At this time, it depends on Cao Ren's decision.

Cao Ren was very unwilling, after all, the importance of this battle was self-evident to Cao Jun, and he could not lose easily.

Therefore, although Guan Yu used Pu Daobing to effectively improve the disadvantage in offensive distance, Cao Ren felt that he was not without a chance of winning.

After all, Guan Yu had already used up the three thousand reserves in advance, that is to say, Guan Yu had already shown his hole cards in advance.

And Cao Ren still has 3,000 reserves in his hand that have not been used.

Therefore, Cao Ren gritted his teeth and also used his hole cards.

The three thousand reserves came out of formation, but instead of supporting the frontal battlefield, they began to make a detour and attack the flank of Guan Yu's army.

Guan Yu was not moved by this at all, but let the soldiers on the flank resist on the one hand, and attack the Cao army on the front on the other.

As long as they broke through the defense of the Cao army in front and approached Cao Ren's main formation, then Cao Ren's roundabout troops would not be able to play much advantage.

Moreover, Guan Yu's personal force value is there, even if Cao Ren's roundabout troops really break through the flank, Guan Yu and the five hundred people in the headquarters are confident that they can close this gap.

And Cao Ren, in fact, Cao Ren thinks the same way.

If it really can't be done, then lead 500 personal soldiers to rush forward in person, plug the gap in the frontal battlefield, and buy time for their own roundabout troops.

This battle has once again reached the traditional level of seeing who has fought whom.

It's just that this time, Cao Ren didn't have good luck under the city of Nanjun, after all, the soldiers of Liu Bei's group were not the Jiangdong naval army that was "not good at land warfare", and Cao Ren's frontal troops, the speed of the defensive line collapsed faster than Cao Ren expected.

Cao Ren's roundabout troops were still entangled with Guan Yu's flank defense troops, and Cao Ren's frontal troops could no longer bear it.

Even if Cao Ren personally led 500 personal soldiers to support, he only barely held the defensive line and did not repel Liu Beijun's attack.

At this time, what Cao Ren needs to consider is not whether he can persist anymore.

The current Cao Ren can't see the hope of his roundabout troops breaking through the flank of Guan Yu's army at all, and if he persists like this, once the frontal troops are broken, then Cao Ren will be greeted not only by a defeat, but even by a defeat with heavy losses.

Defeat is decided.

At this time, as a qualified commander-in-chief, he can no longer insist on some so-called face problems. Persistence when there is hope and struggle when defeat is set are two different things.

You can't take the lives of soldiers to do some useless struggle.

Therefore, Cao Ren temporarily retreated to the Chinese army and rang the golden bell.

As soon as Ming Jin, it is equivalent to Cao Ren taking the initiative to admit that he was defeated, and under the conditions of this kind of battle, one side admits defeat, and the other side will not take advantage of the situation to pursue.

Therefore, Guan Yu also slowly gathered his pawns and slowly retreated.

At the end of the battle between the two sides, Guan Yu exchanged the price of more than 1,000 casualties for the Cao army's casualties of nearly 2,000 casualties.

Although in terms of casualty ratio, it seems that the two sides are about the same, but that is because Cao Ren first Mingjin admits defeat, otherwise if he continues to fight, Cao Ren will definitely face the collapse of the whole army, and this casualty will be large.

Moreover, Cao Ren's admission of defeat was a very big blow to the morale of Cao Jun, which was equivalent to his own commander being defeated by the enemy on the frontal battlefield, without causing turmoil in the army's heart, and Cao Ren, Zhang Liao, and Zang Ba led the troops well.

But now these three people, gathered in Cao Ren's tent, are also frowning one by one.

"King Wei entrusted me with a big event, but now I am in a dilemma under Fancheng, how is this good?!"

Cao Ren paced back and forth in the camp, asking the opinions of the two lieutenants rather anxiously.

Zhang Liao and Zang Ba were both stunned, and then continued to be silent.

You're the main general, you ask us?!

Besides, it's not like you can't see it.

There are two people on the opposite side, one is a turtle, he can't go out of the city after being killed, you have to attack the city, he has a lot of means, and he really can't break the city that people hold on to for a while.

The other one, although it is a hedgehog, but people can give you face at all, and agreed to make an appointment with you, but you lost the battle yourself. Who is to blame?!

Cao Ren couldn't help but feel a little annoyed when he saw that these two didn't speak, and said, "Wen Yuan, Xuan Gao, you two are also good generals in the world, but in the current situation, there is no plan to break the enemy?!" ”

Zhang Liao pondered for a while, and felt that it seemed that it was impossible not to speak at this time, so he thought for a while and said, "The general must not be impatient, now that our army is newly defeated and the army's spirit is unstable, it is better to hold the troops for the time being, and then make plans after the army's heart recovers." ”

Zang Baxin said that Zhang Wenyuan is not kind, you have finished talking nonsense, what am I saying? !

But soon, Zang Ba thought of a nonsense again, and hurriedly said, "What General Zhang said is extremely true, now that Xiangfan is in a hurry, I might as well wait to surround him for the time being, and report the current situation to King Wei, and let King Wei decide, how about it?!" ”

Zhang Liaoxin said yes, this Zang Ba, one pole to the side of King Wei, this back and forth for at least more than a month, right? !

In fact, the three people present, each of them knew that the other party was talking nonsense, but there was no way, none of the three wanted to take this responsibility.

In fact, there is a way to solve the current situation.

Guan Yu's side can ignore him for the time being, as long as Fancheng is defeated, the situation in the entire Xiangfan will be turned upside down.

However, Fancheng belongs to one of the defense systems of Xiangfan, and Xiangyang can provide Fancheng with food, grass, ordnance, and even military supplies at any time. There is no better way to lay down this place than to use human lives.

Originally, Cao Ren's thunderbolt was a good idea, but the catapult on the opposite side seemed to be sharper. Now there is no way, if you don't need to pile up human lives, you can only be so deadlocked.

But if you use human lives to pile up, not to mention the question of how many lives to pile up, Cao Cao can bear this loss? !

In this place of Xiangfan, Cao Cao has already invested nearly 100,000 troops before and after, and even the Xuzhou soldiers have been transferred. Cao Cao couldn't afford to lose.

Cao Ren actually knew this very well, so he repeatedly asked Zhang Liao and Zang Ba about it, but in fact, the old fox planned to dump the pot.

But Zhang Liao or Zang Ba is not from an old fox.

Zhang Liao was quite kind, that is, he persuaded Cao Ren not to attack for the time being on the grounds of unstable military morale, and at the same time waited for Cao Cao's progress on the Hanzhong side before making plans.

And Zang Ba is relatively bad, so he directly stabbed this matter to Cao Cao with a pole and let Cao Cao make decisions, so don't we have to carry any pot? !

There is one thing to say, it is not without reason that Zang Ba will later be deprived of military power by Cao Pi. This idea looks good, but from Cao Cao's standpoint, there is a high probability that he will scold his mother.

Everything has to be decided by him Cao Cao, what are you going to eat for raising you generals?!

Of course, Cao Ren knew that this matter could not be stabbed to Cao Cao's side, otherwise it would be him Cao Ren, and he would inevitably be reprimanded by Cao Cao. Therefore, Cao Ren still decided to adopt Zhang Liao's strategy, while appeasing the army's morale, while waiting to see what happened.

In this way, the Xiangfan battlefield in the second half of the first month fell into a strange silence.

And at the same time, Hanzhong side.

Cao Cao now does have the intention of retiring from Hanzhong.

It is snowing heavily in Hanzhong now, which makes it more and more difficult to supply from Chang'an to Hanzhong, and Liu Bei, just like a Xiaoqiang who can't be killed, no matter how you fight him, he just drags you like this, he can't die, he can't be defeated, but he can drag you down.

This reminded Cao Cao of some bad things, such as the Battle of Red Cliffs.

Sometimes, Cao Cao is also thinking, if he listened to Liu Ye's words at the beginning, he would accept it after taking Jingzhou, and lead troops back to the north, would he not have to face the battle of Chibi, and now he would have ruled the world.

When he was in Chibi, Cao Cao actually knew that his army was fighting all year round, and it was already the end of the crossbow, but Cao Cao at that time chose to carry it hard, and as a result, he suffered a big defeat in Chibi.

And Liu Bei, an old opponent who had fled in embarrassment and had little room for him, rose all the way because of this, and now he has to fight hard with himself to compete for the capital of Hanzhong.

The current Cao Jun is actually similar to Chibi at that time, and it has also reached the end of the crossbow.

The battle of Hanzhong, up to now, has been fought for more than a year, and the soldiers are very tired, and this place in Hanzhong is about to be disabled.

The local supply of grain and grass has long been exhausted, and now all the grain and grass must be transferred from Chang'an, not to mention the long distance, and the heavy snow closure makes the supply even more difficult.

The only good news now is that Cao Hong desperately blocked the joint siege of Zhang Fei and Ma Chao in Chencang Road, coupled with the bad weather, Liu Beijun could not make a detour to the Qiang territory to attack Chang'an, so he could barely ensure that his supply line was not threatened.

But after the beginning of spring, the snow melted, even if Cao Hong could still defend Chencang Road, if Ma Chao led the Qiang soldiers to make a detour to cut off his supply line, then Cao Cao would really be trapped in Hanzhong.

So Cao Cao wanted to retreat, but Cao Cao also knew that once he retreated, Hanzhong would no longer belong to him.

Although there is not much economic value in Hanzhong now.

Most of the population of Hanzhong has been migrated to Guanzhong by Cao Cao to enrich the population of Guanzhong after it was wreaked havoc by the Xiliang Corps.

The land in Hanzhong has also become barren because of years of conquest, and it is not a matter of one or two years to restore production.

Cao Cao's loss of Hanzhong is actually not a big economic loss, but the political loss will become very large. This was the first time Cao Cao had a head-to-head confrontation with Liu Bei, and he chose to back down.

When he said that "the heroes of the world, only the king and the ear" were because Liu Bei was under his own control and was not worried about Liu Bei sitting big at all.

But for now. Liu Bei, the hero of the world, finally spread his wings and soared into the sky.

Cao Cao is in a good mood to be strange.

Therefore, during this period of time, Cao Cao kept "mat weavers and sellers" on his lips at every turn, and it was not surprising that he scolded the opponent he once praised.

When a person has potential, but there is no threat to you, you will always praise him without hesitation, because praising him is actually elevating yourself to a certain extent.

But when this person can really threaten your status, you can scold him for two sentences that are considered elegant, and it is normal to stumble behind your back or even suppress him head-on.

Under such circumstances, Cao Cao wanted to retreat but was unwilling, he wanted to enter but couldn't fight, and he had to worry about the hesitation of the rear grain road at any time, and finally one day, he gave the military password that was passed down to future generations - "chicken ribs".

Then, a certain big smart man named Yang Xiu thought he was really smart.

(End of chapter)