From Xinye to the west is endless farmland, mixed with woods in the middle. At this time, the autumn rice has been harvested, and the winter wheat has grown tender seedlings. The earth is covered with thin snow. The cold wind is bleak, and groups of foraging birds are flying around the field.

In the early morning, in a forest about fifty miles away from the main road, more than a thousand sleeping Han soldiers were lying everywhere. They were tightly wrapped in blankets and leaning against each other. Their faces were still tired. On a big rock beside the woods, Pang De was naked and biting a wooden stick in his mouth. Two personal soldiers were cutting out the tips of the arrows on his back with sharp daggers.

In a bloody battle yesterday afternoon, although the Han army killed nearly 3,000 enemies, they were outnumbered and eventually failed. The army fled to the defeat and ran fifty miles in one breath before finally getting rid of Cao's pursuit.

In this bloody battle, the Han army lost more than 1,300 people, and even the main general Pang De was shot in the back by a branch of a raid. Pang De only felt a heart-wrenching pain in his back. He bit the branch tightly, and a large bead of sweat rolled down on his forehead. His eyes turned black and he almost fainted on the ground. There was only a "dou!" sound behind him. The tip of the arrow and the large pieces of blood were plucked out, and it fell on the plate, and a stream of black blood splashed out.

The personal soldiers hurriedly applied medicine to him and tied the wounds with silk cloth. One of the personal soldiers wiped the sweat beads from his forehead and whispered: "General moves a little to see if there is any problem!"

Pang De slowly moved his arms. Although it was still very painful, he at least felt and could move. This made him feel relieved. He slowly put on his clothes. At this time, the sentry in the tree shouted: "Our scout is back!"

After a moment, the two scouts quickly walked into the woods and knelt down on one knee to salute Pang De, "See General!"

Pound nodded and asked, "What's the situation outside?"

"Report to the general, the vanguard of Cao's army burned down the vehicles on the official road last night. They returned to Xinye County and did not continue to move south!"

As Pang De expected, Cao's army lost nearly 3,000 people. If they only rely on 5,000 people to go south, they would inevitably be hit by the Han army in Xiangyang. They themselves understood this and dared not go south. Although their army suffered heavy losses in this battle, they at least successfully blocked the vanguard of Cao's army from moving south.

But Pang De was still a little worried about the safety of the people evacuated from the east. He was about to ask again, but the scout reported: "We met a seriously injured spy from Cao on the road. Before he died, he told us that he found a fleet of ships south along the water north, which should be our navy."

The news immediately made Pang De breathe a sigh of relief. Cao's army had no naval army, so he could only pass by the fleet from Xiangyang. It should be Wenpin who received the report sent by him when he left Xinye, so he sent a ship to him. If the people in Xinye were following the line, they would meet the fleet, so he could feel at ease.

Thinking of this, Pang De turned around and said to his personal soldiers: "Go and notify the military marquis and generals to come and see me!"

Several personal soldiers ran to report, and soon two generals and four military marquis came around and sat around Pang De. Pang De told several generals of the information. Everyone was excited and one general said, "Since the vanguard of Cao's army has retreated to Xinye, we can go south immediately and cross the river from Deng County to Longzhong."

Pang De smiled and said, "Now our dry food can last for three days. I plan to go west and cross the river in Fangling County. There are only more than a thousand defenders in Fangling County. If Cao's army crosses the Han River from Fangling County, it is probably dangerous for Xiangyang. Why don't we rush to Fangling County and strengthen the defense of Fangling County? What do you think?"

Everyone looked at each other and bowed together, "I wish to listen to the general's command!"

"good!"

Pound immediately ordered, "Call the brothers and set off in a quarter of an hour!"

At noon, Cao Cao personally led an army of 100,000 to Xinye. The army was in large lineup and flags covered the sky and the sun. This time, Cao's army went south to Jingxiang, which was far from being compared with the southern expedition in the 13th year of Jian'an. That time, Cao's army spent several years preparing for the southern expedition, exhausted its efforts, and finally failed, resulting in the Cao's army not being able to recover its vitality.

This southern expedition only merged the troops of Nanyang and Hefei, and the food and grass were also in stocks of Nanyang itself. As for the weapons and materials, warships, etc., there were almost no special preparations. This also shows that Cao Cao did not really intend to defeat Jingxiang, but just to build momentum and restrain the battle on the Western Front.

Zhang He had received the news in advance and rushed to Cao Cao five miles away to report the situation of the vanguard's journey south. Under the guidance of several guards, he came to Cao Cao's war horse and bowed to report the report: "I will meet with the Prime Minister at the end."

Cao Cao nodded and asked, "General Zhang, you should be in Fancheng now, not Xinye! How do you explain to me?"

Zhang He knew that he could not escape some things, so he had to bite the bullet and report: "Report to the Prime Minister, on his way to the south, Bei Zhi was attacked by Xinye Guard Pang De, and the two sides fought fiercely for half a day. Bei Zhi's army suffered a great loss. According to the Prime Minister's instructions, be cautious, and Bei Zhi temporarily stopped going south."

Cao Cao frowned and turned around and asked Chen Qun, "Is this Pang De the original Ma Chao general Pang Lingming?"

"It was this person who followed Ma Chao to surrender to Liu Jing and was named Vice Captain and stationed in Xinye."

"This person is a talent, and it's a pity that Liu Jing only named him the vice-senior captain."

Cao Cao sighed slightly, then looked at Zhang He and said, "I'm telling you to be cautious, but General Zhang can tell me how many troops have been lost and how many casualties the other party has suffered?"

Zhang He's face turned red, his military newspaper had already been reported, how could the Prime Minister not know, but he deliberately asked him here. He was frightened and quickly knelt down on one knee and said, "I am not good at first battle, I am willing to be punished by the Prime Minister!"

Cao Cao snorted coldly, "Warning between the two armies, victory and defeat is common for military strategists. If you lose more than the other party, I will not blame you for this, but I repeatedly instruct you to speed up the marches and attack Fancheng as quickly as possible. However, your subordinates were fascinated by the people's wealth and were confused, so they were attacked by the other party. You know that there is money on the official road ahead, why don't you send your confidant to burn it first, breaking the greed of the soldiers behind, but you want to give the soldiers a chance to rob property. Is this what a general does?"

Zhang He was ashamed and said for a while: "I am not considering the humble position and disappointing the Prime Minister."

"I am very disappointed. As a pioneer, you have missed the opportunity to fight and demoted you to a higher level, and exempted your General Pingdi from his salary for one year."

Zhang He's face turned pale, and he lowered his head and said nothing. Cao Cao's punishment was quite severe. You must know that Zhang He went to Liaodong and fought hard to be named General Pingdi. This time, he was relieved of his most important position as the general of scattering.

Zhang Liao next to him was unbearable and hurriedly stepped forward and knelt down to plead for Zhang He. "The Prime Minister calmed down. Although Ye Yi was not considerate for a while, it was not that he instigated the soldiers to loot property. He led the soldiers to fight back and finally defeated the enemy who attacked him, causing nearly half of the enemy's casualties. It was also considered to be a meritorious person. As for not going south again, it was because of caution. I beg the Prime Minister to be punished with a lighter punishment!"

All the generals came forward to plead for Zhang He, and Cao Cao waved his hand and said, "I have thought a lot recently. Why our army was defeated repeatedly in the hands of Liu Jing. After thinking about it, this is related to our lack of strict military discipline. Liu Jing governed the army with lenient and gentleness. He violated the military rules and strictly punished him without mercy. No one is willing to give up, and he will be rewarded with great rewards and will never be stingy. Therefore, the three armies return to their hearts and soldiers use their lives. On the contrary, we have been defeated many times in recent years. Have you ever seen anyone punished? In the long run, everyone has a contempt in their hearts and no longer fight with their hearts. Therefore, starting from this southern expedition, whether it is the Western Front Defense or the Eastern Front Southern expedition, if you win, you will be rewarded with heavy punishment, you will never tolerate it!"

Zhang He said sadly: "The Prime Minister is right. I am a vanguard and I am not good at sending troops. Although I defeat the opponent, the troops are very different. Even if I win, I still lose. I should be punished severely. I am humble in my position to accept the punishment from the Prime Minister!"

Cao Cao nodded, "Very good, I punish you today. When you make great contributions in the future, I will give you double the reward."

"Thank you, Prime Minister!"

Everyone stopped talking and each was ashamed. Zhang Liao felt a little ashamed. Although he pleaded for Zhang He, he also knew that failure was failure, and there was no reason to explain. The Prime Minister's punishment was fair and not biased.

At this time, Cao Cao took out the golden arrow and said to Zhang Liao: "Wenyuan, I will give you 30,000 troops as the front army. I will immediately accelerate the southward, sweep north of the Han River, burn Fancheng and Deng County into white land, leaving no city left, and create momentum for me."

"Abide by the order!" Zhang Liao took the Jin order arrow and hurried away.

At this time, Cao Cao stared at Xinye City several miles away and ordered: "Burn Xinye City and razed Xinye to the ground!"

At this time, a guard rushed over and whispered to Cao Cao: "Emergency Information from Yedu!"

Cao Cao's face changed. He took a roll of silk, opened it and looked at it, and a sneer gradually appeared on the corner of his mouth. He pondered for a moment, wrote an order, and handed it to a guard and said, "You should go back to Yedu immediately, and handed this letter to the eldest son, and let him execute it immediately."

From the afternoon, the soldiers at the head of Xiangyang City saw the thick smoke above the north shore of the Han River. At first, there was only a thin stream of black smoke from afar. Although the black smoke was very thin, the soldiers all guessed that it was Xinye County. They could actually see black smoke for more than a hundred miles, which was enough to imagine what a terrifying scene was above Xinye City.

In the second half of the night, all the Han River north bank cities such as Fancheng, Deng County, Deng Sai City and other raging fires ignited, especially Fancheng. The fire engulfed the entire county town, thick smoke soared into the sky, and the terrible flames mixed in the rolling smoke and dust. I kept hearing the sound of the city wall falling down.

At this time, the floating bridge on the Han River had been demolished. Hundreds of Han army thousand stone warships that had just arrived from Jiangxia were patrolling the Han River. The soldiers on the ship saw more real than at the head of Xiangyang City. They saw tens of thousands of Cao army soldiers coming. They destroyed the city walls and burned the county town, destroying everything like locusts. However, the wide Han River blocked the Cao army's continued southward pace, so that the Cao army's sweep did not really hit Jingxiang.

On the top of the city of Xiangyang, senior civil and military officials such as Jia Xu, Wen Pin, Gan Ning, Cai Yan, Dong Yun and others climbed to the city, staring at the wanton destruction of Cao's army on the other side of the Han River with a serious expression, but Jia Xu only stroked his beard and chuckled, as if he did not take this destruction to heart.

"The military advisor doesn't seem to care too much?" Gan Ning asked in confusion.

Jia Xu smiled slightly, "Just bluffing, Cao Cao didn't do much. His purpose was to put pressure on the provincial governor and force the provincial governor to stop the northern expedition on the western front. Unless Cao's army can cross the Han River, he would not be able to stop the Han army's will to go north."

Gan Ning nodded and said to everyone: "This time I led 300 thousand-stone wooden ships and 5,000 naval troops to the north. They are the most elite naval troops of the Han army, and they are enough to dominate the world. If Cao's army cannot cross the Han River, I will not give him any chance, including Fangling and Shangyong. There are already fifty warships each heading north. Cao's army stops at the Han River. This is inevitable!"

Wen Pin also said happily: "With General Gan's confidence, I believe that Cao's strategy of putting pressure on the eastern front will never succeed."
Chapter completed!