It is no exaggeration to say that Li Li has become the curse hidden in Cao Cao's heart and an endless nightmare.

Li Li will not die for a day, and Cao Cao will not be able to sleep or eat, like a thorn in his throat, like a light on his back, and there will be no peace.

Four days ago, his most proud thing was that Li Li became a turtle in the jar and could not escape with his wings, but although Li Li did not have wings, he eventually escaped.

This battle in Hebei was indeed Cao Cao who won the battle, making a lot of money and the real big winner. However, this big victory was a lucky victory, and suddenly, and it was not a good fight.

After the big victory, Cao Cao knew deeply that as long as Li Li escaped alive, the battle in Hebei would not end, and at most half of the game, that is, the first half. Although he won the first half, he had already revealed all the deployment of the second half in Li Li's eyes. In this way, the situation in the second half was worrying, and the person who won the second half would mean that he had everything, including a temporary defeat or victory in the first half.

Only when he laughed at the end could he smile brightly, so Cao Cao really couldn't laugh at this time. Even though he was smiling in front of him, he was worried and tossing and unable to sleep when the night was quiet.

Cao Cao, who had been standing in the corridor for a long time, suddenly walked down the jade steps, paced in the courtyard, murmured and pondered: "How much life is like the morning dew, the past is full of suffering. I sigh with generosity, and my worries are unforgettable. How can I relieve my worries? Only Du Kang, the green collar, is in my heart. But for the sake of you, I have pondered until now."

"Bang bang bang!" Just as Cao Cao pondered for a long time, a burst of rapid footsteps disrupted his thoughts. He woke him up suddenly and turned to look at the visitor. When he saw who the visitor was clearly, he frowned instantly. He guessed that it was not a good thing for Xun Yu to come late at night, and he must have brought back news about Li Li.

"Wen Ruo brought news about Li Zhe?" Before Xun Yu could speak, Cao Cao quickly came up and asked in a deep voice.

Xun Yu breathed breathlessly and nodded, "Fortunately, the lord has not yet gone to bed, otherwise he would disturb him." As he spoke, Xun Yu took out a stack of brocade from his arms and handed it to Cao Cao with both hands, and gasped again.

Indeed, Xun Yu's words were not polite, but rather a feeling of gratitude. If Cao Cao had already fallen asleep at this time, he would not dare to rashly break into the dormitory to report to Cao Cao, because Cao Cao had a strange habit of killing people in his dream. This habit was not born with it. It was completely acquired.

The source of this bad habit is the habit that Cao Cao had developed after failing to assassinate Dong Zhuo in the past and was extremely frightened during his escape. It is closely related to Chen Gong, the chief adviser under Lu Bu’s tent in Xuzhou. On the same day, Cao Cao failed to assassinate Dong Zhuo and fled Luoyang in a hurry. When he passed through Zhongmu County, he was captured by Chen Gong, the then county magistrate. Then Chen Gong was moved by Cao Cao's assassination of Dong Yiju, resolutely gave up his current official position and was willing to follow Cao Cao to escape from Sili to plan major events together.

However, while the two fled together, they lived in Cao Cao's uncle Lu Boshe's home. However, because Cao Cao was suspicious by nature, he mistakenly killed Lu Boshe's whole family and young, and refused to admit his mistake afterwards. He also kept saying, "I would rather let others down than let others down." This made Chen Gong completely disappointed Cao Cao, and he thought he had seen his true face clearly and believed that Cao Cao was a treacherous villain who seemed to be a big false and a big treacherous person.

The two lived in the same room that night, and Chen Gong couldn't sleep. Cao Cao, who had killed Lu Boshe's family, slept like mud. So Chen Gong was furious and got up and wanted to draw his sword to kill Cao Cao. He wanted to seek justice for Lu Boshe's family. However, Chen Gong could not do anything after all, and thought that he and Cao Cao had met each other. He had saved him before, but if he killed him again, wouldn't he become a fickle villain? He then inserted the drawn sword on the head of Cao Cao's bed and left overnight. Since then, Chen Gong and Cao Cao parted ways.

The next morning, Cao Cao woke up with the sound of roosters. When he opened his eyes, he saw the sword blade shining with cold light. The blade with a sharp murderous intent was only an inch away from his head. At that moment, Cao Cao was so scared that he left his body and was shocked. He did not dare to move for a long time until he confirmed that he was not hurt. He then stared at the sword and slowly stood up, leaving in a hurry, and rushed back to his hometown day and night.

Since then, Cao Cao always put a short dagger on his hand when he was sleeping at night, and he could touch it. He was extremely alert when he was sleeping. He would wake up immediately if there was a little movement, and then stab him without asking why. For this reason, the maids and entourages who served him closely were often killed in the middle of the night. The reason was that the maids and entourages saw him kick off the quilt, or went to close the window, or watched him sleep well and tiptoed in to blow out the oil lamp, but unexpectedly woke Cao Cao up in his sleep, which led to a murderous disaster.

Over the years, the personal servants who served Cao Cao have changed one after another, all of whom were frightened by his dream of killing. They would rather sell themselves in brothels or die in the battlefield than follow him and become the ghost under his sleep inexplicably.

However, Cao Cao's self-righteous statement that "I'm so good at killing people in my dreams" may deceive most people, but he cannot deceive the intelligent and wise Xun Yu. As early as a few years ago, Cao Cao killed a servant who served him for many years who covered him with a quilt in the middle of the night, Xun Yu privately found out the whole story and has been careful since then, for fear that one day he would accidentally become the soul of Cao Cao's murderer.

In fact, Cao Ren, Cao Chun and other relatives of the Cao family also broke into Cao Cao's dormitory late at night, but they were not killed. This invisibly confirmed Xun Yu's judgment. Cao Cao was not so good at killing people in his dream, but was scared by Chen Gong's actions that night. Since then, he has left a shadow and always suspected that others were trying to murder him when he was sleeping. So he claimed that "I'm so good at killing people in my dream", which intimidated the servants around him not to approach him when he was sleeping, otherwise they would have been a ill-gotten plot and would be more than death.

With his thoughts flying, Xun Yu relaxed his breath, adjusted his breath, and followed Cao Cao into the inner hall.

Seeing Cao Cao spread out the brocade and silk in the light, Xun Yu whispered, "This is what General Cao Ren sent to him. According to the report of the whistle cavalry, this letter was obtained by General Cao Ren intercepting and killing the whistle cavalry in Xiliang. He was transferred back by the whistle cavalry at noon. After receiving the letter, he did not dare to delay, so he came to report to his lord late at night." He explained in detail the origin of the secret letter. Xun Yu stopped talking and waited for Cao Cao to read the letter and silk word by word.

Cao Cao looked at the letter and silk three times, and then handed it to Xun Yu. Then he remained silent, walked to the side of the desk and sat down, holding a wine cup for a long time.

There were not many words on the letter, just over a hundred words. The content was that Li Li ordered Zhang Yan, who had been defeated in Changshan Kingdom, to lead his troops back to Bingzhou, and to replenish troops on the spot, and all the required military equipment was reported. Then the General's Office was uniformly distributed. It was that simple, and there was no other information except this. There was no word.

However, it was this seemingly worthless letter that hit Cao Cao's heart like a heavy hammer, which made him feel heartbroken and regretful.

This order for Li Li to dispatch troops and horses revealed many things that Cao Cao was eager to know. First, the interception of more than a thousand black-clothed escorts led by Liu Bei and Guan Yu failed, and the entire army was wiped out, including Liu Bei and Guan Yu. Second, the various troops and horses of the Xiliang army besieged Jizhou were shrinking their troops, quickly replenishing their troops, and actively recovering their strength. The Chang'an General's Mansion had sufficient reserves of military supplies, which could replenish all the weapons and equipment that had damaged troops. Third, it was also the most important point. Li Li was still alive and had returned to Bingzhou without any damage. He was dispatching troops and generals, and he might make a comeback soon and the army was approaching. This was exactly what Cao Cao was most worried about.

If Li Li mobilizes a large army to attack Jizhou again, Cao Cao will face an extremely serious situation. Even with hundreds of thousands of troops, it is probably difficult to resist the strong counterattack of Li Li's army. This is because he needs time to reorganize the nearly 200,000 troops left by Yuan Shao. He also needs time to rectify the administration of the counties and counties under Jizhou, and re-arrange his own direct troops to take over the counties and counties in Jizhou, and train troops and form a powerful cavalry team.

In the past, he wanted to form a cavalry but was forced to have no excellent war horses. But now he had war horses, and the number was huge, enough to form a war cavalry of 50,000 people. These war horses were the best war horses seized by the Western Liang army after the great victory in Yecheng. According to post-war statistics, in the battle of Yecheng alone, Cao's army seized no less than 50,000 war horses and more than 10,000 injured war horses. On the other three battlefields, thousands or tens of thousands of Western Liang war horses were also seized, which was a great success. All the seized war horses totaled more than 70,000, which was undoubtedly an extremely huge strategic resource. As long as Cao Cao was left with enough time, he could use all these war horses and form an elite cavalry that could compete with the Western Liang Iron Cavalry.

The cavalry was the strongest combat power that Li Li was able to dominate the world, and it was also the key to the Xiliang army overwhelming the princes. Cao Cao had long wanted to form a war cavalry that could compete with the Xiliang army, but he had no source of war horses, but everything was not a problem after this battle. Therefore, what he needed most now was time, time to strengthen his strength, time to completely digest the time in Jizhou, and time to build a powerful army.

After reading the letter and silk, Xun Yu walked lightly to the front of the handmaster's desk, put the letter and silk on the desk, and then turned back. He knew what Cao Cao was thinking at this moment. After all, he had been following Cao Cao for many years. Although he dared not say that he had completely understood Cao Cao's thoughts, he could guess at least 70%.

Seeing Cao Cao frowning, Xun Yu whispered: "Don't worry, lord. If what I expected is right, Li thieves will not attack Jizhou again in the short term. First, in this battle in Hebei, Li thieves suffered heavy losses, and their troops were greatly damaged, and they could not recover their strength in the short term. Second, Li Li is facing more than our family at the moment, and he can be said to have made enemies from all sides, which forces him to fight with us to the end.

Third, the Xiliang army was newly defeated, the army was frustrated, and the morale was low. If we fight again, even if the Li thief has the ability to reach the sky, it will not be able to quickly increase morale and restore it to its previous strong state. From this point of view, Li thief resolutely gave up Jizhou, shrank his troops, restored his strength, and adopted a defensive posture. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the lord. Now our army's strength is not weaker than Li thief, so we are not afraid of him leading his army to attack."

After a brief pause, Xun Yu changed his tone and whispered: "Now, I am not worried that Li thieves will lead their troops to attack Jizhou again, but they are even more worried about the situation in Jizhou in front of me. Yuan Shao's two sons are fleeing, and the Jizhou family does not agree with the lord's lord's leadership of Jizhou. The generals of Jizhou have many conflicts with our generals. In addition, Jizhou General Ju Yi has been in power and has been in power for Changshan and Zhongshan counties. His attitude is unclear and seems to be still waiting and watching.

Therefore, the current situation is complicated. If the lord wants to fully grasp Jizhou, these problems in front of him must be solved one by one. The most difficult one is Yuan Shao’s son and Ju Yi, who is respectful to the army. Therefore, the situation we are facing now is really internal and external difficulties. We must be careful in every step, otherwise Jizhou, which has been obtained, may be lost again and be happy."

Cao Cao nodded slightly and said in a deep voice in anger: "Yuan Shao's two sons are indeed a big trouble. They cannot be beaten, scolded or killed. Otherwise, I, Cao Cao, will bear the reputation of being ungrateful. Alas, if Yuan Shao is not dead, these things will naturally be solved, but once he leaves, he leaves a lot of trouble for me!"

————To be continued————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

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Chapter completed!