As Ji Ling said, the two thousand enemies, all of whom were new soldiers, naturally could not threaten the safety of the city tower, they just set up the ladder, and they were killed by the bow and arrow, and in the end, they simply did not even climb the city tower, so they retreated.

After a day like this, Xiahou Yuan did not send the main force to fight because he had scruples, but mainly disturbed the enemy with a small force, and when it was about to get dark, he quickly withdrew with a large army, and in this way, the task given by Lu Bu and the task of holding Liang County for three days was easily completed.

Three days passed, and in Cao Cao's large military camp tent behind Xiahou Yuan's army, he looked at the scouts who had just returned and listened to him recount the battle ahead.

"Alright, you go down." After the scout told everything he had seen and heard, he withdrew from the big tent, and then Cao Cao shook his head lightly and said, "This Zhang Zhiyuan, who is always able to surprise him, has such a powerful weapon, just think that this will make me retreat?" Hum! Someone, inform me, tomorrow the army will march towards Liang County.

Cao Cao had long learned from the intelligence department that Zhang Chao had a deadly explosive in his hand, but he didn't expect that the small battle of Liangxian would be used. It seems that this thing is not as stated in the intelligence, it is difficult to manufacture, and there should be many more in the Celestial Empire, otherwise it will not be used casually.

And if the other party really has a lot of such things, it will undoubtedly be equivalent to slowing down the pace of his army's advance, and may even shake his military spirit to a great extent, after all, what no one can defeat has a very strong deterrent power.

It's just that knowing this, Cao Cao has no better choice now, even if he has chosen to start a war with the Celestial Empire, there is no result that cannot be withdrawn at will. Moreover, there are so many soldiers under his command, and the daily expenses are so great, he cannot let them live without making efforts, and in that case, he may not be able to support these soldiers without having to stretch his hands.

Cao Cao imitated Zhang Chao's actions, built a money village, made a sticker, and had the strength to build a large number of troops. But when he really came to this point, he realized that it was a great burden to have more than one army, and the consumption of each day was an astronomical amount. He really doesn't know how Zhang Chao feeds those troops, but at this point, he has no more time to think about it, the only thing he can do is to use these soldiers to defeat Zhang Chao, and at worst, he will have to fight for a lose-lose situation, so that although the army in his hands will be much less, but the military expenditure will not change? The most important thing is to inflict heavy damage on the Celestial Empire, so that they do not have the strength to attack themselves, which is the best way to retreat into advance.

Cao Cao couldn't retreat anymore, so knowing that the enemy was not easy to defeat, he still led the army to Liang County early the next morning, and when the army and Xiahou Yuan converged, it was getting dark.

When Xiahou Yuan learned that the King of Wei had arrived, he hurriedly rushed to the big tent, and then bowed to the tent: "Lord, everything is Yuan's fault, please punish him." ”

"Miaocai, get up, I know everything, it's none of your business, it's really the power of the explosives is too violent." Looking at Xiahou Yuan, who was kneeling on the ground, Cao Cao forgave him.

This is Cao Cao's way of employing people, often in one sentence, one action can make the generals below die for him, I have to say that he has his own strengths in the direction of buying people's hearts.

Hearing that Cao Cao didn't blame himself, Xiahou Yuan knocked his head a few more times, then got up and retreated to the side, standing in a column with the generals in those tents.

"Everyone, the power of explosives, I think you should be clear by now, so in order to prevent you from being hit hard in the future, I ask you not to concentrate too much in the future, so that even if the opponent's explosives are thrown out, the threat is not great, understand?" Cao Cao said with a serious look.

"I'll get it." The civil and military people in the tent all looked like they were being taught.

"Okay, that's it, if we continue to attack Liang County tomorrow, one echelon is still five thousand people, but only two echelons can go up at most at a time." Cao Cao seemed to be pleased with the reaction of his courtiers below, and made a decision on tomorrow's military action.

Cao Cao brought the main army to the city Ji Ling and Gao Shun had already learned, and after the two studied together, they decided to withdraw from Liang County with the main force, they knew that without explosives, a powerful weapon, they would not be able to defend the city. Fortunately, the original military order to hold the county seat for three days was enough, but they had been firm for four days, which was considered to have exceeded the task.

That night, Ji Ling and Gao Shun withdrew their troops, unknowingly, waiting for the next morning, when the Wei army began to attack the city, only to find that Liang County was already an empty city, which made Cao Cao angry, but he was more suspicious of what kind of trick the other party was playing.

Say that they are defending to the death, why did they come by themselves and retreat without a fight. Let's say that they didn't defend to the death, why did the 50,000 people really fight to the death in the face of the 200,000 people led by Xiahou Yuan? What kind of thoughts and ideas does this Zhang Zhiyuan have?

Of course, Cao Cao didn't know that just when he had just captured the empty Liang County, Ji Ling and Gao Shun had retreated to the next city of Yangren County overnight, and there was already another deputy commander of the Fifth Army Corps, General Cheng Yin, with 50,000 people guarding here, and they still had several large bags of explosives in their hands. Apparently they were going to stay here, and they had a minimum of three days' military orders.

This order seems to have been given by Lü Bu, but it was actually conveyed through Zhang Chao's mouth, and the reason why he did this was to slow down the attack of Cao Cao's army.

As early as when the ticket was implemented, Zhang Chao guessed that his move might be imitated by others, but he was not worried, on the contrary, he hoped that others would follow him, because he wanted to support his opponent in this way.

If you have the money to build a large army, you will definitely fight, and if you take one more day, the enemy's financial money will be much less, until finally, when a country has no money to use, civil strife will arise on its own, and the time will be self-defeating.

Zhang Chao had such an idea, and for this reason, he ordered all county towns to be guarded for three days, so as to delay Cao Cao's march and achieve the goal of dragging down the other party financially. Now it seems that everything is still in his plan.

Cao Cao didn't see through this intention at the first time, Yangren County, he still took three days to take it, and he also lost a lot of troops because of it, of course, this is because of those explosives.

After successively capturing Liang County and Yangren County, the Wei army's morale did not see any increase, on the contrary, many people were thinking that if every county town needed to pay such a big price to be captured, even if it was when they hit Jinyang City, they already had no strength.

It seems that he is afraid of something, after the Yangren County Town, before the third city and new city, he saw the army of the 50,000 Heavenly Dynasty and the cloth bags hanging on the city tower, and at this moment, not only those soldiers, but also some generals The faces became ugly.

"Zhang Zhiyuan's plan is obviously a consumption plan, he wants to eat us step by step." Cao Cao also suddenly realized at this moment, a county plus the time to capture and rush will take at least four days, so in the past, just a division is afraid that there are more than 100 cities, so wouldn't it take a year to conquer it? What's more, not to mention whether his army losses can last for a year, or what kind of expenses will it cost to hold on to the military for a year?

At this time, Cao Cao finally knew that he had fallen for Zhang Chao's plan, and at this time he also began to regret the implementation of the ticket sticker policy, because this was clearly the practice of self-destruction of the Great Wall.

Just when Cao Cao was still thinking that Zhang Chao was extremely insidious and led himself into the urn, another scene that he didn't want to see happened, that is, someone came to report, and the soldiers under him began to escape, and once this phenomenon happened, there was a chain reaction, more than 300 people fled on the first night, and more than 4,000 people escaped on the second night.

The soldiers will flee, naturally the recruits recruited later, they originally joined the army for money, but when they entered here, they found that they had to do everything that did not want to die, and even if they died, they could not get the slightest pension, they were unintentionally working for Cao Cao. Thinking that the Celestial Empire has such powerful explosives, if this battle continues, the victory is too low, even if this is the case, it is better to escape, at least you can get a life, right?

There was a deserter, and Cao Cao really didn't blame anything more, he knew that it was only a matter of time before such a thing happened. The four million troops spent a huge amount of food every day, not to mention the huge losses every time they captured a county under the threat of explosives, and he really had no extra money to pay for the families of the soldiers who died in the war.

"That's it, even if they want to escape, they can, but they can flee back to the realm of Wei, but whoever dares to go to the Celestial Empire will punish the three clans." After Cao Cao recognized the situation, he had to issue a military order, after all, after these people fled back to their hometown, they would only go to farm, but they could get more food, but they really couldn't go to the Celestial Empire, that would be to fight for the tiger.