My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 198 What a coincidence! Cao Cao, you are also attacking at all costs!
When he finally encountered Cao's army in the Daoshui River Valley, Taishi Ci felt relieved:
Finally, the lies told by General Fu Bo and County Magistrate Pang were made up. The Cao army that everyone had been worried about for many days was indeed witnessed by the officials of Jingzhou with their own eyes.

In fact, Taishi Ci had learned about the movements of this group of Cao's troops one day in advance from the scouts he had secretly sent out.

He took Yi Ji up the mountain only after he was sure that Cao's army had really arrived. This was the operational detail that Pang Tong had told him before.

The moment Yi Ji saw Cao's army, his adrenaline surged, and he felt a little nervous, yet also a little lucky: this time it was indeed real, and it was not Liu Bei's army who was tricking the lord. The risk of Cao's army entering the country was real!
It was a close call! Fortunately, he fulfilled his mission and persuaded the Xiling garrison commander to surrender to Guan Yu before Cao's army reached Xiling County!
It seems that the subsequent troubles will be what Liu Bei needs to worry about, and the Jingzhou army can continue to sit on the sidelines and enjoy a few years of peace, allowing Cao and Liu to fight and consume each other first!
The army heading south had few cavalry, perhaps because it was difficult to cross the main ridge of Tongbai Mountain in the north, and horses could not pass through, so most of them were infantry. But the Cao army flag they raised was clear enough.

Xiling County is roughly equivalent to Xinzhou District of Wuhan City in later generations and is part of Hankou.

The location where the Liu and Cao armies met at this moment had no place name at the end of the Han Dynasty. It could only be regarded as a deserted mountain valley in the northern suburbs of Xiling County. But according to the maps of later generations, it is roughly equivalent to Hong'an County in Huanggang City.

After Taishi Ci confirmed the enemy situation, he followed the method Pang Tong had privately told him to deal with and persuaded Yi Ji:

"Sir, you are a civilian official. In such a dangerous situation, it is better not to meet General Cao in person. After all, no one knows the other party's intentions, and it is easy to cause misunderstandings. For your safety, the first round of negotiations will be left to me. If you find that General Cao is easy to talk to and you want to listen to the negotiations between the two sides, I will naturally create conditions for you."

Taishi Ci was not discussing with Yi Ji, he was just informing him. Yi Ji had nothing to say and did not think there was anything wrong with it. He just thought that Taishi Ci wanted to protect him out of caution and kindness.

That's Cao Cao's man! Cao Cao and Liu Biao are currently at war with each other, with Liu Biao supporting Zhang Xiu in his rebellion against the imperial court. If he is detained, it will be troublesome.

On the contrary, there is no overt conflict between Cao Cao and Liu Bei at the moment. Liu Bei's army obeys imperial orders everywhere, and Cao Cao cannot find any handle on him, so there is no reason to provoke him.

When Taishi Ci saw Yi Ji nod, he sent out scouts to contact the other party. After a while, both sides found out each other's identity.

The general who came was Niu Jin, a general under Cao Ren. Cao Ren had been responsible for the winter blockade of the Dabie Mountain and Tongbai Mountain areas in the southern part of Runan County.

After entering April, Cao Cao personally rushed to Runan, took over the command of Cao Ren, and completed the final offensive against Yuan Shu.

But about six or seven days ago, in late April, Cao Ren suddenly received intelligence:
At that time, Cao's army had just surrounded Xinyang County, the last stronghold of Yuan Shu's army. In the previous half month or so, under the personal leadership of Cao Cao, Cao's army had made great progress. If they could only capture Xinyang County, Yuan Shu would be finished.

But at that critical moment, Cao Ren suddenly heard news from the south that some remnants of Yuan Shu's army had broken through into the mountainous area of Jiangxia County, and among them "there were troops suspected to be covering Yuan Shu's own breakout."

Cao Ren did not dare to be careless and immediately reported it to Cao Cao. Cao Cao also took it very seriously and immediately asked to send troops to the south to search and encircle Yuan Shu to ensure that Yuan Shu would not escape.

In fact, Cao Ren received the news quite late. Nearly ten days had passed since Pang Tong first spread the false news on the southern foot of Tongbai Mountain.

But there was no other way, because the roads in the Tongbai Mountains were difficult to travel. Without someone to spread the news deliberately, it would take nearly ten days for the news to spread naturally over a distance of two or three hundred miles.

After receiving the order, Cao Ren immediately sent General Niu Jin and other generals to divide their troops and march south to encircle and search, deep into the valleys of the Tongbai Mountain area. During this period, they did chase down the defeated soldiers of Yuan Shu's army, and completely annihilated and captured them one by one, but they did not find any important figures of Yuan Shu's army.

Finally, on the afternoon of the third day of May, Niu Jin and his troops headed south along the Daoshui River Valley and ran into Taishi Ci who was searching to the north.

When Niu Jin saw the flag with the word "Taishi" on it, he immediately asked the other party where he came from. Taishi Ci also revealed his identity without being servile or arrogant. After the two sides had a cautious contact and cleared up the misunderstanding, Niu Jin asked Taishi Ci whether he had encountered the remnants of Yuan Shu.

Taishi Ci naturally answered righteously: "In the past few days, we did encounter a small group of Yuan rebels fleeing from the mountains, but they were all intercepted and annihilated by our army. Our army has just captured Xiling County for three days, and all the rebels in Jiangxia County have been pacified. Only the isolated county guarded by Huang Zu himself has not been captured yet!
All the counties west of Xiakou have been returned to Liu Jingzhou's direct jurisdiction. Please rest assured that order in Jiangxia has been restored. Our army will deploy troops to guard the valleys and passes of Tongbai Mountain today and will not allow Yuan Ni to escape southward!"

Niu Jin could not help but be disappointed: "What? Yuan Shu didn't break out? It was just some defeated stragglers who fled on their own? You wouldn't have hidden important civil and military officials of Yuan Ni!"

Taishi Ci naturally could not stand such a provocation, and immediately retorted solemnly: "Captain Niu, do you know what you are saying? Even if Yuan Ni came, the General of Chariots and Cavalry and General Annan would kill him if they saw him. How could they protect him? Shouchun was conquered by the General of Chariots and Cavalry!"

Seeing this, Niu Jin didn't say anything more. After all, Liu Bei was known for being the vanguard in the fight against Yuan Shikai and for his hatred of evil.

With Liu Bei's achievements in defeating Yuan Shikai, even Cao Cao had nothing to say, and now the two sides had a good relationship on the surface. Niu Jin did not dare to act rashly and bear the crime of destroying the relationship.

After searching the valley for another day and confirming that the situation was as Taishi Ci had described, Niu Jin went back to report.

In a similar situation, there was another Cao army search force, which also met Guan Yu's occupying army at the source of the upper reaches of the Jushui River valley north of Zhu County and other places. They were told that the south had been occupied by Liu Bei's army and there was no possibility that Yuan Ni had escaped. Then these Cao troops could only go back and report.
It was already the ninth day of May when Cao Ren finished summarizing the information. Only after confirming that it was correct did he dare to report it to Cao Cao.

After hearing this, Cao Cao was relieved but also cursed: "The rumors from the past few days have distracted our army and delayed our troops' attention! From now on, no more excuses are allowed to delay. We must focus on the attack and break through Xinyang, and kill Yuan Shu!"
This villain actually hides in the city and never shows up every day, making our army wonder whether Yuan Shu is really in the city or has escaped. Yuan Shu is really patient enough, doesn't he need to go up to the wall in person to boost the morale of the soldiers defending the city! "

After Cao Cao said this, he was still angry.

He really couldn't help but be angry, because this unexpected news really slowed down his progress in attacking Xinyang County, the last city of Yuan Shu's army.

At that time, Cao Cao thought that Yuan Shu might have escaped, so it would be of little value to spend all his efforts to attack Xinyang County. His goal was not to take a mountain county, but to kill Yuan Shu.

If we can pursue, search and kill Yuan Shu in a field battle, the city will surrender on its own without being attacked.

Due to the division of troops, the speed of conquering Yuan Shu's last city was slowed down by at least ten days. If it weren't for this incident, Yuan Shu would probably have been a corpse by now.

Fortunately, it is not too late now. After Cao Cao got angry, he immediately ordered the entire army to fight fiercely and to the death regardless of casualties, and to kill Yuan Shu as soon as possible.

……

Coincidentally, while Cao Cao was desperately attacking Yuan Shu's last stronghold in Xinyang, Guan Yu's final battle against Huang Zu in the twin cities of Shaxian and Xiakou also entered a new stage.

Six days before Taishi Ci met Niu Jin and sent Yi Ji away, Pang Tong had already proposed a tactical strategy to Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin on the battlefield of Shaxian: "Let the tower ships sail from the Yangtze River into the moat, and then sink themselves in the river to serve as bridge piers, for laying trench bridges and passing heavy equipment."

The battle was interrupted by Yi Ji and delayed for a few days. When Pang Tong came back, all preparations had been completed and they were ready to go into actual combat at any time.

The craftsmen in Guan Yu's army selected four ships from the tower ships seized from Su Fei, two as the first wave and two as spares, and all of them were processed and modified.

The exposed parapets and battlements outside the top deck of the ship had all been sawed off and leveled by carpenters, and the masts on the ship had all been cut down, but the upper deck was retained, as long as the top of the deck was made flat.

The purpose of cutting off those uneven protrusions is to ensure that after the ship sinks to the bottom, when the trench bridge is laid upwards, the pressure is uneven, which may easily cause the trench bridge to break or capsize.

In order to ensure leveling, the craftsmen also laid an extra layer of rammed earth on the cabin roof, and then compacted it with a stone roller, just like building a road, so that the quality of the project is absolutely reliable. Finally, enough ballast stones were pressed on the bottom of the cabin in advance to ensure that the ship would not sink after adding a few hundred stones of load, so that it could be transformed into a sunken bridge pier as quickly as possible after it was in place.

Then, on the second day of May, two strange-looking ships dug a hole in the Yangtze River and sailed directly into the moat of Shaxian City. Since all the masts were cut, they were powered by oars extending from the portholes.

Tight hardwood shields were hung on each porthole to prevent the powerful crossbows of Huang Zu's army on the city wall from injuring the rowers.

The soldiers of Huang Zu's army on the top of the city were also stunned when they saw this scene, and they really shot arrows at the two ships frantically. However, in front of the thick ship planks, it was nothing more than a waste of arrows.

In contrast, the archers of Guan Yu's army could hide in the upper cabin of the tower ship and shoot arrows directly at the top of the city wall through the modified and very small porthole shooting holes. The shielding effect was even better than that of the battlements of the city wall.

After all, battlements can only protect against direct fire, not projectiles, but cabins have roofs, which can also protect against projectiles. As long as there is no sharpshooter who can shoot an arrow into the small hole in the porthole, there will be no threat to the crossbowmen in the cabin.

"Quickly aim the crossbow at the ship and shoot! Pull up the catapult as well! Smash the ship hard!" Huang She on the top of the city wall was anxious and ordered resistance at the top of his voice.

Trebuchets were an equipment that appeared in the late Warring States period. Huang Zu's army attached great importance to long-range firepower, so of course they also had old-fashioned, small trebuchets to help defend the city. However, the tonnage and weight of the stone projectiles fired were less than 20% of the counterweight trebuchets newly built by Guan Yu's army. They could only throw small stones weighing 20 Hanjin, and the range was much shorter.

After a while, the catapults under the command of Huang She also began to output firepower. One stone bullet after another was thrown at the ship. If they encountered weak points in the ship's planks, they could penetrate them, but most of them were portholes, superstructures, and even the main deck.

As for the side of the ship, such a small trebuchet could not penetrate it. Moreover, the angle of incidence was wrong, and the high-throwing stones hit the "waterline armor" of the side of the ship, which easily formed a "ricochet" and then slid directly into the moat.

Huang She's catapult had just started to show its power when Guan Yu's army's counterweight catapult in the distance also began to show its power.

Especially today, Guan Yu's army's counterweight catapults have their own tower ships as cover in front, so they can shoot at closer range without having to worry about being hurt by enemy fire.

The "fire observer" on the tower ship could visually measure the distance of their own stone bullets, whether they hit the Shaxian tower, and other towers equipped with crossbows, and then shout to convey the calibration information to the trebuchet position. The trebuchet operator could immediately adjust the ammunition weight and shooting angle according to the technical guidance of the pre-battle drill.

The weight of the counterweight of this type of trebuchet is difficult to adjust, but the weight of the projectile can be adjusted. If you think it is too far, you can replace it with heavier ammunition to reduce the initial velocity of the projectile, and the range will be closer.

However, Huang Zu and Huang She, father and son, did not understand how to use and summarize these mathematical tools. They did not even know the existence of trigonometric functions. Even if they had catapults, they could only shoot blindly within a fixed range.

The first clear written record of the trebuchet’s calibration and shooting method in China was not published until the Song Dynasty’s Wujing Zongyao. Before that, the use of trebuchets was entirely based on personal experience and feel, without any systematic theoretical support.

The catapult operators of Guan Yu's army had theoretical calculation support, which was a dimensionality reduction blow to Huang Zu's army.

At once, huge rocks fell from the top of the city wall, breaking two of the thick wooden pillars of the Shaxian City Tower, causing a corner of the tower to collapse directly. Several other towers and turrets with crossbows installed were even more dented and collapsed.

Hundreds of Huang Zu's crossbow operators and crossbowmen were hit by collapsed buildings and flying wood and rocks, with casualties everywhere.

"Hold on! Sink Guan Yu's tower ship! As long as the tower ship is sunk, those strange catapults behind will lose their cover!" Huang She personally supervised the battle on the top of the city and roared madly.

Fearing that he would be buried in the tower, he had to retreat to the back of the wall to command and let the messenger go forward to confirm the situation.

Although Huang Zu's army suffered more casualties than Guan Yu's army, Huang She still persisted because he believed that as long as he sank the two tower ships, the situation would get better!
So he continued to deploy reserve troops, and constantly mobilized the crossbows and catapults on the other three sides of the city wall, and moved them to the west of the city by ox-drawn carts.

The attack and defense lasted for two full hours, during which most of the original crossbows, catapults and defense facilities in the west of Shaxian City were consumed. A number of war machines were also transferred from the south and north of the city. Finally, Huang She saw a glimmer of hope.

"Major General, we have sunk Guan Yu's ship! Look! It is really sinking!"

Huang She was very excited when he heard the good news. He took the rare risk of going forward in person, found a complete parapet, hid behind the shooting hole and looked down.

He saw that the ship was sinking lower and lower, and finally stopped when the top of the cabin was about to sink into the water. The archers and rowers on the ship had already paddled ashore from the back side and escaped when they found that the ship was sinking.

"Huh? Why doesn't it continue to sink?" Huang She was very anxious and asked a general.

The general was speechless: "I don't know either. Could it be that it has sunk to the bottom? What a coincidence! Could the enemy have calculated the depth of our moat in advance?"

At this time, another general immediately pointed out the doubts: "Not good! It seems that Guan Yu really did a special survey in advance! Young General, look, the location where the building ship sank has been filled with earth mounds on the back in the past two hours! It was not like this when the ship first came in!"

Huang She was reminded of this by his subordinates. No matter how slow he was to react, he realized it. He felt a rush of blood to his head. "You mean, Guan Yu was planning to use the sunken ship as a trench bridge to fill the river? We've fallen into the trap. Quickly stop the catapults on the left wing and stop smashing! We are helping Guan Yu smash!"

Huang She gave orders one after another, and finally the defensive firepower on the other side was temporarily stopped and stopped working for Guan Yu.

But he soon realized that this would not work, because after the city stopped firing, the ship that had not yet sunk would not stop firing! It was still using the porthole shooting position that had not been smashed to shoot arrows at the city!

And as long as the tower ship does not sink, it can always provide cover for the catapults and other long-range troops of Guan Yu’s army behind it!
Huang She watched his troops being shot at in vain for a while, and seeing that Guan Yu was unrelenting, he had to order fire again. However, because of this delay, the Shaxian defenders lost seven or eight more pieces of city defense equipment.

In the end, the Shaxian defenders relied on catapults to load the tower ships with 20-jin catties each, just like Cao Chong weighing an elephant.

Finally, because the ship was hit by too many stones and hundreds of shells, it exceeded its maximum draft and slowly sank.

Pang Tong on the opposite side was wearing chain mail with steel-filled lamellar armor on the outside. He was holding a low-power telescope made of East China Sea crystal. After observing the situation on the city wall from afar, he ordered the troops responsible for filling the river and providing fire support to retreat quickly and return at night to complete the final work.

Pang Tong was equipped with a telescope and dressed in heavy armor, and was not allowed to approach the city wall. This was also a strict order issued in advance by Zhuge Jin, and it must not be violated.

When fighting against an enemy like Huang Zu who is a good archer, of course neither the civil nor the military officials who are good at absorbing arrows are allowed to step forward.

When Pang Tong ordered a temporary retreat, he also asked the sailors on the ships to shout in unison: "Thank you, General Huang, for the ballast stones. This saved us from having to use civilians to carry the stones and sinking the ship!"

"Guan Yu, you dog thief! You're going too far!" Huang She and others on the top of the city wall were so angry when they heard these shouts that they almost fainted.

(End of this chapter)