The timeline goes back to the winter of 197. The battle between Liu Bei's camp and Yuan Shao's camp in the Hedong and Bingzhou War Zone is indeed a long story and complex relationship. Li Suyuan has been paying attention to it for so long, but the final result has not yet been achieved.

After all, as early as early October, before Sun Ce decided to accept Cai Mao's success, Liu Bei and Yuan Shao had already begun to mobilize troops and enter a wartime confrontation.

For both Liu Bei and Yuan Shao, it was not actually a win-win situation for both Liu Bei and Yuan Shao to enter the wartime state early, but it was not actually a waste of military and manpower mincing. Before Li Su went south, he also mentioned these dark considerations to Liu Bei privately - of course, he said that it was dark and he could not be discussed openly in the court.

Politicians with a little political experience throughout the ages know that launching wars to the outside world is the best way to divert internal contradictions, strengthen internal management, and suppress the people's idea of ​​rebellion and strong people's political resistance.

Once the wartime state is entered, internal unity and converge, the court wants to collect money, grain and manpower from aristocratic families, and the voices of the great families resisting must be lower. Otherwise, if you accidentally get labeled as "co-engagement", you will be exposed by your enemies and killed by your joint efforts.

As early as Emperor Wu of Han, he shamelessly used this method of letting revenge merchants report and expose each other and raiding their homes and suppressing civil forces.

Liu Bei's side just implemented the first imperial examination at the end of August and early September 197, and needed a state of war to digest the resistance to reform.

Yuan Shao's side needed to suppress the true and loyal Han faction of the Guandong region, which "discovered that Yuan Shao actually used the emperor to command the princes and wanted to return the power to the emperor Liu He". Only when he entered the wartime state, Yuan Shao was the first to carry the banner of the Guandong princes fighting against the pseudo emperor of Guanxi. Those who shouted "Great power to return" could calm down. If they did not calm down, they would be beaten into a rebel who colluded with the enemy during the war.

Don’t wonder why Yuan Shao was obviously the third emperor of the fourth generation, but there were still people who resisted him and held the emperor. After all, such people exist at any time. There are many talents in the Kanto states who truly care about the Han Dynasty.

In history, Cao Cao spent more than ten years to repeatedly kill several groups of court officials. After the Battle of Chibi, he conquered Sun Quan, Mahan, and Zhang Lu. Basically, every time he returned to the court with military victory, he would take the opportunity to seduce a wave of internal opponents to come out and kill.

When Xiao He was in the story, he killed a few people, when he was in charge of Duke Wei, and when he was in charge of King Wei, he killed another group. Only then did he clean up those who were loyal to the Han Dynasty and Cao Pi could succeed.

(Note: Here is a point to clarify that those who committed mutinies and rebelled against Cao Cao in the court in history may not be truly loyal to the emperor and have no selfishness. A moral gentleman like Xun Yu and Kong Rong should be truly loyal, and a considerable number of others only use the guise of opposing Cao Cao and supporting the emperor to fight for power and profit. If they successfully rebel against Cao Cao and come to power by themselves, they may continue to hold the king, just like Cao Cao killed Li Jue. This is clearly stated so as not to be labeled as a blackmailer.)

Yuan Shao's four generations and three dukes were innocent and had no ugliness left behind. It is estimated that the resentful people Yuan Shao met could reduce at least half of the resentment that Cao Cao had. After Liu He became emperor, Yuan Shao also skipped the story of Xiao He's swords and the two steps of swords and placing the courts and the courts were directly merged together.

Taking two steps only aroused the resistance Cao Cao encountered in history after taking one step, and it was already very favorable.

...

With the similar mentality of both sides wanting to "maintain the wartime state in small battles and carry the banner of their own camp", in the early stages of the battle in October 197, both sides were really a bit like the Western Front battlefield in the winter of 1939 in later generations.

That's right, it's a "sitting war". For the need to carry the flag with moral integrity, Yuan Shao first waved the flag and shouted and pretended to be A. In fact, the main force was basically still "shopping wine high meetings", just like the Frenchman in 1939.

However, Sun Ce foolishly believed in the leader's attitude, just as the Poles believed in the French, and really went up, fantasizing that Liu Bei could not invest more reserve forces in Li Su because he was trapped in a two-line battle. Later, everyone also saw that Poland, who believed in France, always had to pay the price of his life.

Throughout October, Yuan Shao claimed to have assembled more than 300,000 troops to deal with Liu Bei. In fact, only Lu Bu and Zhang Liao's 70,000 troops stationed in Taiyuan, Shangdang, which was considered to be on the front line of Liu Bei's flank.

Wen Chou also led 30,000 people to guard Huguan as the second line of defense for Shangdang's troops. Zhang He led 20,000 people to Jingxing, the key pass of Taihang Mountain, as the second line of defense for Taiyuan troops.

Wen Chou and Zhang He can support Lu Bu and Zhang Liao, and retreat can defend Taihang Mountains, ensuring that even if Liu Bei's army crosses the mountains and walks around the city of Bingzhou, they still cannot get out of Taihang Mountains and cannot threaten the fat Hebei Plain of Yuan Shao's army.

Finally, there was also Tuo Yi who led 30,000 people to station in the Yewang of Hanoi County, and went forward to defend Hedong Dongyuan and other places occupied by Yuan Shao's army before, blocking the roads on the north bank of the Yellow River.

The five generals on the front line totaled only 150,000. This is the real force mobilized by Yuan Shao during the "Sitting War" period, and there are nearly 200,000 main forces. Before the autumn harvest and farming were busy, they had to help harvest the military camps. After winter, they were only stationed west of Yecheng and stood by, and did not enter the Taihang Mountains in advance.

Yuan Shao knew very well that 200,000 people spent the winter on the Hebei Plain to eat grain, which was better than moving people to the Taihang Mountains and transporting the grain they had to eat for a winter to the Taihang Mountains by land.

The cost of land transportation on the Taihang Mountains is too terrifying. Isn’t Zhao State so poor five hundred years ago? More than 400,000 people from Lian Po and Zhao Kuo ate in the Taihang Mountains for nearly three years, and the entire Hebei Plain of Zhao State had no surplus food.

When the war is not tense, of course, you should save as much as you can, and then spend it when the tension is tense.

After the Yuan Shao army had 150,000 troops on the front line, and the Yecheng Hebei Plain was garrisoned with 200,000 troops on the edge of the Hebei Plain in Yecheng. Throughout October, Liu Bei's front line deployment posture was as follows:

Liu Bei had 200,000 people on the northern line, 50,000 defenders in Yongliang's rear, and was on standby in Chang'an to support 40,000 reserve teams everywhere at any time. Hongnong had 20,000 Zhang Fei's, and Hetao was close to the northernmost line of Hexi, with Ma Chao's 30,000 cavalry left. Guan Yu led 60,000 people and stationed in Anyi with Zhuge Liang.

Because there is water in Anyi that can connect the Yellow River and Wei River through Pubanjin, all Guan Yu's troops can use water to transport grain for food, and there is no problem of transporting grain in mountainous areas. There is not enough food in Hedong, so the surplus grain from Chencang, Mei County and Huaili in the Weihe Plain grain production areas can be transported to one-stop.

Zhang Fei and Ma Chao's two routes, the reason why Zhang Fei was temporarily wronged and only brought 20,000 troops was to be more economical in the long-term stalemate. Anyway, there are Hangu Pass and Tongguan at both ends of Hongnong County to guard the natural dangers, and 20,000 people can definitely be defended.

If there are too many people, Hongnong's local grain production is not enough to eat, so it would be a loss to transport grain from elsewhere along the Gushan Valley in Kohandao. When Duan Wei was the prefect of Hongnong, he only raised 20,000 permanent troops, so Zhang Fei learned from him.

Ma Chao's 30,000 cavalrymen have no forage in the wild in winter, so it is difficult to maintain their stamina on the west bank of the Yellow River. Fortunately, the cavalry is highly mobile and does not need to be deployed in all frontiers.

As long as Ma Chao ensures rotation of patrols, he sets up a large camp in advance on the front line to stock up on the heavy armor and military equipment. Most of the cavalry are kept in Yinchuan and the food in Shangjun is available. As long as the equipment is not required to be carried with you, it will take only a few days for these light cavalry troops to travel 500 miles to the Hetao Grassland Flat Road to the front line.

Throughout October, the two sides were in a state of tense and confrontation, ensuring that their stalemate loss was as high as possible. Every day, there were some small-scale scout wars and border sentry wars, without large-scale bloody battles.

Fortunately, Liu Bei's camp always acts against the enemy's expectations - when you think I'm going to fight, I didn't fight. When you think I'm just trying to maintain the wartime state like you, and the southern front has started war, and it should avoid fighting on both sides, I really fight.

The first true offensive battle of Liu Bei's army took place when it was about to end in early November 197.

At this time, Sun Ce had already taken Nanjun for twenty days, and the information about Sun Ce taking Nanjun had been spread to Yuan Shao for seven or eight days.

At that time, Yuan Shao felt that since Liu Bei knew the news that the southern line had been hit, and that Liu Bei knew about the hit, it must be when Liu Bei dared to change the status quo.

Because of the asymmetry of the news, Yuan Shao's interpretation of the news of "the fall of Nanjun" was far more serious than Liu Bei. Liu Bei knew that Cai Mao was deliberately put in and made a plan, and Li Su secretly stated to him that he could watch him turn the tables.

Yuan Shao didn't know that he thought Li Su was really a paper tiger, and the philosopher idealist played too much and was stunned by Sun Ce who was not good at martial arts.

In addition, another important factor that Yuan Shao did not expect Liu Bei to fight in November was that the winter in the north was really cold, and once the twelfth lunar month entered, it would definitely not be able to fight in the mountains. It would not be cost-effective to temporarily expand the war at this time.

Not only Yuan Shao himself never expected that even the authoritative strategists around him felt so at that time.

Ju Su, who ranked three Dukes in the Kanto court, also believed that Liu Bei would always maintain a defensive position based on his misjudgment of the situation on the southern front.

Xu You deliberately exaggerated that "there is no threat to the North Road" purely because of his own offensive line.

Xu You wanted to persuade Yuan Shao, "Since Li Su was defeated by Sun Ce on the southern front, we should beat the dog and adjust our strategy, and from the previous Hedong Bingzhou front line to holding up Liu Bei's main force, and then dragging Liu Bei to hold back Liu Bei, then gathered heavy troops to Luoyang, Xuchang, and went south to attack Nanyang, so that Li Sugaoshun could not take care of each other."

In Yuan Shao's camp, there was only Tian Feng who was the only adviser who "Liu Bei on the North Road may break the current meditation in November". But Tian Feng was not sure. He was used to arguing with others and emphasized points that others had not noticed, and it was more annoying to be emotionally wise.

No matter which route Yuan Shao chose, Tian Feng would come out to "check out the omissions and fill in the gaps". Over the years, Yuan Shao had long been paralyzed by Tian Feng's "overthinking".

The only adviser in the Kanto camp who was as sensible as a risk of breaking Liu Bei’s sit-in is the only one who is Guo Jia and Cheng Yu. Unfortunately, they followed Cao Cao and had no obligation to remind Yuan Shao as soon as possible, and did not want to be troublesome.

The first substantive offensive battle of Liu Bei's camp in the northern line began in early November.

——
Chapter completed!