Gongsun Du ordered people to come in and clean up the case, prepare some wine and food, and took this opportunity to calm down, calm himself down, and carefully evaluate Xu You's two strategies for withdrawal. He just listened to Xu You's plan to attack the Dashi, but he won first and then lost, which put himself in a difficult situation. It was not as expected by Xu You, or he did this on purpose, and he had no way to judge, but it was unlikely that he would believe Xu You as before.

You still have to make your own judgment and don’t let Xu You play. From a time perspective, Sun Ce should have come from Zhuo County. If he had not appeared in Liaodong, he might be fighting with Yuan Tan. From this point of view, Xu You took advantage of his suspicion and made it clear.

Seeing Gongsun Du smiling but not seeing a trace of warmth in his eyes, Xu You knew what Gongsun Du was thinking, and complained secretly, and he was not in a hurry to confess his love. He had to pretend to be clear conscience and drink and chat with Gongsun Du.

After the two drank for a while, Gongsun Du changed the topic and pretended to be casually asking. "Ziyuan, what is to retreat and what is to guard?"

Xu You put down his wine glass and sighed softly. "Shengji, I have a responsibility to fight at this point in the two armies. Although I did not underestimate Sun Ce, I still underestimate his strength. Unexpectedly, his subordinates were strong, and the Wei Wuzhang trained by Wu Qi was nothing more than that."

Gongsun Du was a little surprised, his eyes flashed, and he didn't say anything. Wu Qi served in Wei, trained Wei Wu soldiers, fought 72, won 64, and was invincible in the world. He once defeated 500,000 Qin troops in one battle, unprecedented and no one came later. Even the Qin army, which later claimed to be the army of tigers and wolves, did not have such impressive results. Barely speaking, only Xiang Yu rushed to Pengcheng with 30,000 cavalry and defeated Liu Bang's 560,000 coalition forces. Sun Ce was known as the little overlord, but he was not a real overlord. Although his previous record had won more with fewer, it was not so great. According to the existing battle examples, it was understandable that something was wrong.

For Gongsun Du, Xu You, who has always been conceited, took the initiative to admit his mistakes, at least he saved some face for his failure, and his mood relaxed a little unconsciously, and he felt guilty for his suspicion.

Xu You continued: "Combining the strength of both sides, Sun Ce wins in the infantry elite and the convenient transportation of building ships, and there will be no battles for the shortage of food. Our army wins in the strong military and the good cavalry. If Sheng Ji is willing to sacrifice, he will stick to his position and force Sun Ce to attack, consume his elite troops, be upright, and make him convinced to lose, and from then on he sighs in Liaodong. But there is a problem now."

“What’s the problem?”

"We must figure out Sun Ce's losses. The comparison of the forces of the two armies is 50,000 to 20,000. If thousands of knights of our army are abandoned, it is about 2 to 1, and the losses should be equivalent. If Sun Ce's losses exceed or are close to half of our army, then he will not be able to hold on until the end. If Sun Ce's losses are far less than half of our army, fighting again will be unfavorable to our army, so we can only withdraw first."

Gongsun Duxin felt the same and felt a little embarrassed. He fought for two days, and he fought seven times in one battle. He only knew that he had suffered a lot of losses, but he didn't know how many gains he had or even whether he had. This was not Xu You's responsibility, but his subordinates were too weak.

Xu You paused for a while and said, "If infantrymen are not in good terms, it is better to change the battlefield and give full play to the advantages of our cavalry, which is what Shengji said just now. However, I suggest that we do not need to retreat too far and retreat to Wen County. Pingguo is close to the sea, and Sun Ce's navy is accessible. Wen County is dozens of miles away from the sea, so that our cavalry can gallop. Once Sun Ce abandons his boat and lands on the shore, the situation will be beneficial to our army. Of course, there is also a problem. If Sun Ce gets the Da clan and does not attack anymore, then even if we have a group of iron cavalry, we can do nothing, and we can only sit and watch Sun Ce set foot in Liaodong."

Gongsun Du stroked his beard and pondered without saying a word. Xu You's words came to his heart, which was exactly what he considered, and it was more thoughtful than what he considered. Retreat to Wen County is better than retreating to Pyongyang. Even if he gave up, it would be more of a loss of Dashi and Pyeongguo County, not strength, and it was the best strategy. If Sun Ce was not greedy and continued to pursue, he would still have the opportunity to use the advantage of the cavalry to turn defeat into victory.

There is another advantage to withdrawing to Wen County. You can meet with Gongsun Mo and you don’t have to worry about the problem of insufficient food and grass. It is equivalent to breaking out of the terrain that is unfavorable to you, retreating to advance, and taking the initiative again.

Gongsun Du pondered for a long time. "It's September now. When the autumn wind is together, Liaodong will soon become cold and the Liao water will freeze. Sun Ce's troops are mainly Jiangnan people. They may not adapt to the climate here, and the tower ships cannot move, which seems to be more beneficial to us."

Xu You knew very well that Gongsun Du had been defeated by Sun Ce and had no confidence to fight Sun Ce to the death. Retreat was the best choice. After defeat in one battle, Liaodong fell into the hands of Sun Ce, which was definitely not in line with Yuan Tan's interests. Even if Sun Ce rushed back to Zhuo County now, it had been delayed for nearly a month. It is believed that Yuan Tan had solved the crisis in Zhuo County. His mission had actually been realized, so there was no need to force it.

"What Shengji said is very much. If you should break it, you should break it. Since you decide to retreat, it is better to be early than late."

Gongsun Du happily agreed and immediately summoned the generals to discuss matters and arrange for retreat.

Sun Ce was woken up by Zhu Ran in the middle of the night, and the soldiers on duty discovered a problem: Gongsun Du's army had abnormal movements.

Sun Ce turned over and sat up. During the battle, he lie down in his clothes, and he couldn't even untie the armor. He had cold water and cloth towels next to him. He could wake up after rubbing his face and quickly climbed to the generals of the central army. The soldiers on duty rushed over and pointed to the Liaodong Army camp in the distance and explained the phenomenon.

The Liaodong Army's position in the distance was dark and could not see the situation clearly. The torches were like stars in the night sky, flashing in the night wind. It was too far away, and he could only tell from the number of torches, but he had no way of telling what was wrong.

"Has the scout been sent out?"

"Send out." Chen Wu rushed to the general. "Guo Jijiu has arranged for the scout to check the news, and has borrowed Lao Xie, Liu Pan and Liu Hu. The Military Planning Office has also been called up and is re-cluttering the situation and preparing the plan. Shen Envoy and General Gan have also notified it."

Sun Ce nodded. As the head of the military strategist and the head of the camp, Guo Jia was more nervous than him during the war and had to react whenever there was any disturbance. When the two armies were fighting, various accidents could happen at any time. They were both highly alert and could not overreact. They were shocked and suddenly, and they were at their own feet.

Before the enemy situation is clear, we naturally defend our position first and prevent our opponent from taking advantage of it. Guo Jia's safety is very appropriate.

"Gongsun Du may have to run away." Sun Ce suddenly said: "Zi Lie, let the Military Planning Office give priority to this plan, and then go to the cavalry battalion to inform the Chief Chen Ziwei and let the personal guards be prepared to attack."

"Here!" Chen Wu was overjoyed and turned around happily.

Zhu Ran was a little puzzled. "Master, why do you think Gongsun Du is going to run away?"

"Intuition." Sun Ce bent his fingers and tapped his temples lightly. "Attacking the camp is a matter that requires great courage. The Liaodong army has been defeated in succession and has been beaten to a mess by our army. At this time, the one who dares to attack the camp must be the warriors, but I have never heard of such warriors under Gongsun Du. Besides, if you really want to attack the camp, shouldn't it be quietly? How could it be so easy for us to discover? If you organized the attacking camp, would you make such a mistake?"

Zhu Ran suddenly realized and nodded repeatedly. Sun Ce's judgment was not difficult. Give him some time and he could infer it, but he could not do so quickly and confidently that he even felt that he had a judgment first and then made a reason. This is the so-called intuition, which is the feeling that he will always dream of. The battlefield changes rapidly, and all kinds of true and false information are dazzling. Having the intuition to reach the key points and removing the false and retaining the truth is crucial to grasping the fighter and being a necessary condition for becoming a famous general.

At dawn, Guo Jia heard news. According to the intelligence and judgment of the scouts sent by Shen You and Ganning, Gongsun Du's army retreated overnight. There were only some remaining soldiers left in the camp. Each of them carried a torch and walked around the camp. Some cavalry and crossbowmen remained to stop the scouts from approaching the camp and delaying time. It was not easy to find out the news at night. With these deployments, the scouts took a lot of effort and lost several people to determine the fact that Gongsun Du's main force had retreated.

Fortunately, Sun Ce had instructions before, so the military plan quickly came up with a plan. According to their analysis, the possibility of Gongsun Du retreating along the coast was not high. The road was too far and he might be intercepted by ambushed navy. Therefore, they should have passed through the hilly areas in the Dashi area to the north, bypassed the Huyue Pass, and joined forces with reinforcements outside the Huyue Pass, and retreated to Pingguo and Wenxian. At that time, it is possible to fight, defend, advance or retreat.

Sun Ce had already made a plan. After listening to this analysis, he asked again: "How many days will it take Gongsun Du to walk out of that hilly area?"

Zhang Cheng took out a map and put it in front of Sun Ce. "It will take three days at the fastest. Most of the hills are rarely visited. Except for hunters and herb collectors, there will be almost no one in. There is no road for large groups of people to march, which is especially difficult for cavalry."

Sun Ce knew this. Even in later generations, there were many primeval forests in this area, not to mention now. Most of the population gathered near the county town and bay. There were many mountains and forests that were rarely visited. Even if Gongsun Du was familiar with the terrain and knew some paths, they were not for the army to march.

"We rushed to Gongsun Mo before Gongsun Du met with Gongsun Mo. At least we had to burn his food and grass and let Gongsun Du go back to Xiangping hungry. If possible, we would chase him to Xiangping City and take down Xiangping City." Sun Ce gritted his teeth. "He has delayed me so much time and cannot leave. He must ask him to pay the price. The weather will soon become cold. In the past two months, it will freeze here, and it will be detrimental to our army."

Guo Jia agreed with Sun Ce's view, and the Military Planning Office also made relevant plans, which was not surprising. Sun Ce left Shen You to deal with the remaining soldiers under the city of Da, and responded to Lingāo and Mi Fang. At the same time, he sent infantry to pursue Gongsun Du. He took advantage of the boat to cross the bay, landed with cavalry, crossed the tiger's leap, and rushed to Gongsun Mo and the food he escorted.
Chapter completed!