Chapter 199: Concealing the truth
"Envoy Yuan, I have a question." Mao Jie, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.
"But it doesn't hurt to ask."
Mao Jie stared at Yuan Shao and asked in a deep voice, "Why didn't Tian Ze attack Gao Lan's army?"
“Xiaoxian, why do you ask such a question? That’s naturally because…” Xi Zhicai was about to open his mouth to stop him when he heard this, but suddenly stopped.
Everyone present, except Mao Jie, Yuan Shao and Ju Shou, frowned, feeling that they seemed to have overlooked something.
"Found it." Ju Shou looked at Mao Jie, smiled slightly, and said to himself.
"Meng De, you have so many talented people under your command!" Yuan Shao looked at Mao Jie deeply and said in an inexplicable tone.
Xi Zhicai was the first to react.
Yes! Why didn't Tian Ze attack Gao Lan's army?
You know, Tian Ze's strength is far stronger than the four of them combined, how could he be suppressed?
Yuan Shao's strategy seems clever, but in fact it has a big flaw.
Guan Yu and Xu Huang had a total army of more than 100,000. If Tian Ze had not chosen to send troops to Bingzhou, but instead led 150,000 elite troops south to Jizhou.
With the same army of 250,000 facing each other, Gao Lan alone could not be a match for Tian Ze. He had no choice but to defend.
What could Yuan Shao do then?
Ignore it and attack the Taihang Mountains? Even if Tian Ze surrenders the Taihang Mountains, what will happen? Gao Lan has 250,000 troops at his disposal. If Gao Lan is captured, Yuan Shao will be greatly weakened and Jizhou will be within easy reach.
Compared with Jizhou, Taihang Mountains and Bingzhou are nothing.
Send troops to rescue? They were not close to Gao Lan's army at this time. Before they arrived, Tian Ze had enough time to trap Gao Lan's army and then surround and attack the reinforcements.
Tian Ze has a large number of elite cavalry under his command. In the vast Jizhou, they can move freely and easily divide the battlefield.
Xi Zhicai was puzzled as to why Tian Ze and others had not thought of such a huge and obvious flaw.
But Mao Jie thought of it.
Thinking of Mao Jie's talent, Xi Zhicai's eyes narrowed slightly. Could it be?
Yuan Shao smiled slightly, looked towards Bingzhou, and said with a slightly complicated expression: "That's naturally because 'that person' took action."
In Bingzhou, Li Ru, with a pale face, lay on the bed, drinking ginseng soup and looking at the map on the wall.
This time I played a little too hard and almost lost half my life.
After the trip to Youzhou, Li Ru actually didn't hold out much hope for defeating Tian Ze. He basically couldn't see any way for his side to win against an all-round strong opponent.
But when he learned about Yuan Shao's strength, especially after discovering the existence of Xun Chen, he sensed a chance of victory.
Together with Xun Chen and Ju Shou, he finalized this plan to conceal the truth from the world.
With Li Ru's talent as the main force and Xun Chen's talent as the auxiliary force, Tian Ze and his civil and military officers were guided to instinctively ignore this huge flaw in the short term and focus on attacking Bingzhou.
This created the established fact that Gao Lan's 250,000 troops were holding back Guan Yu and Xu Huang's 120,000 troops.
Lu Bu's army then relied on Bingzhou's strategic depth and natural terrain to contain Tian Ze's 150,000-strong army.
Finally, we concentrated the freed-up superior forces to break through the Taihang Mountains.
In this way, a situation similar to Tian Ji's horse racing was formed.
Once the Taihang Mountains are connected, this dead end will be solved.
With the combined forces of the three parties, it is unlikely that they will win the attack on Tianze, but they will have no problem holding on.
When Cao Cao and others heard the ins and outs of this strategy, they all looked at Yuan Shao in shock.
So cruel! So ruthless!
If you are not careful, you may lose your entire fortune. How dare you gamble on this kind of battle!
And Li Ru and Lu Bu, are they completely willing to give up Bingzhou? Let's go crazy together! At the same time, Cao Cao and others were even more shocked by Li Ru's treacherous ability. As expected, he was the "poisonous scholar" who had helped Dong Zhuo to the throne. How terrifying!
"Benchu, aren't you afraid of losing the bet?" Cao Cao couldn't help but ask.
"So what if I'm afraid?" Yuan Shao laughed loudly.
"The enemy is strong and I am weak. If I don't even have the courage to give it a try, how can I win? At worst, I can retreat to Qingzhou and start all over again! As long as I, Yuan Benchu, am still alive, I will never live in disgrace or sit and wait for death!"
At this time, Yuan Shao's heroic spirit was so great that no one dared to look up to him, and he was a role model for the world.
When Cao Cao, Xi Zhicai and others heard this, in addition to admiration, a trace of awe and solemnity flashed through their hearts.
Yuan Benchu is truly a formidable rival!
……
"Something's wrong!"
When Tian Ze was studying the strategy, Jia Xu felt an indescribable strangeness, as if he had overlooked something, but he could not remember what it was.
He had been reflecting on the loopholes in the war situation in various places these days. It was not until a few days after Tian Ze's army set out that Jia Xu suddenly realized it when he was sorting out intelligence from all parties.
"Li Wenyou, you are really serious about this! Aren't you afraid of losing your life?" After reviewing the whole cause and effect, Jia Xu sighed.
It was too late now. He was afraid that by the time he passed the information to the front line, Tian Ze would have been entangled with Lu Bu. And with the wisdom of Guo Jia and others, they would figure it out in no time and did not need him to tell them.
Lu Bu's "Flying General" talent not only makes him fierce when facing the enemy head-on, but also has a strong ability to restrain the enemy.
As long as Tianze's army is entangled by it, it will be difficult to retreat.
Jia Xu was not without his guard against Li Ru's talents, but he did not expect that Li Ru would actually use his talents against Yuan Shao's army.
This strategy was a gamble for both Li Ru and Yuan Shao.
If one party has the slightest disobedience, the other party will probably be killed.
"I've really been tricked this time." Jia Xu shook his head helplessly: "Li Wenyou, Yuan Benchu, who would have thought that the two of you would get involved with each other? This is truly an extraordinary story."
You must know that there is an irreconcilable blood feud between Li Ru and Yuan Shao.
Li Ru stole the fruits of victory of the Yuan family and killed the entire Yuan clan. Yuan Shao also destroyed everything that Li Ru had planned and treated him like a chess piece.
Therefore, Jia Xu never expected that the two of them would really be united.
I thought the Yuan-Cao-Lu alliance was a loose one, but I didn't expect it to be so cohesive.
"It seems that the lord has put a lot of pressure on Yuan Benchu! Yuan Benchu, what a pity."
A trace of admiration and pity flashed in Jia Xu's eyes.
Since Yuan was born, why did Tian come into being?
Yuan Shao, who had always been suppressed by Tian Ze and never became arrogant, was truly a well-deserved hero in the eyes of the people of the world.
His vision, courage, skill and ability are all top-notch, and any other prince pales in comparison.
It’s just a pity that he met Tian Ze who started to develop secretly at an early age.
The gap in strength between the two sides is comparable to that between Cao Wei and Shu Han, nine mines versus one mine, the difference is huge.
"Even if this plan has been implemented, it may not be that easy for you to take over the Taihang Mountains!" Jia Xu said dimly.
As someone in charge of intelligence, he knows the current situation in the Taihang Mountains better than anyone else.
Even though Yuan Shao now has an absolute advantage in local military strength, breaking through the defense line of the Taihang Mountains is no less difficult than Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition.
(End of this chapter)
