At the level of strategists at the level of Sima Yi, Xu Shu, and Zhuge Liang, he is really a fox on the mountain, and no one should play or talk to anyone.

Sima Yi's strategic purpose, through Xu Shu and others' side of the party, has actually been analyzed.

Yes, at the beginning, Sima Yi's main concern was the threat brought by Wei Yan in the back, but when Sima Yi thought about the feasibility of retreating, he also found that this was a clever trick to drag Dongwu into the water.

And the most important thing is that this trick may not be able to hide from wise people like Xu Shu and Lu Xun, but as long as he retreats, it is impossible for Xu Shu not to chase him, and it is impossible for Lu Xun not to take advantage of such a good opportunity not to seize the counties of Yanzhou.

This is the need for mutual interests, and it is not something that anyone can endure if they say they can endure it.

This is an almost unsolvable conspiracy.

Now that the Shu thieves are strong and the rear of the Wei army is unstable, Sima Yi needs to gather his forces, compress the defensive line, and solve the threat in the rear, so he must retreat.

As soon as Sima Yi retreated, it was impossible for Xu Shu to let Sima Yi preserve his strength and leave, so he had to keep up, and at the same time, he could also cooperate with Wei Yan's troops to attack back and forth, and strive for the opportunity to break the enemy in a battle.

As for the Eastern Wu side, although the Shu thieves were powerful, the Eastern Wu had sufficient troops in Huainan and Xuzhou, and they were not afraid of the Shu thieves. Coupled with the unique advantage attribute of Dongwu, even if Lu Xun can endure it, Sun Quan may not be able to resist the temptation of such a large territory.

Therefore, Sima Yi is at least seventy percent sure of dragging Dongwu into the water.

As for Yanzhou, there is no way, the battle has reached this point, of course, he Sima Yi is mainly responsible.

However, if Yanzhou can be used as a shield to block the pace of Shu thieves from continuing to go north while maintaining the original loss of troops and not losing strength, it is not unacceptable in Sima Yi's view.

Of course, the imperial court may not accept this situation too much, so Sima Yi still needs to find a way to exterminate the soldiers and horses of Wei Yan's department, and further weaken the strength of the Shu thieves so that he can barely explain the past.

Therefore, Sima Yi began to gradually withdraw his troops according to his original plan.

Regarding his withdrawal of troops, Sima Yi also knew that with Xu Shu's resourcefulness, he would probably see the flaws sooner or later, and in order to delay the time as much as possible, Sima Yi decided to take a risk.

He asked Cao Shuang to lead the first batch of soldiers to withdraw to Jiyang and join Gao Tanglong, while he stayed in Yongqiu and was the last to withdraw.

On the one hand, when the Shu thief finds out that the thief is tired, he can continue to confuse the Shu thief with his own identity, and on the other hand, whoever breaks it off is not as relieved as he is after he breaks it.

It's just that Sima Yi didn't expect that just the day after he arranged the withdrawal of the army, the Shu thieves found out that they were tired, and the camp of Chen Tai's subordinates outside the city was tentatively attacked.

It is also a pity that the withdrawal has just begun at this time, and Chen Tai is still in the camp, and there is no first batch of evacuation. Under the command of Chen Tai, the Wei army repelled the attack of the Shu thieves without danger.

And Chen Tai also hurriedly sent someone to report to Sima Yi in the city, and at the same time asked for instructions on the next move.

When Sima Yi learned that Chen Tai did not go out of the city to pursue after repelling the Shu thieves, he knew that things were going to be in trouble.

On the one hand, Sima Yi asked Chen Tai to speed up the withdrawal of troops and complete the withdrawal outside the city as soon as possible, on the other hand, Sima Yi directly climbed the city tower the next day and personally commanded the battle.

This matter, Sima Yi was not in a hurry to do this.

At first, Sima Yi didn't plan to show up immediately, he wanted to let the remaining soldiers in Yongqiu City guard for a day first, and wait until Xu Shu outside the field was suspicious, and then take the initiative to show up, so that the effect would be greater.

After all, it is the human heart that calculates the scheming.

At first, Sima Yi chose not to show up, just to guide Xu Shu to guess whether he had withdrawn his troops. And when Xu Shu thought that he had evacuated Yongqiu, he suddenly appeared again, which was equivalent to directly overturning all Xu Shu's previous speculations.

At that time, Xu Shu would only think that Sima Yi did not appear before, that is, he was deliberately misleading him to think about withdrawing the army, and the actual purpose was to hold on to all the speculations before Xu Shu would self-deny in Yongqiu City, and firmly believe that Sima Yi and the army were in Yongqiu City.

Even if Sima Yi really evacuated Yongqiu later, Xu Shu would no longer doubt it for a while.

This was Sima Yi's original plan. But this plan, because of Chen Tai's early exposure, was unusable.

Originally, Xu Shu had already begun to suspect that the Wei army was retreating, and if Sima Yi did not show up as originally planned, Xu Shu would immediately make up his mind to attack Yongqiu, and would not give Sima Yi the opportunity to take the initiative to show up and act.

By that time, Chen Tai's forces were retreating, and Yongqiu's forces had been taken away by Cao Shuang, two-thirds of which Sima Yi did not have enough troops to deal with the all-out attack of the Shu thieves.

If he really fights, Sima Yi may really fall into an accident, then everything will really be over.

Therefore, Sima Yi could only show up immediately from Zhang Wei's tentative attack to deter Xu Shu for a while, and then after the tentative attack of the Shu thieves was withdrawn, he immediately arranged for his own guards to lead the remaining defenders to withdraw from Yongqiu and go to Jiyang.

Sima Yi had tried his best, but Xu Shu had never overturned his judgment, and was still doubting the strategic purpose and possibility of the Wei army's retreat. The next day, Zhang Wei again led more than 10,000 soldiers and carried out a tentative attack.

And this time, Zhang Wei directly broke through Yongqiu. Although in fact, Yongqiu is just an empty city.

In other words, Sima Yi only bought himself one day of evacuation time, and three days of evacuation time for the former army led by Cao Shuang.

It was much more urgent than Sima Yi had originally expected.

And Xu Shu is here. did not immediately lead the troops to catch up.

With the continuous deepening of the previous Northern Expeditions, the Northern Expedition War was not only a military battle, but also a political battle.

During the first and second expeditions, they fought in the Yongliang and Guanzhong regions, and Liu Bei personally led the troops, so there were basically only military issues along the way, and there were no political problems.

The Yongliang region has been war-torn for a long time, especially in the northern part of Yongzhou and the Liangzhou region, although there are some big families here, but here is close to the northwest, and most people still pay attention to a "subduing people with force." As long as they show enough force to deter, whether it is the family or the common people, there will not be much resistance to the new "conqueror".

And Liu Bei is even more not. The existence of 99 charisma in the game is not a joke on you.

With Liu Bei's good reputation and personal charm, there is no need to think about the attitude of the family at all.

At that time, the Northern Expeditionary Army only needed to lay down the place and govern the place, and there were not many other aspects that needed to be considered.

But now, the situation is different.

The closer it is to the hinterland of the Central Plains, the stronger the power of the clans, and the clans in the Central Plains and Hebei are generally more xenophobic, so as a new force to replace the old forces, the more things need to be paid attention to. These Central Plains families are not easy to serve.

It took Zhuge Liang five years of continuous infiltration to open up the situation in a county in Yingchuan, and the progress on the east side of the river has never been great, which shows how these Central Plains families do not see rabbits and eagles.

And with Sima Yi leading the troops to retreat, Xu Shu can naturally occupy the entire Chenliu County, and even Jiyin County and Shanyang County, but how to appease the clans here is also a science.

For this reason, after Xu Shu occupied Yongqiu, the first thing he had to do was to appease the clans here, and through the clans in Yongqiu, he released a relatively friendly message to the clans of the entire Yanzhou, and laid the foundation for the next march to other counties.

Therefore, it was impossible for Xu Shu to lead his troops to pursue Sima Yi at the first time.

However, it is impossible not to chase, and it is impossible not to let Sima Yi retreat so easily Xu Shu stayed in Yongqiu to appease the local family, and the responsibility for the pursuit was handed over to Guan Ping, Deng Ai, and Pang De.

Guan Ping was responsible for leading 20,000 troops to Jiyang, and after capturing Jiyang, he led his troops into Jiyin County, and joined Hu Zun, who was attacking north from Liang State, and the two of them captured Jiyin County together.

Deng Ai was responsible for leading 50,000 soldiers to Fengqiu in the north, going to the line from Sujube to Yanjin, continuing to create pressure on Sima Yi's department, and at the same time responding to Wei Yan's department, striving to conquer Suojube and Yanjin, and cracking Sima Yi's strategy of trying to retreat to Dongjun.

Pang De, on the other hand, was responsible for leading the cavalry, and used the speed advantage of the cavalry to respond to the attack back and forth on the road from Fengqiu to Jiyang, preventing the Wei army from killing a horse gun and sneaking back to counterattack Yongqiu.

An army of 120,000 was divided into 90,000. Xu Shu also left 30,000.

Of these 30,000 people, Xu Shu originally wanted to stay in Yongqiu, just in case. But after thinking about it carefully, Xu Shu once again divided 10,000 soldiers and handed them over to Biqiu Jian, asking him to lead troops to Liang State.

Hu Zun led his troops to attack Jiyin County, so the garrison of the Liang State must be empty Lu Xun in the south, will he really be so honest?!

Sima Yi's strategy, whether active or passive, and whether Lu Xun can see through Sima Yi's sinister intentions. Since Xu Shu has already thought of it, he can't help but guard against it.

(End of chapter)