In September of this year, Cao Cao personally led a large army to attack Lü Bu, and when he marched into the territory of Liang, he encountered the defeated Liu Bei and others, so they marched to Pengcheng together. When Zang Ba and the others learned about it, they led the crowd to join Lu Bu. At this time, Chen Gong suggested to Lu Bu: "You should take the initiative to meet the attack, wait for your work, and do everything you can!" Lu Bu said: "It's better to wait for it to cross the river and hit it halfway." In October, the Marquis of Pengcheng led the people to rebel, and Cao Cao slaughtered the city in Pengcheng. Then Cao Cao continued to march, and Lü Bu led his army to meet the attack. At this time, Chen Deng led the Guangling County soldiers to Xiapi and attacked Lü Bu from behind. Lü Bu fought against the enemy, and his subordinates captured Cheng Lian for Cao's army, so he led the crowd to withdraw to Xiapi.

There is information that Zang Ba led troops to aid Lu Bu at that time, but in my opinion, it is unlikely. First, Ju County, where Zang Ba and others are stationed, is far away from Xiapi, and it is unlikely to be in time from the distance; Second, Ju County belongs to the boundary of Qingzhou, and at this time Yuan Tan has occupied almost the entire territory of Qingzhou, just the part of Ju County, so he will inevitably take advantage of the battle between Cao Cao and Lu Bu to lead the army to recover Ju County. In this way, Zang Ba and the others will be unable to get out. Of course, this may be the main reason why they joined Lu Bu.

In addition, according to the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms", Zhang Liao was appointed by Lü Bu as the prime minister of Lu, and was leading an army to be stationed in Lu County (present-day Qufu, Shandong). Judging from the map, Lu County has penetrated deep into the boundary of Yanzhou, and it seems that it should be containing the troops from Yanzhou. This shows that when Zhang Liao was under Lu Bu, Lu Bu had already let him take charge alone.

Subsequently, Cao Cao and Chen Deng led a large army to Xiapi. At this time, Chen Deng's brothers were all in Xiapi City, and Lü Bu wanted to use this to force Chen Deng to defect, but Chen Deng refused to give in no matter what. Subsequently, Cao Cao wrote a letter to Lü Bu to persuade Lü Bu to surrender. Lu Bu had the intention of surrendering, but he persuaded Chen Gong and others.

The history books say that Lu Bu coerced Chen Deng's own brother to coerce Chen Deng to defect, and I think this is unlikely. Chen Dengming knew that his brothers were all in Lu Bu's hands, but he still had to lead his troops to help Cao Cao attack Lu Bu, and his position was already very clear, how could Lu Bu do more? I think the reason why the history books are written like this is nothing more than to reverse the image of Chen Deng's behavior of disregarding the lives of his family, and by the way, to beautify Cao Cao from the side.

Immediately, Lu Bu secretly sent Xu Yan and Wang Kai to ask Yuan Shu for help, and on the other hand, he led more than 1,000 horsemen out of the city to fight against him, but he was defeated and returned, so he couldn't hold out. Xu Yan and Wang Kai went to Huainan and asked to see Yuan Shu, but Yuan Shu said: "Lu Bu didn't send his daughter here, he brought on himself to fail, what did he do when he came to me?" The two of them said: "If you refuse to rescue Lu Bu now, it is tantamount to self-destruction, and once Lu Bu is defeated, you will not be far from destruction." So, Yuan Shu reorganized the army and supported Lu Bu. Seeing that Yuan Shu refused to send troops, Lu Bu took his daughter to Yuan Shu at night, but met Cao Jun on the way. Cao Jun's bows and crossbows were fired in unison, and Lu Bu could not pass, so he retreated again. Lü Bu returned to the city, intending to let Chen Gong and Gao Shun defend the city, and he led the cavalry to cut off the Cao army's grain route. However, Lu Bu's wife spoke out to persuade Lu Bu to stop.

It can be seen from the information that Yuan Shu is still angry about Lu Bu's previous divorce at the moment, so Lu Bu did not reconnect with Yuan Shu before this. This piece of information was first published in "Heroes", and it is also included in "Zizhi Tongjian". I took a closer look and found that it was most likely fictional. As mentioned earlier, after Lu Bu broke off his marriage to Yuan Shu, the two no longer had the slightest relationship, so how could they ask each other for help again? What's more, Yuan Shuren is in Hefei, hundreds of kilometers away from Xiapi, not to mention the long distance, it is difficult to protect itself, how can he lead the army to the rescue? It is said that at this time, Yuan Shu's army was relying on clams for food between the Jiang and Huai rivers, and it was almost a problem to survive, so he had no ability to rescue Lu Bu at all. Moreover, the original text refers to Cao Cao as "Taizu", and when the author Wang Cang died, Cao Pi had not yet been proclaimed emperor. Therefore, most of this information was added by later generations, and its credibility is not high.

Lü Bu closed the city and held on, Cao Cao could not attack for a long time, and the soldiers were tired and planned to retreat. Xun You and Guo Jia advised Cao Cao not to give up, to continue the attack, and not to leave a respite for the other party. Then, Cao Jun dug ditches to divert water and Surabaya to irrigate the city. A month later, Lü Bu's whole army was even more embarrassed, so he centrifuged up and down, and his generals Hou Cheng, Song Xian, and Wei Xu tied up Chen Gong and Gao Shun, and led their troops to open the city and surrender. Lü Bu and his guards were trapped in the White Gate Tower, Cao's army was pressing on all sides, Lü Bu saw that the general trend had gone, so he asked the left and right to cut off his head to surrender to Cao Cao, and the left and right couldn't bear it, so Lü Bu went down to the city and surrendered.

Regarding the reasons for the rebellion of Hou Cheng, a cavalry general under Lu Bu, many sources are not quite the same, and it is obvious that this matter has an element of deliberate embellishment. I think the reason is because there was a shortage of food in the city at that time, and Hou Cheng and the others ate and drank heavily, for such a violation of military discipline, of course Lu Bu would feel very angry, and punishment afterwards was inevitable. However, the reason why Hou Cheng and the others chose to defect at this time was probably because they were afraid that after repelling Cao Cao, Lu Bu would punish them heavily, and might even behead them to show them to the public in order to correct military discipline. If it weren't for some reason, they wouldn't have defected.

In other words, it was already winter in November, and how could the water level in the river be so high that even if the embankment broke to irrigate the city, it would at most make the battlefield muddy, and it would not be as bad as the floods in summer. In this case, it is just that Lu Bu's cavalry cannot go out of the city to fight, and if he can't fight in the field, then Lu Bu can only temporarily defend the city.

As for the final defeat, the reason why Lu Bu chose to surrender instead of breaking through and leaving was because the battlefield was muddy and unfavorable for the cavalry to break through, and second, his family was captured by the Cao army. Let's say that when Hao Meng rebelled, Lu Bu didn't even forget to take his wife with him when he ran away, which shows that he was a person deeply influenced by Confucianism. The so-called, the wife of the chaff should not be abandoned! As for Cao Cao's later remark that "Qing betrays his wife and loves the generals' wives", I am afraid that this is another slanderous remark added by later generations. In that case, how could Cao Cao have the leisure time to talk about such a boring topic. In addition, when he was about to be defeated, Lu Bu would ask the left and right guards to cut off his own head, if it was not fiction, or he knew that he would definitely die.

The history books also say that Lu Bu fought three battles in the north, but in my opinion, this is not true. If Lu Bu really couldn't match Cao Cao, then why did he go out of the city to fight against Cao Cao after his first defeat? According to military common sense, when the army is invincible, he should stick to the city, right? "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" said: "Although Bu is fierce, he has no strategy and is suspicious, and he cannot control his party, but he believes in the generals." The generals were suspicious of each other, so they lost many battles. I'm afraid that no one who knows anything will believe it. People often unite in order to survive at critical moments, especially battle-hardened generals like Lu Bu, who know this truth very well, so in the past, they can always win more with less when the situation is favorable. If Lu Bu really lost to Cao Cao again and again, and was so vulnerable, how could Cao Cao never be able to capture a city defended by only a few thousand troops? Isn't Cao Cao Pingsu the best at commanding the infantry army, attacking cities and plundering land, why can't he capture it at this time?

Obviously, Lu Bu went out of the city several times to fight against the enemy, and he was basically using guerrilla tactics. Since there were not many cavalry in Lu Bu's hands, only more than a thousand horsemen, it was impossible to defeat Cao Cao's tens of thousands of soldiers and horses at once. Therefore, the tactic used by Lu Bu every time he went out into battle was to use the mobility of the cavalry to kill and injure the enemy as much as possible. In the process of killing the enemy, it is inevitable that there will be times when he is tired, so when he is tired, Lu Bu will lead the people to retreat to the city to rest, and then go out of the city to fight against the battle. At the beginning, Lu Bu fought for more than ten days with dozens of cavalry, and defeated Zhang Yan's more than 10,000 elites. And this time, the situation is almost the same as that time. Although Cheng Lian was captured in the first reverse battle, it did not affect the overall combat strength of Lu Bu's army at all.

In a battle, it is not a serious matter for a few generals to be captured by mistake. This may be due to Cheng Lian's whim, planning to gallop into battle, wanting to cut Cao Cao off the horse in one fell swoop, but was blocked by Cao Cao's guards, and then the surrounding Cao soldiers swarmed up, Cheng Lian was physically exhausted in the battle alone, and was captured by a group of Cao generals. However, the history books deliberately mentioned this point vaguely, just to highlight that Cao Cao was very powerful in using troops. In fact, Cao Cao's level of use of troops is not necessarily very powerful, which can be seen from the results of the Battle of Chibi.

The Battle of Xiapi, if it weren't for the sudden rebellion of the generals at the end, this battle would have been Cao Cao's return in vain, so the nature of this battle and the Battle of Guandu was the same, but it was just luck. In other words, the reason why Chen Shou wrote history too briefly was because he was afraid that if he said too much, he would lose it, and it was impossible for him to say something like "Lu Bu's defeat is bad luck", right?

There is a reason why Cao Cao will eventually execute Lü Bu, probably all the history books give the same answer, because Liu Bei said "Ming Gong did not see the cloth Ding Jianyang and Dong Taishihu", Cao Cao killed Lü Bu. This is simply a nonsense. What kind of person is Cao Cao, what kind of people are Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo, is it possible that Liu Bei is stupid enough to compare Cao Cao with these two? What's more, these are two unrelated things at all, how could Cao Cao kill Lu Bu because of such an incoherent word.

I thought, it's not necessarily that Cao Cao doesn't want to take Lu Bu, but someone else wants to put Lu Bu to death. Thinking that at the beginning, when Lu Bu was under Yuan Shao, he only had a few men and horses in his hands, but there were only dozens of horses, but Yuan Shao still wanted to kill him. The reason for this is just the word "fear of trouble". Lu Bu said to Cao Cao: "Ming Gong will step, and Ling Bu will ride, then the world is not enough." Lu Bu can say such a thing, which means that he knows that Cao Cao is well aware of his ability to lead the army, and even when Lu Bu came to Yanzhou, the two did work together. This can be seen from Cao Cao's later statement that he wanted to loosen the ties for Lu Bu, and it can be seen that Cao Cao acquiesced in what Lu Bu said. If Lu Buzhen was accepted by Cao Cao, then what kind of thoughts would Yuan Shao have?

In other words, Chen Shou wrote so fiercely when he was living under Yuan Shao, but when he was fighting Cao Cao, he wrote it as if it was vulnerable, except for the intention of beautifying Cao Cao, is there no hint of other aspects? I don't think I need to say more, you can also understand the reason.

Speaking of which, Lu Bu is actually a person with very simple ideas, and he hopes that the world can settle down as soon as possible, which is because of his childhood life, which prompted him to have such thoughts. But it's a pity that he has bad luck and is unladylike when he meets people, although he has the ability, he fails to succeed.

Conclusion: In the process of studying history, people often hope to learn from the successful experience that can be used for today's needs. However, the experience of success is not in the history books, but in our lives. Therefore, no matter how in-depth the study of historical books is, it is also useless, because it is simply a deceptive thing. The Three Kingdoms is a history full of intrigue and intriguery, insidious and cunning, some of which are only power tricks and strategies, but it is necessary to say what morality and righteousness, and things can be distorted to the realm of Rusi, which cannot help but be admired. Facts have proved that there is a way to live in troubled times, and there is a way to govern the world, and if you want to use the way of living in troubled times to govern the world, although you can temporarily get immediate benefits, it will cause endless harm. The so-called causal cycle contains such a truth. By reading this article, I hope it will help you think about life.