In July of the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208 AD), Cao Cao marched south and attacked Liu Biao, who had divided Jingzhou. Liu Biao was fortunate that he died of illness at this time, and his son Liu Chun took the throne. Persuaded by the pro-Cao bureaucracy, Liu Chun surrendered to Cao Cao.
However, Cao Cao's southward march this time was not just to get Jingzhou, his ultimate goal was to eliminate the stronger Jiangdong Sun Quan, and even Cao Cao wrote a threatening letter to Sun Quan.
At this time, Cao Cao's heavyweight strategist Jia Xu opposed the use of troops against Sun Quan, and he put forward a suggestion that he could be humiliated without fighting: "If you take advantage of the old Chu's forgiveness, feed the officials, soothe the people, and make the land happy, then you can not work hard and serve the people in Jiangdong." ”
What does that mean? That is to say: If we take advantage of the richness of Jingzhou, appease the army and people of Jingzhou, and concentrate on developing Jingzhou, in a few years, Jingzhou will flourish, then Sun Quan will be at the end of the road and can descend to Jiangdong without a fight.
However, Cao Cao felt that Jia Xu's suggestion was too pedantic, and did not listen to it, but sent his troops to Chibi, and as a result, he was burned by Sun Liu's combined forces.
So, we might as well assume that if Cao Cao listened to Jia Xu's plan and developed Jingzhou with peace of mind, would he really be able to make Sun Quan surrender without a fight?
Jia Xu believed that Cao Cao could buy people's hearts and minds in Jingzhou, theoretically, but in fact, because of the existence of a person, it was difficult to succeed. This person is Liu Bei.
Long before Cao Cao attacked Jingzhou, Liu Bei had already bought off a considerable part of Jingzhou's people's hearts. The evidence is that when Cao Cao pursued Liu Bei, hundreds of thousands of jingzhou people would rather be a tramp than follow Liu Bei to flee, which shows Liu Bei's ability to fool around.
Before Cao Cao occupied Jingzhou, he did two things, and Liu Bei could have used these two things to sabotage Cao Cao's buying of people's hearts in Jingzhou.
The first thing was in the fourth year of Chuping (193 AD), Cao Cao, in revenge for his father, attacked Tao Qian in Xuzhou, massacring the people of Xuzhou on a large scale, killing hundreds of thousands of men and women, leaving no chickens and dogs behind, and running out of people.
The second event was that in the fifth year of Jian'an (200 AD), after Cao Cao won the Battle of Guandu, he captured many soldiers of Yuan Shao's army. Yuan Jun disobeyed Cao Cao and turned his heart to the old lord Yuan Shao, how did Cao Cao do it? Old rule, kill! Before and after, Cao Cao buried as many as 80,000 Yuan troops alive.
With these two historical stains, how can the people of Jingzhou easily believe that Cao Cao will treat the people of Jingzhou well?
Liu Bei has no historical stain in this regard, and the people of Jingzhou are more willing to believe Liu Bei. This was already proved after the Battle of Chibi, and after Cao Cao returned to the north, although Liu Bei's territory was not large, "Liu Biao's former officials returned to Liu Bei."
Others believe that as long as Cao Cao drives Liu Bei to Jiangdong, he can let Liu Bei and Sun Quan kill each other, and Cao Cao can reap the benefits of the fisherman. This possibility almost does not exist, even if Liu Bei wants to eat Sun Quan, Sun Quan is in Jiangdong Liji III, both literature and martial arts are used for it, Liu Bei is a foreigner who wants food, and he does not have his own strategic base, what does he take to compete with Sun Quan, who is strong and strong?
Sun Liu Huo and the victor can only be Sun Quan, and the victory is relatively easy, and it will not cause much damage to Jiangdong's strength. When Sun Quan ate Liu Bei, his strength would become stronger, and there would be no benefit to Cao Cao at all. Besides, with the intelligence of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, they will not be angry until they have to.
Even if Cao Cao listened to Jia Xu's plan, he might not be able to dominate the world, and there was another important reason, that is, Cao Cao was attacked by the enemy in his belly.
At that time, in the northwest liangzhou, there was also a powerful force - the western Liang Ma Teng. Ma Teng, after the Fubo general Ma Yuan in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, after his father Ma Ping lost his official position, came to Longxi, where the Qiang and Han dynasties were mixed, and married a Qiang girl to ma Teng. In the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Zhuge Liang said that Ma Chao, the son of Ma Teng, was a general of the Divine Heavens, and that he had a great heart of qiang, which had a provenance.
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the strength of the Western Liang soldiers was very strong, which was a major problem for the imperial court, and the imperial court set up a special Lieutenant to protect the Qiang, and most of the people who were awarded were famous generals, such as Emperor Fugui, Duan Ji and others, so the combat effectiveness of the Western Liang soldiers was by no means under Cao Bing.
When Cao Cao led his troops south, Eastern Wu Zhou Yu took the lead in battle, one of the reasons was that Eastern Wu could form a support with Western Liang Ma Chao and let Ma Chao attack Cao Cao. Ma Chao is not stupid, Cao Cao will have to clean him up sooner or later, instead of being passively beaten, it is better to take the initiative to attack. As Pei Songzhi, a historian who annotated the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, said: Jia Xu's plan could not be carried out, mainly because Xi liangma chao was not destroyed.
If Cao Cao's troops were to strike and stabilize the situation in Jingzhou, sun Quan and Liu Bei would attack Jingzhou and would not let Jia Xu's plan succeed; second, Ma Chao and Han Sui would raise the Western Liang army to attack Guanxi, and once the Western Liang army broke through the Tong Pass and entered the Central Plains, the Central Plains, which was Cao Cao's strategic base area, would be greatly threatened.
In addition, Cao Cao just won Hebei for a long time, the people's hearts are not attached, although Yuan Shao is scheming, but his character is relatively generous, in Hebei is very popular, in this case, Hebei has people who do not obey Cao Cao, it is very likely to jump out and incite Hebei to oppose Cao Cao. If this is the case, Cao Cao's camp will be in chaos, and Cao Cao will inevitably have to defend the Central Plains first.
This is somewhat similar to when Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou, when Lü Bu secretly attacked Cao Cao's base area of Yanzhou, and the counselor Xun Yu said: "Xuzhou was not taken, Yanzhou was lost again, and we were homeless." In this case, Cao Cao was bound to carry out strategic contraction, and it was even possible to abandon Jingzhou. At that time, even if Cao Cao destroyed the Western Liang army, Jingzhou would inevitably be owned by Sun Quan or Liu Bei, especially Liu Bei. Once Liu Bei, who had the shallow dragon trapped in the beach, took Jingzhou, it would surely become a great threat to Cao Cao.
The Western Liangbing is really not easy to fight. In March of the sixteenth year of Jian'an (211 AD), Ma Chao and other Western Liang troops held 100,000 tuns at Tongguan, and Cao Cao was forced to personally enlist Ma Chao, if it were not for the tiger fool Xu Yu risking death to save him, Cao Cao would probably have died in the chaotic battle. Although Cao Cao finally eliminated the Western Liang soldiers, he also paid a heavy price.
Another point to note is that when Ma Chao rebelled against Cao, Hongnong, Feng Yi and other counties responded to Ma Chao, which shows that Cao Cao's rule in the Kansai and Kanto areas was not stable.
At that time, in addition to Cao Cao, Ma Chao, Sun Quan and Liu Bei, there were also Zhang Lu in Hanzhong and Liu Zhang in Xichuan, zhang Lu and Liu Zhang were self-defensive and could not achieve great things, but compared with the two, Zhang Lu's ability seemed to be stronger than Liu Zhang. If Cao Cao had remained stationary in Jingzhou, Zhang Lu would have gone south to compete with Liu Zhang for Xichuan. Zhang Lu was finally defeated by Cao Cao because Hanzhong was too weak, and if Zhang Lu occupied Xichuan, then Cao Cao would have to spend a lot of time to destroy Zhang Lu.
If Cao Cao did not destroy Zhang Lu, who had already occupied Xichuan, Zhang Lu might become a major problem for Cao Cao's confidants, and if Xiliang Machao and Xichuan Zhang Lu formed an alliance and advanced and retreated together, it would be even more difficult for Cao Cao to cope. And if Cao Cao sent troops to attack Zhang Lu, then Jingzhou would inevitably be implicated, including the transfer of troops, money and grain, so that the Jingzhou people who had originally set their hearts on Liu Bei would dislike Cao Cao even more, which gave Liu Bei the opportunity to kill and return to Jingzhou.
On the whole, Jia Xu's suggestion is really just a Confucian view, and Cao Cao sees it more clearly and longer-term than he does.