My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 249: Zhou Lang's Fierce Guazhou Crossing

While Sun Ce was arguing with Guan Yu at Niuzhu and making a feint with his gun.

Guangling County is a full 240 miles downstream along the Yangtze River.

Zhou Yu had already led the real main force of Sun Ce's army, crossed the Yangtze River from Jinshanzhou in Dantu County to the north, and attacked Guazhou in Guangling County.

In an instant, hundreds of boats were racing against each other, and the scene was magnificent.

This has been considered a classic route for crossing rivers for thousands of years.

Since ancient times, there have been two ways to cross the Yangtze River in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. One is to cross the river from Caishiji in Ma'anshan, Anhui Province, and the other is to cross the river from Guazhou Ferry between Yangzhou and Zhenjiang.

Now, the former route is what Sun Ce is currently defending, and the latter route is what Zhou Yu is currently attacking.

Sun Ce's army had a population of 1.8 million and 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers in the three counties of Wu and Hui. In this battle, Sun Ce gave Zhou Yu great trust and assigned 30,000 elite soldiers to Zhou Yu, which was almost more than half of Sun Ce's total mobile forces.

Huang Gai was appointed as the deputy commander and Xu Kun was assigned to the rear base. The rest were assigned to Zhou Yu's generals, including Ling Cao, Zhou Tai, Jiang Qin, Chen Wu and other first-line naval warriors. Such a team configuration and level of attention can be said to be beyond compare.

Some of the generals under Sun Ce were from the north and were not good at naval warfare. For example, Cheng Pu and Han Dang, the three generals left to him by his father Sun Jian, were both from the north and were not as good as Huang Gai in naval warfare.

Some generals were not suitable to be directly brought up to participate in this wave of offensive due to the lack of control of the Sun family and factional problems. They could only be supplemented as subsequent strategic reserves after Zhou Yu made a breakthrough. For example, the direct troops of Wujun Prefect Zhu Zhi, and the young generals Zhu Ran and Pan Zhang under his system.

(Note: Before Sun Ce's death, Zhu Zhi had always had a special status in the Sun family. Although he was once Sun Jian's special unit Sima, after Sun Jian's death, Zhu Zhi was recommended as the Wujun Commandery Commandant by Ma Ritian, the imperial tutor of the Chang'an court who defected to Yuan Shu. So he already had a certain influence in Wujun before Sun Ce started his army again.

Zhu Zhi was not the only one who had such a situation. When the Sun family deployed such armed forces, they had to respect the original command system and subordinate relationships, which put them in a lot of trouble.)
In a nutshell, Sun Ce has transferred as much of the mobile forces that he can fully control to Zhou Yu as possible to ensure a breakthrough in the empty Guangling area as soon as possible.

Zhou Yu was well aware of the heavy burden on his shoulders, but this only further stimulated his sense of responsibility and heroism.

……

"Chen Deng was ill and unprepared. He failed to organize a navy to fight me on the river and prevent me from crossing the river. He also failed to organize soldiers to counterattack on the beach and attack me halfway across the river. He let me land so easily."

As Zhou Yu's vanguard troops safely reached the shore, Zhou Yu's originally nervous and heroic mood suddenly relaxed a little. Only the heroic mood remained, and his confidence in the future became more and more full.

He first ensured that a part of the troops successfully landed on the beach and formed a battle line smoothly to avoid being overwhelmed by the troops rushing out of Guangling City. Then he continued to take the remaining warships to detour to the east and west wings, trying to enter the mouth of the Han Canal and seize the canal gates as planned.

As mentioned earlier, a few years ago, the original Guangling City was adjacent to the Hangou Canal in the east, and was protected by a moat on the northwest sides. The south of the city was not directly adjacent to the Yangtze River, but a few miles out of the city was the sandbar area by the river - Zhou Yu's first batch of troops also landed and formed their battle array on the sandbar area in the south of the city.

However, two and a half years ago, when Zhuge Liang renovated the Hang Canal, dug north-south bidirectional waterways, and built sluice gates, a considerable portion of the newly added waterway for grain ships to go north borrowed the old moat on both sides of the northwest side of Guangling City.

Therefore, the current Guangling City is surrounded by the Hangou Canal on the east, west and north sides. To the west of the city is a forked river heading north, and to the east of the city is a forked river heading south. Together with the Yangtze River to the south, the entire city is surrounded by rivers on all sides. In fact, it should be considered a large island.

If Zhou Yu wanted to capture such an "island" city, he had to attack from the south of the city, then cut off the canal from the east and west sides and occupy the key nodes on the canal to ensure the encirclement of the city.

However, just a quarter of an hour later, he was dumbfounded when Zhou Yu personally led a part of the vanguard warships and detoured into the north-shanghang Canal waterway in the west of the city.

"What? When the patrol boat was investigating a few days ago, wasn't there still a wooden gate reinforced with iron hoops? How did it become such a thick dam? There are even picket fences, chevaux deer horns, and more?"

Zhou Yu was shocked.

Ling Cao, who was in charge of the vanguard scout beside him, also secretly complained, but he still had to defend himself:
"Commander-in-chief! A few days ago, the Northern Army suddenly strengthened the blockade of the river... You also know that. At that time, several scout ships were intercepted and killed. You didn't force it because you were afraid of alerting the enemy. At that time, we all thought that it was because the attack of Cao's army in Huaibei was tight, so Chen Deng strengthened the blockade of the river."

Zhou Yu recalled that he had indeed told them not to alert the enemy. At that time, he felt that everything that needed to be investigated had been investigated, and there was no point in wasting the last one or two days.

Moreover, since he knew that Chen Deng was seriously ill, it was common sense that Guangling County's defense dispatch capabilities should be relatively slow and would not be able to make such quick adjustments.

Now thinking back... Was Chen Deng really seriously ill? How could he react so quickly despite being seriously ill? Or was there someone capable around Chen Deng, to whom he entrusted military affairs?

"There is no other way. Let's try a strong attack first! Beat the drums to cheer, let the vanguard light up a few fireboats and charge forward as usual, and let the soldiers retreat from the boats behind the fireboats. Although the fireboats cannot burn down the embankment, they can at least destroy the antler chevaux de frise, cause confusion among the defenders, and attract attention.

Dispatch thirty warships and arrange troops on the east and west banks of the canal, then launch a strong attack along both ends of the embankment while taking advantage of the chaos to destroy the camp guarding the embankment! Zhou Tai will attack from the east bank of the canal to the west, and Jiang Qin will attack from the west bank to the east.

Zhou Yu quickly made arrangements, and thousands of Wu sailors also landed and hastily formed a battle array. Then several small boats with fire rammed the embankment, creating chaos. Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin took advantage of the chaos to attack.

Liu Bei's army's camp for guarding the dike did not seem to be very large. The canal itself narrowed near the gate, only less than ten feet wide. Including the slopes on both sides, the entire dike was only a few dozen feet long. Adding the outer fortifications, the camp was only a hundred feet long and several dozen feet deep, and could only accommodate a thousand people at most. The antler trench and rammed earth breastwork did not cause much trouble to Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin. Instead, the Han army archers on the dike did cause some casualties to the Jiangdong soldiers during the charge, but they eventually forced them to the simple wooden fence.

The soldiers of the Jiangdong Army brandished swords, shields and spears, and started hacking and stabbing at each other with Liu Bei's army. Both sides were fighting fiercely, and there were even officers on both sides shouting at the same time that their side was "fighting the enemy in accordance with the imperial edict" and insulting the other side as traitors.

The soldiers on both sides believed their superiors' calls, and even believed them without a doubt, and their courage increased dramatically.

"I heard that the Han Dynasty has been around for more than 400 years. We have encountered so many rebels, but none of them succeeded. The rebels on the other side will definitely have no chance!"

Many soldiers fell in the fight without knowing what was happening, but before they died, they were still thinking such sad thoughts, and they were being used without knowing it.

However, as the fighting intensified, Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin soon sensed that something was wrong.

The Liu Bei army on the opposite side fought very tenaciously. Although they had fewer people, their morale was stronger and they seemed to firmly believe that their fortifications could hold out for a long time.

Moreover, Liu Bei's army's weapons and armor were indeed sharper. The spearmen in the first row actually all had steel lamellar armor.

As a result, the sword and shield soldiers in the Jiangdong army were almost useless. Only the spears made of high-quality steel could penetrate the armor and kill people by piercing the gaps between the iron bars.

The archers of Liu Bei's army also had the advantage of height. They stood in the middle of the canal embankment, with friendly troops blocking the east and west ends, so they did not have to worry about being attacked closely.

There was canal water on both the north and south sides, and no one could attack them in close combat.

Wearing a cast iron helmet and with the body protected by wooden fences, he was completely immune to enemy shooting.

These crossbowmen could leisurely aim at the Jiangdong soldiers fighting in the front row and shoot straight ahead. After a while, the Jiangdong soldiers were screaming and howling like ghosts and wolves.

Normally, when two armies engage in a melee, the archers and crossbows are fired overhead because they have to worry about accidentally injuring their own people in the front row. However, the archers of Liu Bei's army are standing on the top of the levee. They have a height advantage, almost like standing on a city wall, so they can shoot from the top or directly.

One side was shooting randomly while the other side was aiming straight down, and the gap was immediately apparent.

As Zhou Tai, who was leading the attack bravely, was shot and wounded again by a crossbow arrow that hit the gap in his iron armor. Seeing that something was not right, Zhou Yu ordered his troops to withdraw temporarily.

In fact, this minor injury was nothing to Zhou Tai, but it also gave Zhou Yu a chance to back off.

Zhou Tai's face was covered in blood (the blood of soldiers from both sides), and there was a crossbow arrow stuck in his ribs. He retreated in a miserable state.

But when he came to Zhou Yu to report, he was still in high spirits, roaring like a tiger:
"We are ready to fight to the death, why did the commander-in-chief sound the horn? There are no more than a thousand people in this dike camp, and we can definitely take it down if we fight to the death!"

Zhou Yu shook his head lightly with a serious look: "What if I take it down? I was just trying it out. This is a strong camp, although small and dangerous. The enemy soldiers are risking their lives, so there is no need to sacrifice their lives.

The canal lock has been transformed into a dam. Even if we sacrifice thousands of casualties to storm it, it will take us several days to slowly demolish the dam, which is enough time for the enemy reinforcements to react. I was thinking that if we can capture it without spending any money, it would be worth a try.

Liu Bei's army has more people and more soldiers than ours, so we can't waste our resources like this. If we kill every stronghold, how many people will we have left? We should divide our forces into a small number and set up camps to block the east and west gates of Guangling City, so that Liu Bei's army camped outside the city can't return to the city in a hurry.

Chen Deng's main force has been transferred to the north, so Guangling's total force must be small. He sent two to three thousand soldiers out of the city to guard the canal embankment, and the city's garrison will become increasingly empty. Assemble siege equipment as soon as possible and launch a fierce attack on Guangling!

Once Guangling City is unstable, these small forces will take the initiative to come out to rescue, and then we can wait for them to tire and kill them! They don't know that our army has also obtained the Ge Gongche blueprint that Cao Cao is thinking about through Hua Xin. Once we use the Ge Gongche to attack the city, Guangling will inevitably be unstable soon! "

It turns out that Zhou Yu has another trump card, which is the "military technology information sharing" brought by Cao Cao through Hua Xin during the Cao-Sun alliance.

During the battle of Pengcheng last year, Cao's army was troubled by the fact that they did not have a replica of the "Ge Gongche" that Liu Bei's army used in the battles of Hefei and Shouchun the year before. Last year, it was precisely because Cao Cao's siege of Pengcheng was delayed that Chen Deng finally had the opportunity to make a move and surrendered to Liu Bei with Xiapi County and three counties in Yidong, Donghai County.

Cao Cao learned from his mistakes and after returning, he interrogated the prisoners of Yuan Shu's army who had fought with Ge Gongche, had people draw reverse maps, and did various investigations. He studied the matter for a year and finally produced results.

This time Cao Cao knew that the situation was very critical and that Sun Ce must be strengthened, so when he formed an alliance with Sun Ce through Hua Xin, he also shared these latest research results with Sun Ce, provided all detailed drawings and craftsman guidance, and improved Sun Ce's army's ability to attack and defeat, in order to delay Liu Bei and prevent Liu Bei from stabbing Cao Cao in the back.

However, the Ge Gongche that Cao Cao reversed is definitely different from the original one. It is only similar in appearance, but not in spirit. But no matter what, it will definitely improve the combat effectiveness of the attack.

Zhou Yu decided to take this opportunity to give it a try first.

(End of this chapter)