My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 662: Step into the Trap
Since Cao Jun has decided on the strategy of "attacking Gao Shun and forcing Guan Yu to fight a decisive battle as soon as possible", the determination at the subsequent execution level is naturally not small.

Since the plan was made that day, Cao Ren personally supervised the main force of Cao's army every day, launching a series of fierce attacks on the water fort at the eastern end of Yuliangzhou Peninsula, which Gao Shun had seized from Cai Mao.

The water fort left by Cai Mao was stronger than Gao Shun’s old camp, but not particularly strong.

Especially after Gao Shun's troops had breached the gate by trickery a few days ago, Gao Shun's troops had set many fires during the process of seizing the camp in order to defeat Cai Mao as quickly as possible and prevent any changes.

After Cai Mao escaped, Zhang Yun was killed, and most of his navy was annihilated and surrendered, Gao Shun's army went to put out the remaining fire, but the camp's defensive facilities inevitably suffered heavy losses.

If the defense strength of the intact water fortress in Cai Mao's hands was level 10, then the defense strength of the one obtained by Gao Shun after setting fire to it was at least reduced by five or six levels.

There were no trees in the camp. After Gao Shun seized the camp, Cao Ren quickly approached and set up a position next to Gao Shun to confront him. Gao Shun had some extra manpower, but there was no place to cut down trees, so he could not rebuild the fortifications.

With the limited manpower he had, the only thing he could do was to dig on the spot, raise the earth wall and deepen the trench in front of the camp.

Unfortunately, Yuliangzhou Water Fort is located at the tip of the peninsula. The area is hilly and the geology is hard. If you dig a little deeper, you will find rocky strata and you can't continue digging.

All of this made Cao Ren's aggressive attack seem quite feasible.

Of course, this expectation is also a double-edged sword.

Because this would make Cao Ren more willing to invest and launch a fierce attack.

If there had not been such a readily accessible bait in front of him, Cao Ren would not have gone to such great lengths to fight such a desperate battle.

……

"Kill! Guan Yu has already abandoned Gao Shun. The enemy is now short of reinforcements. We will surely be able to break in if we attack again!"

"Brothers, follow me! Now is the time to make achievements!"

Groups of Cao's soldiers, under the supervision of Cao Ren, rushed towards the ruined water fort, which was said to have less than 20,000 defenders.

Cao's army's offensive has lasted for two days.

The wooden picket fences and antler barricades outside the water fort had basically been destroyed by Cao's army in the previous attack. A small part of them had been destroyed by Gao Shun himself when he defeated Cai Mao.

The main defenses of the water fort consisted of only a few temporary rammed earth walls that were not too high, and a few dry trenches that did not even have bamboo traps underneath.

Such fortifications gave the attacking Cao army a good chance of breaking into the camp.

Even though the camp was located on a relatively high hill, which gave them a certain degree of commanding height, Cao's army ignored this disadvantage and attacked fiercely.

Rows of veteran Cao's soldiers, along with more Jingzhou surrendered soldiers who had originally served under Liu Biao, launched a tsunami-like charge towards the camp wall.

There were even more Cao army archers in the back row, holding huge movable rattan shields and shooting arrows madly into the camp. For a moment, the arrows were like locusts, covering the sky and the sun.

These rattan shields are classic siege shields, with a wooden support frame at the bottom, which can be directly supported on the ground without the need for archers to hold them, so they can be made very large, and one side can cover several crossbowmen.

If you are not familiar with the shape of this kind of engineering machinery, try playing an old real-time strategy game called "Fortress" from the early 21st century and you will know.

While Cao's army was desperately suppressing the enemy with their guns and spears, Gao Shun's troops guarding the camp also refused to give in and fought to the death.

At the beginning, the defenders also shot arrows like locusts, making it difficult for Cao's auxiliary soldiers who were carrying rafts, trench bridges and ladders to attack the camp.

Under Cao Ren's command, those who performed such auxiliary combat tasks were often Liu Biao's former subordinates who were forced to surrender by Cai Mao.

Cao Cao did not trust these Jingzhou soldiers, and their fighting ability was not good. They were just used to carry soil to fill trenches and push ladders to build wooden bridges.

Anyway, there is no technical content and no need to engage in hand-to-hand combat. If you are shot by the enemy's bows and crossbows, both auxiliary soldiers and elite soldiers will die. There is no difference. It all depends on luck.

The fierce firepower of Gao Shun's defenders hindered Cao's offensive in the first one or two days, and the progress was slow.

But after overcoming the initial difficult stage, as the trench bridges, rafts and ladders for attacking the camp were basically set up, the fortifications that could be destroyed by battering rams were also almost all destroyed.

Cao's army no longer needed to deploy too many auxiliary troops, and could just rush forward with combat troops to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the defenders. The exchange ratio between the two sides would not be as ugly as it was at the beginning.

Therefore, when Cao Ren saw that "although the situation is a bit grim, judging from the trend, everything is moving in a good direction. Although our army's casualty exchange ratio is obviously at a disadvantage, this disadvantage ratio is becoming smaller and smaller," he became more determined to persevere.

The day before yesterday, I exchanged seven or eight for one, yesterday I exchanged five or six for one, and today I exchanged three or four for one. Although I have been losing money before, as long as I persist in playing, there is hope!
The losses in the initial stage have already been lost, so how can we miss the subsequent stage of reaping the fruits of victory?
So much has been invested in the initial sunk costs. If we give up, wouldn’t it be like “just eating the steamed bun to the point of the bean paste, but ending up being full”?
Cao Ren would never do such a stupid thing.

"Gao Shun's defense has begun to gradually run out of strength. Today, the enemy's bow and crossbow shooting is not as intensive as the previous two days. It seems that Gao Shun can't get any reinforcements and has few arrows left."

Cao Ren observed Gao Shun's defensive tactics with a grim expression. As the fighting became more bloody and fierce, he also observed the enemy's new weaknesses.

The frequency of Gao Shun's troops shooting arrows has been getting lower and lower. It should be because they have seen that Cao's army has fewer and fewer auxiliary troops on the front line, and the only ones deployed are veteran soldiers responsible for hand-to-hand combat.

The armor rate of these veterans has also increased. Ordinary bows and arrows are no longer useful, only crossbows are still somewhat useful. In order to save arrows, Gao Shun asked the ordinary archers to stop shooting arrows and join the melee.

The bloody fight continued for a while. As Cao's army once again withdrew the tired soldiers and replaced them with new reinforcements, a general who had just withdrawn could not help but find Cao Ren and give him some tactical suggestions.

This general was named Chang Diao. More than a decade later, he would participate in the Second Battle of Ruxukou with Cao Ren. However, in the process of gilding Cao Ren's son Cao Tai, Chang Diao's troops were forced to advance recklessly and were completely annihilated by Wu General Zhu Huan.

But no matter what this person's ability is, when Cao Ren wanted to gild his son, he let this person be responsible for assisting his son. It can be seen that he is trusted enough and can be regarded as Cao Ren's confidant.

At this moment, Chang Diao had just experienced a bloody battle that lasted for several hours. The weather was hot, and when he retreated, he was sweating profusely as if he had just been fished out of the water.

He was afraid of the wind and did not dare to take off his armor. He just wore the heavy armor, drank water, and reported his suggestions to Cao Ren:
"General! Let's send the newly recruited cuirassiers! I think the enemy is exhausted, and success or failure depends on this one. If our army can send in more elite reinforcements, we will definitely be able to repel Gao Shun!"

Cao Ren thought about it and felt that the suggestion seemed to make sense, so he nodded.

After more than two days of siege warfare, our side had four or five times the number of troops as Gao Shun, but they were still unable to break through the wall. The most crucial reason was that Gao Shun's "New Formation" was defended too resolutely.

Their willpower in hand-to-hand combat was also unusually strong. Moreover, they were well-equipped and fought decisively, so Cao's army could not break through despite repeated clashes.

Cao Ren's troops had a clear equipment disadvantage when fighting with Gao Shun.

Even though Cao Ren's army was considered the best equipped among all the armies under Cao Cao's command, they were at most equipped with pig iron punched and connected armor and cast iron helmets. The spears, halberds and halberds they used had blades forged with fine steel.

However, all of these are still a generation behind in quality compared to Gao Shun’s army’s steel-filled armor and steel-filled weapons.

However, before this battle, Cao's army was not completely without good equipment.

A few days ago, when Gao Shun was replaced by Cao Ren, the elite soldiers who stayed behind at the Yuliangzhou waterway to block the enemy and attack them halfway across the river; during the final retreat, in order to run faster, they threw a lot of steel-filled armor and even a whole piece of forged steel breastplate into the river.

After Cao Ren captured Gao Shun's old camp, Yu Jin salvaged more than a hundred sets of high-quality steel armor on the first day, which was better than all the steel armor used by Cao's army before.

Especially those one-piece forged breastplates, which are not even as good as the fish-scale black armor of Cao’s generals.

Cao Ren himself was jealous, so he chose a whole piece of breastplate that was originally worn by a military commander under Gao Shun, and put it on himself.

After putting it on, he cursed in his heart: Liu Ni is really rich! The armor worn by an ordinary military commander in the army is better than the armor worn by the general under the command of the prime minister! In Gao Shun's elite troops, a Qu Chang's armor may be of the same quality as the one he originally used! It's unfair!

You should know that the fish-scale black armor used by Cao Ren is no ordinary item. It was made by Cao Cao through repeated cold forging by skilled craftsmen. Its quality is much better than ordinary steel armor.

Cao's army had to spend a huge amount of money, select the best materials, and invest a large amount of manpower to produce good products exclusively for a very small number of senior generals. But in the end, they could only be comparable to the mass-produced type of Qu Changyong used by Liu Bei's army. Who could be willing to accept this?
Because the captured armor was so good and the first day's harvest was not large, Cao Ren did not immediately think of equipping the troops with the armor. He simply distributed it among his generals and officers for private distribution as a benefit to his direct subordinates.

At that time, there were only more than a hundred pairs in total, which was not enough to give one pair to each officer above the rank of sergeant in the army, let alone distribute them to the soldiers to form a special unit.
However, on the second and third days, the camp garrison troops left behind by Yu Jin continued to salvage, and the Cao army soldiers gradually became familiar with the process, and their daily harvest doubled.

On the second day, two to three hundred pairs were salvaged, and on the third day, the number exceeded four hundred pairs. Subsequently, as most of the stock was salvaged, even though Cao's soldiers became more and more skilled, the trend of harvest would obviously slow down visibly, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Even so, Cao Ren was reluctant to stop, and still asked Yu Jin to spend more energy to salvage while guarding the waterway, and he would salvage as much as he could. He even thought of using something similar to a weighted fishing net to scrape the bottom of the riverbed to salvage.

It is ironic that "fishing trawlers" did not exist at the end of the Han Dynasty. The first fixed bottom-diving gill net was used by Zhuge Jin when he first met Liu Bei in order to solve the problem that Guangling County could not support Liu Bei's army.

Two or three years later, it gradually developed into drift gillnets and trawls. So if we calculate the time, it has been twelve years since the first fixed gillnet appeared, and at least nine years since the drift gillnet appeared.

This thing doesn't have high technical content, and you can tell what it is once you've seen the sample. So after nine years of spread, some people in Cao Cao's camp began to use it.

However, there are few large rivers in the north, and Cao Cao's territory is not on the coast, so it is impossible to take advantage of the tides and use drift nets, so the scale of trawling fishing has never been large.

Today, Cao Ren was anxious to fish out the steel armor at the bottom of the Liangzhou waterway, so Jia Xu gave him another idea and asked the soldiers to make a temporary trawl net.

Of course, the armor salvaged by this method are not all of the best quality whole-forged breastplates, but a variety of types, both good and bad.

At this moment, there were more than 500 sets of high-quality steel armor that could be distributed to ordinary soldiers in Cao Ren's army.

Faced with this critical moment, Cao Ren finally decided: concentrate the use of these elite troops with new equipment to break through Gao Shun's defense line in one fell swoop!

……

After half a day of fighting, Cao's army had enough fresh troops to rotate, but Gao Shun did not have so many fresh troops. He had to continue to resist with difficulty, and the soldiers' physical strength gradually weakened.

As it was almost noon, another group of new and elite soldiers from Cao's army, who were in good shape, came charging up.

Gao Shun and Guan Ping each went to the front line to urge the soldiers to hold their ground firmly and not to slack off.

"Don't be afraid! There's nothing to be afraid of with Cao's army! General Guan has agreed to let us hold out for another three days, so we'll do it! The major generals are here, and General Guan will definitely join forces with us from inside and outside! Brothers, have faith!" Gao Shun, who was not good at speaking, analyzed these inspiring truths and boosted the morale of the soldiers.

The panting steel-armored soldiers, wielding horse-slashing swords and steel-filled halberds, gathered their remaining strength and continued to fight relentlessly, repelling another charge by Cao's army and leaving hundreds of Cao's soldiers' bodies on the ground.

However, they soon realized that this time Cao's attack was unusual.

"How come these Cao soldiers are so good? A powerful swing of the horse-slaying sword should be enough to break the seams of the armor, so why can't it be cut open?"

A group of horse-slaying swordsmen from the "New Formation" soon realized something was wrong after slashing and fighting for a while. They began to doubt their lives and their morale dropped a little.

“Hiss… The halberd made of fine steel actually slipped open! Ugh!”

Several Gao Shun soldiers who were exhausted were confident that they could kill the enemy with their halberds. However, when they stabbed, the halberds deviated slightly and missed the center of the enemy's torso, and then slid away like a ricochet.

You know, if you stab the enemies who are wearing ordinary iron armor made of holes punched in pig iron armor plates, even if you don't stab them straight, it is impossible for a "ricochet deflection" to occur.

Gao Shun's soldiers with long halberds were caught off guard and their weapons slipped.

It just so happened that they had tried their best before, and after fighting for a long time, they were exhausted and their lower body was unstable. Then they lost their balance and some people even stumbled and fell.

The Cao army on the opposite side is a fresh force that has just joined the battle. They are in a brave state and full of energy. How could they miss such a good opportunity?

Suddenly, the blunt weapons of spears and guns stabbed and smashed violently, stabbing and killing the small group of Gao Shun's halberd soldiers who had lost their footing and fallen to the ground.

"Not good! The enemy also has good steel armor! Brothers, be careful!"

"The armor of these Cao dogs is actually no worse than ours!"

The grassroots officers under Gao Shun's command quickly realized the problem and shouted warnings.

The ordinary soldiers also quickly cheered up, adjusted their state, and fought hard to meet the enemy, and only then did they barely delay the offensive of Cao's army.

The weapon levels of both sides were temporarily equalized. Even if it was only in a small section of the offensive and defensive focus on the front line, the impact on the entire battle situation was very far-reaching.

Gao Shun's number of people was much smaller than Cao Ren's. He was physically exhausted and, most importantly, he was not mentally prepared. Even though he tried his best to adjust himself, he was inevitably gradually torn apart.

Gao Shun quickly discovered the problem: on the battlefield, near the two gates, Cao's army's offensive suddenly became fierce. Even with his own crossbows, he couldn't hurt the enemy, and the hand-to-hand combat between the two sides didn't give him any advantage.

Although their guards in other parts of the battle line could still be considered tenacious, when it came to defending a camp, if one or two points on a line of defense were breached, the entire line would become useless.

Fortunately, the water fort left by Cai Mao did not have just one camp wall.

There are still many divisions inside the camp. After Gao Shun occupied the camp, he also reinforced it on his own and slightly raised some of the inner walls with newly excavated rammed earth.

However, the strength of these fortifications is definitely weaker than the outer walls, and they can only be temporary fortifications used to delay time.

It is just like when defending a city, once the city gate is breached, the temporary "inner city" type earth wall built inside will definitely not be as defensive as the real city wall.

After seeing the situation clearly, Gao Shun gave a stern order: "Immediately, let the last reserve troops line up behind the second earth wall! Let my guards go up as well! Make sure to stand firm! Then let the front row soldiers retreat in an orderly manner!

Judging from Cao Ren's attitude, this first line of defense may not hold out for much longer! Send another pigeon back to tell General Guan about the situation here! Tell him to send reinforcements as soon as possible! Tell him that our army will do its best to consume Cao Ren and delay the battle as long as possible!"

Gao Shun knew very well that if he waited until the first line of defense could no longer hold out and then allowed them to retreat, it would most likely lead to a total collapse.

Therefore, we must leave margins for everything. Since there is a certain possibility of elastic defense, we cannot wait until the elasticity is completely exhausted before making a decision.

The last general reserve and personal guards quickly deployed the second line of defense according to Gao Shun's order. Then the front-line guards, who were gradually unable to hold on, fired a few rounds of arrows, slightly forced back Cao's troops, and then began to retreat at a rapid speed.

Soldiers wearing heavy steel armor would run for half a cup of tea to avoid the embarrassment of losing their armor and helmets.

As for the small number of crossbowmen, light infantry and Danyang soldiers who were left behind, they were responsible for temporary blocking, holding out for a little longer than a cup of tea, and then quickly retreating.

Under Gao Shun's orderly organization, the loss of the outer defense line of the water fort did not result in too much loss of manpower.

Of course, since Gao Shun was the retreating party after all, he would definitely lose the power to clean up the battlefield.

Therefore, the equipment of the soldiers who died in battle on both sides, as well as the seriously injured who fell to the ground and could not retreat, would be seized and stripped by the attacking side that won control of the battlefield.

After today's battle, Cao Ren was able to increase the combat explosiveness of his elite troops. With the spoils of war, his soldiers would be more effective in the subsequent melee.

"Hahahaha! Gao Shun has come to this day! Our army took this opportunity to deploy elite soldiers with pure steel breastplates, and it really worked! Gao Shun lost so many men and horses, and also lost the outer camp defense line. Now he can only retreat to the dock.

This Yuliangzhou mountaintop is about to be occupied by our army! In a few days, Gao Shun will be dead! Let's see if you, Guan Yu, can hide anymore. Come, call all the craftsmen in the army immediately!

This general will set up several catapults on the top of Yuliangzhou Mountain, and aim them directly at the dock area below! As long as Guan Yu's warships dare to dock at the dock, they will be thrown at me immediately with stones! As many as they can sink will count!"

After Cao Ren achieved a phased victory, he couldn't help but laugh wildly with triumph.

It turned out that although he had not yet completely captured the entire camp, the significance and tactical effect of this victory were already very good.

As we all know, Yuliangzhou Water Fort is a fort with the dock area as its core. But the location of the dock is definitely not high, you have to be close to the water to build a dock.

The most strategic location in the camp is the main peak of Yuliangzhou, a small hill with a height of more than 100 steps. Although the absolute height is not high, it is already the commanding height of the entire peninsula.

After Cao Ren attacked and captured Gao Shun's outer camp, although he had not lost the dock area, he had already lost the commanding heights.

In this way, Cao Ren could see Gao Shun's movements clearly. Cao Ren could even set up catapults on the commanding heights to block or at least threaten the most important berths in the dock area below.

If you find this situation unimaginable, you can compare it with the later Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. When the Japanese army captured Liugong Island, they posed a fatal threat to the Beiyang Fleet in the Weihai Naval Port and directly bombarded the warships with land-based heavy artillery.

Similarly, ten years later during the Russo-Japanese War, after the Japanese army captured Hill 203, they were able to launch a devastating bombardment on the Russian fleet in Port Arthur.

The catapults of the late Han Dynasty were not as effective against naval forces as the artillery of later generations. Their range was not far enough and their accuracy was not good enough.

However, the depth of the defense line of Yuliangzhou Water Fort is not very far. The old-fashioned catapult with a range of only 200 steps can already threaten many warships.

This is not even counting the additional range advantage of being high above. If the reinforcements want to land at the dock area, they will suffer a lot of additional suppression, which will not be so easy.

In other words, Cao Ren felt that he was no longer worried about Guan Yu taking the water route to reinforce Gao Shun and continue the war of attrition.

Even if Guan Yu came, he was sure to inflict some casualties on him when he landed, making sure that a group of Guan Yu's troops would die before they saw him.

Victory is at hand! This battle must be fought to the end!
As for the fact that three days had passed, Cao Ren was not too worried, because he felt that time was on his side. Now was the time for Guan Yu to be anxious, not him.

……

Cao Ren fought desperately on the front line, wasting time with Gao Shun at all costs.

At the same time, during these three days, Yu Jin, who was guarding the Yuliangzhou waterway in the rear, was also not idle.

Yu Jin continued to sum up his experience and improve the salvage equipment, scraping the riverbed three feet to salvage the high-quality equipment that Gao Shun's defeated army threw into the river.

At the same time, they built and repaired many fortifications along the river. There were dozens of earthen platforms for catapults and towers for archers to look out.

During these three days, Guan Yu's army also continuously sent navy to harass.

However, due to the narrow river channel and shallow draft, Guan Yu could not use too large warships, and could only use warships at most. Therefore, facing Yu Jin, whose fortifications were becoming increasingly strong, he could not get any good results at all.

Even a warship could not enter this tributary channel to destroy Yu Jin's fortifications deep in the river, so it could only wander around the river mouth. If it wanted to go deeper, it could only use a boat.

The chariot had no superstructure and no deck to block the arrows. Guan Yu could only ask his soldiers to temporarily put up shields on both sides of the chariot as cover, and then fight with Yu Jin.

With this level of equipment, Yu Jin became more and more skilled in fighting, and gradually gained some advantages in exchange ratio.

Yu Jin had followed Cao Cao and led troops for nearly twenty years, but this was the first time that he had the upper hand in a head-on confrontation with Guan Yu.

The shadow of the previous Dangyang Battle and the defeat by Huang Zhong in which he suffered heavy casualties was finally swept away.

Yu Jin couldn't help thinking in his heart: "In the past ten years, none of the generals under the Prime Minister's command has been able to get the upper hand over Guan Yu. Now, I am the only one who can make Guan Yu's attack fail, and the loss of his troops is even far greater than ours! Doesn't this mean that I am the Prime Minister's number one general!

In the past few years, the Prime Minister has been using me in the direction of Nanyang to guard against Liu Biao. This year, Liu Biao was destroyed, so I was asked to deal with Liu Bei and Guan Yu. It seems that the Prime Minister has been wasting my talents all these years.

If I had been allowed to deal with Guan Yu a few years earlier, perhaps I would have broken Guan Yu's winning streak a few years earlier!

As for the previous defeat at the hands of Huang Zhong, it was just because he underestimated the enemy. He never expected that Huang Zhong, an old man with no achievements to speak of, actually had such ability.

As expected, as long as I get serious, all the generals under Liu Bei can resist me!"

With such a happy thought, Yu Jin became more and more confident as the battle went on. He also became more and more convinced that the mission Cao Ren assigned to him was absolutely correct, and that his specific way of execution was also flawless.

Keep going! Stick to this style of play, keep consuming Guan Yu, and you will win sooner or later!
As time gradually approached August, the autumn rain became more and more severe, and the water level of the Han River also rose, Cao Ren and Yu Jin did not think these were anything to worry about.

The Han River's rise was still far from a disaster that posed a military threat. In the eyes of Cao Ren and Yu Jin, there was no need to be too cautious about this level.

(End of this chapter)