Chapter 882 Dreaming
It was too late for Gai Tong to get more information about Xian Yu's auxiliary department.
The top priority is to set up a large formation. There is no large formation in the wilderness by Jishui River. If a large-scale cavalry attack is encountered, what will be the result? Doesn't he, a cavalry general, know?
Fortunately, Gai Tong was cautious enough and had enough sudden cavalry to send sentry cavalry, so he could discover the enemy's traces at the first time, otherwise he would have suffered a big loss.
At this moment, the officers and soldiers of Gaitong's tribe took off the equipment from the cart one after another, and while lining up, they formed the team amidst the sound of drums and horns.
Most of Gai Tong's troops were veterans, and Gai Tong was cautious in employing troops. Therefore, before the Taishan Army arrived, about 8,000 plain soldiers formed four huge square formations, just like the word Tian, spanning the On the bank of Jishui.
Soon, the enemy's sudden cavalry appeared on the plain line like a tide, and huge clouds of smoke, dust, and sand blew violently on the faces of these Cao troops with the westerly wind.
At this moment, the Taishan Army's assault cavalry regiment really seemed like a natural disaster was coming!
Gai Tong, who was in the military formation in the northeast, stood on the baggage truck and looked at the Mount Tai cavalry regiment rolling in like yellow sand, his face turned pale.
Unlike other generals of Cao's army, few of Cao's men had actually faced off against the cavalry of the Taishan Army. Most of them could not even imagine the scene of thousands of cavalry charging on the plains.
But Gai Tong was not the one. Not only had he seen it, but he had also led a cavalry army of the same size to confront the Taishan Army.
But at this moment, several years later, Gai Tong once again saw the shocking scene of the Taishan Army's cavalry charging, and only trembled in his heart.
Damn it, the Taishan Army is stronger than before.
Gai Tong licked his tongue and whispered to the soldiers beside him:
"Put up the flag!"
But the sound was so quiet that the soldiers nearby didn't hear it at all.
It wasn't until Gai Tong said something again that the soldiers reacted and hurriedly jumped down to raise the flag.
While he was rising, he was slandering:
"Shouldn't the words "putting up the flag" sound high-spirited? How come it sounds as dejected as if you were about to hand over the flag?"
But no matter how slanderous it was, as Gai Tong's flag was raised, the morale of the four formations under his command rose.
Ordinary officials naturally did not understand Gai Tong's guilty conscience. They only saw that their leader resolutely raised his main flag in front of a powerful enemy, showing everyone his determination to fight to the death.
In this case, the morale of Cao's army soared, and all the officials were gearing up to fight Taishan's army!
But no one expected that when Gai Tong's flag was raised, the charging Taishan Army's assault cavalry stopped fighting.
With the sound of powerful horns, the three thousand chargers began to bypass Cao Jun's square formation, and then the smoke and dust disappeared from Cao Jun's sight.
All Cao Jun were confused. What was going on?
There is only one explanation at this moment. His general's reputation is too great, and he can scare the enemy away just by showing a flag.
As a result, people began to cheer one after another, and finally everyone shouted Gai Tong's name!
They can be proud to have such a leader.
But only the soldiers beside the general knew that he saw Gai Tong shaking.
Why is Gai Tong shaking?
At this time, he only had one thought in his mind:
"It's over now, those Taishan troops have gone to Linji."
……
In the fourth year of Taiwu, as Ding Sheng defeated Lu Qian and Xian Yu's auxiliary troops, and directly attacked Linji, the important town of Jishui, the Jishui defense line that Cao Jun had painstakingly built collapsed.
At this moment, Cao Ren, who had caught up, could only recruit the defeated remnants of the army in the wild, and then slowly retreated to Xi'an, the north gate of Linzi.
As Linji was defeated, the hundreds of thousands of stones of corn stored in the city were seized by the Taishan Army. This not only replenished the supply of grain, but also completely cleared the way for Dong's army to move south.
In this way, Dong Fang's army moved southward, crossing Jishui from Linji and heading towards Bochang and Xi'an.
The main force of Ding Sheng's army stationed in Dongpingling also began to move out. While taking down Cao's army along the road, they defeated Tugu, Yuling and Changguo, and went straight out of Linzi.
At this moment, the two legions of the Taishan Army were like the two giant claws of a giant crab, piercing Cao Cao's heart at once.
What's even more terrible is that Cao Cao, who is fighting in the Gaomi area, is not even aware of these situations.
……
In the fourth year of Taiwu, on February 17th, Beihai, Gaomi, Cao's camp.
The sky outside was dark, and as soon as the thunder passed, a heavy rain came.
The spring rain was as moist as oil, but Cao Cao was not happy at all, because it was the heavy rain that delayed the decisive battle between him and Guan Yu.
This time, he led 20,000 elite troops to the south, originally to fight quickly, so that after quickly ending the battle, he could return immediately.
In his and Xun Yu's plan, although the current situation is that there are Taishan troops in the north and south, these two forces are different for Cao Cao.
Since Cao's army had carried out measures to clear the country and cut off communication lines in the northern part of Qingzhou from the beginning, it was unrealistic for the Taishan army in the north to move south quickly.
Because normally, without the support of good roads and supplies along the way, an army can only carry food for three days at most.
Three days are enough for the Taishan Army in the plains to reach Linzi, but don't forget that Cao Cao also deployed 30,000 troops in the Jishui area, and used Linji as a food station, which was enough to hold Jishui.
With only three days of food, no matter how elite the Taishan army is, what can it do?
On the contrary, Guan Yu who inserted himself into Beihai was different.
Beihai is not only related to the connection between Qing and Xu, but also because the road facilities are complete, Guan Yu's troops can be mobilized quickly. Once he is allowed to occupy Beihai and then go north to Linzi, Cao Cao will be trapped in the small land of Qi.
At that time, even if Cao Cao is as capable as Sun Wu, he will be unable to save himself.
So the north and south sides were just placed on the table, and Cao Cao and Xun Yu knew they couldn't just sit there and wait for death
But Cao Cao and Xun Yu had conflicts about how to break the situation.
Xun Yu believed from an overall perspective that neither the Ding and Dong tribes in the north nor the Guan Yu tribe in the south were the protagonists of this war.
He believed that Qingzhou was a dead end at this time, and it was only correct to jump out of Qingzhou quickly and then join the Xu and Yang coalition forces with broad depth.
At that time, the troops of Heqing, Xu Yang and the three states will fight one or two battles with Zhang Chong's main army. Only by annihilating the enemy's main force can the situation be completely reversed.
However, Cao Cao disagreed with Xun Yu's view and thought that he was too pessimistic.
What he wanted more was to gather the main force of his elite troops to quickly go south to annihilate Guan Yu during the strategic gap when the enemy in the north failed to move south, and then turn back to attack Ding Sheng and Dong Fang.
He and Xun Yu had different views. Xun Yu saw that the enemy army still had the main force, while Cao Cao saw that the Guan, Ding, and Dong armies were Zhang Chong's only remaining mobile forces.
Once he was able to annihilate these three forces in Qingzhou, Zhang Chong, who was stationed in the Central Plains, would be surrounded by him and Xuzhou.
If Zhang Chong still dares to go south for a decisive battle with Xuzhou, Cao Cao can send troops to Qingzhou to attack Zhang Chong's rear grain road.
Of course, according to Cao Cao's own opinion, if the Guan, Ding, and Dong armies were really defeated by him, Zhang Chong would definitely not dare to continue the decisive battle. After losing all his mobile forces, Zhang Chong will definitely be hiding in the Luoyang area, and the entire Central Plains will have to give up by then.
Only by advancing the war situation to this extent can our own forces in the world enter into a balance of strength.
But although Cao Cao's attempt is a bit unrealistic, in his eyes it is much more practical than Xun Yu's.
What Xun Yu said was to abandon Qingzhou and join forces with Qingxu and Yang to fight the main force of the Taishan Army Zhang Chong.
Cao Cao frowned when he heard this. He had been fighting for so many years, but he had never seen the army win when his troops were sent out many times.
He joined forces with the Xu and Yang families, who would he listen to?
Speaking responsibly, one must listen to Cao Cao in terms of military strategy. But can Xuzhou and Yangzhou agree?
Xuzhou still has a grudge against Cao Cao. Although he married a daughter there, this grudge will not be easily resolved.
So Xuzhou won't listen to Cao Cao, but what about Yangzhou? The situation is similar.
When the Guandong aristocratic families wanted to oust their emperor, didn't they conspire to sell out Sun Jian in order to remove the military power of Huangfu and Zhu Jun?
It can be said that Sun Jian's subsequent series of hardships and narrow escapes were all caused by the powerful men in Yuzhou.
And what about Cao Cao? He was one of the planners of this incident. Do you think Sun Jian will listen to his instructions?
So Cao Cao knew very well that he could not be the commander of the coalition.
But I'm sorry, it's not that he is conceited. If he hadn't been the coach in the decisive battle, they would definitely not have won the decisive battle.
Since they can't win and go to a decisive battle, it's not that they want to annihilate the Taishan Army, but give the Taishan Army a chance to annihilate them.
Regardless of these, Cao Cao still had an inner reluctance, that is, he did not want to abandon Qingzhou and live under someone else's roof.
In Qingzhou, he is the leader of the entire army and the sole core of the entire Qingzhou. He holds all the power and can control his own life.
But after leaving the place of foundation and running to the territory of his son-in-law Chen Deng, what outcome awaits Cao Cao?
You must know that the army is not naturally attached to a certain person. It is made up of mouths that have to eat. When you can provide these mouths, you can talk about kindness and feelings.
But if these mouths can't be fed, even your own son will have to go to other people's homes and call him father.
Therefore, without a base, Cao Cao could only rely on others even if he had an army.
In another dimension, both Liu Bei and Lu Bu probably had a special understanding of this matter.
So when Xun Yu thought of one thing, Cao Cao had already thought of a lot.
But is Xun Yu really thinking one-sidedly?
After learning about Cao Cao's plan, Xun Yu was silent for a long time. It was not until Cao Cao kept staring at him that he said this:
"My Lord, we have us and these 50,000 soldiers. Even if we abandon Qingzhou, we can fight back in the future. But if we lose these troops, what is the use of Qingzhou?"
Cao Cao was silenced by these words, and finally said:
"I am extremely confident that we can gather together and annihilate Guan Yu in the south."
Yes, what does Guan Yu have to be afraid of? Isn’t it just our Lao Cao’s defeated general?
……
At this moment, Cao Cao was sitting in the big tent, and the rainstorm was pounding outside. When he thought of what he said to Xun Yu, his face turned red and warm.
Thinking of this, Cao Cao cursed:
"I thought Guan Yu was a hero of the world, but I didn't expect that he was also a rat and avoided our army."
That's right, since Cao Cao went south, Guan Yu began to avoid Cao Cao and fight with him, but refused to fight him decisively.
If Guan Yu doesn't fight him, Cao Cao will have no way to use all kinds of military tactics. This will make Cao Cao very worried.
At this time, Cao Cao actually probably understood that he might have fallen into Guan Yu's plan.
Guan Yu obviously wanted to drag him to Beihai so that Ding and Dong from the north of Qingzhou could lead their army south.
But what can Cao Cao do if he understands? He had no means to counter Guan Yu.
In the art of war, if you want to force the enemy to fight decisively, you can attack the place where he must be saved, and the enemy will naturally come over. But now he, Cao Cao, can't go to fight Mount Tai.
If he is really crazy and attacks Taishan, Guan Yu can directly attack from behind, and then divide the main force of Taishan Army stationed in the central and southern areas of Shandong to completely block him in the mountain.
Therefore, attacking the mountain is definitely not possible.
Sitting on the bed, Cao Cao became more and more irritable as he thought about it.
In this rainy day, Qingzhou's 20,000 troops could only accompany themselves in the mud pit, enduring the mud and humidity.
In this situation, Cao Cao has two choices.
One is to stop the loss as soon as possible, that is, lead the troops back to Linzi quickly, stabilize the situation in the north first, and then let Xuzhou dispatch troops from Langya area to the north to drive Guan Yu away.
Another option is that he also leads his troops back north, but this is just a pretense. Cao Cao's real intention is to lure Guan Yu from the periphery.
Don't you, Guan Yu, want to drag you down? Now I don't care about you and will lead my troops to retreat. Can you, Guan Yu, endure it?
Therefore, Cao Cao also set a trap for Guan Yu and waited for Guan Yu to come and chase him.
In fact, this is also the disadvantage of exposing your combat intentions too early. Once your target is known to others, the enemy can take advantage of your intentions and carry out targeted counterattacks.
Last year, Cao Cao actually used similar methods to successfully defeat Guan Yu.
But this time Cao Cao just made a slight change and could continue to use it.
If that Guan Yu really fell into the trap, it can be seen that this Guan Yu is like that!
Cao Cao, who consciously thought clearly, let the soldiers outside come in, told them his decision to return north to Linzi after the rain stopped, and then asked them to convey it to each camp.
The guards left, and Cao Cao listened quietly to the sound of rain outside, but his heart could not calm down.
Cao Cao stood up again and kept pacing beside Hu's bed, wondering whether the decision he just made was correct.
If it were an ordinary person, most of them would start to doubt themselves at this time, and then immediately change the military order, but Cao Cao has extremely rich experience.
He could analyze his own emotions, which were like the tension before throwing an arrow into the pot. In fact, nothing happened. There was only one reason that disturbed his mood, and that was that this time, Cao Cao could not afford to lose.
Because of this, he worries about gains and losses.
At this moment, Cao Cao breathed out hard, once again convinced in his heart that his choice was correct, and then lay on the bed, fully clothed and fell asleep.
Soon, Cao Cao fell asleep amidst the sound of rain.