Three Kingdoms: I choose Xiao Qiao and Da Qiao, why are you crying, Diao Chan?

Chapter 277 Reward according to merit! (Thanks to Zhang Fei who eats pudding for the monthly ticket support~)

"Hahahaha...Okay! I, the Little Overlord of Jiangdong, am waiting for you, Excellency!"

After Sun Ce finished speaking, he immediately reunited with Zhou Yu and others.

Ma Chao escorted Huangfu Song as they continued to break out to the north.

Although Sun Ce's ambush caught the enemy by surprise, Zhu Jun and Huangfu Song still had more than 20,000 people left.

In the end, Sun Ce and his men killed and captured five to six thousand enemy troops!
But the remaining 10,000-plus enemy troops still rushed into the medicinal forest and escaped.

Sun Ce did not pursue further, but took more than 3,000 prisoners to join Hao Meng's army in the rear.

Hao Meng bowed to Sun Ce and Ji Ling, Pan Zhang, Xu Sheng and others who were not far away.
"If it weren't for the help from you generals, I would have been defeated... Thank you so much."

Zhou Yu smiled and waved his hand:

"We are all family, General Hao, you don't have to be polite.

"Today, our army is no longer limited to a few counties like it was in the past.

“Even the imperial army is not as strong as ours!

“What’s more, our army is the defending party.

"Unless the enemy's troops are several times larger than ours, how can they defeat us?"

When everyone heard this, they all laughed and were very happy.

At this time, Hao Meng said somewhat unwillingly:
"Now that the enemy has been defeated, they must have retreated to Henan.

"Chenliu County should only have 3,000 defenders now. Should our army take this opportunity to recapture it?"

Zhou Yu waved his hand directly:

“Chenliu County is in a bad location, unless our army captures Henan County or the two states of Chen and Liang.

"Otherwise, Chenliu would be hard to defend without support from other territories.

"And after this battle, our army needs to make some adjustments to prevent the enemy's next wave of attacks!"

Seeing Zhou Yu say this, Hao Meng could only sigh and nod.

As the victorious party, he ordered his soldiers to immediately clean up the battlefield, treat the wounded, and count the losses...

In this battle, Lu Bu's army deployed a total of 54,000 soldiers.

More than 18,000 people were killed or seriously wounded in the battle, but 5,000 enemy soldiers were captured on the battlefield, with a net loss of 13,000 people.

The imperial court deployed 37,000 troops and suffered a net loss of 26,000, exactly twice the loss of Lu Bu's army!

I have to say, this was a great victory.

Fortunately, they decided to abandon Chenliu County early on, forcing the enemy to leave 3,000 troops to guard Chenliu County.

Otherwise, if the enemy had another 3,000 men, the Two Dragons Out of Water Formation might have been broken even faster, and the outcome of the battle would have been uncertain...

After cleaning up the battlefield, everyone dug pits and buried a total of more than 30,000 corpses from both sides.

Zhou Yu looked at the blood that had dyed the entire Wo River red, sighed and shook his head.

It is not an exaggeration at all that one general's success is based on the sacrifice of hundreds of soldiers!
But if you want to conquer the world, these sacrifices are inevitable.

I just hope there will be fewer large-scale melees in the future.

Otherwise, not only will it cause serious losses to the troops, but it will also easily cause the outbreak of plague...

After the army completed the inventory, they returned directly to Yingchuan.

After learning that the army had returned victoriously, Lu Bu personally went out of the city to greet everyone.

After listening to Hao Meng's report of the specific situation, Lu Bu looked at the dejected Hao Meng, smiled and patted him on the shoulder:

“Although you still lack in command and dispatch of the army.

"But at least you can trust your men and let them command the troops.

"This is worthy of praise!"

Hearing what Lu Bu said, Hao Meng smiled and scratched his head.

"So... your merits and demerits offset each other! I won't give you any reward this time. Do you have any objections?"

A hint of disappointment suddenly appeared on Hao Meng's face, but he still nodded respectfully.

After all, as the commander this time, he did not play the role he should have played.

If his abilities were stronger, perhaps fewer people would have died... Lu Bu did not comfort Hao Meng too much, and then looked at the other people who had made great contributions.

Ji Ling, Pan Zhang and Sun Ce performed normally.

What was surprising was Xu Sheng's strategy of setting up the "Two Dragons Emerging from Water Formation" and Zhu Ran's strategy of offering the "Thick Tobacco Man".

"Wen Xiang."

Lu Bu called out Xu Sheng's name.

Xu Sheng immediately stepped forward and looked at the man in front of him expectantly.

"You performed very well in this battle. I will promote you from Wu Meng Xiao Lieutenant to Lieutenant General!"

Hearing that he was finally promoted to the rank of general, Xu Sheng knelt on one knee in surprise:
"Thank you, my lord!"

After Lu Bu helped Xu Dabao up, he looked at Zhu Ran, a young general who was only fourteen years old.

Zhu Ran is actually the son of Zhu Zhi's sister, and his real name is Shi Ran.

Just because Zhu Zhi had no children, Zhu Zhi adopted Shi Ran as his son and changed his surname to Zhu Ran.

"Zhu Ran."

Lu Bu called out the young general's name.

The young general's face was filled with uncontrollable surprise, and he immediately came up to Lu Bu and saluted with his fists.

Lu Bu looked at the young general in front of him with admiration.

It is unexpected that this person in history followed Lu Meng to capture and kill Guan Yu, and followed Lu Xun to defeat Liu Bei in the Battle of Yiling.

Later, facing the siege of famous Wei generals Cao Zhen, Zhang He and others, he held out for six months.

It is amazing that he can have such outstanding strategies at such a young age!

However, Zhu Ran is now only a dubo, or a centurion.

In addition, he was still young, so Lu Bu smiled and asked:

"If I promote you to captain, can you command a thousand men?"

Zhu Ran replied confidently:

"If you can't lead a mere thousand men, how can you be a great general in the future?"

"it is good!"

Lu Bu was quite satisfied with Zhu Ran's answer:

"Then I will promote you to captain, in charge of 500 infantry and 500 cavalry!"

Zhu Ran was overjoyed and immediately knelt on one knee to thank Lu Bu:

"Thank you, my lord!"

After Lü Bu personally rewarded the two, he said to the others:

"The rest will be rewarded according to their merits! I have already prepared a celebration banquet and am waiting for the generals to return!"

Having said that, Lu Bu entered the city surrounded by people talking and laughing.

And the other side.

Zhu Jun and Huangfu Song had already led the remaining troops back to Xinzheng County.

Zhu Jun slammed his helmet to the ground and said angrily:
"We lost more than 26,000 men in one battle. How can we face the emperor again?"

Huangfu Song was also dejected, covering the wound on his Adam's apple, and said in a hoarse voice:

"I didn't expect the enemy to have such a strong force and so many talented generals!
"Our army lost because we didn't know the enemy well enough..."

The two main generals were reflecting on their mistakes, but Jia Xu, who was standing aside, put his hands in his sleeves, closed his eyes and said nothing.

Seeing Jia Xu's attitude, Zhu Jun couldn't help but say:

"As the chief counselor of the imperial court, don't you have anything to say?
“This general said before that the focus of the attack would be on Nanyang.

"As a result, you insisted on suggesting that we attack the enemy from both sides at Wohe River, which resulted in our army being defeated...

"If Your Majesty knew about this, how would you respond?"

Hearing what Zhu Jun said, Jia Xu was silent for a moment, and a hint of viciousness gradually emerged in his eyes:
"I have a plan that can minimize the losses in this battle. I wonder if the two generals would like to hear it?"

(End of this chapter)