Chapter 780 Cao Cao Withdraws His Troops

Cheng Yu nodded: "It's just to ensure the combat power of 15,000 elite soldiers. It's impossible to stop the attack of Sizhou Army with less than 10,000 guards." Then, he turned to look at Wei Zi and said, "Master Wei, you have been in Puyang for so long, you should be clear about the situation in the city. How many soldiers can Puyang recruit?"

Wei Zi, who was disheveled and bloodshot, also understood Cheng Yu's idea. At this time, he already knew that his family had been killed by Huangfu Chaobo, and the whole family was sent to the Hedong Salt Field as slaves. Hearing Cheng Yu's question, he immediately gritted his teeth and said, "Report to the military advisor, there are more than 58,000 people in Puyang City now. If you can recruit all the strong men in the city, you can recruit 12,000 men for the lord."

At this point, Cao Cao couldn't understand Cheng Yu's meaning. Since Puyang could no longer be defended, he couldn't let Huangfu Chaobo get away with it. He recruited all the strong men in the city to resist the attack of Sizhou Army. As for what would happen in the future, who would care about him.

As expected of Cheng Yu, a plan to wipe out a family will only be a big burden even if the Sizhou Army controls Puyang later. In a city with tens of thousands of people, all the strong men in the city have been recruited. After a big battle with the Sizhou Army, it is estimated that half of them will die on the city wall. At that time, the people in the city will definitely not blame Cao Cao, because he has already run away, and after the Sizhou Army becomes the new ruler here, there will definitely be endless troubles.

"Okay, Lord Wei, the matter of recruiting soldiers in the city is now in your hands. Starting tomorrow, the original 10,000 defenders and the 10,000 newly recruited soldiers will guard the city, and our 15,000 elite soldiers will assist. When the time is right, we will break out and leave..." Cao Cao slammed the table and ordered;

"How many elite soldiers can be left in the end of these 20,000 soldiers? We will take them all away at that time. As for the city," Cao Cao sighed and said, "Let's not..."

"I obey your orders!" Everyone agreed in unison;

Xu Rong soon discovered the changes in Cao Cao's army. When the Sizhou army attacked the city, they were able to attack the city wall quickly, but the soldiers who attacked the city wall were quickly driven off the city wall, and so on.

All of this was seen by Xu Rong. He saw at a glance that the main force defending the city was some soldiers who had just been recruited, but behind them there were a large number of elite soldiers waiting in full battle array. Once they found that the soldiers were not able to hold on, elite soldiers would immediately come forward to remedy the situation. Cao Cao was training his troops.

But what if Xu Rong knew about it? Cao Cao was training his troops, and Xu Rong was actually training his troops as well. Although these more than 30,000 guards were all veterans, they were still far from being as elite as the war camps. Now that the defenders of Puyang City were far from being able to defeat them in one fell swoop, Xu Rong just used them to rotate and train his troops.

In the next few days, Xu Rong still arranged the war as before, and from time to time, there were attacks by elite troops. Although Cao Cao's army was able to defend the city wall every time, it also caused Cao Cao's army to lose a lot of elite troops.

Just when the generals of Cao's army thought that their strategy had succeeded and were secretly proud of it, in the early morning of October 20th, the Sizhou army opened several tunnels directly to Puyang City, and once again joined forces from inside and outside to attack Puyang City.

Fortunately, Cao Cao was always suspicious and reacted quickly. He finally led more than 10,000 remnants to break out and headed straight for Juancheng.

Facing Cao Cao's army's breakout, Xu Rong did not order the army to pursue. Although the Sizhou army won, the soldiers were exhausted after a month of fighting. In addition, Cao Cao was defeated but not broken, so Xu Rong rationally ordered the army to stop pursuing.

Another point is that Cheng Yu's strategy was very successful. Among the 12,000 newly recruited soldiers in Puyang City, nearly 8,000 were killed or wounded on the city wall. Before entering the city, Xu Rong told Huangfu Chaobo about his guess. After taking the city, Huangfu Chaobo ordered the nearly 10,000 captured soldiers to be screened and identified, and then after careful questioning, he finally confirmed Xu Rong's guess.

Finally, Huangfu Chaobo had no choice but to order the families of these fallen soldiers to be compensated according to the standards of the fallen soldiers of the Sizhou army,

which slightly appeased the people of Puyang.

However, this also made Huangfu Chaobo even more afraid to chase Cao Cao's army. Later, after leaving Zhao Yun's troops in Puyang, Huangfu Chaobo and Xu Rong led the army to Chenliu. Now the battle in Chenliu has not ended yet, and Cao Hong's 50,000 troops are attacking Chenliu.

Because Chenliu only has 30,000 troops, Zao Qi discussed with Chen Rong, Zhou Cang and Wang Ran and decided to defend Chenliu to the death. As for other counties, they can be defended if they can, and they can only be abandoned if they can't be defended.

So Cao Hong's army conquered Kaocheng, Yiwu, Xiangyi, Waihuang and Yongqiu in a month, and arrived outside Chenliu on October 12. For the cities that have been captured, Cao Ren only left a thousand soldiers to defend, and the other troops and horses plus the troops surrendered in several cities totaled 60,000 troops, and went straight to Chenliu City. He was ready to capture Chenliu in one fell swoop.

With the lesson of Puyang, Huangfu Chaobo ordered Shi A's shadow guards to closely monitor Chenliu. As expected, some people with bad intentions were dug out from the city, and then they were directly executed by Zao Qi. For a time, people were killed in Chenliu before the war started.

After Cao Hong's army arrived in Chenliu, they only rested for one day before starting to attack the city. Unfortunately, Chenliu had elite soldiers and sufficient food, and the city was strong, which was far from comparable to the counties that Cao Hong had attacked before.

The two sides fought for five days on the city wall. Cao Hong lost thousands of soldiers and horses, but he could not even attack the city wall. However, although Cao Hong did not have the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, he still had 2,000 ordinary cavalry. When attacking Chenliu, Cao Hong did not forget to send out the cavalry to explore the movements of the surrounding armies, especially the movements of the Sizhou army in the direction of Puyang.

It was because of his caution that he saved tens of thousands of troops under his command.

When Huangfu Chaobo's tens of thousands of troops arrived at Xiaohuang County, north of Chenliu, Cao Hong had already received news of the arrival of reinforcements. Seeing Huangfu Chaobo's army suddenly arrived, although he had not received news from Puyang, Cao Hong had guessed that the battle in Puyang should have ended. Without much hesitation, Cao Hong led the army to retreat overnight.

On the third day, Huangfu Chaobo, who arrived at Chenliu City, learned that Cao Hong's army had left, and immediately sent the Tuoqi and Xiliang Iron Cavalry and Chenliu's 10,000 soldiers to pursue them. He did not seek to annihilate many enemies, but must recover all the cities under Chenliu.

On November 2, Cao Hong's army retreated to Ningling, and Wang Ran's army recovered all the lost cities under Chenliu, and the battle in Yanzhou ended.

At this time, the battle in Jizhou ended on October 22, the third day after Cao Cao lost Puyang City again. Yuan Shao left a few generals to defend Taoguan Quliang and other cities, and the army returned to Bohai.