After Zhou Tai, Chen Wu led his troops to attack Xiangyi.

Cao Cao ordered the main troops to return to Yanzhou in turn, in order to preside over the encirclement and annihilate the Yuan army who went deep into the rear and was isolated and helpless.

When most of the Cao army returned to the hinterland of Yanzhou, Cao Cao had not yet had time to arrange various plans for encirclement and annihilation, and had already obtained that the enemy had marched straight along Chenliuyi, joining the Heishan Army, which was harassed by Huang, and crossing the river together, entering the boundary of the Yellow River north.

Cao Cao, who heard this news, was a little confused for a moment.

What's the situation?

This is the enemy's military route?

For a moment, even Cao Cao did not expect that after the surprise attack on Xiangyi, Yuan's army would choose to escape in the opposite direction.

Everyone has blind spots in thinking!

Without accurate information, even though the Cao group's advisers were very intelligent and Cao Cao was also a resourceful person, he could not predict the Yuan army's return route.

Now that Yuan's army crossed the river and entered the Bingzhou boundary, it was obviously unexpected.

But now, there is nothing we can do about it.

Our side has returned to Yanzhou, and it is obvious that it has lost the situation of taking the initiative to attack.

At this moment, Cao Cao also understood that all Yuan Yao did was only one purpose, that was, to force his side to take the initiative to retreat to the hinterland of Yanzhou, and thus lose the initiative in fighting for the ownership of Yuzhou.

As for the spies' return afterwards, the Yuan army has gradually taken control of the Chen State, Yingchuan and other counties. In addition to Pei State and Liang State, the Yuan family has obtained three of the five counties in Yuzhou.

It is no exaggeration to say that the current Yuan army has the upper hand in the battle for the Central Plains, and there are also Runan County, which has been operated for many years and the entire six counties of Yangzhou that have been pacified, which is enough to support the war breaking out on the front line of the Yuan army.

On the other hand, Cao Cao, due to the previous battle with Lu Bu for the ownership of Yanzhou, and the natural disasters such as locust plagues that broke out in the counties of Yanzhou, even though Yanzhou has always been rich and has a profound foundation.

But after experiencing the step-by-step destruction since the Yellow Turban Rebellion, years of war, and natural disasters that broke out again at some point...

The counties in Yanzhou have long been overwhelmed...

Compared with the current strength and logistics background of both sides, it is too difficult for Cao Cao to compete for Yuzhou!

Therefore, after a number of military reports from all sides were sent back to Yanzhou, Cao Cao learned that the Yuan army had initially controlled Yingchuan, Chen State and other places, he was surprisingly calm and did not raise any more troops to fight for it.

There is no way, most of the food, grass, weapons, and other materials stored in the previous period were attacked and burned down. If you promote troops in the warehouse now, you will not have good results.

To be on the safe side, Cao Cao is also a rare hero. His tenacious willpower still overcome the anger in his heart and forced him to wake up.

Since we have decided to focus on rest, we will not consider making progress in the Central Plains for the short period of time.

Next, all the enriched armament situations were quickly extinguished in Yanzhou County.

Officials at all levels in counties and counties gradually organized the people to reclaim fertile land in a large manner in accordance with the instructions of superiors, in order to prepare for the spring plowing of the coming year and restore the vitality of Yanzhou as soon as possible.

The most embarrassing convenience in Yanzhou at present is that due to the frequent military disasters before and the natural disasters have caused almost no harvest in the people, and countless people are hungry.

In the end, those who starve to death and those who escape to the famine are starved to death.

For a moment, the population in Yanzhou was greatly lost to other places.

The number of population households has dropped sharply on a large scale.

Now, in order to restore vitality as soon as possible, Cao Cao adopted the suggestions of Zao Zhi and Han Hao and organized military and civilians to farm.

This time, the farmlands are also divided into military camps and civil camps.

Due to the war, the industries among many small and medium-sized wealthy families in Yanzhou were affected, and the harvest in the fields was also poor. When the harvest was greatly reduced, the number of tenant farmers in the usual supply would be extremely burdened.

In response to this situation, the common approach adopted by the tycoons was to expel the tenant farmers to reduce costs.

The reason why these tenants became subordinates of the wealthy clan was that they were forced to rely on the wealthy clan because they lost their territory.

Now that he is abandoned by the rich, the tenant farmers can only become homeless refugees among the counties in Yanzhou.

And this collective and huge population naturally constitutes an extremely unstable factor.

Because they are homeless, they naturally have a very high crime rate for food and drink.

They either steal or rob, or take risks to fight the thieves and bandits to make a living.

Due to the various unfavorable factors currently facing Yanzhou and in order to improve public security, Cao Cao decided to implement military farming.

The introduction of the military farm system not only promotes the restoration of production in Yanzhou, but also improves public security and accumulates grain production.

The so-called civil settlement means that the official organization collects unemployed refugees who have no choice but to wander around the world, and gives them land to farm, so they collect a certain land tax every year according to the harvest.

Due to the rampant military disasters and natural disasters in the previous period, many small and medium-sized families migrated to other places, and naturally many fields were empty in the territory without anyone to cultivate them.

Cao Cao naturally would not be polite and took all his powers to his unified management.

This move can be regarded as a disguised way to seize the land from the rich, and thus prohibiting land annexation.

As for military camps, it is to organize troops to reclaim and farm farms.

During the slack season, unified training will be organized to integrate combat power.

During busy farming, it is uniformly allocated for cultivation to increase grain reserves.

However, in order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the army, Cao Cao thought carefully and completely distinguished the millions of Qingzhou soldiers he had surrendered in the previous period.

During this period, the elderly, weak, women and children were fully assigned to the civil towns and the land tax was collected according to the annual harvest.

As for the remaining soldiers with average combat power or wounded soldiers, they are unified into military farming soldiers.

The military farm soldiers are also the largest in scale, with about 200,000.

As for the truly powerful Qingzhou soldiers, Cao Cao also carefully selected more than 30,000 people from it to form a regular professional legion.

This army does not need to be responsible for military farming and other matters on weekdays, but only needs to be practiced every day to maintain high combat power.

We will dispatch all regions at any time to prepare for a war.

Cao Cao's actions were naturally beyond the reach of Yuan Jun.

When Yuan Yao learned about Cao's army's actions, he naturally knew that once the military farming plan was launched, he would not have enough energy to continue to send troops to compete for the ownership of Yuzhou for at least one or two years.

Then, the initiative in the battle situation was completely in his own hands.

Moreover, given the Yuan family's prestige in the Central Plains and the unparalleled appeal among the Shilin.

Today, with the help of the gentry, the Yuan family's foundation has also quickly stabilized.

But Cao Cao, on the other hand, was extremely uncomfortable in the face of Yuan's endless development.

Although he was unable to send troops for a while, he wanted to continue to stop the other party's development pace.

...

As all information shows that the Yuan family's foundation in Yuzhou has become increasingly stable.

Cao Cao was upset and decided to cause some trouble for him.

In response to this, Cao Cao summoned a group of advisers under his command to discuss countermeasures.

Dingtao City.

Military palace, in the lobby.

The counselors gathered together at this time and sat on the ground on both sides.

Cao Cao stood at the top, showing a calm expression, and said first: "Everyone, according to constant war reports, since the Yuan army gradually introduced Yingchuan and Chen State under his rule."

"The Yuan Yao's son has used his Yuan family's remaining power and, with the help of a group of gentry, has now gradually consolidated his foundation among the counties in Yuzhou."

"If we continue to let it develop endlessly, the future situation will be even worse for our army, and we must stop the development rhythm of Yuan's family."

After a firm and firm words fell, the expression that appeared on Cao Cao's face at this moment was full of solemnity and persistence.

The Yuan family must be stopped!

After this speech, the counselors under his command also became active.

After a long time, Cheng Yu, who was older and old, had a serious look, and his eyes seemed to be filled with a faint light, bowing and saying:

"What the lord said is extremely true!"

"With the Yuan family's remaining power in the past, it is not too difficult to help the current Yuan army quickly gain a foothold in Yuzhou."

"Although our army has temporarily extinguished its military use trends, we must not sit idly by and watch the development of Yuan's army without any means of stopping it."

After saying this, Cheng Yu paused for a moment, and then said: "In Yu's opinion, our army, without any changes in its strategic policy, can send a powerful brigade to penetrate the northern part of Yingchuan or the territory of Chen from time to time to rob."

"Use your strength to interfere with the normal development of the Yuan family and buy time for our army's rest."

As soon as these words fell, everyone thought for a while, but they all expressed their intention of echoing.

According to the current view, this strategy may also be one of the more feasible solutions.

But for Cao Cao, he did not feel smooth because of Cheng Yu's advice at this time, and it was obvious that he was not so satisfied with this strategy.

After a long silence, Cao Cao looked at Xun Yu, the chief adviser who was the first to kneel in the hall, and was favored and extremely noble in status. After pondering for a while, he asked slowly:

"Wen Ruo, what do you think about preventing Yuan from quickly consolidating his foundation in Yuzhou?"

Upon hearing this, Xun Yu bowed and then his face remained calm and said slowly: "Lord, although Zhongde's words just now can prevent the development of Yuan's family from temporarily, it can cure the symptoms but not the root cause."

"After launching a few more harassments, Yuan Jun will definitely take action."

"I'm afraid our army will find it difficult to create any miraculous advantages in the future."
To be continued...