Although he issued a military order to Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu sniffed the fragrance of the water and his heart was not at peace. He was proud of his martial arts skills since he was a child, and none of his colleagues in the army could compare with him, so he compared himself with Wei Qing and aspired to become a pillar of the country. Therefore, he often complained: It is difficult to have a thousand-mile horse, and it is difficult to have a bole. When will there be a Emperor Wu who appreciates him and allows him to flourish and serve the country?
When he was twenty-two years old, he was appointed by Ding Yuan as the governor's chief secretary, and his official career was considered considerable among ordinary people. But when he thought about the Xiongnu rebellion, he galloped on the battlefield and was much better than Liu Bei. However, Liu Bei was already ranked as an immortal with two thousand stones, which made Lu Bu feel quite wasted. So he betrayed Ding Yuan, recognized his father Dong Zhuo, and was promoted to Zhonglang General. But since he surrendered, even though he was one of the top seven lieutenant generals under Dong Zhuo, he had always been shunned by the Liang people. According to Gao Shun, the Liang people looked down on him and said that he was a traitor seeking glory, which was extremely shameless.
He wanted to go crazy in his heart, but it was difficult for him to do so. When he heard that Chen Chong was leading his army to fight, his anger finally had a place to vent, and he was somewhat eager to prove himself, so he took the initiative to ask for a fight.
Lu Bu was not a rough man, nor was he reckless when he set out, but he also had some thoughts. He set off from Xiaopingjin, showed off his skills for a moment, then calmed down, and gave orders to the boatmen one by one that the boat should move slowly along the edge of the sandbar. Then he told the soldiers to bend down and lie on the side of the boat. He crouched among the bushes on the sandbank, waiting for the other people to come down the river, and then climbed straight onto the sandbank when others were unprepared.
In July, when the river was at its strongest, the boat floated very fast. Sitting on the side of the boat, Lu Bu felt like he was riding a horse. In less than half a quarter of an hour, he was drifting between the large and small sandbanks. But to his expectation, concealment did not have much effect. After he poked his figure out of the bushes, he was not caught off guard, but many soldiers were gathering here.
It was obvious that the soldiers were well prepared. At this time, there were about 300 soldiers stationed in the southwest of the sandbank. They carried powerful crossbows made of beef tendons and loaded them with arrows. They were facing the Liang people on the bow of the boat, waiting for them to continue approaching. . Lu Bu saw that the surprise attack was ineffective, so he simply picked up his halberd and stood up, using the halberd blade to finger the soldiers in a provocative gesture.
Most of these soldiers were Xuzhou soldiers. They didn't know Lu Bu's martial name. When they saw Lu Bu's provocation, they all said, "Where are you from? Are you afraid that you won't be able to become a hedgehog?" So when Lu Bu got close to fifty feet, they started to attack one after another. Shoot an arrow at him. Lu Bu stood on the bow of the ship and saw the crossbow arrows flying towards him like a line. He held his breath and focused, holding his halberd in the air with both hands. There was a splashing sound as it fell into the water. It turned out that Lu Bu had plucked about thirty arrows in the wind. After excluding those arrows that failed, only two arrows hit his armor.
The Xuzhou soldiers had never seen such skill before and hesitated for a moment whether to shoot again. Seeing this, Lu Bu proudly said to his followers: "My martial arts are a bit rusty. This time, the east wind blew, but I actually have two arrows." Missed it." The followers all admired him and said, "The general is really a god."
Lü Buyu was not satisfied. The oars of the boat were shaking and the Xuzhou soldiers were getting closer and closer. However, he laughed and said: "You are not good at shooting, so you can show off your crossbows with arrows." So Lu Bu put the halberd in his hand on the bow of the ship, took out a three-stone ox-horn bow from the corner of the ship's side, and took out five conical arrows from the quiver with one hand, holding them all in his hand. I saw Lu Bu riding his horse in the bow of the ship and sinking his waist, holding a bow and stretching the string. He put an arrow on the string and fired it. After the arrow was fired, there were arrow feathers falling from the string. With his fingers flexing, all five arrows were fired in a matter of seconds, but there were not many arrows on the sandbank. Few, five people fell down.
Both the enemy and us were dumbfounded by this skill of shooting five people with five arrows in a row. Wei Yue from behind cheered loudly: "Arrows against the wind, five-piercing flowers!" His subordinates cheered as if they were awakening from a dream. , and the enemy troops on the sandbank were deprived of their momentum and felt a little depressed for a while.
Seeing that the distance between the boat and the sandbank in the front row was only ten feet, Lu Bu was very proud. He put his bow and arrow on his back and picked up his halberd again. When the bow of the ship was a little closer to eight feet, he jumped from the bow onto the sandbank. The ship he was on was suddenly hit. The force was so strong that it swayed back and forth so much that the boatman could hardly control it. After less than a quarter of an hour, the other soldiers caught up with him. At this time, Lu Bu had already taken more than ten steps and was fighting with the enemy's soldiers.
When looking from afar, the Xuzhou soldiers were intimidated by Lu Bu's archery skills, but when they got up close, they found that his close combat was even more terrifying. Although he was nine feet tall, he was extremely agile. He swung an iron halberd weighing nearly a hundred kilograms like the wind. No one could get close to him from the front, so they could only go around and slash at his armor, but it had no effect. A few people were lucky enough to pierce the armor. Through the gap, I discovered that under Lu Bu's iron armor, the joints were covered with a layer of cowhide, which could not penetrate the flesh at all. It stands to reason that ordinary people would be unable to move if they were so tightly wrapped, but Lu Bu could still fight from left to right. This had to be said to be a very strange thing. The Xuzhou soldiers looked at Lu Bu as if he were looking at a monster. A dozen of them advanced and retreated together, and they finally captured Lu Bu. Tangled in place.
This played into Lu Bu's heart. He secretly planned that as long as he struggled for a while, when all his subordinates were on the sandbank, how could they stop these soldiers who came from nowhere? He has eight hundred soldiers in this line, who have experienced battles for a long time and are good at foot combat. As long as he holds a firm foothold on the sandbank and holds out until the second group of soldiers arrives, the outcome is self-evident.
After another two moments of fierce fighting, the warriors from other places on the sandbank gathered together, about 2,000 in total, and 400 soldiers gathered around Lu Bu. Their tactics were as normal as Lu Bu expected, and Lu Bu's army gathered together. Steadyly occupying a corner of the sandbank, no matter how hard the opponent stabs you, you won't retreat even half an inch. But that's it. Lu Bu didn't wait for the troops from behind to land. He looked back, and the scene in front of him was far beyond his expectation.
The Liang people rowed over, and only half of the eighty boats were aboard. At this time, about fifty boats suddenly emerged from the north and south shores of the sandbar. Unlike the Liang people who went down the river, these boats swam upstream and eventually swam between the large and small sandbanks, intercepting all the Liang people's boats going back and forth.
Liang Ren couldn't drive a boat, so the boatman he found was just an ordinary ferryman. It might be enough to get people ashore, but he didn't know anything about water warfare. But this is not the case for Xuzhou soldiers. Most of these people are Taishan bandits. They often rob passing ships in the Huai River. They form formations to fight against them, which is not as far as Liang people. However, when it comes to controlling the ship's side on the water, both sides cannot make excuses. This is why Chen Chong chose Xuzhou soldiers to come here.
In terms of the number of soldiers on board the ships, both sides were the same, twelve men per ship. It's just that the Xuzhou soldiers went upstream, requiring everyone in the boat to paddle forward, one person at the stern to hold the rudder, and only one person to fight in the front. But water battles are very different from land battles. The Xuzhou soldier holds a long pole with a sickle-shaped hook blade hanging on the end of the pole. He hangs the hook blade on Liang Ren's starboard side and passes the pole to his comrades behind him. Four or five People pushed and pulled back and forth, and the boat suddenly flipped over in the strong waves. People on the boat fell into the river like dumplings, and the sound of splashing was endless.
After capsizing more than ten ships in this way, Liang Ren finally realized that the Taishan thieves had long hooks to catch them, so they lay on the side of the ship and chopped with knives. Unexpectedly, the Taishan thieves used long hooks to hook their hair buns. , neck, the hook mouth is sharp, after a few rounds, the people's heads, necks and hands are covered with cut flesh and blood. They had no weapons to fight back, and they could not shoot arrows stably on the ship. Many of them had no martial arts skills, but at this moment they could not even reach the enemy's hands, and they were soon fooled to death.
When the boats behind them saw this, they all gave way, but there were two boatmen in one of their boats, so how could they give way? Except for the last boat that docked early and fled, all the boats in front, without exception, either abandoned their swords and surrendered, or were killed by Taishan bandits and thrown into the river.
Lu Bu's eyes were cracked. How could he have imagined such a scene when he asked for war? Even though there was a constant stream of enemies on the sandbank, he was so furious that he stabbed six or seven more people to death one after another, and repelled another wave of enemy attacks. However, the strength of the troops was gradually exhausted, and their morale was also low. It was estimated that if they persisted for three quarters of an hour, the formation would collapse without any attack.
Song Xian shouted to Lu Bu from two feet away: "Marquis, we'd better withdraw!" Lu Bu shouted angrily: "How can we withdraw? Isn't it possible to die on the water?" Song Xian shouted back: "There is always more. A glimmer of hope! A military prince must be a man who can bend and stretch!"
These words touched Lu Bu's mind. He made up his mind and immediately set off like thunder. Without saying a word, he quickly turned around and ran back to the boat. Unexpectedly, many of his followers had no time to follow, and there were only about thirty people. After boarding the ship, the others were trapped by the enemy on the sandbank, unable to escape.
Lü Bu occupied one boat by himself, and immediately used his halberd to clear the tidal flats, and drove towards the river bank. The Taishan bandits who were fighting on the river did not have time to react. Only Zang Ba's boat was swimming at the end, and collided with Lü Bu. The Qingzhou captain looked at him One man and one boat, with gold rims on their chainmails and a precious halberd in their hands. He said to his subordinates in a hurry: "This must be a noble man. Capturing him will show my achievements!"
Then they also used long hooks to hook Lu Bu's ship. Seeing this, Lu Bu pulled out his knife and immediately cut off the hook rods of the Taishan thieves. This made the Taishan thieves who were chasing him quite amazed. After all, they had all expected it. In such a situation, a hook pole is made of jujube wood. An ordinary person can cut it with more than ten swords to leave a crease. This person has a precious sword and is also an unparalleled strongman in the world.
Seeing that they couldn't catch him alive, Zang Ba changed his words: "Break the bottom of his boat with the cone!" The Taishan bandits took out three more long poles with a length of more than two feet, with two-foot-long iron cones fixed on the tops of the poles. They went deep into the water and pointed at him. Lu Bu's bottom of the boat was sharply chiseled. Lu Bu swung his knife into the water to chop, but it was in vain. He saw several holes in the bottom of the boat made by the iron awl.
The yellow turbid river water surged up the side of the boat, submerging the corners of Lu Bu's legs. The cold temperature made him panic. He turned to Zang Ba and raised his hand to signal that he was willing to surrender, but how could Zang Ba dare to surrender him? He smiled and watched He sank slowly. Lu Bu stopped looking at them and continued rowing toward the shore with his iron halberd. However, when he was still nearly twenty feet away from the river bank, his boat sank completely.
When the Taishan thief saw Lu Bu for the last time, he rolled up and down in the river, still holding a halberd and a knife in his hand. The soldiers all laughed and said, "If he throws these away, maybe he can roll over a few more times. Okay." The brave and powerful man, what a pity, what a pity, that he died like this.”
Zang Ba circled the place where Lu Bu fell into the water for several more times to express his silence. Zang Ba noted down the location where he fell into the water, thinking that since he was wearing such heavy clothes, he might as well have fallen nearby if he died. It would be better to salvage him again at night, and he might be able to salvage the body. At this moment, one of his subordinates pointed to the river and said in a voice: "He is still alive!"
Everyone couldn't help but look together and saw a human head emerging from the river, slowly heading south in the rapids, like a drifting gourd. After a while, he revealed his armor, and water continued to trickle down from the gaps in the armor. Only then did people see clearly that Lu Bu was still holding a stone the size of a millstone. He was holding the stone, step by step. Walking ashore from the bottom of the river!
He threw down the boulder, looked back at the Taishan thieves, drew out his knife and slashed at them in the air, then left with his chest trembling.
Nice romance
Chen Chong had a panoramic view of all this from a newly built watchtower on Shazhou, and couldn't help but smile: "What a Lu Fengxian, he has the domineering power of a sword across the bank!"
