Cao Cao successively received two letters asking for surrender, one from Kuai Yue and the other from Cai Mao, the details of which are quite ugly. For example, in Kuai Yue's letter (including what Ma Liang said), although he did not have military power, he could still move freely—otherwise it would not have been possible to send Han Song and Liu Xian to Jiangxia; But the soldiers sent by Cai Mao said that Kuai Yidu had also been reduced to a prisoner.

For example, Kuai Yue (Ma Liang) said that all the military power in Jiangling City belonged to Zhou Yu, and even Liu Qi and Liu Pan were also elevated, but Cai Mao said in the letter that the troika in the city is still in power together.

Originally, Cai Mao and Kuai Yue, at least the former were imprisoned, and it was difficult to communicate with each other, so they each sent envoys to surrender to Cao Cao, which also made sense, but since there are so many dissenting theories, it can be seen that one of them must be a fraudulent surrender. Which is true and what is false? Yang Xiu instinctively doubted what Ma Liang said.

Not only Yang Xiu, but also the strategists repeatedly discussed, and they all agreed with the latter and doubted the former. The reason is very simple, that is, the latter only sent a small soldier, and he couldn't speak, and he was not good at the way, and he simply sent a letter. Moreover, Cai Mao did not mention a word in the letter, just made a list, which is in line with his situation of being imprisoned and no longer energetic. As for Kuai Yue, even if he can still move freely, he must be secretly monitored by Zhou Yu, so it is so easy to send a celebrity Ma Liang to sneak out of the city and infiltrate Cao Ying?

Don't listen to what Ma Liang says, sometimes the more it looks like the real thing, the more likely it is to be a fake.

So if it is true that Ma Liang is here to deceive him, he instigated Cao Cao to fight Jiangxia. Then there will be a plan, a trap hidden. Therefore the counsellors admonished thou shalt not be moved. The plan to capture Xiling should be put on hold for the time being, and then discussed.

Cao Cao pondered for a long time, and finally made a decision: "You can try it." His plan was to send Cao Ren to lead his troops out of the camp first, pretending to drive to the east, but in fact he did not go far, but only attacked Jingling County on the west bank of the Han River. Then he was stationed in the city - anyway, the tomb was originally located directly east of Jiangling, threatening the flank of the Cao family, and sooner or later it would have to be taken.

Cao Ren led 40,000 soldiers and horses. It was impossible to hide the action of leaving the camp from the Jiangling defenders, and Cao Cao wanted to use this to find out the measures of the southern army. If the opposite side is only a small-scale transfer, it must be in order to help defend Jiangxia, which is the proper meaning of the question. If the opposite side is moved too often. or on a larger scale, it is very likely that Zhou Yu set a trap in Jiangxia and wanted to take the opportunity to inflict a heavy defeat on Cao Jun.

At that time, it may be clearer to see what is true and what is false, rather than just guessing at the corner.

Therefore, according to the original plan, Cao Ren led his army eastward the next day. Cao Cao had built many camps outside Jiangling City one after another, firmly locking the north of the city. The camp is densely covered with high oars, and soldiers with good eyesight are arranged day and night to look into the distance. Sure enough, he got a report: "On the river on weekdays." The trees are densely packed, cruising back and forth, but now there is a line along the coast, but it does not drive, and I don't know what it means. ”

Cao Cao looked up to the sky and laughed, saying What else does that mean, it is obviously to block the sight of our army and cover Zhou Yu's transfer of troops to the east. He ordered his soldiers to count the number of enemy warships, and found that there were only more than 30 large ships standing still on the shore, and there were at least a dozen large ships and hundreds of small ships in the southern army, all of which had not appeared. The strategists counted for a long time and replied to Cao Cao: "If the unseen ships are all carrying troops, I am afraid that there will be no less than 20,000 ......."

Cao Cao was still hesitating, saying that he might as well try to attack Jiangling City first, and then carefully investigate the movements. So more than a dozen thunderbolts were lined up, and hundreds of stone bullets and gunpowder balls were fired at the city in a row. In terms of the accuracy of the stone thrower in these years, in fact, it can't hurt many people, but dozens of wooden oars temporarily erected on the city have been broken, and the sheep and horse walls outside the city have also collapsed in many places.

Cao Cao said: "Stick to it, don't stick to it, don't do it for a long time, the art of war is constant, and it is necessary to find a gap to counterattack." If you don't come to attack, the main force will go to Jiangxia. ”

If you are always pressed and beaten by the attacker, your morale will gradually fall until it collapses, and at that time, no matter how strong the city defense is, no matter how abundant the food and grass are, it will not be able to hold it. Therefore, the articles of "Mozi" city defense said that the defense of the city should greatly kill and injure the attacker, and later Chen Gui also said in the "Defending the City" that only by repeatedly launching counterattacks and harassment, so that the attacker could not organize an effective offensive, that is the first priority of defending the city.

So Cao Cao said, with Zhou Yu's wisdom, if the main force is really still there, and he plans to stick to Jiangling, after being bombarded by our car, it must be an opportunity to launch a counterattack. Now I deliberately show a flaw, to see that he can't get out of the city to fight back, if he is willing to come, there will only be ordinary reinforcements in the direction of Jiangxia, if he refuses to come, he will definitely want to use the main force in the east, and want to fight my ambush.

Let's try him again.

So he deliberately ordered the infantry guards to scatter the array, and there seemed to be fatigue and negligence - in fact, this is also very easy to do, Cao Cao's improved thunderbolt can be moved, so after a few shots, change the position, the foot soldiers help push the basket, after two or three trips back and forth, this queue will naturally be chaotic, and everyone is snorting and wiping hot sweat, pretending to be real.

It was nearly dusk, and there was still no movement in the city, so Cao Cao had to order to withdraw, come back to eat first, and wait until it was finished if it was not dark yet, and then push out the basket to try to play a few rounds to see. But just as the men were pulling the carts and packing up the ammunition, suddenly a drum sounded behind the sheep and horse wall, and then dozens of horsemen and countless foot soldiers swarmed out.

The so-called sheep and horse wall is a temporary low wall built outside the regular city wall and on the inside of the ditch, which can be used as the first line of defense. After all, for those tall cities, it is difficult to perfectly cover the lines of the moats from the top of the city, whether it is shooting arrows or throwing rolling logs and stones—with the height, the distance in a straight line is too far—and when the enemy is completely within range, the moats are basically of little use. Therefore, the heavy responsibility of protecting the trench fell on the shoulders of the soldiers hiding behind the sheep and horse walls.

This is equivalent to an extra layer of walls and an extra line of defense.

For the sake of order in the city, under normal circumstances, a large number of livestock could not enter the city, and merchants who trafficked in sheep and horses often temporarily enclosed their livestock in the sheep and horse wall in order to sell them.

However, the sheep and horse wall is not a regular city wall after all, and it is impossible to enclose it tightly, and then build the city gate—if you really have so much energy and so many materials, you might as well build a new city—so the position of the equivalent city gate is not closed, but only leaves a gap for access. Cao Jun has always been keeping an eye on the city gate of Jiangling, and he saw that the drawbridge did not fall, the city gate did not open, and not a single soldier entered and exited - the defenders in the sheep and horse wall basically went out of the city in the morning and night to take turns, and it was not yet time to change people - it can be seen that this large group of foot soldiers beyond the scale of the garrison, and even more than a dozen horsemen, must have sneaked out of the secret door on the city wall, just waiting for this great opportunity for Cao Jun to collect troops suddenly killed.

I saw an enemy general in the lead, wearing an iron helmet, wearing heavy armor, sleeves covering his arms, riding a black horse, holding a big lance, and taking the lead, so he rushed directly into Cao Jun's convoy, galloping back and forth, and no one was invincible. Cao Pi saw it from afar, and hurriedly urged the horse to tell his father: "General Gao Xing was killed by this thief!" ”

Cao Cao was shocked when he heard this, and said that Xiahou Lian was broken by the southern army on the bank of the water that day, and died of serious injuries. Although Cao Cao deliberately showed the enemy chaos and lured the southern army out of the city to fight, it made no sense to deliberately throw hundreds of soldiers and the cart that had been built up directly in order to test the true intentions of the other party. He was still holding a canopy here, looking at the enemy general, and Le Jin had already rushed out there, so Cao Cao ordered again: "Wen Lie, you can lead the tiger and leopard to ride to help!" ”

Since the enemy general is so brave, it is estimated that although Le Jin can win, he may not be able to keep him, so it is better to send Cao Chun out again, and he will avenge Xiahou Lian here!

After finishing it, Cao Cao summoned Huang Shot again, pointed to the enemy general and asked him: "This Huang Han is promoted, Wen Zhongye is yes?" "I heard that Hongfu said that there are only two generals in Jingzhou, which one is it? Huang Jie raised his eyes to look, and then shook his head: "This is not my Jingzhou people, but he must be Jiangdong generals." ”

Ah yo, it turned out to be Sun Quan's general, but I didn't know that it was Cheng Puye or Huang Gaiye? It's so brave! But it doesn't seem to be like much, those two are old ministers who started with Sun Jian, and they have to go up to forty, but the kid in front of him is in his early thirties at most.

Cao Cao immediately ordered one of his guards to wave the flag, beat his horse forward, and shouted from afar: "Who is coming, you can know your name!" ”

The distance between the two sides is quite far away, what did the Wu general say, Cao Cao was in the camp, and he couldn't hear it clearly, so he waited for the guards to come back and report: "Bi Yun is under Cai Zhou Youping is also." ”

Ah, Zhou Tai, no wonder you are so brave!

Chen Yuanlong was in Guangling, secretly investigating Wu Huixing, and from time to time there were reports submitted to Cao Cao, so Cao Cao, the name of Zhou Tai, had heard of it. This is younger than Cheng Pu and Huang Gai, who are younger and have tender qualifications, and only joined the Sun family's camp before and after Sun Ce crossed the river, and was later asked by Sun Quan. At that time, Sun Quan was not yet an adult, and he was temporarily stationed in Xuancheng, but he was surrounded by thousands of bandits, and it was all thanks to Zhou Tai's hard work to kill the bandits. It is said that in that battle, Zhou Youping was wounded in twelve places, and the blood flowed and the swells, and he almost hung up directly - his reputation for courage also began, and even the generals of Eastern Wu were all admired.

When Cao Cao heard that it was Zhou Tai, he hurriedly ordered: "Be sure to give birth!" "Originally, I wanted to kill the enemy to avenge Xiahou Lian, but since it was Zhou Youping, it was more advantageous to capture him alive - that guy was Sun Quan's benefactor, and if he could be captured, he would definitely put great pressure on Sun Quan.

From a distance, I saw Le Wenqian and Cao Wenlie riding side by side, and went directly to Zhou Tai. These two fight one, Cao Cao said in his heart, is there any reason why he can't be caught? I'm afraid that a wrong hand will kill him, which is a pity...... (To be continued......)

PS: After sending it out, I found out that the name of the chapter was wrong again, and it seems that it can't be changed...... This should be chapter twenty-nine, the first two are twenty-six, and the second one should certainly be twenty-seven...... I apologize to my readers!