It was meaningless to let Sun Ce know that it would be meaningless to persevere. Even if he conquered Shouchun City, Lujiang would have lost money. At the same time, Cao Cao dealt with Gongsun Zan and could transfer his troops to deal with Sun Ce.

Understanding his situation, Sun Ce had to make a painful decision and ordered his troops to retreat.

In the sixth year of Jian'an, the sudden battle between princes on the Central Plains caught the whole world off guard. No one expected that Cao Cao, Gongsun Zan, Sun Ce, and even Liu Biao would join the war.

Gongsun Zan sent troops to fight against the pseudo-Emperor Yuan Shu. Yuan Shu could not resist and retreated. Instead, he asked Gongsun Zan to pursue the victory and surrounded Shouchun. Sun Ce from Jiangdong sent troops to raid Gongsun Zan, and finally he captured Shouchun and drove away Yuan Shu.

As the saying goes, the mantis stalks the cicada and the oriole is behind. Sun Ce, who captured Shouchun, was attacked by Xiahou Dun, a general under Cao Cao. Shouchun changed hands and fell into Cao Cao's hands. Sun Ce was dissatisfied and made a comeback. The 50,000 army attacked Shouchun.

Cao Cao General Cao Ren faced Sun Ce's 50,000 troops day and night, showing his extraordinary defensive strength, blocking Sun Ce's attack and preventing Sun Ce from climbing the city wall. After this battle, Cao Ren became famous all over the world and was called Cao Zixiao.

Faced with Sun Ce's attack, Cao Cao did not send reinforcements, but instead focused his eyes on Gongsun Zan, who was extremely vigilant of him in Xuzhou.

In order to paralyze Gongsun Zan, Cao Cao took the initiative to reduce the strength of the border confrontation and made the illusion that he wanted to mobilize troops to Shouchun to reinforce Cao Ren. For a time, the border between Xuzhou and Yanzhou and Yuzhou became peaceful, and the two armies got along well.

This illusion did confuse Gongsun Zan. When Gongsun Zan saw Cao Cao's people fighting with Sun Ce in Shouchun, he felt at ease for a moment, and then he was ready to turn his gaze to Yuan Shu in Xuyi, Huainan.

Although Yuan Shu was in a down-and-out position, he had a wealthy family background. Even if he fled to Xuyi, the wealth and treasures he carried were still jealous enough. Moreover, the Xuyi area is backed by Hongze Lake, and the water conservancy conditions are quite good. If he can be seized and managed well, he will definitely become a large granary in the future.

Therefore, Gongsun Zan wanted to get up with Yuan Shu. Gongsun Zan didn't take him seriously at all, and wanted to attack Xuyi and send troops directly from Guangling. Guangling was the first place to operate after Gongsun Zan's resignation, and had become Gongsun Zan's old nest. Gongsun Zan had a deep foundation in Guangling. Once Xuyi was captured and connected to Guangling, Gongsun Zan felt that he would have a strong rear, and he would not have to worry about unstable rear when dealing with Cao Cao at that time.

So, after Gongsun Zan was thinking about it again and saw that Cao Cao was really busy dealing with Sun Ce, he started to act.

Gongsun Zan, a soldier stationed on the border, did not draw too many, but gathered a little east and a little west, and slowly drew some soldiers from various counties to form an army of 30,000 to prepare to go to Xuyi.

He didn't move much. Even if Cao Cao acted in a peaceful manner, Gongsun Zan did not dare to relax his vigilance. After all, Cao Cao had become like Liu Zhe to sneak attack people like Liu Zhe.

At the same time, in order to prevent Cao Cao from learning, Gongsun Zan led the team to Xuyi quietly, cautiously along the way, in his own territory, and try not to let too many idle people know about it.

I have to say that Gongsun Zan's move has indeed hidden many people, and even many Xuzhou officials did not know what Gongsun Zan was doing.

However, Gongsun Zan's secrets were so secretly that he could not hide them from many of his own people, but Cao Cao.

To be precise, Gongsun Zan's actions were guessed by Cao Cao's advisers.

In addition to their different backgrounds, the biggest difference between Gongsun Zan and Cao Cao is also the team of strategists under their two men.

Cao Cao's advisers include Cheng Yu, Jiang Ji, Mao Jie, Man Chong, Dong Zhao, Wang Lang, Jia Kui, Du Ji, Yang Xiu, Sima Lang, Wang Jie, Chen Gui, Chen Deng, Huan Jie and other large groups of advisers. It can be said that Cao Cao is the strongest among all the princes except Liu Zhe.

On the other hand, Gongsun Zan has no outstanding strategists under his command. If he insists on having strategists, he will only have two Guan Jing and Zou Dan.

Of course, these two strategists are incomparable to those of Cao Cao.

It was not that Gongsun Zan wanted to recruit counselors, but he stabbed Tao Qian in the back at that time, and had already offended the great clan of Xuzhou. People with some strength did not want to hang out with Gongsun Zan. They would rather surrender to Cao Cao and Liu Zhe, or even Yuan Shu, or even Yuan Shu, did not want to surrender to Gongsun Zan.

There was originally a pair of strategists in Xuzhou who were extraordinary, namely Chen Gui and his son.

Unfortunately, they resented Gongsun Zan for stabbing Tao Qian and killed Tao Qian, so they would rather surrender to Cao Cao than to surrender to someone like Gongsun Zan.

Gongsun Zan did not have a good solution for such a situation, but he thought it was okay to rely on himself and did not need any counselors to point fingers around him, so many things were made by Gongsun Zan himself and rarely discussed with his subordinates.
Chapter completed!