After Cao Cao left, Cao Ren also prepared to evacuate on the second day.

Of course, he didn't know that Tao Qian in Yan County had sent Liu Bei to investigate the situation at this time, so he was almost defenseless.

It's not that Cao Ren is not careful, but that he follows Cao Cao to beat Tao Qian like a grandson without pressure.

At that time, it was said that Danyang produced elite soldiers, and Tao Qian was a native of Danyang and only trusted his fellow villagers, so he recruited a large number of Danyang soldiers, led by his trusted general Zhonglang General Xu Tan.

As a result, in the battle of Pengcheng, when Cao Cao and Tao Qian's forces were not much different, Cao Cao defeated Tao Qian and annihilated all his main forces.

The so-called Danyang soldiers were vulnerable in front of Cao Cao's Qingzhou soldiers, and such a result naturally made Cao Ren look down on Tao Qian's strength.

Moreover, Cao Cao also said before leaving, under normal circumstances, they suddenly withdrew their troops for no reason, and Tao Qian would definitely suspect that this was a trick to lure the enemy, so Cao Ren naturally thought that Tao Qian would not come out.

So when Cao Ren's army left Xiangben and was about to retreat to the north in the direction of Lanling, the scout suddenly came anxiously to report, saying that Tao Qian's pursuers had arrived and were less than ten miles away from the rear army.

At that time, Cao Ren was still directing the retreating soldiers to advance in order, and ordered all the battalions to leave from the north gate of Xiangben with a swagger, and set off with a normal march before and after.

Such an arrangement is a very conventional marching plan, the front army opens the road, the main force of the Chinese army and the front army are separated by more than ten miles, and the rear army is responsible for the rear of the palace.

But Cao Ren didn't expect Tao Qian to chase after him, so the distance between the front, middle and rear armies was not far away.

Suddenly hearing the news that Tao Qian was chasing, Cao Ren was shocked, but as a famous general of Cao Wei later, he quickly calmed down.

Because Cao Ren thought that this might be Tao Qian's tentative attack, it should not be a large-scale army attack, so he issued an order: "Pass my general's order, the rear army will become the front army, and meet the enemy with me." ”

"Yes."

The herald immediately went to deliver the order.

At the same time, Cao Ren let the front army continue to advance, and he brought a part of the Chinese army, plus the rear army with a total of 2,000 people.

He thought that these people were enough to repel Tao Qian, and when Tao Qian found out that they really planned to retreat, he would set up an ambush at Lanling and defeat the enemy army, so that Cao Cao could deal with Lü Bu safely.

After giving the order, Cao Ren moved to the rear with his personal guards, came to the rear army, observed the terrain, and saw that this was a township pavilion about ten miles northwest of Xiangben County.

The northern part is hilly because of its proximity to Mount Nichu, and there are villages at the foot of the mountain, but now the villagers have long since fled, and the remaining people have been killed and are already in ruins.

To the south, there are some fields, rivers and forests, and the farmland is criss-crossed, with bamboo forests and small bridges and flowing water, and the countryside has been barren.

After Cao Ren carefully checked the terrain, he thought that the terrain seemed to be narrow, but in fact it was quite open.

Because except for the small river, the fields and villages on both sides can be walked, and it is certainly not possible to stick to the official road, and the enemy can outflank them left and right.

So after thinking about it carefully, he noticed the forest not far away, and had an idea in his heart.

The terrain of Xuzhou is flat, there are some hills that are not very high because of the proximity to the Niqiu Mountains, and close to the city, and there are more populated Xiangting villages on both sides of the official road, so it is impossible to use the terrain to set up an ambush.

But Cao Ren felt that Tao Qian's soldiers and horses were just wine bags and rice bags, just scare them, there was no need to really fight, if the enemy was repelled in a real battle, it would make Tao Qian suspicious.

Therefore, he decided to deliberately bluff, ambush some men and horses in the woods, and wait for the enemy to approach and immediately raise the momentum, feigning an ambush.

After scaring off Tao Qian's soldiers and horses in this way, they immediately retreated into Lanling, and when they left, Tao Qian's people would definitely come to investigate the situation, knowing that they were pretending to be ambushes, they must have thought that they were really fleeing in panic and chose to continue the pursuit.

When the time comes, if you turn back and attack and defeat the enemy, Tao Qian will be frightened and dare not come, and then you will be able to solve Cao Cao's embarrassment of being attacked by the enemy.

After making this strategy, Cao Ren felt that there was probably no problem, so he ordered 500 people to go to the distant forest to prepare gongs, drums, horns and other equipment, so that once the war started, they would immediately make a big noise.

The remaining 1,500 men remained in formation, and there were no so-called sword and shield bearers or heavy infantry, only ordinary soldiers wearing black linen uniforms, with long hair tied up with cloth on their heads, and not even a single piece of defensive armor, all standing at the front of the line with spears.

At this time, even Yuan Shao didn't have much armor, let alone Cao Cao. Therefore, it is actually a relatively luxurious thing to have armor, and at present, in Cao Ren's army, only Cao Ren and some middle-level generals can wear armor.

Cao Ren ordered the soldiers to form a formation, although there were not many of them of fifteen hundred, but the dense spears were still very impactful against the road, and it was difficult to force the attack unless they used bows and arrows in this situation.

Does Liu Bei have archers?

The answer is no.

Bows and arrows and armor are important strategic materials, and the price is extremely expensive, Liu Bei said that it is ugly to hear that he is a poor ghost now, where is the archer?

Therefore, when he led his army to chase after him, he was also surprised to see the enemy in formation like hedgehogs.

The terrain on both sides of the post road is flat, mostly farmland villages, and people and horses on both sides spread out to each other, facing each other on the road, facing each other on the fields, and facing each other in front of the village.

There was no pre-war interaction, no military battles, and even after the two sides met, they just watched each other from a distance.

waited until Liu Bei observed on the distant hillside for a while, and noticed that Cao Ren's left and right flanks seemed to be defenseless, so he immediately ordered Zhang Fei Guan Yu to outflank him from the left and right flanks.

didn't know that this was in Cao Ren's arms.

Before the two sides came into contact with each other, in the forest about half a mile to the south, flags were suddenly unfurled, gongs and drums rang out in unison, and the shouts of killing shook the sky.

"Knock knock!"

"Kill."

"Rush!"

Such a big momentum made every Liu Beijun soldier very frightened.

Liu Bei's own military ability was average, and he couldn't calmly think about whether it would be the enemy who was bluffing in this situation, so he really thought there was an ambush as Cao Ren expected, and hurriedly called Jin to withdraw his troops.

His side had just collected his troops and retreated, Zhonglang chased Xu Tan just led the Danyang soldiers over, the two sides met, Xu Tan came up and asked, "Liu Yuanjun, how is the situation?" ”

Liu Bei said: "The enemy has an ambush, I am afraid of being ambushed, and I dare not chase it again." ”

Xu Tan said mockingly: "Since the envoy has come to help Xuzhou, how can he be so cowardly? Wouldn't retreating before a fight make the world laugh? ”

"You!"

Zhang Fei shouted angrily: "Then you go." ”

Xu Tan said coldly: "The envoy is in front, how dare I overstep my bounds?" ”

Liu Bei said angrily after being squeezed: "Sage Yun, the way of a gentleman, is stronger than righteousness." Since I agreed to Tao Gong to come to pursue Cao Cao because of morality, I naturally will not be afraid to fight, and I also ask General Xu to follow me closely and send troops to help when the time comes. ”

With that, Lema turned around and ordered the army to continue the pursuit.

Looking at his departing back, Xu Tan sneered, after Tao Qian lost Zang Ba, Sun Guan and others, he and Cao Bao were already the two most important army managers in Xuzhou.

Cao Bao was born in the Wangmen family of the Cao family in Xuzhou, not a martial artist but a scholar, so Tao Qian relied more on Xu Tan in military affairs.

As a result, after Liu Bei came, Tao Qian trusted him extremely like a demon, not only summoned Liu Bei to discuss matters every day, but also handed over the control of 4,000 Danyang soldiers to him, which seriously weakened the military power in Xu Tan's hands.

Seeing that Tao Qian seemed to intend to make Liu Bei the supreme military commander in Xuzhou, this was a serious threat to Xu Tan and Cao Bao, which naturally made them dissatisfied.

Historically, the attitude of the Xuzhou Wenwu Group towards Liu Bei was very clear, and the Wenguan Group, headed by Mi Zhu and Chen Deng, adopted a welcoming attitude towards Liu Bei.

The military generals group, led by Cao Bao and Xu Tan, resisted Liu Bei, which was later proved by Lu Bu's entry into Xuzhou, and the two immediately rebelled against Liu Bei and welcomed Lu Bu's arrival.

Therefore, if he can provoke Liu Bei with words, let him go deep to pursue Cao Jun alone, and kill Liu Bei with a knife, it is Xu Tan's idea.

But he didn't know that by mistake, Liu Bei actually succeeded in defeating Cao Ren.

It turned out that after Cao Ren frightened Liu Bei away, he thought that he had a plan, so he reorganized his army and horses and left, wanting to join the army in front.

As a result, Liu Bei suddenly killed, and he was too late to deal with it in a hurry, and he was actually defeated.

Seeing that the enemy had no ambush at all, Liu Bei's military ability was generally known to the other party to use a bluff strategy, and he was overjoyed and ordered all the soldiers and horses to chase and kill all the way, and won a lot.

At the same time, Shen Chen had already returned to the township.

Niqiu Mountain is not far from Huangmen Pavilion, even if you walk, it only takes one day, if you ride a horse, you can get there in half a day, they set off from the morning of the third day of the fifth month, and arrived in the area of Zhangshan Mountain in the afternoon.

However, because Cao Cao had not withdrawn his troops at that time, they did not dare to return to their hometowns, so they had to cross the river with some of the migrating refugees and stay north of Yan County to wait.

Among this part of the waiting crowd, there are also people from the Zhuge Xuan family.

It was not until the 10th day of the first month of May that the news of Cao's official evacuation passed, and they finally returned to their hometown.

At this time, because of the retreat of Cao's army, Liu Bei defeated Cao Ren, and the news had spread throughout the Niqiu Mountains in the north, and the villagers hiding in the vicinity of Niqiu Mountain and Jinshan Mountain also began to return one after another.

It was found that the villagers who had insisted on not leaving had been slaughtered, but fortunately this was only a small part, and most of them were still alive.

Shen Chen's clan uncle immediately sent someone back to report the news.

Everyone had been hiding in the mountains in the north for more than a month, and when they learned the news that Cao Cao's army had withdrawn, they wept with joy and packed their luggage and returned to their hometowns.

By the third day, most of the villagers in Xiangben County had returned.

The county originally had a population of 30,000 or 40,000, but only 23 out of 10 died after Cao Jun, although there was sorrow, but compared to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in Xiapi County, it was a great blessing.

Because it was Shen Chen who reminded everyone to flee, Shen Chen's prestige was increasing day by day, and the township pavilions and surrounding counties knew more about the words of the prodigy.

At this time, Shen Chen waited until the villagers of Huangmenting came back, and he had already begun to discuss new matters with the elders of the Deng Shen Er clan.

The first is to prepare for the southward migration of the people, and Xuzhou will be a quagmire of war in the future and cannot be trapped.

Second, it is necessary to purchase weapons and equipment and organize a part of the private army.

After all, now the whole world is in chaos, the order has disappeared, thousands of people in the Huangmen Pavilion dragged their families with their mouths, helped the old and the young to flee to the south, and they would be harmed by soldiers and bandits along the way, and they must have a certain amount of armed ability.

Therefore, he admonished the clan elders and asked them to immediately find a way to sell all their fields and property, and they could do without anything, only food, weapons, horses, vehicles, and other materials.

Since Shen Chen led the clansmen to successfully escape the massacre, the villagers had begun to trust him extremely much, so they all acted according to his requirements.