【Guandu Confrontation】

After Cao Cao defeated Wen Chou, he took the initiative to withdraw his troops back to Guandu, and at the same time, Yuan Shao also garrisoned Yangwu, and at that time he persuaded Yuan Shao to say: "Although our army is numerous, its combat effectiveness is not as good as Cao's army; Cao's army was short of food and grass, and its military material reserves were not as good as our army's. Therefore, Cao Cao is conducive to a quick battle, and our army is conducive to fighting a protracted war. It should be planned for the long term and delayed. ”

As a result, Yuan Shao still did not take Fu Zhi's suggestion, but instead devoted all his military strength to a decisive battle with Cao Cao, and then Yuan Shao let the army advance slightly, camping according to the sand dunes, dozens of miles from east to west. Cao Cao also stationed his troops separately, opposite Yuan Shao's camp, and the two sides officially started a confrontation in the Guandu area.

At that time, Cao Cao's army had successively killed two generals under Yuan Shao's command, and the morale was booming, so Cao Cao took the initiative to attack Yuan Shao, hoping to take advantage of the situation to defeat Yuan Shao, but unfortunately did not win, in the face of Yuan Shao's full efforts, Cao Cao was forced to change from the attacker to the defender, retreat to the camp, and could not hold out.

Yuan Shao thus occupied the initiative in the attack, and after Yijing Gongsun Zhan's turtle Dafa, Yuan Shaojun actually had a very good set of ways to overcome the barriers, but Cao Cao was not Gongsun Zhan.

At that time, Yuan Shao's army first made high-rise buildings, piled up mountains of soil, and condescendingly shot arrows at Cao Ying, making Cao Cao's army miserable.

and shield them from arrows. In order to solve this problem, Cao Cao made a stone cart and fired stones, destroying all Yuan Shao's tall buildings, which was called a thunderbolt by Yuan Shao's soldiers. Later, Yuan Shao dug tunnels to attack, trying to enter Cao Cao's camp from underground, and Cao's army dug a long deep ditch in the camp to resist Yuan's army from attacking from the ground.

Of course, Yuan Shao also successively sent Liu Bei, Han Xun (also known as Han Ruo, Han Meng) and other generals to attack Xu Du, Liu Bei disturbed Cao Cao's rear in the Yuzhou area, Han Meng plundered Cao Cao's army of the west, but unfortunately was eventually defeated by Cao Ren, after which Yuan Shao never divided his troops to fight, when Liu Bei went south again, Yuan Shao only returned Liu Bei's original soldiers to him.

Although Cao Cao resisted Yuan Shao's wave after wave of offensives, the overall situation was gradually unfavorable for Cao Cao, when Cao Cao's soldiers ran out of food, the soldiers were exhausted, and in order to fight against Yuan Shao, they had to increase taxes, and the people could not pay heavy taxes, so they betrayed and surrendered to Yuan Shao.

At that time, Cao Cao formulated a new decree and issued a state and county to enforce it, which was much stricter than before, and the collection of cotton and silk was very urgent. He Kui, the Taishou of Changguang County, said to Cao Cao: "The ancient kings divided taxes into nine grades, taking the distance from the capital as the criterion, and according to the situation of attaching to the capital and controlling the chaos, three different criminal law standards were established: light code, medium code, and heavy code. I believe that Changguang County should apply the law according to the remote areas that were annexed later, and the taxes should be lighter and the laws and regulations should be lenient. Minor matters of the people are handled by local officials according to local conditions, and they do not violate the law of the imperial court at the top, and can conform to the hearts of the people at the bottom. After three years, the people settled in peace, and then the unified decree of the imperial court was implemented. Cao Cao approved this opinion.

In addition, Zhao Yan, the commander of Langling County, also made a similar suggestion to Xun Yu, it can be seen that under the huge pressure of Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's situation at that time was really critical, and even many people within Cao Cao's group began to secretly flatter Yuan Shao, preparing to leave a way back for themselves.

【Sun Ce's Worries】

However, just as Cao Cao was confronting Yuan Shao in Guandu, there was news from outside that Sun Ce, the small overlord who occupied Jiangdong, was said to be preparing to attack Cao Cao's base camp Xuchang and seize Emperor Xian, Cao Cao was worried about this.

Historically, the relationship between Sun Ce and Cao Cao was not bad, and for a long time, Sun Ce could be regarded as Cao Cao's half ally. After Yuan Shu became emperor, Sun Ce broke with him, divided one side in Jiangdong, and became a new prince, at that time he and Yuan Shu had broken with Yuan Shu in the north, and the west and Liu Biao had a grudge against his father, so Sun Ce naturally tended to be close to Cao Cao in the distance, in order to seek the support of the imperial court.

At the same time, the relationship between Yuan Shu, Liu Biao and Cao Cao is also not good, so Cao Cao also needs Sun Ce to contain Yuan Shu and Liu Biao, and it is inevitable that they will go together at the beginning. And in order to deal with Yuan Shu, the Xuchang court also ordered Sun Ce to lead troops to crusade many times, but for some reason did not make the trip, and later after Yuan Shu died, Sun Ce basically controlled his sphere of influence, and defeated Huang Zu, the power was greatly enhanced, and when Cao Cao and Yuan Shaoguandu confronted each other, Sun Ce was already one of the powerful princes at that time.

Of course, Sun Ce and Cao Cao were not without contradictions, at that time, Cao Cao's Andong general Chen Yu and Guangling Taishou Chen Deng's uncle and nephew both caused great trouble to Sun Ce, Sun Ce also had a demand for Xuzhou and other places in the north after controlling Jiangdong, and Cao Cao had a direct contradiction in interests.

And Cao Cao was also very weak in order to fight against Yuan Shao's hinterland, so Sun Ce had an opportunity to take advantage of, Cao Cao knew this, so he was naturally worried about Sun Ce's threat, and Guo Jia stood up at this time.

Guo Jia thought that Sun Ce was not worried, and he said to Cao Cao: "Sun Ce has just annexed Jiangdong, and all he has killed are heroes, and he is a person who can make people serve death. But Sun Ce is a rash and unguarded person, although he has millions of people, it is no different from him coming to the Central Plains alone. If an Assassin were to ambush him, he would be a one-man enemy. In my opinion, Sun Ce must have died at the hands of the Assassins. ”

Afterwards, Sun Ce died at the hands of the assassins before he could cross the river, and the attack on Xuchang was over. Guo Jia's prediction of Sun Ce's death is indeed a bit unfathomable, but it is not unprovoked, Sun Ce, as a generation of heroes, has pacified Jiangdong by himself and will inevitably be valued by other princes, and he himself is indeed a little rash and not good at guarding, Zhang Hong has long ago advised Sun Ce to pay attention to his own safety, and how Sun Ce's father Sun Jian died, obviously he had beaten Huang Zu to the bottom, and then he was the vanguard and killed the past to make a live target for the enemy. Don't forget the past, the teacher of the future, it is obvious that Sun Ce did not learn the lesson of his father Sun Jian. On the other hand, whether Sun Ce was really prepared to crusade against Cao Cao in history and march into Xuchang is also a matter of two theories.

At the time of the decisive battle of Guandu, Cao Cao was located in the Central Plains, and the external environment was much more complicated than Yuan Shao's, but fortunately, Liu Biao in the south was a master of the defense and had little ambition, although he had a general relationship with Cao Cao, but in the end he did not take the opportunity to send troops; And Sun Ce had already mobilized his troops, but he died at the hands of the assassins at a critical moment, and he could not crusade against Cao Cao at this time; Liu Zhang is far away from the Central Plains, and he is not ambitious.

God is undoubtedly still a little towards Cao Cao.