Wen Gong spent the night in the Wu people's stables. Early the next morning, when he was half asleep and half awake, the Wu people had already arrived as promised, and naturally they were accompanied by Qian Jia. The group of people directly dragged him onto the boat and poured a basin of cold water on Wen Gong. Wen Gong was startled, and then he began to hold his body and tremble. Qianjia who was on the side said: "Brother Wen, success or failure all depends on this time, don't be careless!"
Probably because of the warmer weather, the fog that had lingered on the river for two months finally dissipated. Wen Gong stood on the sampan, looked up at the sky, and found that the sun was still not visible, and the sky was still gloomy and gray. As the wind and waves swayed, he watched the Han army camp getting closer and closer with trembling eyes, and his heart became a little cold.
The ship finally stopped two stone's throw from the south shore. Worried about being recognized by the Han army, Qianjia moved to another ship. Feeling uneasy, Qianjia used a piece of cloth to cover her face. The other Wu Jun general in charge, Han Zong, raised his sword at this time, pushed Wen Gong, who had his hands tied behind his back, and pressed him on the bow of the ship. Cheng Zi followed with two ships, and looked at Wen Gong again. The ship they were in slowly sailed within the arrow's range.
Han Zong pushed Wen Gong and urged, "Speak quickly! Shout louder. If you're late, go back early!"
Wen Gong stood up straight, cleared his throat, raised his head, and shouted to the city: "Who is your guard here? Come and listen to me. I am Wen Gong, the envoy to the north bank ordered by the governor. Colonel Huan Jia is my father, and I have a message to tell you!" His voice was a little hoarse, but his voice was still loud.
Someone behind the fence on the other side said, "You are Wen Hui's son? What proof do you have?"
"Tell your guards to come out. There is no one above the army commander who doesn't know me!"
After a while, Hu Du came out with his head in hand and said, "How come Wen was caught? If you have anything to say, please tell me!"
Han Zong stood beside Wen Gong and quickly turned his head to stare at him. Wen Gong took a deep breath and shouted loudly: "Although the navy was defeated, General Du's troops are still there! Liyang City has not been lost! They have made an appointment and will fight to the death on the north bank to contain the Wu thieves for everyone! Please! Don’t panic and get discouraged, try your best to persevere. I..."
At this point, Han Zong, who was beside Wen Gong, and Qian Jia, who was watching from a distance, were both shocked and angry. Before he could finish speaking, Han Zong grabbed Wen Gong's clothes and yelled: "You are looking for death!" He struck him in the mouth with a knife ring and shouted angrily: "I won't let you talk nonsense again!" Wen Gong's teeth were shattered and his mouth was full of blood. He still took the opportunity to shout intermittently: "Unfortunately, I was captured, and I shall serve the country with my broken body!" His words were blurred, and the blood dripped onto his chest, dyeing the skirt of his clothes red.
The people in the city completely understood. Someone choked and shouted: "Take care, Wen! Stop talking, we all understand!"
Han Zong was furious and kicked Wen Gong down. He picked up the Huanshou knife and was about to chop him down with one blow. Cheng Zi from behind quickly jumped over and grabbed his wrist. Han Zong looked at Cheng Zi in confusion and anger. As soon as he said "you", Cheng Zi pushed him hard and pushed him several steps away. Then he said: "This is what a righteous man did. By killing him, are you trying to bring injustice to our army?" Han Zong scolded: "A bullshit righteous man is just a fool!" But Cheng Zi's father was Cheng Pu , whose status was higher than Han Zong's father Han Dang, he didn't want to get entangled with Cheng Zi on this, so he ordered to turn back angrily.
Wen Gong, who was on the ground at this time, had almost all of his teeth knocked out, and his mouth was bleeding profusely, unable to stop it. Cheng Zi gave him a simple bandage, but it didn't work. That night, Wen Gong died of excessive blood loss.
Zhou Yu heard about Wen Gong's righteous deeds and admired him very much. For the first time, he wrote a eulogy for him and was buried with him. The burial place was next to the sandbank where he was captured.
Back to the Han army on the south bank, Zhou Buyi's mood did not improve after receiving the news from Wen Gong. Although Wen Gong's words boosted the morale of the troops, the most critical information was not conveyed: how and when did Bei'an intend to contain the enemy? I don't know anything about it, so I can't make targeted arrangements and cooperation. There is no doubt that there is no chance of winning if you rush across the river under such circumstances.
Therefore, in the next few days, Zhou Buyi sent envoys several times to try to get in touch with Du Ji's headquarters in Liyang. However, because of Wen Gong's incident, the Wu people had already heightened their vigilance. The ships patrolled the river day and night. The Han army was unable to make a breakthrough at all, and naturally it was impossible to contact Du Ji and others.
On the fourth day after Wen Gong reported the news, Zhou Buji knew he could wait no longer. As time goes by, our disadvantages will only become greater and greater, and the situation on the north bank may continue to get worse. He must make a decision, or in other words, make a gamble, in exchange for the lives of these hundreds of thousands of soldiers. After thinking about it, he held a military meeting again and told the generals to put all the collected ships into the water. When the southeast wind started to blow, they would cross the river with the whole army.
In winter, the wind is mostly from the northwest, but occasionally it changes direction from the southeast. It's just that the Han people didn't care before, but now they are waiting for the southeast wind to come, but it seems to be particularly painful. During this period of time stationed in Yanziji, the Han army had accumulated thousands of ships from collecting to self-building. Worried about being captured by the Wu people in a water battle, they were all piled on the sandbar at Yanzijitou. The Han soldiers followed Zhou Buyi's military orders and pushed the ships into the water one by one, causing countless waves. Many Han soldiers sat on small boats and looked north against the wind, but in the vast river, they could not see the beach on the other side. This made them think half in fear and half in hope, how can they cross the river?
At this time, Zhou Buyi was also making calculations: the number of thousands of ships sounds huge, but in fact, except for a building ship previously borrowed from Huang Quan, there are only a few real warships, and the rest are just a few civilian ship. But this is also an unavoidable choice. In this case, if you want the whole army to cross the river, you must use everything you have. If you divide the army into batches and gradually cross the river, you will face the dilemma of being divided and surrounded by the Wu army. . However, such a large fleet cannot hide itself on the river, and it will inevitably conflict with the Wu Navy. Zhou Buji was not sure how many people would survive if they failed, but the Han army had no other choice.
Inspired by Huang Quan, he filled the dozens of ships at the forefront with dry firewood, poured them with kerosene, and recruited hundreds of men who dared to die. If he encountered a Wu ship while crossing the river, he would use fire ships to clear the way and cover the fleet crossing the river. It was precisely because the fire ship could not travel against the wind, otherwise it would burn his house, that Zhou Buyi decided to time the crossing of the river when the southeast wind blew.
After pushing the boat into the water, most of the Han troops had been waiting on the river bank for the wind direction. There was still a northwest wind in the morning, but it soon stopped, and the waves on the river gradually became lower. So the Han people guessed, what kind of wind will the next gust of wind be? As a result, until noon, the river surface was still as calm as a mirror. By the time the Han people had become numb and trembling all over from the cold winter air. Finally, a gust of wind blew over, and many people's cloaks flew away if they were not careful. Many people looked at the flags on the deck with surprise and uncertainty, and found that the dragon and tiger flags of the Han army, which had been drooping, were now spread out and pointed straight to the north!
"It's the southeast wind!" Almost at the same moment, people shouted in unison. The soldiers immediately scrambled to get on board the ship, and then turned to look at the large ship where the commander was in the distance. Zhou Buyi felt the whistling southeast wind, and felt a little excited in his heart: He thought he might have to wait for a few days, but he didn't expect that on the first day after making up his mind, he hit the right wind direction! For this reason, he couldn't help but murmured: "The destiny of the Han is with the Han, the destiny of the Han is with the Han!" Then he ordered his followers to beat drums and blow trumpets, and ordered the entire army to leave the shore as planned.
When the sails were unfurled, the fleet set sail very quickly. But once you get far away from the shore, as far as you can see, there are boundless waves, which naturally frightens the soldiers coming from the north. The cold wind on the river was even more icy, and the boat could not keep out the cold, which made the Han people wrapped in furs shiver with cold. The ship swayed with the waves, especially when cross waves came in, and the people on the ship swayed from side to side. The soldiers nervously held on to the side of the ship for fear that the ship would capsize. At this time, they missed the land and horses very much, but it was a pity that the ships could not carry the horses. The entire army had more than 100,000 horses, but they all stayed in the camp at Yanziji.
Zhou Buyi was sitting on the boat, his whole body was cold, but his heart was undulating like a surging river. Seeing the shrinking attitude of the soldiers on the boat, he sighed and said: "Huang Gongheng's death has required hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives together. If I had known this, I should have shared more with others." After saying this, he turned to look at the mighty river, and couldn't help but feel He shook his head and said: "The river is really designed by God to divide the north and the south. It is difficult to force it with just human power."
The Han people rowed slowly forward, always alert to the appearance of the Wu people on the river. But what they didn't expect was that with the blessing of the southeast wind, it seemed that the Wu people were unwilling to fight with them. When they saw Lingyan Mountain clearly appearing in front of them, the Han people finally relaxed their worries. They cheered loudly, filled with the joy of escaping death.
But at the same time, Zhou Buyi noticed more and more strange things: The Wu people had clearly cut off all news from the north bank and had taken the initiative on the river. It was impossible that they didn't know the news about their own crossing of the river, so why did they do this? No action? He vaguely guessed a terrible possibility: the Wu people's back-up plan might be waiting for them after they cross the river. For this reason, Zhou Buyi immediately stood up and used flags and drums to send orders to the surrounding ministries: The entire army will form an array as soon as they land ashore!
However, the Han army's line was too long, and the soldiers on the shore were extremely excited. As a result, the Han people at the front did not pay attention to the military orders. They just kept rowing and hurriedly tried to get to the reeds. They also didn't notice at all that one Wu flag after another quietly rose from the reed swamps. The Wu soldiers hidden among them all pulled out their knives at the waist, watching the Han army that was about to come into contact.
