Cao Cao was stunned when he heard that Pingqiu City had fallen. However, Cao Cao was an ambitious and ruthless person after all. He was only stunned by this piece of news for a moment before he immediately reacted. ＜?
"Send out fast horses to pass down orders to Mao Jie and Le Jin to put up the waiver token and command the reinforcements within the city to Hulao Pass. Order Yan County's Xu Huang and Sima Lang to put up the waiver token and command the reinforcements within the city to Hulao Pass. Order Changyuan's Li Dian and Man Chong to put up the waiver token and command the reinforcements within the city to Jiyang …"
Cao Cao snapped out of his daze and stared at the battle map hanging on the wall. He thought for a while and then gave out a series of orders.
After receiving news that Yang Rui had breached Pingqiu City, Cao Cao felt that the situation was getting more and more dangerous. After weighing the pros and cons, he prepared to mobilize the main forces of the various regions to annihilate Yang Rui's troops east of Hulao Pass.
Hulao Pass had just been attacked by Yang Rui. According to the current movements of the 50,000 troops under Yang Rui's command, Cao Cao guessed that Yang Rui had the intention of occupying Hulao Pass and cutting off their retreat to Sili Province.
According to the news sent back by Scout 6, Cao Cao already knew that Yang Rui's troops didn't bring any rations or supplies. To Cao Cao, this was a taboo for military strategists. Once Cao Cao could mobilize the various troops to surround Yang Rui's troops that had penetrated deep into Chen Liu's territory, they would be able to exhaust the enemy to death even if it took time.
Of course, Cao Cao's actions were not as simple as encircling Yang Rui's troops. If the encirclement could not be achieved, or if the battle did not proceed smoothly, Cao Cao also intended to gather his troops and retreat to Si Li Province.
At the same time, Cao Cao naturally understood that Hulao Pass would play an important role in either encircling Yang Rui or retreating. Regardless of whether it was before, during, or after the battle, losing control of Hulao Pass would put him in a very passive position.
However, Yang Rui had grasped a powerful method. Just the day before, Yang Rui had used this method that was difficult to deal with to turn Hulao Pass into a sea of fire. Cao Cao's soldiers had suffered heavy losses, almost ten of them dead.
Based on the feedback from the soldiers who had luckily escaped, although Cao Cao did not personally experience the fire, he could roughly guess that Yang Rui had used his flying pet to attack. It was Yang Rui's navy ships.
Cao Cao could not make a breakthrough in terms of the navy in a short amount of time. At the same time, he lacked effective air defense measures. Thus, Cao Cao felt that Yang Rui's attack method was very troublesome.
It should be known that Yang Rui's flying pet had only thrown a round of "fireballs" to attack, and the entire Hulao Pass had been engulfed in a sea of fire. Not only did they suffer heavy casualties, but even though Hulao Pass was the sturdiest pass, the pass itself had also suffered heavy damage.
Other than the two extremely sturdy walls on the west side of East Hulao Pass, most of the auxiliary buildings in the pass had been burned to the ground. There was no need to even mention the various resources.
Thus, even if Cao Cao wanted to station his forces in Hulao Pass, it would be very difficult. First, he was intimidated by Yang Rui's flying pet's fire attack. Second, due to the loss of the auxiliary buildings in the pass, Hulao Pass was temporarily unable to station a large number of soldiers.
It could be said that Hulao Pass had temporarily lost its use as a pass in terms of safety, food, and shelter.
Faced with such a situation, even with Cao Cao's great strategy, he could not think of a good way to deal with it. After news of the fire in Hulao Pass reached him, Cao Cao only sent Xiahou Dun and a few other brave generals to station on the east and west sides of Hulao Pass.
Although this reduced the risk of being wiped out by the fire, it was still not enough to deal with Yang Rui's large number of troops.
Cao Cao saw this point, which was why he sent the troops stationed at the five frontline cities to Hulao Pass and Jiyang so that they could coordinate with Xiahou Dun and the other Hulao Pass defenders.
Putting aside Cao Cao's plan of killing two birds with one stone, Yang Rui led the army toward Fengqiu County after taking down Pingqiu County. When night fell, they were 150 kilometers east of Fengqiu County.
Although they were not too far away from Fengqiu County, it was too difficult for the army to move at night. As such, Yang Rui ordered Cheng Yu to choose a suitable place to set up camp for the night.
As for whether or not the defending troops of Fengqiu County would notice, under normal circumstances, both sides' scouts would be around 150 kilometers away. Normally, it would not be easy to notice.
Speaking of which, Yang Rui's 50 thousand troops were already close to Fengqiu County. Even if the defending troops sensed something, they would not be able to deploy troops in a short period of time. As such, Yang Rui did not care much about this.
After a night of rest, Yang Rui and his troops had already reached Fengqiu County City before the sun had even risen. They immediately launched an attack on Fengqiu County City.
There were not many defending troops in Fengqiu County. It was not much different from Pingqiu County, only around 10 thousand people. Under such circumstances, Yang Rui's attack was as smooth as the Battle of Pingqiu County.
After spending more than an hour, Yang Rui had successfully taken control of Fengqiu County. The next step was to loot the treasury, collect the gold coins dropped from the battlefield, the Soldier Class Change Skill Book, and other valuable items.
Since Yang Rui would not be stationed in Fengqiu City for the time being, the battle in Fengqiu City was also very short. After more than two hours, Yang Rui had already led his troops out of Fengqiu City's west gate.
Before leaving Fengqiu County, Yang Rui left a backup plan. He specially ordered his troops to spread the news in the county to let the NPC residents and players know that he was going to attack Hulao Pass.
The direction that Yang Rui's troops were heading towards was Hulao Pass. Cao Cao believed that the first thing that Cao Cao would hear was that Yang Rui was heading towards Hulao Pass.
Yang Rui did this to confuse Cao Cao. Along with the strategic location of Hulao Pass, he forced Cao Cao to send reinforcements to Hulao Pass.
With that, as long as Cao Cao's troops were mobilized, Yang Rui's flying pet would be more useful. With Cao Cao's troops defending the city, it would be difficult for Yang Rui to attack the city with fire.
Of course, Yang Rui's actions were built on the fact that information was limited. If Yang Rui knew that Cao Cao had already started to move his troops, it would not matter if he spread fake news or not.
After Yang Rui's troops left the west gate of Fengqiu City, they didn't head in the direction of Suanzao and Hulao Pass. Instead, they turned north after traveling for a hundred li.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
