In May of the seventh year of Jian'an (202 AD), Yuan Shao, the overlord of the first generation, died of illness.
Dead is dead, and the bad thing is that he died a very tangled death. According to the legal system, Yuan Shao should have let his eldest son Yuan Tan inherit the ancestral inheritance, but Yuan Shao preferred the more handsome third son Yuan Shang, thinking that the heir of the old handsome brother should also be a small handsome man, but this was not in line with the etiquette, so he failed to establish an heir before his death, and finally left a mess in Hebei, which was really a rotten person who died and added trouble to everyone.
Sure enough, as soon as Yuan Shao died, his men divided into two factions and engaged in infighting. One faction was the Yingchuan faction, headed by the overseer Guo Tu and the strategist Xin Ping, who supported Yuan Tan; the other faction was the crony faction, led by BeiQi and Feng Ji, who supported Yuan Shang. Just when Yuan Tan was in Qingzhou at this time (Yuan Tan was the history of Qingzhou' assassination), the trial match and Feng Ji took the opportunity to forge Yuan Shao's will and preemptively support Yuan Shang to succeed to the throne. Yuan Tan hurried back from Qingzhou to Yicheng for funerals, but found that he had nothing to do, and was sent by the new leader Yuan Shang to guard Liyang to defend Cao Cao.
This is called the first hand to encircle the strong, and then the next hand suffered, Yuan Tan was sad and indignant! But at this point, he could only come to Liyang with his cronies Guo Tu and Xin Ping, and called himself "Che Riding General", only one head shorter than his younger brother Yuan Shang's "Great General".
However, Yuan Shang still did not trust Yuan Tan, and even sent the heavy minister Feng Ji to Liyang as a supervisor, apparently to monitor. Yuan Tan thought that you should not send more troops to the front line to help me, and send a bad old man to take care of what I did, so I asked Yuan Tan to increase his troops, and the trial and encouragement yuan Shang did not agree, and Yuan Shang was also afraid of increasing the strength of the eldest brother to his own disadvantage, so he categorically refused. Yuan Tan was furious and actually killed Feng Ji, so the contradictions between the two sides became public and white-hot.
Speaking of which, in fact, Feng Ji is quite stupid. Thinking that at the beginning of the Battle of Guandu, the second son was captured by Cao Cao, so he was suspicious, but fortunately, Ji Libao, the two formed an alliance and assisted Yuan Shang to ascend to the throne. The result? Isn't it sad that the trial match was for himself, and finally sold Feng Ji to Yuan Tan?
On the other hand, Cao Cao saw Yuan Shao's sons and brothers in the wall, and he only felt pain
——I think at the beginning, your father Yuan Shao and your uncle Yuan Shu were not in harmony, Yuan Shu scolded your father's family slave, your father asked me to help him beat Yuan Shu, and Yuan Shu vomited blood and died! It's only been less than three years, and your two brothers are actually fighting to the death, is this also genetic?
Cao Cao decided to teach these two nephews a good lesson for the eldest brother Yuan Shao.
Therefore, in September of the seventh year of Jian'an, Cao Cao crossed the Yellow River and attacked Liyang, Yuan Tan had few soldiers and poor equipment, so he had to ask Yuan Shang for help again; the so-called lips were cold, Yuan Shang was stupid, and he also knew where the contradiction between the enemy and us was, where was the internal contradiction, so in the face of Cao Jun's soldiers coming to the city, he decided to personally lead the troops to support the eldest brother.
The reason why Yuan Shang personally died was not out of the importance he attached to the enemy's situation, but because he was afraid of sending others to suppress the eldest brother, so that Yuan Tan would take the opportunity to take away his troops! Yuan Shang then asked the other drivers to stay in Yecheng, and he led the elite soldiers to rescue him. In order to contain Cao Cao's forces, Yuan Tan also sent emissaries west into Guanzhong to persuade Ma Tenghan Sui and other Guanzhong Haoxiong to rebel against Cao Cao, and at the same time ordered The Prefecture Assassin Shi Gaogan to join forces with the Xiongnu Hu Jiquan to attack the important town of Pingyang County (平阳县, in present-day southwest of Linfen County, Shanxi), opening up a western battlefield and making it difficult for him to take care of the east and west.
At this time, Guo Tu gave Yuan Tan a cruel move, sending Wei County's Taishou Gaofan to take a detour to seize the Yellow River ferry, cutting off his water and grain transportation routes, so that Cao Cao could also taste the collapse of the rear.
For the western battlefield, there was a lieutenant Colonel Zhong Xuan, Cao Cao was completely relieved, so he was not moved, and went all out to fight with the Yuan brothers, circumventing the Yuan brothers for half a year, defeating the Yuan clan in a row, and the fierce general Le Jin also beheaded his general Yan Jing, and by February of the eighth year of Jian'an, the two brothers finally could not hold on, retreated into Liyang City and could not hold out, Cao Cao took advantage of the situation to surround the city and catch turtles in an urn.
At the same time, in the rear battlefield, Cheng Yu and Li Dian, who were in charge of logistics, crossed the river to sneak attack, defeated Gao Fan and restored shipping.
Soon, the results of the western battlefield also came out. The Guanzhong warlords finally chose Cao Cao in the midst of the vacillation. Ma Teng sent his right-hand man Ma Chao to lead more than 10,000 soldiers and horses, and jointly attacked the general Guo Yuan, a high-ranking general, taking advantage of his half-crossing of the Fenshui River, and the great destruction, Ma Chao's vanguard Pound Dejin beheaded Guo Yuan, and the Xiongnu simply fell to the side of the Cao army when they saw that the situation was not good.
When the Yuan brothers heard the news, they knew that there was no drama, so they had to take advantage of the night to escape back to Yecheng. Cao's army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and in April it reached Yecheng, harvested the summer-ripe wheat outside the city, and then stormed the city, but the city was too hard to attack for a while, so the generals asked Cao Cao to transfer more soldiers and horses from the rear, and take advantage of the victory to take the city of Yecheng. At this time, Guo Jia said: "The poem says: 'Brothers are on the wall, and they are insulted outside.' 'The two sons are equal in power, each with his own henchmen, and if he attacks in a hurry, he will join forces. It is better to slow down, then the second son is also worried. It is better to withdraw the army south to Jingzhou and make a representation of Liu Biao, waiting for it to change. After becoming a hit, it will be determined in one fell swoop. "The enemy's personality and psychology were so profound that it was worthy of Guo Jia, Cao Cao listened, and also understood the sincerity of the infighting of the second son of the Yuan family, and decided to fulfill them, so he ordered them to return to the army, but they felt that it was really not too addictive, so they let Zhang Liao and Le Jin take the stronghold on the north bank of the Yellow River, Yin'an County (present-day Qingfengbei, Hebei, for the trial of their hometown), move to Henan, and leave the general Jia Xin to garrison Liyang, thinking that it was the head of the Yi Bridge. The arrangements were completed, and the army returned triumphantly.
After a little rectification, Cao Cao made a big fuss again, pretending to go south to march on Liu Biao, and sure enough, he had just arrived at Xiping County (present-day Xiping, Henan), runaway, and the good news came.
Everything was as Guo Jia expected, as soon as Cao Cao's foreign enemy left, the two brothers of the Yuan family quarreled, yuan Tan once again asked to update the equipment and increase troops to pursue the Cao army that had not yet crossed the river, at least to pull out the nail of Jia Xin that Cao Cao had planted in Liyang, otherwise it was too dangerous, but Yuan Shang and the trial match still refused to give it with their own small calculations, Yuan Tan was furious, and Guo Tu, Xin Ping and other strategists were stirring up trouble on the side, saying that Yuan Shao's delay in establishing Yuan Tan as the son of the world was actually the trial boy who was obstructing from it! At this time, Yuan Tan could not bear it, and there was no possibility of reconciliation with Yuan Shang from then on, and by August, the two enemies were unable to tolerate ice charcoal, and finally there was a big battle outside The city, Yuan Tan's troops were poorly equipped and immediately defeated, so he had to lead his army to retreat to the northeast to Zhinanpi (present-day Nanpi County, Hebei Province), and his other driver Wang Xiuhuan led the Qingzhou officials to come to the aid, and Yuan Tan's momentum was slightly enhanced. At this time, Liu Biao also wrote a letter to persuade the two Xian nephews to reconcile, in order to buy time to drag Cao Cao's southward pace to let him have a few more peaceful children, but unfortunately both Xian and nephews killed the red eye, that is, they would rather suffer losses in front of them than listen to the old man's words. Yuan Shang was the first to attack and personally led his troops north to attack Nanpi, but Yuan Tan was once again defeated, so he had to flee south to Qingzhou Pingyuan County, where he held the city. Yuan Shang surrounded the city and attacked day and night. Yuan Tan saw that he was about to destroy the party and the country, and he was angry and corrupt, thinking that he would rather give the world to outsiders than to family thieves! Therefore, Xin Pi, the younger brother of Xin Ping, was sent to Cao Cao to beg for help, saying that he would abandon the secret and surrender to the Ming, destroy his relatives in righteousness, and help the imperial court annihilate the thief Party Yuan Shang, and in order to show his sincerity, he also sent his daughter to Marry Cao Cao's twentieth son Cao Zhen in order to make an alliance with the pro-Ding.
Cao Cao was stunned: What? My nephew Yuan Tan wants to be my own family? Isn't this generation chaotic? But after thinking about it, Yuan Tan took the initiative to lead the nest into the room, offered Jiang Shan both hands, and begged me to engage his brother together, such a good thing can be encountered, or meet it, so he met Xin Bi. Xin Bi said the ins and outs of the matter with a handful of snot and a handful of tears, and Cao Cao's heart immediately gave birth to infinite sadness. In the final analysis, he and Yuan Shao, although they are mortal enemies, but also good brothers who have been friends for many years, watching the sons of the big brother make trouble to this point, Cao Cao, as an elder, well, should indeed, well, add some fuel to the fire of these two big nephews, let them kill more happily!
Therefore, Cao Cao endured the pain of surrendering himself for a lifetime and agreed to Yuan Tan's marriage. The leading army turned north and attacked Yecheng again. Yuan Shang did return to the army, Yuan Tan did indeed attack from behind, Cao Cao saw that Yuan Tan would not be annexed by Yuan Shang for the time being, so he returned to the south of the Yellow River with confidence, alleviated the urgency, transferred the contradictions, left room, watched the fire from the other side, and let the two brothers continue to fight.
The key to sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight is to be able to endure the temperament, help the weak tiger and fight the strong tiger, but can not let any tiger win quickly and sit big, and wait until the two tigers are both defeated and injured, which is the best time for the hunter to shoot.