces with Zhang Miao.He sent Chen Gong to Chenliu County to ask Zhang Miao for help. Zhang Miao in this period was the most unbelievable. He just sat back and watched the allied forces being beaten to pieces and ignored him, without seeing him take any action.He seems to think that keeping Chenliu County can rest easy. He personally led the main force to guard Chenliu County (now southeast of Kaifeng, Henan Province), the seat of Chenliu County, and let his younger brother Zhang Chao, the former prefect of Guangling County, guard Yongqiu County not far from Chenliu County. (now Qi County, Henan).

At this time, Jiyin County had become the "Cao Tong District", and Chen Gong ventured through it, ran to Chenliu County, and persuaded Zhang Miao to send 10,000 people led by Chen Gong to support Lu Bu. At that time, the main battlefield had been moved to Shanyang County, and Chen Gong led his army to Dongmin County (now Jinxiang, Shandong) in Shanyang County to join Lu Bu.The arrival of this new force changed the situation on the battlefield. Cao Cao was personally commanding the battle in Shanyang County at this time. Lu Bu and Chen Gong quickly found the location of Cao Cao's general headquarters, and immediately led their troops to kill.At this time, there were not many people around Cao Cao. "Three Kingdoms" recorded that there were less than a thousand people, and the ratio between the enemy and ourselves was at least ten to one.It happened so suddenly that Cao Cao almost died.

What did Cao Cao's men do?Due to the rapid development of the war, Cao Jun's front was stretched too long, and many generals led their troops to fight in various places.It can be seen from the biography of General Cao Jun that Cao Ren attacked Liu He in Juyang at this time, and Yu Jin first attacked Lu Bu's general Gao Ya in Xuchang, and then moved to Shouzhang and Lihu. Facing the enemy's surprise attack, Cao Cao responded calmly, quickly mobilized the surrounding troops to fight, withstood the enemy's pressure, and then launched a counterattack, defeating Lu Bu and Chen Gong instead. This left another opportunity for historians of the pro-Cao faction to express themselves. Wang Shen's "Book of Wei" described the course of this battle like a legendary story: At this time, there were less than a thousand people around Cao Cao, and the guards in the camp were very weak.Faced with an enemy that was several times larger than himself, Cao Cao ordered all the women to stand on the wall of the camp to guard, and gathered the strong soldiers to meet the enemy.There is a levee to the west of the camp, and a dense forest to the south of the levee. Lü Bu led his army to come and saw an ambush in the forest (he was scared by Cao Jun recently), so he said to his subordinates: "Cao Cao is so deceitful." , there must be an ambush inside." So he led his army to set up a camp ten miles away from Cao Jun's camp.The next day came again, at this time Cao Cao hid his troops inside the embankment and sent half of his troops outside the embankment.Lü Bu led the army to attack, Cao Cao sent a few people to meet the enemy, waited for the enemy to approach, the ambush soldiers rushed out of the embankment, Lv Bu was defeated, Cao Jun captured many enemy weapons, and chased until Lv Bu's camp before returning to the army.The writing is very vivid, but it is not true. If someone uses this as a case to command a war, there will only be one result: the enemy will not be defeated, but the entire army will be wiped out instead. You cannot fight without some basic common sense. One of these common senses is: Unless there are extremely special circumstances, in a positional battle, a mere few hundred people cannot fight back tens of thousands of people, let alone the opponents are Lu Bu, Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, etc. Such a top-notch fighter.It is possible for Cao Jun to win, but this is not the way to play.Facing an enemy who was far superior to him, Cao Cao had only two choices: one was to break through and admit his failure, and it was up to his fate whether he could rush out safely; the other was to stand firm and wait for help. Although there are not many people around Cao Cao, the nearby people will not be too far away, because no matter how mentally retarded Cao Cao is, it is impossible to lead only a few hundred people deep into the enemy's rear.Cao Cao should choose to stick to it, and wait for a large number of Cao Jun to arrive after hearing the news, and then repel Lu Bu in one fell swoop. In fact, Cao Cao's record is already dazzling without boasting. In the past few months, he has commanded the army to fight all the way, playing in an orderly manner, completely like teaching the opponent a tactical lesson. The war in Shanyang County came to an end. Cao Cao sent people to capture the counties in Shanyang County. Among the eight counties in Yanzhou, Dongjun, Jiyin County, Shanyang County, and Dongping State were basically controlled by Cao Jun. Rencheng State and Jibei State , Part of Taishan County also came into the hands of Cao Jun.Lu Bu and Zhang Miao failed in the joint battle, and Lu Bu could no longer gain a foothold in Yanzhou.