Xuzhou, Wei Yan and Sun Jian's army still failed to stop Xiahou Yuan after all.

Xiahou Yuan led the army under his command for five hundred miles in three days and five hundred miles in six days, and even though he lost a small part of his troops under Wei Yan's careful ambush, he still managed to get rid of Wei Yan's pursuit without danger.

At the same time, Lu Bu, who was in Xiapi, learned the news that Cao Cao had sent troops to Qingzhou, and he was very anxious. Although Chen Gong dissuaded him from the idea of going back to support immediately, he was still uncertain and had no intention of attacking Xiapi at all.

Hearing the news of Xiahou Yuan's return, Lu Bu's heart became even more manic: "Gongtai, Xiahou Yuan has already led the army to help, we will definitely not be able to take Picheng now, let's retreat to Qingzhou!" ”

Chen Gong sighed lightly in his heart when he saw Lu Bu's thoughtful appearance. As the master of the people, he has no courage at all, greedy for stability, and does not seek progress.

Qingzhou left more than 40,000 defenders, and with Cao Cao's strength in Yanzhou, unless he poured out, he would definitely not lose. As long as Cao Cao's brain is fine, he will never do this. But the truth has been exhausted, and Lu Bu is still bent on retreating.

"The lord is retreating now, don't you want the rest of Yuan Highway's gifts? Now our army has besieged the city of Pi for more than ten days, and the defenders in the city have suffered heavy losses. As long as the lord holds on for a few more days, he will definitely be able to take it. ”

"The lord is brave and invincible, and the siege of the city cannot be carried out, but the land battle against Xiahou Yuan should be easily solved. Lord, this is a God-given opportunity, and it must not be removed! ”

Lu Bu was already tired of hearing this, and said dissatisfiedly: "But this Pi city wall is high and strong, and Cao Zixiao is even more guarded, so it is really difficult for us to take it!" If the army under Cao Cao's command is allowed to wreak havoc on our territory, will the efforts of the past six months be in vain? It's better to retreat as soon as possible and find another way! ”

Chen Gong still wanted to persuade, but Lu Bu's patience had already been exhausted by him, and he said directly to the generals: "This matter is so decided, I will withdraw the army first, and don't give up when I come to take the new two counties of Xuzhou in the future, and I will take Xuzhou again in the future!" ”

Lu Bu himself is a character who is a little rich and peaceful, and he is already very satisfied to have a state to protect himself. Although it was a pity to lose the money promised by Yuan Shu, he was already very satisfied with the land of two counties.

When Chen Gong saw Lu Bu like this, he sighed and stomped his feet helplessly. However, what Lu Bu said also has some truth, with Cao Ren here, it will be difficult to capture Xiapi after all, and it is not a correct choice to withdraw the army at this time. But strategically, withdrawing at this time would mean ceding the position of overlord of the Central Plains to Cao Cao.

Without the capture of Xiapi, the two counties of Xuzhou could not be held at all, and they had to be recaptured by Cao Cao when he recovered his strength.

This place in Xuzhou is like this, a place where soldiers must fight, but it is flat and difficult to defend. Historically, Sun Quan was so close to Xuzhou, but he basically didn't have the idea of fighting here, because he understood that it was not difficult for him to conquer Xuzhou, but he couldn't hold it.

With a small cavalry under his command, he attacked this place completely at the expense of his own troops. So the focus of his attack has always been Hefei, and he sent troops to attack Hefei five times, and Cao Wei fell to the death in this place.

Hefei and Xuzhou are completely different, this place is close to the Yangtze River and Nanjing, and only by occupying this place can we ensure that we have the danger of the Yangtze River without worry, and occupy the initiative to attack and retreat.

Moreover, this place is located between the Huai River and the Yangtze River, and if Sun Quan occupies this place, he can push the battlefield to the Huai River, which is an extra layer of natural danger. Soochow relied on the naval army, and the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River were its best battlefields.

Everything was as Xi Zhicai expected, Lu Bu directly extinguished his mind to take down Xiapi when he heard the news of Xiahou Yuan, and turned around and went back to Qingzhou directly.

And Sun Jian and Wei Yan, who were under Yuan Shu, saw that they had no advantage to take advantage of, and they also directly chose to retreat to Jiangdong.

For a time, except for Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao who were dealing with some problems in Yizhou and Merging Prefectures, the princes of the world all died down and began to develop with all their might, waiting for the start of the next war.

In this battle of the Central Plains, Cao, Liu, and Lu all had their own gains, but compared to Cao Liu's heavy losses, Lu Bu had almost no damage. But this thing is stupid not to take advantage of this to defeat Xuzhou, leaving Cao Cao with a place to breathe.

Cao Cao also took advantage of this to become the largest prince in the Central Plains, sitting on the two states of Yanxu and Xu, separating Liu Bei and Lü Bu, and occupying an absolute advantage. Once he eases up, he can quickly take Lu Bu, and then slow down Yuzhou.

......

Jinling, looking at the information sent by Guo Jia from Yizhou, Yuan Shu only felt a heartache.

"Liu Yan is really a pig! A good country of abundance has been tossed like this! ”

Liu Yan doesn't care about the development of Yizhou, he only cares about the power he holds, so he doesn't know much about the development of Yizhou for so long.

And when Guo Jia counted the tax situation in Yizhou in the past few years from the Yizhou Fuku, he immediately found that there was a lot of greasy.

People in this era are still relatively simple, and the level of making false accounts is quite low. After a little rough calculation using the new calculation method provided by Yuan Shu, Guo Jia knew that more than seventy percent of Yizhou's taxes on the bright side had been hacked by the family in recent years.

It's no wonder that Liu Yan can only afford to raise an army of 30,000, he is really poor! Not to mention Yuan Shu, even Liu Bei can take it out at will. It's just Cao Cao, a poor ghost, who can make a deal with him.

You must know that Yizhou is notoriously wealthy, and it is not at all comparable to the war-torn places in Yanzhou.

In fact, Yanzhou was not poor at the beginning, and in the hinterland of the Central Plains, it was only a step worse than Jizhou. I can't stand the fact that there are so many wars in this place!

Not to mention the Battle of the Yellow Turbans and the like, just the princes begging for Dong, four of the princes of the Eighteen Roads came from Yanzhou, and this place was chaotic to a certain extent.

In the battle of Guandu, Cao Cao was so poor, isn't it because the Central Plains was broken! Otherwise, Yuan Shao would only be two rich states in Jizhou and Qingzhou, how could he compare with Cao Cao's Central Plains?

Before the Yellow Turban, the Central Plains was at least twice as rich as Hebei. Before the princes fought against Dong, the wealth of the Central Plains was not inferior to that of Hebei. But when Cao Cao unified the Central Plains, the richness of the Central Plains could not be compared with Hebei.

Yanzhou was smashed because of Lu Bu's sneak attack and the previous war, Yuzhou was destroyed because of Yuan Shu's death, and Xuzhou was broken because of Cao Cao's revenge and Cao Liu Lu's three-way melee. Qingzhou, the only one outside the Central Plains, was also destroyed because of rampant gold thieves, didn't Cao Cao's Qingzhou soldiers come like this?

There are no tigers in the mountains, and the monkeys are kings. The wealth of Jizhou became famous on the basis of the Central Plains being destroyed. And Jingzhou's wealth is famous on the basis of Jizhou's being destroyed. Not to mention the wealth of Yizhou, Zhuge Liang probably doesn't know how incompetent Liu Yan's father and son are, so he can say that the people are rich and the country is rich.

But think about it, what kind of big enemy needs to be faced, the father and son, who have been developing completely, can make Yizhou, which has a population of more than 5 million, a population of less than 1 million, a population of less than 1 million, which is indeed powerful. No one could have imagined that Liu Yan's father and son could be so wasteful, let alone that the family in Yizhou could be so ruthless.

But fortunately, those families were all buried with Liu Yan, and Yuan Shu accepted all this after scolding Liu Yan for a while. After all, many of the nearly two million people lost in Yizhou actually went into the pockets of Jingzhou and Yangzhou, and Yuan Shu lost some money.

Now Yizhou is an empty shell, and Liu Yan's incompetence and many atrocities have made the people very recognized by Yuan Shu, and it is the time for Yuan Shu to show his strength. With so much cheap labor, it's a shame not to make good use of it.