Tiger Owl

Chapter 160 Abandoning the Army and Fleeing

Xu Shu was about 20 miles south of the official road at this time. This battle was entirely planned and arranged by Xu Shu. Originally, Huang Zhong planned to attack Yundu County at night and burn the county town down, but Xu Shu rejected this plan. Xu Shu discovered the enemy's biggest weakness, which was that they had no food supplies and could not last more than a few days on their own dry rations.

Xu Shu then devised a complete plan to exploit this weakness of the enemy forces. The first step was to defeat them one by one. Zhao Yun led his troops to ambush the enemy forces on the southern front, while Huang Zhong was responsible for dealing with Fu Tong's army on the northern front. Chen Mu led 6,000 men and Wei Yan's navy to deal with the food and logistics.

In a day and a night, they annihilated 20,000 troops and their supplies. The remaining 10,000 central troops then used food as their weapon to defeat them.

Li Shu led 10,000 troops along the official road, while Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong each led 10,000 troops to the north and south, marching in tandem, each about 20 li away from the enemy.

At this moment, Deputy General Zhang Li received news from his scouts that two Yuzhang troops had appeared to the south and north. He immediately rushed over to report to Li Shu, "Reporting to the commander-in-chief, enemy troops have been spotted to the south and north, both about twenty li away from us."

This news really made Li Shu nervous. After a moment of contemplation, he ordered, "Order the entire army to speed up the march!"

Zhang Li said urgently, "Why don't we take the initiative and fight them!"

"no!"

Li Shu immediately rejected Zhang Li's suggestion, saying, "We are now in a pincer movement. If war breaks out, we will have no chance of winning and can only look for an opportunity to cross the Han River."

Helpless, Zhang Li had no choice but to go down and order the army to speed up its march.

At dusk, after a forced march of 100 li, the Jingzhou army finally arrived at the Han River. The pontoon bridge they had used to cross the river was now just a few charred remnants of wood. The soldiers were hungry and exhausted, and their rations had run out on the way. They could only drink water to relieve their hunger.

Li Shu ordered his soldiers to rest on the spot and sent scouts to look for opportunities to cross the river. At the same time, he sent Zhang Li with an army to find food. Li Shu remembered that there was a village not far to the north, where they might be able to get some food.

The soldiers were so hungry they were dizzy and weak; once they lay down, they had almost no strength left to move.

Soon, the scouts returned to report that they had found no opportunity to cross the river, and the soldiers who had gone to find food had also returned. The villages to the north were empty, with no one in sight, no food, and not even a dog.

This news was undoubtedly the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Just then, Zhang Li returned. Unexpectedly, he brought back a small boat, a stray fish that the Yuzhang Army had failed to find.

However, when Zhang Li was still a mile away from where the soldiers were resting, he ordered the soldiers to hide the small boat. There were many water plants along the riverbank, so the small boat was hidden among them.

Zhang Li pulled Li Shu aside and whispered, "This subordinate has found a small boat!"

"what?"

A look of surprise flashed in Li Shu's eyes, and he quickly asked, "How big is the ship?"

"It's very small, it can only carry a maximum of twenty people."

"Only twenty people!"

Zhang Li nodded. "We can't survive tonight. The soldiers are all starving. At dawn tomorrow, the Yuzhang Army will take us all without any effort. If the commander-in-chief wants to leave, we only have tonight as our last chance."

Li Shu glanced at the sky; it was already dark. He then said, "Take me to see the boat first!"

The two arrived at the riverbank. Zhang Li ordered his soldiers to push the small boat out from the reeds. Li Shu turned and gave a signal to several of his personal guards, who quietly drew their swords and beheaded Zhang Li in one swift stroke. Poor Zhang Li, who had meant well by wanting to help his commander cross the river, met a tragic end because of his own good intentions. The guards jumped onto the boat, cut down the soldiers pushing it, and seized the small boat.

Li Shu also boarded the boat, and his twenty personal guards followed suit. Together they rowed towards the opposite bank of the Han River, and the small boat soon disappeared into the night.

The next day, at the crack of dawn, the starving soldiers began to riot. They discovered that their commander was missing and that the body of their deputy, Zhang Li, had been found. A feeling of being deceived and abandoned quickly spread among the soldiers.

The soldiers shouted angrily, "We've been deceived! We've been abandoned!"

Just then, Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun led an army of 20,000 men. Huang Zhong ordered several hundred soldiers to step forward and shout in unison, "There are steaming hot buns here. Those who surrender can eat their fill!"

Driven by hunger, the soldiers no longer cared about friend or foe. Especially since their commander had abandoned them, their anger fueled their desire to surrender. They threw down their weapons, stripped off their armor, and rushed northwards, shouting, "We surrender! We surrender!"

Each person received two steamed buns and sat down to wolf them down.

Zhao Yun led 10,000 troops to attack from the south. To his surprise, all his soldiers ran to surrender to Huang Zhong, leaving only discarded armor and weapons on the ground.

The Jingzhou army's attack on Jiangxia ultimately turned into a farce, starting with great momentum and ending with the annihilation of the entire army. The root cause was a mistake in the deployment. Cai Mao took it for granted that the enemy was unaware of their actions and divided his troops in a way that is a major taboo in military strategy.

If it were merely a deployment error, that would be one thing, but the execution was also terrible. The food supplies had already crossed the river, but the transport wagons had not yet been collected, causing a one-day delay. This one-day delay had a fatal consequence: the Yuzhang navy arrived, destroyed the pontoon bridge, and cut off the passage for thousands of wagons to cross the river.

Without large carts, it was impossible to transport grain and supplies. Without food supplies, relying only on a little dry rations, and with the Yuzhang army employing a scorched-earth policy, it would be strange if they didn't suffer a crushing defeat.

Upon hearing Li Shu's tearful account, Liu Biao immediately fainted. His guards were terrified and rushed to his aid. Several renowned physicians were also urgently summoned to provide emergency treatment for Governor Liu Biao.

In the outer hall of the quiet room, high-ranking officials such as Cai Mao, Kuai Yue, Liu Xian, and Han Song, as well as the brothers Liu Qi and Liu Cong, were all waiting anxiously.

"Military Advisor Cai, how could we have suffered such a crushing defeat this time?" Han Song asked with dissatisfaction.

"There's a traitor among us!"

Cai Mao said coldly, "It was a high-level spy who leaked our battle plan to the enemy. How could we not be defeated?"

"But I heard that the army ran out of food because of the untimely transport of supplies."

Cai Mao shook his head. "It has nothing to do with the transportation of supplies. Even if the supplies are not transported in time, the army can solve the problem on the spot. Yundu County has tens of thousands of people and more than a dozen villages around it. Isn't that enough for the army to hold out for ten days or half a month? The key is that the secret was leaked, which led to the enemy's scorched earth policy, making it impossible for our army to find a single grain of food. That is the problem."

Kuai Yue interjected, "Our deployment is indeed a bit risky. By marching in a dispersed manner, we are easily defeated one by one by the enemy."

"That's the crux of the problem: how did the enemy know we were marching in separate groups? Doesn't that mean someone leaked information?"

Cai Mao insisted that the problem did not lie with his own deployment, but rather with someone leaking the information. Although the others were dissatisfied, they dared not argue in front of the governor's sickroom.

At this moment, the lead doctor came out of the ward.

(End of this chapter)