My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 260: Making Sun Ce unable to breathe

As night fell, Sun Ce, who was hit by an arrow, retreated with extreme unwillingness and regret, protected by Cheng Pu and Huang Gai.

The fleet had been completely destroyed, and a small half of the battleships had been lost, and it was difficult to count the number of warships and ships. The troops that Sun Ce had temporarily gathered around him were no more than 10,000 people.

There were also several thousand defeated soldiers who chose to retreat separately and landed in various counties near the south bank of the Yangtze River. That night, Sun Ce could not really assess his real losses. He thought that 70% to 80% of his troops were finished, and he almost fainted from the pain and pain.

The situation was not eased until several days later, when other generals who had fled on their own gradually returned with their troops.

On the other hand, Guan Yu had no intention of pursuing Sun Ce and expanding his victory since the evening of that day. From the end of the Shen time until midnight, Guan Yu's army was busy salvaging wounded soldiers and drowned soldiers from the Jiangyin River and collecting prisoners.

After it was completely dark, Guan Yu's army was no longer worried about exposing the fleet's target. In order to have a better view, he asked all the ships to light torches to illuminate the water surface as much as possible. He did not care whether Sun Ce might make a surprise attack in the dark.

Thanks to the brightly lit search environment, Taishi Ci was rescued first at the hour of You, and was immediately sent to Guan Yu's flagship by boat.

"Zi Yi! You are fine! It's good that you are okay! There is no need to fight so desperately and so fiercely in the future! Are you injured?" When Guan Yu heard that Taishi Ci was sent here, he was very concerned and came over to greet and check on him in person.

With the help of the sailors, Taishi Ci had already taken off the bamboo armor covering his upper body. Being in the water with this kind of thing for an hour or two was quite uncomfortable, and the blood circulation in his hands and feet was blocked.

Facing Guan Yu's inquiry, Taishi Ci looked a little pale, but he seemed to be in good spirits. He waved his hand tremblingly to indicate that he was fine:
"Nothing was hurt. In fact, I tried to find a small boat to hide in at first. But the enemy ships kept coming and going, and they would shoot arrows at the small boats. It was too much trouble to use shields to block the attacks. I had no choice but to ask the brothers on the same boat to jump into the water and hide on the side of the boat, and then use a few wooden shields to block the attacks.

It's true that the bamboo armor that Tzuyu wore is not only uncomfortable to wear and tight after a long time, but it really saves effort. You don't need to paddle or tread water when floating in the water, and you can always float."

Guan Yu was relieved to hear that Taishi Ci was not injured. He quickly ordered several soldiers to help Taishi Ci take off his wet clothes, massaged his arms and thighs to activate his blood circulation, and gave him a leather bag of sake to drive away the cold and activate his blood circulation.

Guan Yu also explained to Taishi Ci: "It's blocking the blood flow, there's nothing we can do about it, the buoyancy is all transmitted to the body by these straps, how can it not be tight?

When Tzuyu was experimenting, she didn't tie the legs with a strap from under the crotch at first. When some soldiers fell into the water, they stretched their arms upwards, and the bamboo armor was taken off by the buoyancy. Every detail was a lesson learned.

"Ziyi is the main contributor to the defeat of Sun Ce. It's a pity that the emperor has been held hostage by Cao Cao, and I'm afraid he won't grant us any more positions. This time, I can only ask the lord to give you another title of general."

Gan Ning and Taishi Ci were all at the level of General of the Central Army before the Yidaizhao incident. After the battle against Sun Ce, they should be given the rank of General of Miscellaneous rank for their contributions.

It’s a pity that after the Yidaizhao incident, all the princes who obeyed the Yidaizhao could no longer obtain official positions from the imperial edict. They could only appoint themselves, which is a bit regrettable.

In Liu Bei's camp, the only ones who have a rank higher than general are Liu Bei himself, who is the General of Chariots and Cavalry, Guan Yu, who is the General of Annan, Zhuge Jin, who is the General of Fubo, Zhao Yun, who is the Lieutenant General, and Zhang Fei, who is the Lieutenant General. The rest are all Lieutenants, Colonels, or lower.

After hearing Guan Yu's reminder, Taishi Ci's first reaction was a little lonely, but he soon felt relieved: what he needed was to achieve success and be trusted and valued by his lord, so what did those false names matter?
He defended himself with a few words in a very open-minded manner, and Guan Yu saw that he was in a good mood, so he didn't say anything else.

Guan Yu comforted the wounded and drowned soldiers while busying himself with salvage and rescue. In the end, more than a thousand of Taishi Ci's drowned soldiers were rescued, and together with the remaining ones that were not sunk, there were only more than two thousand survivors in total.

Before the battle, Taishi Ci was assigned 5,000 troops along this route, so he lost nearly 3,000 people.

Many of the wounded soldiers were not originally in critical condition, but after the warships burned and sank, they were soaked in the river water and had no power to row to stay in place. They were scattered and difficult to find, so they were basically in danger.

This is also the main reason why the casualty rate in naval battles is much higher than that in land battles. The wounded in land battles can at least lie still where they are.

However, this disadvantage is the same for both sides. The people who fell into the water in Sun Ce's army would also be permanently lost, and Sun Ce was the defeated party, and even gave up the opportunity to salvage the battlefield after the battle.

Guan Yu fished all night and not only rescued one or two thousand of his own men, but also captured four thousand Jiangdong soldiers.

These Jiangdong soldiers certainly cannot be directly deployed in the subsequent battle against Sun Ce, as they are very likely to rebel. For the time being, they can only be detained and slowly reformed.

In the future, after Liu Bei has pacified Jiangdong and completely driven out the Sun family, he can use these reformed captives to fight against Cao Cao. This will happen at least one or two years later.

The only regret is that Liu Bei's army fished all night but failed to catch Xu Qian, Taishi Ci's deputy general and a former Chaohu thief. He must have died in the battle with Jiangdong Army during the battle of burning ships and risking his life.

When Guan Yu learned about this, he felt very complicated. Xu Qian surrendered to him when he attacked Ruxukou and Juchao County. He did not expect that a surrendered general who came from a "bandit/water pirate" could also die in battle to support the great cause of the Han Dynasty.

It can only be said that war is cruel. In this battle, Sun Ce lost Xu Kun, Chen Wu, and Ling Cao, and Guan Yu also lost Xu Qian, which is proportional to the casualties on both sides. The scale of the loss of Jiangdong Army was basically three times that of Guan Yu Army.

Guan Yu decided to build a cenotaph for Xu Qian after returning to Guangling.

……

Guan Yu spent a whole night treating the wounded and salvaging the soldiers who fell into the water. The fleet only started to return upstream after dawn the next day.

Sailing upstream is much slower than sailing downstream, and the ship only docked in Guangling in the evening. Zhuge Jin and Chen Deng were the first to greet them at the dock. They didn't know the outcome of the decisive battle yet, so they were a little nervous - not only Chen Deng was nervous, but Zhuge Jin was also a little nervous.

After all, he had no historical prophets to draw lessons from in this battle. From beginning to end, Zhuge Jin could only help Guan Yu and Taishi Ci make up for their shortcomings by improving technology and building up their navy skills and tactics. When it came to the final battle, Zhuge Jin could not help at all.

It's just that Zhuge Jin always gives people a calm feeling, and he hides his emotions well, so Chen Deng didn't notice his nervousness, and secretly admired "Zi Yu is indeed a genius and scheming man. In such a big and decisive battle, he doesn't worry about the outcome at all."

It was not until he saw Guan Yu and Taishi Ci both get off the boat safely that Zhuge Jin realized that this time he had secured complete victory.

Zhuge Jin smiled and stepped forward to cup his hands. "Congratulations to Yunchang and Ziyi for their great achievements. According to the scouts' report, yesterday's battle took advantage of the tides and entangled the enemy. They must have gained a lot."

As he spoke, Zhuge Jin waved his hand, signaling the soldiers next to him to bring over jars of wine to toast Guan Yu and Taishi Ci.

Guan Yu quickly took the wine bowl and drank three bowls in a row. Only then did he adjust his mood and said modestly: "Well, it is also thanks to Ziyu's brilliant plan that our army has taken advantage of the weather and terrain.

The outcome of the battle is still unclear, but the number of captured enemy soldiers who fell into the water alone is about 3,000 to 4,000, and the number of enemy warships and boats that were forced to land is also several thousand. I wonder if Ziyu has detected any remnants of the enemy army returning to Dantu?"

Zhuge Jin: "Yuanlong and I have sent out patrol boats to patrol the river all day today, but we did not find any enemy ships returning to Dantu. Perhaps Sun Ce was severely injured and is still resting in Piling."

Guan Yu was quite pleased to hear this, as it was an unexpected surprise.

It seems that Sun Ce's combat effectiveness was indeed seriously damaged.

They didn't know that Sun Ce was wounded by an arrow. Cheng Pu and Huang Gai both felt that it was not advisable to move rashly for the time being. They had to go to Piliang to seek medical treatment and treat the injury, clean the wound and bandage it before they could set off again, which delayed their journey.

After confirming that Sun Ce's army was slow to act, Zhuge Jin made a prompt decision: "Yun Chang, Zi Yi, if you still have the strength to fight, now is a good time to expand your victory.

Before this battle, we also worked out a battle plan, the goal was to lure the enemy into a decisive naval battle, and use our warships, technical and tactical advantages to lure the enemy on the river and severely damage its forces.

Now that this goal has been achieved, we should initiate a crossing of the river and drive a nail into the south of the Yangtze River, or perhaps we should storm Dantu County, which is temporarily short of troops, so as to cut off the connection between Moling and the Wu area in the east.

On the other hand, Zi Jing would attack from Wuhu and capture Niuzhu. With Niuzhu and Dantu, two key river defense passes in hand, Sun Ce's main force would inevitably retreat to Moling City at full speed to defend and recuperate after a new defeat.

In this way, our army can besiege Moling calmly, and monitor and prevent other counties in Wuhui from transporting troops and food to Moling in the future. After the lord finishes the battle in Jingnan and wipes out Zhang Xian, he can turn to destroy Sun. "

Niuzhu is the Caishiji of Ma'anshan in later generations, and Dantu is Zhenjiang. Since ancient times, the easiest places to cross the river to attack Nanjing are Caishiji and Guazhoudu on the opposite bank of Zhenjiang. After these two locations were taken, the connection between Nanjing and the rest of Wuhui was basically cut off.

Even though there are still some hilly paths in places like Jurong, the transportation capacity is not large and it is easy to be intercepted by troops from Niuzhu and Dantu.

Guan Yu also knew these geographical features, but he still didn't understand Zhuge Jin's plan: "If this plan was planned before the war, it would make sense, but now that more than half of Sun Ce's navy has been destroyed, we can cross the river anywhere, why are we still obsessed with strangling Moling from Dantu and Niuzhu? Wouldn't it be better to immediately attack Sun Ce's hinterland and take Wujun?

I heard that the four surnames of Wu County are not very loyal to the Sun family, and most of them are disloyal. Moreover, the family of Xu Gong, the former governor of Wu County, has a grudge against Sun Ce. If we take advantage of the situation and rely on the river and sea waterways to attack Wu County and Kuaiji from afar, many righteous men will respond. "

Zhuge Jin answered earnestly, "I have also observed these past two months, and the current situation is slightly different from before the war. Of course, there are people in Wujun who are willing to support us, but Sun Ce has just received an imperial edict from Cao Cao and is nominally the governor of Yangzhou. Some of those who secretly resisted him in the past have temporarily fallen into a wait-and-see state.

After all, our army obeyed the imperial edict, but not everyone in the world obeyed it. Some people were afraid of standing on the wrong side due to the unclear situation, so they were pretending to be deaf and dumb, waiting for the outcome of the battle between Yuan and Cao, or waiting for the stalemate between Yuan and Cao, after our army dealt with Sun Ce, to see if they would be free to stab Cao Cao in the back. So these people may not be counted on in the next few months.

On the other hand, since ancient times, Wu and Hui have been in a state of war. As long as Moling is taken, Wu and Huiji will be hard to resist. If we attack one county at a time, it will not only delay farming and disrupt production, but if Sun Ce organizes local militia to resist, the casualties will be the people of our Han Dynasty.

Anyway, the autumn harvest is still three or four months away. As long as Sun Ce can't eat the autumn grain harvested this year in Moling City, it's enough. Why bother to cause more damage? "

Zhuge Jin's plan was: as long as Nanjing was captured, most of the Wujun area might then see the situation clearly and surrender without resistance.

He had already regarded the people of Wuhui as those under his own rule, so of course he wanted to fight as little war as possible and cause as little destruction as possible.

When later dynasties in the Central Plains eliminated separatist regimes in the southeast, they only conquered Nanjing, and then other places surrendered. Why bother to fight them one by one?

Of course, Sun Ce's situation was quite special, as his family was a native of Yuhang, Wujun, and Wucheng and other places were also fiefs of the Sun family. So after Moling was conquered, it was estimated that there would still be some resistance in Wucheng, Qiantang, Yuhang and other places in the future, which was equivalent to the scope of the two prefecture-level cities of Hangzhou and Huzhou in later generations, but that was all.

Apart from these two places, most of the other Wuhui areas were able to directly change their allegiance after the fall of Moling City.

By then, the area around Wu County in Wu Commandery can be controlled by Gu Yong and Lu Yi. As for the part of Kuaiji Commandery south of Zhejiang Province, they can fight back under the banner of Wang Lang and Yu Fan and He Qi, and it should be possible to conquer it by issuing an order.

(End of this chapter)