Wandering the Heavens

Chapter 382 New 3 Kingdoms 22

War requires the right time, right place, and right people, and finally luck. Cao Cao's luck was indeed bad, but whoever dared to say something that would shake the morale of the army would die, and no one who was alive and well wanted to get into this bad luck, so let's just leave it like this!

Yuan Shao was indeed a bad guy. Seeing that Cao Cao's camp at Guandu was like a turtle shell, he simply did not charge. Instead, he built a tall arrow tower outside Cao's camp, and shot arrows from above. Some wicked people even urinated in the wind, making Cao's army groan in pain.

When Cao Cao climbed up the corner tower to check the situation, his crown was shot off by an arrow, making him look very embarrassed in public. (Yu Xian is very capable and has hidden his fame. As long as he can get along with Cao Cao and Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, no matter who they are, he will help them!)

Naturally, Cao Cao's violent temper could not be tolerated, so when he returned to the tent with disheveled hair and fiddled with his hair, he had the idea of withdrawing his troops. If he couldn't afford to provoke, he could avoid it and fight another day after he recovered. All the counselors also tacitly agreed not to touch this bad luck.

Seeing that no one was talking, Cao Cao could only send a letter to Xun Yu, which roughly meant that the market outside was not good and food supplies were running low, so he planned to come back and live for two years.

Xun Yu's reply was sent together with the team escorting grain and grass. The general meaning of the letter was that it was normal for the market to be bad these days, and that it was not easy for family members to return home. Yuan Shao, on the other side, had many internal problems despite his wealth and power.

Now at this critical moment you have to hold on. It doesn't matter if you have fewer people, but they have more people and sooner or later there will be problems, because where there are people there is the underworld, and the underworld always has to create some trouble to survive.

At this point, Cao Cao could only fight to the death with Yuan Shao while starving.

Yuan Shao's army was ten times that of Cao Cao, but he was willing to put aside his pride and play house with Cao Cao. First, he built an arrow tower, which was disgusting. Then Liu Ye made a catapult, which was useless. Then he dug a tunnel. In short, he did all these crooked tricks instead of fighting head-on.

If Li Yunlong fought such a rich battle, he would be the main attacker.

This led to problems. Cao's army was hungry and Yuan's army was harassed. Shen Pei, who was left behind by Yuan Shao, arrested Xu You's family. Xu You had received the news that Cao's army had run out of food and grass and planned to report it and suggest Yuan Shao to do something big. Who knew that Yuan Shao not only did not listen but also drove him out of the camp.

In a rage, Xu You really surrendered to Cao Cao. There is no need to elaborate on the process. In short, Cao Cao used leaky words to paint a rosy picture for Xu You, and Xu You was so moved that he offered a plan to attack Wuchao.

Cao Cao looked at Xu You as if he were a fool. Damn, what I am best at in fighting a war is cutting off other people’s food supply. You are the only one who thought of attacking Wuchao!

Xu You smiled slightly. You didn't dare to attack Wuchao before you met me. What I brought now is not a strategy to attack Wuchao, but a series of defense systems built by Yuan Shao around Wuchao. Including but not limited to troop deployment, defense line layout, early warning mechanism, patrol loopholes, internal and external layout, etc.!

The emotions have been building to this point, so just tell me straight out whether you want to do it or not!

With the answers to the exam right in front of him, there was no reason not to speculate. Cao Cao quickly held a meeting and drew out 5,000 cavalry to take a gamble. At the same time, he arranged the defense of the camp to deal with Yuan Shao's attempt to steal his base.

After one night, the two sides should have ended in a draw.

Cao Cao burned Wuchao, and the people who stole the house from Yuan Shao were not Gao Lan and Zhang He. The two of them were sent to rescue Wuchao, and they killed half of Cao Cao's 5,000 cavalry on the way. Cao's camp was breached by Yan Liang and Wen Chou. Although Cao Ren resisted the offensive of Yuan's army, he suffered heavy casualties and was unable to launch an attack.

As a result, both sides were out of soldiers and food, and they were powerless to continue fighting. They had no choice but to disperse and lick their wounds and make an appointment another day. The Battle of Guandu ended in such a whimper.

In the post-war settlement, Yuan Shao killed Tian Feng, and Cao Cao killed a blind man. Because before going to Yangwu, Cao Cao said in Xu County that he would lead 70,000 elite soldiers to defeat Yuan Shao's 700,000 troops, leaving 200,000 reserve troops ready to harvest the battlefield.

That person asked where the 200,000 reserve troops were. At this time, Yuan Shao had no food and grass, and the army was in chaos. If he put these 200,000 people on the field, he would definitely win!

How could Cao Cao know where these 200,000 men were? He needed someone to vent his anger on after losing the battle, and he happened to be the first one to do so. If he didn't kill him, he would be doing himself a disservice.

With the end of the Battle of Guandu and the second great melee, everyone thought of one thing when they had some free time. Before, they were only thinking about fighting, but now that the emperor is gone, what should they do?

You have to know that no matter how noisy the wars were, the symbol of the highest power in this land has always been there. For example, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, which lasted for more than 500 years, the Zhou emperor existed until the last few years when he was destroyed by Lu Buwei. Another example is that during the four-year Chu-Han contention, one of the reasons why Emperor Gaozu started his army was to avenge Emperor Yi.

Now everyone was having too much fun fighting and lost the emperor. If the situation continues, the family will probably be divided. If this is recorded in history books, it will be infamous for thousands of years. Thinking of this, the princes hurriedly tried to find the emperor. They wanted to see him alive or dead, so that they could give an account to history.

Yuan Shao turned Guanzhong upside down but didn't find a single hair. Everyone now found an outlet to vent their anger and accused Yuan Shao of having problems with his political stance and not looking carefully enough. Even Liu Biao, who was on the verge of death, wrote a letter to Yuan Shao begging him to pay more attention.

There was a reason why everyone suspected Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao was from the same faction as the former general and uncle of the emperor, He Jin. His natural position was with the young emperor Liu Bian. Even though the grass on the young emperor's grave was three feet high, it could not wash away Yuan Shao's natural political attributes.

After Dong Zhuo entered the capital, he deposed the young emperor and enthroned the prince Xie, which caused a conflict of position with Yuan Shao, who did not support the emperor supported by Dong Zhuo. Therefore, Yuan Shao had reason to be careless in finding the emperor.

Some people even suspected that Ma Teng was able to kill Guo Si and invade Chang'an. How could Yuan Shao, with so many soldiers and generals, not be able to defeat Li Cui? He must have let Li Cui go or even sent people to sneak into Guanzhong to murder the emperor and then put the blame on Ma Teng.

Faced with these suspicions and accusations, Yuan Shao felt bitter.

The disappearance of the emperor has nothing to do with me. You don't suspect Ma Teng, but me. Besides, Hangu Pass is your home, so you can attack whenever you want. The number of generals who can pass Hangu Pass in history can be counted on one's fingers. Although my family is powerful, I, Yuan Shao, don't have the ability to pass Hangu Pass quickly.

The situation was that everyone was blaming Yuan Shao while looking for a reliable person among the royal family to serve as the mascot.

The first conditions are that he cannot be too old and his mind cannot be too complicated (easy to control), and the wife cannot have a prominent background (power struggle among relatives by marriage). The most important point is that all the princes in the world must recognize him, even if it is just for show.

However, the ministers had an extremely deep psychological trauma towards the emperors of the Han Dynasty who came from unconventional families, or it could be said that most of the emperors of the Han Dynasty were not easy to deal with.

For example, Emperor Wen pretended to be a grandson and survived Empress Lü's reckoning. After being made emperor by ministers with military merit, he quietly seized power. Another example is Emperor Xuan, who was first imprisoned and then grew up in the market. He also pretended to be a grandson in front of Huo Guang. After Huo Guang's death, the cause of Empress Xu's death was exposed. Huo was so confused that he planned to rebel and his three clans were exterminated. Only Empress Huo survived and died of depression soon after...