Chapter 234: Cao Ren escaped

The Hong army was preparing to send troops in full swing, intending to tighten the mouth of the big pocket of Xincheng County and catch the 300,000 Wei troops in the urn, but before he could seal the mouth of the bag, Liu Hou received a report from the scout: "The 300,000 Wei army marched east to break through." ”

The strategists of Shu could see that Xincheng County was a dead place and a big pocket, and the Wei army, which had been fighting here for a long time, could certainly see it. Xincheng County, especially the surrounding mountains and forests of Shangyong, the terrain is precipitous, if 300,000 horses are scattered into the mountains and forests, resisting stubbornly according to the danger, or fighting guerrilla warfare with the Shu army, it is enough for the Shu army to drink a pot.

It's a pity that Xincheng County is short of grain, Xiangfan was occupied by the Shu army, Xincheng County's grain transportation channel was cut off, relying on so little bit of local arable land, even the local people may not be able to feed it, not to mention 300,000 more mouths, and these 300,000 mouths are big mouths, big bellies, and can eat very much.

Ordinary people may drink some gruel every day, eat some wild vegetables, and add some chaff cakes, and they can barely survive, but the big soldiers can't, they do heavy work, and they do business with their heads on the waistband of their trousers, and if they are not fed, they may have problems at any time.

If you don't have a salary, you may only be angry, but if you can't eat enough, the biggest possibility is a mutiny, even if some generals are strict in governing the army, and the soldiers are super disciplined, and they endure hunger and do not mutiny, but the soldiers are so hungry that their hands and feet are weak, how can they fight? Not to mention fighting, you may not even be able to raise weapons at that time.

The commander of the 300,000-strong army of Wei was Cao Ren, the only surviving general of the Cao Cao era (Cao Ren died of illness in the fourth year of the early Huang Dynasty, that is, in 223 AD), and the deputy general was Xiahou Nan.

Cao Ren is more familiar to everyone, he is filial piety, he is Cao Cao's younger brother, he is a famous general of the Cao Army of the Three Kingdoms, an official to the Great Sima, and a marquis of Chen. This guy can be described as brilliant, and with Cao Cao's southern and northern battles, he has won a lot. He participated in Cao Wei's battles against Yuan Shu, Tao Qian, Lu Bu, Liu Bei, and Ma Chao, and also participated in the Battle of Guandu. After the defeat of the Chibi army, he defended Jiangling and dragged Zhou Yu for a year, which won valuable time for Cao Cao to regroup.

However, his pinnacle work should have been in the Battle of Xiangfan and Wei Shu, blocking Guan Yu's attack. In the Battle of Fancheng, although Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army and besieged the city with water, he was able to motivate the soldiers to defend Fancheng until Xu Huang rescued him, and finally repelled Guan Yu, who was powerful in China at that time, and turned the whole battle around.

And that Xiahou Nan is not worth mentioning, the only thing he can be mentioned is that he is the son of the great general Xiahou Xuan. He is cowardly and stingy, he has no ability, and it is completely dependent on nepotism to be able to sit in such a high position, Cao Pi not only sees that he is Xiahou Dan's face, but also because he married Cao Cao's daughter Princess Qinghe.

Xiahou Nan is incompetent, and he is naturally ignorant of the current situation, but Cao Ren is different, he is a veteran of the battlefield who has fought old battles, how can he not see that his 300,000 army has fallen into a desperate situation. At the moment when Fancheng was occupied by the Shu army and the grain transportation channel was cut off, he had already made up his mind to break through and retreat.

Retreat does not mean that he is cowardly, on the contrary, he has never lacked courage, when he was besieged in Fancheng by Guan Gong with floods, everyone persuaded him to give up Fancheng, but he insisted on going his own way, encouraging the soldiers to stick to the end and achieve victory, and then waited for reinforcements, and finally turned the tide of the war, which shows his perseverance and courage.

However, courage is not the same as stupidity and unclear form shì blindly brute force, the current form shì is completely different from the original form shì, the longer it persists, the greater the possibility of the whole army being annihilated, the sooner the 300,000 troops are withdrawn, the greater the possibility of survival, and the more vitality can be preserved for the Wei State.

However, it is not an easy task for the 300,000-strong army to retreat, especially when there is a strong enemy eyeing the side, and if you are not careful, the retreat can easily turn into a big rout. Therefore, even someone as experienced as Cao Ren's army took several days to prepare for the retreat of the army.

In order to prevent Zhang Fei and Pang Tong's army from chasing and killing, Cao Ren arranged two troops to be the queen of the palace, and the reason why he wanted the queen of the two troops was that he had been fighting with Zhang Fei and Pang Tong's army for a long time, and he knew this army very well, knowing that they relied on a large number of thunderbolts and a small number of fire # guns and defective products, which made the attack power of the troops amazing, and he was afraid that a palace army would not be able to stop the pace of the Shu army's pursuit.

Just imagine, the front rows of the two armies each poked each other with spears, and when the battle was stalemate, what would be the consequences if the back row of one of the sides suddenly threw countless thunderbolts into the enemy's formation?

The result must have been a swift rout of the side blown up by the thunderbolts. Not to mention how much this kind of deafening, one-size-fits-all, and blood-and-flesh weapon has a psychological deterrent effect on people, just blowing up the people in the back row of the large array, so that they cannot be replenished to the front row in time, is enough to make them rout In the past few years, the Shu army has relied on this simple method to win in countless battles with the Wei army. Therefore, for the sake of prudence, he deliberately arranged two troops behind the palace this time, first throwing one out to resist the pursuit of the Shu army, and when this army was disabled, the other one followed. He hoped that the two armies would block enough time for the large army to retreat.

It sounds cruel, these two troops are clearly the victims of his abandonment, but this is the reality, this is the war, many times the war is so cruel, some people are destined to be abandoned, some people are destined to be sacrificed.

A general, if he refuses to take care of the overall situation and pity these soldiers who are destined to be abandoned, is likely to lead the overall defeat of the battle situation, and finally lead more people to die, so the general must be hard-hearted enough, and the lives that should be sacrificed must not have the slightest hesitation, so there is a saying that "mercy is not in charge of the army".

In addition to arranging two troops behind the palace, Cao Ren also set up a suspicious array to confuse Zhang Fei and Pang Tong. They ordered the army not to dismantle the camp, and left a small number of people in the camp, responsible for waving the banner and making drum noises to confuse the Shu army, but the army quietly withdrew at night.

On the day the Wei army withdrew, there was just no moonlight, which made the hot air balloons of the Shu army not even detect their movements, and by the time Zhang Fei received the information that the Wei army had withdrawn, it was already more than a night late. However, the Shu army detected the time of the Wei army's withdrawal, which was half a day earlier than Cao Ren expected.

According to Cao Ren's estimate, in addition to that night, with the clamor of those abandoned pawns left in the barracks, at least the Shu army could be deceived for half a day, but the Shu army had hot air balloons floating above its barracks day and night for reconnaissance, which made the pilots discover the reality of the Wei army camp as soon as it was dawn, and the performances of those abandoned pawns arranged by Cao Ren were clearly seen by the pilots in the sky.

After receiving the news, Zhang Fei and Pang Tong did not hesitate, and immediately arranged for men and horses to pursue, this is the benefit of comprehensive suppression of information, if there is no Shu army's reconnaissance means of condescending in the sky, and when encountering this kind of enemy's suspicious formation, it is inevitable that they will look ahead and look backwards, and first consider whether the enemy is designing an ambush for themselves, and the safest way is to send people into the enemy's military camp to test it first, and then make further decisions.

In this way, it is safe to be safe, but it will also delay the pursuit time, and when pursuing, you will not dare to go at full speed, you must be cautious, and advance while reconnoitring, because you don't know where the enemy will set up an ambush, in this case, the pursuit speed will not be fast, and it is easy for the enemy to escape.

But the Shu army is different, the hot air balloon floating in the air can clearly see the situation on the road ahead, and with the cooperation of ground scouts, some terrain that cannot be seen clearly in the air will also be reconnoitred.