My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 656: Fighting with Cai Mao and Landing on Yuliangzhou
Gao Shun still felt a little surprised when he saw Cai Mao taking the navy to meet them.

He also knew that Guan Yu had trained his troops in Xu and Yang in recent years and had built up a fairly good navy.

The navy is a technical branch of the military, and the key lies in the quality of the soldiers, the level of their equipment, and the coordination of their techniques, tactics and equipment.

In comparison, the generals' ability and the soldiers' morale are not as important as the army.

Therefore, even though Gao Shun himself lacked the talent for naval warfare, facing Cai Mao's attack, as long as he played steadily and did not make any surprising or stupid moves, basically nothing would go wrong.

Because of this self-knowledge, Gao Shun immediately issued a safe order in the face of the invading enemy:

"All ships form a battle array, use bows and crossbows, and swallowtail torches to repel the enemy! Trebuchets, prepare stone bombs!"

Gao Shun's fleet quickly followed orders and relied on these basic equipment to repel the enemy.

This time, they were not fully prepared for a large-scale, high-intensity naval battle. Because the fleet's main task was to transport troops, they had to save weight, so the number of fish paste and fire oil tanks carried by the army was much less.

It's not that Gao Shun or Guan Yu underestimated the enemy, but they had no choice. When carrying out troop transport missions, if they loaded too many flammable materials, it would not only waste load but also easily create danger.

Cheap fat like fish paste is a double-edged sword after all. If your warship is hit by the enemy's torches/rocket and happens to ignite the spare fire pot, then the problem will be serious.

When you have a large number of soldiers on board, for the sake of the soldiers' safety, you can only do so at the cost of weakening the firepower in naval battles.

However, even if he could not weaken the enemy with fire attacks, Gao Shun could still defeat them with conventional weapons alone.

As the two fleets came into contact, the bows and crossbows of both sides soon entered a state of intensive firing at each other.

The rain of arrows that broke through the air was as dense as locusts, and soon the sides of the ships of both sides were shot like hedgehogs. The white arrow feathers swayed in the wind like withered reeds in late autumn.

The generals under Gao Shun also improvised the situation. They carried a small amount of fish paste jars into the cabin and had the archers wrap the arrows with torn linen, dip them in the fish paste, stir them in the red-hot charcoal basin beside them, and finally shoot them out quickly.

This makeshift rocket greatly increased the anti-ship firepower density of Gao Shun's troops.

Originally, if a can of fish paste was thrown out directly, it would only make a loud noise. It would be best if it could cause a fire on the enemy ship, but there was nothing that could be done if it could not be ignited.

Although rockets are not rare nowadays, being able to convert most arrows into rockets in a short period of time is still very effective. This accumulation of quantitative change to qualitative change is still very effective.

The warships of both sides were mainly battleships with tight and thick sidings and narrow shooting holes, making it difficult for both sides to penetrate layers of cover and shoot the other side's archers.

After Gao Shun's side increased the proportion of rockets used, tiny fires immediately appeared everywhere in Cai Mao's fleet.

Although these fires were difficult to spread, they still made Cai Mao's soldiers panic.

Especially when the outer wall of the ship was hit by a rocket and flames appeared, the soldiers had to climb onto the roof of the cabin and carry water to put out the flames.

These soldiers who came out to put out the fire could not be protected by the cabin wall. Gao Shun's troops adjusted their tactics in time and used a rain of arrows with high trajectory to cover and shoot at the batches of Cai Mao's soldiers who went up to the cabin roof to put out the fire, causing them to scream miserably.

The morale of the comrades in the cabin was also shaken by this tragic incident.

What's even more fatal is that when the two sides were fighting within fifty steps and could not engage in direct hand-to-hand combat, the rain of gravel scattered by the catapults on Gao Shun's warships had a very deadly effect on Cai Mao's navy.

A crossbow arrow might not be able to penetrate the upper deck of a battleship, but it was normal for a fist-sized stone to be thrown there and cause the wooden planks to crack and wood chips to fly.

Cai Mao's navy was equipped with fewer catapults and had not prepared a large number of gravel bombs, so they were naturally at a disadvantage in this kind of battle.

……

At the beginning of the battle, Cai Mao was tricked by Gao Shun, a northern landlubber, in a naval battle. Of course, he was furious and could not help but shout out his command:
"Gao Shun, you dare not do this! Speed up and charge forward, board the enemy! Take advantage of our tall ship and shoot down the enemy ship from above!"

The former Jingzhou navy under his command naturally did not dare to neglect it and immediately carried out Cai Mao's order reluctantly.

Cai Mao had already seen that the Jingzhou army had not maintained its military preparations in recent years. Although the soldiers' naval warfare skills were still stronger than those of the northern army, they were already far behind in terms of upgrading their naval warfare weapons and equipment.

There's no way, Liu Biao is not Cao Cao.

In recent years, Cao Cao has been thinking about destroying Yuan Shao first and then Liu Bei. His military construction has been very high-intensity, and he dared not stop for a moment in such a highly confrontational environment.

So even if Liu Bei's army has Zhuge brothers who occasionally give Liu Bei new technical plug-ins to improve productivity and weapons and equipment technology.

Even if Cao Cao could not copy it immediately, he could at least do the following: "After suffering a loss once, he would try every possible means to make up for the shortcomings and narrow the gap."

Liu Biao has been relatively calm in recent years. On the one hand, he is not ambitious enough and he knows that he has no hope of becoming the hegemon.

On the other hand, when Liu Biao was alive, he actually controlled only five counties. His strength and the size of his territory meant that Liu Biao was unable to participate in the arms technology competition between Cao and Liu.

Just like in the 21st century, only superpowers like China and the United States can engage in military scientific research competitions and ensure a complete industrial technology system. How can other medium-sized and small countries, whose GDP economic size is at least one digit lower than that of superpowers, participate in such a competition?

Cai Mao's navy seemed to be quite large in scale and was trained all year round, but in the final analysis it was just the foundation of Liu Biao. In terms of equipment and technology level, it was still far behind the two strongest forces in the world.

Cai Mao usually did not pay enough attention to or have an intuitive understanding of this gap, until today he felt it personally.

He finally realized that he would definitely suffer if he continued to fight and shoot like this. His only reliance was the more numerous traditional ships, so he had to stick close to them.

Cai Mao's fleet, relying on the advantage of upstream flow, rushed directly towards Gao Shun, while the central army advanced straight ahead without any regard.

When Cai Mao just changed his tactics, Gao Shun was caught off guard and had no time to change his tactics.

Soon, several fighting ships were hit by Cai Mao's tower ships. Even though the fighting ships were large enough to carry three to five hundred soldiers, they were still shaken by the larger tower ships.

Even if the collision did not cause the ship to capsize, at least the bows of the ships would be smashed and rammed together. Then, Cai Mao's troops on the tower ship fired from above and boarded the ship to kill.

In a naval battle, in order to avoid sinking directly to the bottom of the river, most of the troops would not be equipped with iron armor, and almost all of them would wear leather armor. Therefore, the advantage of Liu Bei's army having a higher rate of iron armor did not exist in this situation.

The hand-to-hand combat between the two sides is very fair, and the side in a dominant position can also gain the due advantage.

Cai Mao's successful attack saved some face for the "famous naval general of Jingzhou", proving that the people of Jingzhou do have some advantages in naval battle command quality over the northern generals.

As the first few fighting warships were damaged and boarded, Gao Shun's troops suffered the loss of one or two thousand people, which really made Cai Mao proud - of course, the loss of one or two thousand people was not all due to deaths in battle or capture.

Most of the warships were destroyed and had to jump into the Han River to escape and drift with the current. As long as Gao Shun could control the battlefield and salvage the ships, many soldiers could still be saved.

Even if it cannot be salvaged, the width of the Han River is only three or four hundred feet, which is much narrower than the Yangtze River.

Even if you fall into the river, you can swim 200 feet to the shore to get to the shore safely. Soldiers from Xuzhou and Yangzhou probably have some swimming ability to this extent.

On the other side, Gao Shun, after suffering sudden losses due to the enemy's change of tactics, reacted quickly.

Gao Shun did not dare to be arrogant, and immediately humbly consulted the generals from Yangzhou around him to discuss the countermeasures. Then he came up with a temporary countermeasure:

"All ships, scatter! Turn around and go downstream. Don't fight with Cai Mao! Our ships have the advantage in speed, so use rockets to consume Cai Mao!"

Some generals also found problems with this order and quickly reminded: "General! What about the 'landing troops' over there? Once we withdraw, how can we protect the landing waterway on the west side of Yuliangzhou?"

Gao Shun didn't even think twice: "No rush! Raise the flag to let Tan Zhi retreat temporarily. There's no need to rush to seize the beach! Wait until dark and then react accordingly!"

No war can go exactly as planned. Gao Shun had reported his current battle plan to Guan Yu before the war, and even Guan Yu didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Everyone also thought that after the great victory at Lumen Mountain, Cai Mao would be timid and would not dare to leave the water camp to meet the enemy on the Han River.

But since Cai Mao attacked because he looked down on the naval warfare capabilities of the northern generals, Gao Shun could only respond to them. As for the delay in landing, there was nothing to regret.

As Gao Shun adjusted the military orders with flags, the ships immediately began to disperse, taking advantage of the fact that Liu Bei's warships were narrower and longer, had a keel structure, and were faster and more flexible, to distance themselves from Cai Mao.

After Cai Mao tasted some sweetness in the initial crushing victory in the boarding battle, he was not happy for long before he was made extremely uncomfortable again.

Although Gao Shun's fleet seemed fragmented and scattered, Gao Shun's speed advantage was very obvious.

If Cai Mao wanted to fight a large-scale boarding battle again, the difficulty would increase a lot. At most, he could only get some boarding opportunities piecemeal, but he could not achieve a decisive result.

Moreover, as Gao Shun's fleet was broken up into small pieces, many small and medium-sized warships of the battleship level were flexibly evacuated to the river beaches on both sides.

Cai Mao also wanted to divide his troops to pursue, surround and annihilate the enemy, and defeat them one by one, but if Cai Mao also used warships, Cai Mao would have no advantage at all in a small-scale battle between the two sides.

If you want to use the tower ships and fighting ships to crush the enemy, the draft of the tower ships and fighting ships is too deep. If you rush to the shore or even the reed marsh to chase, you will definitely run aground or even hit the reef. Cai Mao himself is well versed in the basic principles of these naval battles and did not make wrong and reckless command decisions.

However, in the midst of the war, there were so many complicated issues that it was impossible for all the commanding officers of the tower ships and fighting warships to obey Cai Mao's orders in time and use them as they pleased.

In the chaos of the battle, some of the former Jingzhou Army's warships ran aground because of their reckless advance. It was really embarrassing - as a local of Jingzhou, they were actually not familiar with the hydrological conditions and depth of the Han River nearby. As a result, they made the low-level mistake of running aground during the pursuit, which was simply a shame for the navy.

In contrast, Gao Shun's army came from outside. Even though they were from Jiangdong and good at swimming, they were not supposed to understand the hydrological conditions of the Han River.

Under such circumstances, Gao Shun's troops were able to avoid geographical pitfalls, which shows how rigorous their training and preparations were before the war.

All this is obviously also due to the fact that Xiang Chong and others who joined the army did a lot of homework in advance and fully briefed the front-line officers.

After a period of mobile warfare between Cai Mao and Gao Shun, Cai Mao was unable to break the situation and achieve decisive results.

As it was getting dark, Cai Mao had to consider whether to change his tactics and play it safe.

At this time, around the end of the afternoon, Cai Mao was chasing deeper and deeper when he suddenly discovered several burning warships rushing out from the reed marshes on the river beach behind his flank and rushing towards his Zhongjunlou fleet.

It turned out that Gao Shun's fleet had gradually dispersed in the previous battle. Some of the warships and small boats that were separated from the main force hid in the reed marshes in the shallow waters and avoided the sweep of Cai Mao's main fleet.

As Cai Mao pursued deeper and deeper to the south, the lost warships of Gao Shun's army gradually changed from their original disadvantageous position downstream to gain the advantage of the upstream.

Some of these small boats still had some fish paste jars left in stock, which had not been used up in the fierce battle just now.

After the junior officers of each ship spontaneously gathered together and took stock of the situation, they improvised a solution by concentrating the flammable dye on a few ships and letting the soldiers transfer to other ships by boarding.

Then they picked out a few elite sailors who were particularly good at swimming as death-defying warriors, and sailed their fireboats downstream to harass Cai Mao. After getting close to the enemy ships, they set them on fire and then jumped off the boats and retreated.

This attack was not organized from top to bottom by Gao Shun.

The decisions were made by the commanders of the warships and the captains of the garrisons according to the changing battlefield situation. Therefore, the scale would not be large, and the effect would be difficult to guarantee, but it would be sudden enough.

Cai Mao was originally in the upper reaches and Gao Shun was in the lower reaches. Cai Mao had not been prepared for the fire attack today. At this moment, he was suddenly in a panic when he was disturbed by this spontaneous and unpredictable fire attack.

Gao Shun's suicide fire ships specifically targeted large ships for burning. If a warship hit one, it could often replace a fighting warship, or at least burn a tower ship to severe damage.

Cai Mao lost several large ships in a hurry, which made him panic and his morale was greatly affected.

In addition, seeing that it was getting dark, Cai Mao was afraid that the enemy's fireboats would sneak up on him in the dark and set fire to him when they were close, which would make it even more difficult to guard against. So he had to decisively choose to withdraw his troops.

"We can't chase them anymore. I didn't expect Gao Shun's navy to be so slick. The warships of the traitor Liu Bei are so agile that it's hard to catch up with them.

I have traveled so far downstream, and I don’t know how many enemy boats are hiding behind me. If they come in the dark and set fire, it will be impossible to defend against them.”

As Cai Mao thought about it, he became more and more frightened.

Therefore, the navy under his command finally chose the most stable and cautious method, turned around and retreated to the water fort, and waited until dawn tomorrow to make further plans.

As long as the sky is bright enough and the visibility is good enough, this kind of piecemeal fire attack can be prevented in advance, and there is no need to risk a night battle.

……

As Cai Mao withdrew his troops, Gao Shun also breathed a sigh of relief and quickly began to deploy new contingency plans.

Although Cai Mao's counterattack delayed his attack time for most of the day and caused certain losses to both sides, it did not affect the overall situation.

Gao Shun was still able to carry out his landing plan, and as Cai Mao retreated, the enemy's patrol boat activities would be temporarily suppressed to a lower level, making it easier for Gao Shun to launch a surprise attack.

It took an hour to gather the troops again and reunite with Guan Ping. After learning about the situation of Guan Ping's troops, Gao Shun learned that they still had the strength to fight. He made a decisive decision:

"Tanzhi, the waterway on the west side of Yuliangzhou Island is now in your hands. You should land as planned, and go ashore in the dark of night to gain a foothold. I will continue to chase them and block Cai Mao's water fort. I will also light more torches to attract Cai Mao's attention."

"Uncle Zhongda, don't worry. I know what to do." Guan Ping accepted the military order without hesitation.

Soon, Gao Shun and Guan Ping's troops implemented the changed plan overnight.

Gao Shun made a big fuss, lit many lights, blocked the door to bluff and attract Cai Mao's troops.

In order to better test the situation, Gao Shun even sent a small number of warships to approach the water fort and shoot arrows and stones. Although it did not pose much threat to Cai Mao, it also made Cai Mao, who retreated to the water fort, sleep poorly all night and had no energy to pay attention to other places.

On the other side, Guan Ping took advantage of Gao Shun's distraction of the enemy's attention and, relying on Xiang Chong to lead the way, accurately passed through the shallow waterway between Yuliangzhou and Xiangyang City.

They successfully landed on the flat area west of Yuliangzhou Island and established a preliminary beachhead.

During the Han Dynasty, the land connection between Yuliangzhou and the main city of Xiangyang had not been completely cut off. The shallow and narrow waterway was even above water during the dry season in winter and was only barely submerged during the flood season in summer and autumn.

Guan Ping was able to drive the fleet in because he had done his homework beforehand and had a very precise grasp of the water depth.

At dawn the next day, when Cai Maowei finally survived the night and was ready to take advantage of his vision to fight again, several of his generals brought him back a piece of bad news:
"General, this is bad! Gao Shun has landed in the shallow waterway west of Yuliangzhou! He has hastily dug a two-foot deep trench and marked out a camp!"

When Cai Mao heard this, he was stunned. He hurried to the west side of Yuliangzhou camp and looked towards the direction of Xiangyang City. Sure enough, he saw that a considerable number of enemy troops had successfully landed in the dark last night.

"How could Gao Shun be so bold? He has not even defeated my navy yet, yet he dares to go deep into the enemy's territory and land alone?
Isn't he afraid that General Cao will come out of the city to meet him and annihilate him? Isn't he afraid that my navy will cut off his retreat?
By then, he won’t be able to retreat via the Han River! Even if he wants to leave, the remaining troops will definitely be driven into the river!"

Cai Mao was shocked and couldn't understand how the enemy could be so brave.

Judging from the size of the enemy fleet yesterday, the enemy had no more than 30,000 soldiers and horses, some of whom were killed and wounded in the naval battle, and several battleships and warships were sunk or captured.

With so few remaining men, how could they dare to charge directly into the heart of Cao's army and risk being surrounded by the enemy and land in such a place?
This landing point is located in the western part of Yuliangzhou. To the east is Cai Mao’s water fort on the top of Yuliangzhou mountain, to the west is Xiangyang City controlled by Cao Ren, to the southwest is Yu Jin’s Xianshan camp, and to the north, across the Han River, is Xu Huang’s Fancheng garrison.

In Xiangyang, Jia Xu was still advising Cao Ren, and in Fancheng, Guo Jia had just arrived to advise Xu Huang.

Is Gao Shun crazy? How dare he jump into the encirclement of Cao Ren, Yu Jin, Cai Mao and Xu Huang?
And he only brought 30,000 people!
Cao Ren had at least 50,000 Xiangyang defenders that he could directly mobilize, and at least 40,000 soldiers in Fancheng on the north bank that he could free up for the attack.

There were still 20,000 to 30,000 former naval officers from Jingzhou in the Yuliangzhou camp, all of whom were Cai Mao's subordinates.

Yu Jin's Xianshan camp can also mobilize 30,000 people - of course, Yu Jin is currently at the forefront of the anti-Liu campaign.

If Liu Bei's army launched a land-based attack and marched north from Yicheng to seek battle, Yu Jin's troops would mainly be used to block Liu Bei's army from Yicheng, and he would not be able to spare too many troops to besiege Gao Shun.

But no matter what, it is definitely possible for Cao Ren to mobilize 100,000 men to attack Gao Shun.

Gao Shun actually jumped into the encirclement on his own initiative, and his only way to survive was the Han River.

It is impossible for Gao Shun to connect with Liu Bei's army in Yicheng from the land, as he will be cut off by Yu Jin in Xianshan, unless Liu Bei breaks through the Xianshan defense line first and defeats Yu Jin, the roadblock.

Therefore, Gao Shun could only communicate with the rear through the waterway of Han River.

But after 30,000 troops skilled in naval warfare had been put into the encirclement, could the remaining reserve forces of Liu Bei's army still break through Cai Mao's navy's blockade of the Han River waterway?

Cai Mao didn't dare to conclude, but he always felt that the enemy was taking too much risk.

It was precisely because they felt that Gao Shun was seeking death and was jumping into the encirclement that they failed to guard against this move.

It was because of this that Cao Ren could not have thought of sending troops out of the east of the city to maneuver towards Yuliangzhou last night and seek an opportunity to annihilate the enemy on the beach.

Cao Ren had never expected that Gao Shun would suddenly land in such a place - who would have thought of seeking death by defending against the enemy?
However, Gao Shun and Guan Ping have now established a firm foothold on the west side of Yuliangzhou.

As for Cao Ren and Cai Mao, there is no need to be too anxious or hasty to reverse the situation.

They might as well take a good look at the situation and see how it will develop, consult with experienced strategists such as Jia Xu and Guo Jia, deduce the enemy's next moves, and act after careful consideration.

It's not a day or half a day anymore.

That morning, in Xiangyang City, Cao Ren urgently summoned Jia Xu to discuss countermeasures with him.

Cao Ren asked directly: "Gao Shun unexpectedly landed on the west side of Yuliangzhou Island and was surrounded without being able to defeat Cai Mao's navy and completely control the Han River waterway.

Is this a trick? Wenhe, tell me, what exactly is Zhuge Jin planning? If our army immediately gathers its forces and besieges Gao Shun, can we drive him into the Han River and drown him? Will we fall into Zhuge Jin's trap again?"

(End of this chapter)