My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 252: Zhou Lang was a coward who protected the remaining soldiers and burned the ships after losing the battle

After the failure of the siege that day, Zhou Yu stayed quiet for several days. While reflecting on himself, he arranged to blockade Guangling City and spread false information to lure the enemy.

On Chen Deng's side, seeing that Zhou Yu was not attacking aggressively and there was no chance for him to continue to take advantage of his rest and kill a large number of Jiangdong troops, he became a little impatient and tried to send people to break out of the city in the middle of the night to raid the camp and launch a surprise attack.

However, Zhou Yu's defense was tight, and Chen Deng attempted a sneak attack on the main camp in the south city and the new camp outside the north gate, but both attempts ended in failure, so he decisively stopped. Fortunately, the losses were not great, only about a hundred people were lost each time, and although they were all elite soldiers, the losses were stopped in time.

In history, Chen Deng also used the tactic of raiding the enemy's camp in the middle of the night when defending against Sun Ce's all-out attack on Guangling. This can only be regarded as the original inertia of history. One would never give up until he has tried it.

Because of the butterfly effect, when Sun Ce personally attacked the city, Zhou Yu was not in charge. Sun Ce was much more reckless than Zhou Yu, so it was understandable that he was attacked. Now it was the cautious Zhou Yu who was in charge. After ten days of siege, he was still able to stay highly alert every night. Chen Deng had to admire him.

The two sides continued to fight on a small scale until the end of March. Chen Deng felt that there was no point in wasting time like this, so he wanted to find another way to undermine Zhou Yu's confidence and the morale of the Jiangdong Army.

Chen Deng had a clear idea of his position: it was impossible for him to defeat Zhou Yu, a wise general who was well-balanced and had a force advantage of more than five times. His main task was to tire out the enemy and make them lose their morale. As long as the morale dropped to the critical point, when Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu's main forces came to double-team, Zhou Yu would be defeated.

So, on March 27th, while the Jiangdong army organized another tentative siege, Chen Deng personally went to the city to supervise the battle and organized a large number of scolding men in advance.

Zhou Yu on the opposite side led more than 10,000 soldiers, pushing ladders, battering rams, rattan shields and long shields, with gongs and drums beating, and made all preparations for the attack.

Before the battle, Chen Deng ordered dozens of his followers to shout in unison: "Zhou Yu! You have failed miserably in the previous attacks, are you going to let the Jiangdong men die in vain? You just want to completely surround Guangling and make General Fubo mistakenly believe that Guangling is in danger and rush to rescue it.

I think you should save some energy, General Fubo will be here soon! In the next few days! You don't need to lure the enemy! You have already fallen into General Fubo's trap!"

Zhou Yu, who was on the other side, was also just bluffing, mostly for the scouts of Liu Bei's army outside the encirclement, so that the garrisons in the counties around Guangling could send back false news to Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu. Zhou Yu was a little angry after being exposed by Chen Deng.

"Don't believe the villain's nonsense! Our army has not fallen into the trap!" Zhou Yu subconsciously shouted orders to the generals around him, but soon realized that such words had no effect.

Everyone had their own ideas about whether they had been tricked or not. Moreover, the other party had exposed Zhou Yu's intention in public, which obviously made the Jiangdong Army soldiers suspicious.

Zhou Yu originally wanted to ignore it, but when he saw that this was not going to work, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and have his men prepare large, sturdy shields in formation to protect him as he moved forward.

A hundred or so loudmouths were urgently arranged to have a verbal battle with Chen Deng to boost morale.

Zhou Yu came to the city wall two or three hundred steps away, and with the shield array as protection, he retorted loudly: "Chen Deng! Don't be so arrogant. You also failed twice in the previous few days and suffered heavy casualties. Guangling rats are no match for us Jiangdong men! If it weren't for the strong city, your few men would have been turned into dust long ago!"

Right from the start, Zhou Yu talked about the results of Chen Deng's attempt to sneak into the camp a few days ago, trying to restore morale. These words were mostly spoken to his own people.

Zhou Yu then immediately changed the subject and retorted: "If you are saying that Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu had long planned to come to Guangling to rescue and fight me, then Guangling has been under siege for nearly half a month, why didn't they come?

It's because they can't beat me in a naval battle! Otherwise, the distance from Wuhu to Guangling is less than 300 miles, and the warships can go downstream in two days. Soldiers, Liu Bei's navy is a cowardly bunch, and we Wuhui warriors don't have to worry! No one can defeat us on the river!"

Zhou Yu's words, accompanied by the shouts of dozens of scolding fighters, spread throughout the three armies and for a moment boosted the morale of the Jiangdong soldiers.

Everyone thought about it and it made sense. Chen Deng said that what was happening was what Zhuge Jin was happy to see, and that a naval battle was what the enemy wanted, so why didn't they come? The enemy must be afraid of us!

However, Chen Deng could answer Zhou Yu's hypothesis. He just laughed a few times, and when the noise in the hall died down a little, he said leisurely:
"You want to know what General Fubo is waiting for? Very well! I will let you know clearly - General Fubo is of course waiting for the news of the war between Yuan and Cao to spread throughout Jiangdong, waiting for you to find out that Cao's army did not invade Xiapi and Donghai counties at all, and everything was General Fubo's trick to lure the enemy!

The great Han soldiers in Jiangdong, Cao Cao has deceived the emperor and has been ordered to attack him. General Yuan has already led an army of 300,000 and crossed the Yellow River. Now I am afraid he has already captured Yanjin and Baima! The generals of chariots and cavalry and the generals, together, have received the secret order to kill the traitor!

You have boarded the traitor's ship and have been deceived by Cao! Cao Cao is letting Sun Ce fight the General of Chariots and Cavalry alone and hold him back so that he can have a chance to survive and fight the general! "

Chen Deng asked the scolds to shout these words openly in front of the two armies, which finally loosened the formation of the Jiangdong soldiers a little.

Zhou Yu on the other side was even more confused. In the ten days since he attacked Guangling, some news from the north had indeed been transmitted through Liu Bei's occupied area. Zhou Yu also felt that Cao's army had not engaged in a large-scale battle with Liu Bei, or at least Cao Cao's propaganda was exaggerated.

But Zhou Yu knew that this mattered to the morale of the army. Since the battle had already begun, he should not hesitate. So he did his best to block the news and prevent the army from discussing the progress of the battle between Cao Cao and Liu Bei.

Even when some of his generals occasionally asked him privately, he would just make some empty promises, saying things like "I heard that Cao Gong has already captured Xia Pi City, and the reinforcements of Liu Bei's army in the three counties of Xuzhou will be attracted to the northern line and will not come to reinforce Guangling."

Now that Chen Deng has exposed the truth in public, how can Zhou Yu not be anxious?
At this point, he had no choice but to launch a powerful and fierce attack in today's battle. If he continued to make a lot of noise but did little, the people under him would definitely doubt whether what the enemy said was true and whether Commander Zhou was guilty.

"Don't listen to this bastard's nonsense! Attack with all your might! Attack at all costs! The first one to reach the summit will be rewarded with a hundred gold coins! The one who kills Chen Deng will be rewarded with a hundred gold coins!"

The generals around Zhou Yu all felt that today's hasty decision to launch an all-out attack regardless of casualties was a bit unwise, but they also knew that they could not show weakness at this time, otherwise once the morale of the army was shaken, it would be a serious matter, so they had no choice but to bite the bullet and fight on.

Ge's bus had already been completely destroyed, and now they could only rely on traditional ladder trucks and piles of people to attack. How difficult would that be?

A few days ago, Zhou Yu managed to reduce the casualties by several hundred people by fighting at night to guard against Chen Deng's surprise attack on the camp. Today's strong attack at least cost him several times as many.

Moreover, because the Jiangdong Army had recently made arrangements for rotating night shifts, many soldiers were not in good spirits during the day and did not expect that the feint attack would suddenly turn into a strong attack. The troops were not in good condition and suffered even greater losses in the fighting.

Both sides fired bows and crossbows, arrows covered the sky, rows of soldiers were shot and fell from the ladders and flying ladders, or were killed or injured by rolling logs, stones and gold juice. The scene was horrific.

Even at this point, Chen Deng had no intention of stopping, and he was still letting the scolds wait for an opportunity to yell and shake the enemy's morale:
"My little Zhou Yu! I am not afraid to tell you that General Fu Bo had already made a plan before the battle. He told me to hold on alone for half a month. When your troops are exhausted and discouraged, he will bring reinforcements to reap the harvest! General Taishi on the northern front will also march south from Huaiyin to Guangling in five days to attack us from both sides!

By then, you will know that there is no Cao army attacking Huaibei! General Taishi's troops can come whenever they want! Just wait for me to be besieged on three sides! If you don't leave within five days! The end result will be annihilation of the whole army!"

The words that Chen Deng had people shouting could not be heard by the Jiangdong army soldiers in the distance because of the loud shouting and the sound of drums and gongs. However, the soldiers fighting on the nearby ladders could still hear them to some extent, but they failed to spread.

After bringing back this news, if Zhou Yu backs down and withdraws his troops within five days, then they will be completely defeated in this battle.

If they did not withdraw their troops, in five days, Zhuge Jin, Guan Yu and Taishi Ci would really contact each other and rush to Guangling battlefield to reinforce. By then, the Jiangdong army would naturally think of Chen Deng's warning today, and they would know that what Chen Deng said was true, Zhou Yu really fell into the trap, and all this was a trap from the beginning.

By then, even if a decisive battle still had to be fought, the Jiangdong Army soldiers were in a panic, and they all started fighting with the mentality of "our army has fallen into a trap", and their fighting will and resilience were at least cut in half.

Zhou Yu is now in a difficult situation.

……

After a whole day of bloody attacks and fighting, the Jiangdong army was defeated again, and Zhou Yu had to pull his troops back to lick his wounds.

A day of assault only saved a little face and diverted everyone's attention from the question of "whether our army had fallen into a trap." But the casualty exchange ratio was definitely a net loss.

After returning to the camp, Zhou Yu was in a dilemma. Huang Gai, Ling Cao and a few other trusted generals came to check on the situation, hoping that Zhou Yu would make a decision.

"Commander-in-chief, do we still want to continue the siege? If Taishi Ci, Zhuge Jin, and Guan Yu do not show up in five days, Chen Deng's lies can be exposed and our army's morale can be boosted. But if the enemy reinforcements really arrive, the soldiers will definitely think that our army has fallen into a trap! The soldiers will have no will to fight!"

"Yes, why has there been no movement in Huaibei so far? Could it be that Cao's army really did not cooperate with us at all, and we were deceived by Cao from the beginning to the end? Chen Deng shamelessly disclosed this "prophecy" today, just to wait for it to come true and shake our army, right?"

Zhou Yu's face turned pale, and he grasped a celadon wine pot with his fingers tightly. He knocked it hard and smashed it on the table, and the remaining wine splashed all over the floor. "I can't take risks with the lives of the remaining 25,000 soldiers. Let's take a day off tomorrow, give emergency bandages to the wounded, and urgently find out the latest progress of Cao's army. If it is confirmed that no progress of Cao's army has been found, we will withdraw the army back to Jiangnan the day after tomorrow!
I will shoulder the responsibility for the loss of 5,000 soldiers! Please ask Bofu to demote me and give me the military power, and let General Cheng and General Huang take charge of the army! I will also ask Lord Xu and Lord Zhu to assist me. "

Huang Gai had to be humble after hearing this. At the same time, he was also worried that Zhou Yu would fall into Chen Deng's trap again and be tricked into retreating, so he couldn't help but remind him:
"Commander-in-chief, could this be a false alarm by Chen Deng? Maybe he is afraid that we will continue to surround us, so he wants to use this trick to break the siege."

Zhou Yu shook his head: "Not really. Today our army has once again launched a desperate attack, with nearly 2,000 casualties. The price is heavy! But the defense of Guangling City shows no signs of impending collapse. Moreover, from the mouths of a few captives who fell into the city, we also learned that there is no shortage of food in Guangling City, especially salted fish. How could Chen Deng be afraid of being surrounded?
He was only afraid that our army would attack at all costs. But it was impossible for our army to really suffer 10,000 or 20,000 casualties and swallow Guangling by force. If we did that, our military strength would be weakened to a very dangerous level, and we might not even be able to defend the three counties of Wuhui.

Moreover, Guangling County began to experiment with rice-wheat rotation in the winter of the year before last, and last winter was the second round. The winter wheat planted in October will be harvested at the end of April or early May this year, and then the rice will be planted.

Our attack this time happened to be after the people in Guangling had started to grow rice seedlings in the spring and before the wheat harvest in early summer. Unless our army could hold out the siege until early May and then harvest all the ripe wheat in Guangling, Chen Deng would not be short of food.

It is only the end of March, and there is still more than a month before the wheat is ripe. No matter how slow Zhuge Jin is, he cannot wait until the wheat is ready to be harvested before coming to reinforce. Our army is doomed to not wait until the wheat is ripe. "

After hearing this, Huang Gai remained silent and admitted that what Zhou Yu said was right.

Zhou Yu was indeed able to let go of things. After knowing that he had lost, he was willing to admit his guilt and punishment and withdraw his troops to stop the losses.

In the next two days, the Jiangdong Army worked hard to treat the wounded and intensify their investigation. Two days later, the wounded were almost all bandaged, and Zhou Yu also confirmed that he had not found any news that Cao's army had made progress in Huaibei. Finally, he gave up and retreated as planned.

Unexpectedly, an accident happened on the night when Zhou Yu's army was planning to retreat overnight.

Zhou Yu was already very cautious and planned to cover the retreat himself while letting the troops leave in batches.

But it would definitely take a whole night to get a force of 25,000 people on board. After all, there were only a few berths at the dock, and it was impossible for all the ships to dock at the same time. It was also impossible for the soldiers to swim from the sandbar to the deep water to board the ships.

What's even more terrible is that in order to prevent Chen Deng from seeing in advance that he was going to leave, Zhou Yu did not dare to let the troops that had blocked the three gates of Guangling, east, west and north, retreat early during the day. All this had to wait until nightfall.

Perhaps the movement was not secretive enough, or perhaps the scouts of Liu Bei's army outside the encirclement were too active, Chen Deng finally discovered that Zhou Yu was about to leave, and sent troops out of the city and attacked in the direction of the port.

Zhou Yu personally covered the rear and fought with Chen Deng for a while, thus avoiding a disastrous defeat from being attacked halfway across the river, but there were still some casualties.

Zhou Yu himself was able to remain calm, but the other troops under his command who wanted to retreat were unable to do so and were ambushed as they were about to leave. Who would be willing to fight to the death?
In the melee, the Jiangdong army lost more than a thousand people, while Chen Deng only paid a maximum of three or four hundred.

Moreover, the reinforcements that Chen Deng mentioned had actually already been mobilized to the vicinity a long time ago, but it was not yet the agreed date for the general attack, so they remained on hold.

For example, Taishi Ci's troops had agreed before the battle to wait half a month after Guangling was besieged and then attack Zhou Yu together after he was exhausted. At this moment, Taishi Ci, with several thousand reinforcements, had stationed in Sheyang County, which bordered Guangling to the north. However, Taishi Ci was very low-key and did not reveal that he had returned long ago, but he also sent scouts to the south every day.

After discovering that the Jiangdong Army had withdrawn, Taishi Ci immediately dispatched cavalry to pursue the part of the Jiangdong Army that had camped along the Han Canal to the north of Guangling City. That group of Jiangdong Army had no more than 3,000 men, and ultimately they were unable to retreat in time, and more than half of them were killed by Taishi Ci in the darkness.

By the time Taishi Ci defeated the retreating troops and fought all the way to Guangling City to join forces with Chen Deng, Zhou Yu had already abandoned the last nearly 1,000-man beachhead retreat force and decisively crossed the Yangtze River to the south.

There were more than a hundred large and small boats on the river bank. Some of them were left empty after the soldiers were killed, or they could not be sailed away in the chaos. They were either seized or burned by Chen Deng's soldiers. The fire illuminated the sky north of the river red.

When Taishi Ci saw Chen Deng, he complained: "What's going on? Didn't we agree that after the siege of the city for fifteen days, General Guan and I would attack Guangling together and attack the enemy by land and sea? Why did Zhou Yu suddenly leave early? General Guan's sailors should still be lying in ambush in Chu County upstream. Even if we sail downstream to kill them overnight, we may not be able to stop them!"

Chen Deng was also a little surprised: "I told Zhou Yu all this that day in order to seduce him into a strong attack and scare him. I was really fake and real. I was especially careful and told him for two more days in order to undermine Zhou Yu's morale. If he doesn't believe this, when the day of the decisive battle comes, and General Guan and General come together, his whole army will know that they have been tricked, and their morale will collapse.

I didn't expect Zhou Yu to be so scared. He believed me and didn't dare to take a gamble! And he left so quickly! Fortunately, our army attacked today, which was basically a free business. We killed another 3,000 to 5,000 enemies. He can only take 20,000 remnants back! If he retreats without any results, there will definitely be someone in the Sun family who wants to hold him accountable and remove his military power! If someone else leads the troops, it will be easier to fight next time!"

Taishi Ci shook his head when he heard this, but he couldn't blame Chen Deng. Chen Deng was flexible and said half the truth and half the lies. During the quarrel in front of the battle, he also slightly adjusted the date of his confession by a few days. He just didn't expect Zhou Yu to be too timid and cautious.

It is common in the military to use tricks to make a big profit and scare off the enemy, but end up with only a small profit.

For Zhuge Jin's teammates, there is no such thing as "victory and defeat are common in the military", only "winning more or losing less is common in the military".
We failed to fully implement the pre-war plan, swallowed up all the enemies, and made less profit, which is also a loss.

On the other hand, that night on the Yangtze River, Guan Yu’s army also discovered something unusual and set out overnight, going downstream for dozens of miles in an attempt to intercept and kill the enemy.

In fact, Guan Yu's 8,000 navy troops had been ambushed in the Chushui River many days ago, in the last tributary fork on the north bank of the upper reaches of Guangling. In order to conceal their whereabouts, they waited for the decisive battle day agreed upon before the war to attack in a coordinated manner.

Finally, it was discovered that Zhou Yu's main force had escaped. Guan Yu pursued them frantically, but he was only able to catch up with the rear army. He managed to intercept and kill a dozen of Zhou Yu's warships and dozens of small boats, and annihilate one or two thousand people. He had to withdraw his troops regretfully.

After returning, Guan Yu immediately complained to Zhuge Jin about the regret that the results of the decisive battle were not great enough.

Zhuge Jin later spent several days figuring out the situation and did not punish Chen Deng. He simply told him to be careful about the scale of his psychological warfare in the future and not to use too many tricks to scare the enemy away.

But Zhuge Jin was also very clear that in ancient times when communication methods were backward, it was extremely difficult for a party fighting on the front lines to attack from several directions and arrive at the battlefield at the same time.

In ancient wars, the side fighting on the inner front had an absolute advantage in concentrating its forces. My original plan was to launch a joint attack half a month in advance, without information flowing in and out of Guangling, and without being able to adjust the deployment. It was indeed too difficult. Even if Zhou Yu was stopped, if Zhou Yu was not weakened thoroughly enough and his morale was not broken enough, he might still fall into a bitter battle with equal strength.

By then, the number of Jiangdong soldiers killed or injured might be greater, but the cost of their own losses would also be greater.

As it is now, although we have let go of nearly 20,000 of the 30,000 enemy troops, and only annihilated 10,000 of them with small blows, we have paid almost no price, so we should be content.

The inner side has the advantage of being able to adapt to changing circumstances, and this was still the case during the Napoleonic era. It was not until the Civil War, the Prussian-Dutch-Polish-Austrian-Prussian-French War, and the invention of the radio that the outer side had the advantage of massing. Napoleon's military thought was still about the inner side's advantage, but Moltke's military thought became about the outer side's advantage.

Zhuge Jin knew the development of military history, so he would not demand too much from Chen Deng.

All you can do is learn from your mistakes and gradually improve your troops.

"Our military's communication methods are still too backward. It seems that we should raise more carrier pigeons in the future. They can be used in situations like this where we can defend the city at a fixed point and the reinforcements will come on a scheduled date to attack. Once the reinforcement plan outside the city changes, the party inside the city will also know.

Unfortunately, pigeons can only be used to return to a fixed point, and can only deliver messages to troops in the city, but not to mobile troops in the field. In the case of today, if we want to send messages from the Guangling encirclement to the outside world, we need to improve it...

In addition, Yuan Long said that the officers operating technical weapons in the army lacked a mathematical foundation and needed centralized training, which was also a big problem. In the future, the selection of technical soldiers and communications officers must have a separate mechanism. We can no longer let those who have made great contributions, killed more enemies and have more seniority be appointed as officers. Technical officers must have their own training system..."

Zhuge Jin reflected a lot and recorded all the lessons learned from the not-so-successful Battle of Guangling, while thinking about optimization plans.

After seeing Zhuge Jin's self-reflection, Chen Deng felt quite ashamed. The joy of annihilating 10,000 enemy troops was diluted by more problems that needed to be improved.

Chen Deng took the initiative to find Zhuge Jin to admit his mistake: "The victory in this battle is mainly due to Ziyu's divine calculation, proper deployment, and sufficient backup. I wanted to be a little clever and hit Zhou Yu's morale a little more, but in the end I ended up making things worse. I really don't dare to take credit for this battle! It can only be regarded as a small loss for a big loss!"

Zhuge Jin patted Chen Deng on the shoulder and said, "It's right to adapt to circumstances. I didn't forbid you from telling Zhou Yu about our military plan and the reality. Besides, the date you gave was originally false. Zhou Yu was too timid.

Next time, I will discuss with the generals strictly before the battle, which ones must be kept secret and which ones can be used to deceive the enemy. The merits and demerits of the generals in this battle will be judged by the lord after the battle. Now I still have to think about whether there is any other way to seduce Sun Ce to have another water battle.

Zhou Yu's retreat will not be without cost. His status will certainly be severely reduced. He will be held responsible for this defeat. If Sun Ce cannot withstand the pressure and uses other veterans, it may be easier to fight later."

(End of this chapter)