【Battle of Hanzhong】Cao Cao was shocked, how was Xiahou Yuan killed by Huang Zhong?

From April 218 AD, Liu Bei was dragged by Xiahou Yuan outside Yangping Pass for more than half a year, and in desperation, Liu Bei could only send many small troops to explore the mountains in southern Hanzhong to see if he could go around Hanzhong from the south, and finally found an excellent location: Dingjun Mountain, where the mountains are steep, easy to defend and difficult to attack, with rich water sources, and more importantly, Xiahou Yuan did not arrange defenders here, after some careful planning, in the first month of 219 AD, Liu Bei left Gao Xiang to continue at Yangping Pass. He personally led the main force to cross the Han River, built a boardwalk, dug a mountain road, experienced many hardships and dangers, crossed the uninhabited Micang Mountain Road, and set up a camp on dingjun mountain.

In fact, Liu Bei's move was very risky, once Gao Xiang outside Yangping Pass was defeated by Xiahou Yuan, then the road in and out of Dingjun Mountain would be cut off, Liu Bei would become a lone army, and would be suffocated in Dingjun Mountain, and the grain and grass materials needed by the army would also be transferred from Chengdu and through Gao Xiang's camp to Dingjun Mountain, the mountain road was rugged and winding for more than a thousand miles, the cost of transportation was too big to be great, and the pressure on Zhuge Liang and others in the rear was also too heavy to imagine, if the grain road was cut off, Liu Beijun would collapse without a fight.

At this time, Xiahou Yuan's best choice should be to lead the main force out of the pass, together with Zhang He, to attack Gao Xiang's camp and cut off Liu Bei's grain route, but after he learned that Liu Bei's army had circled into Hanzhong, he was obviously a little too impatient, he left Xu Huang to continue to guard Yangping Pass, and he himself rushed to the bottom of the mountain with Zhang He to set up a camp, intending to prevent the Shu army from continuing to advance north, at that time Xiahou Yuan personally led the main town to the south, while Zhang He led the headquarters soldiers and horses, stationed in the east, and The Fa Zheng saw that Zhang He had few troops. So he asked Liu Bei to lead his troops to attack Zhang He, Fa Zheng deliberately gave up the near and far, let Xiahou Yuan ignore it, one of them went to beat Zhang He, Zhang He was in a critical situation, and quickly asked Xiahou Yuan for help, Xiahou Yuan immediately divided his troops in half, rescued Zhang He, Fa Zheng saw that Xiahou Yuan had already divided his troops, so he let the general Huang Zhong ambush him in advance in the middle of the mountainside, and let Liu Bei burn the antlers of the Southern Wai, Xiahou Yuan's personality was just impatient, and he hurriedly led four hundred people to repair the antlers, and when Fa Zheng saw it, he ordered Huang Zhong to attack, and Huang Zhong's troops took advantage of the condescending terrain. Between the lightning and the flint, they had already rushed to the front of the Cao army, and the general Xiahou Yuan himself, together with his own four hundred guards, was caught off guard and was all beheaded, and the Cao army was leaderless and suffered a great defeat.

Xiahou Yuan, the character Miaocai, was Xiahou Huan's brother of the same clan, his wife was Cao Cao's cousin Ding Shi, when he was a teenager, he had a very deep affection for Cao Cao, Cao Cao heard the news of Xiahou Yuan's beheading, very sad, personally mentioned 300,000 troops, came to Hanzhong to fight Liu Bei, officially opened the prelude to the Battle of Hanzhong.