Chapter 494 Pre-War Planning

Faced with Cao Cao's question, Cheng Yu hesitated. He knew that his opinion would affect Cao Cao's decision and would also determine the final outcome on the battlefield.

He felt that he was no better than Xun You in battlefield strategy, but Xun You had not been able to gain the upper hand in several battles with the fierce tiger, let alone himself?

So this time Cao Cao simply brought the two of them together, with Cheng Yu assisting Cao Cao, and Xun You assisting Cao Ren, in order to maximize all their strength and defeat Yuan Xi in one fell swoop!

Xun You thought for a moment and slowly said, "As long as Xiong Hu is not stupid, the possibility of him showing up in such a complicated and unclear situation should be less than 50%."

After hearing this, Cao Cao nodded slightly, with a hint of regret on his face.

For him, Yuan Xi was growing too fast and he was a member of the Yuan family. Most importantly, this person was very ambitious and would never be lured into submission by him, so sooner or later the two would meet in battle.

Among the Yuan family's children, Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang, who have higher status than Yuan Xi, both have very obvious handles and shortcomings, and have been grasped by Cao Cao, which may be of unexpected use in the future.

Only Yuan Xi was not only ambitious but also extremely clear-headed. He knew what he wanted and was much more dangerous than the other two. Cao Cao seemed to see his own shadow in him.

So we must never let it grow!

Seeing Cao Cao's unhappy expression, Cheng Yu quickly said, "But Yu thinks that if we can't kill the fierce tiger in this battle, cutting off its two claws is also good."

"It is said that the people he brought from Youzhou this time are his dedicated followers who he has worked so hard to cultivate. These thousands of people are all proficient in arithmetic and command, which is an ability that only centurions and above have!"

"Xionghu must have brought these people to Guangling in order to conquer Yuan Shu and expand the army into tens of thousands of people on the spot!"

"As long as they train for a month or two, they will be able to join the battle against Yuan Shu. Their combat effectiveness is not low. If soldiers die, they can be replaced on the spot. The benefit is that they can save food and grass. As long as these mid-level officers survive, we can continue to expand our army!"

"I have to say that Xiong Hu is a talented person, but at this time, he also showed a flaw!"

"His most trusted strategist, Guo Jia, did not come with him!"

Having said this, Cheng Yu paused, feeling quite embarrassed when he recalled the initial quarrel with Xun Yu.

During the negotiations in Dongwuyang that day, Yuan Xi specifically asked for Guo Jia, who had a grudge against the Yuan family. At that time, Guo Jia was not yet famous. Cheng Yu thought that exchanging the lives of Guo Jia's family in exchange for Cao Pi and Cao Zhi not taking them as hostages was a sure-win deal, so he decided to arrest Guo Jia's family and hand them over to Yuan Xi.

However, what happened in the next two years was a slap in Cheng Yu's face. During this period, Yuan Xi helped the Yuan family defeat several powerful enemies and won several battles. While becoming famous throughout the world, everyone discovered that the mastermind and only strategist behind him was Guo Jia!

Every time Xun Yu mentioned this matter, he would speak in a sarcastic tone, which made Cheng Yu quite embarrassed.

Cheng Yu also knew that he had made a loss-making deal, so he had to find a way to clear his name, and defeating or even eliminating Yuan Xi became his goal.

Now that Guo Jia is not in Xuzhou, it is a great opportunity!

Cao Cao said, "There is also Ju Shou."

Cheng Yu said hurriedly: "Indeed, but Ju Shou is a steady leader and is not used to surprise attacks, so his strategy is probably to advance steadily and cautiously."

"At this moment, Xionghu has only 2,000 to 3,000 men at most. As long as we concentrate all our forces and strike with thunder, we can kill them all. Even if Xionghu survives, he will no longer be able to dominate the world within five years!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "Zhongde's words are exactly what I want."

"But we still need an opportunity to draw out their troops."

Cheng Yu smiled and said, "Now the opportunity has come."

"At this time, people in Houqiu City have probably heard the news that Tancheng was besieged and Liu Bei's army heading north was defeated."

"They have already lost their courage. We can use the method of surrounding three sides and leaving one side open to force them to abandon the city and flee."

"After they escaped, they had no other choice. The other directions were either swamps or lakes. They could only return the same way and flee to Qucheng or Haixi."

"Originally, the refugee groups in Houqiu and Xiapi were far apart, and both sides were expecting rescue from Tancheng. But now that Tancheng has been completely wiped out by our attack, Mi Fang will probably flee to Guangling after hearing the news."

"Its escape direction is also easy to predict. It can only go around the Great Lake (the name of the ancient Taihu Lake) and head towards Haixi!"

"If we drive them back properly, the hundreds of thousands of defeated soldiers and civilians on both sides will converge more than a hundred miles west of Haixi."

"By then, the fierce tiger will relax its vigilance and come out to support Liu Bei and Mi Fang's fleeing troops. At this time, our three armies will chase after it and fight it to the death!"

"With our dozens of brave generals and thirty thousand Qingzhou soldiers, even if we can't annihilate them completely, we can at least severely injure their vitality!"

"Of course the best scenario is to kill the evil tiger, so that our biggest worry will be eliminated!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "Having Zhongde's help makes me feel much more at ease."

"We are fighting under the pretext of destroying Liu Bei's army. If we can kill Xiong Hu, we will have to shirk responsibility afterwards, saying that Xiong Hu entered the battlefield without permission and could not be identified, so killing him was an accident."

"Then find a not-so-honest general from another family to behead and send the head to Yuan Shao. This should help calm his anger."

"But this matter still takes advantage of the conflicts among the Yuan family members."

"The fierce tiger has already posed a great threat to Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang. If we promise them benefits, they should be willing to defend us."

"Besides, Xiong Hu has been adopted. Strictly speaking, he is no longer Yuan Shao's son. Moreover, if Xiong Hu dies, he will be useless to the Yuan family. Yuan Shao should not attack me at this critical moment."

"Once we secretly alienate the Yuan family members and eliminate Yuan Shu, our strength will increase greatly and we can compete with the Yuan family!"

Cheng Yu praised him and said, "Your Excellency is very good at guessing people's minds. I can hardly compare to you in a fraction of a second!"

"The best strategy is to attack the enemy's will. In the end, the battle is all about people's hearts. The fierce tiger has already found a way to his death!"

Cao Cao nodded and said, "Okay, let's go all out this time!"

"Order Xiahou Yuan who is besieging Houqiu to open a gap and drive Mi Fang and tens of thousands of civilians out of the city!"

If you can look down at the earth from a high place in Xuzhou, you can see a spectacular and cruel scene.

Long lines of soldiers meandered between the cities, and large groups of civilians fled in all directions like ants, and were often eaten by the long dragons that swam over, leaving behind a piece of their flesh.

These dozen long dragons were not in a hurry to devour the delicious food, but followed slowly behind, taking a bite every once in a while. This made the ant colony fleeing in front even more panicked, and they kept changing their shapes and fleeing in panic in the mountains and fields.

After two days and two nights, the long dragon at the back turned into straight arrows, like a shepherd's precise whip, hitting the sheep one after another, making them slowly gather in a certain direction.

Mi Fang was riding on his horse in a state of panic. He said to Mi Zhen who was also riding a horse, "Little sister, if the enemy attacks later, I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on any longer. Let's run away!"

Mi Zhen bit her lip tightly, "Brother, don't you think we should have died a long time ago?"

"These enemy troops behind us are not pursuing us at all!"

Mi Fang shouted, "Don't worry about it!"

"Liu Yuzhou has been defeated, I just want to survive!"

"We are 200 miles away from the Haixi Sea. Envoy Yuan will definitely come to rescue us!"

Mi Fang was about to continue speaking when he saw many densely packed black spots appearing on the distant horizon ahead. He was immediately terrified. Could it be that Cao's army had surrounded him?

He subconsciously wanted to escape, but found that the other party didn't seem to have any intention of approaching him, but was turning around in panic. Mi Fang thought about it and sent out spies to check.

Not long after, the spy brought back a person. After asking, Mi Fang found out that the person was a civilian who had fled from Xia Pi!

The other side cried and complained that after Liu Bei led them to escape from Xia Pi, they were suddenly attacked by Cao's army at night. The other side rushed into the crowd of civilians and hacked and killed them, causing hundreds of thousands of civilians to trample on each other. Instead, they attacked Liu Bei's main camp which was cut off. Cao's army took advantage of the situation to kill them, and Liu Bei's army was defeated.

After they fled desperately all night, they found at dawn that Liu Bei's army had completely collapsed and disappeared. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed or wounded overnight. The remaining people had no choice but to flee desperately towards Guangling.

But Cao's army is still chasing after them, and it has been several days now!

After hearing this, Mi Fang's eyes went dark. Being defeated in the night battle was very dangerous. Could Liu Bei have been killed?

If this is true, where should I go?

Thinking of this, he quickly said to Mi Zhen: "Let's go!"

Mi Zhen asked the people, "Are all the families of Liu Yuzhou's soldiers missing?"

The commoner hesitated for a moment and said, "I heard that the envoy's wife is still alive."

Yuan Xi looked at the dozen or so wooden barrels in front of him. There were still several barrels of white stuff in them that had not been processed, but it was too late.

Next to the wooden barrel are hundreds of bamboo tubes neatly arranged.

He stood up and said to everyone, "We can't wait any longer."

"Of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the two cities, nearly half have been killed or wounded along the way. If I don't send troops, how can I have the face to use the title of Xuzhou Mu?"

"According to the previous arrangements, prepare to dispatch troops!"

Yuan Xi's personal guards filed in, picked up a bamboo tube and hung it around their waist in silence, then walked out.

The gains from conquering Black Mountain actually far exceeded the imagination of people of that era.

Although in the eyes of Jizhou, the grain harvest in Heishan, located in Bingzhou and with its complex terrain, is much worse than that in the plains, it has two resources that will be extremely useful in later generations.

One is coal mine.

An inevitable problem brought about by population growth is energy consumption. Without energy, even if there is food, the population will not be able to grow rapidly due to the fuel shortage. After all, trees that can be used as fuel are consumed very quickly.

Studies have shown that after the Tang Dynasty, due to excessive logging, the forest coverage rate in the densely populated Kanto region has been less than 10%, and in some areas it has even reached 5%, which is worse than the worst time in modern times.

This later seriously affected the local population development. There is a reason why the ancients said that among firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, firewood comes before rice.

Therefore, if we can mine coal near the surface as soon as possible and use coal instead of firewood, it will be a great progress for society.

The second is that in the Heishan area of ​​Bingzhou, there is the Shanxi Lake Salt, which is rich in saltpeter in later generations.

The byproducts of denitrification of salt are sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, etc., which are the source of saltpeter.

If you want to get saltpeter, this is the most effective source in ancient China, besides collecting it from toilets or old houses.

From this point of view, China's invention of gunpowder was a historical necessity because the raw materials were produced naturally.

Without raw materials, technology will not advance and related products will not appear.

Just like China invented glass during the Warring States Period, but lacked the necessary natural raw material of sodium carbonate, which was called trona in ancient times. This stuff was abundant in the arid desert areas of the Middle East, but rare in China with abundant rainfall, so China had to use abundant clay to fire porcelain instead.

At the same time, because steel-making blast furnaces appeared in the Han Dynasty, which could raise the temperature to 1400 degrees, firing porcelain at 1100 degrees was not a problem.

Until the Middle Ages, the West had not yet developed a blast furnace capable of reaching the temperature for firing porcelain, so they could only use sodium-lime glass with a melting point of around 600 degrees as a substitute.

Therefore, the emergence of products has a very complex logical relationship with technology and they are not born for no reason.

What Yuan Xi relies on this time is the gunpowder made by separating the saltpeter produced from the Black Mountain Lake salt.

Of course, due to the rough workmanship and the presence of many impurities, it is unknown how much use these bamboo tubes can bring.