Chapter 2531: Zheng Chenggong is trapped in Zhu County, Zheng Chenggong plots to save his father
Lujiang has always been the focus of competition between Wu and Chu. For the eight counties in the south of Lujiang, the two countries have fought many wars, with no less than 100,000 casualties, but there is still nothing anyone can do.
This time Sun Ce led his army to attack Chu. In less than half a month, he captured three strong cities in Tongxiang, Juchao and Wanxian, and annihilated nearly half of the Lujiang defenders. This greatly boosted the military morale of the Wu army. .
With his morale high, Sun Ce decided to launch a blitzkrieg. He led more than 20,000 elite soldiers to set out overnight to raid Xunyang, without giving Guo Ziyi any chance to react.
Sun Ce was also worried about failure, so before taking action, he specifically consulted Sun Wu for advice, and only sent troops after receiving Sun Wu's approval.
The 20,000-strong army moved together, and the movement was so great that it was impossible to hide it from the Chu army spies.
Guo Ziyi was also surprised after receiving the spies' report. He had thought that the Wu army would rest for a few days after capturing Wan County. After all, the Wu army was exhausted after attacking the city for several days, but he did not expect that Sun Ce would be so uneasy about common sense.
Sun Ce arrived too quickly, the morale of the Chu army had not yet recovered, and Guo Ziyi was not ready to defend. If he forced a fight with the Wu army like this, once Sun Ce entered the city, he would not be able to escape even if he wanted to.
The army of more than 10,000 people in Guo Ziyi's hands is Chu's last force in Lujiang. Once the entire army is wiped out, the east gate of Chu will be wide open, and Sun Ce will invade Jiangxia effortlessly.
After thinking about it, Guo Ziyi decided to take the initiative to give up Xunyang before the Wu army arrived, and retreated to Qichun City to preserve his strength and also to lure the enemy deeper.
After receiving Sima Yi's summons, Guo Ziyi no longer doubted Sun Quan's intentions.
As the prefect of Lujiang, Sun Quan was in charge of the food and grass supply for the 80,000 Wu army. He was able to provide Guo Ziyi with a large amount of confidential information.
Even if the information leaked by Sun Quan is true, as long as Sun Ce's 80,000 troops fight steadily, Guo Ziyi, who only has more than 10,000 troops, can't do anything to him.
The only way Guo Ziyi could think of was to take the initiative to show weakness, and in the continuous retreat, dispel Sun Ce's wariness about him, causing him to miscalculate the strength of both sides, in order to achieve the purpose of luring the enemy deeper.
As long as Sun Ce breaks away from the main force, Guo Ziyi's opportunity will come.
Guo Ziyi's move was not a bold one. After all, even if his goal of luring the enemy deeper was achieved, Sun Ce, as the commander-in-chief of the Wu army, would not necessarily lead the army himself.
If other generals had come, even if Guo Ziyi could succeed in the ambush, the price would be too high if he took the initiative to abandon the gateway to the east.
Moreover, even if Sun Ce really pursues him, he may not continue to pursue him after occupying Xunyang, so Guo Ziyi's move is a big gamble.
The main reason why Guo Ziyi dared to take such a gamble was that Sima Yi and Sun Quan gave him the courage to take the gamble.
He knew that Wu State's main purpose of sending troops to attack Chu was to pave the way for Sun Ce, so he bet that Sun Ce would not rely too much on Sun Wu in order to express himself, and would be eager to open up the situation.
It has to be said that Guo Ziyi knew Sun Ce's thoughts very well, so he made the right bet this time.
Sun Ce marched all night and finally arrived at Xunyang City, only to find that the gate of Xunyang City was wide open and it had become an empty city.
Faced with this piece of fat, Sun Ce naturally would not let it go. He occupied Xunyang City without spending a single soldier and completely expelled the Chu forces from Lujiang County.
After the Chu State occupied the four cities in the southwest of Lujiang, in order to prevent them from being captured by the Wu State, they invested a lot in the four cities and built them into military fortresses.
But now Wu State has regained the four southwest cities of Lujiang at a very small cost, and the Chu army was beaten to the point where it was almost impossible to fight back.
This also made many generals of the Wu army become arrogant and began to ignore the Chu army.
Sun Ce would naturally not make such a low-level mistake as underestimating the enemy. After all, this was not the first time Wu and Chu had fought against each other.
Each time, Wu took the initiative to attack Chu, while Chu passively defended.
Every time, Wu State had the upper hand, while Chu State was passively beaten and forced.
But each time it ended with Wu's defeat and Chu's defense of its territory.
Sun Ce clearly knew how difficult the Chu army was, and also knew that a few small victories were of little significance. Real victory would only come in the end, so naturally he would not make such a low-level mistake as underestimating the enemy.
However, in this battle, Sun Ce felt the power of blitzkrieg for the first time.
This kind of strategy that ignores logistical supplies and focuses on rushing forward without giving up until the enemy is defeated is really too fascinating and to his liking.
Capturing four cities so easily and driving the Chu army out of Lujiang gave Sun Ce the illusion that Chu's eastern troops were empty and that Guo Ziyi was incompetent.
"Liu Xiu was a wise man, and he was always very good at judging people, but unexpectedly he fell in love with Guo Ziyi." Sun Ce sneered in his heart.
At this time, Liu Xiu had not yet realized the mistake of hiring people. Sun Ce naturally wanted to expand the results as much as possible and occupy more territory before Liu Xiu replaced Guo Ziyi.
Qichun is the east gate of Jingzhou. If this city is captured, the eastern part of Jingzhou will be opened wide, and Jiangxia will also wave to Wu.
So after Sun Ce rested for the night, leaving three thousand defenders in Xunyang, he set out again and headed straight for Qichun.
This time Sun Ce not only did not discuss with Sun Wu, but also left Sun Wu's army behind. In his opinion, there was no need for his uncle Sun Wu to take action against the incompetent Guo Ziyi.
When Sun Ce's army arrived in Qichun, the Chu army had entered the city half a day in advance. Although they had been making various arrangements, they were still not fully prepared.
Sun Ce saw the loopholes in the city's defense at a glance, and personally led the elite Jiefan army. Carrying a ladder, he directly launched an attack on the city. Three top generals, Li Hu, Li Lu, and Li Yang, also participated.
The fighting power unleashed by a god of war, three peak generals, and an elite battalion was terrifying. Even without extra siege equipment, they could still attack the Qichun Tower by relying only on ladders.
After the Wu and Chu armies fought fiercely for two hours, Guo Ziyi ordered Wuzhiqi to withdraw from Qichun, and then the entire army withdrew to Lu County.
The Qichun defenders had clearly not lost their fighting spirit, but Guo Ziyi took the initiative to withdraw?
This reaction fell into the eyes of Sun Ce, and naturally it became that Guo Ziyi did not dare to fight to the death, which was a sign of cowardice and incompetence.
Although the Chu army suffered heavy losses and withdrew from Qichun, it was not defeated. This was the best moment to seize the opportunity to pursue the victory.
However, it was already dark now, so Sun Ce could only give up temporarily and take a rest.
Sun Ce dared to march at night, but he did not dare to pursue at night. After all, the risk of doing so was too great.
Although Lien Zhan and Lianjie gave him a little advantage, he had not lost his mind after all, and it would not be a joke if he fell into a trap.
At dawn the next day, Sun Ce led his army and set off again, heading straight for Zhu County, leaving two thousand defenders behind in Qichun.
Sun Ce was also worried that he would encounter an ambush, so this time he marched in two groups, one led by Zheng Zhilong, and the other led by himself.
Both armies had only one purpose, which was to take advantage of Guo Ziyi's unsteady footing to arrive at Zhu County as quickly as possible and capture it.
Zheng Zhilong was implanted as a Jiangdong water bandit and ran rampant in the Jiangdong area for many years, but no one could do anything about him.
After the Yellow Turban Uprising, water bandits were everywhere in the Jiangdong area, among which water bandits were the most serious problem, and Zheng Zhilong was the most powerful family among the water bandits.
The major princes in Jiangdong sent troops to encircle and suppress him several times, but they were all defeated by Zheng Zhilong, including Sun Jian.
At that time, Sun Jian personally led the army to suppress the bandits. However, Zheng Zhilong was so cunning and had excellent water warfare skills that he failed to succeed in two consecutive sieges.
It was not until Sun Jian occupied Jiangdong and ordered Sun Wu to lead the army to clear out the bandits in Jiangdong that Zheng Zhilong's power was completely wiped out, and Zheng Zhilong also surrendered to Soochow.
As the number one man in Jiangdong Green Forest, Zheng Zhilong's surrender not only allowed the Wu State to recruit more than 10,000 elite sailors, but also made bandits from all over the Wu State fearful and choose to take refuge.
With Zheng Zhilong alone, Sun Jian was able to put down all the banditry in Jiangdong within a very short period of time.
After Zheng Zhilong surrendered to Soochow, he was highly used by Sun Jian because of his excellent water warfare skills. During this attack on Chu, he was transferred to Sun Ce's command.
Sun Ce divided the army into two groups. After leading one group, he left Zheng Zhilong to lead the other group, which shows his status in the Wu Kingdom.
After Zheng Zhilong separated from Sun Ce, he led an army of 7,000 people and took a small road to the west. After two days and one night of rapid march, they finally arrived outside Zhu County.
Based on the sparse number of defenders on the city tower, Zheng Zhilong judged that the number of defenders on the city tower should not exceed a thousand. In other words, the defeated Chu army was overtaken by Sun Ce's army before it retreated to Zhu County.
Zheng Zhilong was not worried about Sun Ce. After all, with the strength of Guo Ziyi's defeated army, it was impossible for him to be a match for Sun Ce's newly victorious army, so he ordered an siege.
The total number of defenders in Zhu County was less than a thousand, and it was not a fortified city. Naturally, it could not withstand the fierce attack of 7,000 Wu troops.
After attacking for three hours, Zheng Chenggong, son of Zheng Zhilong, beheaded the defender of Zhu County. The Chu army no longer had any intention to fight and surrendered to the Wu army. The Wu army only suffered more than 300 casualties.
Zheng Zhilong was naturally overjoyed when he conquered Zhu County. After all, after Zhu County, there was Xiling City, where Jiangxia was governed. This was obviously a great achievement.
But Zheng Chenggong's reaction was completely opposite to Zheng Zhilong's, without any joy at all.
"Sen'er, how come you have a sad expression after winning the battle?" Zheng Zhilong asked with a smile.
Zheng Chenggong said seriously: "Father, something is wrong.
Logically speaking, even if they catch up with Guo Ziyi's defeated army, it has been so long and the prince should have arrived at Zhu County. "
Zheng Zhilong was startled, then frowned and said, "It's true. How powerful is Guo Ziyi's defeated army? It's impossible to hold off His Highness the Crown Prince for so long. Maybe there are other things that delayed him on the way."
"But father, not only did the prince's army not come, but not one of Guo Ziyi's defeated army escaped to Zhu County. This is simply unreasonable."
Hearing Zheng Chenggong's words, Zheng Zhilong's expression changed drastically and he said solemnly: "Sen'er, do you mean that the prince has encountered a strong enemy?"
Zheng Chenggong shook his head and said, "No, what I mean is that His Highness the Crown Prince may have been ambushed, and we fell into Guo Ziyi's trick of luring the enemy in."
"But with Guo Ziyi's defeated army, how could he have the energy to set up an ambush? Even if he did set up an ambush, it would be impossible to deal with the crown prince's elite." Zheng Zhilong asked with a puzzled look on his face.
As soon as he finished speaking, a soldier came to report: "Report, general, a large number of Chu troops appeared outside the city, probably no less than tens of thousands of troops."
"What?"
Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Chenggong and his son exclaimed at the same time, their eyes full of shock and uneasiness, and they immediately climbed up the tower to investigate.
Sure enough, there were tens of thousands of Chu troops outside the city, and they were flying the flag of the King of Chu, which showed that Liu Xiu himself was outside the city.
"Father, we have fallen into a trap." Zheng Chenggong said with a bitter look on his face.
Zheng Zhilong nodded numbly, feeling extremely regretful in his heart for not advising Sun Ce not to be greedy for merit and rush forward.
In his opinion, when Sun Ce continued to attack Qichun City after taking Xunyang, he should have advised Sun Ce to stop, but instead he supported Sun Ce, which was really inappropriate for a general.
"Sen'er, what should we do now? Let's abandon the city and break out."
Zheng Zhilong asked. He knew that the situation with Sun Ce was definitely not good, but now he couldn't protect himself, so he couldn't care about Sun Ce.
After Zheng Chenggong heard what his father said, he said without thinking: "We must not break out of the encirclement. If we leave the city, we will die."
"Then wait for help?"
Zheng Zhilong asked, but he didn't have any confidence in his heart.
The leader of the Chu army outside the city of E County was none other than the King of Chu, Liu Xiu. No one in the Wu Kingdom except Sun Wu could resist him.
Zheng Zhilong had also been defeated at the hands of Liu Xiu, so he naturally did not think that his mere 7,000 defenders could defend E County, which was not very defensive, under the fierce attack of Liu Xiu's 30,000 to 40,000 troops.
Zheng Chenggong also knew that E County was not as strong as Xunyang and Qichun. Because it was located close to the hinterland of Jiangxia, it rarely experienced wars, and Chu State did not invest many resources, so it was not a strong city.
You will definitely not be able to hold on if you stick to it, but if you leave the city, you will definitely die.
What should we do?
Regarding this, Zheng Chenggong was also very anxious. After a long time, he felt something in his heart and murmured to himself: "Since we can't defeat him, we can only outwit him."
Sorry, I've been too busy this week. The author has worked overtime for four days in a row and didn't go home until nine o'clock in the evening. I was too exhausted and had no intention of typing, so I stopped updating for so long.
I won’t go out to play this weekend, so I won’t say that I can add more updates, but I will definitely update them normally.
(End of chapter)
