Summary of the previous chapter: There was another piece of information hidden in Ma Xiaoquan's letter to Liu Bei, which was discovered by Fazheng. Liu Bei followed Ma Xiaoquan's hidden message and stormed Yangping Pass, and finally... captured Yangping Pass.
...
Although Cao Cao had expected the fall of Yangping Pass, he did not expect it to come so quickly. In September of the 23rd year of Emperor Xian's reign of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, King Cao Cao of Wei rushed to Chang'an and personally commanded the battle against Liu Bei.
The Shu army at this time is no longer the passive Shu army before. Since the capture of Yangping Pass and the connection between Bashu and Long, the Shu army's transportation of many supplies has become smoother, but...
Liu Bei knew very well that in order to make Cao Cao retreat completely, he had to win Hanzhong, the target he wanted most and had to get.
There were scouts on both sides working carefully, and they naturally found out a lot of information about each other. Liu Bei must have been nervous when he learned that Cao Cao was in Chang'an.
Liu Bei spent half his life in the army. He didn't care about anyone, and he didn't need to be afraid of anyone. But Cao Cao was the only one whom Liu Bei was afraid of just hearing his name.
Although he is timid, Liu Bei will not give up no matter what he says this time. After all, Hanzhong is a strategic location for Shu. If Hanzhong cannot be captured, disaster will definitely occur in Shu in the future.
Cao Cao, on the one hand, was intensively deploying the strategy to resist Shu, but on the other hand, he had to be distracted to deal with the sudden rebellion.
A few days after Cao Cao arrived in Chang'an, Hou Yin, the defender of Wancheng, rebelled. He was in the north and had more territory. Naturally, he had to divide his troops to defend. Currently, among Cao Cao's troops, the main forces are concentrated on the border: Cao Zhang in the north is fighting with Wuhuan
Fierce fighting, although they were victorious many times, they were too far away to come; Zhang Liao in the east was sick and monitoring Soochow, not to mention that there were not many troops, so he couldn't come if he wanted to; Xia Houyuan in the west was now overwhelmed, and there were even fewer people.
....After much deliberation, Cao Cao decided to order Cao Ren, the Fancheng garrison guarding the south, to go to Wancheng to suppress Hou Yin.
Cao Cao was undoubtedly taking a risk with this move. After all...it was Guan Yu who faced Cao Ren.
Good guy, Guan Erye's power is well known to the world. Cao Cao is afraid that Cao Ren will leave Fancheng with his front foot, and Guan Yu will follow him to attack, but...if Wancheng is not saved, Wanluo will definitely attack him.
Lost one after another.
Cao Cao's base is basically the Wanluo area. Although Fancheng is also important, Liu Bei and Sun Quan are secretly fighting each other to restrict each other. Cao Cao feels that even if he loses it, he will not lose too much. After all, he only gets one-third of the Jingzhou area.
Just yi.
Liu Bei, who has a different mentality from Cao Cao, doesn't have so much time to spend with Cao Cao. Since Cao Cao doesn't come, I will continue to attack Hanzhong. Although Yangping Pass has been broken, Xia Houyuan is still holding back Liu Bei.
For the time being, they were unable to successfully march to Hanzhong.
.......
When the two armies were facing each other in a stalemate, Ma Xiaoquan, a master of Shangxian who was far away in Yecheng, suddenly sent his fourth son Ma Qiang to deliver a letter to Cao Cao.
No one knew the content of the letter. All General Cao and his army staff saw Cao Cao unfold Lord Shangxian's letter, took one look at it, and then burned the letter against the candlestick.
After reading the letter, Cao Cao looked very solemn, but then he burst out laughing.
The generals were very puzzled and came forward one after another to verify the content of the letter from Lord Shangxian.
Cao Cao shook his head, didn't give any answer to anyone, and went to sleep with his hands behind his back.
This night, Cao Cao slept the most peacefully and slept the longest, but he frightened the guards who had been serving Cao Cao so much that they didn't sleep a wink all night.
Cao Cao once said that he "dreamed of killing people", and it did happen that Cao Cao woke up from his sleep and killed people. Therefore... although the guards wanted to step forward and take a closer look at their lord's sleeping condition, they were afraid to
Xiao Ming was sent out, so it was difficult for Cao Cao to sleep well and the guards could not sleep all night.
The next day, Cao Cao walked into the meeting hall in high spirits and shared some of his ideas with the soldiers.
When all the generals heard this, they all wondered: "King Wei, do we really want to abandon Hanzhong?"
Cao Cao chuckled: "Sometimes giving up is not necessarily a bad thing, but giving up cannot be said to be giving up casually... Haha..."
Generals, you look at me and I look at you. I am even more curious about Master Shangxian’s letter. But... the letter has been burned by King Wei. Even if I want to read it, I can’t read it.
.
...
Yecheng, Ma Family Courtyard.
Ma Xiaoquan was holding a kettle to water the flowers leisurely, but beside him stood the arrogant Seventh Lady Qing Yi.
"Dirty Mr. Qiang'er helped me sort out the book. Why do you insist on letting him go to Cao Cao... Huh?"
Ma Xiaoquan put down the kettle with a smile, stretched out and said: "My wife in Qingyi, do you know how much Cao Cao needs my letter? You must know that your husband-in-law, I am an immortal..."
..How many people have asked me to tell their fortunes but I still don’t do it..."
"Hey!" Qing Yi pouted and said, "Others think you are a Supreme Immortal, but I don't think you are. What kind of person your husband is, apart from Sister Yue'er and Sister Ling'er, I, Qing Yi, know best
, hum…”
Ma Xiaoquan smacked his lips and said, "Look at what you are saying. I sent Qiang'er out just as a training exercise. After all, that brat has a bit of a reserved personality. It's not a bad thing to go out for a run and gain experience!"
"Humph! Your husband knows how to give orders!" Qing Yi stuck out his tongue and walked away.
Ma Xiaoquan shook his head. This wife in Qingyi is already in her thirties, but she looks like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl. Oh, this woman, if she is always pampered, she really won’t grow up, haha.
...
Ma Xiaoquan picked up the kettle and was about to continue watering the flowers when Qing Yi shouted in front of Ma Xiaoquan.
"Wow!" Ma Xiaoquan was startled. Although he knew that Qing Yi, the seventh lady, had a "speed" superpower that could not be explained in this era or even his own era, he was still frightened by Qing Yi.
Qing Yi chuckled, stretched out her hand and said, "Mr. Qing Yi just picked two plums for you to try."
"Plums?" Ma Xiaoquan asked, "Where did the plums come from in the north? Who are you lying to?"
Qing Yi bit her lip and opened her little hands. Sure enough, there were two plums, but they were not yet ripe and had a clear green color on them.
Ma Xiaoquan snorted in a pretentious manner, raised his eyebrows and said: "It's nothing to be courteous, but the person here is not kind? Tell me, what do you want to do?"
Qing Yi's pretty face turned red, and she said angrily: "If I give you some plums, just say I'm fine and show my courtesy. Forget it, I won't let you eat them! Humph!"
Ma Xiaoquan was afraid of sourness and didn't like eating plums. When Qing Yi said this, he happily made a gesture of invitation to Qing Yi's wife.
"You! Huh!" Qing Yi pouted and said, "I don't care, if my husband wants to eat, he must eat it!"
Ma Xiaoquan waved his hands repeatedly: "If you don't want to eat, don't eat!"
"You have to eat even if you don't want to!"
"Don't eat!"
"If you don't eat, I'll ignore you!"
"Ignore it, ignore it! I'll go find another lady!"
"Huntan Ma Xiaoquan, can't you tell the truth?"
Ma Xiaoquan was stunned for a moment, raised his head, put down the kettle and looked at Qing Yi: "The truth? What truth?"
"Humph, you asked Qiang'er to deliver a letter to Cao Cao, and I asked you what was in the letter, but you just didn't tell me! Humph!"
"Oh." When Ma Xiaoquan heard this, he suddenly realized that Mrs. Qingyi wanted to know the content of the letter she wrote to Cao Cao.
"You really want to know?" Ma Xiaoquan looked at Qing Yi.
"Yeah" Qing Yi nodded heavily.
Ma Xiaoquan chuckled, picked up a small wooden stick, and wrote a few words on the ground.
Qing Yi came up to take a look, and said with some surprise: "Is this what you wrote?"
"Yeah, otherwise what else would I write?"
Qing Yi let out a disappointed sound.
Ma Xiaoquan hugged Qing Yi and said: "Wife Qing Yi, this doesn't mean anything to you, but after seeing it, Cao Cao will definitely thank me. Maybe, that old boy is sneezing and missing me right now. Do you believe it?"
No?"
Qing Yi was amused by Ma Xiaoquan's words. She stretched out her hand and tapped Ma Xiaoquan's forehead: "You are the only one with a poor mouth!"
"hey-hey!"
...
Chang'an.
"Sneeze" Cao Cao rubbed his nose and shook his head and said, "Why do I sneeze when I think of that demon? Is that the demon talking ill of me behind my back?"
Next to Cao Cao, Chief Secretary Yang Xiudao said: "King Wei, my subordinates think so!"
Cao Cao frowned and felt a little unhappy in his heart. Although he said something wrong with Lord Shangxian, he was always grateful to him in his heart. Cao Cao had no intention of complaining, but he had known Ma Xiaoquan for so many years and privately "
I'm just used to being called "demon, demon, demon", that's all.
Yang Xiu was also smart. When he saw Cao Cao's face showing displeasure, he quickly changed his words and said: "King Wei, my subordinate means that you have a large number of people and never care about the immortal..."
Cao Cao liked what Yang Xiu said. Cao Cao smiled and nodded, acquiescing to Yang Xiu's flattery, but there was always a big question in his heart.
In his interactions with Ma Xiaoquan, Cao Cao rarely argued with Ma Xiaoquan. Of course, except for those times when Cao Cao thought he was being plotted by Ma Xiaoquan and lost a lot of money to Ma Xiaoquan in bets. But... with Shangxian
After knowing each other for so many years, Cao Cao felt more and more that Lord Shangxian was a human being, a pure person, not the Lord Shangxian that everyone said.
Cao Cao once asked Ma Xiaoquan about this issue. Ma Xiaoquan just laughed and did not answer Cao Cao's words directly. After Cao Cao asked again and again, the other party said something, something that made Cao Cao both willing and reluctant.
Ma Xiaoquan said at that time: "Xiao Cao, when you leave, it is also when I leave. At that time, I will answer all the questions in your heart."