Handing Troops to a Man Who Surrendered a Month Ago
Cao Cao gathered five figurines in his hand.
"So for now, we have to face them with fifty thousand. Yuan Shao's army... somewhere between two hundred and fifty thousand and five hundred thousand."
As if taking the words as instruction, Man Chong set ten large figurines, each marked fifty thousand, onto Yuan Shao's side of the map. They utterly dwarfed the five small figurines of Cao Cao's army — each one standing for ten thousand men.
"Let us pray it's two hundred and fifty thousand... For the record, Yuan Shao has no hostile forces at his rear, which means he can throw this entire army at our front without holding a single man back..."
Xun Yu let out a short sigh.
"Why are we putting the crossing a month out? Couldn't they come across right now?"
Xiahou Yuan asked. The question was aimed at Guo Jia.
Guo Jia gave the tobacco pipe he'd bound his hair around a lazy spin. His long hair whirled clockwise in a wide arc, following the pipe.
"According to the informants we've planted in Yuan Shao's army, Yuan Shao hasn't left his stronghold at Yecheng yet. Given how much he cares about appearances, he'll certainly hold a departure ceremony before moving a force of that size. The fact that he hasn't even set out for Liyang Port — his staging ground — means we still have time."
Man Chong folded his arms.
"The ships look finished. Why isn't Yuan Shao moving?"
"He's waiting for his sons."
Guo Jia answered.
"His sons?"
"Yes. His sons. Yuan Tan, Yuan Xi, and Yuan Shang."
Guo Jia wrote the three names onto Yuan Shao's figurines and set them on the map.
"Yuan Shao has never officially named an heir. His eldest, Yuan Tan, is in Qingzhou. His second, Yuan Xi, is in Youzhou... and he's kept his youngest, Yuan Shang, at Yecheng, pitting them against one another. Naturally, he'll bring all three sons to this war as a test of succession."
"A succession exam? What are we, a testing ground?!"
Xiahou Dun exploded — then, for a moment, looked rather pleased with his own wit. Guo Jia and Xiahou Yuan crushed him with a pair of ice-cold stares.
"Haha. If the second or third son ends up as heir, things will get interesting. Do try to lose to Yuan Tan, Yuan Xi, and Yuan Shang whenever you can."
"We're smashing every last one of them, the hell are you talking about?!"
While Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun traded jokes, Li Dian slid the Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi figurines all the way across to Yecheng.
"So the war starts once all the sons have gathered."
Guo Jia picked up the Yuan Xi figurine — the one coming from Youzhou.
"That's right. The second son, Yuan Xi, is coming from the farthest away. We're told it'll take him about fifteen days to arrive. Then the Yuan father and sons relocate to Liyang, and the army gets moving — call it another ten days or so. Crossing the Yellow River and crashing into our lines... a month should be plenty."
"A month from now, we still won't be dead."
Yue Jin picked up a Cao Cao army figurine and slammed it down on Guandu.
"Yuan Shao's army and ours are not one-to-one in fighting strength."
Xiahou Dun chimed in at once.
"Well said, Yue Jin. Our soldiers are elites who've survived a decade of brutal fighting across the Central Plains. Each one of them is a match for a hundred men!"
"Blech... he actually said 'a match for a hundred' with his own mouth... lunatic..."
Guo Jia made a gagging gesture, and Xiahou Dun shot to his feet, roaring.
"Hey, you little shit, Guo Jia! What kind of strategist goes around wrecking his own army's morale?!"
None of the generals backed him up.
"Pfft, a hundred's a bit much, don't you think? I could definitely kill twenty, though." Cao Hong snickered.
"I only have confidence in about ten myself." Li Dian shrugged.
"You took that way too far, General Xiahou Dun. Thirty would be your limit, I'd wager." Xu Chu's eyes were frankly accusatory.
"...I was... going to say five..." Yue Jin's voice had gone very small.
"In bed, I'm sure you could finish off a hundred."
When even Xiahou Yuan's still-frigid voice piled on with that jab, Xiahou Dun sat back down, his face scarlet.
Cao Cao gave a sly little laugh, watching him sulk.
"Well. I like the generals' spirit. If we're fighting in a month, it comes down to whether we hit them during the crossing, or after."
As the Yuan Shao figurines came across the Yellow River, Xun You pulled Cao Cao's figurines back.
"Even if we attack during the crossing, if an army of this size comes over all at once, hitting them with an uncertain force won't mean much. Why not form a solid defensive line at Guandu and hold them from there?"
Cheng Yu reached out and stopped the figurine.
"Hold on. If we let them advance as far as Guandu, Xuchang is right behind it. If Xuchang falls, the Emperor is in danger. We must not gamble everything on a single battle."
"But we can't intercept five hundred thousand with fifty thousand."
"It isn't fifty thousand. Xun Yu — didn't you leave the ten thousand already stationed at Baima and Yanjin out of the count?"
Xun Yu nodded and produced another figurine.
"That's right. Five thousand at Baima, five thousand at Yanjin. Still, that only brings us to sixty thousand."
Cheng Yu moved six figurines onto Baima and Yanjin, the fortresses built just south of the Yellow River.
"What I'm saying is, there's no need to abandon Baima and Yanjin without even putting up a fight — not when the defensive fortresses are already built. If Yuan Shao truly has five hundred thousand, he won't send them all across at once. He'll dispatch a vanguard. We can engage the vanguard, and if it looks like we can't hold, falling back to Guandu at that point won't be too late."
Xun You picked up Yuan Shao's massive figurines and surrounded Baima and Yanjin with them.
"If fifty thousand troops go into those fortresses and get encircled, there will be no coming back from that."
"That's why we pull out before it happens!"
"Isn't that even more dangerous?!"
Cao Cao stepped in between the two strategists, who looked ready to headbutt each other across the map.
"Quiet down, both of you. If Yuan Shao's five hundred thousand come across all at once, Xun You is right — interception is meaningless. Agreed?"
"Exactly!"
"There's no way that happens!"
Nodding toward the two strategists shouting over each other, Cao Cao moved the six figurines to Guandu.
"All right, all right. I don't think they'll do that either. Anyway — if five hundred thousand do come across, we pull the troops from Baima and Yanjin too and hold them at Guandu."
Next, Cao Cao picked up two of Yuan Shao's figurines and walked them across the river. A hundred thousand men on the march.
"Like this... say a vanguard of about a hundred thousand has crossed. Then we fight a defensive battle at Baima and Yanjin, as Cheng Yu said."
"That's the way!"
"My lord! If we get surrounded, it's over!"
"Hold on a minute. Let a man finish talking."
Cao Cao picked up a Cao Cao army figurine and scribbled something on it with a brush. Xun You craned his neck to look. It was the character for horse.
"The garrison we send to Baima and Yanjin will be cavalry, every last man. We win this on mobility."
"Right. With our cavalry, at the very least we won't get surrounded and stuck."
Xiahou Dun backed him up.
"If they have to wage a guerrilla campaign against an enemy nearly twice their number, and also exercise the judgment and agility to extract the troops before they're encircled... who do you intend to send as commander?"
At Guo Jia's question, every general in the room raised a hand.
Cao Cao didn't answer. He just smiled.
"The hell, Mengde? Didn't I already call first?"
"Stay home and keep screwing Lady Mi, big brother. When it comes to mobility, you're looking at me — Xiahou Yuan."
While the Xiahou siblings bickered, Cao Hong grinned as if he'd figured something out.
"Ahh, I get it now... of course. No way he'd take his mind off bedding married women."
"Huh? Married women? What do Lady Gan and Lady Mi have to do with— ah."
Guo Jia, arriving at the same realization, stared at Cao Cao with a look of utter disbelief.
The other strategists, catching on a beat later, turned the same dumbfounded expressions on him.
Xiahou Dun spent a long moment trying to work out what they meant. Then a certain face surfaced in his mind, and he pointed a trembling finger at Cao Cao, his expression packed with horror.
"You— don't tell me you actually... the, the beard guy...?"
Cao Cao just kept giggling, offering no reply.
"Y-you're going to put troops in Guan Yu's hands... a guy who surrendered less than a month ago... just so you can fuck Lady Gan?"
"Whaaat?!"
The remaining generals, finally grasping what Cao Cao's laughter meant, let out a collective howl.
"You can't, my lord! What are you even trusting him with?!"
"I told you to knock it off with the married women already!!!"
Cao Cao kept laughing as he shoved back the strategists who came howling at him.
Lady Gan's ripe pussy was vivid in his mind's eye.
"Now then — where are our cavalry commanders, and what are they doing at this moment?"
Around the time the clandestine act inside Xuchang Palace was drawing to a close, cavalry training was in full swing at the encampment on the city's outskirts.
At the bellows of the drill officers, small squads of several dozen riders moved as a single body. Those squads, gathered by the dozens into formations of thousands, shifted in a dizzying blur between attack and defense, answering the motions of standard-bearers who split the field between blue banners and red.
And three generals sat watching it all, their horses' heads drawn together.
One man held a massive axe. The other two, side by side, each held a Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
The axe belonged to the marquee star of Cao Cao's cavalry: Xu Huang, courtesy name Gongming.
Of the two men with Green Dragon Blades, the one whose weapon was a shade lighter, with a springy liveliness to it, was Zhang Liao, courtesy name Wenyuan.
And the man whose eighty-two-catty Green Dragon Blade carried an overwhelming sense of weight — the man whose beard hung all the way to his navel — was Guan Yu, courtesy name Yunchang.
Xu Huang had once ridden under Yang Feng. Zhang Liao had once served Lü Bu. Guan Yu, of course, had come from Liu Bei's ranks.
Xu Huang and Zhang Liao commanded Cao Cao's cavalry; Guan Yu had come to observe the drills for the first time today. Coincidentally, all three men shared the same distinction: they were generals who had surrendered.
"Lord Guan Yu, how would you rate our army's training?"
Zhang Liao, who held Guan Yu in high regard, asked the question. Guan Yu, his Green Dragon Blade held against his chest and his arms folded, answered with arrogant composure.