At the end of September in the first year of Emperor Zhangwu of the Han Dynasty, the emperor of Cao Wei, Cao Pi, led an army of 80,000 troops, claiming to have 200,000 troops, to arrive at Wancheng.

As the 80,000 Wei troops began to appear in Nanyang County in great force, the people in Nanyang County who were loyal to Cao Wei finally let go of their worries.

They even felt happy in their hearts.

Fortunately, I didn't surrender rashly before.

Before Cao Pi personally led his army into Nanyang County, news of his personal expedition had already spread throughout the Central Plains.

So when the emperor's imperial flag belonging to Cao Pi was placed all over the city of Wancheng, most of the county chiefs in Nanyang County sent their envoys to Wancheng to pay their respects to Cao Pi.

It is both a greeting and a show of loyalty.

Even Cao Tai and Sima Yi who were outside Wudang City quickly withdrew their troops from outside Wudang City and returned to Wancheng after learning the news.

They had been wandering outside Wudang before, just because they were worried that Mi Yang would march bravely to attack Wancheng.

Now that Cao Pi has personally led his army to Wancheng, they naturally no longer need to worry about the safety of Wancheng.

Under this situation, and because they are currently the ones who know the situation in Wudang City best in Nanyang County, they must return to Wancheng as soon as possible and tell Cao Pi personally the news they know.

Otherwise, how can we show what efforts they made before Cao Pi's army arrived?

After all, in the eyes of the world, Cao Tai and Sima Yi just led two thousand Wei cavalry troops to wander outside Wudang City. Apart from capturing a few Han army scouts, they never engaged in a battle with a Han army.

The cavalry was very fast. After Cao Tai and Sima Yi left some scouts outside Wudang City, they led most of the cavalry back to Wancheng.

When they returned to the outside of Wancheng, they found that in addition to the imperial flag representing Cao Pi, there were also many flags of Cao Wei ministers on the top of Wancheng.

Looking at those familiar flags, Cao Tai and Sima Yi's eyes condensed.

"Chiang", "Dong", "Liu", "Wu", "Guo", "Sun", "Chen"...

Any owner who is qualified to place the flag on the city head will be a high-ranking official with at least two thousand stones.

Looking at the number of flags, Cao Tai and Sima Yi were a little stunned.

In order to deal with Mi Yang, did your Majesty move the entire Luoyang Center?

Although they were surprised in their hearts, Cao Tai and Sima Yi quickly came to the Chariot General's Mansion in Wancheng to pay homage to Cao Pi.

When Cao Tai and Sima Yi arrived outside the lobby of the general's mansion, Cao Pi was discussing military affairs with the generals.

When Cao Pi was discussing military affairs, he heard the eunuch report that Cao Tai was waiting for an audience outside the lobby. A look of sadness immediately appeared on Cao Pi's face.

He asked the eunuch to quickly summon Cao Tai and Sima Yi to come in.

When Cao Tai entered the hall under the leadership of the eunuchs, all the civil and military officials in the hall looked at him with sympathy.

The moment Cao Tai saw Cao Pi, tears instantly appeared on his face.

He knelt down more than ten steps away from Cao Pi, and then walked step by step to five steps in front of Cao Pi's throne. He kept bowing his head to Cao Pi and said:

"I hope your Majesty will avenge my father!"

Cao Tai's plea instantly resounded in the huge hall.

Seeing Cao Tai's tearful appearance, the faces of Cao Wei's civil and military ministers in the lobby showed unbearable expressions.

The unbearable look on Cao Pi's face became even more intense.

As the emperor, he ignored the etiquette between monarchs and ministers and waved Cao Tai with his hands to continue to step forward.

When Cao Tai came to his throne, Cao Pi's face was already covered with tears. Cao Pi stroked Cao Tai's hat and said:

"Don't worry Zian, I will definitely avenge my uncle."

For Cao Wei, Cao Ren was a very high-status cavalry general.

For Cao Pi, Cao Ren taught him martial arts since childhood, so Cao Pi had feelings for Cao Ren.

Cao Pi was the eldest among the second generation of Cao Wei.

Now that Cao Tai's father, Cao Ren, is dead, as the saying goes, an elder brother is like a father, and Cao Pi is Cao Tai's king.

Therefore, when Cao Pi made an action of caressing Cao Tai's hat, who was about the same age as him, not only would it not make people feel disobedient, but it would instead give people a feeling that Cao Pi was protecting his clan.

This made all the civil and military ministers present feel a warm feeling in their hearts.

Unlike later generations, in ancient times sometimes nepotism was a form of political correctness.

Because a monarch who treats Yuan Cong and clan members poorly can easily create an image of being mean and unkind to others.

The psychology of ancient people is that if they don’t even love Yuan Cong and their clan members, how can they still love and care for people like them who are neither relatives nor friends?

Therefore, Cao Pi's behavior was partly an expression of his true feelings, and partly an attempt to appease people's hearts.

The war is coming, and people's hearts are the most important thing.

But after all, the monarch and his ministers were different, and it was time to discuss military affairs, so Cao Tai slowly stepped down from Cao Pi's throne after being appeased by Cao Pi for a while.

When Cao Tai stepped down from Cao Pi's throne and sat down in his own seat, Sima Yi took a step forward and reported to Cao Pi the current situation outside Wudang City.

Under the narration of the minister who had just returned from Wudang City, and the information reported by the Wei army scouts, the ministers in the hall roughly understood the current specific information of Mi Yang's army.

The most important thing in intelligence is the number of enemy troops.

Mi Yang had previously withdrawn 10,000 troops from Wudang City, but he could not hide it from Cao Tai and Sima Yi, who were wandering outside Wudang City all day long.

In addition, according to the information and evidence obtained by Cao Zhen's spies sent from Hanzhong before, it is proved that the army currently held by Mi Yang inside and outside Wudang City is no more than 30,000.

After almost deducing the total number of troops in Mi Yang's hands, the ministers here who knew the soldiers almost instantly deduced the actual number of soldiers in Mi Yang's hands.

It should be around 20,000.

And if the total number of troops in Mi Yang's hands is only 20,000, then the number of regular soldiers of the Han army is only 15,000 at most.

The inferences made by the ministers of Cao and Wei present here are not drawn randomly, but based on the common practice of this era.

In historical records, the ancient army and civilians are often clearly distinguished, so many people mistakenly believe that the army is basically a soldier, and almost all logistical tasks are undertaken by civilians.

This is actually an inaccurate view.

The real situation is: every army with a high degree of formalization has many logistics troops who are responsible for logistics support, called auxiliary troops.

The proportion of soldiers accounts for roughly 20% to 30% of the entire army;

If it is a cavalry unit, the proportion of logistics troops will be higher; if it is an overseas expedition, the proportion of logistics troops will be even higher.

In addition, the civilian men who escorted the grain and grass were counted separately. It is impossible for the entire army's logistics work to rely on them.

It's not even as ordinary people imagine, the number of civilians must be several times more than the entire army.

Moreover, civilian husbands would follow the army and usually live in military camps.

Otherwise, there would be countless examples of wars involving tens of thousands of soldiers in Chinese history.

If the civilian population, which is several times more than the number of soldiers, lives in the military camp on a daily basis, then a night attack by the enemy will cause the camp to roar.

It's just that there are so many more civilians than soldiers. Faced with this situation, they will definitely be extremely panicked.

At that time, the entire military camp will collapse without even having the enemy troops invade the camp.

No matter how stupid a general is, he knows how terrifying Ying Xiao is, so he rarely does it.

Moreover, civilian husbands were mainly responsible for transporting grain and grass.

For a large army, there will never be too much or too little food.

Therefore, once the civilians transport the grain and grass to the camp, the auxiliary soldiers in the military camp will be responsible for handing it over, and the civilians mostly return to the original route to continue transporting the grain and grass.

Because civilians also consume grain and grass, from an economic perspective, it is definitely most cost-effective to allow civilians to be in the process of constantly transporting grain and grass.

For a large army, the proportion of civilians is not simply calculated by multiples, but requires consideration of many factors.

For example, whether the army's garrison is close to one's own granary, for example, whether the road transportation is convenient, etc.

Just like Jiangdong, because of the existence of the Yangtze River, as long as there is enough food and grass, he can send out an army of 100,000 troops.

The difference between auxiliary soldiers and civilians is that auxiliary soldiers have certain combat capabilities and even participate in certain military training in the military camp.

Although the number of civilians is not certain, the number of auxiliary soldiers in the army is clearly recorded.

"Cao Cao's Notes on Sun Tzu's Art of War": "Chariots and horses, ten soldiers and one heavy horse. Two people are responsible for cooking and keeping the family, one person is responsible for protecting and keeping the clothes, and two people are responsible for stables and raising horses. There are five people."

There are ten infantrymen, mainly driving carts and oxen. Two people are responsible for raising food and cooking, and one person is responsible for keeping clothes and clothing, so there are three people."

From this record, it can be seen that between the Han and Wei dynasties, Cao Cao's troops and cavalry logistics troops accounted for about one-half of the entire army, and the infantry logistics troops also accounted for about 30% of the entire army.

Moreover, it can be seen from Cao Cao's records that when the army usually goes out on an expedition, the auxiliary troops escort the baggage vehicles and follow the army on the expedition.

This is also the reason why some armies will not collapse immediately but can still hold on for some time even though their food routes are cut off.

Currently, of the 80,000 troops brought by Cao Pi, the actual number of soldiers is only over 50,000, and the rest are all auxiliary troops.

And because Luoyang is not far from Nanyang County, and both places are located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, the transportation conditions are not bad, so the number of civilians used is not very large.

Just like Cao Ren's 50,000-strong army before, even with the existence of the Han River, Cao Ren did not have to carry a large number of civilians when he went on an expedition, but there were only 30,000 soldiers in his 50,000-strong army.

The remaining 20,000 or so are auxiliary soldiers.

It is precisely because the 50,000 troops led by Cao Ren at that time were not all regular soldiers, so their mentality collapsed quickly when attacked by the fire.

Judging from the strength of the enemy and our forces, Cao Pi's fear of Mi Yang became less severe.
To be continued...