In October 199, Yuan Shao, who had been seriously ill for a long time, finally ran out of oil and passed away.

The people of Jizhou are very sad because Yuan Shaoping is always virtuous, and there are people in the alleys of the city who shed tears, as if they had lost their relatives.

As soon as Yuan Shaogang died, the judge and others made an edict, saying that Yuan Shao would leave his life and that the third son, Yuan Shang, would take over the position of lord.

Yuan Tan was not convinced, and raised troops to fight, while Yuan Xi and Gao Gan stayed out of the matter and remained neutral.

Although Yuan Shang received the support of Xianbei, Guo Tu and others, and mastered most of the military strength of the Jizhou Army, his personal ability was far inferior to Yuan Tan.

Although Yuan Tan only has one county, he has the strong support of the Qingzhou Army behind him, and he is equipped with a lot of crossbows and chain armor.

The two sides fought each other, but Yuan Tan had a slight upper hand, and the two brothers fought in several counties in Jizhou, winning and losing each other.

At the beginning of the infighting, Cao Cao chose to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight.

Later, Yuan Shang, who gradually lost the upper hand, was hungry and sent a letter to Cao Cao asking for help, hoping that he could intervene to mediate the war.

Cao Cao had been looking forward to this moment for a long time, and after receiving Yuan Shang's letter, he immediately sent troops to aid Yuan Shang.

Cao's army took Xiahoudun as the vanguard, and Cao Cao himself personally sat in the Chinese army, dispatched 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, crossed the Yellow River to the north, and rescued Yuan Shang.

At that time, Yuan Shang was defeated and retreated, and had already retreated to Wei County and defended Yecheng.

The Taishou Gao Gan of Bohai County and the Taishou Yuan Xi of Zhuojun were both watching and did not help each other.

Compared with Yuan Tan's combat power, Cao Jun's combat power was naturally extremely powerful, and after uniting with Yuan Shang, he easily repelled Yuan Tan, who had already attacked Yecheng.

Then the Cao army launched a counterattack, and fought in Wei County and Guantao, and pursued all the way, attacking Qinghe County, and approaching Yuan Tan's old nest Lanling.

Yuan Tan also sent a letter asking for help to his allies Qingzhou Army and Lu Bu, who cares about any past grievances at a time of life and death?

Although Cao Cao was unwilling to engage Lü Bu's central army too early, he now dared to contend with Lü Bu, and the Kwantung princes who fought against him were only his own forces.

Gongsun Du of Liaodong was in a corner of peace, and he had no intention of confronting Lu Bu at all, so he paid tribute to the Chang'an court early on, and was willing to defend the land of Liaodong for the Chang'an court.

The Qingzhou Army was basically Lu Bu's henchmen, and all indications showed that they had a deep relationship with Lu Bu's Central Army, which could even be traced back to the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

After Yuan Shao's death, the Jizhou army immediately fell apart, attacked each other, and became unsuccessful.

Sun Quan is far away in Jiangdong, although he is both a marriage and an alliance with himself, but he does not border with Lu Bu, so there is no need to worry that Lu Bu will attack him.

As for Liu Biao in Jingzhou and Liu Zhang in Yizhou, they are both mice-eyed people, dogs who guard success, how dare they be presumptuous with Lu Bu? Lu Bu didn't go to beat them, so they burned high incense.

They can only rely on the right time and place to protect themselves for the time being.

Cao Cao sometimes wondered why there was another Lu Bu since he already had himself in this era?

Moreover, Lu Bu's thoughts are always in front of him, whether it is to coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes, or to conquer from the north to the south, how can he not have these thoughts?

It's just that because of his strength, he will have time to implement it in the future, but Lu Bu has already come true step by step.

Now the Kwantung princes are left with themselves as Lu Bu's opponents, which means that they have no way out.

Although he has great strategists and military advisors like Guo Jia, Xun Yu, and Xun Yu to help, but manpower is sometimes exhausted, and in the face of absolute strength, all strategies and strategies are in vain.

Is this providence? Although Cao Cao was a person who did not believe in fate, he also felt that the longer he delayed, the lower his chances of success.

That's why he made up his mind to take advantage of the infighting between the Yuan brothers to deal with the Qingzhou army.

It is best to defeat the Qingzhou army in one battle, take the counties of Qingzhou, and cut off one of Lu Bu's wings.

Moreover, in this game of chess, Cao Cao, Guo Jia and others have already been laid out for a long time, and when the matter is approaching, they can only do their best to obey the destiny of heaven!

The combined forces of Cao's army and Yuan Shang surrounded the county of Qinghe County, Ganling City, and attacked day and night, Cao's army dispatched thunderbolts, and the city wall was in danger.

Yuan Tan once again sent people to Bingzhou and Qingzhou to ask for help, and promised that he was willing to submit to Lü Bu's Chang'an court and no longer stand on his own.

Xu Huang was actually ready to reinforce Yuan Tan, but he just wanted the two sides to consume more from each other.

Seeing that Cao's army was attacking urgently, he really helped Yuan Shang, and Lanling was in danger, so Xu Huang ordered Zhao Yun to lead the army to help.

Zhao Yun's army had already been stationed in Changshan, and as soon as Xu Huang's military order arrived, the army immediately set out.

This time, the reinforcements consisted of Zhao Yun's 6th cavalry division and Hao Zhao's 4th cavalry division, and more than 30,000 cavalry went to Qinghe County.

The Sixth Cavalry Division was Lu Bu's heart, so it was equipped with an artillery battalion in advance, and it was a reinforced artillery battalion with forty mortars.

The chariot regiment previously equipped with the heavy brigade of the 6th Cavalry Division has been abolished, and a heavy cavalry regiment has been added, which means that the heavy brigade has three heavy cavalry regiments, and the heavy brigade has also been renamed the heavy cavalry brigade.

As soon as the Qingzhou Army received Yuan Tan's letter for help, it sent 50,000 reinforcements led by Chen Zhi.

The plain is close to the Qinghe, and Chen Zhi has actually been watching the battle on the plain for a long time, but the tiger-faced military division has the same idea as Xu Huang, just waiting and seeing.

The Qingzhou army was the first to arrive, and when the Cao army saw the arrival of reinforcements, they suspended the siege and took a wait-and-see attitude.

When Zhao Yun's reinforcements also arrived, Cao's army simply retreated to the shell mound twenty miles south of Ganling, dug a ditch and built a fortress, and could not hold out.

After Zhao Yun and Chen arrived, they were puzzled by Cao Cao's behavior, and they didn't know what kind of medicine he was selling in his gourd?

After trying to attack once, Cao Jun was also equipped with a large number of crossbows and bed crossbows, and he was very tough when defending, and Zhao Yun didn't want to expose the existence of the artillery battalion too early, after all, mortars had not yet appeared on the domestic battlefield.

Just when the two sides were at a stalemate in Beiqiu, news came from Langxi County that a Cao army suddenly appeared in Linyi and pushed all the way to the north, marching very fast.

This Cao army quietly passed through Lu State, Taishan and other counties, and appeared in the hinterland of Langxi.

The Tiger Mask Army Division was also very surprised when he got the news, but he was not flustered, the Qingzhou Army has been built over the years, and the supply of troops is sufficient, and there are no less than 150,000 well-trained elite soldiers.

Although the Battle of Tiger Pass reinforced a lot of the Central Army, it was quickly replenished by relying on a perfect reserve system.

He mobilized 60,000 infantry from Langxie, Donghai and other counties nearby, and assembled in Zhengrong Valley, a major transportation road to Beihai and other Qingzhou hinterlands, under the command of the veteran general Liao Hua, preparing to intercept Cao's army.

The Tiger Face Army Division believed that with the 60,000 Qingzhou infantry commanded by Liao Hua, it would not be difficult to stop the Cao army, a partial army, for a period of time.

When Chen Zhi and Zhao Yun solve or repel Cao Cao's main force, this partial army will retreat, and when the time comes, they may be able to find a way to eat them!

However, I don't know if it was Cao Jun's secrecy work that was too good, or the intelligence department's branch in Qingzhou was negligent, and they didn't figure out the true strength of this Cao army.

(End of chapter)