Judging from the division of the political camp of the Han Dynasty today, in terms of the relationship between Liu Dai and Yuan Shao, Yanzhou can be regarded as belonging to Yuan Shao's camp. However, those old and powerful officials of Yanzhou counties, such as Zhang Miao, Bao Xin and others, were unwilling to obey the orders of an assassin who had been parachuted in from elsewhere. Liu Dai's death fully illustrates this point.

However, even if Liu Dai died in battle, Yuan Shao's influence in Yanzhou was still not small. Although Yuan Shu also wanted to meddle in Yanzhou's affairs, before eliminating or defeating Liu Biao, Yuan Shu could not focus his attention on Yanzhou for the time being. If you don't want to turn your face with Yuan Shao, who occupies most of Jizhou, Zhang Miao, Bao Xin and others must give Yuan Shao a face in the appointment of the new assassin. Therefore, the new Yanzhou assassin must also be a person on Yuan Shao's side.

In addition, the new assassin must be able to take office immediately, and he must also be able to effectively command the allied forces of the counties against the Yellow Turbans. The Yellow Turban Army was right in front of them, and the momentum was not small. The officers and men in the army will not pay attention to all kinds of dirty and conspiracy between the officials of various counties. Due to the death of the Yanzhou assassin, the morale of the low-level soldiers was greatly affected. If the Yanzhou army is still as it is now, scattered and fighting on its own, I am afraid that it will inevitably be defeated in the end.

There are not many people in the world who meet so many conditions at the same time. But now in the army of Yanzhou, there is such a person. The best candidate is:

- Cao Cao.

Cao Cao is Yuan Shao's cronies, he was born in the Cao family in Qian County, and his father Cao Song served as the third duke, which can be described as the son of a famous family. He served as a magistrate in Yanzhou and had good personal relations with many of the state's county officials. In particular, Zhang Miao and Bao Xin admired Cao Cao's talents.

Although Zhang Miao really wanted to sit on the throne of Yanzhou's assassin history, he also knew that with Yuan Shao's opposition, this matter was unrealistic. And. With Zhang Miao's military talent, even he himself was not confident that he would be able to defeat the Yellow Turban Army and stabilize the situation in Yanzhou. So he retreated, and when Cao Cao's soldier Cao Peng Chen Gong came to lobby Zhang Miao, Zhang Miao simply agreed, and together they recommended Cao Cao to be the assassin of Yanzhou.

As for Bao Xin. His military capabilities are enough. But among the Yanzhou scholars, Bao Xin, who is keen on martial arts, is not a prestigious candidate for the state assassination. With Bao Xin's background, most of the Yanzhou scholars would not submit to him. Bao Xin himself knew this, and did not consider the possibility of his own ascension to power at all, but fully supported Cao Cao's coming to power.

In this way, with the strong support of Zhang Miao and Bao Xin, two powerful state and county officials, and the officials who were originally subordinate to Liu Dai, Zhizhong and Beijia also expressed their approval, and Cao Cao finally became the assassin of Yanzhou. For Cao Cao. Becoming the history of Yanzhou not only allowed him to get sufficient territory and development space, but also had a special effect. That is:

Cao Cao finally became independent from Yuan Shao's subordinates and became an ally of relative equal status.

Yuan Shao's appointment to Cao Cao can be described as both happy and worried. The joy is that his own person Cao Cao served as the assassin of Yanzhou, which prevented Yanzhou from falling to Yuan Shu's side. As for the worries, Cao Cao's position as the assassin did not come from Yuan Shao's appointment, but from the private recommendation of the Yanzhou officials. With that. Since then, Cao Cao has been qualified on certain issues. Say "no" to Yuan Shao.

For the latter point, Xu You sees it most clearly. He said to Yuan Shao:

"Today, Mengde is full of feet, like a fish into the sea, swimming freely, no longer bound by people!"

After listening to Xu You's evaluation, Yuan Shao smiled slightly. I do not make an indication. Subsequently, in the name of the general of the chariot cavalry, he sent an official letter from the front tent against Gongsun Zhan's army, congratulating Cao Cao on becoming the assassin of Yanzhou.

Cao Cao was promoted. That's a good thing. However, whether he can continue to do this assassin still depends on the outcome of the next battle against the Yellow Turban.

At that time, the Yellow Turban Army was dragged by the Yanzhou Army and could not scatter and prey, and there was already a serious food shortage. The command of hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban Army is extremely complicated, and Zhang Rao, Lou Yi, and Yu Poison alone are completely unable to effectively control the situation.

As a result, Zhang Rao, Lou Yi, and Yu Poison also began to cause contradictions due to some small frictions caused by problems such as the uneven distribution of spoils among their subordinates. If it weren't for the previous results of killing Liu Dai, the assassin of Yanzhou, the Yellow Turban Army would be greatly encouraged, and I am afraid that the Yellow Turban Army in Qing, Xu, and Yanzhou would have to separate from each other and go their own way.

Cao Cao was not carried away by the happy event of being promoted to the assassin of Yanzhou. He was well aware of the military strength of both the enemy and us, and after taking office in danger, he changed Liu Dai's previous strategy of taking the initiative to attack, and began to play a war of attrition with the Yellow Turban Army. This tactic seems to be negative, but in fact, it just hit the weakness of the Yellow Turban Army, which can be described as extremely clever.

On the side of the Yanzhou coalition army, there are examples of Liu Dai's previous deaths, and no one dares to say that Cao Cao's approach is too conservative. During this period, the Yellow Turban Army repeatedly stormed the positions of the Yanzhou Army, and Cao Cao led the elite of his headquarters to fight fires everywhere, successfully thwarted the many attacks of the Yellow Turban Army, and also saved the battalions of Bao Xin and Ying Shao. Relying on such merits, Cao Cao further strengthened his prestige in Yanzhou.

In this way, time passed, and the Yellow Turban Army was finally about to run out of food. The high-ranking members of the Yellow Turban Army, who lacked military literacy, actually spread the news, which caused hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban Army soldiers to be in great turmoil. At this time, Cao Cao sent a small party to exaggerate the lack of food in the Yellow Turban Army and hit the morale of the Yellow Turban Army; On the one hand, he contacted some of the Yanzhou-born Yellow Turban Marshals, and used the insolence of the Bingzhou assassin as an example to lure them to surrender.

Cao Cao's two-pronged approach quickly achieved excellent results. Seeing that the situation was becoming more and more critical, several opportunistic elements who were already mixed in the ranks of the Yellow Turban Army accepted Cao Cao's surrender. Under the strategy of internal response, Cao Cao personally led the Yanzhou army to make a big move, and in just one battle, hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban troops were defeated by serious shaking of their fighting spirit!

The Yellow Turban Army, which was in trouble, broke out at this time and caused by too many people. Zhang Rao, Lou Yi, and Yu Poison had their own plans, and they disagreed on the military discussion, so they actually fought. Fortunately, the three of them had their own scruples in their hearts and did not make a big deal out of it. However, in this way, the cooperation between the three cannot continue.

This split made the situation of the Yellow Turban Army even worse.

Cao Cao is worthy of a generation of masters in the art of war, he seized this opportunity, first chased and beat the Yellow Turban Army of the Yu Poison Department who wanted to persist in the battle, forcing the Xiao Marshal of the Yu Poison Department to flee and surrender one after another. Yu Poison himself saw that he was no longer able to return to the sky, so he had to take more than 200 cavalry with his personal guard, break away from the defeated main army, abandon the foundation of Yanzhou, and go north to join his past companion - Insolence.

Next, Cao Cao viciously drove the surrendered Yanzhou Yellow Turban Army as the vanguard, and turned to besiege the Xuzhou Yellow Turban Army in Louyi. Due to the vigorous attack of Xuzhou Thorn Shi Taoqian, the Xuzhou Yellow Turban Army had the smallest number among the three parts. But also because of Tao Qian's blow, the Xuzhou Yellow Turban Army that survived was the most elite. However, at this time, in the face of the coercion of Cao Cao's army, Lou Wei, who felt that there was no way out, led the whole army to surrender to Cao Cao in humiliation after receiving the assurance of Cao Cao's envoy.

The annihilation of friendly forces immediately made Zhang Rao feel alone. The Qingzhou Yellow Turban Army, which was terrified, was quickly pursued by Cao Cao, completely losing the prestige of the previous killing of the Yanzhou Prefecture officials. In the end, except for Zhang Rao who fled Yanzhou with more than 10,000 young people, entered the territory of Yuzhou, and joined the Yuzhou Yellow Turban Army, the rest of the population was heavy and was captured by Cao Cao!

After the battle, excluding the parts killed and fleeing, Cao Cao successively surrendered the Qingxu Yellow Turban Army, and the number reached as many as 200,000. Among them, there are a lot of young and strong, no less than 50,000. With this great victory, Cao Cao immediately announced to the world that Yanzhou had defeated more than 300,000 soldiers and more than 100,000 men and women, in order to boost morale and boast of martial arts.

This kind of exaggeration in good news is a normal phenomenon of soldiers. According to the consistent tradition of the Han army, if there is a first-level beheading report internally, it can be exaggerated to the fifth level externally, and its intention is to deter the enemy and inspire oneself. Of course, in some of the closer forces, Cao Cao would not deliberately conceal the true battle report.

Although it successfully defeated the main force of the Yellow Turban Army, Yanzhou experienced this battle, and many states and counties became dilapidated. In particular, due to the threat of war, civilians have died in many places, and many of the survivors have become displaced people, migrating and fleeing to other more stable states and counties. In the case of a large decline in the population, those who surrendered to the Yellow Turban population became the main labor force to restore Yanzhou's farming.

Cao Cao won this battle, and the big counties contributed a lot. Therefore, the 200,000 people captured from the Yellow Turban Army, he could not swallow it alone.

At the meeting to discuss the division of the spoils, Cao Cao knew very well how much he could eat, but he was also generous, and gave up the bulk of the captives and distributed them to the counties according to the size of their contribution in the battle, and he only took 40,000 people, including 10,000 young people. His generous behavior made the Yanzhou officials who had received real benefits very satisfied. With the unanimous support of the state and county officials, Cao Cao's rule in Yanzhou really became stable.

took the benefits given by Cao Cao, and the officials of various states and counties quickly repaid Cao Cao with facts. The news of the death of Liu Dai, the assassin of Yanzhou, reached Dong Zhuo's ears, and immediately became a powerful means for Dong Zhuo to divide the world's corporals. Just when the Yanzhou Yellow Turban Army had just been wiped out, Shi Jinshang, the new Yanzhou assassin appointed by the imperial court, also set foot on the land of Yanzhou.

Jin Shang is a member of Jingzhao, who is elegant and elegant, and is another famous person in the world. His ancestor is the famous minister of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the prince of the Huns, Jin Riyan, who can be said to be a famous family.

Based on Jin Shang's evaluation in Shilin, if Cao Cao had not ascended the throne in advance, the Yanzhou officials might have unanimously welcomed the arrival of this famous man. However, since Cao Cao is here and he is still in a secure position, Jin Shang should not come.

Therefore, after Jin Shang set foot on the land of Yanzhou, he was greeted not by a large group of soldiers, but by a team of county soldiers wearing armor and holding halberds. (To be continued......)

PS: I almost forgot to update, sweat first.