Chapter 80: Battle Of Queyue
A great fire broke out inside Queyue City. Several thousand fire oil bottles were thrown onto the city wall and inside the city. The city wall was ablaze everywhere with raging flames and rolling thick smoke. Over a hundred houses near the city wall inside the city were also set ablaze, black smoke enveloping the entire city. The soldiers on the city wall were panicked and hid everywhere.
Queyue City is a half-moon-shaped fortress, with the curved side facing west, surrounded by a two-zhang-wide moat. A barbican was built in front of the city gate, making it actually two city gates: the outer barbican city gate and the inner city city gate.
The barbican city gate above was already engulfed in flames. Over a dozen Yuzhang Army soldiers climbed onto the drawbridge and hacked fiercely at the front end with axes. In moments, both ends of the drawbridge were chopped apart. Two iron wedges embedded in the wood suddenly detached from the drawbridge. The long iron chains flew up like snakes, the heavy drawbridge crashed down, smashing heavily onto the bridge pier amid flying dust.
Two hundred ironclad soldiers who had been waiting impatiently immediately rushed onto the drawbridge carrying thick battering rams. The battering rams were made from green oak wood harvested in southern Yuzhang Commandery—essentially thousand-year-old beech logs used for imperial palace pillars, a specialty product of Yuzhang Commandery. The pillars in palaces across Sui and Tang dynasties all came from Yuzhang Commandery.
The battering ram was eight zhang long, requiring two men to encircle it, fitted with a pig iron ram at the front, shaped like a giant thick pencil, weighing eight thousand jin, densely studded with iron handles, requiring two hundred men to lift from both sides to ram the city gate.
The two hundred soldiers all wore iron armor and iron helmets, unafraid of arrows shot from both sides of the city wall, but they feared boulders from above. Thus, Yuzhang Army soldiers had thrown over a thousand fire oil bottles above the city gate, forming a sea of fire that prevented the enemy army from defending above the gate. They could only shoot arrows from the sides, but the arrows could not penetrate the soldiers’ iron armor.
“One, two, three, ram!”
With the soldiers’ chant, the two hundred ironclad soldiers lifted the eight-thousand-jin battering ram and charged toward the city gate.
“Dong—”
The Yuzhang Army’s battering ram struck the city gate heavily. The city gate shook violently, dust falling in showers. Over a hundred soldiers inside the city desperately held the gate, propping it with wood and shoulders, shouting loudly in tension.
“Again!”
The leading general outside shouted. The two hundred soldiers lifted the battering ram and retreated over ten steps, then charged toward the city gate again amid the shouts of two hundred men.
“Dong—”
The iron ram struck the city gate heavily once more, another impact weighing tens of thousands of jin. The city gate could not withstand it; fifteen bolts snapped instantly, twelve breaking, leaving only the top three bolts intact.
“Hold the gate!”
The general inside the city shouted hoarsely. Hundreds of soldiers held the gate desperately. Someone shouted, “Quickly move boulders to block the gate!”
A hundred paces away, over a thousand soldiers were moving dozens of large stone slabs—their last hope.
But it was too late. With another earth-shattering ram, “Boom!” All the bolts broke, and the gate was finally breached. Two hundred heavy-armored soldiers carried the battering ram and rushed inside.
Chaos erupted at the barbican city gate, followed closely by thousands of Yuzhang Army soldiers shouting as they charged in.
Hundreds of gate-guarding soldiers who had intended to resist to the death saw the tide turn and fled, shouting while running, “The barbican is breached! The barbican is breached!”
Because of moving the stone slabs, the inner city gate was open. Now the Yuzhang Army had killed into the barbican. Soldiers on the city wall desperately tried to close the inner city gate, but unfortunately, dozens of stone slabs blocked the city gate.
“Quickly move the stones away!” Huang She stamped his feet in anxiety.
Five hundred defending soldiers from the barbican fled back first, making it impossible to close the city gate. Behind them were thousands of running Yuzhang Army soldiers, only dozens of paces away. In the chaos, arrows rained down, felling soldiers in swaths—both Huang Zu’s soldiers and Gan Ning’s soldiers.
Huang She was nearly hit by several stray arrows. One stray arrow whistled by, grazing past his face, turning Huang She’s face deathly pale with fright.
“Lord, it’s too late, flee quickly!” The soldiers saw the situation was hopeless and pulled Huang She to escape.
Six thousand Yuzhang Army soldiers led by Xu Sheng were the first to kill into Queyue City.
Chaos reigned inside the city. Liu Hu was also in a panic. Over a dozen personal guards disguised him as a common soldier and led him in frantic flight.
Liu Hu was Liu Biao’s nephew, leading five thousand troops to support Huang Zu. But Huang Zu forbade them from entering Queyue City, forcing them to stay in the barracks outside the city. The barracks were extremely humid in the June summer heat, unbearably hot and stuffy. The soldiers couldn’t stand it and slept on the ships to catch the river breeze, only to be nearly turned into Han River barbecue by the Yuzhang Army’s fire attack.
Liu Hu himself had moved into Queyue City and also suffered the Yuzhang Army’s city assault. He didn’t get far before being surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers. The soldiers crouched down in fear, protecting Liu Hu in the middle.
The city garrison couldn’t escape. Wang Ping led six thousand troops charging in from the north gate. The soldiers shouted in unison, “We’re all from the same hometown! Surrender and no one will be killed! Surrender and you can go home!”
The Yuzhang Army soldiers’ local accent was full of allure, quickly shattering the morale of Huang Zu’s soldiers. This wasn’t defending wives, children, and parents, nor homeland. For ordinary soldiers, as long as they could survive, no one would fight desperately. The soldiers unhesitatingly chose to surrender.
By dawn, Huang Zu’s stronghold Queyue City had completely fallen, with over eight thousand surrendering soldiers, including five thousand Jingzhou relief troops sent by Liu Biao.
Huang She and Huang Zu’s wives, concubines, and children all became captives. Liu Hu was betrayed by his subordinates and dragged out.
To boost morale for the upcoming major battle, Gan Ning ordered half of the wu zhu coins seized from the warehouse—fully one hundred thousand strings—distributed as rewards to the twenty thousand officers and soldiers, instantly met with thunderous cheers and soaring morale.
This victory yielded huge gains: over three hundred thousand shi of grain, two hundred thousand strings of copper coins, countless other supplies and gold and silver treasures, and of course six thousand mengchong warships, including two thousand large mengchong warships.
Gan Ning ordered all spoils of war and prisoners of war sent to Shaxian County, leaving three thousand men to guard the money and grain supplies as well as the prisoners of war and warships.
He personally led seventeen thousand troops and hundreds of warships to wait for the returning Huang Zu army at Xiakou.
Interestingly, before Huang Zu’s main army arrived, Ding Feng and Wei Yan led six thousand relief troops racing ahead to reach Xiakou first and quickly joined the battle formation, bringing Gan Ning’s troop strength to twenty-three thousand men and over a thousand warships.
Gan Ning also rewarded Ding Feng’s army equally, rapidly boosting their six thousand troops’ morale.
The next morning, Huang Zu’s three thousand warships and over forty thousand troops finally returned. Gan Ning immediately launched the offensive.
This was a complete reenactment of the historical Battle of Shaxian, but with protagonists swapped: Sun Ce’s army replaced by Gan Ning’s army. Gan Ning’s army had high morale, officers and soldiers fiercely motivated and a hundred times more eager, coordinating with sharp fire attacks. The offensive surged like tides. Gan Ning’s army released fire to the windward, troops charging amid smoke, crossbows firing in unison, arrows raining like a storm. Though their numbers were only half the enemy’s, they routed the foe utterly.
The Battle of Xiakou raged from morning until dusk. Huang Zu’s army collapsed completely. Hundreds of tower ships and doujian were all burned. Huang Zu fled in a mengchong warship. To the end, over ten thousand enemy troops were forced to abandon ship and flee ashore in panic.
The battle ended with Gan Ning’s army killing over ten thousand enemy soldiers, capturing over twenty thousand, seizing over two thousand warships, and mountains of property.
This battle swept away Huang Zu’s twenty years of accumulated naval foundation. Huang Zu retreated to Xiling County, his forces thenceforth becoming a land army, powerless to contend with Gan Ning’s army.
After the war, Gan Ning ordered southern Jiangxia Commandery changed to Wuchang Commandery, with the seat at Wuchang County, and simultaneously recruited tens of thousands of citizens to build Xiakou County, Yangxin County, Xianning County, and Jiayu County.
This was of course not a rash decision by Gan Ning, but a strategic plan long devised by the strategists: “Weaken Huang Zu, secure Wuchang, plot for Changsha.”
