Chapter 622 Conquest of Yanzhou
The news that Ma Di had gone east again quickly triggered turmoil in the Cao Wei court and everyone. All Cao Wei officials who had just stabilized their mentality immediately panicked after hearing that the God of Death led his troops eastward out of Hulao Pass.
Especially this time, in order to give hope to the Luoyang clan, Ma Di dispatched 80,000 Han troops at one go, almost all the Han troops in Kwantung were mobilized. Under the personal supervision of the prince, such a huge force entered Xingyang with great momentum and advanced towards Jiyin.
At the same time, Cao Wei's total military strength in Yanzhou was only 40,000. For a time, an atmosphere of despair enveloped all Cao Wei bureaucrats. In particular, the servant Cao Shuang has begun to consider voluntarily giving up the territory of Yanzhou south of the Yellow River.
After all, if 40,000 people retreat to Hebei, they can hold several counties in Hebei. If you stay in Yanzhou, not only will you not be able to defend an inch of land, but you will lose precious troops in vain.
However, just when Cao Shuang had drafted the edict for all ministries in Yanzhou to withdraw to Hebei in an orderly manner and was about to enter the palace to have it stamped, he was stopped by Sima Yi.
"Shizhong Cao, Yanzhou must not give up so easily! We must let the Yanzhou defenders hold on!" Sima Yi became nervous in an extremely rare manner, and said to Cao Shuang with an extremely serious attitude.
"Let all the troops in Yanzhou hold on to the spot and hold back the Shu army as much as possible. I have already mobilized our troops and horses from Liaodong together with the general Guanqiu Jian who conquered the north. We will arrive soon!"
"Lieutenant, I hope you can understand that Yanzhou has lost its strategic value now." Cao Shuang did not give any face to Sima Yi's dissent. He looked at Sima Yi with a very bad expression and said in a stiff tone.
"Now Yanzhou is in internal chaos, and local powerful people are disloyal to the Wei Dynasty. Forcibly guarding such a territory will only become a burden to the court, and it must be given up!"
"The national interests should be our top priority now, and we cannot let so many Wei soldiers bleed in vain just for the sake of face!"
Obviously, Cao Shuang had determined that Sima Yi was worried that Wei Jun's leaving without a fight would affect the court's face, so he opposed him like those old guys.
However, Sima Yi frowned at this moment, but his attitude was extremely determined.
"I know that Yanzhou is now useless, but I can never give up on Yanzhou now!"
"If Yanzhou is abandoned now, the Shu army will completely cut off the connection between Hebei and Yuzhou. At that time, the Shu army will send its troops eastward to attack Xuzhou. What will you do with Wei's troops in Huainan?"
Sima Yi's explanation suddenly made Cao Shuang realize.
After doing this for a long time, you are worried about your two sons in Huainan!
However, Sima Yi's reminder also reminded Cao Shuang of the main force of the Wei army still in Huainan at this time.
Due to the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Dongxing, Cao Wei had lost all the territory south of Hefei. Nearly 100,000 Wei troops were trapped in Huainan by the Han and Wu countries, unable to advance or retreat.
If Yanzhou falls, the Han army can take advantage of the situation and invade Xuzhou. If even Xuzhou is cut off by the Han army, then the Wei army trapped in Huainan will have only two options.
Either surrender to Wu or surrender to Han, anyway, it has nothing to do with the Cao Wei court.
This was also an immeasurable loss to Cao Wei. Therefore, Cao Shuang had to admit that Yanzhou cannot be lost yet.
"Since the Taiwei has thought so far, he probably has a plan on how to defend against the Shu army, right?" Cao Shuang asked, squinting his eyes and looking at the cunning Sima Yi.
Based on his understanding of this old man, he would not have come to find him without a plan in advance.
"The guard Cao Yu was ordered to lead the Qingzhou army southward and into Yanzhou for support. At the same time, he ordered Xia Houxuan, the regular servant of the scattered cavalry, to lead 20,000 Luoyang soldiers into Puyang as a reserve force, and then..."
Sima Yi immediately opened his mouth and revealed his plan to Cao Shuang without any hesitation. However, before he finished speaking, Cao Shuang couldn't help but interrupt him.
"Wait a minute, for such an important matter, where does the captain plan to be?" Cao Shuang listened for a long time and found that Sima Yi was recommending his clan throughout the whole process, and immediately felt something was wrong.
In order to defeat the soft persimmons of Soochow, you arranged for your son to collect people's heads, but you still failed to do so. As a result, when you encounter a tough guy like Ma Su, you will let me, the Cao family, die, right?
"The situation in Hebei is not stable, and the big families in Jizhou are also showing signs of betrayal. So I can't leave Yecheng right now, but the eldest son's division needs to control Huainan, and the second son can't be used for much, so..." Sima Yi said slowly, after a while The words have only one meaning.
In our Sima family, we can't get away from anything we can get on, and we can't get up from anything we can get away from.
Cao Shuang felt extremely unhappy about this, and this time he did not intend to continue to follow Sima Yi's wishes.
"With such a big event in Yanzhou, how can we, the juniors of the Cao family, do it without the Taiwei?" Cao Shuang looked at Sima Yi with a dark face and said through gritted teeth.
"A certain person dispatched 50,000 troops from Jizhou to the Taiwei, and sent out 30,000 troops from Qingzhou to help the Taiwei defend Yanzhou! As for Huainan, a certain person will report to His Majesty and order him to withdraw his troops to protect Xuzhou!"
"Before that, please ask the Taiwei to defend Yanzhou!"
"Okay!" Sima Yi nodded lightly and answered so crisply that Cao Shuang almost dodged.
"Well... Also, General Wuwei's campaign against Wu has failed, so he should return to Yecheng as soon as possible. Taiwei should wait for General Wuwei to return to Yecheng before setting off!"
Cao Shuang is quite sensitive to politics. He is afraid that if Sima Yi and his family leave Yecheng, they will defect in the face of battle, and the Wei Dynasty will be completely ruined.
Sima Yi also nodded in agreement, looking confident. Cao Shuang was not sure what Sima Yi was thinking for a while, but now that everything was out, Cao Shuang could not go back on his words, so he acquiesced and let Sima Yi go to guard Yanzhou.
However, when Cao Shuang turned around to draft the edict and was about to enter the palace to get the Queen Mother's seal, he didn't notice that Sima Yi had a smile on his lips.
The defeat in the Battle of Dongxing made Sima Yi's final idea of increasing the price go bankrupt. And now Ma Di's eastward expedition to Yanzhou has become Sima Yi's final moment to close the net.
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While Sima Yi insisted on defending Yanzhou and mobilized a large number of people from the north of Hebei to the south to aid Yanzhou, Ma Su also led 80,000 Han troops to the Chenliu front line.
The previous governor of Yanzhou had secretly surrendered to Ma Su, intending to use Yanzhou to gain a future with Ji Han. However, with Ma Su's refusal and the end of the Heyin diving competition, Yanzhou's initiative to surrender fell through.
Before Ma Su arrived, Liu Yin had already pushed the front to Jiyin. However, the area was densely covered with swamps, and the local wealthy people did not like Ji Han, so the progress of the Han army slowed down instantly.
It was not until Ma Di arrived that the Han army had only captured a small half of Jiyin's territory.
"Envoy!" Seeing Ma Su leading the army, Liu Yin immediately came to greet him. After seeing Ma Su, Liu Yin immediately saluted respectfully.
"How is the situation in Jiyin? How is the Wei army's resistance?"