Chapter 209 Xinding Basin Although he was a little annoyed by Lu Bu, Tian Ze still steadily advanced the front line due to his absolute advantage in military strength, gradually occupied most of Bingzhou, and blocked Lu Bu in Taiyuan County and Shangdang County. Although Li Jue, Guo Si and Gongsun Zan around them were all quite powerful, they obviously did not have much interest in Bingzhou. Li Jue and Guo Si were living a peaceful life in Chang'an, with no intention of heading north to Bingzhou. They even stationed a lot of troops in Hedong, fearing that Cao Cao would take the opportunity to enter Guanzhong under the pretext of heading north to Bingzhou. At this time, Gongsun Zan was busy dealing with the Qiang people in Longxi, Jincheng and Wuwei. Although his ability to lead troops is no less than that of Lu Bu, he does not have the support of Tian Ze like Lu Bu, so he cannot care less about money and food and can conquer at will. He was not originally from Xiliang, and his family was poor, so he had to fight and manage at the same time. Liangzhou was a large place with a vast land and a sparse population, so it was impossible to become rich overnight. In Lu Bu's army, after learning that Xihe had almost completely fallen, Lu Bu angrily punched the chopping board in front of him, making a big hole in it. "Fengxian, why are you angry? This was part of our plan, wasn't it?" Li Ru said calmly. The strategic areas of Bingzhou are mainly Yanmen, Taiyuan and Shangdang, which were previously controlled by the Han Dynasty. Although the rest of the counties are wide, they are mostly plains, which are conducive to cavalry raids. If Lu Bu wanted to defend Bingzhou, it was naturally impossible for him to go around in circles in these places and Tianze.
After all, Tian Ze has a "small map" and is not short of cavalry. Using this tactic against him will only be self-defeating. Therefore, Li Ru persuaded Lu Bu to give up the remaining counties and rely on the natural barriers of the Luliang Mountains and Taihang Mountains to defend Taiyuan and Shangdang counties. "But in this case, even if we defend Taiyuan and Shangdang, I'm afraid it will be difficult to recover the rest of the counties," Lu Bu said hatefully. We finally recovered Bingzhou, but now Tian Ze has taken advantage of us. Upon hearing this, Li Ru shook his head secretly. Isn't this obvious? Yuan Shao asked them to come here to contain Tian Ze and prevent him from taking Bingzhou. Tian Ze supported their conquest of Bingzhou in order to use them as guns to solve the problem of the barbarians in Bingzhou. Now that they have completed their mission, it is time for both parties to start collecting interest. Neither of them is doing charity. Although Lu Bu is now very popular in Bingzhou, and the local tyrants and common people in various counties are quite supportive of Lu Bu, it also depends on who comes. If Yuan Shao had captured these places, the local tyrants and common people might have resisted or even put up a fight. But now the one coming was the wealthy Tian Ze. With the stabilization of the rear, the young and strong men under Tian Ze have begun to transport large amounts of materials from Youzhou to various counties in Bingzhou. They have even begun planning to repair counties and villages, completely managing these places as if they were their own jurisdictions. Not only did they not harm the local people, but they also gave them a lot of money and food per head. With so much food in front of them, who would want to resist? All they needed was food and drink to welcome the royal teacher. These places were previously ruled by the Southern Xiongnu. There were not many powerful people there, and they had already been plowed by Lu Bu. The quality of the remaining ones was still good. Even if there were a few people with bad behavior and their homes were ransacked by Tian Ze, the rest would probably not feel resentment and might even shout: Well done! I have long been disgusted with these unkind rich rubbish. How could they be qualified to associate with us, the local sages! The story of the Youzhou noble families and powerful men dividing the spoils in the Northeast Plain has now spread throughout the world. In Bingzhou, except Taiyuan and Shangdang County, other places are poor and dangerous, and are not places they should stay at all. It is better for them to surrender early and go north to the Northeast Plain to grab land, which is the foundation for generations. Li Ru himself had no hope for these people, and did not arrange extra troops to garrison there, relying entirely on the local soldiers' initiative. After all, even if he arranged troops, it would be a waste of effort, and if he was not careful, he would be stabbed in the back by the powerful people in the city. Except for the early days when the counties and villages did not understand the situation and had some resistance, later on, wherever Tian Ze went, there were really loud drums and cheers. "It's okay, this is a good thing. Tian Chengshou occupied these places and had to allocate a large number of troops to garrison there. Now the troops are much less." Li Ru said.
Although Shen Pei's plan had never been communicated to him, Li Ru now had a vague idea of it. Because this plan was not something that Shen Pei could come up with alone, the masterminds behind it also included Ju Shou and Xun Chen. When Li Ru was making the plan to conceal the truth from the public, he had a vague feeling that something was wrong. It was obvious that Ju Shou and Xun Chen had deeper plans. Otherwise, Cao Mengde should be arranged to go west from Henei and try to enter Bingzhou via Hedong. Even if Li Jue and Guo Si do not allow passage, he can choose to go north from Henei and directly attack Tianjing Pass. Such a multi-pronged approach will certainly be able to better disperse the forces of Zang Ba and others, thereby breaking through the defense line of the Taihang Mountains. Asking Cao Cao to assist in the attack on Huguan was meaningless. He only provided some catapults. What was the point of such a small amount of military equipment? Why was there such a big fanfare? Although Li Ru did not have much information at hand, he had sensed something unusual from the few pieces of information he had obtained about Jizhou. The northwest of Jizhou is empty, with only more than 20,000 troops, and there is no strategic location to defend. However, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao have nearly 200,000 troops at leisure. What does this mean? After Li Ru presented his analysis one by one, Lu Bu's eyes widened. "Are you saying that Yuan Shao and Cao Cao intend to block Yandai, cut off Tian Chengshou's retreat, and destroy Tian Chengshou's main force heading south to Bingzhou in one fell swoop?" Lu Bu's tone was full of disbelief. Li Ru nodded. He understood why Lu Bu was surprised. Not only him, but probably many people could not imagine that Shen Pei's plan would be so bold. You know, Tian Ze's strength is stronger than their combined strength of four. Their initial idea was just to block Tian Ze's attack and defend Bingzhou. They never had the idea of really taking the initiative to attack. But Shen Pei took advantage of this inherent concept. No one would have thought that they would attack the main force led by Tian Ze, including the civil and military officials under Tian Ze, and this was actually the best opportunity. "The northwest of Bingzhou is now empty of troops. Even if Xu Huang leads his troops to rescue, they will only think that Yuan Shao and Cao Cao's goal is Tumen Pass, and they will certainly go west to rescue. Without any preparation, it will be easy for Yuan Shao and Cao Cao to seize the opportunity to defeat them." "At that time, with the northwest of Jizhou empty and defenseless, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao can take advantage of the opportunity to take the Lingqiu Road." "Now, Tian Ze's main force has been divided twice, and the number of troops at hand is only 100,000. Yuan and Cao can mobilize nearly 200,000 troops in total, plus our 20,000 wolf cavalry and tens of thousands of infantry that can be mobilized. This battle is worth fighting." "Now that Tian Ze has sent troops to Taiyuan, as long as we hold Yu County, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao's troops will arrive at Guangwu County as soon as possible and block the retreat, we can trap Tian Ze in the Xinding Basin." "At that time, we had the advantage of terrain and people, and Tian Ze would be unable to escape even if he had wings." Li Ru said with a long sigh. Even he couldn't help but marvel at such a deployment. Yuan Benchu was really extraordinary! He actually found an opportunity for him to fight Tian Ze! This kind of planning almost completely understood Tian Ze's thoughts and perfectly took advantage of Tian Ze's steady actions and his determination to gain Bingzhou. Li Ru pointed to the location between Taiyuan County and Yanmen County on the map and said in a deep voice: "The key to this battle lies here. Xinding Basin!" (End of this chapter)