Tiger Owl

Chapter 207 Sneak Attack on Jiangling (Part 1)

Ma Liang was a very serious person. Although he knew that Zhou Ji would not deceive him, Zhou Ji had only heard about it from others and had not seen it with his own eyes. What if he was wrong?
The following morning, Ma Liang asked Wang Anjiang, the innkeeper, to deliver a message to Lin Jia, the deputy manager of the shipyard. Around noon, Lin Jia rushed over.

Lin Jia was an informant personally planted by Gan Ning in the Jiangling shipyard, through whom he could keep track of the shipbuilding progress at all times.

Lin Jia had met Ma Liang when he was received by Gan Ning. He recognized Ma Liang at a glance, paused for a moment, and asked in surprise, "What brings you here, sir?"

Ma Liang waved his hand and said with a smile, "Steward Lin, please have a seat!"

Lin Jia sat down and asked, "I wrote a report for the general earlier. Did the general receive it?"

"Received. The general praised you for your dedication."

"I also hope that the general can take action as soon as possible. Once a ship is built here, it will sail away and be scattered to various places. It will be difficult to gather them together, and then the opportunity will be lost."

"I will tell the general!"

After a pause, Ma Liang asked, "Has Steward Lin been at the shipyard all this time?"

"At the shipyard!"

"Do you recognize that ship's storage compartment?"

Lin Jia thought for a moment and said, "The shipyard has thirty-three warehouses, filled with all kinds of materials. I am very familiar with some of them, but I am not familiar with others, and I have never even been to them!"

"Here's the thing, I'm here to investigate a batch of Cao Cao's giant catapults. According to my intelligence, these catapults are stored at the shipyard. Have you seen them?"

"Trench?"

Lin Jia thought for a moment, then shook her head, "I've never seen it before!"

"Could it be stored in a warehouse you've never been to?"

"That's possible. There are several large warehouses in the southwest corner that are always locked. Although they are in the shipyard, the items stored inside are said to have nothing to do with shipbuilding, so we have never been inside."

"Can we go in and take a look?"

"You can give it a try!"

Ma Liang added, "This matter is of great importance. Steward Lin must see it with his own eyes and not rely on hearsay!"

Lin Jia nodded silently. He was thinking about how to get into those warehouses when suddenly an idea struck him. He had a plan.

"I'll try it today or tomorrow, and I'll let my husband know as soon as I hear anything!"

Lin Jia hurriedly returned to the shipyard. In the afternoon, he used the excuse of looking for materials to build warships to search through various warehouses. Soon he found the large warehouses that had been locked for many years.

With no guards around, he simply had the boatmen break the lock and entered the largest warehouse. Sure enough, he saw the huge wooden frames, chassis, booms, and giant wheels of the catapults. The parts and panels of these huge catapults filled four large warehouses. Lin Jia silently counted them and found that there were about 150 catapults, and the number of panels was the same.

At that moment, a general led a hundred soldiers in and rushed in, shouting, "Who are you? How dare you trespass on this forbidden area!"

Lin Jia stepped forward and said, "I am the deputy manager of the shipyard. We lack high-quality timber for building warships. This timber is all excellent raw material, and its size is large enough."

"Fuck your shit!"

The general couldn't help but curse, "This is a siege weapon! You actually think you can use it to build ships? You're dreaming! Get them all out of here!" The newcomer was the deputy manager of the shipyard, and since the warehouse was located inside the shipyard, the general didn't make things difficult for them and simply ordered the soldiers to drive them out.

Lin Jia waved his hand and led dozens of his men away from the warehouse.

The following morning, Lin Jia met Ma Liang again and handed him a hand-drawn map. It was a map of the shipyard, including drawings of dozens of warehouses, among which he marked several warehouses where giant catapults were stored.

"Did Steward Lin see the catapult with his own eyes?" Ma Liang asked.

Lin Jia nodded. "I saw them all. I counted them myself. There are indeed 150 of them, along with the matching shields. They are truly enormous. Compared to them, people seem very small."

"They're not moving away, are they?"

"Not for now. They're storing it in the shipyard warehouse, intending to use the shipyard's tung oil for maintenance. They've just started applying the oil, but it's hard to say what will happen after that."

Ma Liang left Jiangling by boat that same day and headed towards Chaisang by fast boat.

A few days later, Ma Liang arrived in Chaisang by boat. He immediately rushed back to his official residence to report the situation to his lord.

After listening to Ma Liang's report, Gan Ning was very impressed. Ma Liang had not only found the whereabouts of the catapult, but also made contact with Zhou Ji. He could bring a lot of important military intelligence to prepare for the capture of Chaisang in the future.

Gan Ning examined the blueprints, pondered for a moment, and immediately made his decision: 'Surprise attack on Jiangling!'

Soon, the three strategists rushed to Gan Ning's official residence.

"Is there something urgent, General?" Lu Su asked.

Gan Ning nodded. "There is indeed something urgent that I need to inform the three of you."

Gan Ning handed the unsigned order to Lu Su and the other two. After they read it through, Lu Su asked in confusion, "General, didn't you want to wait until Cao Cao marched south before taking action? Isn't it too early to act now?"

Gan Ning shook his head. “Things are not going in the direction I hoped. The shipyard builds a ship and sends it away as soon as it is completed. There is no chance to gather them together. If we can’t destroy the ships, we should destroy their shipbuilding capacity and take all the raw materials and shipwrights with us. I will also take those 150 giant catapults with me instead of destroying them.”

Lu Su, Xu Shu, and Pang Tong all unanimously supported Gan Ning's decisive action, arguing that once a decision was made, action should be taken immediately, as delaying would only jeopardize military opportunities.

The task of raiding Jiangling was assigned to Ding Feng, who had been harboring resentment for a long time. After the Battle of Changsha, he had nothing to do, and he was not even involved in the attack on the three counties of Jingnan, which made him really depressed. Now that he finally had the opportunity, how could Ding Feng not be extremely excited? Although it was not to occupy Jiangling, it would still be a good thing to successfully complete the mission.

Ding Feng led 15,000 troops and 800 warships away from the Dongting Lake naval base, entered the Yangtze River from Dongting Lake, and sailed along the south bank of the Yangtze River towards Wuling County, opposite Jiangling County.

The most important aspect of attacking Jiangling was secrecy, so Ding Feng led his navy to sail at night and stay close to the south bank of the Yangtze River so that the enemy could not detect them.

Three days later, Ding Feng's fleet arrived at Yidao County on the south bank of the Yangtze River, opposite Jiangling County.

Ding Feng gazed at the dark Yangtze River and said to his deputy, Kan Huang, "It's only the second watch of the night. We'd better launch our attack tonight, lest things get complicated!"

"The general is right. If they discover something amiss, they will likely move the catapults, and we will lose our chance."

Ding Feng nodded and said, "You lead 10,000 troops to proceed according to the original plan. I will lead 5,000 troops to ambush outside the south gate. Once Zhang Yun leads his troops to reinforce, I will take the opportunity to ambush him."

After the two men agreed on the details, they did not allow the soldiers to disembark and rest. The fleet then turned around and headed towards Jiangling on the north bank.

(End of this chapter)