Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 9

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

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

It's not that Cao Ren was careless, but that he followed Cao Cao and beat Tao Qian without any pressure like beating his grandson.

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

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

The so-called Danyang soldiers were vulnerable to Cao Cao's Qingzhou soldiers. Such a result naturally made Cao Ren look down on Tao Qian's strength.

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

So when Cao Ren's army left Xiangben and was about to retreat northward towards Lanling, the scouts suddenly reported anxiously, saying that Tao Qian's pursuers had arrived and were less than ten miles away from the rear.

At that time, Cao Ren was still directing the retreating soldiers to advance in an orderly manner, ordering the battalions of all ministries to leave from the north gate of Xiangben swaggeringly, and set off in a normal march.

This arrangement is a very conventional marching plan. The front army leads the way, the main force of the central army is separated from the front army by more than ten miles, and the rear army is in charge of the rear.

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

Suddenly hearing the news of Tao Qian's pursuit, Cao Ren turned pale with shock, but as the later famous general of Cao Wei, he quickly calmed down again.

Because after thinking about it, Cao Ren thought that this might be Tao Qian's tentative attack, and it should not be a large-scale army attack, so he issued an order: "Give me an order, the rear army will change to the front army, and meet the enemy with me."

"Yes."

The orderly went immediately to convey the order.

At the same time, Cao Ren let the front army continue to advance, and brought a part of the central army with him, plus the rear army, a total of 2000 people were cut off.

He believed that these people were enough to repel Tao Qian. When Tao Qian found out that they were really planning to retreat, he set up an ambush in Lanling and defeated the enemy army, so that Cao Cao could deal with Lu 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 village pavilion about ten miles northwest of Xiangben County.

The north is hilly because it is close to Niqiu Mountain, and there are villages at the foot of the mountain. Now the villagers have already fled, and most of the remaining people have been killed and are already dilapidated.

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

After carefully checking the terrain, Cao Ren thought that the terrain seemed narrow, but it was actually quite open.

Because except for Xiaohe, the fields and villages on both sides can leave people, and it is definitely not possible to stick to the official way, and the enemy can outflank them.

So after he thought about it seriously, he noticed the forest not far away and had an idea in his mind.

Xuzhou's terrain is flat. Because it is close to the Niqiu Mountains, there are some not-so-high hills and hills, and it is close to the city.

However, Cao Ren felt that Tao Qian's soldiers and horses were nothing more than wine bags and rice bags, and it was enough to scare them. There was no need to actually fight.

Therefore, he decided to deliberately bluff and ambush some people in the forest, and when the enemy approached, he immediately made noise and pretended to be an ambush.

After scaring away Tao Qian's soldiers, they immediately retreated into Lanling. When they leave, Tao Qian's people will definitely come to investigate the situation. Knowing that they are pretending to be ambush, they must think that they are really fleeing in a panic, and choose to continue chase.

At that time, if we turn back and attack fiercely and defeat the enemy army, Tao Qian will be frightened and dare not come forward. At that time, Cao Cao's embarrassment of being attacked by the enemy will be resolved.

After making this plan, Cao Ren felt that there was probably no problem, so he ordered 500 people to go to a distant forest to prepare instruments such as gongs, drums and horns, so that they would immediately create a big momentum once they started fighting.

The remaining 500 people stayed in place and formed formation. There were no so-called sword and shield soldiers or heavy armored infantry. Soldiers, all with spears at the head of the line.

Even Yuan Shao didn't have much armor during this period, let alone Cao Cao.So owning armor is actually quite a luxury. Currently, in Cao Ren's army, only Cao Ren and some middle-level generals can wear armor.

Cao Ren ordered the soldiers to form an array. Although 500 men were not many, the densely packed spears pointed at the road, which was very impactful. In this case, it would be difficult to attack by force unless bows and arrows were used.

Does Liu Bei have archers?
The answer is no.

Bows, arrows and armor are important strategic materials, and the price is extremely expensive. To put it bluntly, Liu Bei is now a poor ghost. Where did the archers come from?

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

The terrain on both sides of the post road is flat, and most of them are farmland villages. People and horses on both sides spread each other, confronting each other on the road, in the fields, and in front of the village.

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

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

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

The two sides hadn't touched each other yet, in the forest about half a mile to the south, suddenly banners were unfurled, gongs and drums were beeping, and the sound of shouting and killing was resounding.

"Dong dong dong dong!"

"Kill it."

"Come on!"

Such a big momentum made every soldier of Liu Bei's army terrified.

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

He had just withdrawn his troops and retreated, Zhonglang General Xu Dan happened to lead the Danyang soldiers to chase after them, when the two met, Xu Dan came up and asked, "Liu Shijun, how is the situation?"

Liu Bei said: "The enemy has set up an ambush. I am afraid that I will be caught in an ambush, so I dare not pursue again."

Xu Dan said sarcastically, "Since the envoy came to assist Xuzhou, how could he be so timid? Wouldn't it make the world laugh if he retreated before fighting?"

"you!"

Zhang Fei shouted angrily: "Then you go."

Xu Dan said coldly: "The envoy is in front, how dare I go overboard?"

After Liu Bei was run on, he said angrily: "The sage said, the way of a gentleman is better than righteousness. Since I agreed to Tao Gong to come and chase Cao Cao because of morality, I will naturally not be timid. I also ask General Xu to follow me and wait When the time comes, send troops to help."

After finishing speaking, he reined in his horse and turned around to order the army to continue the pursuit.

Seeing his leaving back, Xu Dan sneered. After Tao Qian lost Zang Ba, Sun Guan and others, he and Cao Bao were already the two most important military commanders in Xuzhou.

Cao Bao was born in the Wangmen family of the Cao family in Xuzhou, not a warrior but a scholar, so Tao Qian relied more heavily on Xu Dan in the military.

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

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

Historically, the Xuzhou civil and military group's attitude towards Liu Bei was very clear. The civil official group, headed by Mi Zhu and Chen Deng, adopted a welcoming attitude towards Liu Bei.

The group of generals, headed by Cao Bao and Xu Dan, had a resisting attitude towards Liu Bei. After Lv Bu entered Xuzhou, the two immediately rebelled against Liu Bei, and welcoming Lv Bu's arrival is enough to prove this point.

Therefore, if he can use words to provoke Liu Bei, let him pursue Cao Jun in depth alone, and kill Liu Bei with a knife, that is Xu Dan's idea.

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

It turned out that after Cao Ren frightened Liu Bei away, he thought he had a plan, so he rectified his army and left, hoping to join the army ahead.

As a result, Liu Bei was killed suddenly, and he couldn't deal with it in a hurry, so he was killed and defeated.

Seeing that the enemy had no ambushes at all, Liu Bei knew that the opponent was using a bluffing strategy no matter how average his military ability was, he was overjoyed and ordered all the soldiers and horses to chase and kill them all the way, and gained a lot.

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

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 May and arrived in the Zongshan area in the afternoon.

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

Among the waiting crowd, there were also people from Zhuge Xuan's family.

It was not until the tenth day of May, when the news of Cao Jun's formal withdrawal, that they finally returned to their hometown.

At this time, because Cao Jun retreated and Liu Bei defeated Cao Ren, the news had spread throughout the Niqiu Mountains in the north, and the villagers hiding near Niqiu Mountain and Zang Mountain began to return one after another.

It was discovered that the villagers who had insisted on refusing to leave had been massacred. Fortunately, this was only a small number, and most of them were still alive.

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

Everyone has been hiding in the deep mountains in the north for more than a month, sitting and eating, and weeping with joy when they learned that Cao Cao's army had withdrawn, they packed their bags and returned home.

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

The whole county originally had a population of 4 to 10, but only two to three out of ten of Cao's troops died afterward. Although there was grief, it was a great blessing compared to the [-] people who were massacred in Xiapi counties.

Since it was Shen Chen who reminded everyone to flee, Shen Chen's reputation grew day by day, and people in every township and surrounding counties knew what the child prodigy had to say.

At this time, Shen Chen waited until all the villagers in Huangmenting came back, and then began to discuss new matters with the Deng and Shen clans.

One is to prepare for the southward migration of the family. Xuzhou will be a quagmire of war in the future and cannot be trapped.

The second is to purchase weapons and equipment and organize some private soldiers.

After all, the whole world is in chaos now, and order has disappeared. Thousands of people in Huangmenting dragged their families to help the old and the young flee to the south. They must be killed by soldiers and bandits along the way.

Therefore, he warned the clan elders, asking them to find a way to sell all the fields and property immediately, and they don't need anything, as long as food, weapons, horses, vehicles and other supplies.

Because Shen Chen led the clansman to escape the massacre successfully, the villagers have begun to trust him extremely, so they acted according to his request.

(End of this chapter)