The Wu army began to encircle Hefei in March (AD 222), and then launched a water attack. Lu Meng built a siege with embankments on three sides, which seemed impeccable. However, looking at the entire Huainan battle, the situation was still extremely delicate: although Zhuge Liang was in charge of Hefei at this time, the defenders only had 5,000 people, which was by no means the real main force of the Han army. The root cause is that the rest of the Han army was divided into two groups, one was led by Du Ji and was stationed near Lu'an, and the other was led by Ma Dai and stayed at the base camp Shouchun. One to the west and the other to the north, they were like tigers peeping into the mountains, making the Wu army look like a thorn on their backs.
When the Wu army was encircling and building the weir, Zhuge Liang sent a message to the two troops to arrange the encirclement. He thought that the Wu army was encircling the encirclement with all its strength. Although its force was large and its siege was tight, it would take several months to break the city. At this time, the Wu army was sitting in the long siege and was like a dead thing. The Han army could attack the weak and send troops to Liyang, Longshu and other places. Once the Wu people can be forced to divide their troops and rescue them, whether the Han army returns directly to relieve the siege or sets up an ambush halfway for reinforcements, it can greatly ease the dilemma of the siege of Hefei.
By April, the dams around Hefei were built, and the Wu army's navy entered the weir lake in large numbers, approached the city with huge ships, and tried to engage the Han army in Hefei. However, when they got closer, they found that the Han army's response was unconventional. The Wu people were flying arrows like locusts on the buildings and ships, but the Han army defending the city hid behind the city ultimatum and did not fight back at all, as if they were allowing the Wu people to approach the buildings and ships. The Wu forwards did not dare to make their own claims and immediately reported the matter to their coach Lü Meng. Lü Meng was also very surprised, but since he could safely approach the city, there was no reason not to try without troops. After a slight hesitation, Lü Meng ordered his soldiers to attack against the wall. .
In this attack on the city, Lu Meng used four large ships. They stood side by side and were so huge that they looked like the legendary Kunpeng up close. There are six thousand Wu troops inside the building ship, which is a veritable fortress on the river. Lu Meng ordered them to attack the south of Hefei City first. Once a breakthrough was achieved, five ships from the rear would come to respond and seize the city of Hefei in one go.
At this time, the wind was southeasterly, and the Wu people's building ships sailed with the wind at an extremely fast speed. In a moment, they were close to the Han army's arrow range. However, just as the situation seen before, the Han army did not take the initiative to fight back. Continue to remain silent and wait for the building ship to move forward. At this time, the Wu people were also extremely careful. They slowed down the ship, prepared wooden ladders and long poles for the attack on the ship's side, and then held their breath until the moment when the building ship collided with the city wall.
After a "click" sound, a thunderous drum sound suddenly sounded from the high platform of the building, which was the order to attack. The soldiers also shouted and swarmed like ants towards the junction between the ship's side and the city wall. Since the decks of the building ships were already extremely high, the water level had also risen sharply since summer, causing the sides of Wu's ships to be almost flush with the Hefei city wall, and some were even several feet higher. The Wu people easily set up the wooden ladder and then climbed up to attack the city wall. In their expectation, they would need to occupy a section of the city wall and wait until reinforcements arrived to win.
But it was at this moment that the Wu people engaged in the battle suddenly discovered that among the flags flying at the top of Hefei City, there were some long poles without flags, which were extremely bare and dazzling. What is worth noting is that these long poles are not upright, but slightly tilted. There seems to be something wrapped at the end. Under the thing, there seems to be a rope connected to some mechanism. It looks like a nondescript racket.
Before they could get closer to observe, a whooshing sound of stones piercing the air broke the din of war drums. In the blink of an eye, these long poles like lightning fell down like lightning and drove straight into the side of the Wu people's ship. To Wu's surprise, his own deck seemed to be made of paper. When the rods fell, the objects on top fell out, smashing the fir trees almost instantly, and then damaging the elm wood in the lower part of the hull. Only then did the Wu people realize that the tops of these long poles were installed with special stones! These giant beasts, which were said to be invincible on the river, were riddled with holes due to stone attacks in just a quarter of an hour. There were also some shooting poles that missed the building and hit the water, causing a lot of huge waves.
The Wu people never expected that they would encounter such a terrifying weapon: with just one blow, the sides of the four building ships were torn open with wounds that could not be ignored, and a large amount of lake water poured into the ships. Such fragments were floating across the river, and there were also some unspeakable bloody pieces of flesh. And they didn't even have time to pay attention to how many casualties there were. They only had one idea: turn around and evacuate immediately! If they continue to stay at the top of the city, the river water will pour in, which will cause the ship to sink completely. In this case, the Wu people will be completely unable to board the city.
The brief drum sound disappeared
, replaced by a golden sound that meant withdrawal. However, the building ship is so heavy and heavy that it is extremely difficult to turn around normally. But now that there are a lot of cracks, how can we withdraw safely? The Wu army gave up attacking the city and was busy directing the sailors to turn around. The Han army on the top of the city also used turntables and ropes to gradually put away the fallen shooting poles. The Wu people watched helplessly as they pulled the shooting poles up to a high place, praying in their hearts that they could leave quickly, but unfortunately it was impossible.
Seeing that the building ship had not left the attack range, the Han army was not dragging its feet at all. After loosening the rope again, dozens of racket poles exerted force again, slowly crossing the top of the parabola, and then rapidly falling towards the Wu army fleet. The Wu people could only retaliate with arrows. As a result, the sound of rocks falling into the river and hitting buildings and ships completely overwhelmed the Wu people. The continuous huge waves caused by the rocks can only be described as landslides and ground cracks, and mountains and rivers changing color. Since the advent of building ships, no one has ever used such a method to counter the navy. On calm waters, they directly used countless stones to completely destroy the ships and bodies of the navy!
The five ships watching the battle from a distance and ready to join the battlefield at any time could only feel a sense of luck at escaping. They watched their comrades being destroyed, smashed, collapsed, and disintegrated bit by bit until they overturned and sink. After a while, countless corpses slowly began to surface, all over the river, drifting with the current. There were countless disintegrated wooden boards, large and small, floating up and down, and the fragments were spinning and hitting each other on the water. After the Han army stopped attacking, the waves on the water finally became calm, and the four huge ships were gone.
It turned out that Zhuge Liang had already thought about the scenario of Wu Jun using water attack. In his opinion, just shooting arrows at the Wu army in the city is equivalent to sitting in vain. Once the arrows are exhausted, the defenders will have no countermeasures, and it will be a matter of time before the city falls. So he thought hard all night and designed a new type of weapon called the clap pole, specifically to target Wu Jun's navy.
This is the inspiration he got from the stone car. Although the destructive power of throwing stones by manpower is huge, it is difficult to hit the enemy when facing the enemy, and there is a high chance of failure. Therefore, stone-throwing carts are only used when attacking a city. But after Zhuge Liang inspected the Wu boatmen, he suddenly thought, what if instead of throwing stones directly, he used a wooden pole with a huge stone fixed at one end? Its principle is similar to that of a trebuchet. It is nothing more than setting up a fifty-foot-tall long log at the top of the city. One end is equipped with a polished boulder, and the other end is fixed with a pulley. The ups and downs are pulled by a rope wheel. Once there is When the enemy ship approached within fifty feet of the city, the soldiers relaxed the rope, and a section of the boulder suddenly fell down, which was sure to pierce the ship. I tried it today and it worked wonders.
After the Wu army lost four large ships, they temporarily gave up the idea of attacking the city directly. Instead, they turned to a long-term siege, intending to use the navy to trap the Han army to death from starvation. But then, it’s time for Ma Dai and Du Ji’s two works to come into play. The two of them waited until late June, when the rainy season stopped, and divided their troops into two groups, one on the left and the other on the right, to rush into the rear of the Wu people. Du Ji was in charge of Shuxian, Juchao, and Linhu areas, and Ma Dai was in charge of Liyang, Fuling, and Quanjiao areas. Since the Wu people did not leave many defenders, the two of them easily defeated them all. Wu Only Ruxuwu is left under control.
In mid-July, after Sun Quan learned the news, he knew that Lü Meng could not withdraw his troops, so he personally led 30,000 naval troops to Ruxuwu to supervise the formation, and strictly ordered Lü Meng not to look back and continue the siege. When Du Ji and Ma Dai saw Sun Quan arriving in person, he also realized that the terrain of Ruxuwu was dangerous and difficult to conquer easily. After a few days of trial attack, he chose to abandon his original plan. Du Ji thought that since Sun Quan came to help, Lu Meng and others would think that there was no need to worry about the rear and would relax. This would be a good opportunity for the Han army to turn around and break the siege. After he persuaded Ma Dai, he also withdrew his troops from Ruxuwukou late at night. At the same time, he ordered to abandon the cities in Huainan that had been conquered and immediately go to Hefei to relieve the siege.
It was early autumn, and the Han army's horses were gaining weight. It had not rained for more than ten days, so it was a refreshing autumn day. The Han army galloped on the flat ground, showing off its world-famous speed. Sun Quan only discovered that the Han army had withdrawn in the morning, and by noon, Du Ji and others had already appeared under the weir dam in Hefei. The Wu army on the weir and dam had been besieged for a long time, and they were indeed not ready to meet the enemy. Many people were still resting in the camp, and before they could form formation, they were rushed down the weir and embankment by Han cavalry.
After Du Ji occupied a camp, both sides immediately acted as planned: Ma Dai led half of the soldiers to stand firm and encountered the enemy, while he led the other half to immediately start digging the embankment. By late that night, Wu Jun tried to recapture the camp several times, but was thwarted several times by Ma Dai. The Han army successfully dug out
When the embankment was opened, thousands of waves suddenly poured out from the gap, turning into floods and sweeping down, turning the surrounding land into a marsh. Many Wu people were swept away without a trace, and the huge ships and buildings that originally surrounded Hefei , most of them were quickly stranded due to the drop in water level, and only small boats were able to return to the water.
However, the actions of the Han army ended here. After the dam collapsed, Hefei was surrounded by swamps, which was no longer suitable for the two armies to attack and fight, especially for the cavalry to gallop. But after the arrival of autumn, it is impossible for the Wu people to use the water attack tactic of Hefei again. It is obviously impossible for them to break the city with huge casualties. Both sides knew that this battle could no longer continue, so they stopped making any more attempts at fighting.
In early August, after the Wu people dragged all the stranded ships into Shishui, they stopped staying and slowly retreated to Ruxuwu under the watchful eyes of the Han army. This also means that this year's war between Han and Wu has finally come to an end.
