Lu Bu: My wife comes from two thousand years later

Three days later, in the early morning, a group of Jingzhou generals gathered at Shuifeng Port. Gan Ning himself had 2,000 men under his command, and the seven Jingzhou generals who came brought a total of nearly 5,000 men, totaling 7,000 men. Including their families, there were 30,000 to 40,000 men, accompanied by eight large ships, each of which could carry 3,000 men, and more than 200 small and medium-sized ships such as battleships, vanguards, and red horses.

Time was running out, and so many people wanted to get on board, including more than 30,000 of the elderly, the weak, women and children. Xun Chen thought the scene would be very chaotic, but Gan Ning's organizational ability made him look at him with admiration for the second time.

It should be said that not only him, but also his Jinfan pirates, had a clear division of labor, and everyone knew their job clearly. Some divided the family members into teams, and some arranged them to board the ship. There would not be one more or one less on each ship. Judging from this situation, Gan Ning had obviously already roughly calculated the number of people and ships, and arranged which people and how many people would be on each ship in an orderly manner. In about an hour, everyone boarded the ship in an orderly manner.

Gan Ning made such a big fuss that Huang Zu, the prefect of Jiangxia, did not notice anything unusual until last night. He was shocked and angry, and personally led his troops from Xiling to intercept these traitors.

Gan Ning asked Su Fei to take his family away first, and he stayed behind to cover their retreat.

This group of Jinfan bandits had all fought their way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and their combat effectiveness was much stronger than Huang Zu's soldiers. In addition, Gan Ning himself was a master of martial arts and archery. After he shot and killed two of Huang Zu's subordinates in succession, Huang Zu did not dare to pursue him anymore and could only watch him leave.

Gan Ning drove away more than 200 ships from Jiangxia, took away 5,000 soldiers from Jingzhou, and turned to defect to Jingzhou's enemies. This made Huang Zu more and more angry. After thinking about it, he simply sent someone to deliver a declaration of war to Zhou Yu, hoping that Zhou Yu would misunderstand that Gan Ning was sent by himself to attack him.

That’s right, Huang Zu thought that Gan Ning was going to defect to Eastern Wu, and Sun Jian had died at the hands of Huang Zu, so he, like Liu Biao, was extremely wary of Sun Ce.

Gan Ning led the fleet eastward along the river, passed Xiazhi two days later, and entered the territory of Yangzhou four days later and arrived at Chaisang. The scouts arranged by the Eastern Wu here soon discovered the fleet coming from Jingzhou and reported it to Zhou Yu who was clearing out Yuan Shu's remnants in Pengze.

"Are they really sending a large army? How many people are there?"

Zhou Yu asked in great surprise.

More than half a month ago, his subordinates accidentally heard several merchants from Shu complain that Liu Biao had been conducting naval exercises on the river recently, causing their ships to stay in Jingzhou for a month, resulting in the loss of a lot of men, horses and supplies.

When he heard the news, his first reaction was: This was a rumor deliberately spread by Liu Biao in order to deter Sun Ce from advancing into Jingzhou.

Later, he thought that it might be because of Yuan Shu's downfall that Liu Biao felt the pressure from Eastern Wu and wanted to take the initiative while Eastern Wu had not yet established a firm foothold in Yangzhou.

However, after receiving the declaration of war from Huang Zu yesterday, he felt that there was something fishy about this matter. If the other party really wanted to attack Dongwu, why would they send a declaration of war in advance?

With the world in such turmoil at this point, who would still care about etiquette? Jingzhou's warships and naval forces are far superior to those of Eastern Wu. Wouldn't it be better to just send them and catch them off guard?

However, he had just received the declaration of war yesterday, and the navy arrived today. It seemed that he was indeed caught off guard, but he still felt that this matter was a bit strange, but he couldn't tell what was strange about it.

The man replied, "There are over 200 ships of various sizes, including eight tower ships, with an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 men!"

Zhou Yu's expression darkened. He stood up and ordered, "Beat the drums! Send out the troops! Send a quick message to Poyang. Have Ling Cao mobilize his troops and go around the west side of Poyang Lake to the upper reaches to block the enemy's retreat."

Although the remaining forces of Yuan Shu in Yuzhang have not been completely dealt with, when Zhou Yu received the declaration of war yesterday, he temporarily assembled 6,000 troops at Pengze Port just in case. The main force of Eastern Wu is in Pengze area at this time. Zhou Yu has been cleaning up the remnants of Yuan Shu and building military projects recently. He originally planned to attack Jingzhou in the future, but he did not expect Liu Biao to send troops first.

Zhou Yu personally rode his horse to the riverside and looked out from a high place. Sure enough, he saw black spots appearing on the white surface of the river upstream. As the enemy ships got closer, the black spots grew larger and larger. It was undoubtedly the navy of Jingzhou.

On the other hand, Gan Ning was worried about how to pass through the territory of Eastern Wu safely. He had thought about sending someone to say that he was just passing through, but it would be difficult to make the other party believe such a large team. A step further, even if the other party believed it, would they let him go to join Lu Bu?

Although Sun Ce and Lu Bu did not have any grudges, judging from the fact that the Tang Dynasty had been gradually annihilating and annexing surrounding forces over the years, Lu Bu had great ambitions. He would not be satisfied with just ruling one side, which could be seen from his formation of a navy. After eliminating Cao Cao, the next step would be Dongwu and Jingzhou.

The only things that Dongwu can rely on are the natural barrier of the Yangtze River and its navy. Once Lu Bu strengthens his navy, to be honest, Sun Ce will definitely not be able to defeat him, so he will definitely stop himself from joining Lu Bu. His methods are either to surrender or to destroy him!

"Mr. Xun, is there really no way to avoid war with Eastern Wu?" On a large ship, Gan Ning asked Xun Chen again.

Xun Chen shook his head. "There's no way around it. The general is coming with so many warships, it's hard to convince him you're just passing through. Fortunately, Zhou Yu has only recently occupied Lujiang, and the military facilities here are not yet fully built. They've mistakenly thought you were coming to attack him. Given Zhou Yu's character, the focus of his military deployment will surely be on cutting off your retreat, not blocking your path. The general has been active in the martial arts world for nearly a decade, so getting through this situation shouldn't be difficult!"

Gan Ning nodded in agreement. "Sir, your analysis is spot on. If it were me, I wouldn't believe it either. I would definitely wipe out this invading force!"

Zhou Yu's warships were already approaching, and Gan Ning shouted, "Fight!"

The equipment of the navy in this era was not much different from that of the army. The weapons they used were swords, spears, bows and crossbows. Their combat method was to first conduct long-range bow and arrow shooting, and then jump onto the enemy ship for close combat after the ship got close. Of course, there were also tactics of ramming and destroying ships. However, for Zhou Yu and Gan Ning today, they would not adopt this tactic of hurting one thousand enemies and destroying eight hundred of their own.

Zhou Yu was reluctant to give up the navy of Jiangdong because the navy was originally smaller than that of Jingzhou. Gan Ning was also reluctant to give up these because they were gifts he presented to Lu Bu. If he were to attack Soochow on behalf of Liu Biao today, given his extravagant personality, he would definitely use destructive tactics to defeat Soochow with no chance of recovery. Anyway, Liu Biao had plenty of warships, and Soochow could not afford to exchange them one for one.

Gan Ning placed the boat carrying the elderly, the weak, women and children in the middle, and he himself served as the vanguard, facing Zhou Yu's navy head-on. When they had sailed to a certain distance, Gan Ning, hoping with a glimmer of luck, sent a small boat up to announce that he was just passing by.

Yangzhou was already Sun Ce's territory. Except for Cao Cao's Xuzhou and Wujun across the river from Pengze, the rest were all Eastern Wu's territories. It would be strange for Zhou Yu to believe that the other side was passing by with more than 200 warships and 30,000 to 40,000 troops.

However, Gan Ning's action made Zhou Yu even more puzzled. Why was he not seizing the opportunity to fight instead of just chatting? What was going on?

However, in order to buy time so that Ling Cao could cut off the enemy's retreat, he did not immediately attack Gan Ning. Instead, he cooperated with his performance and sent envoys to persuade him to surrender.