Chapter 982 I Count Everyone and Everyone Counts Me

In Luoyang City, Huangfu Chaobo finally breathed a long sigh of relief. After more than a year of planning, he finally decided on the plan to send troops to attack Cao Cao's army. Now, he only has to wait until next spring and the army is ready to attack Cao Cao. The army launched a thunderous strike.

But what he didn't expect was that hundreds of miles away in Yanzhou and Changyi City, his old enemy Cao Cao was also summoning generals to discuss matters, and the content of the discussions turned out to be to send troops to attack Qingzhou after the spring of next year.

In the meeting hall, Cao Cao sat on the main seat, followed by a group of military advisors from Cao Cao's army and several relatives and trusted generals. Among the civil servants, Xun Yu, Cheng Yu, Sima Yi, and Liu Ye were headed, and several county governors were added, such as Man Chong, the governor of Xiapi, Chen Qun, the governor of Shanyang, Chen Jiao, the prime minister of Le'an, Wei Hong, and Zhong, the prime ministers of Rencheng. Yao, Ren Jun, Xi Lu and others, and the generals were led by Liang Cao and Liang Xiahou, plus Li Dian, Yue Jin and other people who first defected to Cao Cao.

On one wall of the conference hall, there was a map of the Central Plains states. In front of the map, young Sima Yi was holding a long wooden pole and explaining his planned strategy to the crowd with great loyalty.

It's a pity that since Sima Yi took refuge, he has planned several battles against Huangfu Chaobo, but none of them have been successful. Moreover, Huangfu Chaobo's power is getting stronger and stronger, so this time the strategy of the Cao family and Xiahou The brothers in the family just looked at him with ridicule without saying a word.

After Sima Yi finished speaking, Cao Ren said: "Mengde, are you going to listen to this little kid again this time? You know, we attacked Huangfu Chaobo several times before, but in the end we couldn't get much favor, but let him Huangfu Chaobo becomes stronger every time.”

After hearing this, Cao Cao smiled bitterly. He didn't expect that Cao Ren would ask himself this in front of everyone, isn't this a slap in Sima Yi's face on the spot?

Just when he was about to speak, he saw Sima Yi blushing and saying to Cao Ren: "General Zixiao, I have targeted Huangfu Chaobo several times without success, but our Yanzhou Army has also made great progress. "

After listening to Sima Yi's words, Cao Ren couldn't refute. It was indeed true. Huangfu Chaobo's power was getting stronger, and his own situation was gradually getting stronger. If nothing else, in the past few years, just by attacking Xuzhou first and then Qingzhou, he would control The range has doubled.

Seeing this, Cao Ren stopped talking and retreated.

Seeing this, Cao Cao quickly said: "Zixiao, this matter was planned by a certain Zhongda. There has been a life-and-death situation between a certain person and Huangfu Chaobo. If Huainan has been decided, Sun Cejun will also be with a certain family." If we don't take this opportunity to weaken Huangfu Chaobo, we will definitely cause trouble in the future, so I decided to send troops to Qingzhou as soon as possible to capture the two counties of Qingzhou and weaken Huangfu Chaobo's power."

As soon as Cao Cao opened his mouth, everyone could not say anything else. Sima Yi, at Cao Cao's instruction, told everyone the deployment and arrangement of the army.

According to Cao Cao's discussion with Cheng Yu, Xun Yu and Sima Yi, their purpose of sending troops next year is to seize Huangfu Chaobo's two counties of Qingzhou. Therefore, the army must prevent the attack of Huangfu Chaobo's army in the west, while using the army in the east to attack Qingzhou launched a thunderous attack and had to occupy at least most of the two counties of Qingzhou before Sizhou's reinforcements arrived.

Huangfu Chaobo's Sizhou Army has only two options from gathering to arriving in Qingzhou. One is to storm Yanzhou East County, Jiyang and the Liangguo line to achieve the purpose of encircling Wei and rescuing Zhao. The other is to gather troops and quickly march from the east of the river. advance and send troops to directly support Qingzhou.

Sima Yi's original suggestion was to send troops directly before the river freezes, but Cao Cao did not agree. One is that sending troops in winter is not an easy task. If it is not done well, it will be defeated and returned. On the contrary, if you fail to steal the chicken, you will lose a handful of rice. The second is that it will take time to mobilize the army and prepare food, grass and weapons.

So after careful consideration, Cao Cao also decided to send troops after the spring plowing in March. As for Sizhou's reinforcements, Cao Cao's consideration was the flood season of the river.

In recent years, as the river freezes every winter, the river has flood seasons in four seasons of the year.

They are called Peach Flood, Fu Flood, Autumn Flood and Ling Flood respectively.

At the end of March and early April every year, the Bingzhou River section thaws and the river opens up, and the water storage in the river channel is released. However, because the ice floods in the Bingzhou River section spread to the lower reaches, it is the season when peach blossoms are in full bloom, so it is called "Peach Flood"; in summer The heavy rains and floods that form in July and August are called "Fu floods" because they coincide with the dog days; the heavy rains and floods that form in autumn, September and October are called "autumn floods". The two floods are connected in time, and they are both seasons of heavy rains and floods. Collectively known as the "Autumn Flood"; in the spring of January and February, due to the freezing of the lower reaches of the river, a large amount of water is stored in the river channel. When the river thaws and opens up, a flood peak is often formed, accompanied by a large amount of ice discharge, and it is easy to flow in the winding and narrow river. The stuck ice blocks the water and raises the water level, threatening the safety of the embankment, so it is called "freezing flood".

The time chosen by Cao Cao was during the Peach Flood. If the timing was coordinated well, Huangfu Chaobo's reinforcements could be stuck in Sizhou.

In fact, Cao Cao chose to go out after the spring plowing in March for the same purpose as Huangfu Chaobo, not to delay Qingzhou's summer harvest. If the Eastern Expeditionary Army can still purchase grain from outside, then Cao Cao can only rely on the territory under his control to grow grain, without even the opportunity to purchase from outside, so Cao Cao attaches great importance to grain.

Sima Yi and others were finally persuaded by Cao Cao and set the time for dispatching troops between March 10th and 15th.

As for the arrangement of troops, several people thought it would be best for Cao Cao to lead the army to defend against possible attacks from Sizhou, and to give the task of attacking Qingzhou to Xiahou Yuan, the governor of Qingzhou. He led the central army of Rencheng, Lu, Jibei, and Qingzhou, with a total of nearly 40,000 elite soldiers. In addition, tens of thousands of foreign troops drawn from seven counties were not county soldiers or civilians, and the total force was nearly 100,000.

The elite troops of the Eastern Expedition Army in Qingzhou were only 50,000, but they had to defend the scope of dozens of cities in two counties. As for the thousands of county soldiers in each city, no one took them seriously.

To be on the safe side, Cao Cao transferred another 10,000 tiger and leopard cavalry to Xiahou Yuan to deal with the more than 10,000 cavalry in the Eastern Expedition Army of Qingzhou. Although Cao Cao did not value Huangfu Chaobo's most important ally, Kong Jun's Yuzhou Army, he still transferred another 10,000 of his 30,000 central troops to Qiao County and handed them over to Cao Hong for command. He led 10,000 of his own central troops, 10,000 of Cao Cao's central troops and 10,000 county and state troops, a total of 30,000 troops to defend Qiao County. In his opinion, Cao Hong's 30,000 troops were enough to deal with the attack of the Yuzhou Army.