Loudiyuan, the largest relatively flat plain in the southeast direction of Hangu Pass, backed by Feiyundu, south of the southern foot of the Qinling Mountains, north of the Yellow River, is facing Hangu Pass.

Nowadays, the large camp of the princes' allies is stationed here.

At the door of the Chinese army's marshal tent, Cao Cao bowed down and withdrew from the marshal tent, and before turning to leave, he did not forget to bow to Yuan Shao, who was on the throne of the alliance leader. And Yuan Shao pretended to get up and return the salute, but in fact, his butt didn't move, and he didn't get up to send him off like before.

At the foot of the tent, Cao Ren paced back and forth restlessly, and soon after seeing Cao Cao enter the tent, he turned around and came out, and immediately hurried to meet him.

"Has the lord ever seen Yuan Shao??? Uh, no, it's Yuan Mengzhu, what did he say? Are we allowed to recruit young men and women in the nearest counties in Henan, and when will the grain, grass and ordnance that we were promised to wait for be distributed? ”

As soon as he approached, Cao Ren immediately brought up what he was eager to know, and this was the reason why Cao Cao asked to see Yuan Shao as soon as he returned to the barracks.

As early as the capture of Dongyuan City, Yuan Shao privately promised Cao Cao that as long as the allies could capture Hedong within a month and completely drive the Xiliang army to the south bank of the Yellow River, he secretly funded Cao Cao to provide 50,000 stone grain and grass and 50 carts of ordnance for Cao Cao to recruit soldiers in various counties in Henan to expand his strength. At the same time, this batch of materials was also a gift to Cao Cao personally leading the army to attack Hangu Pass, or a compensation, to help Cao Cao increase his strength.

However, this is not the case.

Since Cao Cao personally led the army to smuggle across the Yellow River, for nearly a month, Yuan Shao not only failed to fulfill his previous promise, but instead arbitrarily reduced the grain and grass that Cao's army should have. As was previously customary. The 80,000 Cao army needed all the grain and grass baggage was supplied by Yuan Shao, but Cao Cao led the 60,000 army to cross the river on the front foot, and Yuan Shao immediately deducted the Cao army's grain and grass baggage. The 80,000 Cao army's rations were directly reduced to 20,000. For this reason, Cao Ren was indignant and went to Yuan Shao to theorize in person, but Yuan Shao falsely claimed that "Meng De is leading the army outside, and he can't use so much grain and grass for the time being, and the allied forces have many soldiers and horses, and there is a shortage of grain and grass, so he temporarily appropriates it to solve the urgent need." After the army crosses the river to meet Cao Cao, it will be distributed in full, and it will never be in arrears! ”

At that time, Yuan Shao said it with convincing words, and Cao Renxin thought it was true. Although I was still angry and had doubts, I couldn't find a reason to refute it, so I had to give up. He was full of thoughts that he would wait until the lord Cao Cao returned. Yuan Shao won't make excuses anymore. It is inevitable that the month-long arrears of wages will be paid in full and the promises made will be fulfilled.

Therefore, after Cao Cao finally escaped back to the Allied camp, he immediately went to see Yuan Shao after a little bathing and changing clothes, the purpose of which was to ask for the food and salary he deserved, and to try to use the food and salary he had obtained from Yuan Shao to recruit soldiers in the nearby counties of Henan, so as to restore some strength as much as possible. As for the details of the battle of Feiyundu and the results of the battle, there is no need to say much. The princes of all walks of life have already found out clearly, and everyone can tacitly understand it. There is no need to uncover Cao Cao's scars in public.

"Humph!" Cao Cao, who bowed down and walked out of the tent, was still humbly smiling one second ago, and the next second after turning around and walking down the steps, he turned his head to look at Yuan Shao's tent behind him with great resentment, snorted coldly with a gloomy face, and ignored Cao Ren's inquiry, and strode towards his tent without looking back.

Seeing that Cao Cao's face was very ugly, and his eyes were filled with an extremely strong murderous aura, Cao Ren's fiery heart, which was eager to know the result, was as if he was immersed in cold ice, and his heart was instantly cold. In an instant, without thinking, he pulled out his sword and wanted to rush into Yuan Shaoshuai's tent to ask what was going on, and when he put the sword on Yuan Shao's neck, he still dared to break his word and get fat, to give it or not?

It's just that this tempting idea can only be thought of by yourself, but it is extremely difficult to implement it, and there is almost no possibility of success. If you want to rush into the tent and hold Yuan Shao hostage to ask for food, not to mention the 1,000 soldiers around the tent, you must first break through the two generals Zhang He Gaolan who guarded the tent door, and then defeat Yan Liangwen and Chou, who are always around Yuan Shao, so that they can succeed. And these four generals guarding the alliance leader's tent are not mediocre hands, and each of them has skills and martial arts that are not inferior to Cao Ren; If the two join forces to fight each other, Cao Ren will not be their opponent at all, and he will definitely be defeated.

"Humph! The leader of the army of dignified princes and allies turned his treachery and went back on his word, and he was really a trustless villain. Let's see, one day Cao swears to take revenge, I'm bah! Furious and throwing down a cruel word, Cao Ren casually put away his sword, turned to chase Cao Cao quickly, and returned to his camp step by step.

"Bang——— bang!"

Walking into his big tent angrily, Cao Cao walked directly to the upper seat, and the moment he sat down, he slapped heavily on the desk, shaking the stack of bamboo slips on the desk in an uproar.

"How can this be reasonable, Yuan Shaoshuzi deceived me too much, it is extremely hateful! Yuan, Ben, Chu, the concubine is not enough and scheming! ”

After gritting his teeth and roaring, Cao Cao's face collapsed with decadence, lying weakly on the cushion, his eyes were gloomy, his expression was extremely lonely, and his wheezing voice was as heavy as a cow.

Obviously, he was filled with righteous indignation at the moment, and his heart was very painful, and he was tormented, and he was so tormented that he was exhausted, and life was worse than death.

Seeing that Cao Cao was so angry, Cao Ren, who was standing at the foot of the stairs, had something to say, but at this time, he was stunned and couldn't say a word, not because he didn't want to, but he didn't dare to ask more.

As a confidant general who has been by Cao Cao's side for a long time, Cao Ren knows a lot about his temperament and knows when to say something. If Cao Cao is in a very bad mood or angry, even if it is a hundred thousand urgent things, he must carefully consider whether to report it immediately; Otherwise, the slightest mistake will lead to death.

It is true that Cao Cao's city has always been extremely deep, his joy and anger are invisible, his wisdom is deep, and it is elusive. However, the more people in the city are in the depths, the more difficult it is to deal with them, and their hearts and tempers are strange and changeable, or they reward their subordinates because they are happy for a while, and they will kill people at every turn because of their anger. Such a changeable temperament has happened to Cao Cao many times, and more than ten servants, personal soldiers and maids who have served him for a long time have been killed by him with his own hands, and even a favored concubine was stabbed to death by him in the middle of the night for no reason when he was sleeping, and he himself did not know it, until after dawn did he find that his concubine had been dead for a long time.

Things like this happen from time to time, and it's not uncommon.

It's just that Cao Ren and other cronies and generals have always been secretive about these things, and they rotted in their stomachs when they knew about it, and never mentioned it to anyone, even if it was their wives and concubines who shared the same bed, they never revealed a word. However, the more deeply and secretly some things are hidden, the more memorable they become, and they can never be forgotten.

That's what happened with Cao Ren. He has always been in awe of Cao Cao, dedicated, loyal, and never dared to question any of Cao Cao's decisions, respecting him like a god. In recent days, he couldn't sleep at night, slept and eat, and couldn't accept the fact that Cao Hong, Cao Zhen, Cao Xiu and Cao Anmin were all captured by Li Li's thieves, and Cao Ang, the eldest prince who was known as a virtuous man and a good man in both civil and military affairs, actually died tragically in the hands of the barbarian general Hu Che'er, and tens of thousands of Cao soldiers died on the battlefield.

Therefore, the battle of Feiyundu is a nightmare that is difficult for Cao Ren to break free; How many descendants of the Cao family who get along day and night are all buried in the Feiyundu of the seventeen-mile mountain stream, it is really incredible!

Previously, when Cao Ren mentioned Li Li's name, he couldn't help but grit his teeth and call him "Li Thief", and now he still calls it so, but there is an inexplicable fear in his heart. Every time he mentioned "Li Thief", he felt an indescribable cold air surging up from the soles of his feet, and his heart was extremely weak.

Just as Cao Ren was standing and losing his mind, Cao Cao on the upper throne slowly sat up straight, and the decadent color on his face gradually dissipated, replaced by a melancholy and depressed feeling.

"Zixiao, how many surviving soldiers have returned to the barracks in recent days, and how many soldiers and horses are there in our army now?"

"Ugh!" Cao Ren woke up when he heard the sound, raised his eyes to pay attention to Cao Cao's expression, and hesitated to whisper back: "My lord, it has only been three days since our army crossed the river, and the last general has been guarding the gate of the camp for several days, and as of this evening, a total of three ??? have been collected Three thousand four hundred and eighty-two soldiers. When attacking Anyi City before, the last general led his troops to attack the city twice, and successively lost three or four thousand soldiers, so now our army is worthy of 20,000 horses. ”

Cao Cao's face changed slightly when he heard this, but he was not angry because of this, and his expression was still melancholy and deep: "Can you be worth 20,000 horses? In other words, there are actually less than 20,000. ”

After a pause in his tone, Cao Cao smiled miserably: "Hehehe! When we participated in the alliance, we had a full 80,000 troops in our hands, and our strength was second only to Yuan Shao among all the princes of the alliance. However, in the battle of Feiyundu, almost all of my more than 60,000 elite soldiers were wiped out, hundreds of generals died on the battlefield, and Zilian, Zhen'er and Xiu'er were all captured by Li Thief. In just ten days, the position of our army in the Allied forces has plummeted, and only 20,000 men and horses remain, which is only slightly stronger than Jiangdong Sun Ce, which is really a great irony, and it makes me ?????angry."

Seeing that Cao Cao didn't know anything about what had happened to the allies recently, Cao Ren couldn't help but interject: "The lord may not know that there have been new changes in the allied forces recently, and the shape is different from before. ”

"Huh?" Cao Cao frowned when he heard this, and his eyes instantly became sharp: "What happened?" Zixiao came quickly. ”

Cao Ren responded: "Ten days ago, Yuan Shao, despite the opposition of Zhang Yan and Lu Bu, insisted on appointing Hanoi Taishou Zhang Yang and leading the Hedong Taishou, staying behind in the rear of Hedong to be responsible for escorting the allied army's need for grain and grass. ”

———————————— (To be continued......)