Chapter 202 Cao Cao: God help me!
Cao Cao couldn't sleep tonight.

As if he had some sense, Cao Cao always felt that something big was about to happen.

But when he saw that the camp opposite was the same as usual, he gave up the idea.

Like Jinmao's army, Cao's army also banned alcohol before battle.

At this time, Cao Cao was standing on the gate tower of the camp, looking into the distance, holding a water bag in his hand. He pulled out the cork, took a big gulp, and poured it down again.

"Zi Lian, rest in peace."

Cao Cao swore: "One day, I will avenge you!"

In fact, Cao Cao had already been preparing to escape, but due to the agreement with Cai Mao, he had to fight.

After receiving information about the enemy, Cao Cao felt more and more uneasy.

Excluding the Jingzhou navy, he only had 4,000 men under his command, while the other side had at least 10,000, or even more!
In addition, the enemy has been hiding its actions, and it seems that they are about to make some big move.

Cao Cao's sixth sense told him that it was not advisable to stay here for long. If he stayed any longer, he would probably suffer the same fate as Cao Hong.

"Let's fight tomorrow."

Cao Cao secretly decided: "No matter whether I win or lose, I have to leave this place of trouble!"

After returning to the tent and lying down, Cao Cao heard a commotion outside the tent.

Cao Cao was already having trouble sleeping, and now he was even more angry. He shouted angrily, "Who is causing trouble?"

The personal guard entered the tent and reported: "My lord, the enemy has sent a spy, and he has been captured. What should we do with him?"

Careful work?

Cao Cao was startled and asked: "Where did you find the spy?"

The personal soldier reported truthfully: "Outside the camp."

Cao Cao suddenly thought of something and ordered, "Bring him in!"

"Here."

After a while, a short and sturdy Baiyue soldier was brought in, tied up.

"When two...countries...go...to...war, they...don't...kill...the...envoys!"

The Baiyue soldier kept repeating this sentence in his elegant language with a thick accent.

Cao Cao listened to it several times before he understood.

"He's a clever fellow."

Cao Cao ordered: "Untie him, so that the barbarians won't look down on the people of the Central Plains!"

The bodyguards did as they were told and stood by, watching with eager eyes.

The Baiyue soldier stood up and glared at the soldiers around him fiercely. Then he took out a bamboo tube from his arms, threw it on the ground, and said no more.

Cao Cao was suspicious by nature and feared that there might be something fishy going on, so he ordered his personal soldiers to open the bamboo tube and take out the papers inside.

This was the first time Cao Cao saw paper produced in Yangzhou, and it felt better than Luoyang paper.

"This must be the work of Yangzhou Mu!"

Cao Cao looked carefully and woke up instantly from his sleepiness. He asked anxiously, "Is Cao Hong still alive?"

The Baiyue soldier raised his chin and stammered, "We'll...trade...tomorrow."

It took several repetitions before Cao Cao finally understood.

He instinctively sensed that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what was wrong.

"One thousand five hundred top-quality war horses?"

Cao Cao laughed and said, "This is nothing, but I want to see Cao Hong first."

The Baiyue soldiers did not answer and kept repeating "Transaction tomorrow".

Seeing that the soldier was unmoved, Cao Cao waved his hand and ordered his men to take him away and keep him under guard.

When everything calmed down, Cao Cao could no longer remain calm.

The news that Cao Hong was alive was only part of the story; the other part was a sense of crisis.

The sense of crisis that a catastrophe is about to happen is becoming stronger and stronger.

Unable to sleep, Cao Cao stood up and said, "Someone come!"

The personal soldiers outside the tent immediately entered the tent and lit the oil lamp.

"What time is it?"

"Zi Shi."

Under the dim oil lamp, half of Cao Cao's face was hidden in the darkness, making it difficult to understand his thoughts.

"Send Cao Ren, Xiahou Dun, and Xiahou Yuan to see me!"

Half an hour later, three fully armed men arrived at the tent.

At this time, the tent was brightly lit.

Cao Cao was wearing armor and standing alone in front of a huge feng shui map, leaving the three people with an unfathomable background.

"They're all here."

Cao Cao did not turn around, his eyes were always fixed on the geomancy map.

"Is anything happening tonight?"

The three of them looked at each other and shook their heads.

Cao Ren clasped his fists and said, "Captain, nothing happened."

"Nothing happened?" Cao Cao said to himself, "This shouldn't happen."

"The governor of Yangzhou doesn't seem to be someone who doesn't know military affairs."

The three of them were all confused. Cao Ren, as the representative, asked, "What do you mean, Captain?"

Cao Cao turned his back and said in a deep voice, "Whether it was Xiahou Dun or Xiahou Yuan who led the troops to attack, or Cao Hong who was spying on the military intelligence, the governor of Yangzhou responded promptly."

"But today, after our army and the Jingzhou navy took joint action, the Yangzhou governor did not make any move."

Cao Cao suddenly turned around, looked directly at the three people and asked, "Isn't this the most unusual thing?"

Cao Ren didn't quite understand, so he said, "Maybe there will be a reaction tomorrow."

"No, no, no!" Cao Cao denied it repeatedly.

"When I followed the Marquis of Huaili and the Marquis of Qiantang to fight against the Yellow Turban bandit Bo Cai, it was like this on the eve of defeating the enemy, very peaceful."

"The moment the government troops launch their attack, the battle is over!"

Cao Ren and the other two were confused by what he said, but they didn't know how to refute it.

Cao Cao trusted his instincts and gave the order: "Send out all the scouts, sentinels, and scouts to expand the scope of investigation to twenty miles!"

"No matter what the enemy's plot is, I don't want anything to happen tonight!"

At this moment, Cao Cao's suspicious character was clearly revealed.

It is better to tire out the soldiers than to take unnecessary risks.

Cao Ren and his two companions took the order and left, deploying all their reconnaissance troops in the three directions of east, south and west.

Xiahou Yuan led his men to the east, Xiahou Dun went to the south, and Cao Ren went to the west.

After walking a few miles, Cao Ren vaguely heard shouting and killing.

"Everyone listen up!"

Cao Ren shouted loudly: "One team will go to the northwest, one team will go to the southwest, and the rest will follow me to the west."

"If you discover the enemy, you don't need to report it. Just return to the camp and report to the captain!"

"Is it clear?"

"clear!!"

When the two teams held torches and dispersed in two directions, Cao Ren took a deep breath, increased the speed of his horse, and led the remaining team to follow the sound.

Half an hour later.

After Cao Ren walked ten miles, he saw a sea of ​​fire before him. The flames made the water surface glow red.

In front of us is the camp of the Jingzhou navy, and it seems that it has already fallen.

The only army that can do all this is the Yangzhou Navy. No other force nearby can do it.

However, Cao Ren did not back down.

"Everyone come closer to me!"

Cao Ren shouted and gathered his men, and continued to shout: "Follow me closely! If you fall behind, you will die!"

He wanted to investigate the enemy more deeply.

As Cao Ren and his men got closer, Jinmao's central army, which was landing on the shore, appeared.

Before Cao Ren could react, a small-scale battle suddenly broke out in the southwest.

Cao Ren looked carefully and found that a large group of people were chasing a small group of people, but they were too far away to see clearly.

But Cao Ren knew that the people being hunted were either friendly troops or his own people. He turned around without hesitation and ran towards the place where the battle was taking place.

When they got closer, Cao Ren discovered that the besieged troops were actually the Jingzhou navy. The only remaining flags with the word "Cai" on them revealed their identity.

The enemy's "Ling" flag also revealed its identity.

But now is not the time to be shocked, Cao Ren cannot delve into why Ling Cao's troops are here.

“Everyone has it!”

Cao Ren shouted: "Prepare for battle!"

"charge!"

In the dark night, the fifty riders were like a drop of water falling into an oil pan, and were blown to pieces.

Ling Cao's troops had no idea where the enemy came from, so Cai Mao saw an opportunity and led his troops to launch a frantic counterattack.

Everything was in chaos for a while.

Cup of tea.

Cao Ren somehow rescued Cai Mao, with only less than five riders following him, and Cai Mao had about the same number of people, all of whom were die-hard fans of the two.

The others were either dispersed or killed.

The two men, a total of twelve riders, did not dare to turn around, and ran eastward with their heads covered.

The journey was extremely thrilling.

At the hour of Yin, the twelve men encountered Guan Yu's troops, leaving behind eight corpses, and only four riders escaped with injuries.

If Guan Yu had not yet completely mastered his subordinates, Cao Ren and Cai Mao would definitely not have been able to escape.

Guan Yu chased alone for more than ten miles, but still lost him.

The most regrettable thing was that Cao Ren and Cai Mao’s horses had not had any rest after a long journey and died at a corner that was out of Guan Yu’s blind field of vision.

Perhaps it was God's blessing that Cao Ren and Cai Mao put out the torches in time and hid in the fields.

This time is just the darkness before dawn, the darkest moment of the day.

The torch could only illuminate a limited area, so Guan Yu was unable to spot the two people.

When it was daybreak, Guan Yu came to his senses and turned back to look, but he only found two dead horses and no trace of the two men.

...

At the hour of Mao, Cao's army camped.

The scouts sent by Cao Ren to the northwest finally came back to report.

"The Jingzhou navy has fallen!?"

The crisis was confirmed, but Cao Cao was not happy at all.

Although there is no need to escape by water, losing a direction means losing hope of escape.

Since his plan to conceal his true intentions had been discovered, Cao Cao knew that the best thing to do was to run away now!

"Order the entire army to march out!"

"We don't need any food or supplies."

Cao Cao said with a painful look on his face: "Travel lightly. All soldiers should only take weapons with them. Throw away the rest!"

"Leave in a quarter of an hour!"

This was really bad luck. Not only did he lose all the equipment he had earned from Yuan Shu and the Jingzhou nobles, but he also had to lose the things he brought with him.

However, the two thousand war horses are real, and it will be a big profit as long as we take them back!
Therefore, Cao Cao acted decisively and threw away everything that should be thrown away, which could slow down the enemy's pursuit.

Even in the Jinmao Army, there is a practice of calculating military merit based on captured spoils.

These are all military merits that were picked up for free by lying on the ground. Even if Jin Mao came, he couldn't stop the soldiers from picking up the military merits.

really!

Wait until a quarter of an hour after Cao Cao led his entire army away.

The vanguard of Guan Yu's troops arrived here, and looking at the battle achievements all over the ground, they had no intention of chasing and killing. Instead, they were organized into tribes and groups, each occupying a piece of territory without interfering with each other.

As more and more soldiers arrived, all the merits were divided up, so these people chased eastward.

There was no other way. For the sake of military merit, the commander Guan Yu went out alone to chase after the enemy. The people under him did not collapse, which shows that the soldiers in Jinmao's army had superior military qualities.

the other side.

Cao Cao, with more than 3,000 lightly armed men, met Xiahou Dun, who was heading south for reconnaissance, five miles east of the original camp.

Without asking any more questions, Cao Cao called on more than 30 cavalrymen under Xiahou Dun to take off their armor and flee with the main force.

Xiahou Dun took off his armor very obediently. Needless to say, when he was scouting in the south, he encountered Guan Yu again and luckily escaped the encirclement. Only this number of his original 150 cavalrymen remained with him.

If Xiahou Dun had not seen the opportunity and ran away quickly, he would have been captured alive like Cao Hong.

Cao's army continued to flee eastward for more than ten miles and met Xiahou Yuan and his group again.

At this moment.

Cao Cao had less than 3,000 cavalry left, all his infantry had scattered, and Cao Ren had not returned to the team.

There was a forest ahead, and Cao Cao did not plan to lead his men into it, so he ordered his men to rest again, and by the way, to learn the details and gather the defeated soldiers.

Upon learning that Xiahou Dun was banished, Cao Cao offered a few words of comfort and couldn't help but look at Xiahou Yuan.

It was already bright.

Xiahou Yuan hadn't seen a single hair of the enemy until now, and couldn't help but wonder if there were no enemy troops here.

"impossible!"

Cao Cao concluded: "The strongest point of Yangzhou Mu's army is mountain warfare."

"In this area, they are invincible!"

Xiahou Yuan stood up in surprise and said, "Captain, what are you waiting for? Run!"

Xiahou Yuan looked at the nearby mountains and forests and felt that they were full of enemy troops, to the point where he saw enemies everywhere.

Cao Cao said calmly, "Don't panic. The main force of Yangzhou should be in the western waterway, and the vanguard force in the south."

“Even if there are deployments in the east, the number of people will not be too large.”

Just as Xiahou Yuan was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he felt the ground seemed to be shaking.

"Cavalry! There are a large number of cavalry!"

There was no need for Xiahou Yuan to scream, Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun reacted almost at the same time.

At this time, Cao Cao couldn't help but want to slap himself a few times. There were indeed not many enemy troops, but they were cavalry!

After looking more carefully, Cao Cao was shocked to find that the cavalry came from the north!

Does Yuan Shu also want to destroy me?

Cao Cao immediately drove away this idea.

How can it be!

Yuan Shu, that lazy bastard, hasn’t even gotten up yet!
The people coming are the cavalry under Jin Mao’s command!
But how did they get away with it?

...

Zhang Fei was very excited; this was the first time he led an army of more than a thousand cavalry.

It's a coincidence.

Xun You was worried that the right wing might not be able to handle the task if it went to the east to intercept Cao Cao's Dong Xi, so he asked Jin Mao to send a cavalry to help.

It just so happened that Zhang Fei had not set out with his 500 cavalry yet, so Jin Mao sent another 500 cavalry as his personal guards.

Zhang Fei was a person with poor sense of direction, so he led a thousand cavalrymen along the edge of the forest.

At the hour of Yin, he caught up with Dong Xi who had just set out.

At the hour of Mao, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, Zhang Fei realized that he had led his men past the target.

He wanted to return immediately, but was scolded by the captain of the personal guard and taught to cherish his horsepower.

Zhang Fei did not dare to retort. The fact that his personal guards had few opportunities to make contributions and were of low rank did not mean that they had poor personal strength.

If ten people formed a formation, even Zhang Fei would be in trouble. What's more, the personal guards were as close as brothers and all five hundred of them were united, so Zhang Fei would not dare to provoke them.

So everyone rested for half an hour.

When they set out again, they met Cao Cao who had just escaped.

"So many military exploits!"

Zhang Fei shouted loudly so that both armies could hear clearly: "Brothers, follow me to collect the merits of the battle!"

When Cao Cao's men discovered Zhang Fei, they were less than a mile apart and there was no time to assemble their forces.

In a panic, Cao Cao had no time to give orders and rode his good horse into the mountains and forests.

Cao's army followed suit. Those who were close to the woods went into the woods, while those who were far away followed the brothers Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan and broke out in any direction.

(End of this chapter)