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Chapter 2712: Every step was calculated perfectly!
While Wu Ban was sending his men to probe, they had already begun gathering their forces. So, upon seeing the flag signal, they immediately charged towards the naval army.

Lu Meng never expected that a sneak attack would inexplicably turn into a head-on battle!

And that wasn't the worst part. What was even worse was that Lü Meng was traveling on a merchant ship. To make it easier to transport goods, merchant ships didn't have high railings at all. You could say that there was nothing on the deck, and anyone standing on the deck was a target.

Although Wu Ban's navy was estimated to number only two thousand, it was still more than these merchant ships could handle. Moreover, if the warships were to throw oil, their ships would all be burned by the northwest wind.

Therefore, after Wu Ban led his navy to attack, Lü Meng had no choice but to make a tough decision, leaving some ships to resist while leading the rest of his men to escape. This also completely exposed their sneak attack.

After Wu Ban annihilated the dozen or so cargo ships that put up a stubborn resistance, it was too late to catch up with Lü Meng. He knew that catching up would be useless, so he could only return to the water fortress in a huff and sent men to light the beacon fires.

When Guan Yu attacked Fancheng, he set up beacon fires along the way to prevent a surprise attack by the Wu army. Originally, this was just a precaution, but no one expected that their alliance would actually lead to a surprise attack.

As a result, after Wu Ban lit the beacon fire, a beacon fire was set up every once in a while, and the message was quickly transmitted to the public security bureau and Jiangling.

Upon seeing the direction from which the beacon fire was coming, Fu Shiren, recalling the message from Mi Fang, immediately gathered his men and sailed down the Yangtze River, quickly arriving at Sanzhai. Although Mi Fang received the news later that evening, he was the first to personally lead his troops to the scene.

Actually, it's not Mi Fang's fault. In Mi Fang's eyes, the Guan family only had one reasonable person, Guan Yinping. Mi Fang was worried that if something happened to Guan Yinping, not only would this reasonable person be gone, but it would also completely enrage Guan Yu, that stubborn and self-willed guy.

So, after leaving 3,000 men to guard the city, Mi Fang hurriedly led 2,000 men out of Jiangling City. He originally intended to ride at full speed to Sanhu City to bring Guan Yinping back to Jiangling, but when he arrived, he learned that Guan Yinping had already arrived at Sanzhai, so he could only rush over there.

Because the situation was too critical, Mi Fang abandoned his infantry and rushed over with 300 cavalry.

Just as Mi Fang arrived and before she could even speak to Guan Yinping, Fu Shiren also rushed over.

After Fu Shiren and Mi Fang greeted each other, Wu Ban hurriedly stepped forward to report the results of his interrogation.

After Wu Ban finished speaking, he solemnly said, "Lord Mi, General Fu, if it weren't for the Third Miss arranging for the supplies to be unloaded here, we might have really been ambushed by those rats from Jiangdong."

Fu Shiren and Mi Fang were both sweating profusely after hearing this. They never expected that the Jiangdong merchants who had been trading with them frequently would actually cooperate with Lü Meng to launch a sneak attack. This was simply unbelievable.

Fortunately, there was no sneak attack, and everything was in time. Mi Fang quickly asked, "General Wu, where did the Third Miss go?"

Wu Ban solemnly said, "The Third Miss sent someone to tell me to hold the river and not to pursue them. She took her men to Xia Village!"

Fearing the two gentlemen might not understand what was going on, he explained,
"Of the three strongholds, the one closest to the river is Jiang Village, the one closest to the Xia River is Xia Village, and the one in the middle is Zhong Village, which provides support! The three strongholds form a pincer movement, and this should be the place arranged by the Third Miss for the decisive battle with Jiangdong."

Upon hearing Wu Ban's description, Mi Fang immediately understood what Guan Yinping was thinking. Xia Village blocked the waterway from Jiangxia to Nanjun and prevented a direct attack from the Jiangdong people. However, precisely because of its importance, it faced many enemies. Mi Fang remembered that Guan Yinping, the bandit-suppression captain, originally only had a little over three thousand men, and in his opinion, it would only grow to a maximum of over four thousand in six months.

Moreover, these were all bandits who hadn't been trained much, so it was practically impossible for them to have any fighting ability.

Therefore, Mi Fang said to Fu Shiren, "General Fu, please give me two thousand men. I need to go and support the Third Miss. Also, please gather more manpower. Abandon the towns that need to be abandoned. It doesn't matter if Changsha and Lingling are lost. The important thing is to defend Jiangling."

Fu Shiren was now extremely grateful to Guan Yinping. If it weren't for Guan Yinping's sudden move, he might have been surrounded. So, he immediately mobilized two groups of men and said, "Prefect Mi, rest assured, with me here, I will definitely not let the Jiangdong people pass through Gong'an."

Mi Fang nodded heavily, then left with his men. He only hoped they could hold the line; otherwise, Guan Yu's hard-won victory and the chance for the Han Dynasty to rise again would all vanish.

Regardless of what Mi Fang thought, after being exposed, Lü Meng went all out. After retreating to Lukou, he immediately ordered the navy to send the main force to the north bank of the river, and then led the army towards Jiangling.

Lu Meng's plan was simple: to quickly reach Jiangling via Huarong Road. If they were fast enough, they would be able to cut off Guan Yu's connection with Jiangling.

Now that Guan Yu is entangled with Cao Ren and Xu Huang, he has no energy to go south. At that time, Lü Meng believes that as long as he sends envoys to persuade Mi Fang and Fu Shiren, he will definitely be able to get them to surrender.

After all, Guan Yu had already said that he would punish Mi Fang and Fu Shiren severely if he returned.

After all, if the north and south of Nanjun were cut off, Guan Yu's attack would be doomed to failure, and the entire Jingzhou would be lost. Guan Yu might be fine, but Fu Shiren and Mi Fang would probably not escape death.

What Lu Meng didn't expect was that when the 10,000 vanguards he personally led arrived at Huarong, they found that a team was stationed on the narrow Huarong Road, holding a strategic position. Because the road was too narrow, they had no idea how many people were ahead.

Lu Meng launched a probing attack, only to find that the first group of soldiers he sent out were shot dead before they even reached the defenders.

Lu Meng estimated that there were at least three thousand people in Huarong Road.

Lu Meng, after all, had studied military strategy. He knew that although there were only 3000 men guarding Huarong Road, his 10,000 men would not be able to pass through in a short time. If Mi Fang's reinforcements arrived, he would be even less able to pass.

Knowing that the troops in Nan Commandery were few, Lü Meng left 2,000 men to keep an eye on Huarong and tie down that force, while he led the rest of his men to change direction. At the same time, he notified the 20,000 soldiers in the rear to follow.

Lu Meng chose the locations of Wang Yueding's three mountain strongholds, since there were no other passages for the army to pass through.

(End of this chapter)