At the same time as the order was issued, burning fireballs were thrown out from the big ship, rolling towards the sand wall. The fireballs ignited the kerosene all over the ground. 'Boom!' The fire suddenly burned rapidly, and the inside and outside of the sand wall suddenly fell into

A sea of ​​fire.

Countless soldiers of Cao's army were ignited by fire. They turned around and ran in terror, wailing and rolling on the ground, and screams were heard.

Yu Jin was so anxious that he shouted: "Retreat! Retreat quickly!"

Five thousand soldiers of Cao's army withdrew from the fire one after another and retreated to the rear. At this time, a soldier rushed over, raised his arrows and shouted at Jin: "General Yu, the general has ordered the crossbow troops to withdraw to the barracks immediately!"

"

Yu Jin originally wanted to retreat a hundred steps and continue to shoot the Jiangxia army with crossbows who were about to disembark, but Cao Ren had an order, so he had no choice but to order the entire army to withdraw to the barracks.

At this time, bursts of war drums came from the north, and 20,000 infantrymen with spears lined up from the military camp, forming a long square formation, with fifty people in a row. The momentum was so huge that the end could not be seen at a glance, and they rushed towards the dock.

The sand wall in front of the dock was still burning, but the Jiangxia navy did not disembark. Three hundred warships were anchored on the river, facing off from a distance with the 20,000 Cao army spearmen killed on the shore.

Liu Jing stood on the big boat with his hands behind his hands, looking at Cao Jun on the shore as if facing a formidable enemy. A smile appeared on his face. Since Cao Jun was successfully dragged into Fancheng, Gan Ning's side was more likely to succeed.

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Cao Ren's army had occupied Fancheng for five days and was unable to cross the river south due to lack of ships. However, Cao Ren was not helpless. He sent people to collect ships along the north bank of the Han River and its tributaries.

Within five days, Cao Jun still collected more than 300 civilian ships of various types. Although most of these ships were small fishing boats and not large ferries, they could ferry more than 2,000 people across the river at a time, and could ferry thousands of soldiers across the river overnight.

People, barely able to complete Cao Jun's task of crossing the troops south.

However, for the army that is officially marching south, they generally do not use this kind of small boats to cross the river. Crossing the river in small boats is very dangerous. First, it is small in carrying capacity, especially difficult to carry war horses. But more importantly, retreat will be a big problem. Once the southern expedition is unfavorable,

It will be difficult to retreat to the north bank, and it may even lead to the risk of the entire army being annihilated.

Therefore, although Cao Ren collected more than 300 small boats, he still did not want to use such small boats to cross the river. He planned to transform these small boats into small-scale warships for crossing the river.

Small groups of Cao's troops were deployed to the south bank to harass the counties and counties in Jingzhou, disrupt spring plowing in Jingzhou and capture small counties, which affected the people's morale in Jingzhou and the morale of the army. The Jingzhou army was exhausted and laid the foundation for the main force of Cao's army to go south next year.

From this perspective, these more than 300 small boats are still quite threatening to the south coast of Jingzhou.

At present, more than 300 warships are mainly concentrated in Luwan, downstream of Bishui. It is a natural bay located east of Fancheng and less than ten miles away from Fancheng. It can berth thousands of small boats. Cao Jun is here

More than a hundred fishing boats were seized here, and there are currently more than a thousand troops stationed here.

Bi Shui is a tributary of the Han River. The upper reaches are formed by the convergence of six or seven small tributaries. Each small tributary is several feet wide. The convergence of the tributaries causes the water surface to change rapidly.

As tributaries continued to pour in from both sides of the bank, after passing Hekou Town, the water surface suddenly widened to 30 feet and the water depth was several feet. It could drive a two thousand stone river ship. Luwan was located at the widest part of the water surface. Cao Ren planned to

Establish a shipbuilding yard in Luwan.

To the west of Luwan is a small village with dozens of families who make a living from fishing and shipbuilding. They have built several small shipbuilding workshops and more than 300 small boats are moored on the water next to the village.

More than a thousand soldiers were divided into three squads, patrolling day and night, guarding the only more than 300 small boats.

As night fell, several clippers appeared on the Bishui River under the cover of darkness. The boats were extremely fast. Gan Ning stood in front of the clippers, wearing a black sailboat, with a bow and arrow on his back, and a sharp halberd in his hand.

Staring sharply ahead.

There was no obstruction along the way. The boat entered the mouth of Luwan. With a swing of the oar, it sailed into the Luwan water moor and headed towards the group of small boats several miles away.

"Brother, something is wrong. It's too quiet. There are no patrols!" One of his men whispered to Gan Ning.

Gan Ning also found that something was not normal. Since Cao Jun used a thousand soldiers to protect these small boats, and now they were close to the boats, why did Cao Jun not notice at all? But at this time, Gan Ning did not bother to patrol around, and ordered without thinking: "Launch into the water."

, get together!”

Several men slid down into the water, dived in front of the boats, and moved the boats closer to the shore, so that the boats scattered on the water could be gathered together as much as possible so that they could be burned and destroyed.

At this moment, a loud shout suddenly came from the distance, "Who is that in the water?"

The patrol on the shore finally spotted them, and they immediately shouted, "There is enemy territory!"

The bells on the shore rang loudly, and Cao's army rushed out of the military camp not far away and rushed towards the inlet. On the boat, Gan Ning stretched out his bow and arrows, and fired rapidly, and the arrows were not missed. He shot down seven or eight soldiers in a row.

, the remaining soldiers of Cao's army shouted and fled in all directions.

Gan Ning saw a dark group of enemy troops rushing towards him from a distance, still dozens of steps away from the inlet. He turned around and ordered: "Speed ​​up!"

Dozens of men poured cans of kerosene from the boat into the water, and the kerosene spread rapidly in the water. At this time, arrows continued to shoot from the shore, and the arrows whizzed past their heads. The leader, General Cao Junya, led hundreds of people.

The remaining people jumped off a dozen small boats and rushed towards this direction.

Gan Ning turned around and saw that his men had not yet boarded the boat. He picked up a shield and ordered the two oarsmen, "Come forward and fight!"

The small boat met the enemy ship. Gan Ning held a halberd in one hand and a shield in the other. When the two ships collided, Gan Ning jumped onto the enemy ship. His short halberd thrust out like lightning. A village commander was unable to dodge and was hit by the tip of the halberd.

It pierced the throat and fell into the water screaming.

Gan Ning's short halberds were flying and he stabbed to death all five or six Cao Jun soldiers on the boat in a moment. At this time, Cao Junya was furious and charged from the side with his spear, "You little thief, take your life!"

Gan Ning held up his spear with his shield and struck the halberd with his halberd. There was a loud noise and the enemy general used his spear to deflect the halberd. At this time, the ships collided with each other. Both of them were unstable and fell into the water together.

Go and make a splash.

After a while, Gan Ning threw the halberd onto the boat. He jumped from the water onto the boat, holding a wet human head in his hand. It was Cao Jun Ya just now.

At this time, the men behind shouted: "General, it's done, retreat!"

Gan Ning shouted, "Retreat!"

Seven or eight speedboats quickly turned around and sailed toward Bishui. After sailing dozens of steps, several soldiers lit rockets and fired at the densely packed ships. The bright rockets streaked across the night sky and hit the outermost boats.

.

The kerosene spilled on the boat was ignited, and the flames rose into the sky, and soon ignited the kerosene floating on the water. The fire on the water quickly spread around, and soon engulfed hundreds of people moored on the water.

A small boat.

More than a dozen ships of Cao's army that were preparing to pursue the enemy were also caught in the sea of ​​fire. The soldiers on board became a mess, jumped into the water to escape, and swam to the shore.

Gan Ning's speedboat sailed out a few miles and entered Bishui. He turned back and looked towards the inlet. He saw flames rising into the sky and thick smoke filling the inlet. Gan Ning snorted disdainfully and led his men to gradually disappear into the night.

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Under the moonlight, more than 300 warships were moored quietly on the Han River. The confrontation between Jiang Xia's army and Cao's army continued. The fire inside and outside the sand wall had long been extinguished and had no impact on the sand wall, but Cao's army did not dare to approach.

Instead of building a sand wall, a new sand wall about three miles long was built with sandbags fifty steps away from the sand wall. Three thousand crossbowmen were hidden behind the new sand wall and were waiting.

On the big ship, Liu Jing looked towards Bishui from time to time. He was waiting for news from Gan Ning. Suddenly, the observer on the mast shouted, "Prefect, there is a fire! It's in the direction of Bishui."

The soldiers looked to the northeast one after another. After a moment, everyone saw the flames rising into the sky about ten miles away in the northeast, which was particularly dazzling in the night sky. The soldiers on the big ship suddenly cheered.

Liu Jing couldn't help but laugh. He immediately ordered, "The fleet continues to move forward and berth at Longzhong Pier!"

A rocket was fired into the night sky, the sails were opened, the anchor was pulled up, and the fleet slowly started again, heading towards Longzhong, ten miles away to the west.

At the top of Fancheng, Cao Jun also discovered the fire in the direction of Bishui. Someone immediately went to notify Cao Ren. After a while, Cao Ren ran up the city, holding on to the city wall and staring at the fire in the distance. He knew that something must have happened to Bishui's ship.

, Cao Ren's face turned livid, and he punched the city wall hard.

At this time, Jia Xu slowly stepped forward and said: "General, there is no need to be angry. This is actually a good thing."

"Good thing?"

Cao Ren turned around and looked at Jia Xu in confusion, "How do you say this?"

Jia Xu smiled slightly and said: "Actually, this fire exposed two things. One is the absolute advantage of Jiangxia Navy on the water, which we simply cannot match.

Secondly, it also exposed Liu Jing's bottom line that he would never allow us to own warships, so this fire was set in time and sounded the alarm for us. If we build warships in the future and are burned down by him, then

Wouldn’t it be an even greater loss?”

Cao Ren nodded slowly. He understood what Jia Xu meant. If they built the warship, Liu Jing would definitely set it on fire again. This fire reminded them of the importance of strengthening the protection of the warship.
To be continued...