My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 259: Sun Ce's Defeat
In a fake war, wise generals are always able to plan and win the battle from afar. It seems that after the staff has made several plans before the war, they can conquer the world and execute them according to the plan after the war begins.

In a real war, no matter how comprehensive the staff plan is, when the arrows really start to fly, both sides will be in chaos and all kinds of accidents will happen anytime and anywhere. Who will care about the pre-war plan?
Before today's naval battle at Jiangyin, Zhuge Jin had devised various improvisational tactics for Guan Yu and Taishi Ci to defeat the enemy, but when the battle really started, no one expected it to turn out so tragically.

The thickened fish paste and swallowtail torch prepared for Taishi Ci to burn the tower ships would eventually become extreme one-for-one tools.

Taishi Ci himself might be quite confident about escaping, as he knew how chaotic the battlefield was. He had a lifeboat and bamboo armor, and the enemy ships were already busy with their own affairs and had no time to search for and kill the enemy soldiers who had fallen into the water and were floating on the river.

But Guan Yu, who was far away, was not at all sure. He saw that most of Taishi Ci's fighting ships and Sun Ce's tower ships were on fire, and he immediately became anxious.

How could the bait that I had sent out to "stick to the enemy and explode in the center" according to the pre-war plan be eaten by the enemy? Even if we both perish together, it's not okay!
If I really suffer such a huge loss, how can I maintain my prestige in the army in the future?

Although the eldest brother would definitely not punish him, Guan Yu's pride would not allow him to sell out his teammates, and he could not afford to lose face.

As a famous general with first-class military command ability, Guan Yu was very clear that his glorious record of not selling out his teammates was the important guarantee for him to win the hearts of the soldiers and command their troops with ease in the long run.

Once you sell them out once, the soldiers' future unity will be greatly reduced, and his ability to command the army will decline to the level of Cao Ren and Xiahou Yuan.

"Don't use bows and crossbows to suppress the fighting. Raise the flag and have the whole army rush forward to engage in a boarding battle. If you encounter any small boats below the size of the warships, just ram them with your bows! Most of Sun Ce's ships are on fire, and the remaining ships pose no threat!"

Guan Yu gave the order in a hurry, and his main fleet of nearly 10,000 people finally changed their previous guerrilla fighting tactics and switched to a direct head-on charge.

In this battle, the total strength of Guan Yu's three fleets was only 18,000 people. If we don't count Lu Yi's surprise force, whose existence the enemy was unaware of before the war, the apparent strength was only 13,000 or 14,000.

The Sun Ce army on the other side had as many as 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers. If Lu Yi hadn't joined, Guan Yu would have been fighting with only one-third of the enemy's force, and with Lu Yi, he would only have half of the enemy's force.

Due to the numerical disadvantage, Guan Yu had to be cautious at the beginning and make use of the speed advantage of his warships to fight with the enemy.

Try to gain the advantage of more troops against fewer on the local battlefield and defeat the enemies one by one.

But as the most threatening tower ship troops under Sun Ce lost their combat effectiveness, although Sun Ce's army still had nearly 20,000 remaining manpower, it was still more than Guan Yu's. At least the gap was not that big, so he could give it a try.

Guan Yu's warship fleet advanced rapidly, and the warships and boats outside the northern wing of Sun Ce's army were forced to retreat.

Some warships were broken directly after being hit by the new large warships that were 12 meters long, or at least one side of the ship's side wall was cracked. Every time there was a collision, dozens of Jiangdong sailors cried out and fell into the water. The chaotic scene made the morale of the Jiangdong army even lower, and it was difficult to maintain discipline and fleet formation.

The original warships of the Han Dynasty did not have rams, and flat-bottomed boats were not suitable for rams. Guan Yu's new ships all had keel structures, which were relatively much stronger in longitudinal load-bearing capacity, but no rams were specially installed.

In the two years before the war, when the Zhuge brothers were gradually improving these large warships, they only thought of installing some wave-breaking accessories underwater to improve the seaworthiness of the warships.

So Zhuge Jin thought of the fact that high-speed ships in later generations all like to add bulbous bows. Adding a spherical head to the part of the bow below the waterline can reduce the sailing resistance.

But Zhuge Jin certainly couldn't make a bulbous bow in the Han Dynasty, and the material processing technology was not feasible. The final compromise was that Zhuge Jin ordered the blacksmiths to add a cast iron axe-shaped object weighing thousands of pounds to the bottom corner of the bow.

When the ship is sailing, the semicircular axe blade faces the waves, which can slightly reduce the resistance of breaking waves, and can also be close to the shape of a bulbous bow in the vertical direction. The specific shape of the axe blade is not decided by Zhuge Jin.

Instead, they had people conduct tank experiments, used the experimental results to speak for themselves, and ultimately selected the shape with the best wave-breaking effect and the most conducive to sailing.

Strictly speaking, the blade of an axe should be perpendicular to the handle, but the cast iron round blade on the bow is coaxial with the keel of the hull, so it is more like the shovel blade on the staff of Lu Zhishen or Sha Seng.

At this moment, as Guan Yu's main fleet began to fight straight ahead, the cast iron wave-breaking blades on the bows to improve the seaworthiness of the ships hit the small boats of the Jiangdong Army one after another, immediately tearing a big hole in the Jiangdong Army's fleet.

Those warships that barely avoided the impact of the shovel blade at a very close distance often could not avoid the "crow's beak"-like smashing of the nail boards on the side of Guan Yu's army's ships.

The planks with two-foot sharp nails were smashed down at the right time when the two ships passed each other, instantly breaking several deck planks and making it impossible for the two ships to separate. Then, the archers of Guan Yu's army fired intensive shots from a high position, throwing dovetail torches and fish paste jars.

Once the fire began to spread, the sailors of Guan Yu's army followed the methods they had been taught during pre-battle drills. They picked up their giant axes and cut the planking to prevent the fire on the enemy ship from spreading back to their own warships. Then they paddled with all their might to regain distance.

This scene was repeated over and over again on the surface of the Yangtze River in Jiangyin. If it happened three or five times, it would happen more than ten times. Later, the Jiangdong Army fleet, which was frightened by the blow, would decisively raise the white flag and shout for surrender as soon as they were pinned to the board. Once the demonstration effect was established, panic spread very quickly.

Dozens of ships, more and more defeated warships of the Jiangdong Army began to disintegrate and surrender.

Guan Yu finally fought his way through Sun Ce's fleet on the northern wing and surrounded the remaining enemies.

During the bloody battle, Zhou Tai, who was in charge of the northern wing warships and the battle fleet of Sun Ce's army, was hit by several arrows again, and was seriously injured and unconscious, so he had to withdraw from the battle. One can't help but sigh that this general was really lucky. Every time he was in a bloody battle, he would be hit by several arrows, but he couldn't be shot to death every time. He would be dragged back to recuperate for a few months and then be alive and kicking again.

After defeating Zhou Tai's troops, Guan Yu's main force finally broke into Sun Ce's central army. At this time, four of Sun Ce's nine ships had been burned and sunk, and three of them had multiple fires.

Only the last two ships were saved from being engulfed by the fire because they were quick to see the opportunity and decisively cut all the hooks and cables when Taishi Ci's army used the extreme one-for-one arson tactic, and pushed the two ships apart to keep a distance.

On Taishi Ci's side, two of the eighteen warships sank and two were severely damaged when they first engaged Xu Kun and Huang Gai. Later, three more were capsized and sunk by Sun Ce's first wave, including the two that were already severely damaged. In the subsequent firefight, more than ten more warships were lost.

When Guan Yu's fleet rushed into the central army's fleet, Taishi Ci's side also had only two or three fighting ships still floating on the water, with five or six piles of wreckage with residual fires dotted among them.

The surface of the river bay was filled with soldiers who had fallen into the water, and there were dozens of lifeboats. Taishi Ci's troops wearing bamboo tube armor were still struggling to survive. As long as they were not targeted by the Jiangdong army and attacked or shot by arrows, they could basically keep swimming.

Seeing this scene, Guan Yu's expression relaxed a little. He immediately sent out a small boat to rescue people. At the same time, he took the main battleship with better combat effectiveness and continued to fight against the remnants of Sun Ce's army.

At the same time, Guan Yu did not forget to let the soldiers shout in unison: "Sun Ce is dead! Those who surrender will not be killed! Sun Ce's ship has sunk!"

Thousands of soldiers shouted in unison on dozens of warships, fighting and shouting at the same time, and the morale suppression they created on the chaotic battlefield was considerable.

Of course, Sun Ce himself was not dead, he was just shot by an arrow and was rescued by Cheng Pu and transferred to another ship. But because the flagship was burned and sunk, Sun Ce had no way to let his soldiers know for sure whether he was dead or not.

When Sun Ce heard the shouts of Guan Yu's army, he was afraid of shaking the morale of the army, so he wanted to force Cheng Pu to raise the general's flag again and publicize that he was not dead. But Cheng Pu stopped this operation and expressed his concern:
"My lord, you can't do that! Our army has been killed by Guan Yu in the center. If we show off now, Guan Yu will target us and surround us. You are injured, so you should retreat first! All our ships have been lost. We have already lost the battle today! You should think about how to save more soldiers!"

Sun Ce was injured and powerless, unable to resist Cheng Pu, so he could only be arranged by his subordinates.

On the other hand, there were also brave men in Sun Ce's army, such as Chen Wu, who was responsible for protecting Sun Ce. He was transferred to another ship at that time. Seeing Guan Yu shouting that Sun Ce was dead and the flagship had sunk, which led to a sharp drop in morale, Chen Wu immediately raised the command flag on his warship to stabilize the morale of the army.

This action actually covered Cheng Pu and Sun Ce's retreat and drew away Guan Yu's hatred.

But when Guan Yu saw Chen Wu raising the flag, he immediately launched a fierce siege with his entire army. Eventually the ship Chen Wu was on was besieged and annihilated by Guan Yu's army, and sank into the river bay with a raging fire. Chen Wu was seriously injured in the bloody battle and was unable to retreat, and was buried in the sea of fire.

On the other side, the vanguard and southern wing troops of the Jiangdong Army were also entangled by Lu Yi's reinforcements, and Jiang Qin of the southern wing was defeated by Lu Yi in a fair fight.

Huang Gai, the vanguard, originally had difficulty in retreating. Fortunately, Ling Cao of the vanguard fleet fought desperately to cover the rear, holding back Lu Yi and Zhang Duo, allowing Huang Gai to protect Xu Kun's body and retreat successfully. However, Ling Cao was also surrounded and eventually shot to death in the bloody battle.

The bloody battle on the Jiangyin River lasted from noon until nightfall, when the two sides were finally separated.

Sun Ce's fleet was almost completely wiped out, with nearly 10,000 sailors killed and wounded. The number of warships and battleships also exceeded a dozen, and the number of sailors lost was over 100. The total number of sailors lost was probably over 20,000, more than half of which were caused by fires and shipwrecks.

As for the generals, Sun Ce himself was shot in the face by an arrow and returned with injuries. Sun Ce's cousin Xu Kun was shot by an arrow and fell from a high place. He was finally pulled back and died of his injuries.

Ling Cao was shot dead, Chen Wu was surrounded and died in the sinking ship. Huang Gai and Zhou Tai were slightly injured, so it is needless to mention them.

In just one afternoon, half of the Jiangdong navy's manpower disappeared. Sun Ce suffered a heavy blow, and the superiority and inferiority of the number of troops between him and Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin was completely reversed.

The remaining field troops of Sun Ce's army were no more numerous than those of Guan Yu's army, so it was impossible for them to launch any offensive and they could only switch from offense to defense.

However, blindly defending is definitely a hopeless strategy. Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu can divide and surround the enemy and nibble away at them. They can temporarily not attack the fortified cities. After Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang finish the Jingnan Campaign, they can transfer the main force of Liu Bei's army to launch a full-scale counterattack against Sun Ce's army.

(End of this chapter)