Chapter 186 Confrontation with Jiangnan’s No. 1 General
Dong Tuanxiao stood on the tower, silently staring at the Jiangdu navy on the moat, and suddenly said to a soldier beside him: "Jia Gong, why do you think the Jiangdu navy appeared here?"
The soldier was about fifty years old, with an elegant face and a long beard. He was clearly Jia Lu, who disappeared when he attacked Jiangdu.
"I think I want to go to Taizhou via Xinghua and then return to Jiangdu!" Jia Lu twisted his beard and said.
Dong Tuanxiao thought the same way, and said to another soldier: "Send the order and block the waterway from the south gate to Taizhou!"
The soldiers took the order and left.
After a while, Fang Yuan emerged from the water holding Bian Yuanheng with one hand. Because Bian Yuanheng was wearing armor and he only had one hand, it seemed very difficult.
Li Er hurriedly ordered the warship to sail over and threw down two ropes. Fang Yuan first wrapped the rope around Bian Yuanheng, and then pulled the other rope.
Both of them were pulled onto the warship. At this time, dozens of fishing boats sailed out from the west gate, and a steady stream of fishing boats poured out through the water gate.
Li Er hurriedly gave the order and was about to go to the south gate. Fu Youde said urgently: "No, if we delay for so long, the enemy must have guessed our purpose. The south gate is very likely to be blocked!"
Li Erdao: "What should we do? Return to the Xinghua Canal via the original route?"
Fu Youde said: "The enemy knows our whereabouts, and there will definitely be enemies chasing us on the Xinghua Canal. Let's go to the north gate and go to Yancheng. There is also a waterway leading to the Hangou Canal there!"
At this time, all the enemy's boats were surrounding him. Li Er had no time to think about it and quickly ordered the fleet to flee to the north. In the rush, the grain transport ship fell behind and was captured by the enemy.
Relying on their speed advantage, Jiangdu navy left the enemy behind and rushed to Yancheng.
There was no defender in Yancheng, so Jiangdu's army passed through Yancheng's Yan River and went straight to the Hangou Canal.
When Tuotuo got the news and sent people to block the mouth of the river, Jiangdu navy had already returned to the canal, passed Pulukou, and returned to the island area near Luhu Lake.
Although Dong Tuanxiao did not destroy Jiangdu navy, he recaptured Xinghua and prevented Jiangdu army's plan to escape to Taizhou.
Tuotuo personally wrote a letter to commend Dong Tuanxiao, sent people to block all the mouths of the Hangou Canal, and then ordered Dong Tuanxiao to recruit fishing boats and enter Gaoyou Lake to destroy the Jiangdu navy.
A few days later, Dong Tuanxiao led 50,000 naval troops to attack Gaoyou Lake.
At this time, Fang Yuan and Li Er were worried about lack of food. After learning that the Yuan army was attacking, they discussed it and decided to fight the enemy head-on at Gaoyou Lake.
They first moved the fleet to the widest lake area of Gaoyou Lake, and then lined up to wait for the arrival of Dong Tuanxiao's army.
After Dong Tuanxiao discovered the movements of Jiangdu's army, he immediately adjusted his direction and continued the pursuit.
Dong Tuanxiao's boat was a larger fishing boat. There were more than thirty people on the boat. Jia Lu was still following him as a soldier at this moment, reminding him in a low voice.
"Dong Gong, although we are going to lose this battle, we must not do anything too obvious to prevent Tuotuo from seeing traces!"
Dong Tuanxiao glanced at him and said: "Don't worry, I guarantee that there will be no flaws in Tuotuo!"
Jia Lu was stunned and said with a wry smile: "Is it possible that Mr. Dong intends to go all out?"
Dong Tuanxiao put one hand on the hilt of the sword, looked at the lake in the distance, and said with a smile: "Sooner or later I will have to fight them in the future, so I will take the opportunity to test their strength!"
"Don't overdo it!"
"Don't worry, I have my own sense of proportion."
Soon, the two naval forces met on the lake.
Today is another sunny day, the blue sky is as clear as a smooth blue satin, the lake surface is like a mirror, and the mirror reflects a deeper blue than the sky.
As Jiangdu's army fired a cannon, the battle began immediately.
Jiangdu Army relied on its range advantage to bombard the Yuan Army from a long distance. However, the Yuan Army were all small boats and scattered widely, so the effect was not ideal.
So Fang Yuan ordered the fleet to meet them head-on. After approaching, the accuracy of the artillery improved a lot. Jiangdu Army relied on the advantage of the ship's size to gain the upper hand in bow and arrow shooting.
After a while, the Yuan army retreated and fled towards the north!
Jiangdu navy immediately pursued, and both sides ran and fought.
Fang Yuan suddenly noticed that the enemy fleet was divided into three groups, and the two groups on the left and right turned around and moved toward the rear of Jiangdu Army!
He was stunned and lost his voice: "No, it's a 'Bangkok evil' tactic, we can't pursue it anymore!"
Li Er was stunned and said: "What's wrong with Bangkok?"
Fang Yuan served as a general in the Yuan Dynasty, so he had studied the "Bangkok evil" tactics in detail, saying: "This was originally a Tatar cavalry tactics, and later it was applied to the infantry and naval forces. It is the favorite method of the Tatars.
Tactics."
Fu Youde asked: "What is the core of this tactic?"
Fang Yuandao: "It's very simple. First, deliberately defeat the enemy and lure the enemy deep. Then, when the enemy is chasing, outflank the enemy to surround and annihilate them."
Everyone saw that the enemy fleets were outflanking them, and they all knew that what Fang Yuan said was true.
Fortunately, Fangyuan reacted quickly. Before the enemy encircled him, the navy used its speed to escape from the enemy's encirclement!
At this time, the enemy's left and right wings were still rowing boats quickly from the east and west, trying to outflank the enemy. The enemy's central army also turned around and pursued from the north. Jiangdu's navy changed from the attacking party to the fleeing party.
After escaping south for a while, the Jiangdu navy had thrown away the enemy's left and right wings. Unexpectedly, at this moment, a Yuan army fleet suddenly appeared in the southeast and intercepted the Jiangdu navy.
Fang Yuan was shocked and hurriedly turned the fleet to the southwest. After escaping for a while, an enemy navy also appeared in the southwest and intercepted them head-on.
Fang Yuan was secretly frightened, knowing that this was the encirclement network that Dong Tuanxiao had arranged in advance. In other words, all the changes in the battle situation were expected by the enemy.
However, at this point, there is no other choice but to escape. If any enemy army is entangled for a moment, the enemy's brigade will quickly surround them and use their numerical advantage to eliminate them.
Viewed from the air, the current situation is like a group of lions surrounding and killing a prey.
Jiangdu's army was pursued by the Yuan army behind them, and from time to time they encountered small enemy fleets blocking them from the front, so they could only flee in panic at Gaoyou Lake.
Fortunately, the Shanzhu generals drilled the navy well, and there was no chaos in the fleet, and no ship fell behind.
After fleeing like this for more than two hours, no enemy appeared in front, and the Jiangdu Navy finally escaped the enemy's encirclement.
However, they did not know that the last few encircling fleets had received orders from Dong Tuanxiao and deliberately let them leave, otherwise the Jiangdu navy would have been heavily besieged by now.
On Dong Tuanxiao's main ship, Jia Lu praised: "For being able to combine the "Bangkok evil" tactics and the "wolf pack" tactics so superbly, Dong Gong deserves to be the number one general in Jiangnan!"
Dong Tuanxiao said calmly: "Jia Gong has given too much praise. This is not a powerful tactic, at least it will be useless for the opponent's national treasure."
Jia Lu laughed and said: "Dong Gong thinks the Jiangdu navy is not as good as Fang Guozhen?"
Dong Tuanxiao was silent for a while and said: "If they have ten times more artillery, no one can be their opponent in a head-on battle!"
After this battle, the Jiangdu navy no longer dared to confront Dong Tuanxiao and started playing hide and seek in Gaoyou Lake.
After several more days of this, the Jiangdu navy was about to run out of food and fell into a desperate situation.
In fact, they still have one way to go, which is to abandon the ship and go ashore, and take a small road back to Jiangdu.
However, both Fang Yuan and Li Er knew that these warships and artillery were Zhang Yangquan's treasures, especially the artillery, which accounted for half of all the artillery in Jiangdu's army. If they could not take them back, they would not be able to see Zhang Yangquan again.
After final discussion, everyone decided to go to Shaobo Lake and try to forcefully break through the Chahan Ministry blockade in Shaobo Town!
This is exactly what Jia Lu and Dong Tuanxiao want to see.
After learning that Jiangdu's army was heading towards Shaobo Lake, Dong Tuanxiao led his fleet and slowly approached it.
Jia Lu narrowed his eyes and said: "It seems that they have finally figured it out and are preparing for a tough battle with Chahan Timur! Dong Gong, do you think they can rush over?"
Dong Tuanxiao glanced at him and said: "Chahan Timur is not only good at leading troops, but also good at training troops. Even if I fight him head-on, I will lose more than I win!"
Jia Lu smiled and said: "That's good. As long as the Jiangdu navy falls into an unfavorable situation, the Jiangdu army will definitely mobilize in full force to fight Chahan Timur in a bloody battle to the death!"
Dong Tuanxiao said: "Are you so sure that they will risk everything for 10,000 navy troops?"
Jia Lu twisted his beard and smiled and said: "Dong Gong, don't forget that they are mountain bandits. As mountain bandits, isn't the most important thing they pay attention to is the word "righteousness"?"
Dong Tuanxiao nodded and said: "But in my opinion, even if they mobilize their entire army, they are still no match for Chahan Timur!"
Jia Lu said coldly: "Maybe, but Jiangdu's army is definitely not weak. Even if Chahan Timur wins, it will be a miserable victory, and the same is true for us!"
Dong Tuanxiao nodded and said to Yang Tongguan: "Send the order and divide the fleet into twelve squadrons and line them up to prevent Jiangdu's army from turning around and returning to Gaoyou Lake!"