"It's really Guan Yu who is guarding the city himself! The enemy troops in the city are all elites who are fearless and fearless. It's so terrible!"

"Even if you risk your life to climb up first, there are still rows of guys who use long-handled and wide-blade to cut the horse sword and knock them down. No one can stand firm!"

"The enemy's divine arm crossbowmen were wearing half-body steel breastplates, steel helmets and iron masks, and they could not shoot arrows down the corner tower! It was useless to shoot! They all dared to poke their upper body out of the Duoba and shoot arrows. How could they hit it!"

Guan Yu's efforts were finally not in vain. After just one and a half hours of bloody battles in the city, the Cao army had completely learned the truth. It was Guan Yu who was guarding the city himself. There were many elite Han troops in the city, and they had been using the exhaustion of Cao army before!

Among the Cao army, there were also people with insight who wanted to boost morale and let the soldiers not believe these rumors.

But the problem is that the Han army crossbowmen on the opposite side are crazy output, and there are hundreds of swearing soldiers in the back row shaking flags and shouting, yelling in an insulting manner, such as "Guo Jia's brilliant plan to help the world, and the powerful generals are broken and the soldiers are broken" to hit Cao's morale.

It is impossible for the Cao army soldiers to plug their ears and not listen. It is equivalent to directly knowing that the whole army has fallen into a trap again.

Moreover, Guan Yu's Azure Dragon Sword is not a decoration. It should not be too easy to cut down enemies who have not yet established a firm foothold. After being killed by Guan Yu in the morning, he directly witnessed his comrades being killed by Guan Yu's iconic chopping. There were probably thousands of Cao soldiers, accounting for a few percent of Cao Cao's entire army.

As such a source of infection spread, not all Cao's army believed that the enemy had been playing them before, deliberately showing weakness to kill more.

After most of the bloody battle, in the afternoon, Cao's army's offensive finally collapsed completely. The city defense was not loose enough, and the advantage of defending the terrain was too huge. If you were to have such a morale blow, you would definitely not be able to fight this battle.

When Cao's army came, it was like a tide surging, and when it retreated, it was as thin as a tide, and its broken limbs and arms were in a mess.

...

That night, at night, Cao's army commanded the tent.

Cao Cao's eyes were a little dull, and he was distracted when eating, and he didn't know what he was eating. He didn't even notice what he was eating.

The chicken ribs in his mouth were no longer meat, but there was a bit of cartilage and blood residue, and Cao Cao chewed them so numbly for dozens of times. He thought he hadn't chewed them up, so he refused to swallow them.

The other generals and Cao Cao did not eat the same tent, so they could not see this scene, and the attendants did not know how to read the mind, and they could not see through the deep meaning behind it when they saw this.

The only thing that can be seen clearly when we have had dinner together in the tent is military advisor Guo Jia.

Fortunately, Guo Jia's eyes were much better than Yang Xiu in history, and he would not point it out even if he saw it through it.

Therefore, Guo Jia never mentioned the useless things, but just pretended to take part of the responsibility on himself:

"I would like to ask my lord not to forget his original intention. Kunyang and Ye County are the two places that can be taken if they can. I am lucky if I get it. It is just that the luck is not good. There is another layer of the original intention of our army to send troops, which is to make Yuan Shao and Yuan Shang feel relieved.

Now, since you know that Guan Yu is also in Kunyang, as long as the news spreads, Yuan Jun will breathe a sigh of relief, right? The enemy is so prepared that Kunyang is so strong that it is conceivable.

What's more, since there is a plan first, Gao Shun was blocked on Bowangpo for more than ten days, so why is there no suspicion of deliberately showing weakness?

Did Gao Shun and Zhuge Liang really not be able to break through Li Mancheng's blocked road? Or would they be sure that Guan Yu could hold on for a long time and weaken our army first. Only when our army's morale fell would they break through Bowangpo and fight us in a decisive battle? We must observe it.

When the war was launched, my subordinates underestimated the enemy's determination and deployment, which caused the lord to invest too much. If he withdraws his troops, he should ask the lord to punish this."

Guo Jiacheng sincerely analyzed the current situation and gave Cao Cao a step forward.

Cao Cao was so worried that he could not hear that Guo Jia was placing a misunderstanding of the responsibility for making mistakes in his decisions.

Speaking of the decision-making mistakes, Guo Jia advised him to fight this battle, killing two birds with one stone. He could not only steal some city and cause some damage, but also numb the Yuan family, killing two birds with one stone. Since Guo Jia is the proposer, he must also have a responsibility.

But then again, the military advisor like Guo Jia, who provides ideas, does not teach Cao Cao how to play, how big he plays, how much he bets each. These specific joints are still controlled by Cao Cao.

Therefore, because he couldn't help but reluctantly, the battle was wrongly expanded. This additional expansion loss was Cao Cao's own fault and it was not Guo Jia's business. He lost the opportunity after he tried the waters and increased his bet.

Cao Cao was able to spread the knot in the front half of his heart, but the back half was still resentful, put down his chopsticks and said angrily:

"If this battle retreats, what will happen in the future? Will you avoid the enemy in the future? Isn't that equivalent to watching Liu Bei eat in the world? Even Kunyang can't conquer, so it's easy to attack other places?"

Guo Jiacheng urged: "My lord, don't act irresponsible. You should know that other cities may not be so difficult to attack. Don't look at the small city in Kunyang, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang were probably investing heavily in order to repair it widely.

I have seen it in the past few days. Not to mention anything else, it is the sheep and horse moat with one slope and the other steep slope. The geotechnical volume is so huge that I am afraid that a new city of the same size can be built elsewhere.

These slopes seem to be only one person tall, but the width is fifty steps, which is at least seven or eight times wider than the thickness of the city wall. In summary, it does not mean a city wall with a bottom of six steps wide and three feet high.

Moreover, the Kunyang city wall can withstand repeated hits of huge rocks, which has a lot to do with Zhuge Liang's use of stones to repair the wall. In the past few days, the army has arrested local people everywhere to question them, and has also obtained news that Zhuge Liang had just built the Nanyang Canal and broke the Tongbai Mountain Pass before, so he had no place to mine so he built the city defense in Kunyang nearby.

With such a huge investment, as long as we don’t attack this city, will the money of Li Su and Zhuge Liang be wasted?”

Guo Jia made a difficult analysis and tried to make Cao Cao believe that "bypassing the iron plate and not kicking it is the biggest blow to those who spend money to build the iron plate."

What's your mission to make you fight with the steel plate with broken toes?

As Cao Cao listened, he closed his eyes in pain.

"It is easy to decide to retreat today, but I am afraid that there will be no chance to stop Liu Bei from digging Tongbai Mountain and building the Nanyang Canal. In time, Jing will benefit the people's strength and the resources will continue to transport from the Han River to Yuzhou, and there will be no peace in the Central Plains."

Guo Jia: "But we have a tough battle now, and there is no chance of winning. The canal will eventually be completed. After all, it will be a matter of one or two years or even further. Maybe the situation will turn around in the past or two years? Maybe after the lord integrates Yuan Shao's legacy, he will be able to work hard to govern, be united in the top and the bottom, and be like a finger to the court."

Guo Jia’s reason is very clear: I know that it will definitely be a chronic death if I continue to drag on it, but if I steal another wave of development based on a certain time node, I may not be able to wait until the enemy makes a mistake.

In fact, if the weak side is against the strong side and cannot beat the front, then you can only delay time and wait for the enemy to make a mistake.

During the Battle of Guandu in history, Xun Yu advised Cao Cao to persevere, and there would be changes later. In fact, it was such a simple and simple truth. However, when Cao Cao really waited until Yuan Shao made mistakes, he would turn the tables.

Now we can only wait, but the probability of the enemy making mistakes is definitely much smaller than that of Yuan Shao in history, and it is not certain whether he can wait.

Cao Cao was in pain, but he was more decisive than Yuan Shao after all. After suffering losses, he knew it was the time for a hero to cut off his arm and stop the loss.

Cao Cao sighed: "The reason for withdrawing troops is that it is just a new setback in the army. If the sudden withdrawal of troops is probably a pursuit of Gao Shun. It would be better to insist on waiting for change and wait for a more appropriate opportunity."

Guo Jia quickly agreed: "The lord said very much, he wanted to withdraw his troops, but he should not retreat in the past few days. He suffered heavy losses in the attack just now, and suffered heavy casualties. Even Guan Yu would have expected that we might retreat as soon as possible.

We must do the opposite. The more we feel depressed, the more we insist on pretending that everything is the same, and wait until the wind passes before suddenly retreating.

In addition, my subordinates thought that the lord was afraid of chasing, and should be afraid that Li Mancheng would not be able to retreat at the 30,000 people blocking the entrance of Bowangpo. After all, they were in a dangerous place in the mountains and marching slowly when retreating, and they were too close to Gao Shun's main force.

If so, try to let them slowly remove the injured soldiers first. At the same time, add quick-moving light cavalry to defend themselves. When the main force is about to retreat, notify them one or two days in advance and abandon the camp overnight and return.

There is no need to retreat to Yexian and Wuyang along the Lishui River, but take the shortest shortcut, and go from the hilly and mountain road northwest of Yexian County to bypass Yexian and Kunyang, retreat to Xiangcheng, and enter Xiangcheng to defend. The main force of the army follows the Lishui River and the military waters to Dingling and Yancheng.

Only the troops that need to carry food and supplies and retreat with materials will go on the water route. The troops that do not need to carry materials will go on the land route, taking into account both speed and capacity, and can be safe."

Guo Jia's last words were more detailed and needed to be viewed in combination with the map, so Guo Jia dared to step forward and pointed and explained on the map hanging behind Cao Cao.

Let the troops with horses break off their backs lightly and suddenly retreat when the enemy unexpectedly, and fight a day and a half, it can indeed widen the gap.

Moreover, as long as each person brings food for a few days, he will not starve to death on the road. The marching will be very flexible and should be able to resolve the losses during the retreat.

Cao Cao agreed to this method of handling it, thought for a while, and ordered: "There are only a few days when the enemy will not move. First, wait for the enemy to relax its vigilance, and second, wait for a heavy snow to make it more difficult for the enemy and us to march, and prevent pursuit.

Let Cao Chun take 10,000 tiger and leopard cavalry, gradually change defenses with Li Dian, and patrol and maintain the road between Kunyang and Bowang. At that time, tens of thousands of people in Lejin's county retreated first, and Cao Chun finally retreated northward and quickly broke off contact."

Cao Jun quickly deployed according to this plan, and his acting skills were indeed very realistic.

Moreover, in order to prevent the Han army from raising suspicion, the Cao army carried out expendable attacks in the following days, with few casualties and injuries every day, but it also made the defenders very tired and could not relax their vigilance and rest completely.

In this way, in the days after the third day of the December 3rd, Guan Yu was alert every day to whether Cao Cao would be frustrated and withdrew his troops. After being consumed by Cao Cao as usual, Guan Yu was also paralyzed.

As mid-December approaches, heavy snow fell from the junction of Yuzhou and Jingbei, and the roads in the entire Tongbai Mountains and Dabie Mountains are becoming increasingly difficult. In this case, anyone who pursues the expedition will definitely suffer a great loss.

Cao Cao was very cautious, fearing that he would be caught when he ran away as soon as it snowed heavily, so he dragged it until the fourth day after the snow, and began to retreat in batches.

Cao Cao's tactical deception was very smooth. Some of the three troops walked all night before the Han army on the opposite side realized. The most successful journey even dragged one afternoon and one night, and it was discovered that the person went to the camp was empty late the next morning, which took a full ten hours to break the distance.

On December 16th, Gao Shun and Zhuge Liang kept thinking about when Guan Yu would exhaust Cao Cao and could close the Internet completely.

Because of Li Dian's existence and road isolation, there was no information between Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu, so it could only be based on trust and prediction. The information was indeed very inaccurate.

As a result, it was as if Zhuge Liang had asked Chen Dao to go to Li Dian Camp to test it early this morning, and was shocked to find that the people had already left the camp.

In fact, Zhuge Liang did not know that Cao Chun and Li Dian had changed their defense until this moment. Cao Jun was always fighting Li Dian's banner in Bowangpo camp, and Cao Chun had no flag at all, so he came quietly.

This cannot be blamed on Zhuge Liang, as Cao Cao was too decisive and cunning.

"Impossible! Li Dian's troops are not all cavalry, how can they escape so quickly? It's all because we have been slack in the past few days. We want the general to spend more money and delay Cao's army, and not attack Li Dian with all our strength!" Zhuge Liang also regretted.

After all, making less money is also a loss. Cao Cao is worthy of being the commander of the Guandong princes with the most courageous strategy and courage. Being able to successfully stop loss and cut off his arm is sometimes a skill.
Chapter completed!