"The Jiangdong Army has advanced to the west ......!" When this news reached Jiangling, the two veteran generals in charge of defending Jiangling breathed a sigh of relief, and then quickly became nervous: The goal of the Jiangdong Army's westward advance was very clear, that is, to take Jiangling and cut off the connection between Xiangyang and Yizhou and Jingnan and Jiaozhou. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Once Jiangling was conquered, then Pangtong in Xiangyang became a lone army, and Yizhou's connection with Jingnan and Jiaozhou was cut off. It is conceivable that Jiangdong Sun Quan will never have any pity for his lord in such a situation, he will swallow Jingnan and Jiaozhou. Although this is likely to cause Jiangdong's indigestion, the blow to Li Sheng's side is huge. Jingzhou was lost, this Yizhou was shaken, and in the case of Li Sheng and Cao Cao's Xiahou Yuan confronting each other in Hanzhong, such a result was undoubtedly a disaster for Li Sheng. If you want to avoid such a disaster, you must undoubtedly make every effort to ensure the safety of Gangneung.

"It's a heavy burden on our shoulders." Standing on the city wall of Jiangling and looking south at the ponds and lakes everywhere, feeling the tense atmosphere in the city, and thinking about the tension between the public security and Wulin, Peng Ling, who was born as a ranger, sighed. He is an old man who has followed Li Sheng since Xuzhou, and although he is in his early fifties, he is still in good spirits. Except for the slight gray hair and the thin wrinkles on his face that showed his age, he looked no different from the average prime of life, and he was also imposing.

"Ziyue, are you afraid?" Xu Ding stood beside Peng Ling, smiled and stabbed him lightly.

"Afraid ......?" Peng Ling laughed loudly, his laughter was loud and heroic, he looked at his old buddy and asked him, "Do you think I have lost my courage?" Although the current situation is critical, it is not as good as the one more than ten years ago, when I was not afraid, let alone now? It's just that I think this matter is very important, and the key is not what it was back then. Back then, we were only responsible for our own lives, but now we are responsible for all the people here and the great cause of Lord Zixu. It's just as heavy. ”

"That's true, you and I never thought that there would be such a day......" Hearing Peng Ling say this, Xu Ding couldn't help but feel a little emotional. He felt that fate was really an elusive thing: he thought that they were all just knights who were forbidden by force, and they looked forward to the kind of life of eliminating violence, peace, and happiness, but he never thought that he would one day join the conquest of this troubled world, become a general, and wave his sword at people who have nothing to do with him for a political purpose, and be happy to do it.

"I haven't thought about it. What is this, is it providence? I always felt something wonderful. But whether it's providence or our own will, it doesn't matter. I don't want my own reputation to be ruined under the hands of that trash in Lü Meng. That crazy guy is a nuisance. Peng Ling grinned and gritted his teeth. He didn't like Lu Meng, thinking that he was simply a madman, a madman who didn't say anything about morality.

"Hehe, this madman is our opponent right now." Xu Ding laughed, unlike Peng Ling, he still admired Lu Meng a little: "It is not easy to change from a martial artist to a governor who overwhelms Lu Su." ”

"It's not easy, but I still don't like him." Peng Ling still insisted on his opinion, and he said very childishly: "Actually, what I hope most is that General Gao Heng's Second Fleet can shoot through Lu Meng, a bastard, with an arrow in this battle." Those who always incite their own monarch to betray really should not live in this world. ”

"That's luck." Xu Ding smiled faintly: "Although anything can happen on the battlefield, this luck thing is too illusory." We can't pin our hopes on this kind of illusory chance. ”

"So I just want to." Peng Ling said with a smile, he looked at Xu Ding, "Is it you going or am I going this time?" ”

"I'll go." Xu Ding thought for a moment and replied, his reason was very sufficient: "You are better at attacking, if you are asked to go to the public security, I am afraid that you will find a way to directly move the trebuchet to the ship." I am afraid that before we can defeat the enemy, we will crush our ship. ”

"Haha......" Peng Ling laughed: "You still know me." He stroked his forehead with his hand and laughed loudly, but there was not even a hint of embarrassment.

The two broke up. Under the light of the rising sun in the east, Xu Ding took a team of personal soldiers to embark on the journey to the public security. He traveled lightly, and before him, the troops, weapons, and equipment he needed had already been sent to the public security city. The entire public security is ready for defense, and what is missing at the moment is that he is such a commander.

Xu Ding quickly rushed to the public security. He arrived just in time - the day after he arrived at the police and gave the order for all the troops to follow the original plan for defense, Jiangdong's navy had already reached the water outside the city. They opened up the formation, and hundreds of warships eliminated the crane wing formation on the vast river: the platoon on the left and right flanks was dominated by large building ships, while the warships that were the main force of the Jiangdong Army surrounded the left and right of the large building ships. The whole crane wing array is formed with a careful phalanx as the main composition, the huge building ship as the core of the phalanx, with his strong and powerful bed crossbow, to provide long-range defense means for the ship, and as the main force, the ship is as a sprint ship, under the escort of their own building ship, bravely rushed forward to pierce their sharp bow into the belly of the enemy ship to make them stop, and provide the opportunity for the boat behind them to board the ship - under such tactics, the Jiangdong Army's combat thinking is very clear, That is to fight the water war as if it were a siege war. This is undoubtedly a very good tactic, if Li Shengjun did not have so many secret methods.

Just about five miles to the opposite side of the Jiangdong Naval Army, Li Shengjun's Second Fleet also set up its own formation. Unlike the Jiangdong Navy's idea of fighting water warfare as a land war, Li Sheng's navy was deeply influenced by Li Sheng's own idea of putting firepower first from the beginning. They lined up a single column, that is, a formation that was made a battle column by Li Sheng and called a long snake formation by the Jiangdong side.

Everything is ready. As the mist like a thin veil slowly dispersed on the river, the fleets in their respective formations saw each other's distinctive formations.

"With large warships as the two wings? In the middle is a rather high-speed heavy ship? Through the single-hole crystal mirror worth tens of thousands of dollars, Gao Heng, the commander of the Second Fleet, undoubtedly has a clear understanding of the Jiangdong Army's position and operational intentions: on the surface, the Jiangdong Army seems to be planning a traditional water war, a attrition-type water war, but in fact, Gao Heng can see that Jiang Qin in Jiangdong is very likely to carry out a war of annihilation on the water. Although in the face of the strength of its own warships, Jiangdong's naval army will definitely suffer large-scale losses if it carries out an annihilation-style assault, but this loss is not a simple loss. If you can inflict a devastating blow on your own navy under the watchful eye of your own army, then it is foreseeable that the morale of your own army will suffer the greatest damage. The so-called "it is better to cut off one of its fingers than to hurt its ten fingers" refers to this situation.

"Very good strategic intentions. It seems that their formation is also based on how to achieve this goal. Looking at the other party's formation, thinking about the other party's combat intentions, a mocking smile appeared on the corner of Gao Heng's mouth. He could see that the tactics of the Jiangdong Army were like this: use the thick and open wings to block the movement of his army, and then use the four different high-speed ships in the middle to rush over and divide his fleet into two halves and encircle and annihilate himself separately.

"Hehe, a conspiracy against us. It seems that the Jiangdong Army has been thinking about fighting us for a long time. The smile on Gao Heng's face became deeper. He watched the other party press towards him at a relatively calm speed, but he pouted coldly and gave an order: "The whole fleet sails south, full sails, and all rush to ......!" ”

"The governor has an order, the whole fleet sails south, full sails, and rushes at full speed ......!" The personal soldiers around Gao Heng meticulously passed down the order, and then it became the flag of the flag bearer on the lookout, which was conveyed to every battleship. Soon the bamboo sail was pulled up, and the cold river wind blew on the bamboo sail, making it make a crackling sound while pulling the battleship under it to speed up suddenly. At this moment, the wind is southwest, and Li Shengjun is in a situation of tailwind and downstream, while Jiangdong Army is just the opposite. Although they also spread the sails of their own ships, they were not fast enough. Perhaps for them, that's exactly what they want to see.

At this moment, on the flagship of the Jiangdong Navy "Jianye", Jiang Qin, who was commanding this water battle, looked at Li Sheng's water army rushing towards the right flank of his formation at high speed, and couldn't help frowning: "What does Li Shengjun think?" Could they have any more novel ideas? But no, the ship type of their army has not changed much, and its combat methods are also average, so it shouldn't change much. He thought so, but somehow felt a little uneasy in his heart: "Could it be that there is something I haven't considered?" Shouldn't it? We have a very thorough understanding of Li Sheng. Of the three ballista warships he gave us, two have already been thoroughly studied by us. Their equipment should be no secret to us. Jiang Qinhu hesitated for a moment, and comforted himself again, but it was a pity that such self-comfort was useless, as the enemy warship approached little by little, the uneasiness in his heart expanded a lot.

Unlike Jiang Qin's pre-estimated action of the enemy to charge into his own midfield and fire on both flanks with powerful weapons, Li Shengjun at the moment slid from the north bank to the south bank in an arc trajectory, and ran into the left flank of his fleet with a movement close to the south bank. This was not the kind of side impact that Jiang Qin imagined, but a very traditional frontal impact. "What exactly are they trying to do?" Jiang Qin thought so, but turned his head and looked south. The battle had already begun, and he didn't have the time to do it now, and he couldn't make any more changes to the layout of the entire fleet, so if it went on like this, this was what he was thinking about right now, and it was the only thing he could do right now.

"Bed crossbow salvo! Salvo! Cheng Pu shouted loudly, and the anger and voice of the veteran who was already in his sixties seemed to be as old as his age, which was somewhat surprising. In the face of the approaching enemy warship, he gave the order to attack in such a desperate way. Although the enemy warship was still about a mile away from him, and although such an attack was basically a waste of firepower, he still felt that it was necessary to attack at this maximum range.

The battle between the fleets was very high, and although it was not as high as the speed at which the cavalry charged and collided, the high speed of the fleet was still very high compared to the slow infantry. Five miles was not far from the two fleets, and with the help of wind and pulp, they quickly approached, and then attacked.

The bed crossbow shot out a spear and quickly found Li Shengjun's battleship, and its powerful penetrating power made it quickly insert into the armor of Li Shengjun's battleship, and then stood there abruptly. Unlike Li Shengjun's ballista, the Jiangdong Army's bed crossbow was still the kind of "ancient" equipment that used strong penetrating power as the main cause of damage, and could not carry out further damage to the hull. Therefore, for the Jiangdong Army, killing and injuring the enemy itself is the most important thing, as for destroying the enemy's hull, it can only be left to fate - Li Shengjun's warship is not only heavily armored, but also there is no one left on the deck except for a certain sailman, which greatly inhibits the effect of the Jiangdong Army's attack.

The ineffectiveness of the bed crossbow attack was already expected by Cheng Pu, and he couldn't and didn't have the mood to mention this result for more thought. At this moment, the battle between the two sides has ended, and what is in front of Cheng Pu is that Li Shengjun's warship has already faced his own side of the ship, which is a signal, a signal that the other side is about to attack.

"The whole army is ready for defense, fire extinguishing team, prepare for me." Knowing how terrifying Li Shengjun's bed crossbow attack was, Cheng Pu quickly ordered. Of course, it was not Cheng Pu's style to just be beaten and not fight back, so he did not stop giving orders to attack the bed crossbow that had been on the side, on the contrary, he went further and transferred more crossbowmen to attack Li Shengjun. These crossbowmen used rockets, and their characters were simple: shoot rockets at Li Sheng's ship as much as possible, set fire to their decks and sails, and slow down their ships. At this moment, due to the limitation of the river, the distance between Li Sheng's fleet and Cheng Pu is about 40 zhang, which is where the bow and crossbow can exert their power.

Countless crossbows were like a torrential rain falling from the sky, and they were frantically sprinkled on Gao Heng's fleet. Due to the different ships, of course, such an attack could not cause many casualties on Gao Heng's fleet, but there were also many ships whose sails were ignited, and the raging flames burned on the deck, and puffs of choking black smoke came out, making the battleship a little uncomfortable.

Although Gao Heng didn't care much about such a bad thing, he was still a little unhappy to see his fleet being made like this by the enemy. In his opinion, his own fleet is much more powerful than the stupid and big Jiangdong Army, how can he be trampled on by them like this? "They have to get revenge." Gao Heng thought so, but quickly gave an order: "Fully armed, let them see how powerful we are." ”

The deck of the warship was quickly filled with soldiers by Gao Heng's order. In the slightly protected hoods, the tarpaulins on the catapults were pulled down, showing their formidable appearance under the somewhat surprised gaze of the enemy. Although Li Shengjun has not added new warships to his two naval armies since the thirteenth year of Jian'an, this does not mean that Li Sheng completely ignores the construction of the Jiangshang naval army, but that Li Sheng's own hull has become less important when his own hull is already much stronger than that of Jiangdong. In fact, the warships of Li Sheng's navy are still those ships, but some details of equipment and some new weapons have been used on a large scale, and their strength is no longer comparable to that of the past. Just after Gao Heng's order now, this profound difference was very clearly displayed in front of Jiang Qin and them.

A sharp whistling sound sounded on Gao Heng's warship, and tens of thousands of arrows dragged long yellow smoke and rushed towards the left flank fleet of the Jiangdong Army led by Cheng Pu with a sharp whistle. These are rockets, rockets with far twice the range of a normal bow and crossbow. They screamed and fell, and quickly inserted into Cheng Pubu's battleship, bursting into scorching sparks. Countless Jiangdong Army sailors fell under this rocket salvo, and Li Shengjun's armor was at least equipped with a shield against arrows on the deck, the Jiangdong Army's equipment was not so good, they were only equipped with the most ordinary baffles, and they could only hold arrows at a certain angle, and there was no way to deal with this rain of arrows that almost fell from the sky. For a time, Jiangdong's naval army suffered heavy losses.

This terrible rain of arrows is a nightmare for Cheng Pu, but it is not the end of the whole nightmare, but the beginning of the nightmare. At the same time as this rain of arrows fell, Li Sheng's ballistas were also roaring wildly, they swallowed all the thunder rockets, and constantly shot the amazing explosive arrows into the ships of the Jiangdong Army, so that the brilliant fireworks bloomed on it, and the warships that were not very strong were torn apart under such explosions.

"Damn......" Jiang Qin's eyes widened, and he hammered the fence in front of him with his hand and let out an unwilling roar. In the face of the enemy's stormy blow, he could only bear it silently in such annoyance. Although after getting the sample of Li Sheng's ballista battleship nine years ago, the Jiangdong Army conducted a thorough study of Li Shengjun's excellent battleship and worked hard to improve its own warship, but because the Jiangdong Army's operational thinking was to fight the water war as a siege war, the Jiangdong Army's naval army had never been able to turn all of them into large ships, and the most important link in Li Shengzhi's shipbuilding technology, that is, the setting of the water compartment, could only be realized on their warships above the ship.

As for the small and medium-sized warships such as the warships and the boats under them, which were the main offensive forces of the Jiangdong Army, the Jiangdong Army did not have the energy or the money to carry out all-round transformation. This has created such a situation that is somewhat miserable to see at the moment -- the Jiangdong Army's building ships and fighting ships have considerable combat effectiveness and protective power, but the Jiangdong Army's ships and boats are extremely vulnerable under Li Shengjun's attack. After Gao Heng focused his fleet's attack on these small ships, these small ships were like papier-mâché, and they were suddenly cleaned up into pieces of broken wood. The battle phalanx on which the Jiangdong Army had survived was easily cut off from the periphery. With the collapse of this pile of warships, the buildings and ships on the left flank of the entire Jiangdong Army were completely isolated and fell into a very embarrassing situation.

"Damn it...... We were fooled. I didn't expect Li Shengjun to have such a tactic! Looks like he's trying to eat our entire left. Jiang Qin was annoyed by this. Although it wasn't his fault, he felt he had to take full responsibility for the situation.

Of course, now is not the time to pursue this issue. For Jiang Qin, the battle is still going on at the moment, and what he needs to do is not to blame himself, but to find a way to solve the current crisis.

"What should I do?" Jiang Qin asked himself. He looked at the battle situation on the other side, thought about it carefully, and gritted his teeth and made a plan that he didn't want to do: "Give up the rescue of Cheng Puzhi's left flank for the time being." Use Cheng Pu's left flank fleet as a decoy to annihilate the enemy, and use this decoy to buy time so that his fleet can flank Li Shengjun's fleet in front and rear. ”

"Bait?" Hearing Jiang Qin report such a plan, Lu Meng had a calm face and couldn't see his joy or anger, he repeated this sentence softly, and then asked Jiang Qin: "What are you going to do?" ”

"I plan to let my middle instability be inserted directly in front of Li Shengjun's fleet from here, and then let the right flank fleet of Han Dang and Huang Gai sail along the north shore to the rear of Li Shengjun's army, and attack Li Shengjun's fleet from behind. At the moment we are in a headwind situation, so our fleet does not have much speed to speak of, but if our fleet goes around the rear of the enemy and also has the upper hand, then the enemy will be kicked in the ass. Jiang Qin thought about it as he perfected his plan.

"That's ...... Very good. Lu Meng listened to Jiang Qin's plan and thought about it carefully, and finally nodded and agreed: "Everything on the fleet is handed over to you, what I need is victory!" Victory...... Do you understand? Lü Meng directly delegated the full power of the water war to Jiang Qin, although Lü Meng himself was also a general from the water army, but he had to admit that his ability in the water war was really not comparable to Jiang Qin.

With the power down, Chiang Chin immediately conveyed his own orders to the entire fleet through the standard-bearers of his own warships. Like Li Shengjun, the Jiangdong Army also used flags and lights to command the fleet, but because the study of the flags and the equipment of the lights were not as good as Li Sheng's, the Jiangdong Army's fleet could not carry out a series of tactical maneuvers like Li Shengjun's fleet, and they could only change the battle formation in part and in part, but they could not give early commands.

"Assault, assault......! Whether those waveriders are not full or real, let them all give me a boost and increase the speed of the battleship. Zhu Zhi, the captain of the naval academy, shouted loudly, as the captain of this heavy warship developed by imitating Li Shengjun's ballista battleship, he was full of passion and cunning.

The so-called heavy warship is a kind of warship developed by the Jiangdong Army itself, which is a kind of double-decker warship with a water wheel, two masts, equipped with special angles for the warship, and can be equipped with 20 bed crossbows, its tonnage is twice that of the ordinary warship, and the speed is 50% faster than the warship, which is one of the most elite warships of the Jiangdong Army, and it is also the only warship of the Jiangdong Army that can be attacked in a battle array. Of course, the Jiangdong Army, which was bent on fighting the water battle as a siege war, would not have arranged these heavy warships into battle formations to fight. They were not accustomed to facing the enemy with the side of their ship. Therefore, after the development of warships like this on the Jiangdong side, only a dozen ships were produced, and the work was stopped, and it has always been in a state of oblivion. If it weren't for the idea that Lu Meng and Jiang Qin would have grouped these warships together and used them as assault ships, I am afraid that they would still be sealed in the water village as before.

At this moment, the scuffle unfolded on the left flank: Cheng Pu's formation became fragmented after being attacked by Gao Heng. Helplessly, he already realized that his diagonal formation was not suitable for the current battle situation, so he tried his best to turn his formation into a huge diamond shape under the siege of Li Shengjun in the melee. That is, four building ships and warships are grouped into a diamond-shaped formation, and the same four diamond-shaped formations become a larger diamond-shaped formation. As a result of the abandonment of almost all small warships, such as ships and boats, the battle situation between the Jiangdong Navy and Li Sheng's Navy on the left flank has completely turned into a situation in which large ships are fighting against generals, and small ships are almost useless in such a battle situation, and their existence seems to be only a pastime for another time.

Cheng Pu gathered the big ships together with difficulty, and Gao Heng's situation slowly became worse. Although Gao Heng also did his best to pour all the weapons on the warship towards Cheng Pujun's ship, but after a ** attack, in addition to making the Jiangdong Army's ship more scarred, it could not achieve more effective results than dealing with small ships like ships such as warships and boats. For a warship like Lou Chuan and Gao Heng's own heavy ballista battleship, the bed crossbow, even if it was equipped with a very powerful thunder rocket on the side of the body, could not easily cause damage to it. After all, the range of this crossbow is far away, and the hit rate is also high, but the power is slightly insufficient for the building ship. If you want to sink a big guy like Lou Chuan, for now, there is no other way than to let him be sturdy with a dozen large thunder bombs. However, the Thunder Fire Bomb was fired by a catapult, and the hit rate and range of the catapult were pitifully poor compared to the bed crossbow. The lack of weapons is obviously to make this water battle into a boring confrontation between the two sides, although the battle has been going on, and Gao Heng has always pressed Cheng Pu to fight, but the battle situation for Jiangdong is not as critical as Jiang Qin thought - Gao Heng is basically impossible to quickly annihilate Cheng Pu's left flank fleet.

This is undoubtedly a good thing for the Jiangdong side. At least they had time to rescue Cheng Pu.

When Zhu Zhi rushed up with a shouting assault, Gao Heng's fleet had just bypassed the rear of Cheng Pu's left flank fleet, which had become a hedgehog, and was trying to return to the right side again to launch a new round of attacks on Cheng Pu. If the situation on the battlefield had not been so changeable, and if Jiang Qin had not made such a decision, then Gao Heng's idea of constantly carrying out weakening attacks on the left flank of the Jiangdong Army through movement might still have a chance of success. But the reality is that there can't be so many ifs, just when Gao Heng came around, Zhu Zhi's fleet rushed up, and suddenly stuck on the belly of the three medium-sized ballista battleships, and settled down, but it interrupted Gao Heng's maneuver at once. At this time, Gao Heng's originally perfect movement was interrupted, and the battlefield was suffocated.