Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 773 Battle of Lake Shore

Chao Lake in this era was several times larger than that of later generations, covering thousands of square kilometers. Zhou Yu's fleet traveled for several days before entering Chao Lake from the Wanshui River, and it took another two days to approach the north shore.

Zhou Yu saw the faint outline of the north bank appearing in the distance on the lake. Before this outline, there were hundreds of ships gathered around the dock. It was obviously Yuan Xi's navy fighting against the trapped beasts.

Zhou Yu suspected that the boats on the other side probably came down from the canal on the back of Chao Lake during the high water season. Now during the dry season, the water level has dropped and there is nowhere to go. The people inside have even abandoned the boats and fled.

After all, Jiangdong's army is setting out, and the number of fierce tiger navy troops is absolutely inferior. How can they fight against themselves?

At this time, Lü Meng's hundreds of warships, as the vanguard, began to slow down. Apparently Lü Meng was quite cautious. Zhou Yu saw this and smiled at Ling Cao beside him: "Lü Ziming is quite cautious."

After hearing this, Ling Cao said calmly: "Lu Ziming is talented."

Zhou Yu looked at Ling Cao's expression and knew that he was still very upset about not being a forward.

Because of what happened during Sun Ce's lifetime, Ling Cao was known for his courage and acted as a vanguard in both water and land battles. As a result, Sun Quan took over Jiangdong and Zhou Yu became the governor. In this crucial first battle, Ling Cao did not become the vanguard. Naturally, I felt a little uncomfortable.

Zhou Yu laughed loudly, patted Ling Cao on the shoulder and said, "Gongzhi, you are usually too brave when going into battle. This time I was afraid that you would risk your reputation by taking risks, so I let Lu Meng go forward."

"He has a lot of ideas, and I also want to see his talents. If his attack fails, how about letting his performance take the lead?"

Ling Cao felt a little calmer now, cupped his hands and said, "Thank you very much, Commander."

Lu Meng stood on the bow of the ship and signaled for the fleet to slow down. He looked at the dock in the distance and hesitated in his heart.

He had previously studied the Fierce Tiger's tactics a lot. In his conception, he had to fight a few tough battles before the opponent would retreat if the situation was unfavorable. But now it seemed like he was retreating without a fight?

He rubbed his chin and began to think. Unexpectedly, as soon as his forward fleet slowed down, the flankers on both sides continued at the same speed and quickly passed Lu Meng's forward army, like a crab giving birth to two pincers.

Lü Meng couldn't help but smile bitterly when he saw it. Logically speaking, Han Dang and Cheng Pu should use the forward as the standard and slow down at the same time, but now it seems that the other party doesn't care about Lü Meng very much.

Han Dang and Cheng Pu were both veteran generals who followed Sun Ce. Their status was aloof, not much worse than Zhou Yu's, and their prestige and qualifications in the army even surpassed Zhou Yu's.

When Sun Ce was alive, he could still convince everyone with his personal ability and prestige, but once Sun Ce died, everyone's mentality changed.

Because generals fight with military merit. Although Zhou Yu was Sun Ce's mastermind and had many ideas, the generals would always blame Sun Ce intentionally or unintentionally.

In terms of prestige in the army, the most direct thing is the merit of going into battle to kill the enemy. In this regard, Zhou Yu cannot be compared with Han Dang, Cheng Pu and others who have been on the battlefield for a long time. What's more, he is from the Jianghuai gentry, and most of the generals whose background is Jiangdong, how much There are some gaps.

Now in the first battle after Sun Ce's death, the sudden advance of the two generals revealed the shortcomings of Zhou Yu's inability to fully convince the crowd. Although on the surface he did not give face to the forward Lu Meng, no one could see that the generals were not very convinced by Zhou Yu. This is the position of governor.

When Zhou Yu saw the rear army, his face darkened. He knew that many of Sun Ce's veteran generals had fought under Sun Jian. He, the mastermind who rose to power because of his old relationship with Sun Ce, could not completely convince the generals. .

Zhou Yu is indeed talented, but the more he is suspected of relying on nepotism to get to the position, the more angry he is holding back in his heart and wants to prove himself. However, in the past year or so, his luck has not been very good.

First, when he was stationed in Guangling, he was attacked by a fierce tiger and lost the most important city in Jiangbei, including Mrs. Wu. Later, although he assisted Sun Ce to pacify many places, Sun Ce was assassinated in Wancheng!

No matter what, capturing Wancheng was Zhou Yu's designated strategy. Sun Ce was assassinated, and Zhou Yu could not escape his involvement. Some generals were privately dissatisfied with him, and the Jiangbei faction was also adding fuel to the fire. Therefore, Zhou Yu had a very difficult time in the past few days.

Fortunately, after Sun Quan took over Jiangdong, he strongly supported Zhou Yu. He not only worshiped him as the governor, but also went against all opinions and asked Zhou Yu to lead his troops to attack Shouchun. Zhou Yu knew that this might be the best opportunity to prove himself. If this time If you fail, the consequences will be disastrous!

Therefore, in this battle of Chaohu, Zhou Yu made full plans and tried to dispatch all unexpected factors, but he did not expect that problems would arise before the battle even started!

However, this did not go beyond Zhou Yu's expectation. The two veteran generals Han Dang and Cheng Pu were both veterans of the Three Dynasties. They first followed Sun Jian to conquer the world. Cheng Pu in particular was the oldest and most prestigious among the generals in Jiangdong, and among the others Zhou Yu's historical contributions are incomparable.

"Three Kingdoms Volume 55 Wu Shu Shicheng Pu Zhuan" records: "I followed Sun Jian in the expedition, defeated the Yellow Turbans in Wan and Deng, defeated Dong Zhuo in Yangren, attacked the city and fought in the field, and was wounded."

Cheng Pu followed Sun Jian in the Battle of Yangren and defeated Dong Zhuo's general Hu Zhen and his cavalry commander Lu Bu. He had many military exploits. After Sun Jian's death, he followed Sun Ce to conquer Jiangdong. He would attack every battle and defeat more than ten cities. He had the most military exploits. He once saved Sun Ce's life in battle. He later served as the commander-in-chief of Wu County and pacified many bandits. It can be said that he has great merit for his hard work.

After Sun Ce's death, many people thought that Cheng Pu would become the de facto second-in-command in the Jiangdong Army. Zhou Yu's ascension made many veterans quite dissatisfied. According to Sun Ce's last order, "If you don't decide on internal affairs, ask Zhang Zhao, if you don't decide on foreign affairs, ask Zhou Yu." Cheng Pu had to obey Zhou Yu's orders.

As soon as this appointment came out, Cheng Pu was naturally the most dissatisfied, so he insulted Zhou Yu in private several times. When the news reached Zhou Yu's ears, he just pretended not to hear it.

Forget it on weekdays, now that something like this happened on the battlefield, Zhou Yu was very angry for a while. However, there were many explanations for this kind of thing on the battlefield. When he was investigated afterwards, he could just say that the Chinese army did not issue the order and he could get over it.

Zhou Yu had no choice but to hold back his irritation and asked the sergeant to beat the drum vigorously to slow down the two wings. After a while, both sides reluctantly slowed down the speed of the fleet.

In this way, Lu Meng, who was the forward, was unable to deal with it. His original intention was to send out a small fleet to test the opponent's strength, but now that the two veterans were in front of him, what was the use of testing?

After seeing this situation, Zhou Yu of the Chinese Army frowned. It was not that he did not expect that there was a scam on the other side, but he did not issue an order to take action now. Firstly, he did not want to overly stimulate the two veterans, and secondly, Zhou Yu felt that , even if there are traps on the opposite side, you can still deal with them.

He has fought many water battles, so he naturally knows how to attack with ships and fire, but now it is the intersection of spring and summer, and the wind is blowing from the southeast, and now Zhou Yu's fleet is attacking north, in other words, using fire The attack is also used by Zhou Yu. Is it possible that the opponent can still attack it against the wind?

So the only thing Zhou Yu could think of was that the other side's dock fleet was empty, and the hundreds of ships were now full of fire starters. They only waited for the Jiangdong navy to approach and set fire to it, with the purpose of preventing the Jiangdong navy from landing.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yu sneered in his heart. Chaohu Lake is so big, and there is not only a dock for landing. Can he just find a place to log in and let Jiang Dongbing bypass it by land?

In this way, Cheng Puhan became the main force of the former army, which could also appease them a little and make them feel valued.

That's right, the main attack by Lü Meng's navy was actually mostly a cover. Zhou Yu's plan was that if there was a scam on the opposite dock, he would be ready to let Cheng Puhan, who was proficient in land warfare, come ashore at any time to cooperate with Jiang Qindong's attack on both sides. Make a detour to attack Chaohu Pier and defeat the enemy in one fell swoop!

He looked around on both sides. Chao Lake was surrounded by dense forest. Logically speaking, Jiang Qindong should have rushed to the front of the fleet, which was best prepared for the fleet to land. As long as they cleared an open space, they would raise fire as a signal. Zhou Yu then issued an order for the fleets on both sides to land separately.

But until now, Zhou Yu still hasn't seen the fire on the shore. He thought that maybe the roads on both sides were not easy to travel, so there was some delay?

An ominous premonition suddenly arose in his heart. If the Fierce Tiger Army did not start a water battle and put all their troops on the shore, if there was an ambush at this time...

Zhou Yu felt uneasy, but according to pre-war calculations, most of the Fierce Tiger Army had gone north to the Huai River. He had also allocated enough troops to Jiang Qindong's attack. It stands to reason that even if the Fierce Tiger Army could not be driven back, the two generals would Insurance is still no problem.

But if the other party really makes a desperate move...

Zhou Yu hesitated, but at this moment, the sound of fighting came from the woods on the shore in the distance.

The sound of weapons clashing reached Zhou Yu's ears. Zhou Yu recognized it carefully and his expression became even more grim.

In addition to the sound of swords clashing, there was also the sound of bows and arrows piercing the air, and even the sound of rocks colliding!

Catapult?

Impossible. The previous spies had already visited several times to ensure that there were no enemy troops near the dock. In just half a day, it would be nothing more than a surprise attack by enemy cavalry. Where did the heavy catapults come from?

Zhou Yu's fleet was close to the west bank, where Dong Xi led his troops. He heard the scuffle getting louder and louder, and knew something was wrong. He immediately ordered his soldiers to beat drums and let Cheng Pu of the right army disembark from the ship.

This time Cheng Pu did not hesitate too much and immediately sailed the fleet to the east coast, hoping to land to help Dong Xijun.

As a result, the fleet was still several miles away from the shore, and the woods along the coast began to burn. The overwhelming smoke swept up, and then was blown away, and the entire shore became hazy.

This incident caused Cheng Pu's fleet, which was preparing to land, to slow down, because landing into the burning woods at this time was tantamount to suicide!

At this time, Dong Xi, who encountered Yuan Xi's army, was already miserable because he was facing a fully knitted Youzhou army!

The number of soldiers on the opposite side is no less than his own, and they are equipped with archers, crossbowmen, infantry and cavalry, and even catapults to help!

(End of this chapter)