Since ancient times, there has been no more difficult than fighting at night. The difficulty of night battles lies in the fact that you can't see clearly in the dark, and if you light up, then you will become a conspicuous target. Therefore, before the advent of modern night vision equipment, the vast majority of the world's armed forces were actually very afraid of night operations and were afraid of night operations in the 70s of the last century.During the battle of Guandu of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao made a surprise attack, marched in the second half of the night, attacked Wuchao at night, and burned Yuan Shao's grain and grass camp with a fire, thus completely reversing the stalemate of the battle and defeating Yuan Shao's entire army.Therefore, in ancient times, anyone who could fight a successful night raid, or could crush the enemy's night raid, was a general who could go down in history.
This was a rare, wonderful, and difficult night raid in the history of warfare.
Therefore, the following two questions are very interesting.
One: Yuan Shao's grain cantonment was burned, but his main combat force was not damaged, and his strength was still ten times that of Cao Cao. Why was it that once the grain and grass were burned, the Hebei army was immediately defeated?
2: How difficult was it to fight a night raid in ancient times?
The brilliance of history lies in these details.
This is in response to the phrases "since ancient times, wars have been fought in logistics" and "before the soldiers and horses are moved, the grain and grass go first", which is the key to soldiers.
If an army has no food routes and no logistics, then even if it is a strong army in a hundred battles, as long as it does not have enough to eat, the soldiers of the battalion will panic and the people will be frightened.
As soon as this situation arises, the battle can no longer be fought, and there is no choice but to withdraw the troops immediately. And if you withdraw in front of the enemy, you will definitely be pursued by the enemy, and then the whole army will collapse.
Therefore, cutting off grain and grass is the most taboo in the art of war.
The famous generals of the past dynasties are well aware of this principle, how to protect their own grain routes in war, and how to cut off the other party's grain routes, these two are the top priorities of the commanders of the unified army.
** The grain road raid war.
This brings us to the way the great battles unfolded in ancient wars.
The fact that the generals singled out in front of the battle to decide the victory or defeat of the two armies is just a joke, and it will never appear in real history!
When the two armies met, first of all, the armies of both sides built camps according to the terrain, and held them according to the danger, and first formed a confrontation.
The so-called clever schemes are only embodied in strategy and tactics, and in the specific arrangements such as marching, camping, and engagement, it is necessary to "harden the village and fight to the death."
Fighting and fighting are based on the same principle, nothing more than defending first and then attacking. It's like two fighters fighting, you have to hold the boxing first, defend well, and then attack. Those who rashly attack without fighting and defending themselves will definitely be beaten.
After the confrontation is formed, the two sides have to send their own scouts to spy on each other's deployments. For example, the details of the distribution of the enemy's troops, where the logistics baggage is concentrated, find out the loopholes in the opponent's defense, and take the opportunity to attack.
What if the opponent's defense is leaky and there are no loopholes?
Then continue to confront each other, and each of them will surprise and disrupt the opponent's defenses, depending on who has the first mistakes and loopholes in deployment.
During this period, there will be a large number of sentry and cavalry battles, raids and counter-attacks on the two fronts, as well as battles of varying scales such as each other's surprise troops, attacking each other's lines of communication, intercepting each other's grain routes, and so on.
From this, there are two ancient iron laws of warfare:
1) Whoever makes a deployment mistake first will lose the battle first.
2) Whoever succeeds in cutting off the other party's grain route first will win the battle first.
There are many such examples in history.
For example, the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms in the Western Han Dynasty, Zhou Yafuping, was held by the main force and confronted the rebels of the Seven Kingdoms; Then, the Han army dispatched elite light cavalry to return to the rear of the rebels, burning their baggage, destroying their bridges, and cutting off their grain and transportation. When the rebels of the Seven Nations saw that the grain and grass in the rear had not arrived on time, the army was in a state of confusion and immediately panicked. He no longer dared to fight, and began to retreat. Zhou Yafu took advantage of the situation to launch a fierce attack of the whole army and won a big victory in one fell swoop.
And Cao Cao also used this method during the Battle of Guandu.
Cao Cao held Yuan Shao's army for more than half a year with inferior troops, and finally waited for the day when he learned the location of the enemy's grain station, so he did not hesitate to attack the black nest overnight and burn the enemy's grain and grass, so that Yuan Shao's army was completely defeated.
That's because Cao Cao was good at seizing the fighter plane, winning by surprise, winning the second victory in World War II, dampening the spirit of Yuan Shao's army, and creating a confrontation situation for himself.
The comparison of the strength of the Cao and Yuan armies at the time of the Battle of Guandu is as follows.
Cao Cao's total strength was only 30,000, the cavalry was only more than 1,000, and the armor in the army was also insufficient, and the overall strength was far inferior to Yuan Shao.
Yuan Shao has an army of 100,000 and more than 10,000 cavalry, and only the big armor (whole body iron armor) has 10,000 leaders, and the soldiers are strong and strong.
Cao Cao's first battle.
Yuan Shaobing attacked in two ways, and personally led the army to take Liyang; On the other hand, the three generals of Fu Zhu, Chun Yuqiong, and Yan Liang were partial divisions and besieged Baima in Dongjun.
In response to Yuan Shao's menacing, Cao Cao decided to eat his all-way division first.
He used the strategy of attacking the east and the west, crossed the river with a force and made a feint, and made a posture of going around to Yuan Shao's rear, which successfully confused Yuan Shao and made Yuan Shao dispatch troops who were besieging Baima to intercept it.
Then, Cao Cao personally led a light horse to attack the white horse. Cao Jun doubled the road and traveled at the same time, and was only discovered when he approached Baima for ten miles, and Yan Liang led his troops to come to stop it in a hurry. The Cao army took Zhang Liao and Guan Yu as the first to attack, slashed the famous general Yan Liang of Hebei, and successfully broke through Yuan Shao's division along the way and relieved the siege of Baima.
The first battle was victorious, although Cao's army had few soldiers, its morale was greatly boosted, and the soldiers were more confident in daring to defeat the crowd with outnumbered.
**Guan Yu beheaded Yan Liang.
Cao Cao's second battle.
After the siege was lifted, Cao Cao covered the evacuation of the people of Baima with the whole army.
This is interesting again, why go to such trouble to relocate people?
In ancient wars, the battle was for population and land, and the number of people was the key to strength. It is useless to move the population away, and it is useless for the enemy to grab the land. This is called "saving people and losing land, and people and land existing".
And how could Yuan Shao allow Cao Cao to swagger away the population?
As a result, another famous Hebei general, Wen Chou, and Liu Bei, who was attached to Yuan Shao at that time, led five or six thousand horsemen to pursue Cao's army, which was migrating the population.
Historical records: At that time, Cao's army had only 600 cavalry, and Yuan Shao dispatched 6,000 cavalry at a time, and the disparity in strength was obvious.
However, Cao Cao defeated these 6,000 horsemen with 600 horsemen!
In view of the Hebei cavalry, many Karasuma and Hutu cavalry, although brave but lacking in discipline.
Cao Cao first chose a terrain that was conducive to high impact, and ordered 600 cavalry to rest and wait to store horsepower.
Then he ordered the troops, and the generals' baggage and the wealth of the displaced people were scattered all the way to the ground. The Wen Chou cavalry troops who came after saw the wealth all over the place, and immediately became a mess of looting, the order of the troops was in chaos, and Wen Chou and Liu Bei, who led the army, could not stop it at all.
It can be seen that compared with Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, the two are still too far apart in governing the army.
In ancient wars, if there was a great chaos in the front of the enemy and the array could not be formed, it would be fatal!
Cao Cao led the 600 cavalry that had been gathering momentum for a long time, galloped down from the high slope, and with a "boom", it stabbed straight into Wen Chou's 6,000 cavalry army like a sharp knife. In the chaotic battle, the battle was ugly and the enemy army was broken again.
In this way, the second victory in World War II also captured many cavalry soldiers and captured a large number of war horses.
The two famous generals of Hebei, Yan Liang and Wen Chou, died one after another, which gave Yuan Shao's army a great shock and seriously dampened the morale of the Hebei generals.
In fact, although Yuan Shao's forces were still overwhelmingly superior, the enthusiasm of the armies under his command had actually been defeated.
This is an important reason why Cao Cao was able to form a confrontation situation with Yuan Shao's army, which was several times his size, with inferior forces.
When the confrontation between the two armies was formed, the two sides launched a contact battle of small outpost forces, a battle of attack and defense of the barracks, and a battle of attack and disturbance of the grain route.
This was the standard way for great battles to unfold in ancient wars.
After Yuan Shao's army stood firm, more than 100,000 people were camped for dozens of miles. Its advantages of being well-equipped and strong in the army are shown.
During this period, Cao Cao sent troops to fight head-on with it several times, but he could not take advantage of it, so he held the main road, built a defensive line, and the main force did not come out.
Offensive and defensive battles of the barracks.
Yuan Shao's army attacked Cao's army camp, but Cao's army built the camp and fortifications into copper walls and iron walls, as solid as a rock.
Yuan Shao was repeatedly defeated. He took advantage of the large number of people and the crowd to get close to Cao Ying, first piled up a mountain of earth outside Cao Ying, and then built an enemy building on the mountain, and hung it outside the building with a big shield, called the Lou Lu. He also mobilized crossbowmen to condescend in the building and shoot Cao Ying. Every time he attacked, thousands of crossbows were fired, and the arrows were like torrential rain, which made Cao Jun miserable.
Of course, Cao Jun was not willing to be beaten passively. He also built a mountain of soil in the camp, which was guarded by the general Yu Ban and led his troops to shoot desperately at a high place.
The crossbowmen of Hebei were several times larger than the Cao army, and the disadvantage of the Cao army's insufficient strength was fully revealed. The two armies fired at each other, and Cao's army was obviously defeated and lost the upper hand.
Cao Ying was always under the control of the enemy's arrow rain, and the soldiers walked in the camp, all of them had to hold their shields high, and the fear of the masses increased day by day.
How to destroy the towers and crossbowmen on the enemy's earth mountain is already a matter of vital importance to the safety and survival of Cao's army.
Cao Cao dispatched craftsmen with the army to urgently make thunderbolts (catapults) and threw stone cannons to bombard Yuan's army's dirt mountains. In the end, the stone artillery defeated the bow and crossbow, and destroyed the Loulu built by Yuan Shaojun, and the Hebei archers no longer dared to shoot on the earth mountain, thus removing the threat to Cao Ying.
However, after the Hebei army let the stone artillery bombard down the soil mountain. Seeing that the attack from a high place could not be achieved, he hit the idea underground, so he dug a tunnel, intending to attack Cao Ying with the method of burrowing.
Cao's countermeasure was to dig another deep trench in the camp, cut off the tunnel, and smashed Yuan Shao's plot.
Tunnel warfare and anti-tunnel warfare were common in the attack and defense of ancient Chinese cities.
Dig long trenches against tunnel warfare.
Grain Road War.
At the same time as the offensive and defensive battles of the barracks, the grain road raids and disturbances on the rear of the two battle lines were also happening non-stop.
Yuan Shao's Hebei army had the advantage of having a large number of cavalry, so he rode out in all directions and constantly copied Cao's army's grain road.
And in the maintenance of the grain road, Cao Cao is obviously far superior to Yuan Shao!
After Cao Jun was attacked several times, he had countermeasures to counterattack and disturb.
Cao Jun reduced the number of grain transports, but expanded the size of the grain transport team, every time to transport grain to the front, they were all set out in a group of thousands of grain trucks, divided into ten columns to advance in parallel, each road with 100 vehicles, and the escort soldiers and horses to form a defensive phalanx state of marching.
In this way, as soon as there was an enemy situation, the grain cart was used as the city, and the guards and soldiers used strong bows and crossbows to shoot, so that the enemy rangers did not dare to approach at all, thus maintaining the safety of the grain route.
On the other hand, Yuan Shao's protection of the grain road was far less thorough than Cao Jun's. Cao Cao dispatched Cao Ren, Xu Huang, Shi Jian and other generals, each of whom led his troops to intercept the grain road of Yuan Shao's army, and repeatedly made gains, and successively burned thousands of grain trucks in Hebei, which dealt a heavy blow to the morale of Yuan Shao's army again and again.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Zhuge Liang Biography": Cao Cao is more famous than Yuan Shao, but he can Keshao, and the weak are strong, not only the time, but also the people.With 30,000 or 40,000 troops, Cao Cao resisted the attack of Yuan Shao's army of more than 100,000 troops, and successfully stabilized the defensive line. However, Cao's army was tight and its overall strength was insufficient, which was always a big problem.
The fourth and third dukes of the Yuan family made Yuan Shao's fame far greater than that of Cao Cao.
And Yuan's protégés are all over the prefectures and counties of the world, and most of the people in the world think that Cao Cao will be defeated in this war.
In Yanzhou Runan and other places, many clans and officials secretly surrendered to Yuan, and began to disobey Cao Cao's orders. This made the logistical supply of Cao's army on the front line increasingly difficult, which was the biggest problem Cao Cao faced in the Guandu War.
Since the siege of Baima was lifted in February of the fifth year of Jian'an, Cao's army has been fighting on the front line for nine consecutive months. Due to the small number of soldiers and the frequent dispatch of troops, the non-commissioned officers were already exhausted.
On the eve of the burning of the black nest, in the Chinese army camp led by Cao Cao, there were less than 10,000 soldiers in battle, and there were 23 out of 10 wounded. What's worse is that the logistics ** began to be insufficient, and the only surplus food in the army could not last for two or three days, and the situation was already very unfavorable to Cao's army!
And in such a critical situation, why did Cao Cao still decide to continue to hold on?
It is because although Yuan Shao on the opposite side has enough soldiers and food, Yuan Shao's personality is resourceful and decisive, and although his subordinates are full of talents, they are full of factions and compete for their own style.
Cao Cao believed that there were internal disunity factors in the Yuan group, and the army of 100,000 people was stationed on the front line, and after a long time, there would inevitably be flaws and loopholes in the deployment.
Crisis, crisis, crisis, Cao Cao's long-awaited opportunity to break the enemy really came suddenly.
At the critical moment of the battle, Yuan Shao severely reprimanded Xu You, who held the secrets of the army, with the words of "post-war general punishment", and this irritability without distinguishing between severity prompted Xu You to defect overnight and betrayed the location of the Hebei army to Cao Cao.
When Xu Yu came to vote, the grain and grass of the Hebei army gathered in Wuchao, and this news made Cao Cao realize that the opportunity to win with one blow had arrived. Overjoyed, in order to express his gratitude to Xu You, he deigned to bow down.
How difficult was it to fight a night raid in ancient times?
A good military commander will never miss an opportunity!
Cao Cao decided to immediately choose a front, select 5,000 elite foot cavalry, and personally lead the overnight attack on the black nest.
However, unlike the night battle in Romance, few people dared to march at night and launch a night raid in the real ancient war!
Because the soldiers walk in the dark, they will lose their way, and fear will be generated, and fear will be contagious, and then there will be vicious events such as night terrors and camp howls that quickly lead to the collapse of the whole army.
Therefore, marching and fighting at night, in modern times, is still a taboo for soldiers, let alone ancient times!
And the grain storage area is inevitably in the rear of the enemy army. Therefore, this night attack of the Cao army, a force of 5,000 people had to pass through the defense line of Yuan Shao's army, and there were two difficulties.
One: How to get through the enemy's heavily armed defense?
It is absolutely impossible for a large force to pass through the line of defense without knowing it. But Xu You's defection is equivalent to having the leading party, which makes the impossible possible.
However, the risks remain!
In the event of a defeat in the middle of the operation, then a mere 5,000 troops, even if they are all elite soldiers, will be besieged by heavy enemy troops in the field, and the morale of the army will immediately collapse because of the failure of the operation, and the end will definitely be annihilated.
Second: After arriving, what if you can't quickly conquer the nest?
As a grain station, even if it is in the rear, the defenders are tens of thousands.
Cao's army came on foot overnight, attacking an enemy twice his size and holding on to his camp with tired soldiers who had no superiority in strength. Even if it is a sneak attack, it is the most difficult battle to fight.
If the suddenness of the attack is not achieved, and the enemy camp cannot be quickly attacked, then enemy reinforcements will soon arrive.
In this way, he fell into a desperate situation of being alone under the fortified city, suffering from the enemy on his back, and being attacked from both sides, and the end was also the annihilation of the whole army.
However, Cao Cao was determined, and the troops completed their pre-battle preparations, rested in the first half of the night, and set off in the second half of the night.
The battle of the night attack on the Black Nest was the most daring and desperate adventure in Cao Cao's military career.
The night raid troops brought enough arson equipment such as rockets, and the soldiers each carried an additional bundle of firewood and hay, and the whole army carried the banner of Yuan Shao's army, and marched quickly, and passed through the Hebei army defense line smoothly along the way, without being detected.
It can be seen that any victory is not accidental, and the comparison of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao's ability to govern the army and the comprehensive quality of the two armies has already been judged.
It is different from the scene in the romance where the Wuchao guard Chun Yuqiong was drunk and the defenders were panicked and vulnerable. Chun Yuqiong, who was stationed in Wuchao, was not drunk, and the combat effectiveness of the troops under his command was not weak.
Cao Jun's Wuchao raid was a real tough battle!
After a long march in the middle of the night, Cao's army arrived at Wuchao at dawn. However, before the attack could be launched, it was discovered by Chun Yuqiong.
If Chun Yuqiong immediately flew to inform Yuan Shao, and guarded the camp. Then Cao's light troops came from afar, and it was actually difficult to break through a strong fortress with heavy defense!
And Chun Yuqiong made a big mistake!
He deceived Cao Cao into having few soldiers, and even led his troops out of the camp and lined up outside the village to annihilate Cao's army in a field battle.
At this time, the commander Cao Cao had already taken the lead and disregarded his safety, and the entire Cao army had already put life and death out of the way.
The two armies fought, Cao's sergeants desperately assaulted, everyone was one as ten, Chun Yuqiong was defeated and retreated, retreated into the camp and tried to hold on.
Chun Yuqiong's defeat defeated the morale of his troops, but on the contrary, it inspired Cao Jun's courage and fighting spirit.
So Cao Jun took advantage of the situation to continue to storm the camp, firing thousands of bows in unison, throwing rockets straight into the enemy camp piece by piece and setting it on fire.
The firelight of the black nest and the rumbling of war drums alarmed the four fields.
Yuan Shao's deployment.
When Yuan Shao learned that Cao Cao personally led his troops and horses to attack Wuchao, he did not mobilize superior forces to encircle and annihilate Cao Cao's lone army, and even divided the soldiers and horses into two routes.
Yuan Shao thought that the number of Wuchao guards was twice that of Cao's army, so he would not be lost, so he only sent a cavalry to support Wuchao.
However, he ordered Zhang He, Gao Ran and other generals to lead the main force and heavy troops to attack the Cao army camp where the force was empty. He also said quite complacently: He attacked my black nest, and I copied his camp so that he had nowhere to return.
Yuan Shao's step is really a big trick!
Later generations read the history books, and they couldn't understand why Yuan Shao didn't concentrate on the main force to encircle and annihilate Cao Cao, who was alone in the depths. Could it be that Yan Liangwen was beheaded one after another, which made Yuan Shao afraid of Cao in his heart, and he was avoiding fighting to the death with the elite soldiers led by Cao Cao?
It's actually possible.
Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, both of them are the sons of the powerful in Luoyang, they have played together since childhood, Cao Cao knows Yuan Shao's character very well, and commented: "Lustful and timid." ”
It seems that this comment is quite plausible!
Wuchao is about forty miles away from Yuan Shao's camp, and when the Hebei reinforcements will reach Wuchao, Cao's army has not yet captured Wuchao at this moment, and it is still in a fierce battle. It can also be seen from this that Chun Yuqiong and other Wuchao defenders are not the straw bales described in the romance.
Cao's army reprimanded the army to report, and the enemy army came to reinforce the cavalry.
At this time, Cao's army marched and fought all night, without stopping, and was about to face the most dangerous situation of being attacked by the enemy on the belly and back.
The generals on the left and right were very worried, and they urgently asked Cao Cao to divide his troops to block the reinforcements.
Cao Cao's decision was to concentrate his forces and continue to storm the Black Nest. And angrily reprimanded: "Don't report the enemy's situation again, and wait for the enemy's blade to touch my back, and then come to tell me." ”
The coach has the will to die, and the soldiers naturally have the courage to fight to the death.
The generals of the Cao army worked hard and fought first. Captain Kou Lejin, first climbed the village, attacked the camp, and killed Chun Yuqiong.
At this point, the whole army poured into the black nest and set fire to the Yuan army's stockpiles.
Thick smoke and fire rose into the sky, heralding that the black nest had been broken!
In an instant, the tide of the battlefield was reversed. The grain and grass were burned, which brought great panic to Yuan Shao's army, and made the soldiers of the Hebei army lose their color.
As a result, including the famous general Zhang He, who was besieging the Cao army's camp, also knew that the general trend had gone, and surrendered directly to the Cao army on the battlefield.
In such a situation, Yuan Shao's battle could not be fought, and he had to withdraw his troops.
However, Yuan Shao wanted to withdraw to the river, and he was still separated by the Yellow River on the way, so it was not so easy to withdraw. Cao Jun took advantage of the victory to pursue, and nearly 100,000 Hebei troops collapsed by the Yellow River.
The burning of the black nest was the most critical battle in the Guandu Dynasty.
And Cao Cao's "invasion is like fire, immobile like a mountain" in this battle is vividly displayed.
For example, in the holding stage, gritting your teeth and holding on. Once the time has come to break the enemy, they will immediately attack, dare to fight at night, and dare to break the boat.
This decision is not as good as Yuan Shao!
And after Cao Cao's complete victory, he did another earth-shattering event.
After chasing down the Hebei army, Cao's army seized a large number of confidential documents from Yuan Shao's army, including a large number of loyal letters secretly written by Cao Cao's personnel to Yuan Shao.
These people who secretly wrote letters to Yuan Shao were frightened.
But Cao Cao said: Even if I am myself, I am not completely sure that I can defeat Yuan Shao before the war, let alone others?
So, Cao ordered that these documents that secretly betrayed sincerity to the enemy be burned in public to show that the matter would not be investigated.
With such a bearing and mind, he really deserves to be the first hero of the Three Kingdoms.