In June 199, Yuan Shao selected 100,000 elite soldiers and 10,000 warhorses in an attempt to capture Xudu and unify the north. When the news of Yuan Shao's attack reached Xu Du, most of Cao Cao's generals thought that Yuan Shao's army was strong and invincible, but Cao Cao thought that Yuan Shao could be defeated, so Cao Cao decided to concentrate tens of thousands of elite troops to resist Yuan Shao's attack, and made sufficient preparations before the confrontation between the two armies. I have to say that at that time, Cao Cao's overall strength was inferior to Yuan Shao's, after all, Yuan Shao had just pacified Gongsun Zhan at that time, and there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the four directions, and because of this, he was able to select 100,000 elite soldiers to attack Cao Cao. What's more, the northern battlefield is suitable for cavalry combat, and Yuan Shao took out 10,000 cavalry in one breath, which shows the strength of its foundation.
On the other hand, Cao Cao's side, the number of people, Cao Cao can only select tens of thousands of troops to resist Yuan Shao, on the territory, when the two armies confronted, Liu Bei occupied Xia Pi, Tun Bing Xiao Pei, posed a great threat to Cao Cao's rear, in the course of the war, many counties under Cao Cao were unwilling to provide grain to Cao Cao, so that Cao Cao lacked soldiers and food, almost could not support, it can be seen that Yuan Shao in the frontal battlefield and Cao Cao is a great advantage. But what is strange is that even though Yuan Shao's advantage was so great, many of his advisers still prevented Yuan Shao from dueling with Cao Cao, such as Tian Feng and Frustrated Zhi, who repeatedly proposed to defeat Cao Cao by means of protracted warfare and harassment warfare. Since Cao Cao's overall strength was inferior to Yuan Shao's, why did Yuan Shao's advisers prevent Yuan Shao from dueling with Cao Cao?
In fact, the reason why these strategists advised Yuan Shao so much was mainly because of the different angles. Judging from the comparative analysis between Yuan Cao, Tian Feng and Frustrated Zhi and others insisted that Yuan Shao Xu's method of trying to make Yuan Shao Xu have a high probability of success, after all, Yuan Shao's territory was greater than Cao Cao's, and the population was also more than Cao Cao's, in contrast, the number of soldiers that Yuan Shao could afford should be double cao Cao's. In ancient China, population was the greatest advantage, if Yuan Shao could listen to Tian Feng's advice, develop in the north with peace of mind, and harass Cao Cao's rear from time to time, with Yuan Shao's strength and reputation at that time, he could gradually drag Cao Cao down.
And Cao Cao occupied the land of four wars, both to guard against the south, but also to guard against the north, there was not much effort to develop the economy and people's livelihood, on the contrary, Yuan Shao had basically pacified the north at that time, there was no worries, this and the other, Cao Cao will undoubtedly lose. The strategist must act later, and find the most successful solution from many ideas. It's just that Yuan Shao didn't think so, and the powerful forces gave Yuan Shao great confidence, so he didn't choose such a safe method.
The author believes that for Tian Feng and others, they may have chosen foolproof methods, but for Yuan Shao, these methods were too slow, and it was not necessarily impossible to defeat Cao Cao under the decisive battle, which led to the development of the Later Battle of Guandu.