In the sound of firecrackers "beep and beep", the third year of Guangzheng [200 years] came as promised.

After more than a year of rest, the arrogance of having a bumper harvest in last autumn once again began his march south to unify the whole country. However, the first to be attacked by insolence was not Yanzhou Cao Cao, who was guarding the Yellow River defense line and could be called the first to bear the brunt. Among the suspicious eyes of many people, Yuan Shu, who was located more south, was the first to suffer.

Well, things shouldn't seem too weird. After all, persimmons pick up soft pinching first. Compared with Cao Cao, who is good at governing the army, Yuan Shu, who is ambitious and talented, arrogant and extravagant, is a typical soft persimmon.

In the past few years, Yuan Shu has not fought any decent battles. He led his troops east into Yangzhou, but was resisted by Liu Bei, who was outnumbered, and could not cross the Yangtze River. He attacked Cao Cao in the north, but was defeated twice and returned. and his offensive against Liu Biao in the south, which was also repeatedly frustrated, but instead achieved the prestige of the fierce general Huang Zhong and the fierce general Gan Ning.

As for the last clear victory of Yuan Shu's forces, when was it?

That can be traced back to the time when Sun Jian did not break away from Yuan Shu's forces. After Lu Bu and Sun Jian broke away from Yuan Shu and became independent, Yuan Shu's weakness of not being able to train troops and not knowing how to command was fully exposed.

A guy with such a "brilliant" record, even if he claims to have a large number of generals, he feels no pressure to deal with it.

March of the third year of Guangzheng is the busy season for spring ploughing. However, it is a difficult season for those bandits who lurk in the mountains to make a living.

Last year, Hebei received a bumper harvest, but due to years of war, most of the canals in the Jianghuai region fell into disrepair, and only a small drought occurred, and hundreds of thousands of displaced people were created in the Jianghuai area.

When spring comes, the hungry people eat the last bit of food they have. There is no other choice. In order to fill the belly of hunger for a winter, thousands of bandits and homeless people hiding in the Dabie Mountains had to unite and launch a locust-like sweep against Runan, the foundation of Yuan Shu.

Under Yuan Shu's governance, Runan had become depressed. Years of wanton expropriation and extortion have bankrupted a large number of peasants. Struggling on the brink of death. Such a dangerous situation, provoked by thousands of bandits, immediately exploded like a barrel of explosives that fell into Mars, and it was out of control.

The leaders of these bandits are most likely the remnants of the original Yellow Turban. The two big leaders led by them were Liu Pi and Gong Du, who were defeated in Gepi but escaped by luck. With the help of displaced people everywhere, Liu Bi and Gong Du gathered no less than 100,000 hungry people in just one month. Its momentum is huge, and it is not under Zhang Mancheng's Yellow Turban Army back then, so that the whole world is shaken.

Since Liu Pi and Gong are both born in the Yellow Turban, they must be the same as the arrogance in the north. To say that the army of mutants launched by these two thieves has no arrogant support behind it, that is something that no fool will believe.

Because of this background, the princes of the world were extremely concerned about the Runan Rebellion, and regarded it as arrogant about to go south. A harbinger of attacking Yuan Shu.

Although Yuan Shu's current territory is still quite large, the distribution is somewhat scattered. From Nanyang in Jingzhou in the west, Jiujiang in Yangzhou in the winter, and Liu Biao and Liu Bei are still competing for Yuzhang in the south.

As long as you can understand the map, you can find that Runan County is not only the foundation of Yuan Shu's beginning, but also the key point connecting Nanyang, a major county in Jingzhou. If Runan is lost. Nanyang County in the west has become a lonely enclave, and sooner or later it will be taken away.

Nanyang County is the hometown of Emperor Guangwu, with many famous families, and has always been an important production area for important ministers of the Han Dynasty. From the point of view of wealth and population, Nanyang County is second only to Henan Yin, a century-old emperor. Although after many years of war. The prosperity of Nanyang has declined a lot, but the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and a Nanyang county is almost enough to be worth one-third of Jizhou.

Since Nanyang was so important, it was impossible for Yuan Shu to tolerate the fall of Runan. Moreover, although the hungry people's army of Liu Pi and Gong Du and others was huge and had a large number of troops, in the eyes of Yuan Shu, they were a group of local chickens and dogs, a rabble.

Yuan Shu believed that as long as he sent an army of 20,000, he could easily defeat these rebels who were seriously lacking in weapons and could only be replenished with sharpened wooden sticks.

It's just that the only thing that worries Yuan Shu in the quelling chaos is that the arrogance in the north took the opportunity to send troops. Therefore, when Yuan Shu sent out his troops, he repeatedly told Zhang Xun, the chief general of the army, to ask him to fight quickly and without delay. Once the rebel people in Runan were pacified, he immediately led his troops back to Jiujiang County to guard against the arrogant army in the north.

However, as soon as Zhang Xun's army of 20,000 started, the spies sent by Yuan Shu to Xuzhou immediately sent back bad news. Xuzhou Assassin Shi Xie Xun personally led 5,000 elite soldiers to Huailing in the south, looking at the posture to launch an attack on Jiujiang!

Upon receiving this news, Yuan Shu was shocked and immediately sent an envoy to ask Zhang Xun to suspend his departure and wait for further news from the north.

Then, just as Yuan Shu feared, two days later, the news came that the whole of Xuzhou began a large-scale mobilization to prepare for war. And Dongcheng County, Xiapi State, which was occupied by Yuan Shu during the war in Xuzhou years ago, also came with news that a large group of cavalry was infested.

Thinking of the surprise attack methods that Zhang Qi used to use, Yuan Shu became nervous.

He was afraid that Zhang Qiang would launch a large-scale attack on Jiujiang when he sent a large army to Runan to quell the rebellion, and quickly recalled the main force of Zhang Xun's army.

However, the Runan Rebellion could not be ignored. Otherwise, not only Runan will be finished, but Nanyang will also not be able to hold it. Therefore, Yuan Shu ordered Zhang Xun to send his lieutenant general Lei Bo to quell the rebellion with 5,000 men.

According to Yuan Shu's idea, although the 5,000 troops in Lei Bo's hands are a little less, it should be no problem to protect those cities that have not yet fallen. He didn't expect Lei Bo to be able to pacify the Runan thieves in one fell swoop.

Zhang Xun's return to the army was obviously quite timely. However, within ten days, Dongcheng, which was short of troops, was recovered by Xie Xun with his troops. And a large group of cavalry from the Zhao State [] army from the north also frequently moved in the territory of Jiujiang County.

There are even rumors that Zhang Qiang will personally command an army of 100,000 and go south from Xuzhou, first conquer Yuan Shu, who is not good at governing the army, and then turn back and annex Yanzhou Cao Cao.

Although Yuan Shu was arrogant, he didn't dare to be careless when he was arrogant. More than ten years ago, he had fought against Zhang Madness. At that time, although Yuan Shu occupied an absolute advantage in terms of troops, he was quickly moved by Zhang Qiang with elite troops, and each one was defeated. Since then, Yuan Shu has remembered the name Zhangqiang.

Later, Zhang Shu's achievements in the north continued to come out, which not only surprised Yuan Shu, but also made Yuan Shu unconsciously have a huge fear of Zhang Qi in his heart.

Originally, the territory of the two sides was not adjacent, and Yuan Shu was not very aware of it. But since Zhang Qiang captured Xuzhou a few years ago, Yuan Shu began to feel very insecure.

Otherwise, Yuan Shu would not have sent a large number of soldiers from Runan County to Jiujiang. The tens of thousands of soldiers originally stationed in Runan were all placed on the northern defense line, which made Runan quite empty, so that Liu Pi, Gong Du and other Yellow Turban remnants had a chance to take advantage of it.

Just when the eyes of the princes of the world were paying attention to the battle between Yuan Shu and Zhang Madness, the situation had a new change.

In mid-April, an army of about 6,000 Zhao troops crossed the Yellow River from Hanoi and entered the borders of Henan. Just when Yin Zhuhao in Henan was very nervous about the invaders, this Zhao Guojun, who was moving very fast, did not stop in Henan, but directly turned a corner and killed Chen Liujun in Yanzhou.

The defensive line established by Cao Cao in Yanzhou was roughly arranged along the Yellow River. Due to the great pressure from the north, Cao Cao had to devote more than seventy percent of his troops to the garrison of the Yellow River defense line.

Chen Liu was not the first line against insolence, and most of the county's troops were located in the area of Sujuo and Fengqiu to prepare the second line of defense. In this way, Chen Liucheng's defense seemed quite empty.

The Zhao army, which crossed the river from Hanoi, took advantage of a loophole in the joint defense line between Zhu Hao and Cao Cao, successfully and unhindered into the hinterland of Chenliu County, and launched a powerful attack on Chenliu County, the ruler of Chenliu County.

Although the generals of the Cao army defending the city put up stubborn resistance, the incident happened suddenly, and all kinds of measures to defend the city were not launched in time, and the troops were too weak, and this resistance was only formal. It only took half a day for Zhao's army to successfully conquer Chenliucheng, an important town in Yanzhou.

After the news spread, the princes of the world were shaken again.

Some people of insight also saw that Zhao Guo's attack on Yuan Shu in the direction of Xuzhou was actually a feint. The real target of the arrogance is still Yanzhou Cao Cao, who is at the forefront of his southward road!

At the same time as Chen Liu's fall, Cao Cao finally got the news from the extremely tightly controlled Hebei region that Zhang Qi had quietly mobilized his troops and prepared to fight south.

It's just that Cao Cao, who got the news, didn't have enough time to prepare. In late April, an army of 30,000 or 40,000 men began to cross the Yellow River from the vicinity of Puyang and Baima and launched an all-out attack on Dongjun.

At the same time, an urgent report from the Taishan area also appeared. Zang Ba led his headquarters of nearly 3,000 people and launched an attack on Yanzhou directly from the flank. Moreover, even Xie Xun, who was originally pretending to attack Yuan Shu, actually turned around and launched a westward expedition with tens of thousands of troops.

And that's not all the trouble.

A few days later, in the direction of Stubble Ping and Linyi, Cao Cao also received news that Zhao Guojun's reconnaissance was out in all directions. At the same time, a news came from the south that even Liu Pi and Gong Du and a group of displaced people in Runan were actually moving towards the north, apparently wanting to enter Yanzhou through the border of Peiguo and from the junction of Jiyin and Shanyang.

For a time, Cao Cao was attacked on all sides and had to face an unprecedented and powerful challenge. (To be continued......)