Chapter 252: Yuzhou Confrontation...
The two teams headed towards Woshui from Pingyu, the county seat of Runan, overnight.
However, at the beginning, the two teams were not separated directly, so the military advisors Yuan Huan and Yan Xiang of the two teams had some time to communicate.
"My lord, you also know that if we rashly let us fight against Wen Chou and Liu Bei's followers, the possibility of winning will be very slim." Yuan Huan sighed when he said this. "only……"
Because of Qiao Rui's death and Qiao Yan's lack of assistance at this time, although Yuan Shu kept saying that he was the legitimate son of the Runan Yuan family, he did not really think that he could beat eight people alone and directly expel Wen Chou and Liu Bei from the country.
As a result of experiencing a little more frustration, he finally became a little more sober.
He mobilized all the generals under his command who were still useful, and the combination of commander-in-chief and military advisor he arranged was relatively the best solution at the time.
For example, Ji Ling was a man with only courage and strength, and he had great respect for the gentry, so Yuan Shu assigned Yuan Huan to him.
Yuan Huan, who came from the Yuan family of Chen County, was indeed able to command Ji Ling because of his status.
Zhang Xun was related to Yuan Shu by marriage, but his ability in fighting was just so-so, so he asked Yan Xiang, who had a relatively distant relationship with Yuan Shu, to be his partner.
There is one person in both teams who is considered "one of our own" to Yuan Shu, which may be effective in preventing the situation of surrendering to the enemy at this time.
But when Yuan Huan thought of the battle strategy Yuan Shu mentioned when they left Pingyu, he couldn't stop having a headache.
Some of what he said was right, but some of what he said was childish.
Yuan Shu said that Wen Chou had an impatient temper, and he had seen this clearly when they were still serving in Luoyang.
As for Liu Bei, seeing that he stayed in Pei State for such a long time without sending out troops, it is clear that he is a slow person.
Yuan Shu said that he had studied the art of war quite a lot recently and knew that putting two sides like this, one fast and one slow, here would most likely cause conflicts.
Therefore, it would be better to let Yuan Huan bring his men to pretend to surrender to the enemy first. Anyway, considering that the Yuan family of Runan and the Yuan family of Chenjun were originally from the same family, it would make perfect sense for Yuan Huan to abandon Yuan Shu and choose Yuan Shao.
With Yuan Huan's surrender, Wen Chou would surely attack quickly to capture Runan, but Liu Bei might hesitate.
This makes it possible for the two sides to divide their forces.
But the county of Runan is very large.
It was so large that even if all the other counties in Yuzhou were added together, they might not be as big as Runan County.
In this case, they could easily defeat Wen Chou and Liu Bei one by one after they divided their forces.
At least before this army arrives at Pingyu from Woshui, they should first capture Wen Chou, and then slowly settle accounts with Liu Bei.
The forces this guy has stationed in Pei State are indeed stable, which may make it difficult for them to drive people out of Runan in one go. However, this does not matter, as long as they can teach Yuan Shao a lesson first.
Yuan Huan said: "There are some things that I cannot say directly in front of the Lord, but there are some things that I can still say to Master Yan."
"Let's not talk about how credible this story of surrendering to the enemy is at this time. Does Wen Chou have any advisers from Yuan Benchu accompanying him? Just talking about the story of surrendering to the enemy, I'm afraid if I tell the soldiers that I've surrendered to the other side, they will really believe it."
Yuan Huan is a very rational person.
He was well aware of how difficult it was to actually implement this kind of surrender to the enemy, which sounded feasible on the surface.
To put it bluntly, does Yuan Shu think he is Qiao Yan?
It is almost impossible for the army under Ji Ling to surrender to the enemy and still obey orders.
In order to prevent them from pretending to surrender to the enemy, Liu Bei only needed to make a suggestion to Wen Chou -
The people can be accepted, but when they attack Yuan Shu, Yuan Huan and Ji Ling must first be detained in the territory of Pei State.
At that time, Yan Xiang would have to face three groups of people. How could he fight?
Yuan Huan understood this principle clearly, and Yan Xiang naturally understood it too.
He replied, "I know what Yao Qing is worried about, but the Lord has rarely accepted my suggestions recently. If I raise it on the spot, it will make the Lord unhappy."
In particular, if he said at this juncture that Yuan Shu's soldiers were not so obedient, he might turn around and arouse Yuan Shu's disgust.
Yuan Shu was already somewhat dissatisfied with him because he had given up the throne of Yecheng to Yuan Shao. If he were to bring up such a thing again, Yuan Shu would definitely not listen.
"Since Mr. Yao has been frank with me about the feasibility of this battle plan, I might as well ask, when I saw Mr. Fu proposed this idea, Mr. Yao had something to say, but why didn't he say it clearly at that time?"
Yan Xiang did not miss Yuan Huan's hesitant expression at that time.
But Yuan Huan did not raise any objection to Yuan Shu at that time, but directly took over the position, so much so that Yan Xiang found it a little strange.
Given Yuan Shu's respect for Yuan Huan, it is possible that he could have made some suggestions.
Yuan Huan smiled bitterly and said, "Because the other solution I want to propose is something that the Lord will never accept. I think that since we have to pretend to surrender to the enemy after sending the troops, the consequences of a failed surrender are worse than the consequences of me killing first and reporting later. I might as well take the risk."
When he mentioned the solution that Yuan Shu would not accept, Yan Xiang already had some guesses in his mind.
As expected, Yuan Huan said immediately afterwards: "I wonder what Master Yan thinks about us asking for help from Yangzhou?"
Both Runan and Pei are adjacent to Yangzhou, just to the north of Yangzhou, so Yangzhou can indeed intervene in the war between Runan County and Pei State, and even take advantage of the situation by surprise.
But as Yuan Huan said, seeking help from Yangzhou is a path that Yuan Shu would never choose.
After all, Yuan Shu was driven out of Yangzhou.
Yuan Huan just couldn't figure it out. From the time Yuan Shu was forced to flee to Runan to now, did he curse Yuan Shao more often or Sun Ce more often?
Therefore, if he really said something about forming an alliance with Sun Ce after Yuan Shu proposed that marching strategy, Yuan Shu might not let him come.
Only then will there be no hope.
Seeing the realization on Yan Xiang's face, Yuan Huan could confirm that Yan Xiang was the person he could discuss this plan with, so he continued, "The only grudge between the Lord and Sun Bofu of Yangzhou is the grudge of occupying each other's territory. It's not like the grudge between Liu Jingsheng of Jingzhou and Sun Bofu for killing their father, so there is room for cooperation between them."
Yan Xiang nodded, "You are right. They are only enemies for a short time. Besides, both sides respect the imperial court of Chang'an and are on the same side in terms of etiquette and law."
"Besides, if the Lord really retreats to Yuan Shao's hands and Yuzhou falls under the control of the Yecheng court, will it really be a good thing for Sun Bofu? He has just taken Wujun and there are still future troubles. He has to go south to Kuaiji and recover the entire territory of Yangzhou. If Yuan Shao breaks through Yuzhou and joins hands with Xuzhou Mu Tao Gongzu to go south to Jiujiang, Sun Bofu will face the situation of being attacked from both sides."
"In this case, instead of putting himself in a passive position, he might as well choose to join forces with us."
Anyway, as long as the cooperation and hostility between forces do not develop into irreconcilable hatred, there is always the possibility of adapting to the situation.
The only question is whether Yuan Shu will accept this matter.
But as long as we can win this battle and save Yuzhou first...
Yuan Shu wouldn't disagree, right?
He could even come up with such an unreliable plan as pretending to surrender to the enemy. With this comparison, everything else seemed nothing.
Since Yuan Huan and Yan Xiang had reached a common idea, they immediately called Ji Ling and Zhang Xun over.
Upon hearing about this plan that was to be launched without consulting Yuan Shu, Ji Ling almost wanted to turn back to Pingyu and report these two people to Yuan Shu.
After all, he was one of the people who were defeated by Sun Ce and Zhou Yu.
But after the two men told him the possible consequences of surrendering to the enemy, Ji Ling, who didn't have many opinions to begin with, remained silent for a long time.
He pondered for a moment before asking, "What if Sun Ce takes this opportunity to attack Runan?"
Yuan Huan replied, "At least he won't do that right now. Both the governors of Yuzhou and Yangzhou were appointed by Chang'an, and the division of power between governors is very clear. I heard that at the end of last year, Yangzhou had another trade with Chang'an. If the governor of Yangzhou can rashly invade the territory of the governor of Yuzhou, are the Grand Marshal who is now in Chang'an, and those Ruying scholars who are serving in Chang'an, all planning to turn a blind eye to this?"
If this is true, where is the authority of the Chang'an court?
Not intervening in the dispute between Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu can also be explained as being temporarily unable to spare the time and it being difficult to transport troops from Tongguan over a long distance to Yuzhou.
But not intervening in the dispute between Yuan Shu and Sun Ce is the problem of being the boss.
Hearing that the problem he was worried about was not a problem, Ji Ling gritted his teeth and made a decision, "Then do as you say, sir. We will delay the time. Please ask for reinforcements from Yangzhou as soon as possible and launch an attack from the other end of Pei State!"
Even it was so difficult for them to make such a decision, let alone Yuan Shao's generals.
Yuan Shu's antics over the years have almost formed a fixed impression of him among people.
I just felt that he was used to being arrogant. Even though he was defeated in many battles and didn't get any good results from Yuan Shao, he still maintained this stubborn attitude.
Who would have thought that he would contact Sun Ce at this time?
At least, neither Wen Chou nor Liu Bei had thought of it.
So when they crossed the Woshui River and headed straight for Xiyang, they were suddenly attacked by Sun Ce's troops from Shouchun in the southeast, and were caught off guard.
Ji Ling, who was stationed in Ruyin, took the opportunity to go out of the city to counterattack. Zhang Xun and Yan Xiang came from the north, suddenly forming a three-sided siege.
If we consider the number of people, Wen Chou and Liu Bei still have a slight advantage, but at this moment they are definitely not the ones taking the initiative!
The terrain in Runan is somewhat special. There are quite a lot of rivers running in the northwest and southeast directions. This caused Wen Chou, Liu Bei and others to be constantly disturbed and blocked by the rivers when they were retreating.
When they were advancing with greater momentum and grandeur, these rivers could not stop them, and might even have been just an important channel for them to obtain water supplies.
But when they were disrupted by the sudden arrival of the coalition forces, these terrain barriers were obviously just favorable terrain for the two teams operating in the south to intercept the enemy.
After Yuan Huan went to Yangzhou for help, Sun Ce, who made the decision to advance, sent not only Zhou Yu who stayed in Yangzhou, but also Sun Ce's cousin Sun Ben and Han Dang, who was once a subordinate of Sun Jian.
As a result, this coalition army overcame its earlier disadvantage as the defender and even became a fierce tiger in the subsequent chase battle in Yuzhou!
When the news of Wen Chou's death reached Yecheng, Yuan Shao did not react for a long time.
It was not until the messenger from Yuzhou repeated the news that Yuan Shao moved his fingers, making people sure that he had indeed heard it.
He also knew that this was a fact happening right in front of him, and not a joke played by others on him.
But how could this happen?
Why is this so!
Wen Chou died at the junction of Runan and Pei, at the hands of Zhou Yu, who was only eighteen years old.
With the support of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and the people of Pei, Liu Bei retreated to Xiang County.
Although they successfully gathered the fleeing troops together with Xiang County as their base, in this defeat caused by the sudden offensive from Yangzhou, it was already a good thing if only three out of ten of the troops could survive!
All the territories south of Pei State were taken back under the control of Yuan Shu's generals.
Compared to being targeted by Qiao Yan, or finding out again that his development had fallen behind the other party, the blow inflicted on him by Yuan Shu was even more difficult for Yuan Shao to accept.
It took him a long time to squeeze out a sentence from between his teeth, "We still underestimated Yuan Gonglu."
Yuan Shu actually managed to use the method of joining forces with Sun Ce. We really underestimated him!
In order to deal with Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu really had the nerve to do so.
You have to know that Yuan Shao's mood today was not very good, because he just received the news.
A meeting to discuss alcohol is about to be held in Chang'an - this is an exchange and negotiation with all parties in the alcohol industry in order to further improve the prohibition of alcohol, or in other words, to implement the law to restrict alcohol.
The fact that this wine discussion conference could be held meant that the resistance to this kind of alcohol restriction, from the emperor to high-level officials, was so small that it could be ignored.
People in the court in Chang'an knew that Qiao Yan proposed limiting alcohol in order to allow for the centralized production and development of alcohol, but Yuan Shao did not know this.
From Yuan Shao's perspective, this news meant that Qiao Yan would be able to accumulate a more substantial amount of grain by restricting the production of alcohol for use in the subsequent "Eastern Expedition" campaign.
Even if we take a step back, this move is to turn private liquor business into state-owned, which is not good news for him.
The huge profits in the wine industry made it easy for it to bring in a considerable amount of income to the national treasury after it became a government-run business.
So whether it is an increase in food or money, it is another way for the enemy to improve its own strength.
Now, not only is Chang'an's side "long", but also his side is "disappearing".
The defeat in Yuzhou came too suddenly.
What was even more troublesome was that, in order to declare that he would never accept Yuan Shu's unwarranted accusations against him, and to declare that his status in the Runan Yuan family was not inferior to Yuan Shu's, Yuan Shao also declared before sending Wen Chou out:
He felt very guilty about Yuan Ji's death, and was deeply sorry for it. But what was even more painful was that the Yuan family of Runan was actually going to have such a rift among brothers. So if the Yuan family's ancestors had protected him, he would surely have won this battle.
But the reality was that instead of winning, his own general was killed in the battle.
Then his previous declarations would become a joke!
Although Yuan Shao did not do anything hysterical or furious, from the perspective of the counselors below, Yuan Shao's face was turning blue and white, and the fingers of the hand on the table were clenched, as if he wanted to grab something from the front. He tried his best to restrain himself for a long time before he relaxed again.
Yuan Shao could already fully imagine what kind of uproar this news would cause in the court of Yecheng tomorrow.
What kind of explanation would those people require him to make?
But perhaps it was this extreme crisis that kept his mind clear.
When he opened his mouth slowly, he said: "Contact Tao Gongzu to resist Sun Ce in the south, and order...order Cao Mengde to send troops to first take Yingchuan and then take Runan."
Yuan Shao knew Yuan Shu's temper too well.
Otherwise, he would not have felt that the possibility of Yuan Shu taking the initiative to form an alliance with Sun Ce was very slim.
He even had a strange intuition that this move to form an alliance with Sun Ce might not have been initiated by Yuan Shu himself.
However, it is no longer meaningful to worry about how this decision was reached. He only needs to consider the next contingency measures.
Yuan Shu had just won and must have been in a state of complacency. At this time, only by giving him a head-on blow could the situation of public opinion be reversed.
But just as he finished speaking, Shen Pei said, "Your Excellency is right to want to take advantage of Yuan Shu's complacency to fight back, but you cannot choose Cao Cao as the candidate. Since Yuan Shu has someone who can come up with the idea of an alliance with Sun Ce and successfully persuaded Yuan Shu, he will certainly think of the possibility of your Excellency sending troops to save the situation. Once Cao Cao mobilizes his troops, his target will be too conspicuous, and it is inevitable that the enemy will be prepared first."
Yuan Shao thought to himself that it seemed to be true what Shen Pei said.
Don’t let a good counterattack end up in a situation where he embarrasses himself.
Thinking about it again, he could not guarantee in this situation whether Cao Cao would pretend to obey his orders or not.
It might not be so important at other times, but at the moment, it is a serious matter that will delay the opportunity to fight.
"What Zhengnan said is correct." Ju Su stood up and replied, "The situation is critical now. Instead of letting Cao Cao be the one to attack Yuan Shu, it is better to change him. I would like to ask you to fight in Yuzhou and borrow another person from you."
"one person?"
Yuan Shao was definitely more happy than surprised about Ju Su's initiative to ask for battle.
Ju Su was indeed not a pure strategist. As the chaos in Jizhou and Qingzhou had almost been completely settled, he, the Cavalry Commander, had the conditions to send troops.
With Ju Su's wisdom, he could certainly be able to adapt to changing circumstances.
Ju Su replied: "Yes, I only want one person and one imperial edict, and I don't want any other followers."
This sentence surprised Yuan Shao even more than the previous statement of "borrowing a person".
But Ju Shou has never been a person who likes to talk nonsense, nor is he a flamboyant person, and he would not come up with such an idea when he has lost his mind.
Yuan Shao listened patiently, and heard Ju Su say: "Please stabilize the situation at the court meeting. I will take your nephew Gao Yuancai south--"
"Directly use the private soldiers of the Chenliu Gao family to attack Yuzhou!"
Ju Su joined forces with Gao Gan and marched south from Chenliu with their private troops!
This was a really bold decision, and it was indeed much more appropriate than having Cao Cao send troops.
Yuan Shao immediately approved Ju Su's decision and gave him the imperial edict to win over the Gao family of Chenliu and the order to transfer Cao Cao that Ju Su needed.
With this means of saving the situation, although he knew that he would not have an easy time at tomorrow's court meeting, Yuan Shao's depressed mood dissipated a little.
After asking his subordinates to leave, he lay down on the couch and asked someone to read to him the Leping Monthly Report that he had not yet finished reading.
Thinking that this time the miscellaneous talks would not include the matter of borrowing grain, he asked people to read this section, just as a lighter way to understand the enemy situation.
Then……
He heard about the inspiring career path of Yuan from Jizhou. ：,w,
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