Weidu, Yecheng.
Since learning that Li Shimin died in Qingzhou, Cao Cao did not think about tea and food, could not sleep and could not sleep for several days, and had a splitting headache.
It's not that Cao Cao attaches great importance to love and righteousness, or has a lifelong friendship with Li Shimin, although Cao Wei has been allied for several years, but these two emperors have never met at all, but they have only seen each other's portraits.
The reason why Cao Cao was in a trance was because Cao Cao knew the truth of his lips and teeth.
It can be said that Li Shimin's death was a more serious blow to the Tang State than the total destruction of the 150,000 army "Alas" Early in the morning, Cao Cao dragged his sick body to walk in the flower-filled imperial garden, but his brows were tightly locked, and he sighed for a long time.
At this moment, it is late March, spring returns to the earth, everything recovers, the flowing water is murmuring, the fields are green, the birds are singing and insects are chirping, the flowers are vibrant, the heaven and the earth are like a beautiful oil painting, but Cao Cao's heart is like falling into the frozen world.
"I thought that the defeat of our army in the Central Plains at the beginning of the year was miserable enough, but I didn't expect Li Shimin to be even worse than me" Cao Cao sighed, not knowing whether to be happy or sad At least he fled back to the north of the Yellow River from the Central Plains, but he didn't expect that Li Shimin, who was more than ten years younger than himself and was in his prime, would die on the battlefield of Qingzhou, and this outcome was really unpredictable.
"Changgui, Li Shimin should be the first emperor in history to die on the battlefield," Cao Cao rubbed his head and walked while asking Su Changgui, the great eunuch beside him.
Gonggong Su hurriedly bowed down and replied: "Back to Your Majesty's words, as far as the slave maid knows, I really don't remember that there is a record in the history books that the king died directly on the battlefield, and this Li Shimin is also unlucky."
Cao Cao sighed: "It seems that Liu Wei is destined to return, maybe it won't be long before I will follow in Li Shimin's footsteps."
"Your Majesty's words are serious, you are the true dragon son of heaven, the destiny of heaven returns, I believe that Your Majesty will be able to turn the tide and reverse the current unfavorable situation, even if you can't drink the Yangtze River, at least you can protest with Liu Wei's court."
Gonggong Su took small steps, and followed closely behind Cao Cao.
Cao Cao closed his mouth and stopped talking, and there was nothing to talk about with a eunuch, but listening to his compliments would help ease his depressed mood.
When Cao Cao came to the Jinluan Palace, all the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty had arrived, and under the leadership of Fan Zeng and Jia Xu, they shouted long live together and paid homage.
Due to Cao Cao's ill health, the morning court was postponed for an hour in the past few days, and it was put on hold, and at this time, the civil and military officials had already been arguing hotly.
Cao Cao dragged his sick body to sit down on the dragon chair, swept a circle of Manchu civil and military under the Luantai, on the left stood a group of civil officials such as Jia Xu, Fan Li, Cheng Yu, Wu Yong, Wen Hui, Tian Chou, etc., and the military generals on the left were led by Prime Minister Fan Zeng, and down stood Dian Wei, Xu Chu, Cao Zhang, Wen Ping, Cao Xiu and other military generals, as well as Jia Fu who had just escaped alone from the Qingzhou battlefield.
"Alas, there are many familiar faces," Cao Cao couldn't help but sigh in his heart, and a sad mood quietly permeated his heart.
Speaking of losses in this spring, Cao Wei is definitely not smaller than Li Tang, in addition to Xiahou Yuan, Xia Luqi, Shan Xiongxin, Pang De, Ruan Weng Zhong who died in the Central Plains in the summer, as well as Le Jin, Le Yang, Han Baohu and other generals were captured, and the strategist Guo Jia also died with hatred.
Unexpectedly, the old wounds were not healed and new hatred was added, after the 50,000 Tang Army led by Chen Ziyun entered Qingzhou, except for Jia Fu who fled back on a single horse, everyone else, including the main general Chen Ziyun, as well as Wang Yanzhang, Dong Ping, Li Tong and others were all killed.
Thinking of this, Cao Cao's nose couldn't help but sour, this was an elite that he had spent many years recruiting from all over the country, but it was destroyed in this spring, and all of them were martyred.
"Fan Qing, can I pay tribute to all the fallen soldiers, no one must be left behind, they shed their blood for the Great Wei, and our monarchs and ministers of the Great Wei must not forget their merits" Cao Cao cleared his throat and asked Fan Zeng in a solemn voice.
Fan Zeng hurriedly stepped forward, holding the wat board in his hand and playing: "Back to Your Majesty's words, the minister has done his best to count the list, and show mercy to the families of the fallen soldiers, and will never dare to live up to the trust of the Holy Lord." ” Compared with the death of the generals, the strength of the Cao Wei group also decreased by two-fifths in this spring, the battle of the Central Plains lost 150,000, and the 50,000 reinforcements in the battle of Qingzhou were wiped out, so that Cao Wei's battle-hardened soldiers were sharply reduced to 300,000, which is still the number of 70,000 horses in the hands of Le Yi in Xuzhou.
Fortunately, Jizhou and Bingzhou are densely populated, and after Cao Cao crossed the Yellow River, he immediately ordered Shi Xunyu and Cheng Yu, the assassin of Jizhou, to recruit soldiers, and pardoned almost all the prisoners under his rule, issued swords, guns, armor, and promised preferential military salaries, so that they could go into battle to kill the enemy.
Then he sent envoys to recruit thieves from all walks of life on Taihang Mountain, and collected them for his own use, and even recruited 200,000 new soldiers in just three months, which reduced Cao Wei's defensive pressure a lot.
With Li Shimin's death in Qingzhou, the Tang army retreated north of the Yellow River, and Cao Cao immediately redeployed after consulting with his subordinate Wenwu to resist the Han army's impending all-out counteroffensive.
On the Hanoi side, Cao Ren led 100,000 veterans and 50,000 new troops to Huaixian, with Zhao Pu as his military advisor, and led Ju Wuba, Xiahou Shang, Cao Zhen, Sima Cuo, Zhang Xiu, Hu Che'er and others to confront Xu Huang in Hedong and Xu Da on the south bank of the Yellow River to resist the attack of the Han army.
As a barrier to defend Yecheng, Cao Cao handed over to Yang Su to guard, and also led 100,000 veterans and 50,000 new troops to garrison, leading LinkedIn Bu, Sima Sui, Yang Fu, and his nephew Yang Fan to resist the threat of Zhuge Liang and Xue Rengui's army on the other side of the Yellow River, and defend Yecheng.
In terms of Bingzhou, Cao Cao ordered Sima Yi to go to Huguan as the main general, and led 30,000 horses with Jia Kui, Wang Ling, and Man Chong to block the gate of Bingzhou and resist the northward advance of Xu Huang's army.
Although 200,000 recruits were recruited in a short period of time, Cao Wei's troops were still stretched thin in the face of the offensive of the Eastern Han Dynasty on all sides.
After removing the three-way defense force, only 30,000 veterans and 70,000 recruits were left in Yecheng, which were ready to rush to the aid of various places as a reserve force.
This time, with the full retreat of the Tang army from Qingzhou, Pingyuan County, located in the east of Yecheng, has been fully exposed to the guns of the Han army, and Li Jing's army may cross the Yellow River at any time to launch an attack on the plain, and then attack Yecheng, while Cao Wei has no available troops to plug the loophole.
"The 70,000 horses in Xuzhou must be withdrawn."
Cao Cao got up and walked down the Luan platform, walked around the sand table in the center of the main hall, and let out a heavy sigh, "The Han army has now launched a full-scale counterattack, and even a single soldier is very important to our army."
Jia Xu took a step forward and arched his hand: "The minister has already revised the book to the two generals Le Yi and Guo Ziyi three days ago, asking them to abandon Xuzhou and withdraw to Jizhou as soon as possible, and I think the letter has been sent to General Le Yi at this moment." ” "General Leyi's sense of smell is very keen, and he may have been ready to retreat after receiving the news of Li Shimin's death."
The young Fan Liwan smiled, and his words were full of trust in Le Yi.
Cao Cao muttered: "But according to the scout's report, Liu Wei has sent Guan Yu and Zhao Yun from Qingzhou to lead 100,000 soldiers and horses south to Xuzhou, and Meng Hui and Qi Jiguang in Jiangdong have also gathered 780,000 horses to cross the Yangtze River to the north, and there are Zhuge Liang, Xu Da and other corps in various places in the Central Plains to guard, and the 70,000 people in Xuzhou want to withdraw to Jizhou, which is really difficult to climb to the sky."
Thinking of this, Cao Cao couldn't help but feel sad and burst into tears: "Whirl, sorrowful, painful, pity, filial piety, why did you abandon me so early?"
Fan Zeng, Jia Xu, Fan Li and the others were all puzzled, and asked in unison: "Why did Your Majesty suddenly remember Fengxiao again?"
Cao Cao wiped his tears and said: "I made a strategic mistake, I shouldn't care about the gains and losses of one city and one place, I should give up Xuzhou as soon as possible, let Leyi and Guo Ziyi lead the soldiers back to Jizhou, and I won't fall to the point where I can't escape today." ” All the staff couldn't help but be speechless, and they all thought to themselves: "The reason why I didn't give up Xuzhou at the beginning was only because the decisive battle between the Han and Tang Dynasties in Qingzhou was not decided.
It's just that no one expected Li Shimin to lose so quickly and so badly in Qingzhou, and it would be biased to say that it was a wrong decision not to give up Xuzhou at the beginning."
But everyone knew in their hearts that Cao Cao's words of praising Guo Jia and belittling himself were actually reproaching the aides for being useless and unable to provide useful strategies to contain the deterioration of the situation.
"Your Majesty should not be sad, and the minister believes that General Leyi will be able to lead the soldiers of Xuzhou to withdraw safely."
Fan Li bowed down and admonished, with a confident face.
Cao Cao wiped away his tears and sighed: "Alas, the matter has come to this, it is useless to miss Fengxiao, I hope Le Qing can turn the tide and lead the soldiers of Xuzhou to jump out of the encirclement of the Han army and return to Jizhou."
It's just that having said that, all the civil and military forces, including Cao Cao, almost didn't believe that Le Yi and Guo Ziyi, who were trapped in the encirclement, could lead the 70,000 Wei troops in Xuzhou to withdraw to Jizhou and be surrounded by heavy sieges Fan Zeng said again: "Your Majesty should quickly send an envoy to the Tang army camp to meet Li Ji and Li Mu, and ask them to station troops in the plains and Leling areas, and jointly resist the offensive of Li Jing's army by relying on the natural danger of the Yellow River.
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If Li Ji and Li Mu continue to retreat north regardless of the interests of our Great Wei, after Li Jing's army crosses the Yellow River, they can take the plain and point their swords at Yecheng, if so, the Great Wei will be in danger."
Cao Cao bowed his head and said: "Although Li Shimin is dead, Li Ji and Li Mu are both battle-hardened commanders, loyal to Li Tang, and should be able to see the current situation clearly. t1706231537: