(Thanks to Dameng. Zhao Wuxiu 2014, ufgw, xiaodaidai, drunkenness, dreaming of death, you are not me, Bookworm 478)

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In the Battle of White Horse, Yan Liang was awarded the title of head; in the Battle of Yanjin, Wen Chou was defeated. He saw the door open and won both battles, which greatly boosted the morale of the Cao army. At the same time, it also aroused Yuan Shao, who had previously been full of confidence, and was furious, and ordered Chunyu Qiong to cross the river to attack Cao.

On March 22, Chunyu Qiong led a 15,000 army across the river and entered Yanjin.

Cao Cao's troops were deployed on the line of Baima and Yanjin at this time: Liu Yan's two thousand troops, Cao Ang's three thousand miscellaneous soldiers, Cao Hong and Guan Yu's seven thousand (original five thousand, with two thousand prisoners), and his personal lead of 3,000 central troops was exactly 15,000. Among them were elite troops, such as Cao Cao's central troops, Cao Hong's vanguard troops, and miscellaneous soldiers, such as Cao Ang's troops, and the newly captured Hebei soldiers. It is hard to say the outcome of the victory or defeat against Chunyu Qiong.

More importantly, once Yuan Shao's successor army arrives, he will be surrounded by Yuan's army.

The strength of the enemy and us is very different. Since we have achieved the goal of destroying the enemy's front, Cao Cao will naturally not just push forward.

In early April, Cao Cao decisively gave up the White Horse Front and retreated in an orderly manner. He retreated all the way through Wuyuan, Yangwu, Fengqiu, and to the edge of the Ji River. Finally, he had no choice but to retreat. He led the camp to a flat land southwest at the intersection of Ji River and the Kungou, which the locals called Guandu.

This place is only more than 200 miles away from Chenliu, the base camp of the Cao Family Group, and there is no way to retreat.

When Cao's army set up a camp at Guandu and made every effort to build the last line of defense, Yuan Shao's army also crossed the Yellow River one after another, landing from Yanjin and Baimajin respectively. Although the two generals lost nearly 10,000 troops, Yuan Shao, who still had 70,000 troops, was still more than three times as strong as Cao Cao. All Cao Cao could do was defense, wait patiently for opportunities, or fight back, or endure until winter, and finish the work. Cao Cao was not sure whether he could repel Yuan Shao, but judging from the current situation, it was probably no problem to win until winter. As for defeating Yuan Shao... Cao Cao never thought about it.

What Yuan Shao thinks the most now is to defeat Cao Cao, and it is best to capture this person alive and bring it to himself. Well, will he humiliate him at that time? Or should he show his composure and raise his glass to invite him? This requires careful consideration and think about it...

In mid-April, the Yuan army approached Guandu, and the two armies built a large camp through the gap, setting up obstacles, and creating attacking equipment.

At this time, Xiahou Yuan and Xu Chu's troops had joined forces. The Cao army had a force of 20,000, which was the largest force Cao Cao could gather at present.

The two armies confronted each other across the river, and their camps were continuous for several miles, especially the Yuan army. There were five camps, each of which could accommodate 20,000 people. Including the servants, there were 80,000 troops. The large and small camps were one after another. There was almost no end to it. It has to be said that this advantage in numbers gave Cao army a lot of psychological pressure.

Next, the two armies began to test each other, each with sentry to explore, trying every means to figure out the opponent's military situation and logistics route. At the same time, they sent small groups of infantry and cavalry to confront each other from time to time, three to five hundred today, one to two thousand tomorrow, and within a month, they will face more than ten battles, and they will win or lose, but they will not lose many troops.

In mid-May, Cao Cao received the first piece of information from Luoyang. The entire information was not written in a single word, only a few place names: Baima, Pingyang Pavilion, Wating Pavilion, Changyuan, Pucheng, Kuangcheng, and Pingqiu. Finally, a circle was drawn on the south of Pingqiu, on the side of the Ji River. Among these place names, a curved red line passed through it.

Although there is no explanation, with the IQs of Cao Cao and Xun Yu, you can understand at a glance what this red line represents.

Cao Cao was very happy at first, and then asked Xun Yu: "Is it trustworthy?"

Xun Yu asked back: "Ming Gong believes that Ma and Cavalry are willing to see us perished at the hands of Yuan?"

Cao Cao then stopped doubting and ordered Xiahou Yuan to lead 800 cavalry to attack.

Xiahou Yuan took the order and asked each of the 800 cavalry to carry a bundle of hay and a small jar of tinder oil to leave the camp from behind Guandu and head towards Chenliu. Yuan Shao saw it from afar and reported it to the camp. Yuan Shao only thought it was Cao's army's normal mobilization and did not care.

After Xiahou Yuan left the camp for fifty miles, he confirmed that he had escaped from the Yuan army's post. The whole army drove his horses eastward, from Junyi and Xiaohuang to Donghun, and circled a large bend of more than 200 miles. Then, the army turned north and headed straight for the Ji River. One day and night, eight hundred cavalry appeared on the south bank of the Ji River, and the other side of the river was Linji Pavilion.

Here, hundreds of servants have gathered like mountains of food and fodder, pushing carts, rushing carts, crossing the river from the floating bridge, and transporting supplies to the front line to stock up.

The sudden appearance of the Cao army's cavalry caught Yuan's grain protection team off guard. Before they could line up to resist the enemy, eight hundred cavalrymen were already under Xiahou Yuan's command, shooting towards him like a huge arrow and breaking in in an instant. Then, the giant arrow turned into a fire arrow, turning the floating bridge and grain chariot in front of Linji Pavilion into fire dragons.

Xiahou Yuan's raid was successfully achieved by a 500-mile raid. Yuan's army suffered heavy losses and was forced to give up this transportation route.

Soon, the angry Yuan Jun also retaliated.

At the end of May, the Yuan army general Zhang He and Gao Lan led a cavalry of about 300 people, and also bypassed a large bend, avoided Cao's army, smuggled from the upper reaches of the Honggu, and rushed to Chenliu. In one day, six pavilions were destroyed. When Chenliu's prefect Xiahou Yuan heard the news and led the army out of the city, the two generals had led the cavalry to retreat along the original route, leaving only thick smoke and a wailing village.

This time, Yuan's army raided the rear of Cao's army, which also shocked Cao Cao and Chen Liu.

In this game, Yuan and Cao seemed to be evenly matched. The consequence was that Yuan Shao began to consider choosing a secret and safe place to hoard food and fodder. Cao Cao was also shocked by Luoyang's intelligence capabilities. Only then did he realize how important it was to "provide intelligence" one of the terms of the secret agreement that he didn't care about at the time.

The two sneak attacks on the rear made both sides extremely careful and strengthened their vigilance. The patrol was released as far as a hundred miles away. This mobile battle would not be able to be fought for a while.

Unwilling to be lonely, Yuan Shao started playing a new tactic and fought a long-range harassment battle.

He asked the soldiers to build a high earth platform along the gulf, stretching a hundred feet long, and building a building on the platform, and then selected a crossbowman with strong arms to climb up the platform and shoot at Cao's camp.

For a moment, arrows were raining. The soldiers patrolled in front of Cao's camp and stood guard. The guards were all shot into arrows, and even the prostitutes, servants, servants and soldiers who went out to the river to wash were all affected. Under the raids, many people fell into the river and were swept away by the torrents, and some even ran away with the wooden basin with arrows while escaping. However, the wooden basin was too small to cover it, and they were caught in the arms of the legs and thighs, and they could not escape to death in the end...

Cao Cao had no choice but to evacuate the soldiers in the front camp. Could Cao Cao do the same thing and make the high platform look good? The answer is no. Because no matter what kind of high platform he built, he was within the opponent's range of attacks, building a high platform with the rain of arrows was no different from killing.

Yuan Shao is worthy of being a master of earth-based tactics: when attacking Gongsun Zan, he relied on drilling walls and making holes, using tunnel battles and fire attacks. He broke through Gongsun Zan's thousands of towers; when he attacked Cao Cao, he went the other way, built high platforms, and attacked arrows, making Cao Cao lose his temper.

It is said that Cao Cao had Liu Ye offer "Pi Li Chariot" and used the earliest stone casting tool in the history of Chinese war to destroy Yuan Shao's arrow tower, which was able to restore the decline. However, in this time and space, Liu Ye, a descendant of the royal family, could not be able to cast a local warlord no matter how he was. In fact, Liu Ye, who lived far away in Lujiang, had received the imperial edict from the emperor at this time, and was in charge of the General's Mansion and was preparing to go north to serve, and there was no possibility of intersection with Cao Cao.

Cao Cao, who did not have a thunderbolt chariot, was not only the Yuan army crossbowman who looked at the high platform arrow tower with his hands behind his back every day, the soldiers who were named by Yuan army arrows from time to time, and the increasingly fatal list of casualties in his hands, and was very depressed. Look at the time. It was only July, and there were three to four months left before the request of Ma Han. How can I bear it next?

What made Cao Cao even more worried was that there was not much food. The food support promised by Ma Han was not directly exported from Hulao Pass, so it could only be mobilized from Yuzhou. However, Yuzhou has been in a state of turmoil and it is difficult to raise food, so it has not arrived for a long time.

Just when Cao Cao was in a state of great anxiety, Liu Bei suggested to Cao Cao that he could use his relationship with both Han clan relatives to seek help from Liu Biao in Jingzhou.

I don’t know if it was Liu Bei’s sincere words and performance that moved Cao Cao, or if Cao Cao was in a hurry to seek medical treatment, he actually agreed.

Liu Bei suppressed his ecstasy and took Cao Cao's letter the next day and took all Baili soldiers and more than 100 infantrymen to the road, and entered Yuzhou from Chenliuyiwu. Since Liu Bei was the envoy, Ren Jun, the governor of Liang State, did not leave him to pass.

Xun Yu, who had returned to Chenliu to recuperate, heard about it and rushed to arrive in a ox cart. As soon as he entered the camp, he said to Cao Cao: "Liu Yuzhou will definitely not return."

Cao Cao was having breakfast and was about to call Xun Yu to eat together. He was stunned and stopped chopsticks when he heard this, and he couldn't believe it: "But Xuande's two righteous brothers are still in the camp. Could it be that he wants to abandon his brotherhood?"

Xun Yu shook his head: "Guan, Zhang Bi is not in the camp."

Cao Cao hurriedly sent someone to investigate, and the reward was that one of the two said they would go to patrol the camp and the other said they would go to pick the camp. They each brought dozens of soldiers and disappeared early in the morning.

Cao Cao threw a bowl on the spot.

Yes, Liu Bei defected and abandoned Yuan and Liu. The reason was that both the generals of Yuan army were defeated by his two brothers. With Liu Bei's understanding of Yuan Shao, he knew that everything could not be repeated. Killing Yan Liang could also be said to have attracted Yuan Shao's attention, and killing Wen Chou would be a slap in the face. In this way, it is difficult to guarantee that he would not be worn by a small shoe, and he might be held grudge. So he chose the master again and went south to Liu Biao.

Liu Bei's defection gave Cao Cao a heavy blow, which severely hit his confidence. Just like the Battle of Xia Pi against Lu Bu, Cao Cao was shaken again at the critical moment.

In mid-July, Cao Cao held a military meeting in the central army tent, discussing the feasibility of evacuating Guandu and retreating to Chenliu.

Most of the generals did not dare to express their opinions easily, but Xun Yu stood up to oppose: "Although the army is less food now, it is not as good as Chu, and the Han Dynasty is in Xingyang and Chenggao. At that time, Liu, Xiang Wu was willing to retreat first, and the retreat first was in a state of decline. The Duke was one of ten people, and he was guarding it, and he strangled his throat and could not advance. It has been half a year since his emotions were exhausted, and there would be changes. This is a strange time, and it should not be lost."

Cao Cao looked at Xun Yu and sighed: "Wenruo, you told me to grit my teeth again!"

Xun Yu said very seriously and bluntly: "That's right, can you bite it again?"

What else can Cao Cao say? A real man cannot say "no"...

When Cao Cao struggled to support Guandu and gritted his teeth and persevered for the last five minutes, Ma Han was like a prairie wolf, lying patiently on the side waiting for the opportunity.

On July 17, Yuan Shao appointed his second son Yuan Xi as the chief envoy, Xu You and Xin as the deputy envoy, arrived from Hanoi to Mengjin, entered Luoyang to contribute to the emperor and seek title.
Chapter completed!