Chapter 34: Night Raid On The Fleet
After capturing Shu County, Sun Ce immediately divided his forces into two routes. One route ordered Zhang Hong and Cheng Pu to lead ten thousand troops north to accept the surrender of the northern counties of Lujiang Commandery and pacify the officials.
The other route was personally led by Sun Ce commanding thirty thousand troops south to capture Juchao County and Wan County.
On the city wall of Wan County, Sun Ce’s face was extremely grim. He had never imagined that Yuan Shu’s family and retainer troops had already been seized by Gan Ning half a month earlier.
Sun Ce actually did not care about Yuan Shu’s family, just as Cao Cao actually did not care about Yuan Shu’s family. What Cao Cao cared about was Madam Feng, Yuan Shu’s wife, and what Sun Ce cared about was the two daughters of Qiao Rui.
Men contend for the world for no more than three things: enjoying the highest power, occupying the most land, and sleeping with the most beautiful women.
Now that the two daughters of Qiao Rui had been snatched by Gan Ning, how could Sun Ce not be utterly furious!
Zhou Yu understood Sun Ce’s mood at this time very well, so he advised him: “Gan Ning only abducted Yuan Shu’s family and retainer troops. He may not even know that Qiao Rui has two stunningly beautiful daughters. Qiao Rui’s wife is very good at concealing it—even Yuan Shu and Liu Xun did not discover the stunning beauty of the two daughters, let alone Gan Ning?”
Hope reignited in Sun Ce’s heart. It was very possible!
He pondered for a moment and said: “In Gongjin’s view, what should we do next?”
“Our next step is of course to thoroughly annihilate Liu Xun. Calculating by time, Liu Xun should have annihilated Gan Ning by now, and Yuan Shu’s family and the two daughters of Qiao Rui have returned to his hands. So as long as we annihilate Liu Xun, my lord will certainly get what he wishes.”
Sun Ce nodded. “If Gongjin had not mentioned it, I would have almost forgotten about Liu Xun. I wonder how his attack on Chaisang is going?”
At that moment, a scout came to report: “Reporting to my lord, mutiny has broken out in Liu Xun’s army. The commanding general Chen Lan and Lei Bo have surrendered to Cao Cao. Currently, the army is led by Cao Cao’s subordinate great general Yu Jin, and they have occupied Pengze County. Liu Xun’s whereabouts are unknown.”
“What?”
This news shocked and enraged Sun Ce. He smashed his fist fiercely on the battlements. “What is Cao Cao trying to do? What does Jiangdong have to do with him? He has to forcefully stick his leg in.”
Zhou Yu thought for a moment and said: “This matter did not happen suddenly. Cao Cao probably got involved in Lujiang Commandery long ago—we just did not know it. My lord, we cannot let Cao Cao gain a foothold in Jiangdong. We must quickly pull out this nail.”
“Why not first pull out Chaisang!” Sun Ce was still thinking about the two daughters of Qiao Rui.
“My lord, the two daughters of Qiao Rui will be fine in Chaisang. If my lord is not at ease, you can first send someone to Chaisang to find out their whereabouts. But at this time, state affairs must take priority. Cao Cao poses a hundred times greater threat to us than Gan Ning. We must immediately drive Cao Cao’s forces out of Jiangdong. Please decide which is more important, my lord!”
Sun Ce sighed. “You are right. At this time, state affairs must take priority!”
Sun Ce immediately sent a trusted subordinate to Chaisang to inquire about news of the two daughters of Qiao Rui. He personally led thirty thousand troops aboard five hundred large ships to kill toward Pengze County.
………..
In a private room on the second floor of a restaurant in Nanchang County, Jia Xu and Sun Ben sat facing each other.
“This is a personal letter from the Minister of Works to General Sun!”
Jia Xu pushed a letter to Sun Ben. Sun Ben opened the letter, read it once, nodded and said: “Please tell Cao Gong that I will do my utmost to stop the Marquis of Wu’s Northern Expedition!”
Jia Xu reminded again: “General Sun had best go personally to persuade the Marquis of Wu. A letter will not be very effective. This matter requires uniting the Jiangdong aristocracy to oppose it together.”
Sun Ben smiled faintly. “Rest assured! I will be in Wu Commandery all winter and will return soon.”
“If General Sun leaves, who will be in charge here in Nanchang?”
“It should be my brother Sun Fu in charge!”
“What about Lv Fan?”
“Lv Fan will also return to Wu Commandery with me.”
As long as Lv Fan was not in Nanchang, there would be no problem with Pengze County.
Jia Xu said gladly: “Everything Cao Gong wants to say is in the letter, so I have nothing extra to add. Also, Pengze and Chaisang both bear heavy responsibilities entrusted by Cao Gong. Please have General Sun’s army refrain from attacking for the time being.”
Sun Ben nodded silently. He truly did not know how to explain this matter to the Marquis of Wu.
……….
In early winter, the Yangtze River was only suitable for upstream forces attacking downstream, while downstream attacking upstream was extremely disadvantageous—against the wind and current. If equipped with oarsmen, mengchong and doujian could still navigate, but tower ships without oarsmen could hardly proceed westward and could only be towed along the shore by trackers.
Otherwise, it would be small-scale sneak attacks, with everyone rowing mengchong into battle, while large-scale naval battles were basically impossible. So after winter set in, the Yangtze River banks were generally a period of truce—either land warfare or going home to rest, and fighting again next spring.
But Sun Ce was hot-tempered. How could he wait until next spring? Moreover, with Sun Ce’s personality liking to handle everything personally, even if attacking Pengze County and Chaisang County was a bit strenuous, he would still unhesitatingly send out troops.
Fortunately, Wan County was not far from these two places—at most three days to arrive.
Sun Ce came by land route. After capturing Wan County, the ships Liu Xun left in Wan County were all tower ships and cargo ships that could not be rowed. The mengchong ships and dou ships that could be rowed had all been taken by him.
The ships Sun Ce captured could only sail by wind power. Now it was westerly wind. Helplessly, Sun Ce conscripted several thousand strong young trackers in Wan County to tow his five hundred large ships. The fleet followed the Wanshui River into the Yangtze River, then proceeded along the north bank of the Yangtze. Huang Gai led ten thousand soldiers walking on the riverbank to protect them and prevent enemy army raids on the trackers from land.
Once the trackers were attacked, hundreds of large ships would lose their power.
But not all tower ships lacked rowing power. Many tower ships had oar ports in the lower cabins and could be rowed even without wind power. It was just Sun Ce’s bad luck— the ships Liu Xun left him were all old-style tower ships without oar ports.
In the Battle of Chibi, dou ships and mengchong could row into Cao Cao’s camp to set fires without needing an east wind. It was just that setting fires required wind assistance—if there was no east wind, it would be hard to ignite Cao Army’s large ships, and the north wind could backfire, burning one’s own ships instead.
Did not Zhuge Liang also row boats to borrow arrows outside the northern army camp? It was just that Zhuge Liang was lucky—if some Cao Army husky had a brain short circuit and accidentally shot a few fire arrows, it would not be straw boats borrowing arrows, but roasting Zhuge Liang.
Under the night curtain, Gan Ning led three hundred navy men appearing on the river surface a hundred zhang away from the Jiangdong fleet, watching the fleet slowly proceeding along the river. Sun Ce was very impatient, actually marching at night.
Moments later, Wang Xiaoman swam back to report: “This subordinate has confirmed—they are all connected by ropes, not iron chains.”
Gan Ning laughed. As expected, it was not beyond his expectations. Jiangdong would not be extravagant enough to use iron chains to link cargo ships—military ships, maybe.
Gan Ning had already seen the opponent’s weakness—was it not those ropes?
Gan Ning waved his hand, and the soldiers lay prone on sampans rowing forward, like a hundred arrows shot out, speeding toward the cargo ships.
Ordinary navy warships fell into two major categories: one was warships, the other cargo ships. Warships in front, cargo ships behind. Of course there were guards on the cargo ships, but not many.
Sun Ce’s fleet had one hundred fifty cargo ships, fully loaded with grain and other logistical supply materials. The cargo ships were all two thousand shi flat-bottomed large ships, with head and tail tied together between ships by ropes.
Leading was a three thousand shi large ship, with over a dozen towing ropes and hundreds of trackers pulling the large ship, slowly towing the one hundred fifty cargo ships behind.
When the sampans approached the cargo ships, a soldier holding a pole knife jumped into the water.
What did a pole knife look like? It was actually just like the high branch shears we use to trim branches. This was an essential item for river bandits, about seven chi long, with an extremely sharp blade head, specially for cutting cables. Cutting towing ropes and hauling ropes was of course no problem.
The large ship proceeded slowly when suddenly a long pole knife stretched out from the water, just like trimming branches, precisely clamping the towing rope behind the large ship. With a gentle slide and cut, the rope snapped with a twang.
In succession, three main towing ropes were cut. The cargo ship fleet fully loaded with grain immediately lost power and stopped sailing. Immediately after, the connecting ropes between cargo ships were also cut one after another.
These happened almost simultaneously. Over a hundred cargo ships lost power and began drifting everywhere, floating toward the middle of the river with the current.
The trackers on the shore shouted loudly. The soldiers on the cargo ships were also startled awake, shouting in panic, and in desperation jumped into the water to swim toward the shore.
At this time, Wang Ping and Ding Feng had already led three thousand navy men waiting downstream dozens of li away for a long time.
