Faced with Xiahou Dun's inquiry, Liu Ye roughly recounted the conversations of the soldiers who had heard in the military camp.

"These bastards actually dare to gossip and spread rumors in the army!" Xiahou Dun's first reaction was anger, but then he realized that this was not the focus. "Zi Yang, what exactly is the trick you are talking about?"

Seeing that Xiahou Dun had not fully understood, Liu Ye had to continue to explain: "After listening to the soldiers' discussions, Ye suddenly had an idea - the escape of the baggage team was probably not accidental. It was probably because Guan Ping's Wudang Flying Army did it on purpose..."

"What?" Xiahou Dun's one-eyed eyes widened, staring at Liu Ye, with his expression more confused than before.

Commanding the army is Xiahou Dun's strength, but his tricks are his weakness. It is precisely because of this that Cao Cao specially arranged Liu Ye to be his planner.

Unfortunately, although Liu Ye is very wise and scheming, he seems slightly inferior to Zhuge Liang, who is also the leader of Guan Yu. It is often only after Liu Ye can detect it after his opponent's plan is implemented.

"The baggage team originally had 500 soldiers accompanying the guards, and with the 3,000 Zhu Ling tribe who went to meet, it can be said that the guard power is not weak.

But there were less than 400 soldiers who were able to return to the camp in the end. The remaining 3,000 people were probably either dead or defeated, and even General Zhu Ling might have been killed.

"Amid Xiahou Dun's puzzled gaze, Liu Ye analyzed with a heavy expression, "When Captain Sun (Sun Li) took over the baggage team, he found that the Wudang Flying Army might have less than 4,000 people.

And they only had 45,000 people in total, what does this mean? It means that Guan Ping defeated our food protection army and did not hurt his muscles at all, and it could even be said to be quite relaxed.

Since he could defeat more than 3,000 grain protection troops so easily, why didn’t Guan Ping defeat the baggage team in one fell swoop? He seemed to be waiting for Captain Sun to come and respond, with the purpose of..."

"Use the baggage team to spread rumors?!!!" Xiahou Dun was not stupid either. He was naturally able to react when Liu Ye mentioned it to this level.

Liu Ye nodded in a stagnant manner: "Then it shakes the morale of our army. Linji is in a fall and there is no supply of food and grass. Once these news is leaked, the morale of our tens of thousands of soldiers will be in chaos.

If the army's morale disperses, morale will inevitably plummet. How can we deal with Guan Yu's tiger and wolf army?

If this news is spread by the enemy, it is just to be a rumor intended to disturb us and will not cause too much storm. But now, it is reported by our soldiers themselves, and the heavy losses of the baggage team and the food protection army are also proved.

In this way, the news has been confirmed.

I'm afraid it won't take a moment to spread it in the army."

Xiahou Dun's face had turned pale. He knew that Liu Ye's worries were completely reasonable. It's hard to imagine what the army had turned into?

In fact, although Cao's army had a very shortage of food and grass, whether it was Xiahou Dun or Cao Ren, the situation revealed to the soldiers under his command was that the food and grass raised was enough to cope with the army's war in the past three months.

With three months, I saved a little bit. I could barely survive this year's new grain harvest. Knowing this "situation", the soldiers of Cao's army were not very worried about food and grass issues, and the morale of the army was stabilized.

Knowing the truth, there were only a few generals from various troops. They were also strictly ordered to keep secrets.

But the sudden incident in front of us made everything go viral. Next, what Xiahou Dun had to worry about was not how to deal with the attacks of Guan Yu's army, but how to stabilize the morale of the army first.

"Walking with the main force, attracting our army's attention, then sneaking into Qingzhou from sea to cut off our army's food and grass transfer hub; using Wudang flying army to attack the baggage team.

Then he deliberately put the baggage team into the camp to spread rumors and shake the morale of our army..." Liu Ye linked all the enemy's actions in recent days, and couldn't help but take a breath, "What a vicious chain of tricks! Zhuge Liang, this guy, can actually... be able to calculate all our reactions..."

The effect of a chain of strategies is quite amazing. But if such strategies occur in a certain link, they may fail in the whole process. This requires the designer to not only carefully plan every step.

It is also necessary to be able to accurately calculate the opponent's reaction.

Liu Ye has always believed that he was outstanding in his wisdom, but at this moment he was shocked to find that he had fallen into the opponent's design. He was unwilling to accept it but his heart was even more shocked.

In fact, Zhuge Liang's plan is not completely seamless.

If you use the terrifying baggage team to spread rumors, as long as Liu Ye has time to think carefully, you will definitely see through it. However, the extreme importance of food and grass and the urgency of time deprive Liu Ye of the opportunity to think deeply.

"Zi Yang, will the plan come out?" Xiahou Dun thought for a long time, but still turned his hopeful eyes to Liu Ye.

Liu Ye smiled bitterly and said helplessly: "The best way is to withdraw from Qingzhou..."

Judging from what Liu Ye heard, the news that was enough to completely shake the morale of the army may have spread throughout most of the military camps.

"Boom~~!" Xiahou Dun punched hard and slammed heavily on the table, causing a huge sound.

The sturdy cypress table was actually broken by this heavy punch. The paper on the table fell to the ground with the broken wood.

"Tao tram..." Seven or eight personal soldiers were in their hands, and hurriedly lifted the curtain into the tent with a nervous expression. Obviously, they thought something unexpected happened in the tent.

Seeing the table that turned into a pile of fragments, Xiahou Dun and Liu Ye looked heavy, the personal soldiers thought the two adults had an argument, so they naturally didn't dare to say anything, so they had to stand on the spot.

Xiahou Dun shook his hand heavily, and several personal soldiers withdrew from the military tent with relief.

…………………………………………………………….

"June, the scout just received a message from the Major General!" Xu Sheng hurriedly walked into the commander's tent, bowed to Guan Yu, and said excitedly.

"Oh~?" Guan Yu raised his eyebrows slightly, but his expression did not change much, and his tone was as usual, "Where is the letter?"

Xu Sheng greeted outside the tent, and a soldier from Wudang Feijun rushed into the tent. He knelt down on one knee, took out a silk book soaked in sweat from his arms, and respectfully raised it over his head.

Xu Sheng received the letter and presented it to Guan Yu.

"June, it seems that the Major General must have succeeded!" Zhuge Liang had roughly inferred the contents of the silk book from Guan Yu's eyes.

"Yeah..." Guan Yu nodded lightly and handed the silk book to Zhuge Liang.

Zhan Xin browsed it quickly, and Zhuge Liang smiled and said, "The major general not only escorted Xiahou Dun's 'last' baggage team safely, but also killed Cao's general Zhu Ling. If Xiahou Dun can be defeated this time.

The major general is the first to be a meritorious person!”

Zhuge Liang specially added accent to the word "last".

Although there was nothing to praise, Guan Yu's face also showed a hint of relief.

The smile became clearer, and Zhuge Liang sighed and said, "It seems that the time to decide the victory and defeat with Xiahou Dun is much earlier. Three days? Five days? Haha..."

…………………………………………………………………..

When Xiahou Dundi messengers arrived at Cao Ren's army, Cao Ren was also furious about the unsatisfactory war that had just happened.

After eight or nine consecutive days of strong attacks, he still couldn't do anything to Pengcheng under Wei Yan's defense. Cao Ren had no choice but to settle for the second best.

From Pengcheng County to Xiapi County, it is blocked by Wenshui and Weishan Lake. In addition to Pengcheng, another easy place to cross the river is Tan County, more than 50 miles south of Pengcheng.

Cao Ren's plan was to temporarily slow down the attack on Pengcheng and the disturbances of refugees' migration to the south, concentrate Xu Huang's cavalry and nearly 10,000 infantry to cross the Wenshui River through Tan County. He attacked Xiapi County in the east, so as to cooperate with Xiahou Dun's army to attack Guan Yu.

As long as Guan Yu's army can be defeated, the northern expedition of the Yangzhou army will have to be stopped. At that time, no matter how difficult Wei Yan is, he will have to give up Pengcheng obediently.

Because of the eastward advance of Pengcheng, the walls of Tan County are much taller and stronger than those of ordinary county towns. However, because the city itself is small, it may be more than enough to defend against small troops and attacks, but it has played a big role in dealing with the army.

In Cao Ren's opinion, with Xu Huang nearly 10,000 cavalry troops, and with nearly 10,000 infantry, it should be easy to conquer Tan County.

However, Xu Huang's attack encountered extremely tenacious resistance.

Before Cao Ren's army arrived, Wei Yan had already judged the importance of Tan County and sent Hao Zhao, the general of the Central Army to fight against the enemy, to guard the place.

Faced with Xu Huang's cavalry intimidation and the infantry's attack, Hao Zhaoyi was not afraid and launched a resolute offensive and defensive battle with Xu Huang with the only 4,000 troops in his hand.

The soldiers came to block the enemy. When the water came to cover the earth, Hao Zhaoling dragged Xu Huang until he could do nothing.

The battle that I thought would be solved in half a day at most. After two days of delay, I couldn’t see the dawn. How could it not make Cao Ren very angry?

.

"I actually lost Linji. What kind of battle is this?" Cao Ren picked up a book of Jianshu, smashed it heavily on the table, and shouted with a blue face.

After venting his anger, Cao Ren still had to frown and think about countermeasures. In comparison, Xiahou Dun's situation was obviously worse.

Cao Ren knew that if there was a mistake in Xiahou Dun, he would be unable to survive alone, and the entire counterattack plan would be broken halfway.

"Send an order, let Xu Huang lead the army to Pengcheng immediately and seal the bastard Wei Yan for me. I want to lead the army to capture Tan County myself!" After making the decision, Cao Ren slapped the table and ordered in a deep voice.

………………………………………………………….

While Guan Ping went south to pursue Cao's baggage team, Gan Ning was leading 3,000 Jinfan troops under his command to attack the surrounding cities of Linji.

The troops in Qingzhou were already quite empty, and the counties were unable to resist Gan Ning at all, so they had to send quick horses to Ji and Yanzhou for help.

The news of the attack on the hinterland of Qingzhou was quickly spread in various prefectures and counties like a prairie fire, and went straight to Xuchang.

.

Xuchang, Shangshutai

Xun Yu leaned on the table, carefully checking the map, thinking hard about how to deal with the chain reaction caused by Linji's losses and Ganning's "siege of cities and land".

Cao Pi turned Qi Ji's eyes to Xun Yu: "The people in Qing and Yanzhou are already in a state of turmoil. If they cannot try to drive that enemy army out of Qingzhou, the situation will be worrying. Mr. Xun, do you have a clever plan?"

"Transfer this news to Runan first!" Xun Yu straightened up and looked at Cao Pi with bloodshot eyes, "The battle situation in Yuzhou cannot be delayed any longer.

The enemy troops from Jing and Yang must retreat one way first, otherwise the overall situation will not be reversed. Judging from the current situation, Xuzhou may not be able to rely on it for the time being, so we can only look at Yuzhou.
Chapter completed!