It's meant to be hit, but it's not that easy to fight.

To put it mildly, it's not very good. As long as Zhou Yu is still there, Dongwu really dares to say that his naval army is invincible in the world!!

If Zhang Xi wanted to cross the river to attack Gong'an, he had to find a way to solve the threat of the Soochow naval army first.

It is not to seek to completely defeat the Soochow naval army in the water battle, but at least it will be delayed for a little time, until the Gangneung army conquers the public security.

But the problem is that even if you count the 5,000 sailors borrowed from Chen, the total strength of the Jiangling Navy's army is only 7,000 people, and there are only two Mengchong warships and more than 100 large and small warships.

It's not impossible to fight hard, but the problem is that Zhang Xi is not sure that he can last too long.

Wen Ping has already built a water village in Yicheng to threaten Jiangxia and contain Zhou Yu's elite naval army. But the problem is that in the end it is Zhou Yu, although Wen Ping is also a veteran of the water war, he may not be able to really contain Zhou Yu, and even Wen Ping himself is not sure.

Therefore, in fact, Zhang Xi has to face not only Zhu Ran's 20,000 naval troops stationed in Lukou, but also Zhou Yu's naval army that may directly face Xiakou's reinforcements.

The 7,000 naval army can last for a while, but no one knows whether it can survive until the capture of public security.

In order to change this difficult situation, Zhang Xi thought about it day and night, and finally came up with a somewhat "whimsical" solution.

It's just that this way it will take a little time.

In this way, in mid-August, after the Jiangbian Single Knife Meeting broke up unhappily, there was about a full month, and there was no movement at all on the Gangneung side.

In this month, according to Zhou Yu's orders, Zhu Ran always increased his vigilance, sent countless naval warships, and strengthened patrols along the Yangtze River, but he never saw any changes in the Shu army on the Jiangling side.

This made Zhu Ran also muttered a little.

To be honest, a month is not too long for the preparation for a big war.

But the problem is that even if it is combat readiness, it is impossible that there is no movement at all.

The simplest way to put it is that in the Shu army water village on the bank of the Jiangling River, there will definitely be a large-scale troop transfer, and the navy will always have to go out to practice often to deal with the next big war, there is no movement at all, which is really a bit incredible.

If it were an ordinary opponent, Zhu Ran might suspect that the other party was just talking hi, and he didn't have the courage to win or lose with the Soochow Navy. But that's Zhang Xi.

Zhang Xi's reputation is more famous in the Jiangdong realm than in the Cao Wei realm. Who made the general Zhou Yu the first "Zhang Fu" in Jiangdong.

In addition, because of his sister's relationship, Sun Quan is not easy to speak ill of Zhang Xi openly, and he is still mainly touted overall. This led to the fact that on the ground in Jiangdong, Zhang Xi was generally considered by the generals of Eastern Wu to be a famous general who could match Zhou Yu.

Although Zhang Xi was not found to have the ability to command water warfare before, the problem is that when he reached that level, he did not show the ability to command water warfare, which does not mean that he does not understand water warfare.

Therefore, Zhu Ran really didn't dare to be careless at all, even if there was no movement in Jiangling for a month, Zhu Ran always maintained a high degree of vigilance.

Then, Zhu Ran received a front-line battle report, saying that the Jiangling Navy suddenly left Shuizhai with a large number of troops and advanced in the direction of public security.

Zhu Ran did not dare to slack off at all, and ordered the vanguard of the army to lead 5,000 soldiers and more than 80 warships to take the initiative to fight, and then led 5,000 sailors to respond and go to the front line to supervise the battle.

There are only more than 7,000 people in the Jiangling Navy in total, and Zhu Ran dispatched 10,000 sailors at a time, which is really not careless.

And as the commander of the first army, it is impossible for Zhu Ran to leave no back at all, and directly send 20,000 sailors to fight at once, if there is any accident, the Shu army will not attack the public security, but will go straight to Lukou.

Therefore, 10,000 sailors, in Zhu Ran's opinion, should be enough to deal with the Jiangling navy.

Zhu Ran felt that he couldn't be careless, but the problem was that Zhu Ran seriously lacked experience in fighting against Zhang Xi, and he didn't know how far the brain hole in front of him could go.

Soon, the vanguard navy led by Liuluo of 5,000 people had already seen the figure of the Jiangling navy on the river, and Zhu Ran, who was behind the essence, could vaguely see the formation of the Jiangling navy on the opposite side.

Zhu Ran was a little puzzled at the time, could it be that this Zhang Xi really didn't understand water warfare? !

In Zhu Ran's view, there is a big problem with the water battle formation arrangement of the Jiangling Navy Army.

According to Zhu Ran's observation, the enemy army has two Mengchong warships, and in general, in this case, it should be with the two Mengchong warships as the core, top-heavy arrangement, supporting each other, and forming a water battle group.

But now that Zhu Ran saw the Jiangling Navy, he let the two Mengchong battleships stay behind all the Ke guards, and there were countless Ke Gong guards densely distributed in front of him, how could he give full play to the advantage of the impact power of the Mengchong warships?!

This is completely a person who doesn't understand water warfare, so he will arrange troops like this.

But then, Zhu Ran was a little dumbfounded.

Before waiting for Liuliu to lead the naval fleet to accelerate forward, engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Gangneung naval army. On the two Mengchong battleships on the opposite side, four swarthy things suddenly flew out and smashed straight into the fleet of Liuluo's sailors.

After a splash of water, there was a trace of confusion in the forward of the sailor army in Liuluo, and the formation of the forward fleet was scattered, not to mention that there were three ships on the spot who could not resist the impact of the water waves and overturned.

And that's not all, just when Liuliu commanded his own fleet to reorganize the offensive formation, four swarthy things flew out again on the Mengchong battleship opposite.

This time, Zhu Ran finally saw clearly, it was four big stones weighing at least fifty catties, and they smashed straight into the fleet of Liuluo's naval army.

This time it was even more unlucky, and the draft of the hull of one of the Mengchong battleships in the Liuluo army was unfortunately directly hit by a fifty-pound stone. Although it didn't seem to be directly smashed, the soldiers on the ship lost their balance and fell to the ground one after another.

This is not the most serious consequence, Zhu Ran, who is familiar with water warfare, knows very well that once the part of the waterline on the side of the warship is hit hard, as long as there is a little crack, as time goes by, the crack will become bigger and bigger, and finally cause the river water to pour into the hull, and this Mengchong battleship may lose its combat effectiveness at any time.

This is completely a gamble, betting on fifty pounds of stone, which can't cause actual damage to the hull, but the problem is that the warships in these years are all wooden, how can it not cause actual damage.

It is nothing more than a question of the size of the damage and whether it will directly affect the combat capability of the warship.

Moreover, even if the Mengchong battleship can withstand such an impact, what about the Ke?!

Fifty pounds of stones fell from the sky, and once they were directly hit, the ship would capsize at least and break on the spot.

No, we must not let the other side continue to smash like this, and if it continues to smash like this, few naval warships will be able to hold up.

Not only Zhu Ran was aware of this problem, but Liuliu, who was the forward of the Eastern Wu Naval Army, was also aware of this problem.

Liuliu was very young, only in his twenties, and this was his first time as the vanguard of the army. Obviously, Ryulyu didn't want his first vanguard battle to end in failure.

As a military general who can barely hold up the cards in the middle and late stages of Eastern Wu, although Liuluo is still young now, he still has some strategy, especially in water warfare, the generals of the Eastern Wu Army are born with no lack of theoretical knowledge.

The large stones of the enemy army are indeed very ferocious to fall down, but the problem is that there are not enough of them, only four at a time. Liuliu immediately ordered the flotilla to be separated in scattered lines, to widen the distance between the ships as much as possible, and to launch an active attack on the enemy convoy in the form of scattered lines.

But this response made Zhu Ran behind him look frightened, but it was the lack of actual combat experience.

Yes, it is true that Liulu can avoid the threat of stone impact to the greatest extent, but the problem is that if you attack in a scattered line, you will not be able to form a joint force between the ships, but there are nearly a hundred enemy ships.

What's even worse is that the Eastern Wu Army is fighting against the current, and its mobility is naturally inferior to that of the other party, and it still uses scattered lines to fight. Once the hand-to-hand combat is hand-to-hand, it is very likely that we will fall into a situation of fighting more with less locally.

Sure enough, after Liuliu commanded the navy to officially engage the Jiangling navy, the striker directly fell into passivity and could not form a combat superiority, and when Liuliu wanted to adjust the fleet formation and reinforce the forward, the large stones that fell from time to time on the top of his head seriously affected the assembly and reinforcement speed of the Soochow fleet.

The front did not break into the direction arranged by the Jiangling Navy, and stones fell on the head to disrupt the reinforcement fleet in the rear, and even from time to time one or two warships were directly sunk by the Dongwu Navy, and for the first time in the water battle, they fell into a comprehensive passivity.

(End of chapter)