It was not until he successfully withdrew to the camp that Jia Lao Poison found an opportunity and asked Deputy Director Tao alone: "Lord, Mr. Zhong Ming joked under Xuchang City to persuade Cao Mengde not to abandon the city and seek peace, but afterwards the lord not only did not blame, but also ordered Mr. Zhong Ming to arrange manpower to provoke Cao Hong again. ”

"Mr. Wenhe knows me from the bottom of my heart." Deputy Director Tao smiled, unabashedly admitted that he was this evil intention, and then explained: "I made a general observation just now, and found that the Xuchang city is indeed relatively strong, the city wall is nearly four zhang high, the moat is more than three zhang wide, and there are urn cities at all four gates. ”

"That's the way I think." Jia Lao Poison nodded, and said: "In addition to the strong city, Xuchang's city defense fortifications are also very perfect, and the materials for defending the city must be very sufficient, because in the previous decisive battle of Yuan Cao, Yuan Shao only attacked Cao Mengde's camp outside the city, and did not launch a siege battle. Therefore, Xu also believes that until the last moment, we cannot casually launch a frontal assault, so that the casualties of our army will definitely not be small. ”

Deputy Director Tao nodded, and sighed regretfully: "My old man is really not interesting, even if he launches a siege, fills in a moat and destroys some Cao thieves' antlers to resist horses, our army doesn't have to start from scratch." ”

("How much more do you want me to sacrifice?") The big Yuan Sangong who entered the chaos asked with tears, "Do you want me to consume Cao Thief's team until only Cao Apu is the last person, so that you are satisfied?" After sighing, Deputy Director Tao hurriedly asked Jia Lao Poison: "Since Mr. Wenhe knows my intentions, I don't know if there is a clever plan to lure Cao Thief out of the city for a decisive battle?" ”

"Not yet, and maybe not in the future." Jia Lao's poison's answer surprised Deputy Director Tao, and then Jia Lao's poison warned unceremoniously: "The lord had better not just think about luring Cao Mengde out of the city as soon as possible to fight quickly, this is impossible, Cao Mengde is suspicious and suspicious, and he knows that the lord likes to cheat with soldiers, and he is very vigilant about the lord's every move, if the lord uses a trick to lure the enemy, not only is it almost impossible to succeed, but it is also very likely to give Cao Mengde an opportunity to defeat our army in turn." ”

If it was changed to Da Yuan Sangong hearing the accomplice lackey say such an unkind word, he would definitely be extremely unhappy with his beard and glaring at him, but Deputy Director Tao was diametrically opposed, not only was he not angry after listening to Jia Lao's poison's warning, but he also nodded in agreement and said: "What Mr. Wenhe said is extremely true, I and Cao Thief both like to win by surprise, and they are both good at breaking the enemy with tricks, if I make a move to lure the enemy, it will be difficult to escape the eyes of Cao Thief." However, if our army can't lure the Cao thief team out of the city for a decisive battle, it can only attack Xuchang Jiancheng head-on? ”

"The lord misunderstood, and he just suggested that the lord should not lure the enemy, but he didn't say that it was hopeless to lure the enemy into battle." Jia Lao Poison said with a smile: "Preemptively, then second, although this sentence is the best reason of the soldiers, but it may not be all right, sometimes it is the last strike to control people, and the first strike can only be controlled by others." ”

"Strike last, strike first?" Deputy Director Tao's triangular eyes rolled a few times, and he quickly understood the meaning of this sentence, and said happily: "Understood, I can't lure Cao Thief out of the city and give Cao Thief the opportunity to make a plan, but I can wait for Cao Thief to make a move first, and then act at the opportunity, and take the initiative in turn." ”

"It's like demolition, if I open my mouth first and quote the price, the nail household will definitely open my mouth, ask for a price with me, and pay back the money on the ground, but if I let the nail household open the mouth first, figure out the bottom price in the heart of the nail household, and bargain in turn, I can minimize the demolition compensation fee and minimize the loss."

"Lord, why don't you understand the latter paragraph?"

Jia Lao Poison was a little confused, but Jia Lao Poison was also accustomed to Deputy Director Tao's new terms, and soon said: "As the lord said in the first half of the sentence, since it is difficult for our army to escape Cao Mengde's eyes, and Cao Jun's plans against our military may not be able to escape our eyes, then we might as well induce Cao Mengde to strike first, and then strike later to seize the initiative." ”

"Mr. Wenhe, then how should our army make the Cao thief strike first?" Deputy Director Tao asked hurriedly.

"According to the way before the lord, just continue to create the illusion of underestimating the enemy." Jia Lao Poison replied: "I suggest that our army might as well prepare with both hands, while preparing a large number of siege weapons, while deliberately building the camp not strong enough, putting on a posture of contempt for Cao's army, only digging a trench on the periphery of the camp, and only building a fence and antlers to resist horses, so that Cao Jun felt that our army was despising their field efforts, and decided that they did not dare to go out of the city to fight, so they refused to waste too much energy on camp protection." ”

"At the same time, the lord can make the gentleman's army attack from time to time, sweep the Cao army scouts in the open area, and capture the Cao army scouts and horses alive, all of them should be released, thinking that they are contempt, so that within a few words, Cao Mengde believes that our army is careless and careless, and will inevitably take action."

When Deputy Director Tao heard this, he was overjoyed, and hurriedly acted according to the plan, first summoned Liu Ye to teach him face-to-face, and asked Liu Ye, who was in charge of the construction of the camp, to deliberately build the periphery of the camp of the Xuzhou army not tightly enough, giving Cao Jun the opportunity to steal the camp, and the saved building materials were used to strengthen the Chinese army's camp and ensure the safety of the Chinese army's command system. Then Deputy Director Tao summoned his stunned cousin Tao Ji, and ordered Tao Ji to lead the Junzi Army to attack from time to time, sweeping the scouts outside the city of the Cao army's team, and the Cao Army scouts who were captured alive were all released to show contempt for the Cao Army.

In this way, the Cao army scouts who were ordered to go out of the city to investigate the movements of the Xuzhou army naturally fell into a lot of bad luck, often the Cao army scouts just appeared in the open area, such as the sound of thunder horses' hooves immediately came, in the billowing smoke and dust, hundreds of gentlemen's army light horsemen rushed to laugh wildly, not to mention a rain of arrows to entertain, poor Cao army scouts can't hide, can't escape, almost in a moment by the gentleman's feather arrows shot ghost crying wolf howl, the whole body is full of arrows on the ground rolling and screaming, Then the Junzi Army, which was only equipped with ordinary saddles and rope stirrups, rode forward heavily, slashed and killed the Cao Army scouts who refused to surrender, and captured the Cao Army soldiers who threw down their weapons and surrendered.

Ten in the evening, the arrogant and domineering gentleman army also simply chased a Cao army scout to kill under the city of Xuchang, when Cao Boss was inspecting the city defense on the city wall, and also saw with his own eyes with a blue face, on the battlefield under the sunset, his scout team fled in embarrassment, and the team also sounded from time to time screaming screams, and the gentleman's army with three hundred horsemen as a team laughed and chased closely, constantly hunting the Cao army scout team with bows and arrows, Cao soldiers and horses continued to be hit by arrows, war horses fell one after another with arrows, and soldiers fell one after another with arrows. A Cao army soldier seemed to have broken his leg after falling off his horse, screaming and crying loudly in pain, and crying and shouting surrender, the miserable and tragic cry could be heard clearly even on the city wall of Xuchang, and none of the Cao army scouts could escape to the city of Xuchang, and all of them were shot down on the way to escape by the light cavalry of the gentleman's army who came and went like the wind.

Seeing this scene, of course, Boss Cao's face was almost blue, and the generals of the Cao army were all blue on their foreheads, but the matter was not over yet, after the Junzi Army cleaned up the battlefield with heavy cavalry, he quickly escorted the four Cao soldiers who were not killed by the arrow to the foot of Xuchang City, and shouted at the city, "Listen to the Cao thief team in the city, my lord has an order, those who surrender will not die, and they will be released after the war, we are too lazy to take these prisoners back and waste food and decoction, and we will return them to you now, see clearly, we have fulfilled our promise." ”

After shouting, the three hundred gentlemen army laughed wildly and walked away, and many gentlemen soldiers also laughed wildly: "Cao thief is incompetent, a group of waste!" Those who dare to go out of the city are all in this end! ”

The sun gradually set, four wounded soldiers of the Cao army wailed for help under the city, the defenders in the city went out of the city to rescue their comrades in despair, Cao Boss and Cao Ren, Xun Yu and other Cao army civil and military did not speak, the chest was just filled with something called anger, since the fight against Cao Boss and the army against Dong, when did the Cao army team suffer such humiliation? Even in front of the Jizhou army with a large number of cavalry, it is usually the Cao army scouts who press the Jizhou scouts in the scout battle, but now............ At this time, Cao Xiu, the nephew of Cao Laoda, who was in charge of the scout work, came to Cao Laoda with a disgraced face, and reported tremblingly: "Prime Minister, including this team of scouts, today it is said that a total of seven scout teams of our army were attacked, 52 people were killed, 24 people were captured, and only one person escaped back............. ”

Boss Cao's face was even more ugly, seeing that Boss Cao refused to speak, Cao Xiu didn't dare to slack off, so he quickly knelt down on one knee and arched his hand and said: "The last general is incompetent, and the scouts under his command are insulting to the military prestige, please punish the prime minister." ”

"Get up, it's not your fault." Boss Cao finally spoke, and said angrily in his chest: "The scout you sent out met the world-famous villain army, and it is normal to lose, and I also know that there is something called clairvoyant mirror in the pottery thief team, which can be seen far away, and it is normal for our army to suffer losses in the scout battle with the pottery thief." ”

"Prime Minister Xie." Cao Xiu breathed a sigh of relief, and asked cautiously: "But Prime Minister, if tomorrow the villain army of pottery thieves is like this, always disturbing the scout team that hunts us, then ......." ”

"Kill these hypocrites!" Boss Cao roared with a blue face: "Starting tomorrow, the scout team will go out of the city to patrol the sentry, and each team is only allowed to carry one war horse, I want to see how many scouts the team of hypocrites of the pottery thieves can kill me!" ”

Cao Xiu sang a promise, and then got up, but Cheng Yu next to him frowned and said: "Prime Minister, this thing doesn't seem right, the villain army is the biggest magic weapon of the pottery thief, unless it covers a surprise attack, it is almost not used in scout warfare, but now the pottery thief is doing the opposite, what is the reason for this?" ”

"What's the truth? Of course, it is the reason to look down on our army. Boss Cao said with a gloomy face: "The last main force of our army has been Xuchang, and the last granary is also in Xuchang, there are no reinforcements to come, and there is no grain and grass to escort, the pottery thief does not need to spend a lot of effort to focus on the scout war, and now the pottery thief deliberately arranged for the villain army to attack, desperately attacking our army scouts, and let his villain army release the captured prisoners of war on the same day, making it clear that he wants to hit the morale of our army and shake our military heart!" This thief, there are few people who are his opponents in the heart attack! ”

"Prime Minister Gao Zhi, the pottery thief should be this purpose." Cheng Yu nodded, and said gloomily: "But Prime Minister, don't you think that the battle of the pottery thief is a bit light?" As soon as he made a move, he released thousands of prisoners of our army, and dispatched his most effective villain army in the field early to fight some innocuous scout battles to drain the army's strength, and also released the prisoners caught in the scout war on the spot. It was as if the pottery thief had already decided that he would win this battle, and had underestimated the residual strength of our army. ”

Boss Cao remained silent, and only said after a while: "Let's see, wait for the pottery thief to set up a camp, see how he attacks the city, and then make a decision." ”

The next few days were the same, the militant Tao Ji led the Junzi Army out of the camp early every day, and then divided the Junzi Army into multiple teams, wantonly swept the Cao Army scouts outside Xuchang City, and vented his hatred for the Cao Army team with a horse and a bow - Tao Ji was a personal experience of the Xuzhou Massacre, and the hatred of Cao Boss among the Xuzhou generals could definitely rank first, and if he had the opportunity to kill Cao Jun to avenge his fellow villagers, Tao Ji would naturally not show mercy to his subordinates. Therefore, even if the military order to release the prisoners is difficult to disobey, Tao Ji has to privately pass the order behind his back, so that the soldiers of the Junzi Army will kill more people and capture fewer prisoners, and the soldiers of the Cao Army who have the opportunity to shoot to death will be killed with arrows as much as possible.

In this way, it was natural to suffer the poor Cao army scouts, all the Cao army scouts who were caught by the Junzi army's tail were almost all killed by the Junzi army, and only a very few lucky people were able to be prisoners to survive, although later the Cao army scouts also learned a lot smarter, as soon as they saw the Junzi army, they hurriedly ran to the woods or the location of the rocks and thorns, and went to the place where the cavalry was inconvenient to avoid the pursuit of the Junzi army. But it is a pity that the terrain around Xuchang is not only very rare, but the Junzi Army, equipped with primitive telescopes, can basically find the enemy faster and farther than the Cao Army scout team, so after two days, the losses accumulated by the Cao Army Scouts are still very heavy and amazing, with a total loss of more than 300 soldiers and 100 horses, and the range of activities has been compressed by the Junzi Army to become smaller and smaller.

In this regard, although Boss Cao hated it so much that he gritted his teeth, but he was helpless, and in the end he could only prohibit the scout sentry team from leaving the city too far away during the day, not giving the Junzi Army the opportunity to continue to massacre the soldiers of the Self-Army, and then at night, when the Junzi Army collected the troops and returned to the camp, Cao Boss let the Zijun scouts reconnoiter in the distance, although the Cao Army scouts were still easy to be intercepted and ambushed by the patrol sentry of the Xuzhou Army, but it was far better than being arbitrarily slaughtered by the Junzi Army who came and went like the wind in broad daylight.

More than 300 scouts were not sacrificed in vain, through the tenacious efforts of the loyal and brave soldiers of the Cao army, Cao Lao still exchanged blood and human lives for some basic information of the Xuzhou battalion, which made Cao Lao angry and secretly happy that the Xuzhou army built a large camp ten miles northeast of Xuchang was obviously not strong enough, only a thin wooden fence was built on the periphery, and a trench about eight feet deep was dug, and even sharp wooden stakes were not bothered to be buried in the trench, and the antlers between the trench and the fence were only built to symbolize the surname. The important parts were protected, and the battalion defense was so weak that the Cao army could enter the camp with a single impact - of course, provided that the Cao army had the courage to attack the Xuzhou camp.

Basically figured out these situations, Cao Boss no longer hesitated, and immediately convened a group of henchmen and strategists to discuss the military situation, first introduced the general situation of the Xuzhou camp, and then told the strategists and thinkers straight to the point: "The pottery thief thinks that he has a stable chance of victory, and he despises the remnants of our army's strength too much. What do you think? ”

"Prime Minister, no!" Except for Xun Yu, all the strategists objected: "Prime Minister, our army was greatly injured in Yuan Shao's hard battle, and the remnants of the army are still very reluctant to defend the city. ”

"Passive stubbornness is also a dead end." Boss Cao said viciously: "In Xuchang City, our army has 35,000 troops, but most of them are injured and have not yet healed. Rather than being consumed alive by the pottery thief, it is better to take advantage of the strength of the battle now, and gamble with the pottery thief, if this bet wins, our army will be completely at ease! ”

"Although the words are reasonable, but the prime minister, the pottery thief is resourceful, can we confirm now that the pottery thief is careless, and is not deliberately luring the enemy to trick our army out of the city for a decisive battle?" Xun You asked.

Boss Cao closed his mouth, because this was also the point that Boss Cao was most worried about at the moment. At this time, Boss Cao's number one mastermind Xun Yu opened his mouth and said: "Prime Minister, Tao Ying asked the thief to hand over the Son of Heaven and withdraw from Xuchang, and he let our army leave, this choice, Prime Minister, you really don't think about it?" ”

"Mr. Wen Ruo thinks I should choose to back down?" Boss Cao asked.

"Nope." Xun Yu shook his head and said in a deep voice: "Yu just wants to ask the prime minister to make a choice, if the prime minister chooses to take a step back and open the sky, and temporarily accept the humiliation of the crotch to accept the conditions offered by Tao Ying's thief, then it is not an ideal choice, quit Xuchang to temporarily avoid the most dangerous and terrible enemy of the Tao thief, and go to other places to show his strength, and there is also hope for a comeback in the future." ”

"If the prime minister doesn't want to back down, doesn't want to bow to the pottery thief, and decides to gamble with the pottery thief." Xun Yu paused, and then said: "Then Yu has a plan, which can help the prime minister temporarily weaken the strength of the pottery thief and win more hope of victory for our army's desperate bet." ”

"Mr. Wen Ruo might as well tell me the clever plan first, let me think about it." Boss Cao replied.

"The strategy is actually quite simple." Xun Yu replied: "The prime minister can immediately forge a paper covenant, our army and Liu Bei to form an alliance against Tao, and then send a henchman out of the city overnight, to the southwest of Xuchang to lurk, Ming said that let this henchman return to the city, on the way deliberately let the Xuzhou thief army capture, and then let the henchman tell the Tao thief, just say that Liu Bei has decided to form an alliance with our army to resist Tao, and the soldiers and horses have gone to Yexian County to join forces with our army's guard Wei Chong, not to mention that they will rush to Xuchang to help fight and resist the Tao thief's attack on Xuchang. ”

"In this way, if the pottery thief is in the plan, in order to reduce the resistance and casualties of the soldiers during the siege, he will inevitably divide his troops to Rushui to intercept Liu Bei's team.

Speaking of this, Xun Yu paused for a moment, and said: "Prime Minister, please pay attention, what Yu said is that if the pottery thief is tricked, the pottery thief is too deceitful, and Jia Xu is not a good person, and whether Yu's plan can succeed is actually not sure." ”

If it was to use this strategy on others, Boss Cao would definitely agree without even blinking an eyelid, but when he thought that this strategy was to be used on Deputy Director Tao, who was three points more cunning than a fox, Boss Cao hesitated and didn't dare to make a decision. However, after Guo Jia thought about it for a long time, he suddenly said: "Prime Minister, Jia thinks it might as well give it a try, first, even if this plan is discovered by the pottery thief and fails, our army will only lose one dead soldier; The second is that even if the pottery thieves will plan and set traps to ambush our army, our army does not have to be afraid, after all, the pottery thieves team is from afar, and they are far less familiar with the terrain than our army, even if they arrange ambushes, they may not be able to hide from our army's eyes. ”

"Mr. Bonghyo has a point." Xun You agreed: "Although the villain army is desperately robbing and killing our army scouts, our army can't know every move of the pottery thief team well, but the pottery thief wants to do any big tricks in the Xuzhou camp ten miles away, and it is impossible not to show some clues, our army can rely on these clues to judge the pottery thief's movements and detect the danger in time." ”

Boss Cao nodded slowly and said, "Then give it a try, there is almost no loss if you fail, if the pottery thief wants to calculate, our army will only need to be defeated." You may wish to brainstorm and discuss and analyze the details of Mr. Wen Ruo's clever plan, and do everything possible to induce the pottery thief to fall into the scheme. ”

All the strategists sang the promise together, Cao Boss thought about it, and then ordered: "By the way, explain it to Cao Xiu, let him be responsible for the scout details, pay attention to the food and snack time of the Xuzhou thief army, I want to know when the Xuzhou thief army will eat big food in the morning and when to eat snacks in the evening in the next few days, the more accurate the better." ”

"What is the Lord doing here?" Cheng Yu asked in surprise.

"Don't ask, you'll understand in the future." Boss Cao replied.

Note: In the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, limited by productivity and production technology, the ancients were called two meals, breakfast was called big food, also called morning food or dumpling, which was the main meal made and eaten, and dinner was called small food, also called supplementary food or food, which refers to the leftover meals eaten in the morning and strictly observed the meal time, so there are words in the Analects that do not eat from time to time. The same is true in the army, Xiang Yu once let the army eat in advance, and was recorded in the "Historical Records" by Sima Qian.

Of course, there are also powerful exceptions, the Han law clearly stipulates that the Son of Heaven has four meals, the princes have three meals, and the people have two meals.

(To be continued)