Chapter 388

Liu Cong's army passed all the way through Xiakou and Lukou, and it took only three days to enter the Chaisang realm, and the vanguard Ganning troops had already exchanged fire with the Wu army. Liu Cong stood on the tall building boat and could vaguely hear the sound of fighting in the distance! So he subconsciously urged the troops to speed up!

At this time, the offensive and defensive sides began to make tentative contact on the river ten miles north of Chaisang City. Lu Su didn't want to sit still, and the river north of Chaisang was covered with all kinds of warships and tens of thousands of elite sailors. And Lu Meng, who rushed from Danyang to reinforce his buttocks, went to support Nanchang without being hot, and on the land, Liu Pan's marching speed was faster than that of Gan Ning, and the troops were straight to Changchang!

Fortunately, there is water on both sides of Chaisang, and the Yangtze River in the north has turned a corner in Chaisang, from the original northwest-southeast direction to the southwest-northeast direction, and the southeast of Chaisang City is the broad Poyang Lake!

On the river, the shouts of killing continued, and on the battleship, there were constantly terrible screams and shouts of killing, and these sounds were clearly audible at such a close distance.

The two sailors kept colliding together, and the sound of crossbows and bows and arrows was endless.

Blood and corpses mixed together and kept falling into the river.

On the flagship, Gan Ning, the governor of the Han Naval Division, and Xu Shu, the military division, at this time, Zhuo Li was on the high platform of the ship, condescendingly watching his side achieve a partial victory, and breathed a sigh of relief.

A few puffs of black smoke and flames rose from the river, and two warships were facing the sky at the bottom, and the other slowly tilted and sank. Just half an hour ago, under the command of Gan Ning, the naval division broke into the Wu fleet several times, and had accumulated small victories many times.

On the deck, Xu Shu said with a smile: "Dadu Governor, the enemy ship has sunk three times, and it is another victory, which is gratifying." ”

Gan Ning replied: "This is the master's strategy, and Mr. Kong Ming's crossbow. In front of Xu Shu, Gan Ning didn't dare to take credit, the Jingzhou Navy was a few catties and taels, and Gan Ning naturally knew that today's first contact with the Dongwu Navy completely relied on this newly assembled repeater.

"The lord made great efforts to build a water division as early as Nanjun, when Sun Quan attacked Jiangxia, Huang Tai's defenders were defeated and abandoned the city, but the lord led us to defeat Sun Quan in time, and since then the foundation of the water division has been laid." ，

"Besides, this repeating crossbow, the first time it was Cao Cao's southern expedition, our army was less than 2,000 equipped at that time. In the past, the first point of water warfare was that the ship was high and large, which could accommodate more soldiers, and this kind of ship could only be built with several shipyards in Jiangling and Shaxian, and it took more than half a year to build a ship, and even if our army worked overtime day and night, it was difficult to exceed the number of building ships in Soochow.

What's more, a few years ago, the main government's key strategy was to conquer central Sichuan in the west...... The second is to have a large number of veterans who have been on the rivers and lakes for a long time, not afraid of wind and waves, and can fight on the deck as if they were on flat ground. Now, even if there are warships, there are no soldiers who can deploy them. ”

"Whether it is the number of warships or the sailors who can fight, our sailor division is far inferior to Wu Chu in these two aspects, but now with this new type of repeater, there is no need to engage the ship, the ship does not need a big ship, and with this repeater, although it looks quite heavy, but it is exactly the same as the weight of the soldiers, the more it sinks on the deck, the better the stability, and the soldiers do not need to refine the sailors who can fight on the deck like flat ground, and this gap will be made up at once."

"It is much easier to build a warship of the current specification, small and fast, in general, the big ship of the merchant is this specification, and the last time I collected twenty ships, the shipyards of production can also be seen everywhere, and the production time does not only need to be two months to produce a batch."

"You think, although Dongwu has been in business for a long time, there are large ships and elite soldiers, but it is not easy to replenish, sink one less one, die one less one, and our military ships are small, easy to produce, and have a large number of bows and crossbows, soldiers only need to be able to shoot on the deck, which makes the replenishment source wide and ...... continuously."

"You see, in today's first confrontation, our army actually suffered heavy losses, with 1,000 dead and 3,000 wounded, but now the ships are fully loaded, and there will be replenishment immediately after the battle, and I believe that it will not be long before the Wu army lags behind our army in terms of replenishment. As long as the naval division loses its advantage, then what will Soochow do to resist the superior infantry of our army? ”

Xu Shu nodded while listening, these words are not elegant, and they are indeed straightforward. Jiangdong has been known for its naval army since Sun Ce, and has been known to the outside world to have 1,500 warships of various types, with 200,000 armor! Although Liu Cong also attached great importance to the navy after he took power, after all, confronting Cao Cao and attacking Yizhou consumed most of Liu Cong's energy and financial resources.

After the Battle of Nanyang, Xu Shu and others once thought that Liu Cong would not start a war against Jiangdong within five years. According to the normal catch-up speed, even if the next few years go all out to develop the water army, it will be difficult to overwhelm Jiangdong in terms of scale.

But the choice of warships and the advance of Zhuge Repeater against Repeater allowed Liu Cong to take the cash. According to intelligence, even if Jiangdong does not have as many warships as they claim at present, there should be 500 warships, and the standing size of Jiangdong's naval army is about 50,000 people.

Liu Cong deployed the new repeater crossbow to the navy, so that in the selection of warships, he gave up the idea of relying on building ships to fight on a large scale. In the past, water warfare was a combination of axemen and longbowmen. The longbow soldiers generally use projectiles, and the strong winds and waves on the river surface affect the hit rate very much, so most of the Soochow naval forces rely on hand-to-hand combat after the big ship approaches or rely on the hull to block the wind.

The weight of the repeater made it easier for the crossbowmen to stabilize their bodies on the deck of the ship, and the flat fire of the repeater overcame the disadvantage of river combat, because it was lethal enough to the Wu army! As soon as the battle began, the advantage of the crossbow made the Wu army suffer a big loss. Subsequently, the infantry boarded the ship under the cover of the repeater and destroyed three battleships of the Wu army.

And I'm afraid Lu Su wouldn't have thought that it was just the beginning, as the war continued to be consumed, the supplies of both sides would not be at the same level at all. It was not difficult for the Jingzhou infantry to shoot with crossbows on the boat. In other words, with a little training, all the soldiers in Jingzhou can go on board to fight!

However, Dongwu took the route of elite soldiers, and the population of Yangzhou was far inferior to that of Jingzhou, so the war would definitely be detrimental to Dongwu. This is also the reason why Gan Ning is full of confidence in water warfare! This change in tactics was also the reason why Liu Cong only took two years to prepare for the war against Jiangdong.

Of course, he knew that Cao Cao in the north was powerful, but if Cao Cao occupied Hanzhong, he would definitely try to conquer the south again, and under coercion, Sun Quan might choose to be a vassal and sit on the mountain to watch the tiger fight. Although Cao Cao is not afraid of Cao Cao, if the consumption of both sides is too large, the command will be cheaper Sun Quan!

And now that Cao Cao is old, once he dies, there is a possibility of chaos in the north. At this time, if Sun Quan is still there, he will definitely compete with himself to eat. After a scuffle, it is really possible for the Three Kingdoms to be established, although the territory in the north is smaller, but it is very likely that Sun Quan's territory has become larger!

Of course, the discord and rebellion in the first half of the year were quite effective, which was also a major reason why Liu Cong finally decided to start a war! The defection of Zhuge Jin and Lu Xun gave Liu Cong a more detailed understanding of Jingzhou. He also has a deeper and more intuitive concept of the weaknesses of Jiangdong's elite army line.

Liu Cong chose to start a war at the turn of spring and summer, just to annihilate the living force of the Jiangdong Navy before the flood season came.

The battle on the first day did make Lu Su a little nervous, although he had also fought with Gan Ning before, but at that time, the two sides had not yet torn their faces, and Gan Ning and Lu Su were also afraid of hurting Lu Xun and Zhuge Jin, so the two sides put on a posture, but they still left some strength.

But this time it was different, both sides worked hard as soon as they came up, and the elite soldiers of the city were dispatched, and Lu Su even dispatched a building ship. Gan Ning is still the same warship as the last time they met. But as soon as the two sides went to war, Lu Su realized the seriousness of the problem!

The boats of both sides trembled on the surface of the river, the wind was strong, the waves were so strong that the swords and axes could not play a role at all without coming to them. However, the longbowmen of the Eastern Wu generals had a much worse hit rate than the crossbowmen of Jingzhou, and the warships of Jingzhou even set up the same arrow stacks on the periphery as the city walls. The crossbow was already sinking, and if you put it on the arrow stack, you would not be afraid of the ship shaking.

The two sides set up a formation of about 2,000 paces on the river, and when they fired at each other, the Jiangdong naval army lost nearly 2,000 men, wounded even more, and the casualty rate was almost twice that of the enemy. Although Lu Su was mentally prepared before, he didn't expect the gap between the two sides to be so big. Most of Chaisang's 30,000 sailors were recruits, and those veterans who had been on the battlefield for a long time were all transferred to confront Cao Cao. Now on the way to Chaisang!

If it continues to be lost at this rate, Chaisang will not be able to hold out for a month! Therefore, Lu Su immediately withdrew his troops after a short confrontation. Hundreds of warships quickly retreated into the naval camp and gave up the attack, wanting to rely on the fortifications of the camp to reduce casualties!

Chaisang Water Village was vigorously built from the Sun Ce period, after Zhou Yu and Lusu, over the years not short expansion, reinforcement has stretched thousands of steps, like a Great Wall across the north of Chaisang City to protect Chaisang Cheng, and it is also the main training base of the Chaisang Water Army.

Although the camp is built along the river, there are all kinds of fences and arrow towers. If it weren't for the sparkling waves on the water, I really thought this was a camp in the flat land at first sight. In order to prevent being ambushed by Lu Su, Gan Ning did not lead his team to go deep alone. Instead, he retreated to the north bank of the Yangtze River, preparing to set up camp on the north bank, while constantly probing, while waiting for Liu Cong's army to arrive!

This Chaisang is the gateway to Jiangdong, and it is not easy to capture it easily. Gan Ning also knew this, and before leaving, Liu Cong also explained that he must be prepared for a protracted war. In 221 BC, after Qin Shi Huang unified China, he divided the country into 36 counties, with Jiujiang County. In the Western Han Dynasty, Jiujiang was founded as a county, called Chaisang. In the sixth year of Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty (201 B.C.), the general of the chariot cavalry Guan Ying dug a well to build a city and defend it, called the city, also known as the city of Guan Ying.

Chaisang was once a battlefield for soldiers. From the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Bang sent the general of the chariot cavalry to pursue the king of Jiujiang, Yingbu. Zhou Yu chose to establish a naval army here because it faces the river in the north, mountains in the west, and Poyang Lake in the east.