Chapter 881 Linzi
After Cao Cao sent troops and left, Xun Yu in Linzi City consciously reduced the forces in nearby walled cities and military walls back to the city.
In the past, in order to suppress the local area, the Qingzhou Army set up military strongholds in many key places to strengthen Cao's influence on Qingzhou.
This method is indeed useful. Previously, Qingzhou was not only full of military leaders, but also bandits and bandits. It was through this method that the Cao family was able to quickly calm the place.
Therefore, purely from the perspective of restoring production in Qingzhou, Cao Jun must have benefited the people of Qingzhou.
But things can never be looked at from just one side. The military discipline of Cao Jun in these military villages cannot be said to be very good. In fact, the existence of the Taishan Army has been an example for thousands of years.
Of course, it was also because there were Zhuyu from the Taishan Army in the north, and Cao Cao was still very strict about military discipline, so Cao Cao's troops in these military camps could at best be regarded as places of turmoil rather than harm.
This time Xun Yu mobilized these soldiers back to the city based on expectations from the outside.
That means Xun Yu is pessimistic.
In his calculations, even if Cao Ren would take over the front line from the deceased Xia Houyuan, Xun Yu was still not optimistic about the war in the north.
This is purely from a military perspective.
From the topographic point of view, the entire Qingzhou is a long and narrow peninsula on the coast, and the distance between the north and the south is actually only four hundred miles.
In other words, if Dong Fang, who was stationed in the plain at this time, wanted to, he would only have to run four hundred miles from the Yellow River to the sea in the south.
How far is four hundred miles? The normal march of the army takes ten days, and the forced march takes four or five days. If it is just cavalry, it will be faster.
This is still the situation from the plain to the sea in the south of Qingzhou, and currently the enemy Ding Sheng's troops have been stationed on the line of Dongpingling. During this period of 120 miles, if someone is not careful, they may be killed right before their eyes.
Moreover, there is a fatal thing about Qingzhou, that is, except for the big river in the north and the Tai and Lu mountains in the west, the interior is flat and there is no danger to defend.
When Yan's famous general Le Yi defeated Qi, he surrounded and annihilated the main force of Qi west of Jishui. Then he was able to march straight in and conquer more than 70 Qi cities in an instant.
Now, Cao Jun in Qingzhou has lost the Dahe defense line, and then in order to strengthen the wall and clear the country, he led the Taishan Army to go deep alone, and lost part of the Jishui defense line to the Taishan Army.
Therefore, the current situation in Linzi is that there is no natural defense line on the outside. Even if these military strongholds still persist outside, it will only increase casualties. The enemy can surround Linzi if they want.
The reason why the enemy did not do this now is because Cao's army on the front line is constantly destroying transportation, and the enemy's supplies in the rear cannot keep up, so they dare not go deeper with such light troops.
But even so, Xun Yu still had to consider the military adventures of the enemy generals, and for this reason he needed to strengthen the defense in Linzi City.
Therefore, in the past few days, the soldiers who received the military orders from the shogunate marched towards Linzi City one after another.
In the past few years in the local area, many of Cao's soldiers had found wives, and now they were ordered to abandon the military stronghold and return to Linzi to guard Linzi. Of course, these people would not leave their families behind in the local area, so they took them with them into the city.
But even though Linzi is the capital of Qingzhou, so many people poured in at once, which still caused chaos.
Those generals of the Qingzhou Army and their families are naturally in a good place to live.
However, a large number of families of soldiers in the military camp had nowhere to stay. They had no choice but to build shacks in the city near the city wall and barely live there.
Everyone is frowning. After all, anyone who loses all their belongings and a stable living environment and comes to such a place with an uncertain future will feel resentful.
Of course they wouldn't say anything strange to Cao Cao. After all, Cao Cao had been cracking down on prostitution temples in Qingzhou over the years, and had given the barren land to people like them for farming. He had long been loved by everyone.
So all these dirty words and complaints were thrown at Xun Yu.
Sometimes the women at the foot of the city wall, knowing that Xun Yu was patrolling the city wall, would still throw their feces and urine outside, and curse while doing so:
"Dirty!"
What was Xun Yu's reaction on the top of the city? He didn't respond.
All this has long been in his eyes, ears, and heart.
The four words "Jianbi Qingye" are the lightest in the mouths of literati. It only takes a mouthful of foam to spit them out. But do these four words mean anything to the common people, field soldiers, and sergeants who are rooted in these places?
That was when all life was disrupted, and the original hope for the future suddenly turned into resentment.
So what if they come to the big city of Linzi? These places are not their homes anyway. Their homes are outside, but they were burned down by the Qingzhou soldiers themselves.
Xun Yu was a literati, so he came up with the idea of "building strong walls and clearing the wilderness", but Xun Yu was not only a literati, he also knew a lot about the various places under the shogunate, and even had a kind of empathy, so Xun Yu could feel the people of Qingzhou of despair.
But these are all personal. As far as Xun Yu is concerned, personal matters are very important, but they must be subordinated to the overall situation and the great righteousness.
Therefore, to a certain extent, Xun Yu was more ruthless than ordinary literati!
Literati talk about it, but in fact they are completely unfamiliar with real life. They are floating in the air and have no understanding of the feelings of the bottom.
Therefore, the fearlessness of literati who is just ignorant is just talking nonsense.
But not Xun Yu. He knew everything. He knew what would happen if this policy continued, but he still did it. He knew it was wrong, but he still had to do it.
This is cruel.
Of course, he also made some remedies. He ordered the officials in Linzi City several times to settle the soldiers and civilians who entered the city well, but the essence of the problem was never a matter of one or two chief officials giving orders or not.
The essence of the problem is that the resources in the city are limited, and the number of soldiers and civilians entering the city has far exceeded Linzi City's short-term carrying capacity.
So those orders just become some kind of correct nonsense.
Of course, Xun Yu still had to say it. After all, if he didn't say it, these soldiers and civilians might be even worse.
Looking at the soldiers and civilians gathered at the foot of the city like oxen and horses, Xun Yu sighed, turned around and asked Zhong Yao beside him:
"Zhong Gong, has General Yangwu arrived at the front line now?"
After Zhong Yao came to join Cao Cao, he took charge of the most special part of Cao Cao's army, the School Affairs Department.
The School Affairs Department is a department that Cao Cao learned from the Taishan Army opposite. Its function is to monitor the group of departments and become Cao Cao's eyes and ears to understand the troubles in Qingzhou.
This department has great power. It only needs to be responsible to Cao Cao, accept Cao Cao's direct leadership, and is not restricted by others. Even the legal officials who specialize in supervising military officials have no right to interfere with the actions of this department.
The School Affairs Department has such great power and naturally has made a lot of contributions. Cao Cao was able to implement a double-ring strategy against Guan Yu in Taishan before, and the School Affairs Department's contribution is indispensable.
In addition to being able to spy on the enemy and infiltrate the enemy's territory, the School Affairs Department also helped Cao Cao avoid several assassinations.
At that time, several former Sima Ju's old party members in the army held a grudge after being reprimanded by their superiors, and prepared to assassinate Cao Cao who was about to enter the camp for inspection.
But the matter was quickly learned by the military school officials, and he was captured before the operation started.
And if you can do this, it will naturally be clear if there are any complaints in the army.
Therefore, both the shogunate and the military hated and feared the school affairs department.
And why was Zhong Yao able to take charge of this department when he first arrived?
The reasons are not complicated. One is that Zhong Yao and Cao Cao have actually known each other for a long time.
Zhong Yao did a lot to help Cao Cao from the Guandong court to control Qingzhou.
Moreover, having Zhong Yao, a Yingchuan scholar, take charge of the school affairs and join the army can also calm the hearts of the Yingchuan scholars in the shogunate. In addition, another very important reason is that Zhong Yao was in charge of this matter when he was in the Kanto court. When he escaped from Kyoto, he had in his hand a detailed list of works arranged by the Kanto court all over the world.
Therefore, it can be said that Cao Cao's announcement of Zhong Yao's position could not be more accurate.
When Xun Yu asked, Zhong Yao answered:
"After General Yangwu received the order, he did not return home, but went straight to the front with only the guards. At this moment, he just received a letter saying that he had arrived in the Gaoyuan area."
Xun Yu thought about it for a while and realized that Cao Ren was very fast. It was obvious that he was careful.
Sure enough, Duke Cao was right to use kinship generals, and in this case it was these kinship generals who encouraged him.
Then he asked about the situation of Taishan Army.
On the Pingyuan County side, although Dong Fang's army moved south very early, its marching speed has not been fast, and it has not yet engaged Gaitong on the Jishui River.
Xun Yu can also guess the reason.
They were simply worried that they were too far away from the plains and would not be able to keep up with supplies, and they were also worried that they would go too deep into the Jishui area and encounter an ambush by their own side.
Thinking of this, Xun Yu already had an evaluation of this Taishan general named Dong Fan:
"Yongjianger."
After that, he focused more time on Dongpingling.
And Zhong Yao obviously paid more attention to Ding Sheng of Dongpingling.
Cao Jun was very familiar with Ding Sheng, and there had been two large-scale battles between the two sides.
One time was when Cao Cao was in Hanoi, opposite Ding Sheng. The other time was the Battle of Pingyuanjin, where Ding Sheng was also on the opposite side.
And because of their familiarity, Cao Jun also knew Ding Sheng's abilities, so he concentrated more spies in this area.
Judging from the intelligence sent there, Ding Sheng also acted extremely cautious after arriving at Dongpingling Tomb this time. Not only did the army not enter the city, but he himself was mainly in the military camp outside the city, and only sent his staff into the city to handle matters.
This obviously brought Cao Jun's intelligence work to a standstill.
Because most of Cao's army's informants are in the city, Taishan's army does not enter the city now, and even all military supplies rarely use locals. How can we detect intelligence?
Although this incident revealed the enemy general's distrust of the people of Dongpingling, to some extent it was definitely a good thing.
But Zhong Yao was very dissatisfied with the fact that he had invested so many resources but could not achieve much success.
But what can be done?
It seems that Ding Sheng is indeed a difficult person to deal with.
……
At this time, Gaitong, who was stationed in Anlinji, was very confused.
He had just received a military order from Cao Ren, the governor of Zhijie, asking him to take his troops up the Jishui River to join him.
Cao Ren did not say more reasons, but it was just such an order anyway.
But even if Cao Ren didn't say it, how could Gai Tong not guess it?
It seems that Cao Ren still has to gather his troops to fight the Taishan Army for a decisive battle!
In fact, Gai Tong had expectations for the present. With Xia Houyuan's unexpected death, the original policy of strengthening the walls and clearing the country would obviously be changed.
Especially the one who came up was Cao Ren. Even if he wanted to avenge Xia Houyuan, he would definitely have to fight the Taishan Army head-on.
This made Gai Tong very confused.
Regardless of his own interests, Gai Tong does not support the strategy of decisive battle just based on the war situation.
Fighting a few battles on the frontal battlefield can certainly build up your reputation, but if you rush to launch a decisive battle without a decisive battle to win, you will suffer heavy losses if you are not careful.
And when it comes to heavy losses, Gai Tong has a stake in this.
Most of Gaitong's troops were the Zhenbei Army, Qinghe Army, and Pingyuan Army, and they were out-and-out foreigners in Cao's military system.
Once Gai Tong led his troops to join Cao Ren, he counted on his toes that his own troops would be responsible for the most difficult tasks.
So if it really comes to a decisive battle, who will suffer the most casualties? Isn’t it Gai Tong?
But now Cao Ren's military order has come, what if he doesn't go?
So Gai Tong figured it out, so he led his troops to walk slowly. It would be best to wait until Cao Ren started fighting first, and then he could arrive.
And Gai Tong himself is also very clear about the current situation, that is, Le'an where he is may not be able to defend it.
Currently opposite Le'an is the Dong Fang Department in Pingyuan County, with a total of 20,000 people.
As for Gai Tong, he only had 10,000 soldiers at his disposal, so he was really unable to match Dong Fang.
So it might not be a bad thing to give up Le'an now and join Cao Ren upstream.
After thinking about this, Gai Tong ordered his eight thousand soldiers and horses, including five hundred elite assault cavalry, and rushed westward along Jishui.
And the reason why Gaitong's assault cavalry force is so small is because most of them were taken away by Cao Cao?
This old brother called Gaitong brother, but he showed no mercy in seizing his soldiers.
The reason why Gai Tong was worried about being used as cannon fodder was Cao Cao's previous actions.
In the fourth year of Taiwu, on February 16th, at noon.
When Gai Tong and his army were about to arrive at Liang Zou, the frontline camp, he suddenly saw several groups of rebels fleeing on the wild road.
Without Gai Tong's orders, the Youzhou raiders wandering around the outside rushed over and captured those people.
And when these people told Gai Tong that they were affiliated with Xian Yufu's troops, Gai Tong was simply stunned.
It turned out that just when Gaitong and the others were marching westward, Xian Yufu's camp stationed in Liangzou was attacked suddenly by the Taishan Army's cavalry at night.
These defeated soldiers did not know Xian Yufu's situation, but they all said in unison that everyone suffered a terrible defeat in this battle.
Gai Tong was completely stupid now.
He was originally going to join Xian Yufu first, but who would have thought that Xianyu Fu's department would be attacked?
Where did the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry come from?
Gai Tong's mind was spinning rapidly, and suddenly he yelled:
"Order all the troops to stop their advance and all line up on the spot."
And just when he finished speaking, the Youzhou cavalry at the forefront of the sentry galloped and beat the horse, shouting:
"Enemies ahead! Be on guard!"
At this moment, the worst outcome Gai Tong expected appeared.