Zhu Ran didn't make up his mind in the end, whether to send the defenders of Wuling County to Changsha to assist in the defense.

First, Changsha still has 20,000 army soldiers, and they are basically concentrated in various counties along the Yangtze River.

Second, on the Shu Han side, since the attack on Jiangxia has been launched, it must be a division of troops, and with the information collected so far, Zhang Xi's troops in Wulin should only be about 50,000 at most.

The ratio of forces has changed, so naturally, the threat to Changsha has also decreased.

Thirdly, whether it is the Jiangling Navy or the Xiangyang Navy Army, in terms of surface operations, it is not possible to gain an advantage over the Soochow Navy for the time being, let alone win easily.

As long as the navy is undefeated, then Zhang Xi will definitely not dare to let the main force of the army cross the river.

Therefore, in the final analysis, although the situation of the Eastern Wu Army, which has the advantage of the naval army, seems to be dangerous, in fact, as long as the Yangtze River and the Han River are held, it is invincible.

Zhu Ran's practice of dividing troops to support Jiangxia, although it seemed a bit risky, Zhu Ran still had a certain degree of confidence in the combat strength of the Eastern Wu Naval Army.

In the last battle of Jiangling, Zhu Ran was able to completely defeat the Jiangling naval army with the same strength, and now even if the troops are at a disadvantage, Zhu Ran is still confident.

The water army is not a simple competition that can determine the outcome of the competition.

And with the division of Zhu Ran's Baqiu Naval Army, the Jiangling Naval Army stationed on the opposite bank of Baqiu West finally reacted.

As soon as Zhu Ran's fleet left the water village, a fleet was also sent to the Jiangling water village, led by two Mengchong warships, to pursue the water army that was divided by Zhu Ran.

And Zhu Ran obviously couldn't let the Jiangling Navy pursue like this, so he immediately led the remaining 10,000 sailors out of the water village to intercept the pursuing Jiangling Navy.

It was very easy to stop the pursuing Gangneung naval army.

In Zhu Ran's opinion, this is not a big deal.

Although the Jiangling naval army that went out of the village to pursue had two Mengchong warships, it only brought more than 50 large and small warships, and the strength of such a naval force was only six or seven thousand people, and it was obvious that after detecting the abnormal movement of the Baqiu naval army, they hurriedly attacked and pursued.

They don't have many troops, and the purpose is not to eliminate the supporting naval army sent by Zhu Ran, most likely they want to catch up and drag the supporting naval army, wait for the large army to catch up after completing the combat preparations, and attack together.

Therefore, it is not difficult for Zhu Ran to intercept such a hastily dispatched naval army with 10,000 sailors in his hand.

And then, according to Zhu Ran's prediction, this Jiangling naval army should take the initiative to retreat to Shuizhai when the interception is fruitless. After all, regardless of the size of the troops or the number of ships, such a naval army could not be the opponent of the Baqiu naval army at all.

But. The situation is abrupt.

Seeing that Zhu Ran led the remaining Baqiu naval army into battle, Zhong Limu, the naval army that intercepted his own department, sneered slightly, and immediately ordered the whole army to attack.

From the very beginning, Zhong Limu's military order was not to pursue any supporting naval army, but the interception naval army under Zhu Ran's command.

Regarding the tendency of Zhu Ran's navy to use troops, Yang Wei and Zhong Limu have discussed and simulated it many times.

Since receiving the news from the main camp of Wulin and learning that the army has begun to feint against Jiangxia, Yang Wei and Zhong Limu have made a lot of analysis of Zhu Ran's possible reaction and formulated quite a lot of response plans.

In this way, except for Zhu Ran's choice to continue to stay in Baqiu and be unmoved, no matter what choice Zhu Ran makes, whether to divide troops to support Jiangxia, or the whole army to support Jiangxia, the Jiangling Navy is the current tactic.

That is, first send Zhong Limu to lead a small number of naval forces to attack and attract the enemy to besiege, and then Yang Wei led a large army to follow, counter-encircling these Eastern Wu naval forces, and fighting an inside and outside combination.

In order to ensure that Zhong Limu can better implement this goal of attracting the enemy to besiege, the sailors arranged by Yang Wei for Zhong Limu are the most effective old sailors who survived the last Jiangling Water Battle.

Originally, Zhong Limu was still a little worried.

Once Zhu Ran chooses to let the 20,000 Baqiu Navy Army pour out of the nest and all go to support Jiang Xia, then Zhong Limu's troops are too small, and the warships are not enough, he is not sure if he can hold on to the siege of 20,000 people until Yang Wei leads the main force to help, and he can't guarantee that in that case, he can still have the combat strength to cooperate with Yang Wei in the internal and external cooperation war.

But God helps.

Zhu Ran chose to divide his troops, sent 10,000 sailors to Jiangxia, and led the remaining 10,000 sailors to stay. Zhong Limu's 7,000 people may not be able to entangle 20,000 people, but the 10,000 left-behind naval troops who entangle you Zhu Ran are not a problem at all.

Zhu Ran's navy was instantly entangled by the seven thousand Jiangling navy led by Zhong Limu.

In the face of such a sudden change, Zhu Ran was only slightly stunned, and then immediately made a change.

Zhu Ran ordered the front army fleet to immediately launch a counterattack to repel those Jiangling naval forces that were already jumping out of the side and fighting in close combat, and the rear army fleet quickly spread to the two flanks of the front army, suppressing the follow-up fleet of the Jiangling naval army with bows and arrows to prevent them from approaching and entanglement again.

The purpose is one, to get rid of the entanglement of these Jiangling water armies as soon as possible, and quickly return to Baqiu Water Village.

It's not that Zhu Ran doesn't have the confidence to solve the Jiangling Navy of Zhongli's Mu Department, what Zhu Ran is really worried about is the main force of the Jiangling Navy that follows.

Once the naval army of Zhongli Musuo's department is counterattacked here, it is possible to completely annihilate this Jiangling naval army, but after facing the main force of the Jiangling naval army, I am afraid it will not be so easy to fight.

Of course, Zhu Ran still has the confidence and certainty to win, but after all, the Jiangling Navy has a numerical advantage, and the Navy in his hand now has not many troops, even if it is a two-to-one battle loss, Zhu Ran is a little unable to exhaust the other side.

If all the sailors are exhausted, Zhang Xi on the other side of Ulin may really be able to rely on fishing boats and sampans to cross the river and attack Changsha.

Therefore, for the sake of insurance, Zhu Ran chose to withdraw first and not get too entangled with the Jiangling Navy.

One thing to say, Zhu Ran's judgment is not wrong, but he just miscalculated a little. The front of his navy did not easily defeat the gangside melee of the Gangneung navy as he imagined.

The two sides actually played a draw, and they are still entangled.

And the naval troops sent by Zhu Ran to the two wings and suppressed with arrows were not able to stop the approach of the Jiangling naval warships. This group of Jiangling sailors is like they don't want to die, they are still desperately trying to narrow the gap with the two wings of the Soochow naval warships, and they also want to jump in close combat.

These Gangneung sailors are a little too desperate, right?!

Zhu Ran was quite surprised, the Jiangling Navy two years ago didn't have such a strong will to fight, right?!

Yes, it's just the will to fight, not the combat effectiveness Under the precise arrow attack of the Soochow Navy, the soldiers on the warships of the Gangneung Navy's warships have been constantly battered, and the density and speed of the arrow counterattack are far inferior to the Soochow Navy.

But they just fought hard all the way to the battle, and they rushed up.

The combat regulations of the Gangneung Navy stipulate that the main general will be in front of the attack. Zhong Limu is now on the central front, personally jumping out of the board for close combat, and the Jiangling naval army on the left and right flanks, no matter what difficulties they encounter, they can't easily retreat.

This is one of the reasons why Yang Wei dared to boast in front of Zhang Xi, saying that the combat power of the Jiangling Navy is not inferior to that of the Eastern Wu Navy now, and the soul of this army has finally been trained by Yang Shu.

Although there is still a gap between the individual's combat experience and combat ability compared with the Soochow Naval Army, Yang Wei chose to make up for it in terms of fighting will.

Of course, there are good and bad things about this.

The advantage is that as long as Zhong Li Mu can always take the lead and fight to the death at the forefront, he can inspire the will to fight of all the Jiangling Navy soldiers.

The downside is . Once Zhong Limu is killed, there is a high probability that this army will not have the courage to continue fighting.

But at least, now that Zhong Limu is still fighting, the Jiangling naval army on both wings cannot retreat.

And this kind of deadly tactics made Zhu Ran moved for a while, but then, Zhu Ran also made his own decision.

Since you can't get rid of it, forget it. Isn't it just a gangside melee combat, who is afraid of whom?

The Soochow Navy is the best in the world, but it is not shot by archery.

Jumping side melee combat, that is the old tradition of our Soochow naval army.

It's also time for this new group of Jingzhou sailors to understand how their predecessors were overwhelmed by the gangside melee of the Dongwu navy.

Zhu Ran gave an order, and the warships on both wings gave up archery and took the initiative to rush forward.

One left and one right, the two generals assaulted together.

One is Liulu, and the other is himself.

Don't forget, Zhu Ran was valued and promoted by Sun Quan back then, but it was also his own martial arts.

At this point, the Soochow Navy and the Gangneung Navy were in full swing.

And as soon as Zhu Ran responded like this, the pressure on the Jiangling Navy increased sharply.

The commanders and generals of the unified army are all fighting on the front line, and the control of the battle situation is naturally not as smooth as when commanding the battle, so the development of the battle situation can only be determined by the individual combat strength and team cooperation of the soldiers.

At this point, the Jiangling Navy is still a lot worse than the Soochow Navy after all.

Zhong Limu could clearly feel that as time went by, what he could see on the battlefield was basically the Eastern Wu Naval Army. This also means that his own naval army is about to be unable to maintain the defensive line, and there are not many of his own soldiers left by Zhong Limu's side.

If this continued, Zhong Limu wondered if he would be able to hold on until the arrival of the main army of the sheep.

And at this time. On the west side of the battlefield, a large naval fleet appeared in the field of vision of the warring parties.

After all, Yang Wei rushed to the battlefield before Zhong Limu was defeated by the Eastern Wu Navy.

(End of chapter)