Chapter 332: Reversal of Trends, Yuan Shao's Joy Not to mention the open and secret struggles that broke out in Yuan Shao's camp, but Cao Cao headed north towards the fire and disappeared into the dense forest. At that time, Cao Cao attacked the camp and it was already 4:30 am. In the midst of a great battle, it was already 5:00 am. As the sky gradually brightened, no trace of Cao Cao was found, and Ju Su could not help but sigh. If they can kill Cao Cao in this battle, then the next things will be easy for them. Without Cao Cao as the backbone, the morale of Cao's army would certainly be in chaos and would not be a threat. However, if Cao Cao was not captured and killed, the outcome of the battle would have been greatly reduced. Even if Cao Cao's generals were captured and killed, it would not change Cao Cao's current situation of holding on. With this idea in mind, he ordered his soldiers to put out the fire and continue searching for Cao Cao's whereabouts. I hope Cao Cao can be burned to death in this dense forest by this fire.

However, soon after he gave the order, Chunyu Qiong came to report the death of Lü Weihuang, Zhao Rui and others. Ju Su heard that his army of more than 20,000 surrounded and killed Cao Cao's 5,000 men and lost a general, and he couldn't help but sigh: "Cao Cao has elite soldiers and horses under his command. The death of the two generals is my fault!" But when Chunyu Qiong heard this, he quickly shook his head and said: "Sir, please don't do this. Although the two generals are dead, it has nothing to do with you!" "If you were not here, we would have died without a burial place!" In fact, after this battle, Chunyu Qiong secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If Ju Shou hadn't wet the food and grass with water in advance, he would have died without knowing how! If the food and grass were burned, what would happen even if Cao Cao was defeated? So now he only felt grateful to Ju Su and directly expressed his willingness to explain to Yuan Shao. However, Ju Shou was obviously not in the mood and was only concerned with searching for Cao Cao's body. At dawn, a soldier came to report excitedly: "Sir, I'm afraid our army has found Cao Cao's body!" Upon hearing this, Ju Su's eyes lit up and he hurried towards the corpse found by the soldiers. When they arrived at the corpse, they saw that the person had been burned to charcoal and was curled up in one place. His face couldn't be seen clearly from the surface, but he was short and looked like a teenager. Chunyu Qiong and Cao Cao were old friends, and when he saw this man, he was overjoyed and said: "It must be Cao Mengde. He is over six feet tall, quite short." "Now that I have been burned by fire, I have become like this!" When Ju Su heard this, he was also happy, but then he looked at the soldiers and asked: "Where was this person found, and were there other charred bodies beside him?"

The soldier quickly replied that there were several more bodies besides this one. However, only this corpse still had some unmelted iron armor on it. Ju Su had the charred corpses brought in one by one for inspection, then he stroked his beard and sighed: "What a pity! Although they look alike, this person is not Cao Mengde." When Chunyu Qiong heard this, he was immediately confused and asked Ju Shou: "This man looks similar to Cao Cao. Why do you think so?" When Ju Su saw this, he pointed at the charred corpses on the ground and sighed: "Because I heard that Cao Cao has a general named Xu Chu, who is eight feet tall and very strong!" "Cao Cao regards him as his confidant, and always has him as a guard wherever he goes!" "If this man is Cao Cao, there must be Xu Chu's corpse beside him." "But there is not a single strong man among these charred corpses, and Xu Chu is obviously not among them." "If Xu Chu is still alive, how could Cao Cao have come to this point?" Chun Yuqiong had also heard of Xu Chu's name. Seeing that the body was not Cao Cao, he frowned and said: "So, even though we had 20,000 troops besieging Cao Cao, we were unable to kill him?" "Since Cao Cao is not dead, what should we do now?" "How about sending troops to search everywhere and continue to capture this person?" "There's no need to go to so much trouble. Cao Cao's men are all cavalry. It's too late to chase them now!" Seeing that he was about to pursue, Ju Shou shook his head and pointed to the north, saying: "Cao Cao will most likely retreat to the north, and the land of Dongjun will all belong to our army." “We only need to post the notice and search everywhere. If we can find the Cao thief, we will capture him.” "If Cao Cao had been lucky enough to escape, this man would have deserved to be spared." "Now we should focus on food and fodder, and take this man's body with us, and our army will be victorious!" He knew very well that Cao Cao had most likely taken advantage of the night to escape from him. He was surrounded on the outside, and if Cao Cao advanced in the east, west or south, he would have no chance of escaping. Therefore, Cao Cao’s only way to survive was to flee to the north! And now, the entire territory of Dongjun has been captured by them, and Cao Cao cannot return to the camp for a while! In any case, this is a great opportunity for them! As long as the food and grass are delivered, and the news of Cao Cao's death is spread falsely, Cao's army will retreat across the board! In this way, as long as they are fast enough, they can at least capture Yanzhou. This is obviously much better than the previously determined failure outcome.

With this idea in mind, he ordered his troops to march towards Yuan Shao's camp. At this time, west of Fengqiu, on the bank of Honggou, Xu Huang was leading his troops to provide support. He saw everything that happened in the big fire in the north last night! Therefore, from his perspective, Cao Cao had most likely succeeded, and his mission should be to stop the enemy. However, he did not expect that just at dawn, he saw a defeated army coming from the east. The general leading the army was none other than Ma Chao. As for Cao Cao, there was no sight of him. Xu Huang's heart skipped a beat when he saw this, and he hurried forward to ask: "Where is the lord? Why did Brother Mengqi lead the army here alone?" As soon as he asked the question, he saw Ma Chao's eyes turn red and he said with a sad face: "We went to Fengqiu to burn the enemy's food and grass, but unexpectedly it turned out to be a plan of the enemy." "As soon as we entered the camp, the enemy rushed out from all directions and surrounded us in the camp." "The enemy was so numerous that our troops were scattered and we were defeated!" "I was ordered to stop the enemy, but I asked Le Wenqian and others to escort you to break through." "Unexpectedly, they persuaded you to flee into the forest. The enemy took advantage of the situation and set fire to the forest. We were unable to stop them and had to retreat!" "If you hadn't come here yet, you would have probably met with an accident!" As he said this, he squeezed out a few tears and looked very sad. In fact, there was some suspicion that he was deserting the battlefield this time. After all, he also saw Cao Cao entering the forest, and theoretically he was going to rescue him. But when he saw that the enemy troops were too numerous and knew that Cao Cao was in great danger, he retreated decisively. Naturally, this statement could not convince everyone, so he directly pushed it to Le Jin. Ma Chao is an extremely selfish person. If Cao Cao is in his favor, he will naturally be willing to fight and kill. But if he was asked to sacrifice his life for Cao Cao, he would not be willing to do so! To put it bluntly, he followed Cao Cao only for a better future. As for how much loyalty he has to Lao Cao, Lao Cao is not his biological father! As one of his father's avengers, Jin Ma naturally knows how to assess the situation. His words were undoubtedly a heavy hammer to Xu Huang's heart. Even though Xu Huang had only served Cao Cao for three or four years, his loyalty was extremely high. When he heard that Cao Cao was in danger, his eyes turned red and he quickly grabbed Ma Chao and said: "Mengqi, do you know where the lord has fled to? I will go with Mengqi to rescue him!" Ma Chao listened and thought to himself, with so many enemy troops, why would they send their few soldiers to die? He was reluctant to follow them and was about to speak when he saw a rider coming from a distance to report: "General, something bad has happened. We have learned that a troop of soldiers is coming from the south!" This group of troops was none other than Jiang Qi's troops, who were sent by Yuan Shao to provide food support. When Ma Chao heard the news, he felt as if he had been pardoned, and hurriedly said to Xu Huang: "We are now in enemy territory, with no way out in front and pursuers behind us."

"Even if we unite our forces, we only have 4,000 soldiers and horses. Let alone going to rescue them, if we don't defeat this army, we will be defeated now!" "I think that the lord has Xu Zhongkang's protection, so nothing serious should happen!" "We might as well defeat this army first, return to the camp, and wait to see if there is any news from the lord, and then make plans!" After hearing this, Xu Huang realized that it was unrealistic to fight back now, so he had to nod in agreement. So the two of them headed northward in the direction where Jiang Qi was heading. On the way, they ran into Jiang Qi's troops, so Ma Chao ordered them to lie that the soldiers of the grain corps had fled. When Jiang Qi heard that the grain train was lost, he was shocked and hurriedly ordered his men to move forward. Unexpectedly, as soon as his men moved, Ma Chao suddenly turned against them and attacked Jiang Qi. Jiang Qi was surprised and immediately ordered his soldiers to stop Ma Chao. However, Xu Huang had already been lying in ambush in the forest, and suddenly attacked with his troops. Jiang Qi was attacked from both sides, his troops were in chaos, and he was stabbed to death by Ma Chao's spear. After killing Jiang Qi, the two men dispersed Jiang Qi's troops and headed towards Guandu again. However, at this time, Guandu was also attacked by Yuan Shao's troops. After receiving the order, Zhang He and Gao Lan led tens of thousands of troops south and launched a fierce attack on Cao Cao's camp. However, at this time, Cao Cao's camp was guarded by Jia Xu, Xun You and others, so it was naturally difficult to capture it. Before the two men reached the outside of the camp, they were ambushed by Cao Chun and Cao Hong. After losing a thousand men, morale had already hit rock bottom. As for the Cao army outside the camp, they continued to attack fiercely. However, they saw rocks flying everywhere in the village and arrows raining down, making it impossible to capture it. The attack lasted until the morning, and another two to three thousand soldiers were lost. Seeing that Cao's camp was so heavily guarded, the two men had no choice but to retreat and sent someone to inform Yuan Shao that their attack on the camp would fail. Seeing that the fire in the east had gone out and that they could not capture Cao Cao's camp, Guo Tu hurriedly said to Yuan Shao: "My lord, Zhang He, Gao Lan and others will surely be defeated this time, so we must withdraw quickly!" When Yuan Shao heard this, he asked Guo Tu the reason. Guo Tu hurriedly said: "They have always been hostile to me. Now they are sent to attack the camp, but they are deliberately unwilling to use their strength, resulting in casualties of soldiers." "Now that we have accepted the punishment, we hope that you will withdraw your troops quickly and not cause any casualties." Guo Tu is no ordinary villain. He is of a high level. He knows that it is better to pass on the blame first than to be punished passively. In this way, even if Yuan Shao wanted to punish people, he would punish Zhang He, Gao Lan and others first. Just as he thought, Yuan Shao became furious when he heard this and hurriedly ordered Zhang He and Gao Lan to continue the attack. Guo Tu thought he had a good plan and was about to leave when he saw Feng Ji approaching with a serious face and said: "My lord, my reinforcements have been defeated by Cao's army, and General Jiang Qi has been brutally killed!" Yuan Shao was shocked when he heard this and asked the reason. Feng Ji looked at Guo Tu coldly and said: "Cao Cao knew that our army would definitely send reinforcements, so he sent an army to ambush on the road!"

"Because General Jiang Qi had few troops, it was difficult to resist the enemy's attack, so he was defeated!" "If we had sent two generals to reinforce, they would not have come this far!" Guo Tu was naturally displeased when he saw this, and hurriedly asked Feng Ji whether he had colluded with Zhang He and others to harm him. Feng Ji was not a sincere gentleman. Hearing this, he retorted, and the two of them started arguing. When Yuan Shao heard this, he felt dizzy and was extremely annoyed by these two counselors. He is now worried about his own food and supplies, and also worried about being defeated by Cao Cao! After thinking about it, he suddenly felt depressed and a mouthful of blood spurted out with a "pu" sound. When the two saw this, they were both shocked and hurried forward to support Yuan Shao. But at this moment, a soldier walked into the tent happily, shouting: "My lord, good news! Our Fengqiu grain team has won a great victory!" "General Chunyu Qiong sent a military report, saying that he followed Mr. Ju Su's plan and defeated Cao's army!" "This battle defeated several thousand cavalrymen of Cao's army, and Cao Cao fled north in defeat and disappeared!" He was a very eloquent person. He went straight into the tent to report, and when he saw Yuan Shao's miserable condition, his voice became lower and lower. But when Yuan Shao heard this, he didn't know where he got the spirit from, and he forced himself to stand up and said: "What did you just say? So, does that mean our army's food and grass are safe?" When the soldiers saw this, they nodded quickly, and Yuan Shao was immediately delighted. But when Guo Tu heard this, his face darkened. If the food and grass were not protected, Zhang He and Gao Lan would definitely take the blame! Now that the food and grass are saved, how can Feng Ji let him go? Thinking of this, he hurriedly looked in the direction of Feng Ji. But as soon as he raised his eyes, he saw Feng Ji was also looking at him, with a smile full of pride! It seems like everything is under his control! (End of this chapter)