When Zhang Yan led the army to Puyang, he learned that Fu Hu had been beheaded, Gao Ran had surrendered, Zhang He had been defeated, and Yu Ban had failed to capture Liyang, and he suddenly felt that he had missed the opportunity.

Now that Cao Cao has been prepared, Zhang Yan will no longer attack hastily, and the top priority at the moment is to arrange defenses, concentrate most of the troops on the line of the Yellow River, and the army will be on standby at any time.

Hebei changed hands, and Cao Cao became the lord of Hebei, which made Zhang Yan a little unexpected. According to the course of history, after Yuan Shao's death, it should be Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang competing with each other, but the appearance of Cao Cao changed everything and made his ability to predict the future plummet.

Now this embarrassing situation is caused by the arrival of Zhang Yan, who replaced Cao Cao as the overlord of the Central Plains, coerced the Son of Heaven to order the princes, and Cao Cao replaced Yuan Shao and became the lord of Hebei.

History is quietly changing, after Hebei changes hands, Cao Cao will inevitably become Zhang Yan's number one enemy, this eloquent person will never be as easy to deal with as Yuan Shao.

Therefore, since it has been decided to deal with Cao Cao, it is necessary to completely eliminate Cao Cao as soon as possible, while Cao Cao has not yet gained a firm foothold in Hebei!

However, Zhang Yan has just experienced a big battle with Yuan Shao, and if he wants to swallow Hebei, it will not happen overnight, so he can only take it step by step.

So, Zhang Yan discussed with the military advisor Jia Xu and decided to send troops to Hebei, since he could not launch a full-scale war, but he could launch a local war, go down step by step, and encroach on Hebei little by little.

This time, during the attack on Liyang, the army of crossbows under his previous command reappeared, firing three arrows at a time. Intersecting and shooting. An army of 10,000 is equivalent to an army of 30,000. It can be said that such a combat-effective army is rarely seen.

Zhang Yan once personally saw the combat method of this crossbow army, although his army is strong, but it is somewhat deficient in this regard, the weapons of the Hebei army are already strong enough to confront Zhang Yan's army.

To this end, Zhang Yan is ready to develop new weapons, in his opinion. Science and technology are the primary productive forces, and the Hebei Army has a repeating crossbow, so he must have a more powerful repeater than the Hebei Army.

In his impression, the Zhuge repeater is a very powerful repeater, which can fire ten crossbow arrows at a time, and if 10,000 people are equipped with this kind of repeater, then the arrows shot out are equivalent to 100,000 people shooting arrows at the same time.

However, the construction of such a repeater. It was very complicated, at least he couldn't figure out how it was designed.

But. Fortunately, Zhuge Liang himself is in his territory, and he is now in Pengcheng, as long as Zhuge Liang is called, isn't that okay?

As soon as he thought of this, Zhang Yan immediately sent someone back to Pengcheng and called Zhuge Liang to Puyang.

In addition, Zhang Yan sent someone to inform Li Cai, asking him to go to Wuhuan again, so that the Wuhuan people would continue to harass Cao Cao from Youzhou, and after the matter was completed, he would give a large number of gold and silver treasures, weapons, refined salt and other things as a thank you.

In addition, Zhang Yan asked Jia Kui, the Taishou of Hedong, to try to contact the Xiongnu and Xianbei people, and prepared to use the same means to use them to strike at Cao Cao, who had just taken over Hebei.

Zhang Yan himself, on the other hand, chose to stay in Puyang, rectifying the troops and horses on the one hand, and always paying attention to the situation in Hebei.

……

Hebei changed hands, Cao Cao became the biggest winner, the Yuan family, all were slaughtered by Cao Cao, and those Yuan Shao's henchmen, those who were killed were killed, and those who were exiled were exiled, in just three days, the officials inside and outside Yecheng have been replaced, and the military power of the entire Hebei is also in Cao Cao's hands.

But Cao Cao knew his current situation, he launched a coup d'état and obtained the position of the lord of Hebei, but he had reached a situation of internal and external troubles, with a strong enemy Zhang Yan outside, and Yuan Shao's old department with unpopular hearts inside.

It can be said that the power that Cao Cao now holds is just a baby in infancy, so whether it is military power or political power, he must appoint his henchmen, and those generals who surrendered, he did not trust them very much.

After being frustrated and Tian Feng was rescued, Cao Cao felt deeply uneasy, these officials were Yuan Shao's old subordinates, and they were born and died with Yuan Shao for many years, and the officials protected each other, and their shili was even more intertwined, either this person had an in-law with that person, or that person had a relative with another person, in short, the bureaucracy in Yecheng was almost all intermarried, and the whole body was affected.

Because of this complicated relationship, Cao Cao didn't sleep well for several nights, and basically woke up from nightmares every night, for fear that someone would come to his side and kill him in his sleep.

For this reason, Cao Cao deliberately transferred Dian Wei away and let several tiger warriors come to guard him, one of them saw that Cao Cao did not cover the quilt before going to bed, and was afraid that Cao Cao would catch a cold, so he went to cover Cao Cao with a quilt.

Unbeknownst to him, Cao Cao suddenly pulled out a sharp sword from the bed, stabbed the man to death directly, and then continued to sleep as if there was nothing.

The next morning, when Cao Cao woke up, he saw a corpse lying on the ground, and hurriedly asked the guards what was the matter.

After the guards told the reason, Cao Cao was remorseful, and said to the guards that he was good at killing people in his dreams, and there must be no one around him in normal times, otherwise, he would kill that person.

Cao Cao ordered the burial of this guard, and after that, he retired all the guards and palace maids, leaving only one person by his side, that is, the tiger general Dian Wei, and let Dian Wei be responsible for protecting his safety.

And the news of Cao Cao's murder in his sleep gradually spread in Yecheng, and since then, whether it is a guard or a maidservant, after Cao Cao fell asleep, they did not dare to approach Cao Cao's father-in-law.

After that, Cao Cao was much calmer when he slept, and once he encountered anything, he was reported by Dian Wei.

The Yuan family was all killed by Cao Cao, and together with Yuan Shao's henchmen, they were all dead, but Cao Cao was still not very relieved, and asked his subordinates to arrest those he thought were involved with Yuan Shao in various names, and all of them were secretly killed, and they announced that they had moved elsewhere.

For a time, in Jizhou, an invisible bloody storm was suddenly set off, and more than 30 local family gentry. are implicated. There is no distinction between men and women, young and old. Kill them all, leave no one behind, cut down the grass and eradicate the roots.

The property of the families who were killed was confiscated.

In addition, Cao Cao set up an elite guard for Dian Wei, and selected strong brave men from the army of more than 200,000 in Hebei, a total of 1,000 people, known as the tiger and leopard horseman. Cao Cao also gathered many blacksmiths in Yecheng. Well-forged blades and armor.

In the last battle, Cao Cao heard Xiahou Yuan and Cao Hong mention the power of Zhang Yan's iron chain horse array, and all the soldiers of the Yuan army who participated in that battle, as long as they mentioned the name of the iron chain horse array, their faces were as frightened as dirt, which shows what kind of damage this iron chain horse formation caused to the hearts of Yuan soldiers.

For this reason, Cao Cao also relied on the gourd to draw a scoop, preparing to turn the tiger and leopard cavalry into such a team, which was used to deal with the people and the army who betrayed him, and even more so as the elite of his entire army.

Besides. Cao Cao also forged weapons and armor on a large scale, and bought some fine horses from the Huns. Only then did the tiger and leopard ride to be officially formed.

Cao Cao handed over the matter of stabilizing the situation and stabilizing the people to a few of his advisers, and their ability in this regard was far superior to Cao Cao, so Cao Cao did not need to worry about it.

Among the 230,000 troops that Cao Cao took over, in addition to the 50,000 troops he trained in Bingzhou, the most obedient were the 50,000 troops in Youzhou.

The 50,000 Youzhou Army is not Yuan Shao's descendant, but the coalition composed of Liu Yu's old department and Gongsun Zhan's old department incorporated by Yuan Shao, among them, there are many Xianbei people and Wuhuan people, and their commanders have a total of five people, namely Tian Yu, Tian Chou, Xian Yufu, Xian Yuyin, and Yan Rou.

After Yuan Xi's death, Cao Zhen filled the vacancy, Yan Rou, Tian Yu, Tian Chou, Xian Yufu, and Xian Yuyin all sincerely submitted to Cao Cao, so they had no complaints about Cao Zhen taking over the history of Youzhou Thorn.

However, Cao Cao's most thought was on the Jizhou army, which was originally the elite under Yuan Shao's account, and it was the main force in Yuan Shao's army.

But when Cao Cao became the master of Hebei, the status of the Jizhou army obviously plummeted, although the treatment is still the same as before, but it is not Cao Cao's descendant, many generals learned that Cao Cao became the master of Hebei, they began to move, and an undercurrent surging in the army has made Cao Cao aware of it.

Fortunately, Cao Cao stationed his main force in the area of Yecheng to prevent the Jizhou army from rebelling, otherwise, the Jizhou army would definitely not swallow its anger.

The night was deep, and Cao Cao lay on the bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep no matter what. The matter of the Jizhou Army really gave him a headache.

At this time, Dian Wei's voice came from outside the door: "Lord Qi, Xun Thorn Shi asks to see you!" ”

Cao Cao immediately sat up from the bed, lit the candle, and shouted outside, "Please let him in!" ”

The door was opened, Xun Yu frowned, walked in from the outside quickly, and when he saw Cao Cao, he arched his hand and said, "See the lord!" ”

"What I asked you to investigate, can you investigate clearly?" Cao Cao asked.

Xun Yu said: "According to the orders of the lord, my subordinates secretly sent people to infiltrate the barracks, and the investigation in the barracks in the past few days has been clear......"

"The result?" Cao Cao hurriedly asked.

Xun Yu said: "Indeed, as the lord speculated, more than half of the generals in the Jizhou army are not obedient to the lord and are plotting to discuss the rebellion, and now they are secretly contacting more generals and colonies to deal with the lord." Among the generals of the Jizhou Army, Chun Yuqiong and Jiang Yiqu also participated......"

"As I expected...... Cao Cao sighed heavily, the uneasiness in his heart in the past few days is estimated to come from this, "The first strike is strong, and we will launch an operation tonight, kill them by surprise, bring the list of generals who conspire to discuss rebellion, and arrest people by name, this kind of scum, no one will be left, and you will be killed!" ”

"Whoa!" Xun Yu responded, but secretly thought in his heart, "It seems that tonight is another sleepless night, and the lord will set off a bloody storm in the barracks again!" (To be continued......)