My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 679: Seeing through the first layer of Zhuge Jin’s plan, but there are still three layers behind

Although Cai Mao was not a man of wisdom and strategy, he was very experienced in protecting himself and escaping to save his life.

Basically, they can be considered as the kind of people whose IQ temporarily increases by 20 when considering life-saving issues.

Therefore, even though he couldn't figure out what Jia Xu was thinking based on his intelligence, Jia Xu's comments on checking for omissions and filling in the gaps still made him feel sympathetic and thought it made a lot of sense.

Regardless of whether Guan Yu was arrogant enough to use the water strategy again to weaken the Fancheng navy and move part of the Fancheng navy to Xinye upstream.

It will be beneficial to better and more quickly respond and defend the entire waterway from Xinye to Fancheng.

Therefore, Cai Mao immediately cheered up, volunteered to fight, and expressed his willingness to help Cao Ren ensure that the reinforcement route from Xinye to Fancheng was always open.

Of course, in return, Cai Mao himself would definitely find ways to move to Xinye. But there was no need to say this for the time being, lest Cao Ren be unhappy.

In order to achieve this goal, Cai Mao also knew that he had to perform well first to win more trust from Cao Ren and accumulate more chips.

So he immediately stated that he would prepare as soon as possible and fight with all his strength after returning. No matter what Guan Yu's plan was, he, Cai Mao, would definitely crush Guan Yu's conspiracy!
Seeing that the morale was high, Cao Ren praised him and let him work hard.

……

Two days later, Cai Mao, who was ready to attack, brought a large number of warships, the last of his own navy, and some of the elite military supervisors assigned to him by Cao Ren.

They set sail from the East Water Gate of Fancheng and went upstream to destroy Guan Yu's construction camp.

Before the attack, Jia Xu also told Cao Ren that this matter was of great importance and he was willing to help General Zixiao to find out the gaps and make up for the shortcomings and go with Cai Mao. He could both supervise the battle against Cai Mao and help Cai Mao to find out the gaps and make up for the shortcomings.

Cao Ren also agreed, and Jia Xu got the opportunity to fight.

As for the navy of Guan Yu's army, of course they were unable to interfere with Cai Mao - Cao Ren had completely blocked the mouth of Baihe River by building reefs with self-sunk warships. All the warships of Liu Bei's camp were trapped in the Han River and could not enter Baihe River.

So no matter how strong or weak Cai Mao is, he is the only naval force on the Baihe River and has no rivals.

The distance from Fancheng to Xinye is only a hundred miles.

When Guan Yu was working on the project, he had to avoid locations that were too close to the city to ensure relative secrecy and safety.

So after Cai Mao left the city, he only walked north for thirty miles before he ran into Guan Yu's construction camp.

When Cai Mao's warship fleet arrived, they saw from afar that the construction site was in full swing.

Thousands of laborers were there carrying large stones, and many of them were carrying pieces of land and putting them onto the only few large rafts.

Then the big raft was pushed to the middle of the river, and seven or eight laborers used a crowbar simply carved out of wood to pry the big rock over, sinking it into the river, forming part of the reef.

When the stones rolled down, the raft would almost capsize because the center of gravity of the raft fluctuated too much, and it would take a long time for the raft to stabilize again.

Occasionally, the laborers operating the rafts would fall into the water, but fortunately, those doing this job were all skilled swimmers, so there was no risk of drowning. They could just swim back to the raft after a few strokes.

Going further up from the reef beach, looking far into the distance, one can see that just a few miles upstream, Guan Yu's troops were still building cofferdams and blocking and diverting part of the river water to make the water level downstream shallower and more difficult to navigate.

In addition, there are thousands of soldiers camped nearby, apparently mainly to cover the sabotage of Cao's army from the land direction - if Cao's army from Xinye goes south, or Cao's army from other directions comes to cause sabotage, these camped soldiers can fight back on the spot.

Of course, these soldiers were also equipped with enough bows and crossbows and a small number of catapults and crossbows. If there was a threat from Cao's army coming from the direction of the Baihe River, Guan Yu's troops would also block it without hesitation.

This is exactly the situation at this moment.

As Cai Mao's navy appeared far downstream, Guan Yu's soldiers near the construction site had already been on alert in advance, and those who needed to form a battle array did so, and those who needed to go up the wall did so.

The bows are in place, the crossbows are strung, and everyone is ready for battle.

As soon as Cai Mao approached, he ordered the warships to charge and attack. The archers on the shore also released arrows almost at the same time, following Cai Mao's lead.

Cai Mao's navy was protected by the side masts of the ship and was not afraid of the concentrated shooting of bows and crossbows, as most of the arrows could be blocked.

However, Guan Yu's soldiers guarding the camp were obviously well-fortified. They built a simple rammed earth breastwork along the river downstream of the construction site. Soldiers squatted there to shoot arrows, and most of their bodies were hidden behind the breastwork.

So both sides basically just shot at each other in vain, and seven or eight out of ten arrows hit the cover.

Cai Mao also knew that the enemy's long-range firepower was not a big threat, so he urged the warships to charge forward more strictly, and soon dispersed the rafts that Guan Yu used to create reefs.

The auxiliary soldiers and civilian laborers who were transporting earth, stones and wood were also killed and scattered, fleeing in panic to both sides of the river.

The scene was chaotic for a while and there is no need to elaborate on the details. In short, after some harassment, Cai Mao successfully destroyed Guan Yu's construction and it seemed that at least his strategic goal was achieved.

The rafts that Guan Yu had temporarily built were also destroyed by Cai Mao's army, causing Guan Yu's subsequent construction to be interrupted.

Cai Mao was feeling proud of the small success he had just achieved, but he soon discovered that the situation was developing too smoothly.

Because after Guan Yu's archers and crossbowmen defending the camp resisted the enemy for a while, they saw the auxiliary soldiers and civilians being killed one after another. These archers seemed to feel that they were at a disadvantage in shooting at the enemy on the warships, so they began to abandon their defense line and retreat, abandoning all the fortifications along the river.

The favorable situation facing Cao's army almost inspired Cai Mao to order his soldiers to land and hunt down Guan Yu.

Fortunately, Cai Mao still had self-knowledge. After just a few moments of thinking, he quickly realized that the gap between his land combat capabilities and Guan Yu's was really huge.

No matter how chaotic and weak Guan Yu's army looked, it was not something Cai Mao could land and pursue.

Maybe this is Guan Yu's trick to lure the enemy! He wants to trick him to come ashore and kill him! We must not fall into the trap and be attacked by the enemy halfway across the river!

Thinking of this, Cai Mao seemed a little unsure. It might be because he was accompanied by a wise man today and didn't want to use his brain. So he quickly asked someone to call Jia Xu from the cabin, and then told him his doubts in person:
"Doctor Jia, do you think that Guan Yu's soldiers suddenly retreated to lure the enemy? Even if they were at a disadvantage in the crossbow battle behind the earth wall on the shore, with Guan Yu's ability to command the army, it is impossible for him to be forced to retreat by my shooting, right? Is he trying to lure me to land and attack me when I am halfway across the river?"

Jia Xu looked at it carefully, thought about it quickly and seriously, and replied: "It's impossible, because this plan is too simple, Guan Yu must know it, no one will fall for this kind of trick, and the enemy should also know that you, General Cai, are a cautious person."

Jia Xu's words were more considerate and he didn't say "The enemy knows you are timid, this kind of bait will not fool you", he only said that Cai Mao was "cautious".

Cai Mao certainly knew whether he was cowardly or cautious, but it didn't matter. He didn't mind these details. He just wanted to know the enemy's plan.

So he asked back: "Then according to Doctor Jia, what exactly does Guan Yu want to do?"

Jia Xu narrowed his eyes and pointed upstream, saying, "I think General Cai should have all the ships prepared to prevent the impact of big waves. Guan Yu withdrew the soldiers from the low-lying areas along the river. I'm afraid he wants to dig up the cofferdam that has just accumulated water for a few days upstream and release the water to attack our army. So he is afraid that his own people will be drowned."

Cai Mao was stunned. He really didn't expect that Guan Yu might do such an arrogant and useless thing.

"Has Guan Yu really become addicted to water attacks after the battle of Yuliangzhou? He really thinks he can use water attacks everywhere. There is little rain in winter, and it has only accumulated for a short period of time. How much effect can it have?"

Cai Mao said suspiciously, and one could see the disbelief in his tone. But he had nothing else to do at the moment, so he followed Jia Xu's advice and had the ships change their formation and prepare for impact.

It’s true, Jia Xu had predicted the “misfortune” perfectly.

However, half a quarter of an hour later, the sporadic fighting on the front battlefield had not yet completely ended, and the waves were already surging a few miles upstream. A head of water about ten feet high suddenly rushed down. At first glance, it was just a white line, but soon it was reduced to a huge wave of seven or eight feet in front of us.

Fortunately, Cai Mao's navy did not use small boats like gaoge (boats), but rather warships. Therefore, the seven or eight foot waves were not enough to directly sink most of the ships.

After a lot of tossing and turning, only three or five ships were unlucky enough to capsize, two were washed ashore and stranded, and many more were damaged by collisions with each other.

As for the large ships larger than fighting ships, none of them capsized. At most, some of them collided with each other and their hulls cracked and water entered.

Guan Yu's naval attack, which was a wave of water storage and then release, caused Cai Mao to lose some ships and suffered hundreds of casualties, nearly a thousand soldiers.

But compared with the hard work of Guan Yu's troops in recent days, they had been holding back on this big move for so long, but in the end only achieved such little results. It really can't be said that it was a good deal.

Moreover, once the water was released, many low-lying areas along the nearby Baihe River were flooded by the temporary flood peak.

Although these places will dry and harden again after the water recedes, people have already set up camps and lived there.

However, the flood peak also destroyed some of the fortifications originally built by Guan Yu's army, such as the rammed earth walls along the river. The loss of these construction works completely offset the material losses of Cai Mao's troops.

No matter how you look at it, Guan Yu doesn't gain anything.

"Guan Yu is so arrogant. He becomes conceited after he succeeded in flooding the city once. He wants to use the water trick again after storing only a small amount of water!" Cai Mao withstood this wave and cursed angrily on the fighting ship.

Although this level of water attack could not harm his ship, the big waves just now also caused the ship to shake violently several times, and Cai Mao was also overturned and fell on the top deck of the cabin. He was in pain and naturally cursed.

On the other hand, Jia Xu, who was standing aside, although not good at water battles, had already lay down before the big waves hit, without caring about his face, so he was not knocked down at all.

At this moment, the wind and the sea were calm. He stood up, brushed off the mud on his body, and said calmly with a stern look:
"Guan Yu may be arrogant, but he is not completely without reason. If General Cai had not responded properly and changed the battleship formation in time, our fleet would have directly withstood this wave of floods, and the losses might have been several times greater.

Now that Guan Yu's attack failed, he also knows the ability of our navy to respond to the enemy. Next time, he should not be so reckless and will most likely choose to wait and see.

Therefore, after this battle, our army should quickly transfer part of the navy to Xinye upstream, so as to completely avoid being attacked by Guan Yu and better protect the waterway. ” Cai Mao agreed with this.

The small loss this time was not only because Guan Yu attacked recklessly, but also because he was good at naval warfare! He saw the opportunity and responded quickly!
"What Doctor Jia said is right. When the fighting here subsides a bit, I will immediately write a letter and have it sent back to Fancheng by patrol boat, explaining to General Zixiao what happened during the battle and how the soldiers obeyed my orders. Then I will go to Xinye and protect our grain route."

Guan Yu's unsuccessful counterattack attempt gave Cai Mao more reason to avoid the battle and escape from the fire pit. It also made Cai Mao and Jia Xu more determined to follow the sabotage tactical route, and they didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

……

By the evening of that day, Guan Yu learned that Cai Mao had launched an attack and had destroyed his attempts to bury reefs and build cofferdams, achieving considerable results.

However, Guan Yu did not take it seriously. He also ordered the generals in charge of the construction to keep up the good work, not to be discouraged, and start over again.

The subordinates below were unaware of the overall plan and could only continue to carry out orders dejectedly.

The next morning, even Zhang Fei knew what had happened, and he came to Guan Yu angrily:
"Second brother, Cai Mao is too much of a bully! Let me lead the troops to take revenge?"

Guan Yu stroked his beard calmly: "What revenge? How do you want to take revenge? Do you have a navy? Can you go down to the river to stop Cai Mao? Sit down! Eat your roasted roe deer first!"

"This..." Zhang Fei was speechless for a moment. He really didn't have any navy to come and get back his face. He just heard the news of the defeat and was eager to get back his face and was talking nonsense.

After being scolded by his second brother, he had no choice but to sit down, take out a knife and start cutting the meat, venting his anger on the barbecue.

Guan Yu also knew that his third brother was a man of great intelligence, and now that the matter had come to an end, it was time to let him know. Zi Yu had also said before that when it came to the final stage of action, Yi De could be informed.

The most important thing is the third point, which Ziyu nodded in advance. Otherwise, Guan Yu would definitely continue to hide it from Zhang Fei.

Guan Yu organized his words and then continued, "All of this is actually part of Ziyu's plan... Let the enemy mistakenly think that we are hoping to build cofferdams and bury reefs to cut off navigation, and the enemy will focus on breaking this trick.

The enemy was caught off guard by our real killer move. Even if the enemy scouts saw us building tunnels and trenches, they would think that all this was done for the purpose of building a cofferdam - how could those scouts distinguish the details of these civil engineering works? "

Zhang Fei turned his anger into joy after hearing this, and was quite surprised: "Really? So this is also part of Ziyu's plan? Second brother, you actually hid it from me!"

Guan Yu's face turned serious: "I'm afraid you can't keep it secret. Now I'm going to take action, you have to cooperate, and I'll let you know everything."

Zhang Fei was very excited. He then perked up, listened to the plan carefully, and understood what he should do.

……

Cai Mao's first successful "break" and attempt to break through Guan Yu's blockade did indeed inspire Cao Ren and Guo Jia who remained in Fancheng.

At the beginning, Guo Jia was also worried that Zhuge Jin had other plans.

But Guan Yu’s performance was too realistic, and Jia Xu was able to counter Guan Yu’s moves on the spot and broke his water attack.

The process and tactics of the attack were very reasonable, and the enemy did not let up, which further dispelled the doubts of Guo Jia who was seriously ill.

For more than twenty days thereafter, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei continued to attack Fancheng, engaging in a war of attrition with Cao Ren.

Cao Ren’s water logistics were not as smooth as at the beginning. After all, Guan Yu’s numerous attacks did affect Cao Ren’s supply lines.

Every time we tried to transport military supplies and reinforcements, the obstructions and losses we encountered along the way were increasing significantly.

In order to solve this problem, Cao Ren also sent Xu Huang back to Xinye to garrison and ensure a faster response to enemy attacks.

If Guan Yu attacked from the south of the Fancheng-Xinye line, Cao Ren would personally counterattack. If the enemy attacked from the north by land, Xu Huang would lead a quick counterattack by land.

In addition, winter is indeed the dry season, so the river water level will naturally drop, and the navigation capacity is already weak, so all difficulties are understandable.

Cao Ren thought that with the supplies in the city, it would be no problem to hold out until the end of the winter. When the water level rises again in the spring of next year, shipping will be smoother, and then he can make up for the shortfall.

The war quietly advanced to mid-November of the 13th year of Jian'an.

On November 20th, an unexpected incident suddenly disrupted the rhythm of Cao Ren's army.

Early that morning, Cao Ren had just woken up when a general in charge of the Fancheng navy came hurriedly to inform him of the bad news.

"General! Guan Yu's navy has appeared in the upper reaches of the Baihe River! There are about ten warships and over a hundred boats! The naval commanders are Han Dang and Lu Yi!"

Cao Ren was shocked when he heard this: "How is this possible? Could it be that the self-sinking warships we deployed at the mouth of the Baihe River disintegrated? The reefs were also cleared by the enemy? How could Guan Yu accomplish this under the noses of our crossbows and catapults?"

The general was originally a subordinate of Cai Mao, and he knew nothing about it. Cao Ren was confused for a long time, and he ordered people to investigate as soon as possible, but he could not figure out the cause and effect for a while.

But the reason is no longer important, things have already happened, the key is how to solve it.

After much deliberation, Cao Ren decided to use the advantages of his own navy, which had larger warships, stronger combat power, and more people, to fight a naval battle with Lu Yi.

Let’s see if we can nip this enemy navy, which suddenly appeared in the Baihe River and is not very strong at the moment, in the bud.

This cannot be considered as Cao Ren underestimating the enemy. After all, on paper, this is already the optimal solution.

If we delay any further, the enemy's navy will become stronger and stronger, and the problem will be more difficult to solve.

Two days later, the Fancheng navy concentrated its superior forces and rushed into battle.

He left the east water gate of Fancheng and went north along the Baihe River forty miles in an attempt to defeat Lu Yi.

In this battle, Cao's army mainly relied on the two tower ships brought by Cai Mao's previous surrender, ten fighting ships, more than sixty warships, and more than two hundred other boats, with a total force of more than ten thousand.

The Lu Yi on the other side only had fifteen warships and one hundred small ships, no tower ships, no fighting ships. The total force on the warships was only three thousand men.

Cao's navy had a four-fold numerical advantage and large ships, so it seemed likely that they would be crushed.

However, Guan Yu's navy had the advantage of being upstream and had repeatedly constructed cofferdams, so they could release water for another attack when necessary.

Although the water storage capacity is definitely not large and cannot severely damage Cao Ren’s navy, it can still create some chaos.

In such a hasty environment, the two sides fought an unavoidable naval battle.

On the Cao army side, the generals in charge of leading the troops were all unknown. When Cai Mao left, he left behind a general to continue to lead the navy that remained in Fancheng.

In addition, Cao Ren also sent a general to supervise the Jingzhou troops, named Zhuge Qian - don't get me wrong, this Zhuge Qian just has the surname Zhuge, but has nothing to do with Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang's family.

Historically, this Zhuge Qian also followed Chang Diao to attack Zhu Huan during the Second Battle of Ruxukou because Cao Ren needed to bring credit to his son Cao Tai, but was eventually killed by Zhu Huan.

In this life, Chang Diao had been killed by Guan Ping while blocking Gao Shun in the battle of Yuliangzhou. So Zhuge Qian died several months later than his old colleague, so he was not at a loss from this perspective.

The warships of both sides soon approached within ten miles, and each side could already see each other's warships appear on the horizon.

On the Cao army side, Zhuge Qian had received some intelligence before the battle and knew that Guan Yu's troops had been blocking the river and storing water upstream in recent days. So he was afraid of being flooded by the enemy's water release and did not dare to rush too far forward.

Zhuge Qian’s idea was: if you are destined to be hit by a wave of water, stay farther away so that the water peak will become gentler and the impact will be smaller.

Therefore, he was hesitant and wandering about ten miles downstream from the battlefield, worried and hesitant, not daring to advance rashly.

On the other hand, Lu Yi, who was upstream, always looked well-disciplined, eager to fight, and in high spirits.

This contrast and delay made the Cao army's navy, whose morale was already low, even more suspicious, especially those soldiers from Jingzhou who surrendered to Cao Cao.

Although Guan Yu's troops on the opposite side did not have many warships and could not reinforce Lu Yi on the surface of the Baihe River, they had sufficient land forces on both sides of the river.

So Guan Yu sent people to shoot arrows from the shore to harass and weaken Zhuge Qian, and also sounded drums and horns, and at the same time sent out a large number of scolds to shout and disrupt Zhuge Qian.

Guan Yu originally did not expect this kind of harassment to have much effect, because he could only transport so few warships into Baihe River and could not provide more substantial help to Lu Yi.
We have no choice but to adopt the mentality of "no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat" and do as much as we can.

However, at this moment, Guan Yu was supervising the battle on the shore and keenly noticed Zhuge Qian's hesitation. With Guan Yu's keen sense of battlefield, he quickly seized an opportunity.

"Let the scolds shout and say that Cao's navy vanguard suffered a defeat in the first battle, so they hesitated and dared not let the rear army advance. The Baihe River is narrow, not like the Yangtze and Han rivers. How long can tens of thousands of navy troops hold out? The rear army has no idea what happened to the front army, but we are shouting and disturbing the enemy on both sides. The enemy's morale will surely be in chaos! By then, the enemy general will be unable to hold back!"

Everyone around him sighed that General Guan was really keen on finding opportunities to fight, and immediately conveyed and executed the order.

As a result, countless soldiers of Guan Yu's army on both sides of the Baihe River began to shout new slogans to undermine the morale of Cao's navy and force Cao's army to fight.

Zhuge Qian, who was trying to subdue the team, soon discovered that something was wrong.

He originally just wanted to suspend the offensive, trick the enemy into giving up, and then fight again after a wave of floods. How did it turn out like this?
(End of this chapter)