Yan Liangwen and Chou were both defeated, which gave Yuan Jun a great shock!

To tell the truth, although the Yuan army was defeated in the Battle of White Horse and the Battle of Yanjin, it was not a miserable defeat. Although more than 10,000 soldiers were lost before and after, and a lot of war horses, grain, grass and baggage were also captured by the Cao army, these did not have much substantial impact on the Yuan army, which had a lot of soldiers and enough food. Compared with the two, the successive deflated of Hebei Shuangsha had a greater impact on the morale of Yuan's army and the prospects of the southern expedition.

Fortunately, this time, Yuan Shao's belief in the southern expedition to the Central Plains was unprecedentedly firm, and he was not shaken by the temporary defeat of Wen Chou and Yan Liang, and the belief that had been buried in his heart for a long time to win the Central Plains was not shaken. When Wen Chou Yanliang and the others returned to the camp to plead guilty, Yuan Shao did not punish them, but still entrusted them with important responsibilities.

Yuan Shao's move was not just because he needed to appease the army, and encouraged the soldiers to actively fight against Cao's army. The tolerance of Wen and Yan actually has a reason why it is not enough for outsiders. That is Yuan Shao's extraordinary affection for Wen and Yan.

Yuan Shao himself is actually a very strange and even contradictory person. For the blood relatives of the family, on the one hand, Yuan Shao can betray his relatives and seek righteousness, regardless of the life and safety of his uncle Yuan Kui, and advocate against Dong Zhuo, and he can turn against his own brother Yuan Shu for the sake of political capital and interests, and make revenge against each other behind his back. But on the other hand, for his four sons under his knees, or the blood relatives who have a direct dependency relationship with him, Yuan Shao is extremely spoiled, and they are all like pearls in the palm of his hand. This time, Cao Cao was personally confronted, and the military and political affairs of the four states of Hebei were in charge of his three adult sons and a nephew.

For the civil and military generals who serve under him, Yuan Shao also has obvious two-facedness. For example, Ko Yi, although Ko Yi led the absolute main force of the first camp to break Gongsun Zhan - Baima Yicong and Youyun Iron Cavalry, to help Yuan Shao win a decisive victory on the road to unification of Hebei, but in the end, Yuan Shao had no master in his eyes, and killed Ko Yi in disregard of the law and discipline. Let's say that Koji Yigong is high and shocking the lord, but in fact, it is not, what threat does Koji Yi have to the Yuan clan of the fourth and third dukes? On the contrary, it is more reasonable to say that Koji is arrogant.

But then again, Wen Chou and Yan Liang are not good goods who are humble. Why did Yuan Shao unify Hebei from the crusade against Dong Zhuo, and then to the current conquest of Cao Cao, but he has always been a cronie to reuse the two of them, and specially allowed these two people to enter the hall with swords and armor. The reason for this huge difference in attitude and treatment must only be Yuan Shao himself who has a plan and answer in his heart.

But the two defeats of Hakuba and Yeonjin cannot be left without an explanation in the end. So in the end, Chun Yuqiong, who served as Yan Liang's deputy general in the Battle of White Horse, and Han Meng, who served as Wen Chou's deputy general in the Battle of Yanjin, were both transferred from their original positions as commanders in the Chinese army. Chun Yuqiong was better, and was appointed as the rear military governor of Yuan Jun, shouldering the burden of guarding and dispatching grain and grass and military supplies. However, Han Meng was transferred to the deputy governor of the rear army, and he was full-time to escort grain, grass and baggage back and forth from the rear to the front line.

After a few days, Yuan Shao finally gave the order to cross the Yellow River to the north in the south.

The water gate of Liyang was wide open, and thousands of warships and boats began to ferry the main soldiers of the Yuan army and all kinds of grain, grass, materials and equipment day and night. Of course, only with the small tonnage ships made by these northern craftsmen to transport the entire Yuan army across the river, I don't know if it was dragged until the Year of the Monkey, but the huge team of people of the Yuan army had already built a pontoon bridge for horses and soldiers to pass near Baimajin, where the river was relatively gentle and open, in the past few days.

And Cao Jun has not been idle, these days he is busy relocating the people's materials between the north and south of the Yellow River to the south bank, and before the main force of the Yuan army completely crosses the north flow of the Yellow River, it is to give the Yuan army a vast area after the strong wall is cleared.

For a few days, because the Cao army never went out to attack and disturb the sniper, the Yuan army crossed the Yellow River south again with majestic momentum, Yuan Shao personally commanded the Chinese army, and the left and right flanks were led by two generals, Wen Chou and Yan Liang, and the three armies marched together, approaching the last gate of Cao Cao's guard of the Central Plains - Guandu Pass.

changed from the previous sharpness, but Cao Cao chose to close the door this time. Regardless of the many provocations and insults of Yuan's generals, and even Yuan Shao personally came forward to fight, Cao Cao ignored it.

Cao Cao has also been preparing for this battle for a long time. Although he did not accumulate sufficient food and grass and military supplies, nor did he train enough armed soldiers and horses, Cao Cao had a lot of strategic plans for this battle. Just like this Guandu Pass, Cao Cao had pinched Yuan Shao's strategy in advance that Yuan Shao would definitely choose to concentrate the main force to break through the middle line of the Yellow River and directly attack Xuchang, so he did not deploy defenses elsewhere, but chose Guandu, a key pass, to build defenses in secret.

There is nothing surprising about the original Guandu, it is just a Jindu connecting Hebei and Henan, and the geographical terrain is very ordinary. However, after several months of low-key defense by Cao's army, Guandu at this time was artificially built into a pass that was easy to defend and difficult to attack with local materials. Cao's camp was built on top of the sand pile, and the height of the sand pile not only ensured that Cao's army would not be flooded by Yuan's impoundment, but also made Cao's army condescending.

In such a situation of rapid attack, Yuan Shao, who has always cherished his wings, naturally would not make indifferent sacrifices. When the battle failed, the Yuan army did not send cannon fodder to test the defensive strength of the Cao army, but also set up a camp north of Guandu, and made a posture of confronting the Cao army to the end.

Although there was a huge disparity between the two sides this time, with Yuan's army of 700,000 and claimed to be one million, and Cao's army of 180,000 and claimed to be 300,000, Yuan Shao's decision was very much in line with his previous combat style -- fighting steadily and steadily, step by step.

……

Half a month later, the battle report on the front line of the Yellow River reached Liu Bei and Zhang Xiu at the same time.

Although the news of Yuan Cao's battle was known to Liu Bei and Zhang Xiu at the same time, this is not to say that the intelligence networks of Liu Bei and Zhang Xiu were equally developed, but because Liu Bei and Zhang Xiu were in the same place when they got the news.

Although it had already been decided that Cao Cao would use Zhang Xun's Huainan soldiers as the main force in this campaign, Zhang Xiu did not think that Liu Bei would be easily fooled. After all, Zhang Xun was once a veteran of Yuan Shu, and his relationship with Liu Bei Group has never been good. Although it is said that with Liu Bei's personality and temperament, he will never show the slightest hint of looking down on Zhang Xun, but loyalty and righteousness are unparalleled, Guan Yunchang and Zhang Fei, who has a fiery temper, may not necessarily give Zhang Xun a good face.

So in the end, thinking about it left and right, Zhang Xiu felt that it was better for him to take charge personally this time. After all, this expedition is a big deal, it is a big war that will determine the direction of the situation in the Central Plains in the next few years, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and even Liu Bei have personally put on the expedition, although Zhang Xiu has the intention of accumulating strength, but at this time he cannot completely stay out of the matter.

Liu Bei was nearly forty years old at the time, and he was said to be the year of confusion. And Zhang Xiu is only thirty and stands up, the age difference between the two is not small, and Liu Beigui has the identity of the emperor of the Han Dynasty, and Zhang Xiu is just a "horseman" from a Xiliang warlord, it stands to reason that these two people will not have much feeling for each other, but the fact is that since the news that Zhang Xiu personally led the army from Huainan to Pengcheng Huimeng to defeat Cao Kuanghan's great cause, Liu Bei personally rushed to the Surabaya to greet him, and ordered the Xuzhou civil officials to treat Zhang Xiujun's logistics affairs preferentially. However, Zhang Xiu issued a military order when he left Huainan, and he was not allowed to move the people of Xuzhou without permission, and even if he broke an ear of wheat in Xuzhou by mistake, he would be severely punished!

In order to welcome Liu Bei out of the city, Zhang Xiu also expressed his sincerity to Uncle Liu Huang, who was a generous corporal. At that moment, Zhang Xun was ordered to take full command of the army and set up camp outside Pengcheng City, and he only brought his own general Hu Che'er and three hundred Wuwei battalion guards to follow Liu Bei into the city to discuss matters. As for Zhou Cang, Li Feng, Cao Xing and other generals who never left with them in the past, this time they didn't bring one with them!

Liu Bei was also deeply shocked by Zhang Xiu's sincerity this time, no, Zhang Xiu was welcomed into Pengcheng, but Liu Bei directly arranged for Zhang Xiu to live in the same mansion with him, and withdrew the guards in the original mansion to the guards outside the mansion, and Zhang Xiu's Wuwei battalion guarded the mansion!

"I haven't seen it for a long time, but Commander Hu is getting stronger and stronger, I heard that the battle of Shouchun was the battle of Commander Hu, who cut off the life of the Cao thief and the evil general Dian Wei, and he was really a tiger general under the command of Wen Jin!" Liu Bei, who is well versed in the art of praising people, does not directly exaggerate embroidery, but touts Hu Che'er, who is half a step away from Zhang Xiu's side.

Hu Che'er is a Qianghu person, and the official dialect of the Central Plains is not very understandable, although he can also speak some Guanzhong Yongliang native dialect, but he is not good at speaking to outsiders, so he can only respond with an embarrassed smile.

So Zhang Xiu replied for Hu Che'er: "Where is it, there is still a tiger idiot on the side of the Cao thief, and after this fang is captured, there will be someone in the world who can still be called a tiger general." Uncle Huang praised him and thanked him for it. ”

Love will be favored, and Zhang Xiu, who is the main father, naturally has a light on his face. Although the words were modest, Zhang Xiu's demeanor was obviously proud of his freak general's strength and martial bravery. After all, the force is 500 catties, and traveling 700 miles a day is not blowing.

With face on his face, Zhang Xiu did not hesitate to praise Liu Bei: "Speaking of it, the generals under the command of Uncle Huang are more extraordinary, not to mention the two generals Guan and Zhang, let's just say that the general named Chen Zhi on Uncle Huang's side, although his appearance is mediocre, he ......."

A flash of lightning struck his brain, but Zhang Xiu, who suddenly woke up, suddenly trembled in his heart, and almost raised his hand to slap himself twice. What's going on, how can you say Chen's name?

Liu Bei did not have any change in his expression at the moment, and he did not have any special reaction to Zhang Xiu's sudden assertion. Even Chen Dao, whom Zhang Xiu mentioned, had a cold face, and even his eyebrows did not move at all.

Although there was no special reaction from the two opposites, Zhang Xiu still captured a hint of the unusual atmosphere. was thinking about how to round out the words that he would know the name of the hidden general Chen Zhi, but Zhang Xiu happened to see a soldier Liu Bei who looked a little flustered and nervous around him, looking at him and Liu Bei.

"Well, that guy at the door, which of your family and horses and which battalion of soldiers? What is the intention of sneaking around? Zhang Xiu suddenly burst into momentum, raised his eyebrows and pointed coldly.