Just when the battle in the direction of Xiliang was lively, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, who had secretly reached a conspiracy, finally began to make a move against Qingzhou.

In mid-March, Cao Cao suddenly went to the imperial court, saying that there was still a large amount of forbidden Jin salt for sale in Yanzhou, and that he had not fulfilled his responsibilities as a state minister, so he asked the imperial court to reduce the punishment.

Soon after, the imperial court really issued a decree, reprimanding Cao Cao for not strictly implementing the imperial court orders, resulting in the repeated prohibition of snowflake salt in Yanzhou, so he was fined for half a year to set an example. The imperial court also required Cao Cao to strictly investigate the matter, and in any case, the snowflake salt of the Jin State should be completely banned.

After Cao Cao, who staged a bitter plan, received the edict from the imperial court, he showed enough sincerity and fear, and in front of a group of civil and military staff, he pulled out the sword on his waist and pulled it at his neck!

Lao Cao is too serious, isn't he? How can he really take a guy to his neck? In fact, Cao Cao just used a long sword to cut off a "handful of hair" near his ear. This trick has a name, called "cutting hair". Cao Cao said to his subordinates with a heavy face: "It stands to reason that I should kill myself to thank the Son of Heaven, but if I am restless today, I still need to keep this body to be loyal to the Han, so I cut my hair and act as the head, and I hope you will testify!"

Although Xun Yu, Xun You, Cheng Yu and others all knew that this was Lao Cao performing a solo performance, everyone still saluted Cao Cao with admiration on their faces, and shouted: "Cao Gong is loyal to the monarch and the country, and can be a model for my generation, leave it to be useful, and do your best!"

Soon after Cao Cao's hair was cut, a crackdown on the trade market suddenly blew up, and many small merchants who smuggled salt from Qingzhou and Xuzhou to Yanzhou were all arrested by Cao Cao. After some interrogation, these "small traders" confessed to the big bosses in the background, Kong Rong and Tao Qian, and unanimously claimed that they were collecting money for Kong Zhou Mu and Tao Zhou Mu.

At this time, Cao Cao caught the handle of Kong Rong and Tao Qian, and he wrote to the court to ask for instructions on how to deal with this matter, and on the other hand, he stepped up the military war, and only waited for Yuan Shao to have a showdown with the court before attacking Qingzhou.

It is said that when Cao Cao was tossing hard, Yuan Shao was naturally not idle. He had already made up his mind to leave Jizhou and reopen a new base area, so before leaving, he desperately looted the wealth of Wei County, Qinghe Country and other places, and forcibly recruited more than 30,000 young men into his own troops by outrageous means, and forcibly expanded the original army of only more than 20,000 people to 60,000.

Yuan Shao, who had almost been prepared, suddenly sent a letter to Zhu Jun stationed in the Quliang area of Wei County, claiming that he had limited troops and horses, and it was really difficult to bear the heavy responsibility of resisting the Jin army, and implored Zhu Jun to take over the command of the Jizhou coalition army and be responsible for fighting against the 120,000 Jin troops on the frontal battlefield.

Without waiting for Zhu Jun to send someone to reply, Yuan Shao led 60,000 horses out of Yecheng without a sound and went straight to the vicinity of Lingxian in Qinghe Kingdom. More than ten miles east of Ling County is Qingzhou Plain County, from here to the south bank of the Yellow River to the water city of Gaotang, it is only more than 40 miles, Yuan Shao's army only needs one day to arrive.

When Yuan Shaojun was in action, Cao Cao sent Xiahoudun, who went north to support Jizhou, also led 20,000 troops from the Guantao area to Yangping in Yanzhou without a sound. In this way, only the 50,000 Southern Army led by Zhu Jun and the 80,000 allied troops jointly dispatched by Yangzhou, Yuzhou and Jingzhou remained in Jizhou to fight against the Jin Army, which was basically the same as the Jin Fourth Route Army in terms of numbers.

The imperial court quickly replied to Cao Cao with a decree, telling Cao Cao not to retreat and be soft on anyone who dared to offend the orders of the imperial court, and this will was, to put it bluntly, conniving and acquiescing in Cao Cao's use of force against Kong Rong in Qingzhou and Tao Qian in Xuzhou.

Cao Cao had this will, and immediately divided the 50,000 troops that had been assembled into two routes, one way 20,000 horses led by the general Xiahou Yuan, and went straight to Qingzhou Linyun in the northeast of Taishan County, and all the way 30,000 horses led by the veteran Cao Ren to cross the Yellow River north, and the direction of travel turned out to be Yecheng, which Yuan Shao had just let out!

Yuan Shao was anxious to rush to Qingzhou to grab the territory, but Cao Cao was very keenly aware of the importance of Yecheng's strategic position. Since Yuan Shao didn't care about the ownership of Yecheng, it wouldn't cause much trouble for Cao Cao to send someone to take over.

From this series of actions, Cao Cao finally exposed his full strength. Xiahoudun's 20,000 horses were cavalry, Xiahou Yuan's 20,000 horses were mixed with infantry and cavalry, and Cao Ren's 30,000 soldiers were all infantry. In other words, Cao Cao, after all these years of secret accumulation, actually had an army of more than 70,000 people.

Because it was a coordinated action, after Cao Cao received the will of the imperial court, he immediately sent people to get in touch with Yuan Shao, who was active in the Lingxian area, and jointly set a specific time for the siege of Qingzhou.

Just when Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were sharpening their knives and Huo Huo was about to attack Kong Rong, the Shadow Squad members who were active in Jizhou and Yanzhou finally deduced Yuan Cao's possible attempt to use force against Qingzhou with some clues. On the one hand, they urgently reported the matter to Zhao Xing, and on the other hand, they contacted Kong Rong and Tao Qian, reminding them to strengthen their precautions to avoid the outbreak of sudden situations such as the destruction of the city and the death of people.

The available troops in Qingzhou and Xuzhou are really limited, if it weren't for the 20,000 elite infantry trained by Zhao Xing with Kong Rong and Tao Qian, I am afraid that the combat strength of Qingzhou and Xuzhou is still hovering at a very low level. After Kong Rong received the warning, he hurriedly informed Wu Anguo to gather all his troops and garrison them in Linzi, the Qingzhou administrative office, as for the defense of other counties, it was no longer a problem that he could control. After Tao Qian received the warning, he asked Cao Bao to step up preparations for the defense of Xiapi City, and at the same time hurriedly notified the Mi family in the East China Sea to get in touch with the Jin State, hoping to get strong support from Zhao Xing.

At the beginning of April, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao entered Qingzhou under the banner of eliminating traitors for the imperial court, and in only ten days, they annexed more than half of the territory of Qingzhou Pingyuan County, Jinan County, Beihai County and Qi County, forcing Kong Rong to be trapped in Linzi City, and became a lonely person for a while, unable to see where the retreat was.

Xu You originally said that Cao Cao would move to Qingzhou, but he said in a convincing manner that there were large gold mines in Qingzhou, which could provide huge wealth for the Yuan Cao coalition army. To realize what Xu Yu said, there is indeed such a thing, in the territory of Jinan County, Qingzhou, there is a mine invested and bought out by Jin businessmen, specializing in the production of gold.

Since the Yuan Cao coalition army had already occupied the Jinan State, it was natural that they would not let the merchants of the Jin State continue to control the gold mining rights, but carved up the mine as quickly as possible, and immediately mobilized a large number of people to dig up a huge ore vein in a few months.

In less than a month, Kong Rong only left Linzi City, the state seat of governance, and Le'an State, northeast of Linzi, and Le'an Country to the northeast is the boundless Bohai Sea, and the mouth of the Yellow River is also in Le'an.

Yuan Cao's coalition army made such a big move, and naturally it couldn't hide Zhao Xing, who was far away in Crouching Tiger City. When he heard that Yuan Shao led his army out to attack Qingzhou, he immediately thought of two things.

The first thing was to immediately order Zhang Liao, Xu Shu, Li Jinwu and Zhang Yan to lead their armies to advance southward, and strive to take the important town of Yecheng in one fell swoop.

The second thing was to quickly inform Tai Shici and let him lead the sailors south to support Qingzhou, and in the worst case, he would rescue Kong Rong and his family, as well as the 10,000 infantry under the command of Wu Anguo.