At the end of the nineteenth year of Jian'an, it was obviously an unquiet year for the world.

At the beginning of the year, Cao Cao was rectifying his troops and horses and arranging the overall situation.

His defensive forces were scattered in all directions, mainly concentrated in the south, and Youzhou also had troops, but generally in the south.

Shen Chen's presence in Nanyang still put a lot of pressure on him, so when the total strength of Liu Bei's army in Nanyang reached 80,000, Cao Cao's troops in Yingchuan Runan also exceeded 100,000.

In this way, coupled with the garrisons in Chendu, Huainan, Xuzhou and other places, the total strength exceeded 200,000, which greatly restrained Cao Cao's main force at his disposal.

But even so, he still transferred some troops and began to plan for the acquisition of Guanzhong Xiliang.

In the middle of the year, he led tens of thousands of light cavalry southward, and at the same time mobilized the troops of Chendu, Xuzhou, Huainan and a part of Runan, totaling 150,000, and marched to the mouth of the water to confront Sun Quan in the late autumn and September of the year.

For Cao Cao, this battle is not just as simple as making a play, but a real battle.

First of all, it is necessary to convince Liu Bei that he is not joking, he really intends to attack Jiangdong, and only by fighting Sun Quan once will Liu Bei feel that Cao Cao and Sun Quan are unlikely to collude together, so as to create an opportunity for Sun Quan.

The second is that fighting Sun Quan is not acting, several attacks have tentative purposes, if Sun Quan's strength is not good, he can't resist it, and he is eliminated like this, it is an unexpected joy.

He can occupy Jiangdong by the way, plan Jingzhou, and rearrange a new plan.

You must know that when you arrived in Shouchun in September, Jiangdong sent people to deliver letters, and Zhang Zhao and Zhang Zibu, one of Sun Quan's top strategists, wrote a letter to persuade Sun Quan to surrender, which shows that Jiangdong is not stable internally.

Therefore, if Sun Quan had some strength and could withstand his attack, Cao Cao planned to act according to Guo Jia's original plan, and if he could not attack, he would immediately withdraw his troops, and then quickly move to Guanzhong Xiliang.

If Sun Quan doesn't have any strength, then it's better, destroy it easily, and then change the plan, first break Jiangdong and then take Guanzhong.

After all, he didn't trust Sun Quan very much, and Cao Cao's performance in the Battle of Hongkou was really not very satisfactory, and the delay in the recovery of the north was caused by the impact of this battle.

Therefore, this trip to the south is a strategy, and it is also a temptation.

It's just that judging from the results, Sun Quan's resistance this time was still very tenacious, and seeing that he couldn't take Jiangdong, Cao Cao also pushed the boat down the river and withdrew his troops, and turned around and went to Guanzhong.

And almost at the same time as Cao Cao went south, Zhong Xuan, Xiahou, Yuban and others had already dispatched a large army to go straight to Guanzhong.

All this was noticed by Ma Chao.

Ma Er was also ruthless, and after thinking that Cao Cao was planning to attack Cao Cao, he immediately contacted the generals of Guanzhong and went to lobby Han Sui, hoping that he could resist Cao Cao's attack together.

Han Sui had already sent his children to Yecheng as hostages, and when he heard Ma Chao's suggestion, he hesitated for a while.

Ma Chao saw his hesitation and immediately said, "Now, Ma Chao has abandoned his father and taken General Han as his father." General Han should also abandon his son and take Ma Chao as his son", filial piety to Ma Teng, who was far away in Yecheng.

It was also this sentence that made Han Sui make up his mind, united with Ma Chao and other generals in Guanzhong, gathered an army of 100,000, expelled Zhong Xuan in Chang'an, and marched to Tongguan.

In fact, at this time, if Han Sui and Ma Chao immediately contacted Liu Bei, and then opened the Wuguan, there would be a chance to lead Shen Chenjun into the pass.

But they are guarding against Cao Cao, why not against Liu Bei?

Although they traded with Liu Bei and exchanged war horses for a lot of strategic materials, they seemed to have a good relationship.

But Han Sui and Ma Chao are all people who want to divide one side and stand on their own, and it is impossible to allow other princes to get involved in Guanzhong and Xiliang.

After Ma Chao's rebellion in history, in the face of Cao Cao's offensive Ruhong, he did not choose to surrender and attach, but wanted to cede land and sue for peace, but Cao Cao did not allow it, and retreated to Xiliang.

Later, Cao Cao saw that Ma Chao was stubborn and had no possibility of surrendering, so he killed Ma Teng's family and sent Xiahou Yuan to continue the pursuit, until three years later, in the spring of the nineteenth year of Jian'an, he finally defeated him again.

At this time, Ma Chao was exhausted, lost the territory of Liangzhou, his family was also killed, and he was desperate, so he finally surrendered to Zhang Lu, and then went to Bashu to become Liu Bei's subordinate.

From this, it can be known that Ma Chao is not a Five Tiger General at all, but a prince who has always wanted to establish himself as a king. In the three things of capriciousness, betraying his father for glory, and being unkind and unjust, he is actually no different from Lu Bu.

If Liu Bei hadn't chosen to accept him because of his prestige among the Qiang people, he would probably have been "evil repeatedly, sitting back and watching it annihilated".

Therefore, although Cao Cao attacked Xiliang Pass, Han Sui and Ma Chao did not have the slightest intention of asking Liu Bei for help, but after driving out Zhong Xuan, he immediately sent someone to take over Wuguan, as if he wanted to block Liu Beijun in Nanyang.

However, at this time, Liu Beiren was still in Huainan, and Shen Chen also knew that Han Sui and Ma Chao were unreliable, so the soldiers and horses in the south had not been dispatched to rescue at all.

After Cao Cao withdrew his troops from Huainan at the end of October, he personally led tens of thousands of horses from Luoyang to Guanzhong.

By the end of November, the combined forces of Han Sui and Ma Chao were stationed at Tongguan, and Xiahou's army arrived at Pusaka, which was located in the east of the river and was later in the area of Yongji County, the Yuncheng city of Shanxi Province.

Puhanjin is an important ferry port in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, connecting the east and west of the river, and if you cross the river from here, you can directly attack the rear of Han Sui's Ma Chao army stationed in Tongguan.

Cao Cao himself came from the direction of Hanguguan and arrived in Shaanxi County, which was later Sanmenxia City, Henan Province, which was not far from Tongguan.

Obviously, Cao Cao planned to divide his troops into two routes, one to cross the river from the east of the river, to launch an attack from the rear of Tongguan, and the other to attack Tongguan head-on.

When Ma Chao learned the news, he immediately suggested to Han Sui that he should immediately garrison troops on the north bank of the Wei River and the west bank of the Yellow River to confront Cao's army across the Yellow River, so that Cao's army would not dare to cross the river, and in less than 20 days, Cao Cao's grain and grass would run out, and he would withdraw his troops.

However, Han Sui believed that Cao Jun was well prepared, and it was inevitable that he would not have only twenty days of food and grass, and that if there was a long-term confrontation, they would be at a disadvantage. What's more, even if Cao Cao withdrew his troops because of the exhaustion of food and grass, it would be meaningless, because Cao Cao was powerful and might make a comeback at any time, and he had to be defeated.

Therefore, Han Sui planned to adopt the strategy of attacking half-crossing, not camping on the opposite bank, but arranging a large number of scouts on the north bank, once Cao's army began to cross the river, he immediately went to report it, and then used cavalry mobility to raid the riverside to encircle and suppress Cao's soldiers and horses who had crossed the river.

So the two sides stalemate for more than half a month, and so Cao Cao was fully prepared, one night in early December, Cao Cao sent Xu Huang, Zhu Ling and others to lead 4,000 people to cross Puhanjin at night, Ma Chao knew, sent Liang Xing to lead 5,000 troops to attack Xu Huang, but was repelled by Xu Huang, Xu Huang occupied Hexi to set up a camp.

After having the Qianying fortress, Cao Cao, who was in Tongguan, began to personally lead the main force to officially cross the river. It was intended to join Xu Huang and Zhu Ling, who had already crossed the Yellow River, and at the same time meet the rear troops of Xiahou Yuban.

But just after the front team of Cao Cao's army, Cao Cao, Xu Chu and more than 100 Hushi broke off, Ma Chao suddenly led more than 10,000 foot cavalry to kill, and more than 100 people around Cao Cao were overwhelmed by Ma Chaojun's arrows, and the formation was in chaos.

Xu Chu, Zhang He and other generals, seeing that the matter was urgent, set up Cao Cao and took him out of the boat, and hurriedly crossed the river.

Fortunately, Xu Chu protected Cao Cao with his shield while supporting the boat, and the surrounding soldiers covered his retreat with their lives.

At the same time, Cao Cao's lieutenant Ding Fei released a large number of cattle and horses on the riverbank, and Ma Chao's soldiers couldn't take advantage of the victory to pursue, so they ran to catch the cattle and horses, but Ma Chao couldn't control it, so Cao Cao was able to successfully cross the river.

At this moment, the generals of the Cao army were very frightened when they saw the defeat on the south bank, and they didn't know where Cao Cao was. Cao Cao laughed and said, "I was almost trapped by a thief today!" ”

In September, Cao Cao crossed the Wei River to Weinan.

The Ma-Han coalition army lost a strategic place, could only retreat, refused to camp in Weikou, but Cao Cao set up suspicious soldiers many times, and secretly sneaked into the Wei River with boats to make a pontoon bridge, and one night, Cao Cao divided his troops to camp in Weinan, and the army was all over the Wei River.

The Guanzhong coalition army attacked the barracks at night, and Cao Cao set up an ambush to break the sneak attack of the Mahan coalition army. So Ma Chao and others stationed troops in Weinan and sent letters asking for peace talks in the area west of the river, but Cao Cao did not agree.

Under the strategy of Lougui pouring water to build an ice city, Cao Cao's army was able to cross Weishui in batches, and the Malaysia-Korea coalition army challenged several times, Cao Cao just should not fight, waiting for the follow-up soldiers and horses to cross the river, and the coalition army could only ask for land cession and send hostages to ask for peace.

Cao Cao adopted Guo Jia's strategy, pretended to agree, and then talked and laughed with Han Sui in front of the battle.

During this period, when Ma Chao was negotiating with Cao Cao in person, he wanted to secretly attack and capture Cao Cao, but Xu Chu, who saw that Xu Chu, who was guarding Cao Cao's left and right, glared at him angrily, so he gave up this idea.

Cao Cao soon found out that he had palpitations and said, "I was almost bullied by a cunning thief." ”

Later, in order to make the coalition forces suspicious of Han Sui, Cao Cao wrote another altered and forged Zhao'an letter to Han Sui, which divided the Guanzhong coalition army and led to mutual suspicion among the warlords of the Guanzhong coalition army.

Cao Cao took this opportunity to launch an attack and launched a decisive battle in the area of Weinan, the coalition army was defeated, Cheng Yi, Li Kan and others were killed, and Han Suima Chao was defeated and fled to Xiliang.

From then until the end of December of the 19th year of Jian'an, after two months of fighting, Cao Cao won the victory in the Battle of Tongguan and advanced to Guanzhong.

At the same time, Liu Bei only began to slowly transfer some troops and horses from Jingzhou to Bashu in early November.

On the Nanyang side, because Han Sui and Ma Chao were jealous of Liu Bei, they did not dare to let Liu Bei come from Wuguan, so they guarded Wuguan, causing Shen Chen's army to be unable to come to the rescue from Wuguan.

By the end of December, after Han Sui's defeat and escape, Cao Cao's army took over the defense of Wuguan, and Shen Chen was even more unable to enter Guanzhong.

However, Shen Chen was not completely inactive, he ordered Wen Ping to garrison Wancheng, and he led the Ganning Army, Huangmen Soldiers and Zhang Xiu Army, a total of 20,000 people, into Sanhu Pavilion in Danshui County, and began to threaten Wuguan.

And Liu Bei was still in Jiangzhou at this time, so he ordered Yan Yan and Zhang Ren, the generals of Shuzhong, to lead 30,000 people to go to Hanzhong on the Micang Road.

In recent years, roads have been built everywhere in the land of Bashu.

In ancient times, the roads were all mud roads, which were not only difficult to walk, but also easy to breed clumps of weeds, and once it rained, the roads were muddy, and they would fall into the dilemma of being difficult to walk.

After Zhuge Liangpang ruled Shu, over the years, Shu became richer and richer, and every household had surplus grain, and even many poor ethnic minorities came to defect, resulting in a lot of idle labor.

So Zhuge Liang followed Shen Chen's suggestion, and when the farming was slack, the county government paid for the recruitment of farmers, excavated stones, dug lime, mixed clay and water, and rebuilt the roads.

There is definitely no money for large-scale road construction in Bashu, but only two roads are built, one is Jinniu Road, one is Micang Road, and the main official roads in the rest of the counties are also slightly tinkered.

Although it is not a cement road asphalt road, and in ancient times, especially in the Bashu area, even such a small project in later generations is the biggest thing for the counties, and it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to build.

However, compared to the Great Wall, it is much easier to build bridges and pave roads. Therefore, in the past few years, the Bashu road has improved a lot, and only the Qinling Mountains from Bashu to Hanzhong are really helpless.

Because many of the roads there are cliffside paths, and some roads are even made of wood on the cliffs, and there is no way to rest at all. Even in later generations, if you want to build a provincial road or a highway, you have to use explosives or machines to dig the mountain.

Therefore, although the road in front of Yonecang Road is relatively easy to walk, after entering the Bazhong area, it is extremely difficult to walk. At the beginning, Liu Bei attacked Hanzhong, and it took more than a month to walk more than 100 kilometers of roads.

This made it so that until the end of the nineteenth year of Jian'an, Liu Bei's soldiers and horses had not yet left Chencang.

In the first month of the beginning of the twentieth year of Jian'an, after the defeat of Han Sui and Ma Chao, he fled to Xiliang, at this time Guan Yu Zhang Feicai led an army of 50,000 out of the slope and confronted Cao Jun in Wuzhangyuan.

Wuzhang Yuan is at the exit of Bao Chuan Road, which is a vast plain area in Qishan County, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province in later generations.

Cao's army occupied the east of Wuzhang Plain and the north of the Wei River.

The two sides formed camps against each other.

However, Ma Chao did not send troops to help, he sent people to form an alliance with Liu Bei, but on the other hand, he quickly annexed the counties of Longshang, gathered more than 10,000 people, and besieged Liangzhou Assassin Shi Weikang in Liangzhou to govern Jicheng.

Obviously, Ma Chao still has no intention of defecting to Liu Bei, and his idea is to develop people in Xiliang first, and then sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight.

In March of the twentieth year of Jian'an, Wei Kang sent Liangzhou Bei Yan Wen out of the city to ask for help, but was caught and killed by Ma Chao. In May, Cao Cao sent Xiahou Yuan from Longguan Road to aid Wei Kang, and at the same time sent an order back to Yecheng, slaughtering Ma Chao's entire clan and killing Han Sui's descendants.

And during this period of time, Shen Chen was not idle, he led the army to Wuguan in Shangxian County, and the 20,000 troops confronted the 10,000 Xu Huang troops stationed in Wuguan at that time.

He actually has a way to break through the martial arts.

Wuguan is located between the lofty mountains and mountains of the Qinling Mountains, but the terrain is far less precipitous than the Bashu Qinling Mountains, the mountains on both sides of the road are mostly hills, and there are trails between the mountains that can be interspersed with roundabouts.

Shen Chen has Wuxi barbarians under his command, who are good at climbing mountains and mountains, and he has also figured out the terrain around Wuguan over the years, if the main force makes a feint and sends Wuxi barbarians to make a detour to the rear of Wuguan to attack, he may be able to break through.

But he didn't choose to break through, because it was not yet time for a decisive battle with Cao Cao, and the two sides still needed to fight for a while.

In this process, Cao Cao chose to defend Wuguan, the main direction of attack is the Guan Yu army of Wuzhang Yuan, the number of soldiers and horses on both sides is not proportional, Cao's army fiercely attacked the Yuying camp, besieged for half a year, due to the delay in getting the support of Han Sui Ma Chao, Guan Yu was forced to retreat into the Bao Chuan Road, stationed in Xieyu Pass.

In August of the twentieth year of Jian'an, after repelling Guan Yu's army, Cao Cao sent Xiahoudun to garrison Yixian, stationed in Chencang in the ban, and guarded against Guan Yu Zhang Fei's department in Baochuan Road, as well as Zhang Ren's department in Sanguan, and he personally led the army out of Longguan Road to the west to conquer Han Sui Ma Chao in September.

Due to the delay in the arrival of Xiahou Yuan's reinforcements, there was no food in Jicheng City, and Wei Kang was forced to surrender to Ma Chao. Ma Chao killed Wei Kang, seized Longshang, proclaimed himself the general of Zhengxi, led the state pastor, and supervised the military of Liangzhou.

At the same time, Han Sui also retreated to Xianqin County in the north of Jicheng, and together with Ma Chao, he seized Longshang, developed soldiers and horses, and resisted Cao's army.

However, Cao Cao personally arrived, Yan Xing rebelled, and Wei Kang's old subordinates Yang Fu, Jiang Xu, Jiang Yin, Zhao Ang, Yin Feng, Yao Qiong, Kong Xin, Li Jun, Wang Ling and others raised troops at the same time to respond to Cao's army.

Han Sui and Ma were defeated, Han Sui fled to Jincheng County, Ma Chao lost his ground, and was forced to flee to Hanzhong to join Liu Bei.

Since then, Cao Cao pacified Xiliang in Guanzhong in just one year, rewarded the local officials in Liangzhou, gathered Yang Fu, Jiang Xu and other Western Liang troops who defected to him, guarded Liangzhou, and retreated to Guanzhong to continue the confrontation with Liu Beijun.

In August of the same year, Sun Quan took advantage of Cao Cao's use of troops to pass Zhongxi Liang, and personally led 100,000 soldiers and horses to attack Hefei.

This battle of Sun Quan can be said to be the hole cards are exhausted.

At this time in history, Sun Quan already had a good strength, with more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, but all parts of Jiangdong needed to be garrisoned, and there were still a large number of troops in the rear to suppress the rebellion and suppress the Shanyue uprising.

But now his strength has been seriously damaged, relying on the plundering of Jiaozhou and many years of recuperation, the total number of troops is only 1780,000.

Most of them are still county soldiers, second-line troops and rear counterinsurgency troops, and the real main front-line troops are probably the 70,000 soldiers and horses he stationed on the Jianghuai front line in Maoxukou to confront Cao's army.

In order to make Liu Bei completely reassure him, Sun Quan gritted his teeth and mobilized 30,000 second-line troops and counter-rebel troops from the rear, and gathered 100,000 people, so that all parts of Jiangdong were actually very empty.

Because of his 178,000 people, of which 20,000 or 30,000 were in Guiyang and Jiaozhou, his troops deployed in Danyang County, Wu County, Huiji County, Yuzhang County and other places were seriously insufficient, and there were only a few thousand soldiers in each county.

But at this time, he didn't care about these, and led dozens of generals such as Lu Meng, Chen Wu, Ling Tong, Pan Zhang, Song Qian, Xu Sheng, Ding Feng, Jiang Qin, He Qi, Sun Jiao, Zhou Tai, Zhu Ran, Zhu Huan, Quan Cong, etc., and went straight to Hefei City.

In the city of Hefei, at this time, only Zhang Liao and Li Dian were stationed, with a total of seven or eight thousand soldiers and horses, and the two had always been at odds and had internal contradictions.

In terms of external reinforcements, the defenders of Yingchuan in Runan had to guard against Shen Chen's army in Nanyang, and the defenders of Chendu were not easy to move, because it was necessary to suppress the royalists of Liu Xie, the son of heaven.

Therefore, at present, only Shouchun and thousands of troops can quickly rush to Hefei to help, and Cao's army in Huainan is already in an isolated situation.

(End of chapter)