In order to rush to Nanpingyang as soon as possible to ambush the Xuzhou reinforcements, the elite of the Cao army led by Xiahoudun rushed north at a speed of nearly 100 miles, and it has been two days. ——Regarding this, Boss Cao can conclude that with the deceitful and vicious of Deputy Director Tao and Jia Lao's poison, he will definitely not miss this opportunity to hit his elite hard.

It's too late to withdraw the troops, not to mention that there is a Xuzhou army in Xiaopei City that can launch a pursuit, the distance from Cao Ying to Liuxian is only fifty miles, and the Xuzhou cavalry, which has gradually surpassed Cao's army, can easily arrive in just over an hour. Moreover, Cao Boss's team also had to carry valuable baggage and grain and grass to withdraw the troops, and the retreat speed was definitely not fast, so even the lightly armed Xuzhou infantry could definitely catch up with Cao Jun, and pulling Cao Boss's little tail was a fat beating.

So there was no way, after careful discussion with a group of strategists, Boss Cao still decided to take a gamble, while sending a fast horse to summon Xiahou Yuan to return to the army, while preparing to use the existing strength to deal with the Xuzhou army to win the time for elite reinforcements. However, when discussing how to survive this dangerous pregnancy period, there were serious disagreements between several strategists, Guo Jia and Cheng Yu suggested that they should stand on the defensive, rely on the fortifications to resist the main offensive of Xuzhou, and win the time for the elite to return to help; Xu Shu had diametrically opposite opinions, advocating going out of the camp to meet the battle, and buying time by attacking instead of defending.

"Prime Minister, don't keep it, the code is passive, and it doesn't mean much." Xu Shu analyzed for Cao Laoda: "Our army's Xiaopei camp is not better than the Guandu camp, the Guandu camp is a solid camp that was built by our army for more than half a year, but the Xiaopei camp is just an ordinary camp, the camp fortifications are simple, the surrounding terrain is very open, except for the left leaning on Surabaya, there is no danger to defend, if you keep it up, not only fall into the passive beating place, and it is difficult to succeed in holding on, during the enemy's attack on the camp, if there is a slight mistake to let the enemy break into the camp and set fire, the consequences are unimaginable, so you must not defend, you can only attack instead of defending. ”

Although Xu Shu's analysis is quite reasonable, Cheng Yu still glanced at Xu Shu suspiciously, and said: "Although Mr. Yuanzhi's words are reasonable, most of the elite of our army has already gone north, and there are only four main teams left in the battalion, Dian Wei, Li Dian, Zhang He and Cao Chun, adding up to less than 15,000 people, and the rest are either second-line auxiliaries or heavy labor, and it is useless to go to the battlefield, and the overall combat effectiveness is greatly affected. ”

Hearing Cheng Yu's words, Boss Cao, who used despicable means to get Xu Shu, was also a little suspicious, and couldn't help but glance at Xu Shu, but Xu Shu was silent, just said calmly: "If Mr. Zhongde insists on defending, Shu will never object, but Shu personally still thinks that our army should go to war, and it is useless to hold on." Please think about it carefully, the pottery thief cleverly devised a plan to annihilate and finally tricked our army into dividing up his troops, how could he miss this golden opportunity to attack? Is there any reason not to take advantage of the situation to attack our army's camp with all our might? ”

Boss Cao put away his doubts, nodded, and admitted that Xu Shu's words were true. Xu Shu observed his words, and said calmly: "But if our army takes the initiative to face the battle, the situation is completely different, if nothing else, the elite of our army can return from Xipingyang two hundred miles away in three days at the earliest, and four days at the latest, and the pottery thieves will inevitably be eager to fight, and the rapid march from Pengcheng to Xiaopei is one hundred and twenty miles, and the elite physical strength of the pottery thieves will inevitably be affected. ”

Cheng Yu had nothing to say, and after Boss Cao pondered for a long time, he suddenly smiled and said: "Although Mr. Yuanzhi is reasonable, there is one thing that he said wrongly, our army's strength is still above the pottery thief, how can it be regarded as a widow to defeat the crowd?" How can the elite soldiers of our army who have experienced a hundred battles be comparable to the rabble of Xuzhou that has been put together from all over the world? Therefore, it is not enough to defeat the strong with the weak! ”

Xu Shu lowered his head slightly, signaling that he agreed with Boss Cao's analysis, and Boss Cao stood up with a few hands on the case, waved his hand and said: "It's so decided, replace defense with offense, and send scouts to closely monitor the movements of the main force of the Xuzhou thief army, it is estimated that the Xuzhou thief army will arrive in Xiaopei around noon tomorrow, so that the army will be ready for battle before noon, and once the team of Tao thieves begins to cross the river, they will immediately send troops to meet it." ”

"No." Xu Shu accompanied Guo Jia and Cheng Yu to sing the promise together, and hummed in his heart: "Hit it halfway, and sure enough, the thief was annihilated!" But don't think too beautifully, with the cheating thief, how can you not prevent your Cao thief from coming to this hand? But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter to me who wins or loses, you or the potter, I just have to wait and see the show. ”

……………… In order to allow the soldiers to recover their strength, after arriving in Liuxian, Deputy Director Tao arranged for the second-line team to be on duty and keep vigil, so that the elite team could seize the time to rest, and arranged for the auxiliary team to rush to make steamed buns and other marching dry food that could be carried with them overnight, so that the army could prepare the opportunity to continue fighting immediately after arriving at the battlefield, and then Deputy Director Tao took the time to discuss the entry plan with Jia Lao Poison.

As Xu Shu suspected, Jia Lao Poison told Deputy Director Tao straight to the point: "Our army is not afraid that Cao's army will close the camp and defend it, but we need to worry that Cao's army will attack our army halfway, and take advantage of the opportunity of our army's northward crossing to launch a surprise attack to frustrate our army's spirit." Therefore, according to Xu's opinion, our army must cross the river at the ferry next to Xiaopei City, send an elite to open the way, and then order the surname Cao and Yin Li to lead the army out of the city to cover and resist the possible surprise attack launched by Cao Ying. Then he divided a cavalry team to cross the river fifteen miles upstream of Xiaopei, so that Cao Ying could not take care of the two ferries, and prevented our cavalry from attacking his back, so that he did not dare to raid. ”

As soon as Deputy Director Tao heard the great joy, he immediately arranged for the Gao Shun team with the best physical strength always stationed in Liuxian County to serve as the vanguard, and took the lead in rushing to the river in the water, and the banner of the high camp was lined up to cover the main force to cross the river, and ordered the surname Cao and Yin Li to lead the army out of the city, and Gao Shun joined forces to protect the Xiaopei Ferry, and finally arranged for Zhao Yun and Tian Xiang to lead 4,000 cavalry to cross the river in the upper reaches of the water, and told Zhao Yun to act when he saw the opportunity, the main force should be covered by the main force, and the retreat should be retreated. Keep Deputy Director Tao's arrangement in mind.

The river-crossing tactics proposed by Jia Lao Poison to Deputy Director Tao were very effective, and the Cao army was ready for a surprise attack, but after discovering the river-crossing arrangements of the Xuzhou army from the scout reconnaissance, Cao Boss was worried that there were not many good cards he could play in his hand, especially the cavalry with a serious lack of high-speed mobility, once it was attacked by the Xuzhou cavalry team led by the fierce general Zhao Yun, the consequences were unimaginable, and the trapped camp led by Gao Shun was not a hard bone to gnaw, so after Cao Boss thought about it, Finally, I gritted my teeth and gave up the tactical plan of attacking it halfway!

Tentatively persuaded Boss Cao to launch a surprise attack, seeing that Boss Cao was unmoved, Xu Shu had to change his words and said: "Since the prime minister has no intention of sending troops to attack, then Shu still has a plan to break the enemy, when Shu was in Xuchang, he had carefully studied the characteristics of the pottery thief's military style, and found a weakness of the pottery thief's use of troops, and the prime minister might as well seize this weakness to break the enemy." ”

"Oh, what are the weaknesses of the pottery thief? Mr. Motonao, please give me a little more information. Boss Cao hurriedly asked.

"The pottery thief is afraid to fight in formation." Xu Shu pointed out sharply: "Since the debut of the pottery thief in the first year of Xingping, although he claims to be undefeated in a hundred battles, he likes to surprise and opportunize in every battle, or use the opportunity to buy, or deceive the enemy by deception, or he is forced to crush by relying on many soldiers, and he has never had the experience of fighting in array with an enemy of equal strength." Especially in the battle of Liyang that year, the pottery thief fought with the famous general Zhang Xun in Huainan, in order to prevent Zhang Xun from arraying, the pottery thief used the advantage of strength to constantly send troops to harass Zhang Xun's team, and did not give Zhang Xun the opportunity to stabilize his position. ”

After carefully recalling the battle of the Xuzhou army in his impression, combined with Xu Shu's analysis, a fierce light quickly flashed in Boss Cao's triangular eyes, nodded his head, and said, "Mr. Lao Yuanzhi has bothered to be taught." ”

……………… In fact, soaking water is not a large river, winter is the dry season, and finally the well-prepared Gao Shun team and Xiaopei defenders have already set up twenty pontoon bridges on the river, so it didn't take much time for the main force of Xuzhou to cross the soaked water on the whole line, and gain a firm foothold on the north bank, Zhao Yun also successfully crossed the river from the upstream and rushed to meet the main force. After learning that Cao's army had always stood still in the large camp ten miles to the north, Deputy Director Tao immediately left the rear army to camp in the west of Xiaopei, and personally led more than 25,000 main elite troops to the north to fight in front of Cao's camp.

Tanma found the movement of the Xuzhou army, and flew to report to Cao Boss, Cao Boss immediately left Cao Chun to guard the camp, personally led 20,000 troops and Dian Wei, Li Dian, Zhang He and other generals out of the camp to fight, and learned the lesson of Liyang Zhang Xun, out of the camp only three miles immediately arranged the formation, when the road arranged a crane wing array with high requirements for the commander's tactical command ability, let Li Dian lead the army on the left flank, Zhang He led the army on the right flank, and Cao Boss himself led Dian Wei and other generals to sit in the Chinese army, waiting for the Xuzhou army.

Xuzhou Tanma also reported the movements of the Cao army to Deputy Director Tao, who likes to be opportunistic, Deputy Director Tao wanted to repeat the old tricks and send cavalry to rush forward to disturb and destroy, but Jia Lao Poison persuaded: "The lord must not be in danger, Cao Ying went out of the camp for three miles and lined up in formation, obviously aiming at the weakness of the lord You are not good at fighting, and you must be prepared for the surprise attack of our cavalry. ”

Deputy Director Tao nodded, and was puzzled: "But Mr. Wenhe, you also know that fighting in a dignified formation is exactly my shortcoming, and the Cao thief is experienced in a hundred battles, and our army and the Cao thief team are fighting in formation, I'm afraid it will be a loss?" ”

"It doesn't matter." Jia Lao Poison shook his head and said with a smile: "Although Cao Ying has grasped your weakness, most of his elite have already gone north, so in his crane wing array, the elite team must be arranged in the two wings of the maneuver, as long as our army is designed to bite his two wings of the mobile elite, and then take the opportunity to storm his indiscriminate Chinese army, our army will have a chance of winning this battle!" ”

Smiling kindly, Jia Lao Poison leaned into Deputy Director Tao's ear and whispered about his bad idea, Deputy Director Tao smiled when he heard it, and hurriedly summoned the general Wei Yan and whispered to him to teach him Ji Yi, Wei Yan took the order and left. Only then did Deputy Director Tao issue an order, so that the self-army would also arrange a crane wing array on the march, Xu Huang's team was on the left, Wei Yan's team was on the right, Deputy Director Tao led the infantry in the center, and Zhao Yun's cavalry team was arranged by Deputy Director Tao in the open area behind the formation, so as to maneuver, and the whole army slowly advanced and slowly approached the battlefield.

No matter how slow the journey of a few miles is a moment, after arriving at the battlefield, the Xuzhou army that said that the training was five hundred steps away from the Cao army quickly set up a position, Deputy Director Tao led the generals to come out of the flag gate, and Cao Laoda, who was waiting a little impatiently, also led the generals to come out of the formation, and the two groups of people stood opposite each other, and then Cao Boss immediately yelled, "Tao Ying, I am in front of the Son of Heaven to protect you as Xu Yangzhou Mu, why did you collude with the thief Yuan Shao to rebel?" The soldiers have arrived today, and they won't surrender early? When? ”

"Fart!" Deputy Director Tao, who was extremely uneducated, swore with a mouth, and scolded: "Cao thief, you are a famous Han Xiang, but you are really a Han thief!" Sin is worse than recklessness! How dare you have the face to slander people and rebel?! I beg the thief with my clothes and belts, and return my brother quickly, so that I can fight with confidence! ”

The potter will be under house arrest in Changyi City, and of course Boss Cao can't hand it over, so Boss Cao can only shout: "What about my eldest son Cao Ang? There he is? ”

"Rest assured, he's safe now." Deputy Director Tao, who also put Cao Ang under house arrest in Xuzhou City, replied loudly, "After I capture you alive, your father and son can meet and reunite!" ”

After saying it loudly, Deputy Director Tao raised his horsewhip and pointed to the sky, and the flag bearer behind him played the flag, and the 25,000 Xuzhou army immediately roared neatly, "Step on Cao Ying!" Capture the thief alive! Stepping on Cao Ying! Capture the thief alive! Stepping on Cao Ying! Capture the thief alive! Stepping on Cao Ying! Capture the thief alive! ”

"Look for death!" Boss Cao was furious, and wanted to order his generals to fight the generals, but Guo Jia next to him grabbed Boss Cao and said in a low voice: "Prime Minister, most of the fierce generals of our army have gone north, you can't fight generals at will, pay attention to the left flank of the pottery thief." ”

Cao Boss quickly went to see the right wing of the Xuzhou Army, but saw that Deputy Director Tao had arranged an infantry team of about 5,000 on the right flank, and the sergeants in the shouting slogans were all excited, and some people shook their weapons and screamed loudly, and the banners were crooked and scattered, which was in sharp contrast to the strict formation of the Xuzhou Army and the left wing team. Boss Cao was overjoyed in his heart, and Li Dian, who was busy beside him, led the army back to the left flank of the army, and led the left wing elite to attack this weak army in Xuzhou, and Li Dian led the order and rushed away.

Using the primitive telescope to see his old acquaintance Li Dian rushing to the left flank of Cao Jun from a distance, Deputy Director Tao was also secretly happy in his heart, deliberately waved his hand to stop the whole army from shouting, and then sent Xu Chu out of battle to ask Cao Jun to fight. The confident Boss Cao stopped Dian Wei's impulse, and then roared loudly: "Tao thief, you are a despicable villain who likes to hurt people with hidden arrows, I will not fight with you, I will fight with you!" ”

After the yelling, Boss Cao waved his horsewhip, and when the war drums sounded, the five thousand left-wing teams led by Li Dian immediately shouted and killed, and rushed to the opposite Xuzhou right wing The infantry team that was extremely easy to bully at first glance, and the Xuzhou infantry team that looked like a rookie was also very angry with Deputy Director Tao, and immediately panicked, and the soldiers shouted and ran for their lives, running around and becoming unable to form a formation.

Seeing this scene, Li Dian's team was naturally even more relieved to charge, desperately speeding up the pace, while Boss Cao laughed loudly and laughed: "Tao thief, it seems that your ability to govern the army is far inferior to your ability to rooster and dog thieves, like such a rabble, even dare to ......." ”

Boss Cao's wild laughter stopped abruptly, because Boss Cao suddenly saw that the rookie team on the right wing of the Xuzhou Army was shouting and running in a panic, and it quickly formed an unusually strict Glaive Formation, which was extremely strict with the strong soldiers and generals! The sinister crescent recess is still facing Li Dian's charging team! The rapid change of formation, the strict appearance of the army, is no less than the elite of a hundred battles under the command of Boss Cao!

Immediately afterwards, the neat military song also echoed in the rookie team, "How can you say that you have no clothes? Fellow with the Son! Wang Yuxingshi, repair my spear, and have the same enmity with ............ son! ”

"Hit the trick again!" Boss Cao's face changed, and a thought quickly flashed in his heart, "That pottery thief elite soldier changed his disguise?" Trap the camp, first camp or Langya soldiers? It's not right, the banners of trapping the camp and the first camp are clearly among the pottery thieves, and the Langya elite soldiers under Zang Ba should all be ...... Qingzhou. ”

"Prime Minister Cao, let me introduce you." Deputy Director Tao, who succeeded in his plan, laughed happily, pointed to the self-army team that was rapidly changing formations in pretending, and said loudly to Boss Cao: "They are all my fellow countrymen, Danyang soldiers!" The Danyang soldiers who almost slaughtered you in the mutiny back then were either their kindreds or their fellow villagers. ”

"Danyang soldiers? How can it be?! Boss Cao, who had suffered a lot from the military discipline of the Danyang soldiers, screamed loudly, and was suddenly dumbfounded, and he couldn't believe that the Danyang soldiers, who were famous for their sloppy military discipline and hatred of dogs, would suddenly become so organized and disciplined.

At this time, Li Dian's team had already crashed head-on into the crescent moon of the Danyang soldiers, and when the two armies were about to collide, countless short javelins suddenly flew out of the long shield wall of the Danyang soldiers, roaring towards the Cao soldiers, piercing countless Cao soldiers who could not dodge into the chest, and the Cao soldiers who were also disciplined continued to charge, and countless spears suddenly stabbed out of the shield wall, piercing through many Cao soldiers who could not regain momentum, and the momentum of the Cao soldiers' charge was immediately neutralized.

Blocking the momentum of the Cao army's charge, the shield wall suddenly flashed to both sides, Wei Yanqin led a team of infantry to launch a counter-charge, and rushed into the Cao army's team head-on.

The hoarse roar resounded through the world, the elite Cao soldiers and the fierce Danyang soldiers brandished knives and guns to fight for their lives, and there were bursts of chilling collisions between the blood blades, and the blood flowers were like rain, scattered on the hard snow in the middle of winter, some of the soldiers on both sides were cut off from the Tianling cover, some were cut off their hands and feet, the severed limbs twitched on the cold ground, and the seriously injured soldiers fell to the ground rolling and moaning, and then were trampled to death by the messy footsteps, and stepped into meat sauce. Countless soldiers on both sides were red-eyed, and their bodies and faces were already covered with thick blood, but they were still yelling and slashing, slashing, slashing, hugging, wrestling, rolling on the ground, clasping their eyes and biting their throats.

"Equal! How can it be? How can it be? Boss Cao looked straight, and suddenly screamed in his heart, saying that he couldn't believe that the Danyang hooligan soldiers, known as a single soldier and a group of insects, could compete with his own elite team!

At this time, there was also movement in the ranks of the Xuzhou Chinese army, and the Zhao Yun team at the end of the Xuzhou army suddenly attacked, and the four thousand cavalry drew a semi-circular arc to outflank it quickly, bypassing Zhang He, who was confronting the Xu Huang team of the Xuzhou army, and quickly detoured to the back of the Cao army's crane wing array.

Someone must have to ask, since Zhao Yun's team passed by Zhang He's team, did Zhang He eat dry rice? Why don't you lead an army to stop it? Why didn't Cao Lao order to block it? There is only one reason, five hundred steps away from the front of Zhang He's team, the five thousand cavalry led by Xu Huang are still staring at each other, if Zhang He, who is in formation, dares to make a move, and the infantry loses the cover of the formation, then Xu Huang's team only needs a charge, it is possible to break up Zhang He's team, or at least it can be entangled with Zhang He's team and contain the right flank elite army of Cao Boss.

Seeing this scene, the left-wing elite soldiers had been trapped by the stubborn Cao Boss's brows, and when he was about to order Dian Wei to lead the army back to reinforce the rear army, he suddenly woke up again, looked up at Deputy Director Tao in the distance, and Cao Boss couldn't help but scold, "Who said that this thief doesn't understand battle?" First of all, he deliberately created a false impression to lure me into being fooled, biting my left wing elite soldiers, letting the cavalry keep an eye on my right wing elite infantry, and then sending cavalry to attack my back, grasping the weakness of my elite deficiency, forcing me to show my flaws and then raid! Tactics are cunning to this point, and they don't understand battle in formation? ”

After scolding angrily, Boss Cao pointed at a herald at random with a horsewhip and shouted: "Go and give orders to Zhu Ling and Lu Zhao of the rear army, let them block the impact of the pottery thief cavalry at all costs, if the rear army is defeated, come and see you!" ”

The herald sang Nuo and rushed away, and when Boss Cao thought about it for a while, he was suddenly shocked in his heart, and said secretly: "How did I forget the strange charging tactics used by the villain army in the black nest?" If Zhao Yun's cavalry team could also charge with a cavalry wall like the villain's army, and with the pottery thief's flying muskets, it would be impossible for Zhu Ling and Lu Zhao's teams to block it! ”

(To be continued)