Chapter 429: The Change in Yanzhou

When Dian Wei died, his body was covered with arrows, like a hedgehog. When Zhang Xiu saw it, he felt quite unbearable and secretly praised Dian Wei as a man who was indeed a man of heaven and earth.

The Western Liang soldiers were sure that Dian Wei was dead, so they dared to step forward. They cut Dian Wei's head off in fear and passed it on to each other, wanting to see what kind of strange man Dian Wei was, who was so brave and tenacious.

When Zhang Xiu discovered that the "Cao Cao" lying on the ground was fake, Cao Cao had already retreated north along the Qingshui under the escort Yu Jin, under the escort of Pinglu College, and retreated to Wuyin a hundred miles away in one breath. After hearing about it, the Cao army troops wanted to take a small path to Wuyin to rescue Cao Cao. The road was crowded and disorderly, and the Cao army looked in a mess.

There were also Qingzhou soldiers whom Cao Cao had surrendered. Although they had strong combat effectiveness and brave combat, they were an elite army, but their military discipline was very poor. Cao Cao took good care of them on weekdays. During this great defeat, they not only plundered the people all the way, but also robbed other troops of Cao's army, which further added chaos to the Cao army.

Halfway through the withdrawal of troops, Yu Jin met a Qingzhou army. He was ruthless and immediately led his troops to pursue them and cleaned them up. However, the evil soldiers in Qingzhou complained first and arrived at Cao Cao first, but Cao Cao did not listen.

When he saw Yu Jin and listened to Yu Jin's report, Cao Cao was very happy after the defeat and said to Jin: "The difficulty of clean water is in danger. Our side is in danger. The general can be in chaos but not chaos. He can save me from danger, and he also rectify his subordinates and punish atrocities. He has an unshakable stamina. Even famous generals in ancient times can hardly surpass you!"

Cao Cao then based on the contributions made by Yu Jin before and after, he submitted that the emperor appointed Yu Jin as the Marquis of Yishouting. Since then, Yu Jin has become Cao Cao's confidant general, and has made many military achievements for Cao Cao.

The battle of Qingshui was Cao Cao's first southern expedition to Zhang Xiu, but it ended in a disastrous defeat. The Cao army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and thousands of Qingzhou soldiers fled. It is impossible to say that they were defeated. Cao Cao's eldest son Cao Ang and his nephew Cao Anmin were young and died in the chaos, which made Cao Cao extremely sad.

What made Cao Cao even more sad was that his confidant general Dian Wei was also killed in battle. This was the huge price Cao Cao paid for his romanticism and carelessness. Cao Cao did not pay tribute to his beloved son and nephew in Wuyin, but he mourned Dian Wei. Cao Cao also wrote an eulogy in which he criticized himself in an attempt to revive the morale of the army. Sure enough, after this incident, the morale of the Cao army quickly gathered again, and the scattered soldiers returned to the team one after another.

Afterwards, Cao Cao sent people to find Dian Wei's body and sent it back to Dian Wei's hometown Xiangyi for grand burial. From then on, every time he passed by Chenliu County, he would detour to Xiangyi to worship Dian Wei. Cao Cao's move was not only a sincere sacrifice, but also always reminded himself that he should not ignore everyone for his own selfish desires, as it would easily cause huge losses.

Cao Cao then gathered his troops to return to Xudu. This failure has given him enough experience and lessons. He still needs to go back and summarize it carefully. The military discipline of the Qingzhou soldiers also needs to be rectified. Cao Cao left Cao Hong's troops to continue to defend Zhang Xiu's attack.

Zhang Xiu took advantage of the opportunity of great victory to quickly expand the results of the battle and took back all the cities of Rangcheng, Wuyin, Huyang, etc. that Cao's army had occupied, and compressed Cao Hong into the area of ​​Ye County, the northernmost part of Nanyang County. Ye County was further down to the boundary of Yuzhou, and there was no way to retreat. Cao Hong had to grit his teeth and struggled to support Nanyang County, barely defending the defense line.

Cao Cao also knew that Cao Hong had worked hard to defend, but he had no energy to support him at this moment, and even had no energy to divide his troops to attack Yuan Shu, because a major incident happened in Yanzhou, Cao Cao's base - Chenliu prefect Zhang Miao rebelled.

Zhang Miao, whose courtesy name was Meng Zhuo, was from Shou Zhang in Dongping. When he was young, he was famous for his chivalrousness. He was rich in his family, was generous in wealth, and made friends with many friends. He had dated Cao Cao and Yuan Shao and had close relationships. He dared to stand up and criticize the eunuch group during the Party and Prison disaster at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and was rated as one of the "Eight Chefs" by scholars all over the world. During the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, he was first appointed as the commander of the cavalry and later promoted to the prefect of Chenliu.

Zhang Miao joined the Kwantung Alliance Army, jointly attacked Dong Zhuo, and led his troops to support Cao Cao and pursue the Western Liang army westward. After Yuan Shao became the leader, he was arrogant and acted recklessly. Cao Cao and Bao Xin were both very dissatisfied with this, but they dared not say it clearly. Only Zhang Miao condemned Yuan Shao with justice. Yuan Shao was furious. At that time, Cao Cao was the governor of Yanzhou and was the superior of Zhang Miao, who was the prefect of Chenliu at that time. Therefore, Yuan Shao instructed Cao Cao to kill Zhang Miao, but Cao Cao had a deep friendship with Zhang Miao, so he refused. Zhang Miao was very grateful.

In terms of personal relationships, the relationship between Zhang Miao and Cao Cao is very strong. However, after Cao Cao's power gradually expanded, Cao Cao also changed unknowingly, and the relationship between the two is no longer as harmonious as before.

Especially after Cao Cao executed the famous scholar Bian Rang for personal grudges, and then executed Bian Rang's family for more than 300, Zhang Miao was very dissatisfied with Cao Cao's cruel methods, so he was always worried that Cao Cao would be forced to listen to the words of villains and kill him one day. So he followed his brother Zhang Chao's advice and took advantage of Cao Cao's plan to go south to fight Zhang Xiu, rebel against Cao Cao and welcomed Lu Bu as the governor of Yanzhou. Lu Bu occupied Puyang, and the counties under Yanzhou were all subject to Juancheng, Dong'a and Fan County.

Yanzhou is Cao Cao's base camp and base. He thought that Zhang Miao and others were governing him, and Yanzhou was as solid as a soup. Unexpectedly, Zhang Miao actually welcomed Lu Bu as the governor of Yanzhou and betrayed him. Cao Cao was so angry that he almost vomited blood on the spot. Only then did he remember that Lu Bu had contacted Zhang Miao in advance after crossing Taihang Mountain to enter Yanzhou.

"I will not be a human being if I don't kill Zhang Miao in this life!" Cao Cao pulled out the Qingfeng sword at his waist with a clang, and with a lightning strike, cutting down the corners of the desk in front of him.

At present, Cao Cao has occupied two large areas of Yanzhou and Yuzhou. For him, Yuzhou is still stable. Since he sent Zhong Yao to guard Luoyang as the post of the Sei-Century, and supervising the Western Liang forces such as Ma Teng and Han Sui, the Guanzhong area has gradually become stable.

However, once there is a loss in Yanzhou, Cao Cao will lose the source of food and military supply, which he absolutely cannot bear. At this moment, whether it is Zhang Xiu, Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao, or Zhou Yu, it is even more uncomfortable than Zhang Miao. In addition to the betrayal of his friends that made Cao Cao sad, Yanzhou's important strategic position cannot be lost.

Regardless of the impact of Zhang Xiu's failure in the southern expedition, Cao Cao immediately assembled his troops and set up a 30,000 army to head straight for Puyang.

Xun Yu advised: "Our army was defeated recently. I heard that Lu Bu was brave. Zhang Liao and Xu Huang were all talented in generals. If they were defeated again, the situation would be out of control. It would be better to contact Yuan Shao, and the two armies would have a chance of victory."

I know what happens next, and listen to the next chapter to explain it.

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