Not in others, but in himself.
As the old saying goes, winning or losing is a common thing for soldiers. There is no general in the world who only wins the battle and does not lose the battle, the battlefield changes rapidly, anything can happen, once the war occurs, it is more than planned in advance, which is often the case. Therefore, for a good general, it is not to be able to strictly implement the prior strategic plan, but to be able to deal with the opportunity when encountering sudden unexpected situations and strive for a relatively good result.
In the event of a sudden unexpected situation, the best result that can be achieved is, of course, the strategic objectives in advance are still achieved. Secondly, it is to be able to retreat from the whole division, smoothly leave the battlefield, preserve strength, and wait for the opportunity to come again. Waiting for it, it is a collapse of thousands of miles, a defeat, the overthrow of the army to kill the general, the death of the army, the fragment of armor does not exist.
During Guan Yu's Northern Expedition, did he know that Eastern Wu could not be relied upon, and it was possible to sneak attack behind his back? Totally know. Because it's happened before. In the nineteenth year of Jian'an, Liu Bei took Yizhou as he wished, and Sun Quan sent people to return Jingzhou, but Liu Bei did not comment. Enraged, Sun Quan sent Lü Meng to sneak up on the three counties of Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang. Liu Bei was furious when he heard the news, led an army of 50,000 out of Sichuan, and opened a fight with Sun Quan, who confessed and asked for peace, and divided Jingzhou into two parts, using Xiangshui as the boundary.
With this lesson from the past, Guan Yu of course knew that Sun Quan had been coveting Jingzhou for a long time, and as long as he led his army in the Northern Expedition, once the war was glued, it was entirely possible for Sun Quan to suddenly sneak behind his back and seize Jingzhou. Therefore, Guan Yu actually made arrangements and arrangements in advance. According to his prior plan, it was obvious that he wanted to quickly capture Xiangyang, and if Jingzhou was attacked by Sun Quan, he would quickly lead his army back to reinforcements.
But what Guan Yu did not expect was that the battle to besiege Xiangyang was not smooth, and Cao Cao had no intention of abandoning Xiangyang, so he constantly sent reinforcements to rescue Xiangyang. Although Guan Yusheng was captured, captured Pound, and flooded the Seventh Army, he still did not take Xiangyang. At this time, Guan Yujun was obviously very tired and had not been rested.
Sure enough, seeing that Guan Yu's war in Xiangyang was in a stalemate, it was difficult to get out for a while, and Sun Quan ordered Lü Meng to sneak into Jingzhou. In addition, Guan Yu arranged for Mi Fang and Fu Shiren, who remained in the rear, to be afraid that Guan Yu would not be good for him after his return and surrendered to Eastern Wu, so Lü Meng succeeded in one fell swoop and seized Jingzhou.
After the rear of Guan Yu's army was secretly attacked, the difficulties faced were obviously very serious. On the one hand, losing the rear means that they are caught in the two-sided attack of the Wu army and the Wei army, on the other hand, the families of Guan Yu's generals are in Jingzhou, and Jingzhou is attacked, and the morale of the entire army will decline rapidly.
At this time, Guan Yu actually had only two choices, either to go to the northwest to join Liu Feng and Meng Da, waiting for Liu Bei to send troops from Hanzhong or Chengdu to meet. Or just go straight back to Chengdu. But Guan Yu's performance at this time was some hesitation. At first, it was hoped that Liu Feng and Meng Da would be able to send troops to rescue them, but after being rejected, they turned to Maicheng, intending to directly return to Sichuan.
For any army, it is not particularly difficult to fight a downwind battle, but a difficult battle against the wind. That is to say, when the war is going relatively smoothly, morale is relatively high, and the test of the troops is not the most serious at this time. What tests the combat effectiveness, work style, discipline and cohesion of a unit is whether it can maintain combat effectiveness and cohesion when retreating after losing a battle. At the very least, it is not possible to scatter at once, that is, to collapse.
When Guan Yu could not advance under Xiangyang City, and when he could not retreat, he had to retreat, which was a real test of Guan Yu's ability to unify and manage the army in peacetime. Unfortunately, his answer did not pass.
As soon as they heard that the rear of Jingzhou had been attacked, the morale of the whole army was low. As soon as they heard that they were going to prepare to retreat to Sichuan, the entire army collapsed. By the time he was captured, there were only forty or fifty men around him. In other words, the more than 30,000 people he led during the Northern Expedition were basically all finished.
As a commander-in-chief of the front army on the monopoly side for many years, the result is very sad. Because this meant that the previous level of governance was not up to standard, and even in more than 30,000 people, there was not even a thousand absolutely loyal and reliable guards. It is very simple, as long as he has a thousand guards like Cao Cao's tiger and leopard riding, and follows him with a dead heart, there will be no situation where only forty or fifty old, weak, sick and disabled people are around him when he is captured.
In fact, large-scale escapes and routs occurred during the retreat after a defeated battle, which was a common situation in the old army, the most typical of which was the peasant rebel army. The war goes well, the numbers will snowball and swell so fast that if a battle is lost, it will scatter. This was also often the case in the armies of the late Ming Dynasty. The same was true of the Kuomintang troops, even after the Nanchang uprising. Starting from Nanchang, he continued to flee all the way, and in the end, only a thousand people were left to follow Zhu Dechen Yi to Jinggangshan.
How did this problem come to be solved? It was after the reorganization of the Three Bays that the branches were built on the company, and the cohesion of the troops was greatly enhanced, and it became an army that could not be dragged down, defeated, and scattered. On the one hand, when the Long March departed from Jiangxi, more than 80,000 people turned to battle, climbed snowy mountains, crossed meadows, and when they reached northern Shaanxi, there were still 7,000 or 8,000 troops. This cannot but be said to be a miracle.
Therefore, in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Song Ren went to the shanxi front and followed Zhu De to see Yan Xishan. Yan Xishan asked Song Renqian how to make his army like the communist army, which could not be dragged down, defeated, and scattered? Song Renqian replied that it was very simple to build a party branch for each company.