Chapter 160: Abandoning The Army And Fleeing
Xu Shu was at this time twenty li south on the official road. This battle was entirely planned and arranged by Xu Shu. Originally, Huang Zhong planned a night attack on Yundu County to burn down the county town with a fire, but Xu Shu vetoed this plan. Xu Shu discovered the enemy’s greatest weakness, which was the lack of grain supplies. Relying solely on the dry rations they carried with them would not last more than a few days.
Xu Shu thus devised a complete plan targeting this weakness of the enemy army: first, defeat them individually. Zhao Yun led his army to ambush the enemy army on the south line, while Huang Zhong was responsible for dealing with Fu Tong’s army on the north line. Chen Mu led six thousand men to coordinate with Wei Yan’s navy against the grain logistics.
After annihilating twenty thousand troops and their grain logistics in one day and one night, the remaining ten thousand central troops could then be defeated using grain as a weapon.
Li Shu led ten thousand troops along the official road. On the north and south sides, Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong each led ten thousand troops marching in parallel, both about twenty li away from the enemy army.
At this time, Deputy General Zhang Li received news from a scout that a Yuzhang Army had appeared on both the south and north sides. He immediately hurried to report to Li Shu, “Reporting to the commander, enemy armies have been spotted on both the south and north sides, about twenty li away from us.”
This news truly made Li Shu tense. He pondered for a moment and ordered, “Pass the order for the entire army to speed up the march!”
Zhang Li said urgently, “Why not take the initiative to engage them!”
“No!”
Li Shu outright rejected Zhang Li’s suggestion. “We are now in a pincer attack situation. Once war breaks out, we have no chance of victory at all. We can only head to the Han River to seek an opportunity to cross the river.”
Zhang Li was helpless and could only go down to pass the order to speed up the march.
At dusk, after a hundred li forced march, the Jingzhou Army finally arrived at the Han River. The pontoon bridge they had originally used to cross the river was now just a bit of charred remnant wood. At this time, the soldiers were both hungry and exhausted; the dry rations had already been eaten up on the road, so they could only rely on drinking water to alleviate their hunger.
Li Shu ordered the soldiers to rest in place, sent scouts to search the surroundings for opportunities to cross the river, and had Zhang Li take a unit of troops to look for grain. Li Shu remembered there was a village not far to the north, where they might be able to get some food.
The soldiers were all starving and dizzy; once they lay down, they almost had no strength to move.
Soon, the scouts returned to report that no opportunities to cross the river had been found. The soldiers searching for grain also returned; the village to the north was empty, with no sign of people, no food found—not even a dog.
This news was undoubtedly the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
At this moment, Zhang Li also returned. Unexpectedly, he had brought back a small boat—a fish that slipped through the net, undiscovered by the Yuzhang Army, and found by him.
But when Zhang Li was still one li away from where the soldiers were resting, he had the soldiers hide the small boat. There was quite a bit of water grass along the riverbank, and the small boat was hidden among the water grass.
Zhang Li pulled Li Shu aside and said in a low voice, “This subordinate found a small boat!”
“What?”
A flash of delight appeared in Li Shu’s eyes. He hurriedly asked, “How big is the ship?”
“Very small. It can carry at most twenty people.”
“Only twenty people!”
Zhang Li nodded. “We won’t last through tonight. The soldiers are all starving and collapsed. Tomorrow at dawn, the Yuzhang Army will effortlessly take us all down. If the commander wants to escape, tonight is our only chance.”
Li Shu looked at the sky; it was already dark. Li Shu said, “First, take me to see the boat!”
The two arrived at the riverbank. Zhang Li had the soldiers push the small boat out from the water grass. Li Shu glanced back at several personal guards, who quietly drew their swords and with one stroke chopped off Zhang Li’s head. Poor Zhang Li, with good intentions, wanted to bring his commander across the river together, but in the end was cruelly killed because of his own kindness.
The personal guards jumped onto the boat, killed the soldiers pushing the boat, and seized the small boat.
Li Shu also boarded the boat. His twenty personal guards all got on and rowed together toward the opposite bank of the Han River. The small boat soon disappeared into the night.
The next day at dawn, the starving soldiers who could no longer endure it started rioting. They discovered the commander was gone and found Deputy General Zhang Li’s corpse. A sense of being deceived and abandoned rapidly spread among the soldiers.
The soldiers angrily shouted, “We have been deceived! We have been abandoned!”
At this moment, Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun led their twenty thousand troops into appearance. Huang Zhong had several hundred soldiers advance and shout in unison, “There are hot steamed buns here! Those who surrender can eat their fill!”
The soldiers tormented by hunger no longer cared about friend or foe, especially since their commander had abandoned them. The anger in their hearts made them eager to surrender. The soldiers threw down their weapons, removed their armor, and rushed toward the north side, “We surrender! We surrender!”
Each received two steamed buns and sat down to devour them ravenously.
Zhao Yun led ten thousand troops charging from the south. To his surprise, all the officers and soldiers had run off to surrender to Huang Zhong. The ground was littered with discarded armor and weapons.
The Jingzhou Army’s attack on Jiangxia ultimately turned into a farce, starting with aggressive momentum and ending in total annihilation. The root cause was a mistake in deployment. Cai Mao assumed the enemy was unaware of their actions and divided his forces in a great taboo of warfare.
If it had only been a deployment mistake, that would have been one thing, but the execution was also poor. The grain and supplies had already crossed the river, but the transport carts had not yet been fully gathered, delaying them by one day. It was this one-day time difference that caused fatal consequences. The Yuzhang navy arrived, destroyed the pontoon bridge, and cut off the passage for over a thousand carts to cross the river.
Without carts, there was no way to transport grain, fodder, and baggage. Without grain and supply replenishment, relying only on a little dry rations, and with the Yuzhang Army implementing a scorched earth policy, it was no wonder they suffered a crushing defeat.
Liu Biao listened to Li Shu’s tearful account and immediately fainted. The guards were shocked and rushed to rescue him. Several famous physicians were urgently summoned to provide emergency treatment to Governor Liu Biao.
Outside the quiet room, High Officials such as Cai Mao, Kuai Yue, Liu Xian, Han Song, and brothers Liu Qi and Liu Cong were all anxiously waiting.
“Military Advisor Cai, how could we lose so badly this time?” Han Song asked discontentedly.
“We have a spy inside!”
Cai Mao said coldly, “A high-level spy who leaked our battle plan to the enemy. How could we not lose?”
“But I heard it was because grain transport was not timely, leading to the army running out of food.”
Cai Mao shook his head. “It has nothing to do with grain transport. Even if grain transport was not timely, the army could have resolved it locally. Yundu County has tens of thousands of people, and there are more than a dozen villages around. Wasn’t that enough for the army to hold out for ten days or half a month? The key was that the secret was leaked, leading the enemy to implement a scorched earth policy, leaving our army without a single grain. That is the real problem.”
Kuai Yue chimed in, “Our deployment was indeed a bit risky, with dispersed marching, making it easy for the enemy army to defeat us individually.”
“That’s the key to the problem. How did the enemy know we were marching in dispersed formation? Doesn’t that mean someone leaked it?”
Cai Mao insisted it was not a problem with his own deployment but that someone had leaked the secret. Though the others were dissatisfied, in front of the governor’s sickroom, no one dared to argue.
At this time, the lead physician walked out from the sickroom.
