We have always misunderstood the outcome of the Battle of Guandu.
In fact, for Cao Cao, the victory in the Battle of Guandu only meant that he had defended the site without fear of being swallowed by Yuan Shao; for the loser, Yuan Shao, he had merely retreated to Hebei and temporarily lost Cao Cao’s destruction. Only chance.
But this result is far from Cao Cao's laying the foundation for a unified north. How far is
specifically? It was about two years, Yuan Shao's last two years.
01 Yuan Shao and Cao Cao after the Battle of Guandu
In October 200, Yuan Shao General Zhang Yun and the former army surrendered to Cao Cao, and Wuchao, the land of food in the rear, was also destroyed by Cao Cao. , The bag is completely destroyed.
At this time, Yuan Shao's Guandu camp still has about 80,000 to 100,000 people, but the double strike has caused Yuan Shao to lose his fighting spirit. In a panic, Yuan Shao even unintentionally organized the troops to retreat, and quietly and his eldest son Yuan Tan led a pro-army 800 riders back to Yecheng base camp overnight.
Since then, the smoke of the famous battle of Guandu in history has dissipated, and the victory of Cao Cao and the complete defeat of Yuan Shao can no longer be changed. So, what did both sides gain and lose in this battle?
Let me talk about the party that failed first. After Yuan Shao fled to the north, he not only threw the tens of thousands of troops that remained on the front line of Guandu to Cao Cao, but even his senior staff, such as Jushou and others, were captured by Cao Cao before they had time to retreat. It can be seen that Yuan Shao's flight to the north was very hasty. He lost all the frontline troops and a large amount of heavy supplies and books and treasures. Although
failed miserably, Yuan Shao was not completely defeated. The Battle of Guandu was initiated by Yuan Shao, and most of the battles took place on the territory of Cao Cao, south of the Yellow River. Even if the front line was defeated, Yuan Shao's four northern states, especially the base camp Jizhou, were not under Cao Cao's army.
That is to say, in the battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao mainly lost the field army and some materials. His own territory was not affected much, and his strength was still higher than that of Cao Cao.
For the victorious party, Cao Cao did not pursue the victory and fight Hebei, but stayed in place to stabilize the result.
first deals with the prisoners. Yuan Shao’s senior staff, Jushou, was captured and surrendered to Cao Cao. However, he was soon killed by Cao Cao on the grounds that he "sought to return the Yuan family." There were about 70,000 Yuan Jun who surrendered. Cao Cao handled them in the same way. Killed, and the reason is the same, "the rest of the crowd falsely descended."
Not to mention whether Jushou and Jiangjun are really "pseudo-descendants." Cao Cao killing them all only shows that Cao Cao himself is not strong enough, and Yuan Shao's influence still exists, so Cao Cao does not have the ability to swallow and digest Yuan Shao's descendants. Ability. Otherwise, Cao Cao could completely place the descending army for his own use, just like he did with the Qingzhou army.
At the same time, Cao Cao also processed a group of secret letters written to Yuan Shao by his generals. This time, Cao Cao didn't kill anyone, but burned the letter, and said, I still can't protect myself, how can I blame you (Dang Shao is strong, I can't protect myself, and everyone else)?
Cao Cao's tolerant behavior won the allegiance of the generals, but is Cao Cao's motivation to do so only because of tolerance?
may not be necessary. In that era when loyalty was the most important thing, it would be reasonable if Cao Cao killed them all. So why didn't Cao Cao do this?
Because his own strength is not strong enough, Yuan Shao still has the possibility of counterattack, Cao Cao still can only unite all the forces that can be united against Yuan Shao. And these generals under his command, now that the battle has been won, they can no longer vote for Yuan Shao, so there is no need to kill them.
In the battle of Guandu, what Cao Cao got was urgently needed strategic materials, his own territory and the stability of the people. As for crushing Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's strength is far from it, let alone defeating the Yuan clan and unifying Hebei.
Of course, the victory or defeat of a battleIt's not just the gains and losses of the army's supplies on the bright side. After the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao had the potential to surpass Yuan Shao. But just this momentum has caused Yuan Shao a lot of trouble.
02 Yuan Shao’s last two years
From the perspective of God, we can find that the battle of Guandu is less than two years away from Yuan Shao’s death.
In the last two years of Yuan Shao, many things happened on the land of the Eastern Han Dynasty: Liu Bei defeated Runan again and took refuge in Liu Biao of Jingzhou; Sun Quan took over Jiangdong and put down several internal rebellions; Liu Zhang also put down the rebellion of Zhao Wei , Stabilized Yizhou, but became enemies with Zhang Lu.
However, the outside world is complicated, and for the two biggest forces, Yuan Cao, it seems that they have disappeared in the past two years. A few words in "Three Kingdoms" have been taken away.
Indeed, in the last two years of Yuan Shao, the sites of Yuan and Cao have not changed much, and the military boundary between Yuan and Shao still maintains the previous confrontation along the Yellow River.
The only difference is that Cao Cao used to have small troubles, but now Yuan Shao seems to have more small troubles.
These little troubles come from the restless counties under Yuan Shao. When they saw Yuan Shao's defeat, many counties and counties had the idea of surrendering Cao Cao, some had already acted, and some were ready to move (in Jizhou counties, many surrendered from the city).
Yuan Shao hadn't completely resolved the rebellion, Cao Cao came again. In June 201 AD, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Jun again in Cangting, still on the bank of the Yellow River.
It is weird that although Cao Cao broke Yuan Jun, he still had difficulty crossing the Yellow River. Soon after this, Cao Cao returned Xuchang.
But the strange thing is that after the Battle of Cangting, Yuan Shao was able to "take advantage of defeat" and gather the soldiers, put down the rebellion in the counties and counties of Jizhou, and completely solved the minor problems in the rear.
It turned out that earlier, Yuan Shao sent Liu Bei to sneak into the rear of Cao Cao. Now Liu Bei is harassing the rear in Runan, which annoys Cao Cao. Soon after Cao Cao returned to Xuchang, Liu Bei went south to Runan. Liu Bei was defeated and went south to Liu Biao in Jingzhou.
However, after Cao Cao's victory, he had to withdraw his defense, unable to eat the Jizhou county on the other side of the Yellow River and voluntarily surrendered. However, Yuan Shao was able to put down the rebellion and stabilize the site again after losing both.
This shows that Yuan Shao's recovery ability is very strong, while Cao Cao's site is still devastated. Perhaps the Battle of Guandu narrowed the gap between Yuan and Cao's strengths, but Yuan Qiang and Cao's weaker strengths were not reversed, and Cao Cao still had difficulty crossing the Yellow River.
03 Yuan Shao’s death
Despite the victory in the Guandu battle, Cao Cao still had difficulty in suppressing Yuan Shao and crossing the Yellow River northward; Yuan Shao is gradually recovering his vitality, and in time, a comeback is expected. of.
It can be said that even in Yuan Shao's last days, Cao Cao's life was still difficult. But for Cao Cao, it was better than before the Battle of Guandu, at least it could be supported, and occasionally he could take a look at Yuan Shao's weakness.
Why do we say that persistence is a valuable quality? Because sometimes you find it difficult to persevere, and in fact the enemy is on the verge of collapse and you don’t know when it will fall.
Cao Cao persisted, but Yuan Shao's body couldn't support it anymore. In May 202, Yuan Shao became vomiting blood and died (onset hematemesis, Xia Wuyue died).
Yuan Shao’s death was largely due to the successive defeats of Guandu and Cangting. Yuan Shao’s heart could not bear the consequences of defeat. At the same time, although there is no clear record, Yuan Shao should be older than Cao Cao.
Although in terms of strength, Yuan Shao still has the possibility of defeating Cao Cao, and Cao Cao can only face Yuan Shao cautiously. As time goes by, the balance of victory will lean more and more towards Yuan Shao, but Yuan Shao only sees failure, not hope for the future, and eventually he is depressed and died.
No matter what, for Cao Cao, this is a huge good news. WaitCao Cao, who was waiting, finally saw the hope of victory.
Not only that, Yuan Shao also prepared a generous gift for Cao Cao in the last two years.
Yuan Shao's base camp is in Jizhou, and he loved his youngest son Yuan Shang in his later years and wanted Yuan Shang to take the throne. But the eldest son Yuan Tan holds Qingzhou, and the second son Yuan Xi has Youzhou, and both have considerable strength.
And Yuan Shao did not handle this relationship well. Therefore, after Yuan Shao's death, Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan broke out in civil war almost immediately.
In fact, the Yuan brothers have a criminal record in their fight. Ten years ago, the two brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were fighting like a raging fire. I don't know whether it was due to genes or the second generation who had a great family career. They were often short-sighted. Yuan Tan, who couldn't beat his younger brother, turned to Cao Cao for help.
Even though Yuan Shao is dead, even though Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan are not in harmony, Cao Cao's first march into Hebei was still blocked by the walls of Jiancheng Yecheng. This further shows that even after the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao's strength is still inferior to Yuan Shao.
Of course, in the end, Cao Cao finally conquered Hebei because of the Yuan brothers’ infighting and completely wiped out the Yuan’s power, but that was already in 207 AD, and Yuan Shaozhi It's been 5 years since he died.
文/子彧
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-