Yuan Shu broke through the Tiger Prison Pass, and the soldiers came to Luoyang City, and the prestige was shocked. Although Yuan Shao was very angry about this, he was now fighting with the Zhang Yan-Gongsun Zan coalition army, and he couldn't spare his troops to take care of Luoyang's affairs, so he secretly instructed Cao Cao to make it difficult for him to deal with Yuan Shu.

Cao Mengde's previous strategy was to "regulate the south of the great river", that is, to develop along the south bank of the Yellow River when Yuan Shao occupied Hebei. After Liu Dai's death, Cao Cao led Yanzhou Mu himself, and quickly occupied Changyi, Suiyang, Chenliu and other places, he governed the army harshly, and almost won a hundred battles on the battlefield of the Central Plains, and his prestige increased rapidly.

Taishan thief Zang Ba and others were in awe and fear of Cao Cao, but because Cao Cao was too harsh in governing the army and the people, Zang Ba and others did not dare to surrender to the past, but attached themselves to Xuzhou Mu Taoqian. Cao Cao implemented the "scholar family system" in the territory under his rule, that is, the soldiers and their families were separately registered as "scholars".

Soldiers live in a concentrated manner and are directly administered by barracks or counties. At first glance, Cao Cao's "taxi family system" is very similar to the "government soldier system" implemented by Chen Chengyuan in the Xiliang border, in which men serve as soldiers, the father dies and the son succeeds, and the brother dies and the brother dies.

However, the essence of the two sides is still different, Chen Cheng is ready to use the line of government soldiers - tooth soldiers to select civil and military officials from all over the country. Except for some directly recruited scholars and heroes, most of the middle and lower-level officials must have a record of serving in the tooth soldiers in order to be appointed.

If you want to become a tooth soldier, you must either go through local selection, first become a county soldier, then become a government soldier, and finally pass the assessment and enter the tooth soldier system. Or wait for the state governor to not know when to issue an edict to increase the number of tooth soldiers, then there is no need to be so troublesome, as long as there is no violation of the laws of the Xiliang regime, everyone can participate in the assessment.

In Xiliang, becoming a government soldier was the way to the ruling class, and it was common to change from a citizen to a soldier, or from a soldier to an official. This was not the case under Cao Cao. A soldier is a soldier, and if he can be promoted to a middle- and lower-ranking officer, he must always serve. Those who can become generals and officials are all powerful and scholars in the state, and soldiers are actually slaves, and they will never come out.

Because it is located in the Central Plains, Cao Cao just gained a foothold in Dongjun, and began to form a large-scale standing army, with a total of tiger and leopard cavalry, five school battalions, etc. In order to prevent soldiers from fleeing, Cao Cao also formulated the "wrongful service system" and the "law of soldiers' death". Among them, the "wrongful service system" means that soldiers cannot serve in their hometowns, and at least they must be transferred to the next county.

The "Soldier Death Law" means that if a soldier flees, his family will be severely punished, or he will be executed, or he will not be an official slave. Once a soldier is enrolled, he cannot be separated, only if he has made military merits, can he be exempted from being a civilian, a person with special meritorious service can be knighted, and the son of a soldier cannot be an official.

Relying on such severe punishments, Cao Cao quickly raised a large number of troops, cleared the boundaries of Dongjun, and shocked the surrounding princes. Many heroes who wanted to make a difference in the troubled times joined Cao Cao's command, such as Xu Chu, Li Dian, etc., all of whom became Cao Cao's generals during this period.

In this way, the Cao Cao group was formed with Zhu Cao, Xiahou in charge of military power, including leading troops; Haoqiang is a middle and senior general, commanding the army; Scholars are civil servants and govern localities, such a system of government. This system was so efficient that it took Cao Cao only two years to become the pastor of Yanzhou.

Since he has received the Yanzhou pastor, Cao Mengde naturally wants to recover the entire Yanzhou first. When Yuan Shu ransacked the state of Chen, Yuan Shao secretly sent people to lobby, and Cao Cao immediately sent troops to annex the state of Chen, getting hundreds of thousands of people and tens of thousands of troops.

The people and army of Chen were resentful of Yuan Shu's killing of Liu Chong and Luo Jun, and they all joined Cao Cao's side. Originally, Cao Mengde also wanted to occupy Yingchuan County in one go, because Xun Yu, Xi Zhicai, Guo Jia, etc. under his command were all from Yingchuan, and it was easy to annex them, but considering that Yuan Shu's soldiers and horses were strong, and when he attacked Luoyang, Cao Cao was unwilling to bear the infamy of the scholars, so after annexing the Chen State, he did not move and waited to see the changes in the situation.

Sun Jian marched quickly and quickly killed the city of Luoyang, but the young men and grain around Luoyang had already been moved into the city. The 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers and horses that were withdrawn, plus the young men in the city, were even more numerous than Sun Jian's troops. Sun Jian attacked for three days in a row, but failed to achieve a breakthrough, but suffered more than 1,000 casualties.

Hearing that Sun Jian had been killed under the city of Luoyang, Yuan Shu was overjoyed, and requisitioned 60,000 soldiers and horses, plus the people who transported grain and grass and did chores with the army, a total of more than 100,000 people, known as 200,000 troops, were killed under the city of Luoyang. However, Luoyang is a strong city in the world, and the city is high and thick, so it is not possible to take it down with many people.

At the last moment, He Jin seemed to wake up from a big dream, he scattered all the money in the family, distributed his concubines and palace maids to the meritorious soldiers, and opened the treasury to reward the army, so the morale was restored. Yuan Shu didn't dare to go into battle before, but at this time he was in high spirits, and after arriving at Luoyang City, he deprived Sun Jian of his military power and unified it under his command of Yuan Highway.

The siege lasted for more than ten days, and both the attackers and defenders suffered heavy casualties. But for He Jin, it is better to die some people, which can save a lot of food. The general He Jin ordered the demolition of some palaces and houses in the city, and transported bricks, stones and timber to the city walls to resist the attack of Yuan Shu's army.

Luoyang City's arsenal and Taicang have countless supplies in reserve, and even if they are besieged, they can hold out for a long time. However, Yuan Shujun needed to transport grain from Yingchuan, Runan and other places. There are also many generals who led their troops out to collect grain, but they did not gain much.

The surroundings have already been searched by He Jin, where can I still find food? On the contrary, he fought many times with the robbers around him, and while killing many homeless people and bandits, he lost some soldiers and horses, and even the grain and grass were robbed by the robbers several times.

"I've never heard of anything like this!"

Hearing that the grain and grass were robbed, Yuan Shu was furious and furious in the barracks, "You fools, it's just that you can't fight, and now you can't even deal with some chaotic people!" ”

He shouted loudly outside, "Immediately send Sun Jian over!" ”

After waiting for a while, Sun Jian walked in with his whole body draped. Sun Wentai broke through all the way and killed directly under the city of Luoyang, monopolizing all his military exploits, and while winning great prestige, he also attracted a lot of hatred. You Sun Jian are so capable of fighting, doesn't it seem that other people are very useless? Now that so many merits have been made, should it be someone else's turn to capture Luoyang's military exploits?

Yuan Shu had previously promised Sun Jian the position of Nanyang Taishou, but after Sun Jian set foot in Nanyang County, he repented and gave the position of Nanyang Taishou to someone else from the Shi clan. In this regard, Sun Wentai, who has always been unruly and gloomy, actually endured it. This time, Yuan Shu deprived Sun Jian of the command of the front-line army, but Sun Wentai still endured it.

After entering the big tent, Sun Jian clasped his fists and saluted, and asked, "Ming Gong summoned me over, but you want me to lead troops to attack the city?" ”

He is a well-known brave general in the world, and he has been idle in the military camp for more than ten days, and he has long been unable to sit still. However, Yuan Shu said: "Attacking the city will inevitably damage more soldiers, Wentai is my confidant and favorite general, how can I bear to let you risk arrows and stones to attack the city?" There's one more thing for you to do. ”

Sun Jian was a little disappointed and asked, "I don't know what the matter is?" ”

So Yuan Shu said that there were thieves robbing the grain transportation team on the road, and asked Sun Jian to exterminate the thieves and maintain the smooth flow of the grain road. Sun Jian was even more disappointed, just a thief, where did he need Sun Wentai to come out? But he still obeyed Yuan Shu's dispatch and led his troops to attack the robbers entrenched in Funiu Mountain and other places.

Sun Jian is a fierce man who can even be defeated by the Northern Army, how can those robbers in the mountains be his opponents? Within a few days, more than a dozen cottages had been leveled, tens of thousands of bandits had been killed, and a lot of supplies had been seized. Hearing that Sun Jian quickly solved the problem, Yuan Shu was very happy, stroked Sun Jian's back at the banquet, and said, "I have Sun Wentai, who else can be an enemy in the world?" ”

Happy, Yuan Shu appointed Sun Jian as the assassin of Yuzhou on the spot, and the ruling office was set in Yangcheng. At this time, Yuan Shu had been stationed in Luoyang City for more than 30 days, and the veteran soldiers of the division were tired, even if Sun Jian exterminated the bandits along the way, but the food and grass in the army had not been enough to eat, and the number of soldiers fleeing was increasing day by day.

The appointment of Sun Jian as the assassin of Yuzhou is because Sun Jian's past contributions are too great, and it is impossible to say that he will not be rewarded. Second, he wanted to borrow Sun Jian's martial arts to break through Luoyang City, which had been holding on. Sun Jian was overjoyed when he got the position of assassin in Yuzhou, and said on the spot: "Ming Gong, please rest assured, I will go to rectify the soldiers and horses, and attack Luoyang in the coming day!" ”

However, just when Sun Jian led his troops to attack Luoyang, Yuan Shao, who had repelled Zhang Yan and Gongsun Zhan, appointed Zhou Ang as the pastor of Yuzhou after freeing his hands, and took advantage of Cao Cao's territory to lead his troops to attack Yangcheng. Yuan Shu's old nest Runan is in Yuzhou, and Yuan Shao's knife happened to stab Yuan Shu's vital point.

Among the generals under Yuan Shu's command, except for Sun Jian, none of them could fight, and in the face of Zhou Ang's army, the defenders of various places were defeated. As a last resort, Yuan Shu could only lead his troops to fight to the death and break through Luoyang with Sun Jian, who had just led his troops to return to the aid to resist Zhou Ang's army.

It was because of this incident that the two brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu went from secretly competing to openly tearing their faces, and each of them attracted a large number of allies, and officially started the fight. After Sun Jian broke through Luoyang, he was ready to continue to pursue the remnants of He Jinjun who had fled to the west, but Yuan Shu issued several military orders to return to Yuzhou.

As a last resort, Sun Jian could only give up the military operation to pursue and kill He Jin and return to Yuzhou with his troops. After returning to Yuzhou, the angry Sun Wentai played his usual brave style and personally led the troops into battle, but in just one round, he defeated the invincible Zhou Angjun and defeated it.

Seeing that Sun Jian was so brave, Cao Cao dispatched troops and deployed them on the border between Yanzhou and Yuzhou in case of contingencies.