The eyes of the Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army were focused on the Ming army camp outside Fancheng, Zhuge Liang's inference was similar to Zhou Yu's, Chen Mo deliberately released such a big flaw, there must be a conspiracy, so when Guan Yu and Zhang Fei wanted to take advantage of the emptiness of the enemy's rear to attack the rear of the Ming army and burn the grain and grass, Zhuge Liang refused, Chen Mo could not have made such an obvious mistake.

Outside Dengxian County, where Chen Mo, Zhang Liao and others watched the enemy formation that day, Chen Mo, who was supposed to be in the Fancheng camp, did not really go to Fancheng with the army, but appeared here.

In the night breeze, the crunch of the wooden wheel was particularly harsh, and standing on the watchtower, Chen Mo looked at the lights that could be seen faintly on the opposite bank with a calm face.

"Your Majesty, the fleet is ready." Zhang He walked quickly to Chen Mo's side and bowed.

"Whether you can cross the river or not, it's tonight!" Chen Mo nodded and said: "What is the situation on the other side, it is not known now, after crossing the river, you only need to be cautious, and lay a foothold for our army to cross the river, it is enough, before the army crosses the river, don't rush in!" ”

"The king can rest assured, even if the last general dies in battle, he will not lose his ground!" Zhang He said solemnly.

"Go, and when I see the fire on the other side later, I will lead the army to force the crossing!" Chen Mo looked at Zhang Hedao.

"Whoa! The end will be retired! Zhang He agreed, turned and left.

In the night, in order to avoid the detection of the other side, there were only a few torches lit by sporadic lights, and huge catapults slowly approached the shore, while the wrestlers carried baskets of jars to this side.

"Ma Jun!" Chen Mo looked at the river in the distance and frowned.

"The minister is here!" Ma Jun trotted to Chen Mo's side and bowed.

"It's two hundred paces from the dock fort on the other side, how can this catapult really project so far?" Chen Mo turned his head to look at Ma Jun and asked uncertainly.

The catapult of the Ming army, after several improvements by Ma Jun and Liu Yi, can project stone projectiles at one hundred and twenty paces, which at present, it is far more than the stone machine of ordinary princes, but the distance of two hundred steps was not dared to be imagined by Chen Mo before.

"Back to the king, if you fill the projection with stone bullets, it will naturally not work, but if you change to the fire altar, the weight will be reduced a lot, and the distance that can be projected will be farther. Ma Jun affirmed.

It's not that Chen Mo doesn't believe it, it's just that the distance is too far, Zhuge Liang has made a strict deployment in this area, but in this area, the ballista cannon placed by the other party on the shore is also difficult to cross the Han River, Chen Mo's ballista has a longer range, but at most it can land on the gun platform on the opposite bank, and it takes a farther distance to encircle the dock fort built by the other party.

This time, in order to hide people's eyes, Chen Mo let the army move south and press towards Fancheng, in order to attract the attention of the Sun and Liu families, and take this opportunity to secretly land here.

This kind of thing, Zhuge Liang will, Chen Mo is naturally quite familiar with it, the army is pressing, the rear door is wide open, Chen Mo has his own arrangement, but with his own reputation, Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu may not be fooled, but will focus on the main army, and then Chen Mo takes the opportunity to cross the river, but the premise of all this is that the catapult can indeed knock out the other party's dock fort, otherwise it is meaningless.

Chen Mo nodded when he heard this, although he felt that two hundred and sixty steps was a bit exaggerated, but even if he couldn't, he wouldn't have too much to lose on his side, so he didn't say anything at the moment.

There are ten catapults, and in such a short period of time, being able to make ten is the highest efficiency that three hundred craftsmen can do, after all, this kind of giant catapult is more difficult to make than ordinary catapults.

Ten catapults were erected on the shore, Chen Mo saw that the wheels of the catapult were hit with wooden nails on both sides, and there were several barbs in the rear that were deeply inserted into the ground after determining the position of the catapult, and the people who operated the catapult were not soldiers in the army, but craftsmen, some were proofreading the angle of the catapult in front, and some were directing the wrestlers to pull the winch of the catapult and adjust the direction of the catapult.

This catapult is very different from what Chen Mo has seen before, not only is it huge, but it is only twice as tall as an ordinary catapult, and it looks like a giant beast in the dark.

"Your Majesty, it's ready, ready to be projected!" After a long time, Ma Jun came to Chen Mo's side and bowed down.

"Cast in turn!" Chen Mo nodded and said.

"Whoa!" Ma Jun agreed, and instead shouted: "Release!" ”

Next to the catapult that had been prepared for a long time, a craftsman put the jar filled with oil and set it on fire with a torch to ignite the oil smeared on the outside of the jar.

"Hum~"

Under the night sky, the burning jar fell towards the opposite shore like a meteor, Chen Mo stood on a high place and watched this scene, when the oil bomb broke through the air, Chen Mo's heart was also put down, in his experience, the landing point of this oil bomb was the dock fort on the opposite bank.

Immediately after, the second and third were launched in turn, and although there was a slight gap in distance, they had basically covered the enemy's dock fort.

After the ten catapults were launched in turn, the first catapult was re-prepared and launched again, and so on.

Standing in Chen Mo's position, he could see that after the oil bomb landed, some did not react, but some directly ignited.

In the night, the Jingzhou army guarding the dock fort on the opposite bank didn't even know what was happening, so they fell into a sea of fire, and in the sky, oil bombs fell down and continued to spread, swallowing the entire surrounding of the dock fort into a sea of fire in an instant.

The sky-high firelight illuminates the area in the dark night.

The position downstream, Zhang He, who was already ready to go, looked at this scene, and immediately asked the officers and soldiers of the three armies to quickly slide the oars, go upstream, and row towards the direction of the artillery platform on the opposite bank.

Because of the sudden attack on the dock fort on the other side, the Jingzhou soldiers stationed around were rushing to this side, and they did not notice the approach of a large number of ships on the river, and when someone found out and wanted to stop Zhang He from going ashore, it was too late.

Zhang He held a gun and a shield in his hand, took the lead, jumped ashore first, a team of Jingzhou soldiers who came to stop him killed, Zhang He's eyes were cold, the shield in his hand smashed forward, and the huge force directly knocked the two Jingzhou soldiers upside down, Zhang He took the opportunity to step forward, shouted, and stabbed down a person, turned around and smashed the shield, and smashed the head of a Jingzhou army, and then shouted again, and then assassinated a person.

The rear soldiers saw that their main generals were desperate, how dare they let Zhang He kill alone, not waiting for the ship to be stable, they roared and rushed ashore, although they are all new troops, but the new army training of the Ming army, but there are a lot of actual combat, this kind of scene is not scared at all, but the Jingzhou army is panicked, plus Zhang He showed bravery, one by one was suppressed, morale was suppressed, and the Ming army soldiers rushed, and instantly collapsed.

Zhang He also didn't like to fight, and quickly let people guard the fort, and he led people to start clearing the surrounding soldiers.

On the other side of the river, Chen Mo signaled to stop projecting, looking at the two armies on the other side that had been fighting together, Chen Mo asked people to blow the horn, and the soldiers who stayed on the boat on the other side rowed the boat back and replenished the soldiers and horses from this side.

In order to be able to tear apart the defense line set up by Zhuge Liang, Chen Mo prepared 5,000 soldiers and horses tonight in addition to Zhang He's 3,000 soldiers, in order to hold the gap on the other side, and then tear it as much as possible, and the focus of his next attack is not mainly Fancheng as Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu guessed, even if he can't capture Xiangyang City, he will take these places on the north bank of Xiangyang, so that the Jiangxin copper pillar prepared by the Jingzhou army will be completely useless.

Since the iron cable across the river could not be broken, it was necessary to find a way to hold both sides of the strait in our hands and further reduce the scope of activities of the defenders of Xiangyang.

Fighting outside the city, since the defeat of Cao Cao, the Ming army has no opponents, although the Jingzhou army has vigorously trained soldiers in the past two years, but this is not enough to make up for the gap between the two sides.

What's more, even in terms of numbers, the other side did not have an advantage, and it was a sudden attack, and the fighting between the two sides did not even arrive for a moment, and the Jingzhou soldiers on the bank of the river began to rout on all fronts.

Zhang He carefully followed Chen Mo's orders, and after repelling the enemy army, he did not chase after him, but quickly commanded the soldiers to extinguish the fire, and at the same time arranged for the soldiers to patrol the surroundings to prevent the Jingzhou army from counterattacking.

On the other side, Chen Mo heard that the fighting on the other side gradually stopped, and immediately ordered the craftsmen who were here to cross the river by boat and establish a camp belonging to the Ming army on the opposite bank, at least to hold this gap, so that the Jingzhou army would not have the possibility of recapturing.

After crossing the river, under the command of Ma Jun, three hundred craftsmen quickly led the soldiers to set up camps around the area, with the original camp of the other party, and there were boats to send logs and soil over continuously, and began to build the wall, and reinforced the wall with soil, no matter what else, the wall was to be built first, so busy in the middle of the night, and so at dawn, the wall had been initially built under the rush of thousands of people, Chen Mo mobilized a group of people to cross the river, transport soil, and tamp the wall, and at the same time the reinforcements of the Jingzhou army also arrived, It's just that at this time, the wall has been erected, and Zhang He commanded the soldiers to be ready for battle.

The Jingzhou generals led the soldiers and horses to launch several attacks, wanting to take advantage of Zhang He's unstable foothold to drive Zhang He away, but Zhang He commanded the soldiers to calmly block, the two sides fought fiercely for half a day, and there were mutual losses, but the camp was more and more stable.

The generals of Jingzhou also knew that things were not good, and had already ordered someone to rush back to Xiangyang to inform Zhuge Liang, and here, after Chen Mo saw that Zhang He had a firm foothold, he sent another army of soldiers and horses, and three hundred craftsmen also stayed on the other side, just a gap, Chen Mo left tens of thousands of soldiers and horses here, which shows that Chen Mo attaches great importance to this battle, and when Zhuge Liang got the news, the camp here has been continuously reinforced, and it is even more difficult to recapture this place.