Chapter 303: Taking Luoyang In Chang'an, the brothers Li Jue and Guo Si were happily watching the drama of the princes outside the Great Wall, without realizing its significance at all. Although some knowledgeable people under their command noticed that something was wrong, Li Jue and Guo Si sneered at it and turned a deaf ear to it. The princes outside the Great Wall are fighting among themselves. What does it have to do with them? Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and Liu Bei were three brothers. One was the former leader of the anti-Dong alliance, one was the initiator, and one was a relative of the Han royal family. If you tell them that these three are allies, how can Li Jue and Guo Si believe it with their muscular brains? Isn't this just plain funny? Do you really think that these Xiliang generals are stupid? They are not stupid to this extent. Therefore, they did not understand at all that this battle was intended to decide their life or death. Zhang Liao led his troops around Yanzhou and plundered a small number of people. Then he learned that Cao Cao was attacking Jizhou in the north, so he had to turn around and withdraw. After all, how can beautiful jade be burned together with mud and tiles? Although the harvest was not much, it was all unexpected surprise, so Zhang Liao did not care about it. For the sake of the overall situation, he immediately went north to assist in the defense.
Zhang He took the opportunity to enter Luoyang with a large amount of money and food, and began to strengthen the city defenses and prepare for business. After forcing Zhang Liao to go north, Cao Cao immediately gathered his troops and returned to Yanzhou without hesitation, not daring to move again. This time, Zhang Liao's sudden counterattack really hit his vital point and taught him a profound lesson. Today, Cao Cao no longer dares to fight at the risk of his life. Even if he sends troops, he must retain enough troops to garrison. But this creates a new problem. His military strength is limited! With an army of about 300,000, the defending force must be at least 100,000. Add to that the auxiliary defense and garrison, and it would be good if 150,000 soldiers can be used for the war. Even with this amount of troops, even if those of Yuan Shao and Liu Bei were added, their number would probably be equivalent to the four legions under Tian Ze. And when Tian Chengshou sends out troops now, he will have at least three legions as a base. How could they possibly win in this situation? At this time, Yuan, Cao and Liu all began to ponder this question, and they all turned their eyes to Sun Ce and Liu Yan. Only by cooperation can we stop Tian Chengshou's attack. Especially the area of Yizhou where Liu Yan was located was of vital importance. Neither the right time nor the right people are on their side, so they can only rely on the advantageous terrain to stop Tian Ze and find an opportunity to win. Needless to say, the Central Plains has basically no strategic locations to defend and can be seen at a glance. Although there are many mountains in Jingzhou and Jiangdong, those undeveloped areas are not suitable for their survival. Relying on the natural barrier of the Yangtze River for defense, they are afraid that they will not be able to withstand the large number of navy under Tian Ze. Only Yizhou, which is located in the mountains, has the possibility of relying on its geographical advantages to resist the fields and marshes. As for Sili and Liangzhou, Cao Cao and others have now given up struggling. The brothers in Sili are all very smart and cannot be led at all. Gongsun Zan of Xiliang is Tian Ze's best friend, and if he forms an alliance with him, he might get himself involved.
Therefore, they no longer had any other ideas at this time, and were determined to operate and develop, preparing to thoroughly improve the people's livelihood under their rule. Zhang Liao's sneak attack gave them a lot of warnings. In order to stop Tian Ze's attack, in addition to strengthening the training of soldiers and the manufacture of weapons, we must also manage internal affairs well. Otherwise, if this happened again, as long as Tian Ze sent troops to their hinterland, they would have no choice but to withdraw their troops to rescue. The public support under their rule is too weak, and this is not a solution. If they manage it well, although it is certainly still not as good as under Tian Ze's rule, the people's lives will at least be much better, and they will not be tied up before they even open their mouths when Tian Ze's army arrives, and gloriously become "forced" prisoners to be taken away. It is hard to leave their homeland, and if their lives are better, they will not easily go north. This painful lesson also made Cao Cao and others completely determined to reform. We have to change. If we don’t change, it will be a dead end. The powerful families also realized the problem and restrained themselves a little, but they were still unwilling to give up the large population and land in their hands. There is no way, they won’t feel pain as long as the knife doesn’t cut themselves. They all understood the truth that Cao Cao and others understood, but you can never wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep. After driving Cao's army away from the Jizhou border, Zhang Liao's army turned around and entered the vicinity of Luoyang and began to attack the eight passes of Luoyang. Tian Ze is well aware that if he cannot control these eight checkpoints, he will not be able to operate Luoyang. Cao Cao and Liu Bei also understood this, but they were powerless to resist. Cao Cao had not yet cleaned up his own house, and with Zang Ba's army at his side, he could replicate Zhang Liao's operation at any time, and Xuanmen Pass would easily change hands. Although Liu Bei was determined to defend Guangcheng Pass to the death. But he and Zhang Liao's army could not afford to waste time. This place is not close to Liu Bei's base camp in Nanyang, and there are many mountains in between, making it inconvenient to transport food and fodder. We must hold on to this place unless we reach an agreement with Cao Cao and transfer troops from Yingchuan. However, Cao Cao, who was in a difficult situation himself, had no mood to pay attention to this. Besides, the loss or not of Guangcheng Pass was of no importance to Cao Cao and others. In fact, to some extent, losing it would be more beneficial to them. After all, as long as Tian Ze starts to manage the areas around Luoyang, there will be more places that can constrain him. Otherwise, the area around Luoyang would become a completely deserted strategic area, which would not only be unfavorable for their combat, but Tian Ze could also abandon it at any time. The difficulty of retreating to Hangu Pass is much easier than that of defending the eight passes in Luoyang. Dong Zhuo burned Luoyang and retreated to Chang'an partly out of this consideration. When Zhang Liao's army encountered Liu Bei's stubborn defense, they decisively used a large number of siege weapons. They had not used it before because they wanted to besiege and capture Luoyang, and they were also worried about being ambushed by Cao and Liu's armies. Now that the rear was completely secure, Zhang Liao had nothing to worry about. The flying stones and crossbow arrows made Huang Zhong, who was defending the city, suffer terribly.
Although he was good at archery, the opponent was using a crossbow, so he couldn't defeat him no matter how good he was. After only half a month of garrisoning, Liu Bei realized the power of Zhang Liao's army and understood that Guangcheng Pass could not be defended. The worst thing was that at this time, civil unrest began to break out around Xiangyang. Some of the noble families in Jingzhou were determined to resist Liu Bei's reforms and were even willing to start a war. Because the war was too far away from them, they didn't care what kind of desperate situation Liu Bei would face if he continued like this, nor did they care who the world would belong to. Most of these powerful families in the south are short-sighted. They only care about their own piece of land, and their resistance sentiment is much stronger than that of the powerful families in the Central Plains. After weighing the pros and cons, Liu Bei had to give up Guangcheng Pass and return to Xiangyang to prepare to quell the civil unrest first. At this point, the Eight Passes of Luoyang completely fell into Tian Ze's hands. Tian Ze was finally able to free up his hands and feet to deal with Li Jue, Guo Si and others in Guanzhong. (End of this chapter)