Overall, in the Battle of Weinan, the coalition forces did not pose much threat to Cao Cao, and they were completely inferior in military strength and strategy.

[Cao Gong's answer afterwards]

After the Battle of Weinan, the generals consulted Cao Cao on many incomprehensible questions, and from his answers, we can see that Ma Chao and Han Sui lost unjustly.

Afterwards, a general under Cao Cao asked Cao Cao: "At the beginning, the thieves guarded Tongguan, and there were no defensive troops north of Weishui, so we did not go out from Hedong to attack Feng Yi, but confronted the enemy soldiers at Tongguan, and delayed for a long time before crossing the Yellow River north, why is this?" ”

Cao Cao replied: "The thieves occupy Tongguan, and if our army enters the east of the river, the thieves will lead the troops to guard the crossings of the Yellow River, and we will not be able to cross to the west of the river; I deliberately forced into Tongguan with heavy troops, and the thieves came to defend the south with all their might, and the defense of Xihe was empty, so Xu Huang and Zhu Ling could easily occupy Xihe. After that, I led a large army to cross the Yellow River north, and the thieves did not dare to fight with us for the West River, because there was an army of their two generals. Connecting chariots, erecting fences, and making passages to the south created conditions in which the enemy could not win. At the same time, it shows weakness to the enemy and paralyzes them. After crossing the Weishui, the deep ditch was fortified, and the enemy army should not challenge it, in order to make the enemy arrogant; Therefore the thief army does not build strongholds, but only seeks to cut the land and make peace. I agreed according to their wishes, and the reason why I did so was that they would be defenseless as they thought they were safe. At this time, our army is recuperating and recuperating, and once it attacks, it will have a tendency to be lightning fast. The way of using soldiers was originally not to stick to the rules, but to seek only one method. ”

At that time, every time the thieves arrived in a troop, Cao Cao was happy. The generals could not understand why Cao Cao was happy when the enemy's strength increased, and later someone asked Cao Cao why he was happy.

Cao Cao replied: "Guanzhong is a vast territory, if the thieves resist according to the danger and conquer them, there is no one or two years to calm down. Now they are all gathered here, although there are many people, but they are all at odds with each other, and there is no unified manager. In this way, it is easy to succeed in destroying the enemy, so I am happy. ”

[Excellent victory, wonderful battle]

Historically, the reason why Guanzhong is difficult to fight is not because the Guanzhong army is strong and strong, but because Guanzhong is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the defender has a great advantage in terms of geography, and even has the saying of "one hundred and two Qin Pass", so if you want to attack Guanzhong, you must first eliminate the geographical advantage of the Guanzhong coalition army.

At that time, Cao Cao pretended to concentrate his forces to oppress Tongguan, so as to mobilize the attention of the enemy, so that Xu Huang and others could easily cross the river, establish a forward base, and lay a good foundation for Cao Cao's follow-up operations.

According to the "Shanyang Gongji", after Ma Chao learned that Cao Cao was preparing to cross the river, he was ready to defend on the north bank of the Wei River and prevent Cao's army from crossing the river, while Han Sui proposed to "attack it half-crossing", and finally Ma Chao listened to Han Sui's advice, but as a result, Cao Cao was in danger and successfully crossed the river, which put the Ma-Han coalition army at a complete disadvantage.

Cao Cao's post-event evaluation: Ma Er is not dead, and I have no burial place", which shows Cao Cao's high evaluation of Ma Chao. However, I personally think that Han Sui's suggestion is not unreasonable, although Ma Chao's proposal is safe, it may not be beneficial to the Guanzhong army.

First of all, although Cao Cao personally led the army out of Guanzhong in July and approached Tongguan in August, Ma Chao and Han Sui had already decided to rebel in March, and then began to confront Cao Ren in the Tongguan area, from March to September, which was a great test for the grain and grass of the Guanzhong coalition army.

The long-term confrontation has consumed a lot of food for the princes of Guanzhong, including Han Sui, many people still come from Liangzhou to support, the supply line is even longer, and it begins to winter again in September, the logistics situation of the princes in Guanzhong is not very good, especially in the Guanzhong area after the rebellion of Dong Zhuo and the rebellion of Li Guo, a large number of people have been lost, and the people have fled before the war, the economic environment is definitely not good, in order to fight against Cao Cao, reinforcements continue to come, This was even worse for the logistical supply that was already in difficulty, so the princes of Guanzhong did not have the capital to fight a protracted war with Cao Cao.

Judging from the battle process, Ma Chao's attack still caused a considerable blow to Cao Cao's troops, but he did not take advantage of this opportunity to completely defeat Cao Cao, which is very regrettable.

After the Guanzhong coalition army lost its geographical advantage, the threat to Cao Cao's army had been greatly reduced. Although the Guanzhong coalition army has a lot of troops, only Ma Chao and Han Sui are relatively strong, and the other princes are weak and mostly rabble, and the military strength of the Guanzhong coalition army is actually not as strong as Cao Cao's army in the case of mixed fish and dragons.

Ma Chao, Han Sui and others also knew this, coupled with the pressure of supplies, so they asked for peace again, and promised to give up more benefits, Cao Cao didn't want to let them go, but in order to confuse the princes of Guanzhong, he pretended to agree This made the Guanzhong coalition led by Ma Chao and Han Sui greatly relax their vigilance, and even many people did not build a camp.

Later, Cao Cao even resorted to a "divisive plan" at Jia Xu's suggestion, and successfully separated the relationship between the two commanders of the coalition army, Ma Chao and Han Sui, which made Ma Chao and others full of suspicion of Han Sui, and the two could not work together in a short period of time, so at this point in time, Cao Cao issued a war letter and gave the coalition a fatal blow.

In the decisive battle, Cao Cao did not exert all his strength at first, but first used some ordinary troops to fight the enemy, and then suddenly sent his elite cavalry (presumably tiger and leopard cavalry) to win in one fell swoop. And the princes within the Guanzhong coalition army were still thinking about each other because of the relationship between Han Sui and Cao Cao, and they could not unite as one, so they naturally could not resist Cao Cao's fierce attack, and they were defeated.

It can be said that the princes of Guanzhong are far inferior to Cao Cao in terms of military strength, strategy, and play, and they have also lost their geographical advantages, and they have been unable to unite due to the other party's divisive plan, and it is inevitable that they will lose this battle.

The Battle of Weinan was the last battle that Cao Cao personally commanded in the north, and after the victory of this battle, Cao Cao completely controlled the central division of the original Han Dynasty, incorporated Sanfu into his sphere of influence, and also severely damaged the western princes such as Ma Chao and Han Sui, laying a solid foundation for Xiahou Yuan to pacify Liangzhou.

The Battle of Weinan was also one of the most representative successful battles in Cao Cao's life, and was highly regarded by later generations.

Note: If Cao Cao had maintained this level before the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Zhou Yu and others would have died an estimated 800 times.