"Given the circumstances, my Lord, please divide the troops into two teams, one for the night attack. If the first team fails, the second can come to the rescue. At worst, tonight's night raid will simply turn into a siege," said Jia Xu calmly, his head bowed. Cao Cao might be fully prepared, but there are only two opportunities to annihilate a great enemy: one is to take them by surprise at the beginning, and the other is to wear them down with protracted combat.
It can be said that if it comes to dragging things out, Jia Xu can guarantee that they would be the survivors, and definitely not Cao Mengde of Mount Tai.
The problem is, if things were dragged on, it would result in both Cao and Liu suffering losses, favoring Yuan Shao—after all, for Liu Bei, occupying Yanzhou would not secure the north. It would be better not to take Yanzhou at all!