My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 664: New Flood Floods the Seven Armies

"Woo-wu-wu-"

The sound of the death horn, deep and distant, like a subwoofer, seemed to penetrate the surging flood so strongly. It also made Cao's army, who were surrounded by the flood peak, panic.

Guan Yu's army was obviously very well prepared today, and many details were thought of in advance.

Before the battle, Guan Yu estimated that the leather drum would easily get damp during heavy rain, and the sound of the drum would be obscured by the rain.

Military instruments such as trumpets are made of ox horns and conch shells. They are not afraid of moisture, and rain and water sounds cannot block their low and penetrating sound.

Guan Yu prepared enough horns, with several on each ship, and they were blown at full force as soon as the battle started.

At this moment, as the warships charged, thousands of horns wailed and screamed, like death notes.

All the enemy soldiers were frightened when they heard this.

This classic scene from history is reproduced here by chance.

The only difference in details is that in original history, when Yu Jin’s army faced a flood, they could only hide on the embankment.

Now, the embarrassed Cao army hid on the earthen platforms used as catapult positions, or on the turrets.

Another part of the soldiers fled eastward in advance and barely reached a high place east of Yuliangzhou, which was considered a lucky escape.

The number of soldiers that could be accommodated by the towers and earthen platforms was not as large as that of the long causeway, so the soldiers were very crowded, and those standing on the periphery were often pushed down.

Guan Yu's warships rushed to the vicinity with murderous intent, and as usual, "first courtesy, then force", they persuaded the enemy to surrender:
"The general's army has arrived to fight against the rebellion! Stop working for Cao Cao! Those who surrender will not be killed! Those who hesitate will be killed immediately!"

Faced with the persuasion to surrender, some of Cao's soldiers laid down their weapons, and then led Guan Yu's small boat over and asked them to throw their weapons on the deck of the boat, so that they could be spared - anyway, Guan Yu did not have enough manpower to guard the prisoners for the time being.

The water was so strong that he could not load all the disarmed soldiers onto his own ship. Guan Yu's fleet did not have much spare capacity, and if he loaded too many Cao soldiers, he was afraid that they would cause trouble on the ship.

So as long as they lay down their weapons, let them stay on the stage and capture them when the water recedes.

Of course, there were also some Cao soldiers on the earthen platform who were ignorant of the danger and refused to surrender under the orders of some stubborn officers.

Some soldiers wavered first, and were chopped to death by the garrison commander, the music commander, and the military commander.

It is not surprising that such individual cases occur. There are always die-hards. Pound did this in history. When his subordinates wanted to surrender, Pound hacked them to death.

Of course, Pang De had no chance in this life. Two years earlier, he had been killed by Zhang Fei's snake spear in Hechi County on the Chencang Road. Only some unknown diehard Cao army officers were left there to make trouble.

Guan Yu certainly would not be vague with these people. He was looking for an opportunity to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys and establish his authority.

Seeing that the opponent still refused to surrender after being persuaded two or three times, Guan Yu decisively waved his hand and said, "Release!"

The soldiers under his command were already eager to try, and upon hearing the order, they immediately launched a dense rain of arrows.

It was a pity that the Cao army soldiers had to flee here by the water, they were in a very miserable state, and many of them did not even have time to put on their armor.

And because the shelter was too small, people were crowded together.

The archers under Guan Yu's command, even if they just shot blindly in one direction, as long as they shot the arrows onto the earthen platform, they could basically hit an enemy.

The Cao army screamed in agony but refused to wait for death. They fired arrows in vain and fought back with Guan Yu's navy on the warships.

However, Guan Yu's warships all had side masts as cover, so Cao Cao's arrows mostly hit the wooden planks. The occasional arrow that made it through the portholes was protected by Guan Yu's archers, who were equipped with helmets and breastplates, so they posed no threat at all.

After two rounds of arrow rain, Cao's army suffered heavy casualties, with arrows piercing their flesh and wailing and screaming. Quite a number of soldiers could not bear the pressure and changed their minds and chose to surrender, suffering two more punishments in vain.

The most diehard ones could only withstand three or four waves of arrows - and after three waves, they basically didn't need to surrender, as they were shot to death.

Guan Yu knew he didn't have much time. The flood would crest in an hour or two, and his fleet would have to leave the waterway or run aground. He didn't have time to waste.

After all, this time, the "Flooding of the Seven Armies" wasn't powered by sustained natural floods, but rather by artificially accumulated temporary flood peaks. In terms of the exhilaration and duration of the battle, it certainly wasn't as good as the genuine "Flooding of the Seven Armies" from another time and space.

Fortunately, after using the thunderous means of raining arrows to quickly destroy and force to surrender more than a dozen Cao soldiers on the earthen platform, Guan Yu successfully established his prestige and intimidated the large number of Cao troops that followed.

They continued to attack along the river, and the Cao soldiers on the earthen platforms basically could not withstand a round of rain of arrows, so they surrendered one after another to avoid dying in vain.

As for the soldiers hiding on the towers, although there was some cover on the walls of the towers, the people on top could avoid the direct hits of arrows by sitting down or squatting.

But Guan Yu still had a way to deal with them. Whenever he saw such arrow towers resisting the counterattack, Guan Yu would directly let his large warships ram into them.

The building was supported by only a few wooden pillars. As the pillars broke, it collapsed directly into the rolling torrent, and all the soldiers on it were immediately swallowed up by the surging waves.

After simply and roughly knocking down several arrow towers, the remaining Cao soldiers who were guarding other arrow towers became completely obedient and were simply defeated at the sight of them.

In just a stick of incense, thousands of trapped Cao's troops surrendered.

The only thing that Cao's commander was thankful for was that in today's battle, the flood peak used by Guan Yu's army only submerged a narrow line, including a low-lying area about several hundred feet wide on both sides of the Yuliangzhou waterway.

The low-lying terrain nearby was not as wide as the Yankouchuan in history. So as long as Cao's army reacted quickly and ran far to the east and west in advance, they could still escape.

Yu Jin was the commander of the camp and had an important status. When his subordinates discovered the rising water level, they immediately raised the alarm and pulled him to flee eastward.

Therefore, Yu Jin himself escaped the fate of being submerged and surrounded by the flood peak. However, he was in a very miserable state at the moment, with his clothes and armor in disarray.

Seeing his own soldiers being washed away in large numbers in the distance and those surrounded on the earthen platform and tower being persuaded to surrender in large numbers by Guan Yu as if sweeping the floor, Yu Jin felt as if his heart was being cut by a knife. He was so angry that he almost fainted from suffocation.

"I have been with you since the Prime Minister was in Dongjun. We have fought dozens of battles and never retreated when we encountered enemies. For sixteen years, I have accumulated merits. I never thought that my reputation would be destroyed in an instant!"

Yu Jin burst into tears, sobbing bitterly. He gasped for breath several times, but the grief was so overwhelming that he couldn't catch his breath and fainted.

The people around him quickly protected him and continued to flee eastward to seek refuge in Cao Ren's camp.

Guan Yu was in the midst of the chaos and of course had no time to search for Yu Jin.

One person cannot influence the outcome of a battle, so he has to race against time to wipe out Cao's army as soon as possible. Guan Yu's fleet was pushed by the flood peak and could not stay at one point for a long time.

All he could do was to kill his way through the entire Yuliangzhou waterway from north to south within the scheduled time of more than an hour.

This is also caused by the different geographical environment of Yuliangzhou and the original historical area of Yankouchuan. Guan Yu cannot go against the natural laws of geography.

After killing a round, if there is still time and energy left, you can consider waiting for the water to recede slightly, landing and gaining a foothold, and then cutting off the retreat of Cao Ren's troops trapped on the peninsula!

This has a greater impact on Liu Bei's camp than the same period in history.

Because originally in history, the troops that were flooded with water only killed the reinforcements sent by Yu Jin, while the defending forces of Xiang and Fan were not greatly affected.

In this life, Cao Ren sent out some of the troops defending Xiangyang, hoping to capture Gao Shun and Guan Ping. If Guan Yu cut off their retreat, Cao Ren could be beaten again when he was forced to withdraw!
……

An hour later, Guan Yu, who had killed his way through the entire Yuliangzhou Peninsula with the wind, stood proudly on the bow of a large keel warship facing the wind.

The autumn rainstorm hit his face, sticking his beautiful beard into a ball, but it did not diminish his vigorous spirit in the slightest.

Guan Yu stroked his wet beard and talked happily to Chen Dao beside him: "Today's battle is exciting! It's only been more than an hour, right? The number of Yu Jin's troops annihilated is probably no less than 20,000 or 30,000!

How wonderful! How wonderful! Since I followed my elder brother to fight against the Yellow Turbans, I have led troops for twenty-five years, fought hundreds of battles, big and small, and never defeated so many enemies so quickly.

With today's achievement, Cao will never dare to look at you again! The ownership of Jingzhou will probably be decided in this battle! The rest is just a waste of time."

Guan Yu commented on the most proud battles in his life like a treasure trove. After a thorough review, he was sure that what he said today was true.

He had fought fiercely with Xiahou Yuan and Cao Ren several times in the past, and defeated Zhang He badly in the areas of Pengcheng County and Taishan County.

In terms of the number of enemies killed, there are at least two or three battles that can be compared with today's.

But all those battles dragged on for a long time, and even if we count from the day of the formal decisive battle, there was never a victory so quickly, so easily, and so overwhelmingly won.

When Zhuge Jin first met Liu Bei, Guan Yu led all the hopes of Liu Bei's camp and attacked Liu Xun and Ji Ling who were besieging Huaiyin. That battle turned the tide and the victory was secured in just one hour.

But the scale of the enemy defeated in that battle was smaller, only 12,000 people. And the enemy defeated was a loser like Liu Xun, whose quality could not be compared with Xiahou Yuan and Cao Ren.

Today's battle, in terms of scale, swiftness, and crushing power, is a well-deserved hexagonal victory.

Chen Dao and others on the side naturally would not spoil Guan Yu's fun. Especially Chen Dao had personally experienced those battles, and when he heard Guan Yu talk about the past, he also felt a bit of the vicissitudes of life.

"General Wei defeated the enemy with ease, annihilated tens of thousands of enemies in the blink of an eye, and defeated several famous generals in Cao's army. After this battle, he will surely shock the whole of China."

Guan Yu stroked his beard a few more times. He was still a little embarrassed by the flattery, and quickly pretended to be humble: "Hey! What do you mean by defeating famous generals in a row? I only defeated Yu Jin this time, and I haven't defeated Cao Ren yet. Don't be too confident. Don't be proud of things you haven't achieved yet."

Chen Dao hurriedly analyzed in a sincere tone: "Although Cao Ren's troops are still there, our army has cut off his retreat and trapped him on Yuliangzhou. He must be panicked and want to retreat to Xiangyang City immediately.

With General Wei's power, our army can wait here to intercept them while they are tired, and we can also reap the advantage of attacking them halfway across the river. Wouldn't it be easy to defeat them?"

Guan Yu felt proud in his heart, he could also hear that what Chen Dao said was completely reasonable.

Although it was not possible to completely annihilate the main force of Cao's army by relying on water attack this time, after all, the area of the low-lying area was still too narrow and long, and the absolute number of Cao's army living around the low-lying area did not constitute the majority.

However, Cao Ren's subsequent reaction was the most fatal. Cao's army was cut off from retreating to Xiangyang City by land by Guan Yu, so wouldn't they have to fight back desperately and try to escape?
As long as Guan Yu blocked the Yuliangzhou waterway, he could intercept Cao Ren by relying on the terrain even if the flood receded. He could attack Cao Ren wherever he crossed the river, and thus attack him halfway across the river.

Even if Cao Ren still had a large number of troops left, he could not cross the river with all of them. Those who reached the shore first would be pushed back into the river by Guan Yu's concentrated superior forces.

No matter how you look at it, Cao Ren would have to bleed heavily before he could escape successfully.

Guan Yu also thought of this, and quickly sorted out the situation, and then made a prompt decision to intercept Cao Ren:

"The current battle situation has changed slightly from what was expected in the original plan. However, we can still drop anchor stones on all the old battleships in our army and fix them in the river in advance.

When the floodwaters recede, these ships can form a sunken tower, further strengthening the defense along the river. If Cao Ren wants to escape again, he will have to pay several times the price! We can even try to encircle and annihilate him here."

As Guan Yu spoke, he pointed at the terrain of the river, selected several shallow bends in the waterway that were easy to wade, and commanded the warships to run aground and sink.

After all, the Yuliangzhou waterway is nearly 20 miles long from south to north. Guan Yu, with 30,000 to 40,000 people as the first wave of reinforcements, could not block the entire route. So he must focus on defending several points that are easy to wade across the river.

Then he would leave behind a part of the reserve troops, and when the time came, he would block Cao Ren from wherever he escaped, and try to annihilate more of Cao's troops before they crossed the river.

Liu Bei's camp also had a number of old, recycled fighting warships. Before this battle, Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin had considered sinking the fighting warships to form a sanctuary, preventing Cao Cao's troops in Xiangyang from crossing the river to reinforce Yuliangzhou.

Unexpectedly, as the fighting continues, the entire northern Jing has become a mess, and the situation has reversed to the point where both sides can no longer predict.

Those old-style fighting ships could actually be used in the end, but they were used to block the enemy's direction, which happened to be reversed.

From preventing Cao's troops from Xiangyang from coming to Yuliangzhou, it became preventing Cao's troops from attacking Yuliangzhou from withdrawing into the city. This reversal is quite ironic.

Chen Dao and other generals felt that the commander's deployment was very reasonable, so they would not delay and immediately carried out the order with great vigor.

Taking advantage of the last quarter of an hour or two before the peak of the flood passed, the old ships that were to be abandoned were tied to the anchors with hemp ropes and fixed in place.

Guan Yu himself, with the rest of the light and new warships, continued to search and kill along the periphery of the battlefield, capturing prisoners, rescuing people who fell into the water, and continuing to expand the results of the battle.

Half an hour later, the flood peak finally passed. Seeing the water level gradually recede, Guan Yu immediately landed and seized the riverside camp left by Yu Jin to prevent further attacks. Of course, he had no intention of keeping his troops stationed in this camp for a long time.

Zhuge Jin had specifically told him this before the war. That is, if flooding alone was not enough to wipe out the enemy, and if they had to fight a blocking battle later, then they must not live in the camp that was flooded.

Zhuge Jin had much more medical knowledge than people of his time. He knew how easy it would be for plague to spread in a camp that was soaked by floods and littered with corpses.

In today's battle, at least 20,000 to 30,000 of Yu Jin's troops were directly killed. Excluding those who surrendered, at least 10,000 people were drowned.

In one camp, there were at least 10,000 to 20,000 swollen corpses that no one dealt with in time, and the nearby groundwater was prone to problems.

Guan Yu trusted Zhuge Jin's opinion very much, so he just planned to let the soldiers rely on the remaining fortifications nearby to fight and block the enemy. If the battle could not be ended in one day, he would rather go back to sleep on the ship at night, leaving only the soldiers on duty at night.

Guan Yu also instructed the soldiers who were sent ashore to seize the camp to bury the bodies of Cao's soldiers as soon as they saw them. If there was no time, they should move them to a place far away from the camp and pile them up, and then find an opportunity to get something to start a fire and burn them after the battle.

However, at the moment, Guan Yu's army did not seem to have much time to deal with these things. It would be good if they could move the bodies on the defense line in time, because they would soon face Cao Ren and Yu Jin's escape.

……

On the other hand, the army that Yu Jin left in the lowland camp was basically destroyed.

Only Yu Jin himself, with this group of fast-running soldiers, fled all the way eastward. In just over half an hour, they arrived at Cao Ren, who was attacking Gao Shun's camp, covered in dust and dirt.

When Yu Jin arrived, Cao Ren had already stopped attacking the camp because he had also discovered that more than ten miles to the west, there was a roar of fighting and a flood.

Before Yu Jin arrived, he already had a rough idea of how great the losses would be from this attack.

So the first time Cao Ren saw Yu Jin, it didn't even mean Yu Jin opened his mouth. His eyes were already terrifyingly cold and his expression was extremely ferocious.

"Yu Wenzhe! How did you lead the troops? The water level rose upstream and you failed to warn them in advance! You have been following the Prime Minister for almost twenty years!"

While cursing angrily, Cao Ren could not help but rush forward, grabbed Yu Jin by the collar, and shook him, almost lifting Yu Jin up.

Yu Jin was not short in stature, which showed that he felt guilty and had no intention of resisting, so he allowed Cao Ren to manipulate him to vent his anger.

Seeing that Yu Jin's face was filled with guilt and pain, and that he offered no resistance, Cao Ren didn't bother to torture him any further. He simply threw Yu Jin heavily to the ground and demanded, "Tell me! How many men and horses were killed?"

Yu Jin looked gloomy and stiff, as if recalling something: "We can't confirm it yet, but there are probably 20,000 to 30,000 of them. Some of them may have escaped, but they may rejoin their unit after the water recedes."

Yu Jin himself didn't actually believe the last sentence, but he had to pull out a fig leaf now. This wasn't him taking credit for it, but it was his instinctive reaction.

And to be honest, Yu Jin currently doesn't really know the exact extent of the troop losses.

When the flood came, most of Cao's soldiers fled eastward, because the old camp left by Gao Shun was on the east side of the Yuliangzhou waterway.

However, a small number of Cao's soldiers fled westward. On the west bank of the waterway, Yu Jin also built some earthen platforms for deploying catapults and towers for deploying archers, in order to better exert crossfire and completely block the river.

If these soldiers had reacted quickly enough, they could have escaped directly back to Xiangyang City, so it cannot be considered a complete loss.

But Cao Ren certainly wasn't in the mood to settle these details with him. He just thought Yu Jin was shirking his responsibility and snorted disdainfully:

"That means we have lost 30,000 men! These 30,000 men are fine, but our army is now in even greater danger - is Guan Yu planning to occupy the camp you left behind and directly block the Yuliangzhou waterway? How are we going to fight our way back to Xiangyang City now?

"Pass on my order! Have all the soldiers eat their fill of dry food, and once the water has drained away, follow me back and break through Guan Yu's blockade!"

"General Cao, you can't do that! If you do that, our army will certainly be attacked by Guan Yu halfway across the river. Even if we are not completely wiped out, we will suffer heavy losses!" Yu Jin instinctively advised.

Although he suffered a great defeat and was disheartened, he had followed Cao Cao for nearly twenty years and was very experienced.

His intuition is still very sharp when it comes to judging whether a tactical deployment has made any low-level mistakes.

Cao Ren was stunned for a moment, then he laughed in anger: "How dare you advise me? If you were not so incapable of keeping vigilance, how could we have come to this point!"

Yu Jin didn't want to explain too much. After all, until this moment, Cao Ren still didn't know where the flood came from, so he blamed everything on Yu Jin.

It has been less than two hours since the peak of the flood, and a lot of information is based on speculation. Cao's army is very confused and thinks it is just a natural flood.

Seeing this, Yu Jin knew that in order to make his painstaking persuasion heard, he had to explain: "General Zixiao! This matter is indeed my fault, but the flood came strangely, and it is definitely not something that can be prevented by just paying attention! The water is rising too fast! Maybe someone upstream is causing trouble!

If you don't believe it, we can observe that if it is a natural flood peak, the water should come slowly and go slowly. If it is a man-made water attack, the water will go quickly - if the water recedes immediately after a while, it proves that it was done by Guan Yu. "

After hearing these pertinent analyses, Cao Ren calmed down a little. After all, as long as it wasn't Yu Jin's fault, it proved that his other judgments were still worth listening to.

Moreover, with the current military strength, it would be very dangerous to directly attack Guan Yu's defense line.

If Guan Yu's army had been prepared, Gao Shun would have rushed out from behind to attack from both sides. It was unknown whether Cao Ren could survive.

At this time, you must remain calm and think about how to escape.

Cao Ren paced back and forth angrily for a while, thinking to himself: "It seems that we have to observe when the water will recede, and at the same time, we should make a long-term plan and quickly agree on a method of withdrawing our troops.

Moreover, at the moment, he would probably have to at least cut off his arm to survive. If he tried to break out with his entire army, Gao Shun would attack from behind, and the consequences would be disastrous.

Therefore, some brave warriors had to be left behind to guard the outer positions of the water fort and keep Gao Shun inside to prevent him from coming out. And these soldiers who stayed behind to cover the retreat were afraid that they would not be able to return...

In addition, we have to re-plan the retreat route. We can’t just rush back with the whole army. We have to think of a safe way. What should we do specifically? ”

While Cao Ren was thinking, he glanced at Yu Jin and his generals, and was also considering who to assign to carry out the mission of covering the rear, which would require certain death, as well as some other dangerous missions.

(End of this chapter)