As a result, Cao Zhi's troops had only nearly 2,000 men when they left Wancheng. After losing many brothers in the battle of Ruxuwu, they had more than doubled the number when they withdrew their troops, almost to 5,000 men.
, so he started the reorganization work on the spot.
Cao Zhi and others had a busy day in Ruxuwu. While learning about the war in Anhui City, they also rectified the military discipline that should be observed. Without rules, there is no circle. These newly joined water thieves have long been accustomed to the lack of discipline in the barbarian army.
.Although such a short period of time may not necessarily have any effect, it is easier to let them have such a concept first and then gradually get used to it.
Li Hu was very polite when he saw Cao Zhi. He also saw it after he arrived at Ruxuwu with his 5,000 vanguard troops. Cao Zhi basically took care of Zheng Bao and Wu Jie by himself. He hardly made any effort and just stayed in the reed swamp.
We intercepted some remaining enemy troops who had retreated, and just came to enjoy the results. So after we landed and handed over the captured enemy troops to Cao Zhi, we were too embarrassed to mention the matter of going to Chaohu in a hurry.
Cao Zhi also treated Li Hu with courtesy, first allocating a batch of food and grass to Li Hu to meet his urgent need. Cao Zhi knew their difficulties. However, he still accepted all the prisoners according to the order. With Cao Zhi's current financial resources, he was not afraid that he would not be able to support them.
For this reason, Cao Zhi spent another day in the reed swamp, collecting prisoners of war, placing personnel, and allocating food and grass. Although it was hard work, Cao Zhi was so happy! After this trip, everything was pieced together.
, he now has seven or eight thousand troops.
The battle in Wancheng was also progressing smoothly as Lu Kang imagined. Li Hu's follow-up troops who arrived later reported that they were attacked by Lu Kang's troops out of the city on the eve of their withdrawal, and the follow-up troops failed to board the boat in time.
Lake, suffered considerable losses in the close combat.
This is second to none. It was Lu Kang who figured out the direction of their retreat and dispatched ships to send troops to pursue them. Li Hu was very anxious after hearing this. He could no longer bear it and took the initiative to propose to Cao Zhi to retreat to Chaohu.
After listening to his suggestion, Cao Zhi made eye contact with Li Ru who had successfully completed the mission and returned. A flash of deceit flashed in both of their eyes. Cao Zhi immediately agreed to Li Hu's request and they retreated to Chaohu together.
.
When Cao Zhi and Li Ru led Li Hu to Ruxuwu, they could not find a way to recruit him or surrender him. At that time, they felt that they were single and weak and needed reinforcements and division of the enemy. But after this battle, the situation took a turn for the worse.
After a huge change, Cao Zhi's strength has now greatly increased and he can fight any barbarian army alone.
Cao Zhi is the best at stroking with kindness and power, using both soft and hard tactics. He can pull what he can pull and hit when he can't. Of course, "beating" someone like Li Hu by killing him is already a bad idea. Now isn't the chance to stop beating him come!
After the plan to go to Chaohu was drawn up, the first thing Li Ru did was to keep the good news from Ruxuwu that was supposed to be sent to Wancheng. The army then went to Chaohu to accept Zheng Bao's home base in Chaohu.
Chaohu is a vast territory with many water towns. Zheng Bao can be said to have been operating here for many years, and it is also very effective. Floods are inevitable for people who live in water towns. Zheng Bao built a strong dam in Chao Lake to encircle and regulate the lake.
Encircling the lake shore and building a huge city on the lake shore, Chao Lake has been protected from the disaster consequences of the lake's flooding for many years. Therefore, when other areas have no harvest, Chao Lake's crops are growing well.
While the people in Lujiang were starving due to the snowstorm, Chaohu had enough food to survive the cold winter.
Regardless of Zheng Bao's ambitions for Lujiang, his many years of management in Chaohu have made great achievements. He managed Chaohu to be very prosperous. Because it has been protected from natural disasters in recent years, the people in Chaohu are also better than other places.
Life is getting better, and this year's harvest is good.
There is a reason why Zheng Bao wants to run back to his base in a hurry. There are too many things that Zheng Bao can't let go of. Although Zheng Bao has great ambitions, he is a standard "homebody" who always worries about his home after leaving home. This is also
The reason why he has not made any achievements in expanding the territory for many years is that every time Zheng Bao goes out for a few days, he always thinks about whether his home will be invaded by others, whether his subordinates will rebel, and whether his beloved wife will be occupied by others.
In fact, Zheng Bao built the city of Chao Lake with high and thick walls. Relying on the natural dangers of Chao Lake near the water, Chao Lake can be described as impregnable. Moreover, Zheng Bao's water city was very unique. It was built around the water, but there are still many obstacles in the city.
There is a reservoir surrounding the inner city, and the defensive trenches are not built outside the city, but inside the city. The trenches are many feet deep, with vertical walls. There are many bamboo pieces buried at the bottom of the trenches, which are sharply cut.
If you fall down, it won't be easy to stand up even if you don't get stabbed.
In other words, the city beside Chao Lake has two positions: water and land. If you want to attack this city, you can attack it by water or land. But even if you attack the city gates on both water and land, you still have to face the inner gates.
The city's land and water defenses can be said to be difficult to get in and out.
When Cao Zhi saw this ingenious city defense, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. If Zheng Bao really wanted to retreat back to Chaohu, Cao Zhi should not say that there was nothing he could do to defeat him. If he really wanted to capture it, he would not know how many soldiers and horses would be killed or injured.
He must be able to get it. No wonder a powerful man like Lu Kang can only turn a blind eye to Zheng Bao in his jurisdiction, and has not been able to remove this thorn in his side after so many years.
Jiang Qin and some other thieves united thousands of thieves when Ruxuwu was still in its heyday a few years ago, and tried to attack Chaohu, but they were defeated by Zheng Bao's solid city defense and superior navy.
defeat.
The Chaohu area was heavily guarded, but that was in the past. Zheng Bao eventually took a path he shouldn't have taken due to his excessive greed. The defeat of Wancheng finally left Chaohu empty, giving Cao Zhi an opportunity to take advantage of Li Dian.
When he led less than a thousand soldiers to Chaohu, it was almost an undefended city. Li Dian easily captured Chaohu and the water city.
Now Cao Zhi and Li Hu's army came. When Li Dian led the left and right to the lookout, he saw smoke billowing from the southeast, the sound of horse hooves roaring, and there were thousands of boats on the lake, and bamboo rafts came slowly.
Due to the arrangements made by Li Ru and Jiang Qin, as well as the ships from Chaohu to support the troops, Cao Zhi had enough ships to meet Li Hu's barbarian army. Not only did he bring people, but he also brought many war horses.
The army was not used to the waterway, so Cao Zhi arranged for them to follow their ships along the coast. Therefore, the army led by Cao Zhi to Chao Lake was divided into two groups. If Chao Lake was still in Zheng Bao's hands, he would have seen the army in front of him.
You should be shocked by how powerful he is.
More than 20,000 soldiers entered Shuicheng one after another, and the people immediately felt panic. Judging from the clothing, there were still quite a few barbarians among them. Although Li Dian had already followed Cao Zhi's instructions and issued a peace notice after entering Chaohu, but tens of thousands of troops