Standing on the top of the city tower, watching Cao Jun work day and night to dig trenches, Shen Pei didn't understand what kind of abacus Cao was thinking. After careful observation, he found that the so-called trenches were dug very shallowly and could not be used for anything. So he laughed at the Cao army soldiers who were digging trenches under the city and said sarcastically: "No need to waste your energy. Even if Cao Aman racks his brains, he will not be able to break through Yecheng!"

The soldiers of Cao's army conveyed Shen Pei's words to Cao Cao as it was. After hearing this, Cao Cao also laughed: "Shen Zhengnan laughed too early. If he sent troops out of the city to harass him now, there would be a glimmer of hope, but he took a laissez-faire attitude, which was really an act of self-destruction."

Guo Jia also showed a faint smile: "It will be decided after three days."

Although Shen Pei laughed at Cao Cao, he still dared not slacken in his heart. He thought that Cao Cao wanted to follow the method of Yuan Shao breaking Yicheng and digging tunnels to break Yecheng from the inside, so he strictly guarded against all ground conditions within the area of ​​Yecheng.

Because Cao's soldiers worked day and night, the trench that was more than two meters wide and more than two meters deep had been dug in just three days. At this time, Shen Pei climbed to the top of the city again to observe and could hardly believe his eyes:

The turbulent and rapids surrounded Yecheng through the trench, and it was impossible for ordinary people to cross the turbulent river.

Not only that, there were iron armored shields and strong bows and crossbows arranged around the river. The sentry detectives who followed reported that the total number of shield and crossbowmen in the siege was about 3,000.

He was stunned when he heard such a report, and he smiled bitterly:

"Just three days ago, I mocked Cao Cao for his behavior that was meaningless. Now it seems that he used only these thousands of crossbowmen and shield players to trap the 50,000 defenders in my city tightly in this water dragon encirclement. I miscalculated..."

Seeing that the battle of the gutters and canals had been successful, Cao Cao took Guo Jia and Cao Pi, who had been leading the army for the first time, to the gutters and canals. Looking at Shen Pei, who was trapped in Ye City, who was still fighting, Cao Pi couldn't help sighing: "Since ancient times, the battle of siege has been extremely unfavorable for the attacking parties. Mr. Fengxiao really made a brilliant plan. In this way, we don't need to use several times the surplus troops in the city, and we don't need to waste money and food."

Seeing that Cao Cao had not explained the purpose of the trench battle to Cao Pi, Cao Pi could not help but feel relieved. He asked Cao Pi with a tentative attitude: "Zihuan, guess what your father is going to do next?"

While thinking, Cao Pi looked at Guo Jia, but Guo Jia just smiled but said nothing. Cao Pi thought for a moment and replied:

"I think my father would draw the troops who were originally besieged in the city to concentrate on dealing with Yuan Shang, who was Xigui, who rescued Yecheng."

Hearing Cao Pi say this, Cao Cao's expression was a little surprised. He did not expect that his son, who was not visible on weekdays, would see the problem so thoroughly. It was beyond his expectations. He stared at Cao Pi and could not speak for a moment.

When he learned that Cao Cao and his son Cao Pi came here to inspect and surrendered from Yecheng, Su You, who was the one who ordered him to carry out trench operations because of his understanding of the terrain of Yecheng, came to pay homage to his new master:

"I didn't know that the lord was coming to the front line to supervise the war. If you were to welcome him, you would like to ask the lord and the son to atone for his sins."

Cao Cao put his hands behind his back, looked at Su You who was lying on the ground, and said lightly:

"Thank you for your hard work, get up quickly."

After getting up, Su You stood aside respectfully and accompanied Cao Cao and Cao Pi to inspect the arrangement of crossbows and shields. When talking about the situation in Yecheng, Su You mentioned the incident of Yuan Xi’s wife Zhen Mi, which attracted Cao Pi’s attention:

"I heard that Yuan Xi's wife Zhen's appearance was amazing, but she was really beyond the ordinary women. I wonder if the world's exaggerated words?"

"The Second Young Master Mingjian." Su You replied:

"The rumors are not spreading. The Zhen woman is indeed a peerless appearance. She wanted to launch an uprising in Yecheng to kill Shen Pei's head. Together with the Zhen family, Xian and his lord, she was unable to see through her and had to escape from the city in a panic."

"Oh?" Cao Pi raised his eyebrows slightly: "I have raised my curiosity. I really have to see it if I have the chance..."

After receiving the urgent letter from Yecheng, Yuan Shang did not care at first, but as the surrounding situation came from Yecheng, he became more and more urgent, Yuan Shang had to withdraw his troops from the plain to return to escape the siege of Yecheng.

When he arrived in Guantao, Yuan Shang could not understand the situation around Yecheng, and thought that Cao's army would not have any extra troops to deal with him by besieging Yecheng. So he planned to follow the method of repelling Cao Hong last time to lead 10,000 troops to Yecheng, and cooperate with Shen Pei to kill Cao Cao's army with the inside and outside.

However, what went against his wishes was that when he arrived at Chiqiu, he was hit by Cao Zhen head-on. Yuan Shang, who had personally taken command, was useless and quickly ordered to retreat to Guantao. When he forced his crossing to Baigou, he was blocked by the cavalry led by Xu Huang and lost his way out. In desperation, Yuan Shang adopted the suggestion of the chief clerk Li Fu and temporarily retreated to Wei County and then asked for advice.

After entering Wei County, Yuan Shang angrily waved his horse whip and pulled the wine bottle on the table to the ground, and said angrily:

"The princes around Cao Cao are eyeing him, and he should have struggled to siege the city alone. How could so many troops come from setting up layers of ambush? Now let alone rushing to Yecheng, I have no confidence just by protecting myself!"

Li Fu calmly analyzed the situation and said to Yuan Shang: "According to the spy who sneaked into Cao's camp, Cao Cao used the ditches dug around Yecheng to lure the water of the Zhang River to surround Yecheng. Lord Shen was unable to break out of the city, so Cao Cao had the opportunity to mobilize his troops. Now, the situation in Yecheng is unclear, so we should not act rashly anymore. You might as well pause and observe the situation."

Yuan Shang had no choice but to follow Li Fu's advice.

The battle reports ahead were passed to Cao Cao's hands one by one. Yuan Shang was hitting walls everywhere, and his at a loss made Cao Cao very satisfied. He immediately handed the letter in his hand to Guo Jia, laughing endlessly:

"Fengxiao, it seems that the deployment we made before was not in vain. Yuan Shang should be in a hurry now."

After carefully reading the content of the letter, Guo Jia smiled relievedly: "The guests are already in place, we can start the seat..."

Cao Cao nodded: "Well, if we hadn't surrounded Yecheng as bait, I'm afraid that Yuan Shang's stupid fish would not have fallen into the trap. Without Yuan Shang's life-saving straw, I think Shen Pei wouldn't have left the city rashly."

"You are right. Only by using the role of baiting each other on both sides can you break through Yecheng at the lowest cost. Once the iconic city that Yuan Shao has run for a long time is lost, the land of Hebei will be in chaos without fighting."

Cao Pi, who was sitting aside, listened to the conversation between Cao Cao and Guo Jia, couldn't help but admire Guo Jia's wisdom and strategic vision. Cao Cao also noticed Cao Pi's mentality and said to him: "If you are safe and stable, you should learn more from Xun Yu and Cheng Yu. As for the ability to plan and win a thousand miles, you should ask Guo Jia and Xun You more."

Guo Jia smiled humbly: "Mr. Cao is too proud, and his vulgar talent is really embarrassing to be your praise."

After hearing this, Cao Pi quickly stood up, bent down and bowed to Guo Jia respectfully:

"Sir, don't be humble. Please give me some advice in the future. Zihuan is willing to take Mr. as his teacher for life."

Seeing Cao Pi's sincere words and deeds, Guo Jia seemed to have seen something else, but he buried his thoughts deeply in his heart, slowly got up and walked to Cao Pi and helped him up:

"Young Master is so serious. With your talent and talent, Cao Gong will have someone who can surpass me in the future. You don't have to worry."

Although Guo Jia's words were very tactful, Cao Pi could hear that he had rejected him, and he had to give up because he was unwilling to accept it.

Two months passed, and the Cao army made progress in the trench siege battle. The food and grass in Yecheng could not withstand infinite consumption, and there was a situation of food outage in the city. Shen Pei had no choice but to use tough methods to obtain military rations from the people to support the army, avoiding the situation of the lack of food in the army, which directly led to the tragic situation of a large number of people in the city starving to death.

At the same time, Yuan Shang, who was stationed in Wei County, was very worried about the situation in Yecheng. He began to realize that the situation was far less optimistic than he had thought before, so he agreed to the suggestion of Li Fu, the only counselor around him. Li Fu led his troops to pretend that Xu Huang's men and women would risk passing through Cao's camp, and searched for an opportunity to sneak into Yecheng and communicate with Shen Pei with information.

Li Fu led about 30,000 troops to carry the forged flag of Cao's army, Xu Huang, and drove towards Yecheng in a legitimate manner, stationed 30,000 troops ten miles northeast of Yangpingting, and then went towards Yecheng alone with two followers.

The Cao army soldiers in charge of the periphery saw that the visitor held Xu Huang's general flag but could not take out Cao Cao's orders, so they said to Li Fu, who pretended to be Xu Huang: "General, please wait a moment, and let the general go after I report to the lord."

However, as soon as he finished speaking, the interrogative soldier was whipped in the face by Li Fu:

"Bold! I have an emergency military situation here to report to Cao Gong. If it is delayed, how many heads will guarantee you!"

The soldiers covered their faces and saw that this man was so arrogant. They knew that Xu Huang was a capable general under Cao Cao. They did not dare to offend him and had to let go of the three of them. In order to avoid arousing the suspicion of Cao's soldiers, Li Fu actually scolded Cao's soldiers who were guarding the grooves as Xu Huang. This behavior of turning passive into lord dispelled the Cao's soldiers' suspicion of him.

When Li Fu walked to Zhangmen south of Yecheng, he saw the soldiers there being fun. Li Fu had a plan and immediately scolded them and ordered the two soldiers around him to tie them up. The Cao army soldiers were so scared that they shouted for forgiveness.

At this moment, Li Fu quickly asked the two soldiers to lift the logs about three feet long in the camp to the edge of the groove, set up a floating bridge and quickly crossed the groove and went straight to the gate of Yecheng, and shouted to the bottom of the city tower:

"Brother Zhengnan! I am Li Fu! Let us go up!"

When Shen Pei learned that Li Fu had arrived in Yecheng, tears filled his eyes with excitement, and immediately ordered someone to hang the three of them onto the city tower with a rope.

When Cao Cao learned about this, he not only did not blame the soldiers who were deceived by Li Fu, but he smiled quite satisfied when he looked at Yecheng, which he could not surround for a long time and said, "Don't worry, he will still come out even if he goes in. I'm worried that Shen Pei will not come out in the city. It seems that Yecheng is about to go down."

After entering the city, Li Fu told Shen Pei about the situation that Yuan Shang had encountered outside the city, and told Shen Pei about the combat plan that Yuan Shang had formulated with him. After listening, Shen Pei fully agreed with Li Fu's suggestion.

"It may be difficult for you to get out like this, and Cao Cao must be prepared."

Li Fu thoughtfully and replied: "Don't worry, I just saw that the food shortage in the city is very serious. You can let the elderly, weak, women and children in the city go out of the city to surrender to Cao Cao. Cao Cao intends to conquer people's hearts and will definitely not harm them. At that time, I will get out of the city with them and will be able to safely escape from the siege."

Everything was as smooth as Li Fu thought. He slipped out of the siege from Cao's army and arrived safely at Wei County. He secretly glad that Li Fu was very lucky that he had fallen into the trap set by Cao Cao and Guo Jia.

After returning to Yuan Shang, Li Fu quickly told Yuan Shang about the results of his discussion with Shen Pei, but Yuan Shang seemed to be surprised and suspicious of Li Fu's unscathed attack from Cao Cao's tens of thousands of troops, he was surrounded by Cao Cao's tens of thousands of troops and was evenly free:

"Sir, I am a strange man. How could Cao Cao be so meticulous? How could he still make you play like this?"

Li Fu didn't care about so much, so he advised Yuan Shang to lead the army along the avenue to Yecheng. At that time, Shen Pei would order the dead soldiers to set up a floating bridge with the bows and arrows of Cao's army to lead the defenders in the city to fight out, and join forces with Yuan Shang to attack Cao Cao.

This was a good plan, but what Li Fu said to Yuan Shang was all Guo Jia expected. As early as when Li Fu Shang was in Ye City, Cao Cao had already put the battle plan that Li Fu might have formulated with Yuan Shang after he fled for discussion.

During the military discussion, Cao Hong and other generals were worried that the Sigui army led by Yuan Shang would take advantage of the high morale to pose a threat to Cao's army from the rear, and then Shen Pei would definitely take the opportunity to attack the city, and Cao's army might face a difficult situation to deal with.

Cao Cao and Guo Jia believed that although Yuan Shang was still full of confidence on the surface, after experiencing multiple military strikes, he was already full of soldiers. Li Fu could come and go freely among the Cao army with just two people. This was really contrary to common sense, so Yuan Shang would definitely be worried about whether Li Fu colluded with Cao Cao to commit suicide.

But Yecheng had to be rescued, so Yuan Shang would not follow Li Fu's advice and marched from the main road. Instead, he walked from the Xishan Path to try to penetrate into the west side of Cao's army and caught him off guard.

Everything was as expected by Guo Jia. Yuan Shang abandoned Li Fu's plan and led a large army from Wei County to Yangpingting along the Fushui River. He took the 30,000 troops who had stayed there before to cross the Linshui River and lifted the siege of Yecheng from the north.

When Yuan Shang led his army to Linshui, he was blocked by Zhang Yan and could not move forward. Shen Pei had been attacked by Cao Cao's plan to lure the enemy. Seeing a torch outside the city, he thought that Yuan Shang's army had arrived, so he sent people to set up a floating bridge and lead the army to the north gate, but was beaten by Xinpi, who had been ambushing the north of the city.

Shen Pei was unable to resist and had to retreat to the city. Yuan Shang was also ambushed by Zhang Yan on the Xishan Trail, and the soldiers fled one after another. Yuan Shang escaped from Zhang Yan's gun under the desperate guards of Li Fu and others and retreated to the bank of the Zhang River.

Before Yuan Shang could build the camp, the troops led by Cao Pi quickly surrounded him. Yuan Shang had no danger at this time. In desperation, he asked Cao Pi to surrender but was rejected by Cao Pi. In desperation, Yuan Shang led his soldiers to break out of the encirclement at a heavy price, hid in Qishan, and then ordered his generals to lead the troops to ask for help from the senior officials.

However, the high-ranking officials saw that Yuan Shang was in a desperate situation and had already thought of surrendering to Cao Cao in order to protect themselves. Not only did they not agree to Yuan Shang's request, they planned to cut off the head of the trap and offer gifts to Cao Cao.

Yuan Shang, who was completely disappointed, had not yet got a chance to breathe, but was chased by Cao Pi again. At this time, Yuan Shang abandoned the soldiers who followed him and put on the armor of ordinary soldiers and fled alone.

Seeing that Yuan Shang ignored the righteousness of the monarch and his subjects, the general Ma Ting and Zhang Kai raised his troops to surrender to Cao Pi. Cao Pi took over thousands of surrendered soldiers and obtained unexpected things...
Chapter completed!