My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 353: Time to close the net
Although Zhou Yu was a talented general, he came to Liu Bei's camp too late and was a diehard surrendered general of the Sun family, so his status was not high so far.

That is to say, relying on the two previous landing battles in Rizhao and Jiaoshan in Langya County, he weakened Li Dian and Sun Guan and annihilated thousands of enemies, which was considered to be his initial military achievements and the foundation for his career.

As for his marriage to Zhuge Liang's second sister, this relationship was not enough to immediately promote him to a higher position and power, at most it only allowed Liu Bei to use him with confidence. The Zhuge family never practiced nepotism or promoted people without merit.

After receiving Mi Zhu's letter for help, Zhou Yu did not dare to neglect it at all. Mi Zhu's status was much higher than his, so if he was asked to save him, he had to do it, even if it would result in some casualties and some tough battles.

"Fortunately, Lord Mi is reasonable. From what he wants, he just wants me to harass them a little and slow down the speed of Cao's attack. I can set up a second line of defense for him and buy time for the transfer facilities. In the end, I may need to transport some reinforcements into the city... Well, I will do as Lord Mi asks."

……

Two days after receiving the letter for help, early in the morning, off the coast of Qu County, Zhou Yu led several thousand sailors and boarded more than a hundred new fast warships and arrived at the designated battlefield in the dark.

During these two days, Xiahou Yuan continued his fierce attack, and the eastern section of Mi Zhu's camp defense line had become precarious.

Hundreds of people died in battle every day, and even more were wounded, and tens of millions of dollars in pensions were paid out every day.

Tian Yu had to mobilize the civilians who had been recruited temporarily to pick up long spears and line up to block the entrance. The elite veterans who survived picked up horse-slashing swords and were promoted to squad leaders and platoon leaders on the front line, becoming the backbone of this constantly replenished army.

Zhou Yu only had 3,000 to 4,000 sailors, plus some reinforcements that were temporarily transferred, so it was impossible for him to directly fight Xiahou Yuan. So he took advantage of the dawn and quietly landed and formed a battle array behind Xiahou Yuan's camp.

He did not dare to send his soldiers deep into the inland, but he relied on his familiarity with the hydrology and knew the depths of the nearby beaches. He specially chose a place more than a hundred steps away from the shore as a landing site, which was convenient for ships to approach.

After the soldiers came ashore, they immediately began to form a battle line. Zhou Yu specially selected soldiers using spears and halberds as the backbone, and added a small number of soldiers with swords and shields to provide support and cover.

No archers were sent to the shore at all. They all chose to stand guard behind the firing holes on the side of the warship and lifted up the porthole covers.

When Zhou Yu landed, he couldn't remain completely quiet, or perhaps he deliberately made some noise, so he was discovered by Xiahou Yuan not long after.

Seeing the opportunity to "strike halfway across the river", Cao's army did not dare to neglect it. While organizing their forces to prepare for a counterattack, they also reported to Xiahou Yuan as quickly as possible. Xiahou Yuan had not yet gotten up. After hearing the news, he was afraid of missing the opportunity, so he urgently asked all troops to attack immediately and annihilate the enemy on the beach while they were still unstable.

As a result, Cao's army did not have time to organize too many troops and deploy them in an orderly manner. Each unit fought on its own and rushed towards Zhou Yu's troops who were landing.

The place where Zhou Yu landed was only five or six miles away from Mi Zhu's camp, just on the flank of Cao's encirclement, so Cao's army arrived very quickly.

The people Zhou Yu sent to the shore to form a battle line were Jiang Qin and Xu Sheng. These two generals had followed Zhou Yu for a long time. During the Battle of Rizhao and the Battle of Jiaoshan, they also fought with Zhou Yu and cooperated very well.

Before the two men went ashore, they were told to rely on the relatively soft shallow water area on the beach, line up in knee- to thigh-deep water, and defend themselves strictly with large shields outside.

Such a deep water can already prevent the enemy cavalry from charging. If the horses' hooves dare to come to such a coastal beach, they will definitely stumble and break their legs. So in the end, it must be a situation where the infantry of both sides charge into battle.

The development of the battle situation was just as Zhou Yu had expected. In the beginning, Cao's army underestimated the enemy's strength and was afraid of missing the opportunity to fight. As a result, they used the tactic of adding fuel to the fire. Whichever unit arrived at the battlefield first would rush forward while "the rats in Jiangdong have not yet established a firm foothold."

The result was like hitting a wall. The melee soldiers of Liu Bei's side who were arrayed in the shallow water were in high spirits. They had long been familiar with this kind of combat style and occasion, and were not panicked. The advantage of arraying against the charging enemy was very obvious.

On the warships behind, the archers and crossbowmen did not have to worry about being engaged in close combat, and they could use their height advantage to throw arrows over the top of the ships and provide long-range fire support to their comrades on the other side.

After a series of fierce battles, Cao's army suffered heavy casualties in wave after wave of charges. Finally, Xiahou Yuan heard that the front army's counterattack was unsuccessful, so he rushed to the battlefield in person and observed the battle situation. Only then did he cry out that he had been deceived.

I was actually fooled by Zhou Yu's show of weakness! This battlefield clearly had a great advantage for Zhou Yu. All the illusions of "not having a firm foothold and being attacked halfway across the river" were deliberately played by Zhou Yu!
Xiahou Yuan was in a dilemma and had to order his troops to suspend the attack, gather their forces, redeploy their formation, widen the front width, and prepare to rely on their superior numbers to attack Zhou Yu from three sides.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yu did not have this opportunity. When he saw Xiahou Yuan suspended the attack and ordered his troops to maneuver in the north and south directions to widen the front width of the battle line, Zhou Yu had already keenly judged what Xiahou Yuan wanted to do.

Then, Zhou Yu took advantage of the time Xiahou Yuan had to adjust his formation and decisively used flag signals to order Jiang Qin and Xu Sheng to quickly board the ship and retreat.

More than 2,000 soldiers lined up on the shore waded into the water and boarded the ship. After Cao's army discovered the situation, Xiahou Yuan changed his tactics again and tried to rush up.

But as Cao's army rushed deeper into the water, it became more difficult to move forward, and they could not get long-range fire support from their own crossbows. In contrast, the more Zhou Yu's troops retreated and moved closer to the fleet, the more fire support they received.

In the end, Xiahou Yuan only killed the last hundred or so Zhou Yu's troops out of respect. But for this face, Xiahou Yuan paid many more casualties. The corpses of Cao's soldiers floating in the shallow water on the beach were piled up in countless pieces.

As the fight ended, Xiahou Yuan was so angry that he almost exploded. Fortunately, he still paid attention to the dignity of the commander-in-chief and knew that if he lost his composure in front of others, it would affect the morale of his own side.

So they could only hold it in and bear it, still shamelessly announcing on the surface that this was a victory, and that Cao's army "defeated the flank and rear landing attack by Liu Bei's navy and prevented their attempt to coordinate the relief of Qu County."

Guo Jia, the military advisor, also noticed Xiahou Yuan's rage. Fearing that he would lose his composure in front of others, he tried to smooth things over and said, "Don't worry, General! Liu Bei's use of the navy to forcibly harass our land troops shows that Qu County is in danger. They must reinforce it at all costs!"

We have suffered a lot of casualties, and Liu Bei's army must be in a bad situation too. Now it depends on who can hold out and who can afford the most. Moreover, this battle also proves that as long as we don't prevent Zhou Yu from landing, let go of the beachhead, and wait for him to land before fighting, we can definitely defeat Zhou Yu fairly! This time, we were deceived by the bait of "attacking halfway across the river" and were careless.

This Qu County is not like Rizhao and Jiaoshan. The coastal terrain is open, not the kind of terrain where mountains and sea meet. Even if we retreat temporarily after being attacked and abandon the coastline, it doesn't matter if we let the enemy go ashore and fight again! Are you afraid that Zhou Yu will dare to go deep inland and cut off our way back? "After listening to Guo Jia's analysis, Xiahou Yuan realized that his first reaction at the beginning of this battle was indeed too radical.

Why do we have to annihilate the enemy on the beach? We should just let them come up and fight slowly! Let Zhou Yu leave the protection of the sea fleet!
But it was too late to change tactics now. Zhou Yu did not attempt a second large-scale landing behind enemy lines. He just prowled there, harassing and provoking.

Due to Zhou Yu's delay and harassment, Xiahou Yuan's frontal offensive rhythm was interrupted, which delayed the attack for an extra day or two, allowing Mi Zhu and Tian Yu to have more energy to repair fortifications and organize a second line of defense.

It was not until September 23, which was the twelfth day after Cao's army besieged Qu County and the seventh day after Xiahou Yuan first launched a strong attack, that Cao's army resumed its full-scale attack.

It took another two days, until the 25th, when Cao's army finally broke through the easternmost end of Mi Zhu's camp east of the city, completely cutting off the communication between Mi Zhu's army and the port area, and achieving a four-sided encirclement of the Qu County defenders.

Unfortunately, before Xiahou Yuan did all this, Zhou Yu had already transported at least 3,000 reinforcements into the encirclement via the sea port, and also replenished Mi Zhu with a batch of city defense military equipment and supplies that had been consumed the most quickly and were most likely to be in short supply.

After Cao's army broke through completely, Mi Zhu and Tian Yu abandoned the eastern half of the camp east of the city and retreated to the second line of defense in the western half, continuing to consume and delay.

When Xiahou Yuan saw all this, he also wondered if he had fallen into Mi Zhu's trap. When would this resistance end? Why didn't Liu Bei's army in Qu County collapse and surrender even though they had been completely cut off from external aid?

Guo Jia also sensed something was wrong, because up to now, the casualty exchange ratio of Cao's army was too high. At this point in the battle, could it be that Liu Bei's side was using Qu County as bait to bleed Cao's army?
However, just when Guo Jia reminded Xiahou Yuan, another piece of good news came, which strengthened Xiahou Yuan's belief.

It turned out that when Mi Zhu and Tian Yu abandoned the eastern half of the camp east of the city and ordered their troops to retreat, some Cao soldiers who had been captured before took the opportunity to do miscellaneous work and transport supplies for Liu Bei's army and pretended to be dead and escaped.

After they were recaptured by their comrades, their identities were immediately confirmed and then brought before Xiahou Yuan.

Xiahou Yuan attached great importance to it and personally questioned the soldiers who had escaped back one by one.

"How did you escape? Why didn't Mi Zhu take you with him or kill you when he withdrew his defenses?"

The soldiers who returned to the team all said the same thing: "General, we were injured and unconscious during the bloody battle a few days ago, and were captured by Liu Bei's army when they were cleaning up the battlefield. Some of the wounds were particularly serious, and the treatment required too many medicinal materials, so Tian Yu ordered them to be executed.

Although we were unconscious, our injuries were easy to treat, so we were treated. Then we were not given weapons, but only had to carry arrows, roll logs and rocks, and dig trenches and carry earth and rocks.

Mi Zhu had conscripted all the men in the city, batch after batch, and there was not enough manpower, so even the captives had to do hard labor. When the army attacked the city yesterday, Tian Yu wanted to take all the captives with him when he led his troops to retreat, and continue to do hard labor in the rear to repair the city defense.

But we were smart and took advantage of the darkness to lie down among the dead bodies and pretend to have died in the battle. They didn’t check the bodies one by one, so we got away with it.”

Upon hearing this, Xiahou Yuan stroked his beard and felt that these statements were credible - the key was that the identities of these soldiers had been confirmed and they were indeed Cao's soldiers.

After Xiahou Yuan asked those key questions, he added some other detailed questions, such as finding out what the captives had seen and heard in the past few days.

These casual questions actually allowed Xiahou Yuan to capture some key information.

"You mean to say that the reason why Mi Zhu was able to get so many civilians to help him defend the city was because he spent money recklessly? He gave thousands of coins as rewards to each wounded soldier and soldier who made meritorious service? The pensions for the soldiers who died in the battle were all over ten thousand coins? If he didn't have enough cash, he used the precious goods he bought from the sea to make up for it? How can this guy be so rich?"

The captives who escaped back all gave similar statements, proving this point in unison. Xiahou Yuan was unwilling to accept this, and asked again what the treasures of the sea trade were mainly.

I heard that it is either porcelain and steel, or silk, spices and other things. Anyway, maritime trade goods are very durable and have a long "shelf life".

Otherwise, with the slow sailing technology of that era, things that are easy to deteriorate would not be used in maritime trade.

Xiahou Yuan could not help but feel anxious, and suddenly thought of a possibility: since Mi Zhu had spent money and rewarded people at the cost of his life to maintain the morale of the city defense troops, then doesn't it mean that these copper coins, pearls, jade, gold, silver, silk, and other precious goods are still stored in Qu County and cannot be consumed at all...

Gold, silver, copper coins, and silk have value only when you spend them; but they will not disappear when you hold them in your hands.

What’s the point of earning money if you don’t have the life to spend it?

Therefore, as long as he could capture Qu County, he could take back the rewards given by Mi Zhu, and then all of them would belong to him!
Xiahou Yuan felt that he had grasped the key to boosting morale, and immediately asked his generals to convey it to the three armies:

According to the situation in Qu County revealed by the escaped captives, Mi Zhu had already distributed gold, silver, and various treasures worth tens of millions of coins to the military and civilians of Qu County, all of which were durable goods that were difficult to consume.

On the day the city was captured, the army would not stop fighting for three days! Except for the skilled craftsmen in the city who would be arrested and tortured for their skills, everyone else in the city could be killed at will! All the property robbed after killing people would belong to the soldiers themselves!
After seven days of bloody battles, Cao's army suffered heavy casualties and their morale was already low. But after hearing Xiahou Yuan's encouragement, they were all excited again and were eager to kill and plunder.

"What? Mi Zhu is so rich? And he's so wasteful, distributing all the gold, silver and treasures to ordinary soldiers and able-bodied people in Qu County? We must kill them all! And take all the money!"

The bestial nature of Cao's army's looting was completely ignited and could never be extinguished.

(End of this chapter)