Within the Yuan Clan Faction, a batch of fierce generals from the Cao Clan Faction had been added, greatly increasing its strength.
Bai Xiaowen had also sent the surrendered Cao Clan generals to gather up the scattered troops who had fled from the Battle of Anyang. That went without saying.
However, there were three other people Bai Xiaowen cared greatly about who had not surrendered.
Two were prisoners: Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai.
When Xun Yu went to persuade them to surrender, Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai had already heard that Cao Cao had slit his own throat in Changyuan. They coughed up several pints of blood and took to their beds.
Both men actually felt deeply guilty.
As accompanying strategists, the plan of feinting in one direction while attacking another—using Cao Xiong as bait to make the Yuan Clan divide its forces to eliminate him, killing two birds with one stone—had originally been proposed by Guo Jia and refined by Xi Zhicai.
Yet the enemy had seen through the scheme, directly causing the Cao Army to lose the initiative in strategy and suffer a crushing defeat.
By comparison, the military generals of Cao Cao's camp did not bear such heavy psychological burdens. Especially men like Zhang Liao, who had not followed Cao Cao for long and had yet to develop the ingrained notion of serving him as their lord for life. Moreover, they had all done their utmost in the war, so naturally they felt no guilt.
Guo Jia was naturally proud, and he truly was a first-rate strategist. He had set extremely high expectations for himself. Such a colossal strategic blunder, resulting in the downfall of the lord he had assisted, had dealt them an imaginable blow.
Not to mention that Cao Cao had been personally close with