Chapter 356: Naval Confrontation
Sun Ce had an extremely keen intuition about combat. He quickly noticed the abnormality of the Dragon Soul Army and guessed the problem.
However, Sun Ce was in a dilemma at this point, and this defect of the Dragon Soul Army was not really a defect in a sense, but more like a forced exchange.
Under normal circumstances, after understanding the characteristics of the Dragon Soul Army, the coalition forces might be able to use miscellaneous soldiers to continuously kill and consume them.
But as long as the strength of Zhao Yun's troops is not too different from that of the enemy, he will naturally not let the Dragon Soul Army go out to deal with the miscellaneous soldiers.
At least we have to wait until the coalition forces deploy the Military Soul Corps before taking action, so that we can "make a profit".
But Sun Ce just ran into him head-on and asked for trouble.
After all, the Bai Li soldiers were Liu Bei's hard work. If Sun Ce was really determined at this time, he might be able to wipe out all the Bai Li soldiers and drag the Dragon Soul Army to death together.
This not only solves the problem of the Dragon Soul Army being a major enemy, making it easier to break into the city later, but also allows us to pit a group of "teammates" against each other.
If Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were in this position, they would definitely do this without hesitation.
After all, they are not his own soldiers, and it is better for me to let my friends die than for the sake of the overall situation, it doesn't matter if Liu Bei suffers a little.
However, Sun Ce's personality would not allow him to do such a thing.
Using the Military Soul Corps to exchange for the Dragon Soul Army would definitely be a loss.
Moreover, after both sides were destroyed, without the Bai Li soldiers who were good at attacking strongholds, and Zhao Yun was on guard, Sun Ce had no confidence that he could capture the camp.
Considering the overall situation, Sun Ce suppressed his impulse.
After killing hundreds of Bai Li soldiers, Sun Ce realized that he could not break through the Dragon Soul Army's defense at all, so he decisively chose to retreat.
Seeing Sun Ce's Bai Li soldiers retreating from the city wall, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao shook their hands fiercely, their faces full of regret.
Just now when Sun Ce first appeared with this magical army, he was so amazing and crushed everyone. However, before he could shine for long, he was suppressed by the Dragon Soul Army.
Just a little bit...
If we can hold on a little longer, this breakthrough point may be opened.
At this time, Liu Bei breathed a sigh of relief and felt extremely grateful.
Thanks to Sun Bofu!
If it were any other two people, it would be hard for his Bai Li soldiers to return with only 300 men intact.
With the defeat of the Bai Li soldiers, the last hope of the coalition forces was shattered.
The backlash from several days of continuous strong attacks began to appear, and morale inevitably dropped.
Yuan Shao's talents are not omnipotent, and they cause great damage to himself. There is no need to force himself to hold on in this situation.
The coalition forces had to calm down and began to reconsider their countermeasures.
At this time, something unexpected happened at the mouth of the Yellow River in the north of Qingzhou.
Back to half a month ago, Zhou Yu led 100,000 naval forces along the coastline of Xuzhou and arrived near Donglai, and then went upstream along the Dagu River near Gelu to Zhuangwu.
And continued along the newly opened artificial waterway between Dagu River and Weishui by Yuan Shao and entered Weishui.
Along the way, Zhou Yu couldn't help but sigh as he looked at this large artificial river.
"Yuan Benchu is indeed a man who can accomplish great things!"
Zhou Yu was well aware of how much manpower, material resources and financial resources would be needed to open up a river channel from scratch.
Just look at Tazawa Ji, who put nearly half of his energy into the water network construction plan.
This kind of project is not something that ordinary people can accomplish, especially in times of chaos.
But Yuan Shao resolutely built this river, which is the only large artificial river in Qingzhou.
"Yuan Benchu is indeed a man of great talent and vision. He deserves to be called a role model for the world." Cheng Pu also exclaimed.
Why did Yuan Shao insist on building this river despite the opposition from many people when money, food and manpower were so tight?
Not for the surrounding agriculture, but for strategic reasons.
The navy under Yuan Shao was too weak and was no match for Tian Ze’s army at sea.
It can be said that all the sea power around Qingzhou was controlled by Tian Ze, and Yuan Shao’s navy could only survive in the river and dared not go out to sea at all.
There is a natural concave port near Gelu. With such a favorable geographical location and the fact that Yuan Shao had set up several fortresses around it, the navy under Tian Ze did not dare to approach.
Previously, there was no river running north and south in Qingzhou, so the navy had to go around the coastline if they wanted to support the north. Once they were blocked by Tian Ze's navy on the sea, they would be unable to move forward.
The opening of this river channel allowed Yuan Shao's navy to travel along the inland river from north to south and support Qingzhou and Xuzhou at any time, greatly reducing the threat of Tian Ze's army and curbing the actions of Tian Ze's navy.
Since the construction of this river channel, Tian Ze has stationed tens of thousands of naval forces in Donglai and the mouth of the Yellow River to guard against surprise attacks by Yuan Shao's navy.
At the same time, this river also provided many conveniences to Zhou Yu, his ally.
Continuing northward along the river, Zhou Yu easily passed through Qingzhou from Beihai County and arrived near Xia Mi County on the northern border of Beihai County and Donglai County. Then he followed the coastline northwest to the mouth of the Yellow River, near Liao County.
Naturally, Gan Ning would not let Zhou Yu's navy go, so he led 50,000 navy to station near Liao County early on, ready to stop them.
The two sides set up camp in the south and north of the Yellow River.
Gan Ning looked at the neatly-organized water fort and well-trained navy opposite and nodded slightly.
"Zhou Gongjin is indeed a formidable opponent!"
How could he, who was good at naval warfare, just wait for Zhou Yu near Liao County and lead his troops to launch a surprise attack when Zhou Yu was heading north along the river coast?
But it didn't work.
His talent seemed to be useless in front of Zhou Yu. Not only did he fail in the sneak attack, but he almost got himself involved.
After several years, Gan Ning was taught a lesson by Zhou Yu again. He put away his arrogance and treated this battle seriously.
There is not much difference in the combat effectiveness of the soldiers between the two sides. The average combat effectiveness of Tian Ze's soldiers of one against two is recognized by the world.
That is to say, most of Zhou Yu's soldiers came from Jiangdong and were good at water battles. If they were to fight on land, Gan Ning felt that his soldiers could fight one against five.
After all, apart from the Danyang soldiers, there are indeed few Jiangdong people who are good at land combat, and there are not many cavalry, so their combat effectiveness is not taken seriously by Gan Ning at all.
But on the warship, Gan Ning firmly held the advantage.
Although Gan Ning was surrounded by Zhou Yu during the surprise attack at sea, he did not encounter much risk thanks to the advantage of the warship and escaped easily.
Only a few warships were left behind, and the damage was much less than that of the enemy.
It was also after that battle that Zhou Yu fully realized the absolute gap between the two sides in warship technology and understood the difficulty of this battle.
(End of this chapter)
