For Wang Zheng, the loss of nearly a thousand cavalry was acceptable, but the death of Wu Fang and dozens of third-level soldiers was really unbearable.
Especially Wu Fang.
He was also from Zhao County, and he had served as a middle-level leader during Zhang Rao's Qingzhou Yellow Turban Uprising. In addition, he was in his prime, so he was originally one of the talents he planned to cultivate. Wang Zheng originally planned to harvest enough talents during the Beihai War.
After experience, Wu Fang was among the second batch of fourth-level soldiers promoted...
It can be said that this is another major loss in his direct line since Gao Xiong's death.
This made Wang Zheng's face darken to the extreme, and he was silent for a long time.
He didn't speak, and others didn't even dare to do it. In the silence where a needle could be heard, the atmosphere began to become strange, and invisible pressure slowly enveloped Gao Lan and the rest of the guards in silence.
, even more uneasy, and cold sweat began to break out on his forehead.
Until the back of his armor was completely soaked with sweat, Gao Lan couldn't bear the almost suffocating feeling any longer, and he directly bowed his head to the ground and said: "The defeat in this battle is all the fault of the general. I am willing to accept the state's punishment."
Pastoral punishment.”
Gao Lan knew in his heart that someone must take the blame for the defeat of this battle. Strictly speaking, this battle was naturally because Yan Ran had the greatest responsibility for attacking rashly. Otherwise, the raid on Cao Ying had been completed, and Tianzhu Ying's superior combat power
, even if Cao Jun from Wuyang came to help, the victory or defeat of both sides was only a 50-50 score.
It's just that the other party is still seriously injured and unconscious, and he is a direct descendant of Wang Zheng. Gao Lan knew the difference between a subordinate general and a direct descendant when he was under Yuan Shao. Even now, after thinking about it, he still feels that taking the initiative to plead guilty is the only way.
After getting along with each other for this period of time, he believed that Wang Zheng was not an unreasonable person. Even if his family suffered a little injustice this time, he might be able to gain some favor and the transaction would not be a loss.
But Wang Zheng's reaction was beyond his surprise.
After staring at Gao Lan for a while, Wang Zheng shook his head: "Yi Yuan does not need to take responsibility."
Hearing this, Gao Lan was startled, could Wang Zheng still blame Yan Ran in this situation?
"This battle was because I misjudged the strength of Cao's army from the beginning. Otherwise, how could we have been defeated like this?" Wang Zheng continued, "Even if Yan Ran did not attack rashly, as soon as Wuyang's reinforcements arrive, you will be defeated."
In Cao's camp, we will also face the danger of being attacked from both front and rear, and the odds are stacked against us."
In fact, after learning the whole story from Gao Lan, Wang Zheng began to blame himself. How could he make such a mistake as underestimating the enemy?
What's more, when the enemy is Cao Cao?
Especially since he is a time traveler from later generations, he clearly knows how high Cao Cao will reach in the future, which further highlights that his mistake this time was really too low-level.
It must be known that it has been many days since the Heavenly Army entered Yuzhou. Even though Xiahou Dun's abilities were limited, Cao Cao in Xudu must have made arrangements and made arrangements after receiving the news.
Li Dian and the more than 3,000 Cao troops are a powerful proof!
What about the defenders of Wuyang?
Therefore, in Wang Zheng's view, even if Yan Ran did not rush to pursue Li Dian, the situation behind him might not be optimistic.
The long-awaited failure not only made Wang Zheng rarely lose his temper, but he also began to fall into self-blame. From self-blame to introspection, from introspection to awakening.
Thinking back to the beginning of the uprising, how many times had he been wary of the arrogance that emerged in the army due to long victories? How much time has passed?
Unexpectedly, now he, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is beginning to feel proud...
Success after success has made Wang Zheng lose the respect he once had for those historical celebrities. This is a good thing, but if he defeated Yuan Tan and the underdeveloped Liu Bei, he would think that the heroes in the world are nothing more than this, which would be a big mistake.
!
"This..." Gao Lan was a little stunned when Wang Zheng spoke like this. He didn't know how to answer the question. He was speechless for a moment. It wasn't until Wang Zheng waved his hand to let him go down to rest that he finally woke up and prostrated deeply again.
His eyes were red and he shouted: "Zhou Mu, in this big defeat, both I and my subordinates will be deeply ashamed!"
"At the end of the day, I have asked for orders to serve as the vanguard to conquer Wuyang again. If I cannot dedicate this city to Zhou Mu, I will be the only one who will die!"
"Get up."
When Wang Zheng heard this, he stepped forward and helped Gao Lan up with his own hands, patted him twice on the arm, and then said seriously: "If this battle is defeated, you are not the only one who is not angry. I will be angry again."
Why not?"
"It's just that the sages have said that if a king does not raise an army out of anger, he will not go to war out of anger..."
At this point, seeing that Gao Lan's eyes were still red and he was still waiting for a fight, Wang Zheng suddenly took off the Victory Ten Thousand Miles Sword from his waist, looked around at the generals, raised his sword eyebrows, and shouted in a deep voice: "It's not too late for a gentleman to take revenge in ten years!"
"My general orders that from now on, all generals of the three armies, no matter who they are, are allowed to wear swords. This battle is not only a shame for Gao Lan, but also a shame for this general and a shame for Xuzhou!"
"I hope all generals will remember it deeply, know their shame and then be brave. If they don't kill the enemy generals Li Dian and Xiahou Dun, it will be such a shame to shed blood. They will eat their courage while lying on the firewood, and they will never be equipped with swords!"
As soon as these words came out, all the generals fell to the ground and made a solemn promise: "If you don't avenge this revenge, you will suffer from your courage and never be able to wield a sword!"
...
After blaming himself, Wang Zheng also understood that he could not make the same mistake again. He immediately gathered the generals inside and outside the city and held a military meeting to summarize the gains and losses of the battle and learned three lessons.
First, obviously because of the war in Beihai, the military strength sent to Yuzhou this time was not sufficient, but Wang Zheng still divided his troops and asked Gao Lan to go and capture Wuyang. To put it bluntly, this battle was too underestimated. After all, the previous battles in Taishan and Yanzhou were
He defeated Cao Cao both times, but he had forgotten that Cao Cao was actually in the same dilemma as Xuzhou today, fighting on two fronts at the same time.
Second, they did not pay enough attention to intelligence. Although they found out the enemy's true and false situation, they did not have a detailed understanding of the terrain around the enemy's camp. If Gao Lan and Yan Ran could have known in advance that there was a swamp near Cao's camp, they would not have been fooled.
Third, once the war in Beihai is over, Xuzhou's next external war will be between Cao Cao in the north or Yuan Shao in the west, or even Yuan Shao in the east, and these three are all far stronger than Kong Ronghe.
Liu Bei, a move like running thousands of miles to attack a lone army and go deep into the country must be carefully considered in the future. You must not take risks and be careless.
Soon after, because Gao Lan was also injured in the battle, Wang Zheng personally led his army north to take down Ningping, the last city in the original plan. However, since Xiahou Dun not far away was not solved, the plan to build another new city was naturally shelved for the time being.
, just stationed some soldiers in the other two cities, forming a situation of horns with each other.
During this period, the Yuzhou Yellow Turbans finally arranged for Renhe and Wang Zheng to be contacted. At the same time, as a local snake, they also received first-hand news from Yingchuan.
According to reliable information, in the Battle of Wuyang, although Cao Jun's Li Dian tribe was killed in just over a thousand people, most of the wounded afterwards either died of serious injuries or lost their combat effectiveness in a short period of time.
This is of course because Gao Lan and Yan Ran set fires wantonly during the raid on Cao Ying. Fire injuries are no different than others, especially in spring and summer, they are easy to fester and die, especially large-scale fire injuries. In the ancient times of the Celestial Dynasty, this was the case.
If treated promptly, there is a high possibility of death.
Obviously, Wuyang, as a small border town, does not have many wound medicine or even doctors.
Although Wang Zheng and the Tianjun had not experienced defeat for a long time, Cao Cao's victory was also an absolutely tragic victory. After this battle, both sides unanimously re-estimated the strength of the other side. In addition, in order to avoid Xiahou Dun's impulsiveness, Cao Cao decided to
Not long ago, he specially sent an envoy to ask the other side to stick to the main position. After this, even though the hatred was rising due to the pain of losing his son, Xiahou Dun finally gave up the plan to attack Runan temporarily after careful consideration.
As a result, Yuzhou temporarily fell into a state of confrontation between the four camps.
At the same time, a letter was sent, saying that Yuan Shu's envoy had arrived in Guangling and would arrive at Xiapi in the near future. He also sent a letter in advance, hoping to meet Wang Zheng in person to discuss a major matter.
Wang Zheng naturally knew what the major event the other party was talking about, and it indeed required him to go back and deal with it in person, so he prepared to return to Xiapi first and ordered Gao Lan and Yan Ran to stay in the three cities. If a large group of Cao's army invaded, they would be able to wait for the rear.
If the reinforcements cannot follow the rules, they can directly abandon the city and return to Xuzhou.
Before leaving, Wang Zheng specially invited Gao Lan, and the two talked for a long time. They just repeatedly explained the truth of "people lose land, and people and land survive", for fear that Gao Lan would be eager to fight because of the hatred in his heart.
After these warm words, Gao Lanli unknowingly took a big step forward to completely return to his heart.
...
When Wang Zheng returned to Xiapi, the war on the Beihai side also ended.
Although they have not all been pacified, the nobles in Beihai have given up hope on Cao Cao and the emperor in Xudu. What's more, even if they are still hostile to Wang Zheng, the main force of officers and soldiers from Beihai or the east have all surrendered, and they will no longer do so.
An organized army.
Without the organized and large-scale resistance foundation, it is only a matter of time before the general trend takes control of the entire territory of the two counties.
Before the Yangzhou envoy arrived, Wang Zheng set the tone for Beihai.
Ping Shou was officially established as the fifth military wing, and the general was stationed in Jin.
Politically, the Yan family and the Wang family were asked to arrange for some of their children to serve as officials, because Langya was originally the closest county to Beihai, and the gentry in the two places had many connections. It happened that the Langya gentry was the core to unite those old officials and officials in Beihai as soon as possible.
Gentlemen.
In terms of culture, arrange for the Mi family's trading firm to cooperate with the Tianji Camp to build momentum in the two counties as soon as possible and win the hearts of the people.
Economically, we are trying to minimize corvee and tax as much as possible, setting up villages in various places, reclaiming wasteland, attaching importance to trade, promoting cooperatives, agency stores, and vigorously developing people's livelihood construction at the grassroots level. As the situation develops, the original wealth-hiding plan has been slightly modified.
The policy for the people was changed to recuperation and recuperation, ensuring the survival of the people. On the basis of seeing hope, the efforts to amass wealth were appropriately increased.
At the same time, considering the possible war in Yangzhou in the future, the pace of establishing a navy army is also accelerating.
The shipyard in Haizhou has been established, and craftsmen from all over Xuzhou who are familiar with shipbuilding have now gathered here and are working day and night to build medium-sized and above building ships, as well as river and sea warships. All the small boats of Xuzhou Navy before were either eliminated or replaced.
Come down for modifications.
At the same time, they reorganized the troops and part of the pirates in the North Sea, transferred some of the heavenly troops who were familiar with water, and changed them into naval troops. Three divisions were temporarily set up, and the training continued.
Of course, for this reason, at present, almost all middle and high-level officials are from outside the country. This situation is naturally only temporary. Next, we will gradually eliminate the descendants and pirates in the North Sea among the middle-level generals.
In Wang Zheng's heart, regardless of whether it is land or water, as long as it is an army under his command, the authority can only be in the hands of him and those he can completely trust.
So from the beginning, neither Guan Cheng nor Chen Jiao was the leader of the navy in Wang Zheng's heart.
As the Xuzhou Army stationed in Beihai embarks on their return journey in large numbers, the opening day of Xiapi Military Academy, and even the intermediate and senior military academies in Kaiyang and Pengcheng will be in the not-too-distant future.
Looking at the construction of various hardware and software, today's Xuzhou is already very successful at the level of strategic layout, which fully reflects Wang Zheng's ambition when he was in Linzi.
Next, he planned to send troops and horses again to build the city defense system of the three cities of Ningping after the army took a short rest. At the same time, he took down Peiguo, fought back, and erected an outer perimeter to the west of Pengcheng again.
A solid line of defense.
This will not only greatly reduce the potential threat to Cao Cao in the west, but once a large city is erected between Chen State and Runan, and then a heavy army is stationed, it will be equivalent to choking the throat of the Yanzhou Army's southward route, making it impossible for the other party to move as quickly as they want.
By occupying Yuzhou, Wang Zheng would have enough experience to deal with the changes in the situation in Yangzhou.
After everything was done, time passed by and it was May of the first year of Jian'an. The weather was getting hotter, the rainstorms became more frequent, and everything you could see was lush foliage...
It's the summer solstice time.
On a sunny day, Wang Zheng personally led the civil and military officials to the city gate. Because he had received the report from the front sentries last night, the messenger from Yangzhou was less than a hundred miles away from Xiapi. Calculating the time, it was around noon today.
can be reached.
The messenger represents Yuan Shu himself. He is the most powerful prince in the world. After all, the two sides are still in an alliance. In addition, Wang Zheng got the biggest benefit from the battle in Xuzhou that day. Of course there is no apology. After all, he can't
If you get a bargain and behave well, you will be prepared to give him enough face.
The sun at noon was a bit hot and unbearable, causing everyone behind him to complain secretly, but seeing Wang Zheng standing motionless in front of him, no one dared to complain, not even Wu Sheng, but when he wiped his sweat away, he was secretly happy.
I sent my greetings to all eight generations of the Yangzhou messenger’s ancestors.
Not long after, dust began to rise on the horizon in the distance. Wang Zhengxun looked out, and with his extraordinary eyesight, he immediately identified a group of people and horses galloping towards them, about several hundred people.
It's finally here...
When he saw the person in charge, Wang Zheng couldn't help but smile. It turned out that the messenger this time was actually an old acquaintance, Li Ren.
Wang Zheng was startled when he saw that behind Li Ren, in addition to the accompanying cavalry, there was also a carriage.