Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1070 Accident
Jiang Qin finally felt relieved when he saw the Gongsun family’s ships appear on the sea and rushing towards the shore.

To be fair, the Gongsun family had only a hundred ships, which was not the force that determined the outcome of the battle, but its main function was to give the Wu soldiers a reassurance.

After all, the State of Wu had sent its troops on a long expedition to this unknown land thousands of miles away. Not only the soldiers, but also the four generals Jiang Qin, Ding Feng, were actually unsure of themselves.

Generals like Jiang Qin can rely on their obsession with revenge to hold on, but the same cannot be said for their soldiers. After all, the journey is long and their fate is unknown. Many ordinary soldiers have been killed or injured in storms and accidents, and their morale has already been extremely low.

Many soldiers then privately discussed that the King of Wu sent them on a long journey to their deaths just for his own likes and dislikes. Later, the rumor became more and more intense, and Jiang Qin and others punished a group of people by military law, and the rumors were slightly stopped.

But Jiang Qin also knew that this was only a temporary solution and that the soldiers' dissatisfaction would only continue to accumulate and ferment. To break this situation, he needed to boost morale.

But this has fallen into a vicious circle. Winning a battle is the best way to boost morale, but the prerequisite for winning a battle is that the soldiers have high morale.

Therefore, the Jiangdong soldiers' attack on Yuan Xi's navy now depends entirely on their bravery. If they encounter setbacks or fail to attack for a long time, they will hesitate and miss the opportunity to win on the battlefield.

Therefore, Jiang Qin was eager to see a turnaround in the situation, which was the arrival of reinforcements from Baekje and Gongsun families that he had previously colluded with.

Although the military forces of these two sides could not determine the situation on the battlefield, their stance of standing on the side of Wu was in itself a great boost to the morale of the Jiangdong soldiers. So when the Gongsun family fleet appeared and made an attacking gesture, the soldiers of Wu were all cheering and their morale was greatly boosted.

But what happened next left them dumbfounded, as if they had fallen into an ice cellar.

The fleet of the Gongsun family was in a state of disarray after running aground on a reef. When they were trying to find a way to sail away from Pan Zhang's fleet in the reef area, they suddenly turned around and launched a fierce attack on Pan Zhang's fleet!
The cheers stopped abruptly, and the Jiangdong soldiers were like chickens with their necks strangled, their minds went blank.

Of course, the one who suffered the most was Pan Zhang. He wanted to take a shortcut to land, but encountered a reef. When he was about to sail out with great difficulty, the Gongsun family turned against him and attacked him suddenly when his formation was in chaos!
Pan Zhang was shocked and angry. He stood on the bow and shouted, "You are treacherous and shameless!"

"When I return, I will petition the King of Wu to raise an army to attack and exterminate the Gongsun clan!"

The general on the opposite ship laughed and said, "You Jiangdong people are really arrogant."

"What King of Wu? I think it's the King of Wu of Wei. He only knows how to follow Cao Cao and eat shit. How dare such a thing be compared with our King of Jin? What a joke!"

Pan Zhang finally understood what was going on. He said in hatred, "So you are Xiong Hu's men!"

"You actually pretended to be Gongsun six or seven years ago!"

The man laughed and said, "What do you mean by fake? There are tens of thousands of Gongsun clan members in Liaodong. Gongsun Kang is from the Gongsun clan, and we are also from the Gongsun clan."

After hearing this, Pan Zhang was still confused, but the other party didn't want to waste any more time talking to him and immediately ordered a fierce attack.

Yuan Xi stood on the shore and saw Gongsun attacking the Jiangdong fleet, a smile appeared on his face. Of course, all this was his plan, and it started a long time ago.

Yuan Xi had long thought of using the name of Gongsun to fish and then reeling in the line at the critical moment, but this time it was indeed an unintentional move.

This group of Gongsun fleet did not originally belong to the Gongsun Kang family, but to the Gongsun Zan family.

It stands to reason that Yuan Xi and Gongsun Zan's families had a feud, and the two sides would definitely not be on the same page, but it is precisely because of this that it is deceptive.

When Yuan Xi followed the Yuan family to attack Yijing and eliminate Gongsun Zan, Gongsun Zan's clansmen were afraid of revenge from the Yuan family, so they fled when the city was broken.

Their only way out was to flee back to Youzhou. However, at that time, Gongsun Zan's family had offended the Han and Hu families in the border areas of Youzhou because of the killing of Liu Yu, which led to tens of thousands of people rising up in rebellion and Youzhou was in chaos.

After Gongsun Zan's people fled back to Youzhou, they found that not only did they have no place to stay, but as soon as they revealed their identities, everyone wanted to kill them.

In desperation, many people fled everywhere to avoid disaster. The diehards either occupied the city and fought stubbornly, or tried to cause trouble in Yuan Xi's territory, such as the assassins who wanted to kidnap the marquis's wife at that time.

Yuan Xi naturally did not indulge them. During those years in Youzhou, he attacked some people and won over others. Using these means, the stubborn diehards were completely eliminated by him. As for those who wanted to surrender, Yuan Xi used the title of Marquis's wife to arrange a marriage between his son Yuan Qian and Gongsun Zan's daughter, and thus gained the loyalty of Gongsun Zan's clansmen.

At first, Yuan Xi had no idea how to resettle these people. Later, he suddenly had an idea of ​​fishing.

He gave these Gongsun Zan people ships and goods, and asked them to trade in the Liaodong Peninsula, specifically dealing with forces that were dissatisfied with Yuan Xi. In order to cover up his tracks, he borrowed the identity of Gongsun Du's family through Gongsun Kang.

The reason why so much trouble was because Yuan Xi needed such a force to deal with the various forces that infiltrated Youzhou.

This method is indeed not very bright, and even a little despicable, but Yuan Xi is not a moral gentleman. Youzhou is his base camp, and he is not afraid to use more extreme methods as long as he can ensure the stability of the rear. However, this method is indeed very effective. This hidden force, which pretends to be the Gongsun Kang family, has attracted many forces to the ravines because of its private role in opposing Yuan Xi, and thus provided a lot of useful intelligence.

In the past few years, news has been leaked from various forces including Cao Cao, Sun Quan, the Three Han and Goguryeo from time to time, but they all think that the power of the Gongsun family is the focus.

Until today, most of the Youzhou forces have been wiped out, and there is no need for it to continue to be invincible. So while its identity was revealed to the world, it sent a big gift to the Jiangdong fleet.

Moreover, given Yuan Xi's temperament, he would definitely not hand over all the chess pieces at such a critical moment to an outsider like Gongsun Kang. How could it be safer to have his own people?
Xu Sheng stood at the bow of the central army ship, watching Pan Zhan being beaten badly, but heard a centurion behind him say in a hoarse voice: "Come to think of it, they are originally allies of Xionghu, so it is normal for them to attack us, right?"

"It's us who are abnormal, aren't we?"

Xu Sheng turned around with a cold face, kicked the centurion to the ground, stepped on his chest, and stabbed down with the spear in his hand. The tip of the spear touched the centurion's forehead and penetrated half an inch into the flesh. A stream of blood flowed down.

He shouted at the frightened centurion: "If you disrupt the morale of the army again, I will kill you!"

He turned to the crowd and shouted, "It's just a hundred ships. We still have the advantage in numbers. What are you afraid of?"

"Without them, wouldn't Jiangdong be able to win the battle?"

"Garrison, follow me forward. Only by killing all the enemies can we return home safely!"

When everyone heard this, they all started shouting. While Xu Sheng was trying to stabilize the morale of the troops, he himself was unsure. The Gongsun family had rebelled, and the reinforcements from the Three Han and Baiji were too little to help. What should he do now?
Jiang Qin, who was fighting side by side with Ding Feng in the front, saw that Ding Feng was still charging desperately, so he quickly asked someone to call him back.

Not long after, Ding Feng turned back reluctantly. The opponent's wolf-whip iron barrel formation was difficult to break, so he had no choice but to retreat and take a short rest. But when he heard Jiang Qin's idea, he immediately became furious: "What, you want to retreat?"

"How are you going to face the King of Wu if you go back like this?"

Jiang Qin said helplessly: "It's not about going back, but retreating temporarily to reorganize the troops."

"Look at the situation on the battlefield. If we continue to fight, what chances do we have of winning?"

"What I'm most worried about is that the Gongsun family isn't the only one that's betraying us. They may have other tricks up their sleeves!"

"If we don't leave now, the enemy might surround us and we won't be able to leave!"

Ding Feng stiffened his neck and said, "I don't agree!"

"Even if the other side has reinforcements, how many can they have?"

"We have more people than the enemy. If the enemy doesn't have any reinforcements, wouldn't it be a joke if we retreat?"

"Can you say that the other party has a backup plan?"

"Perhaps the enemy is already at the end of their strength and is just laying waste to trick us into retreating. They are almost unable to hold on!"

Jiang Qin had to admit that what Ding Feng said made sense.

When two armies are in a stalemate, it is not easy to retreat, because whoever turns around and retreats first on the battlefield is tantamount to admitting defeat, which is a devastating blow to the morale of the army.

Therefore, if the retreat is not done properly, the situation will easily collapse completely, and the situation will be dire and difficult to recover. It is often the case that after fighting for several days, a small number of people will be killed, and then after the retreat, the enemy will take advantage of the situation to pursue and the entire army will be wiped out in less than a day.

Moreover, for the winner, it is a winner-takes-all situation. The cost of pursuing and defeating the enemy is extremely small. Therefore, in order to avoid losses, many famous generals will try every means to make the enemy collapse, turning the offensive into a pursuit and annihilation, thereby greatly reducing losses.

Jiang Qin pondered for a long while, and finally said fiercely: "Okay, let the rear army be ready to turn around at any time, and we will lead the front army to attack again and see if we can find an opportunity!"

Not long after, Jiangdong launched another charge on the dock. Yuan Xi saw that the other side ignored Pan Zhang who was being attacked, and resolutely aimed at himself. He thought that the general of Jiangdong was indeed not just a name, but was really capable.

His original idea was indeed to let the Jiangdong Army retreat, and then follow up and annihilate them, because fighting against the enemy and suffering casualties was really not worth the cost.

The purpose of letting the Gongsun family fleet rebel in advance was to scare the Jiangdong Army. After all, it would take time for Tian Yu's rear army to arrive. The ideal situation would be if the Jiangdong Army was scared away and encountered Tian Yu's fleet on the way to escape.

But Jiangdong's bravery and determination were beyond Yuan Xi's expectations. He saw his soldiers falling down one after another, and his face looked extremely ugly. He thought that according to the time, Zhuge Liang and Tian Yu should have arrived. Could something have happened on the way?
(End of this chapter)