Shu Han Confucian General of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 76
"General, the Jiangdong navy has been following us!" On the broad river, two fleets are chasing one after the other. The one in front is the Xuzhou navy who just came out of the Huaihe River, and the one behind is the one who just came out of Sanjiang Town. Jiangdong Navy.The former was led by Gan Ning, the latter by Cheng Pu.

"What are you afraid of? Their boats are not as fast as ours. We will deal with them when we arrive at the Lujiang Water Village!" Gan Ning looked at the Jiangdong navy who was chasing after him, and wiped his face.After looking at it for a while, Gan Ning said again: "Send the order down, tell the brothers to drive slowly, don't let them get lost!"

"Understood!" After the small principal promised, he hurriedly went to inform the messenger to send the order with semaphore.At this time, the Jiangdong Navy was only a few miles away from the Xuzhou Navy, but they couldn't catch up. "Old General Cheng, it seems that their ship is very fast!" A navy captain said to Cheng Pu.

"It doesn't matter, where can he escape no matter how fast? These small fishing boats in Xuzhou dare not confront us, and just run away, I am afraid they want to hide in the Lujiang water village!" Cheng Pu has been in the battlefield for a long time and has rich combat experience. I also made a good guess.

"Then do we still have to chase?" The captain looked at the Xuzhou navy who was not far or near ahead, feeling a little confused.Say he is far away, and he can still be seen; say he is near, the crossbow is impossible to shoot.

"Keep chasing! The old man has been to the Lujiang water village many times, and the situation there is very familiar, so let's simply destroy the fishing boats and their lairs in Xuzhou!" rash order.In fact, in Zhao Feng's view, this is not only a little reckless, it is simply reckless and lost his way.Just relying on [-] sailors wants to destroy a water village, and bullying rookies is not like this. You must know that there are [-] Xuzhou troops in Lujiang City, not to mention that the Xuzhou navy is not a rookie.

Just like this, you chased me and ran away. Sometimes Gan Ning sent a few small boats to turn around and shoot a few arrows to make a surprise attack.Although this did not cause any major casualties, Cheng Pu was already so angry that he ordered a full-speed pursuit again and again.Fortunately, the gods gave Cheng Pu a lot of face today. In the late autumn, the East was blowing very strongly. Now the Jiangdong Navy is not slow to move against the current.

The two groups of men and horses chased and chased to the Lujiang River. At night, the Xuzhou Navy in front of them had already turned into a canal.Knowing that they wanted to enter the water village, Cheng Pu immediately ordered to catch up at full speed, so the Jiangdong navy also drove into the canal.

"Crack!" With several such voices, several large ships of the Jiangdong Navy suddenly stopped after walking for nearly half a mile in the canal, and only those small boats continued to chase.

"What's going on?" Cheng Pu was very surprised when he saw this, and quickly ordered someone to investigate.Several small schools looked at it a few times, and the trapped ship exchanged information with each other, and then reported to Cheng Pu: "Old General Cheng, it seems to have run aground!"

"What, hit the rocks?" Cheng Pu couldn't believe it when he heard the news, and then he said angrily, "This old man has walked this canal no less than ten times. The water is at least two feet deep. How could it hit the rocks?"

Seeing that Cheng Pu's beard and hair were all stretched out, the little schoolboy was furious, and immediately accompanied Xiaoxin and said, "Maybe it's autumn and winter, and the river has dried up?"

"Huh?" Cheng Pu thought for a while, but quickly ruled out this possibility.This year, there was a flood, so how could the river dry up.Seeing that three or two large boats of his own had blocked the river, and it was difficult for large and medium-sized boats to move forward, while the rest of the small boats were still chasing after them, getting farther and farther away from the main force, Cheng Pu suddenly had an ominous premonition, and hurriedly Said: "Quickly order the ships in front to stop, don't go deep alone."

But it was too late at this time, a torch suddenly lit up on both sides of the canal, and then there were shouts of killing on both sides, and countless infantry rushed to the shore, pushing dozens of ballistas.

This ballista is also Zhao Feng's idea, in fact, it is to install a frame for the ballista, and then install four small wheels under it, so that it is more convenient to push than carry it.Nearly a hundred ballistas spread out on both sides of the bank, but strangely did not launch immediately, but seemed to be waiting for something.

"Kill!" With another shout of killing, dozens of turtle boats rushed out of the Lujiang Water Village, fighting with the previous Jiangdong Army boats.This water battle is different from land battles. Land battles can be formed and played slowly with you. Water battles really depend more on the performance of warships and the personal abilities of soldiers.Now the two sides are stuck in this not very spacious canal, it is difficult to have any room to move and dodge, so Zhao Feng and Gan Ning both gave up their flexible warships and used collision-resistant turtle boats to deal with the Jiangdong navy.

"Crack!" A turtle boat collided with the bows of a Jiangdong Army boat, and suddenly Jiangdong Army's boat was hit with a big hole, and the river poured straight into it.This kind of turtle boat designed by Zhao Feng and made by Lu Xun is not only covered with iron leaves, but also has a "bone" completely made of iron on the bow, which is specially used to collide with the opponent.Unless it is a much larger warship, it will definitely hit a big hole.

"Shoot the arrows, let the arrows go!" The sergeants on the small boats of the Jiangdong Army began to frantically shoot arrows at these strange turtle-like boats.But the soldiers huddled in the hull could hardly get a single arrow out of ten.At the same time, from the holes on both sides of the turtle boat, the Xuzhou army shot a sharp arrow, and many Jiangdong water troops fell into the water after being hit by the arrow.

"Hey!" It was a few Jiangdong sailors who saw that the turtle boat was not very flexible, so several people worked together to lift a hemp stone in the ballast, and smashed it to the side of the turtle boat when the two boats crossed, hoping to overturn it. he.However, the turtle boat with a very low center of gravity just swayed after this blow, and finally continued to move forward steadily, and they were dumbfounded.

"Puchi!" Dozens of spears suddenly protruded from the hole, and these pawns fell into the water one after another.

"Quick retreat, quick retreat!" Cheng Pu saw that nearly half of his own boat had been destroyed, and less than five of the opponent's tough turtle boats had been destroyed. Knowing that fighting again today would be a win-win situation, Cheng Pu hurriedly ordered to retreat. , and at the same time ordered the stuck big ship to turn around and leave quickly.However, at this moment, the sergeants in the rear became noisy again. "Fire!" "Fire!" Cheng Pu looked back, but saw more than a dozen lit boats coming from the mouth of the canal to the immobile Jiangdong navy ship.

"It's over!" The thought flashed through Cheng Pu's mind for a moment.But he was not a man who resigned himself to fate, so he drew out his sword and said sharply: "Soldiers, we can't go forward now, there is a fire behind us, and there are bows and crossbows on both sides of the strait. A bloody path, charge me!" After speaking, he ordered his command ship to turn its bow first to attack the opponent's fire ship, and the rest of the warships were encouraged by his momentum, and immediately followed up and fought hard.

"Swoosh!" At this moment, the ballistas on both sides of the strait began to show their power, how wide can the canal be?The ballistas on both sides immediately formed a blockade on the entire river.The Jiangdong water army rushed out under the fire of arrows and fire, and hundreds of lives were wiped out every step they took.

"Come on!" Cheng Pu ignored the smoke and fire, and before his ship and a fire boat were about to collide, he ordered his men to cut off the mast, and then dozens of soldiers worked together to push the fire boat away with the mast. , so as to prevent his own ship from being ignited.But the rain of arrows arranged by Zhao Feng was also full of weight, and in the end, only a few ships like Cheng Pu broke through the fire blockade and killed this deadly canal.

"Ah!" Cheng Pu, who escaped from the sky, looked back and saw that there were only three boats coming out with him, and more than half of the soldiers on board were casualties, and he couldn't help crying out of grief. "General, hurry up, the Xuzhou army is coming!" A soldier with sharp eyes saw dozens of ships chasing aggressively behind him, and hurriedly persuaded Cheng Pu.

"Go, go to the south bank!" Cheng Pu also calmed down and ordered quickly, and the remaining three boats hurriedly fled to the opposite Jiangdong Navy's Hulin Water Village.In this battle, the Jiangdong Navy had 8000 men and 7000 large and small warships. The last survivors were only a few hundred soldiers and three warships with particularly good luck.Except for the last less than [-] captives, the rest of the more than [-] people lost their lives in the small canal.

"General Zhao, it looks like Cheng Pu is on that boat, do you want to chase him?" On a battleship of the Xuzhou Army, Gan Ning asked Zhao Feng who had just boarded the boat.

"It's already far away, so don't let the soldiers take risks." Zhao Feng saw that the other party was almost to the south bank, and knew it was too late.In this battle, after receiving the news from Gan Ning in the morning, he immediately ordered to put the thick iron chains that had been prepared into the canal.The Xuzhou military ships can survive the shallow water safely, but the large ships of the Jiangdong Navy are blocked by Hengjiang iron chains.At the same time, he ordered ten small boats to be loaded with fire, nitrate, sulfur and dead grass to stand by upstream, and then placed the ballistas accompanying the army on both sides of the canal. When the Jiangdong navy entered the canal, it gave them a complete nightmare.

"That's enough!" Gan Ning looked at the three warships that had escaped, and immediately calmed down a lot.At this time, Zhou Yu, who was fighting the rebellion in Kuaiji, never imagined that the North, which he was most assured of, would suffer such a big loss.And this is also the turning point of the entire battle.

"General, since the Jiangdong Navy has been defeated by us, they should be able to cross the river and attack!" In Lujiang City, everyone was overwhelmed with confidence after the victory.How about the invincible Jiangdong navy, isn't it buried by us with a baptism of fire and arrows?Facing the generals whose self-confidence soared, Zhao Feng frowned involuntarily.

"Why didn't the general give the order to take advantage of the victory and attack across the Yangtze River?" Seeing that Zhao Feng was silent, the generals who had been discussing enthusiastically suddenly cooled down, and Zhang Liao was the first to ask.

"Although our army won today, it took advantage of the warship and geographical advantage. If we really fought against the Jiangdong navy on the river, my Xuzhou navy may not have a chance of winning. Let alone fight across the river and occupy the opponent's water village .” Zhao Feng said slowly, frowning.

"Then what should we do now?" It was Gan Ning who asked the question this time. As an expert in water warfare, he naturally knew that today's big victory was a bit of a fluke.

"Find out the reality first, and at the same time wait for the army from the county to take over the garrison, and then try to cross the river!" Zhao Feng stroked the beard that had just grown on his chin, and said slowly.

(End of this chapter)