Sun Yu felt like he was being led by Shi Bao, running around here and there. He was extremely angry and disgusting.
As soon as he heard that Shi Bao had not gone to Wulin, Sun Yu immediately returned to the army and went to rescue Ying County.
Unexpectedly, Shi Bao feinted again. After Sun Yu rushed back to Ying County, he once again withdrew early, allowing Sun Yu to miss again.
Sun Yu was so angry that he really didn't want to play hide and seek with this Shi Bao.
He left two thousand men for his lieutenant general Xie Jing to garrison Ying County, and then sent people to inform Jiangxia to strengthen the defense of the Wulin grain road. After doing this, Sun Yu felt relieved and went north to follow Sun Huan. Reunited and continued to lead the troops to attack Jiangling.
But before Sun Yu could catch up with the main force, he suddenly received news from the rear.
After Shi Bao withdrew his troops from Ying County, he did not go far, but continued eastward, ambushed the Jiangdong grain transport team transporting from Wulin to Ying County, and burned a large amount of grain and grass.
Now, Sun Yu completely understood what Shi Bao was going to do.
This Shi Bao was aimed at Jiangdong Army's food route.
If there is a chance, he will attack Yingxian or Wulin, the strongholds where grain and grass are stored. If there is no chance, then he will set up an ambush in the wild to ambush the Jiangdong Army's grain transport team.
At the grain and grass hoarding stronghold, Sun Yu could strengthen the defense, but there was really nothing Sun Yu could do about the defense of the grain transportation team.
The main force of the grain transport team is mainly civilian men who have been drafted, and some auxiliary soldiers are responsible for protection, but their combat effectiveness is definitely not as good as that of regular soldiers.
To protect the grain road, if conditions permit, light cavalry can be sent back and forth to patrol and protect it. If conditions do not exist, the only option is to recruit more civilians and auxiliary soldiers, or to deploy regular soldiers to protect the grain transport team.
But Sun Yu didn't have enough soldiers on hand now. In addition, Jiangdong sent troops from Jiangxia via land, and the food and grass supply line was too long. It was impossible to completely protect it.
This is land, and Jiangdong's army does not have an absolute advantage in land warfare. It is not as threatening as Lu Meng's water supply.
After weighing back and forth, Sun Yu decided to send an order to Sun Huan and let Sun Huan lead the main army to attack Jiangling, while he led the remaining three thousand people to cruise on the grain road and try his best to defend the grain road.
After all, according to Sun Yu's analysis, the number of soldiers led by Shi Bao would not be too many, probably only a few hundred, which would kill a thousand people.
This has the advantage that it moves quickly and is less likely to be blocked by others, but it also has the disadvantage that the combat effectiveness is not enough, so it can only ambush the grain transport team, attack the city, or fight with its own 3,000 people. Shi Bao is definitely not own opponent.
In addition, Shi Bao abandoned the city and left. The supplies of food and grass he carried must be limited and he would not be able to hold on for too long. It might only be ten days and a half. Shi Bao would have to retreat to Jiangling. He only needed Cruising for ten days and a half, it is enough to protect the food supply during this period.
Therefore, after Sun Yu made a judgment, he turned around and returned to Ying County again, and then led three thousand soldiers to patrol back and forth from Ying County to Wulin, looking for traces of Shi Bao.
This move seemed to be very effective. Ever since Sun Yu led his troops to guard the grain road, Shi Bao had been missing for four or five days.
Sun Yu slowly felt relieved.
In four or five days, calculated as a march of forty to fifty miles in one day, Sun Huan should have led his troops to Jiangling City, set up camp, and joined Lu Meng.
As long as they cooperate with Governor Lu Meng to capture Jiangling, then Shi Bao, a little reptile, will not be a threat.
At this time, Shi Bao was indeed in a dilemma.
After three continuous advances, coupled with sieges and ambushes, there were only about 800 soldiers left among the 1,000 counties he led. The soldiers were tired and their morale was not high.
This is already the result of his ability to lead troops and his considerable prestige in the army.
After all, as Sun Yu said, he abandoned the city to fight. Although he prepared some food, grass and ordnance supplies outside the city in advance, it was impossible for him to maintain the morale and combat effectiveness of his soldiers as time went by.
Therefore, when Sun Yu led his troops to defend the grain road, Shi Bao never found a suitable opportunity to sneak attack on the grain road.
Calculating the time, Sun Huan's army should have almost reached Jiangling City.
One theory is that Shi Bao, with less than a thousand troops, first delayed the time with his suspicious tactics, and then slowed down the Jiangdong Army's advance by harassing the grain road. In total, he bought Jiangling City at least ten days of response time.
It is quite difficult for him to be able to do so much.
But Shi Bao was not satisfied.
It is true that Shi Bao had few soldiers and could hold off for ten days, which was considered a qualified completion of the task. But there is a point, it is not too difficult to change someone to guard Ying County and hold off for ten days.
If they had defended Ying County, even though Jiangdong Army had an absolute advantage in strength, it would have taken about ten days to conquer Ying County.
It is equivalent to doing what the city defender should do.
If he just returns to Jiangling City, then he will have no merit at best.
This is not what Shi Bao wants.
Therefore, Shi Bao decided to make a big splash.
Shi Bao has always been active in the area east of Ying County, including Sun Yu. The focus of his inspection is also east of Ying County, on the road leading to Wulin.
Therefore, Shi Bao took the remaining 800 soldiers and headed towards the west of Ying County, in the direction of the army led by Sun Huan.
Bring the last food supplies, replace all the ordnance, and finally get one.
It’s done, let’s all return to Jiangling City and enjoy the treatment of heroes.
If not, then he, Shi Bao, will die with everyone.
Shi Bao didn't know much about giving speeches before the battle to boost morale, but he knew that with the remaining soldiers, he had to take the lead in order to be able to fight.
Therefore, when chasing Sun Huan's army, Shi Bao would always lead the troops at the front of the team. When stopping to rest, Shi Bao would always be the last one to sleep after inspecting the condition of all the soldiers.
Marching like this in a hurry, Shi Bao led 800 soldiers and finally caught up with the 15,000 army led by Sun Huan.
Sun Huan was not Sun Quan, and he would not turn his troops into a long snake formation, nor would he be unprepared for the Chinese army. Therefore, Shi Bao could not imitate Zhang Babai and recreate the Battle of Xiaoyaojin.
But Sun Huan's military formation was not without its weaknesses.
That is insufficient protection of the rear wing.
Probably Sun Huan felt that the soldiers led by Sun Yu were patrolling behind him for protection. Recently, he had not heard of Shi Bao appearing to rob food, so he felt more at ease with the rear army.
Shi Bao keenly discovered that Sun Huan did not protect the rear wing, especially the rear wing's grain, grass and baggage troops.
Shi Bao found the focus of his attack, but did not launch an attack immediately.
Because at this time, although the rear wing did not have many troops, the logistics battalion responsible for building camps and other facilities still acted together with the rear army.
These people may have relatively weak combat effectiveness, but they are not completely devoid of combat effectiveness.
The soldiers he brought were too few, only 800. If he could not kill these logistics troops immediately and be delayed a little, he would be surrounded by the opponent's army of more than 10,000.
Even if they could break out, they would suffer heavy casualties.
He was waiting, waiting for the sky to slowly darken.
Fifteen thousand people are different from the 800 people he led. So many people must set up camp to rest. Once the camp is set up, the rear wing's logistics team will build camps, and the number of people to protect the rear wing's food and grass will become even greater. less.
Once the army starts to set up camp, it means they have to stay overnight. At this time, the defense is the most relaxed.
At this point, it's the best opportunity to make a surprise attack.
Shi Bao waited calmly, finally allowing him to wait until the moment he wanted.
He led the soldiers to approach quietly, and as the sky slowly turned dark, but before it was time to light the torches, he relied on the cover of night to launch an assault as soon as possible.
At this time, Sun Huan's rear army was guarded by about a thousand soldiers, but these soldiers had basically been marching for a day and were waiting for the camp to be set up to make food, eat and sleep.
Basically, they were all sitting on the ground in twos and threes, and their defenses were quite lax.
Taking advantage of this moment, Shi Bao rushed out at the lead, quickly attacked, and immediately broke into this sloppy military formation, opened a hole, and went straight to the place where the food and grass were stored.
Shi Bao's sudden attack naturally caused chaos in the rear army, making it difficult to organize an effective defense for a while.
Shi Bao took advantage of this time to direct his soldiers to light Sun Huan's army's food and grass, and burn as much as they could. As long as the enemy did not react and send troops to assist, they would burn it quickly.
Once the enemy reacts, he immediately orders the soldiers to retreat, cuts off the rear himself, and once again uses the cover of night to retreat towards Jiangling City.
When Sun Huan heard the commotion in the rear camp and quickly led the Chinese army to come for reinforcements, Shi Bao had already led his army to retreat, and Sun Huan did not even see Shi Bao's back.
But now that the rear army's food and grass were on fire, Sun Huan had no time to let people chase Shi Bao. Instead, he quickly put out the fire and rescued the food. If the food was burned out, the fifteen thousand people he brought with him might only be able to survive temporarily. They retreated one after another and waited until the next batch of food and grass arrived before they could consider marching to Jiangling.
To be honest, Sun Huan really didn't expect that Shi Bao would be so bold and dare to attack his army with only a few people, and he succeeded in the attack.
What made Sun Huan even more upset was that this time Shi Bao's sneak attack was successful and nearly half of the food and grass was lost.
This is because Shi Bao's army did not carry sulfur and fish paste, and relied solely on burning the food and grass to save half of the results.
Now Sun Huan was confused.
Should we continue to advance, or should we set up camp and wait for supplies of food and grass?
We are already very close to Jiangling City, and we can reach Jiangling City in less than a day. In fact, there is still half of the food and grass left, which is enough to last for seven or eight days, so it is not that there is no food available.
But the problem is that in the event of a stalemate under Jiangling City, seven or eight days of food reserves are not safe. If Sun Yu cannot escort the food and grass to arrive in time, Sun Huan's army may fall into a food shortage dilemma.
Of course, there is no other way. If you are short of food, you can borrow it from Governor Lü Meng. But what if Governor Lü Meng is not rich in food and grass? !
After all, the shortage of food and grass is not for thousands of people, but for tens of thousands of people.
Sun Huan really didn't dare to be careless. After careful consideration, he decided to camp where he was and wait for five days.
In five days, Sun Yu should be able to transport the next batch of supplies of food and grass. Although it cannot completely solve the shortage of food and grass, it can alleviate it to some extent. It also gives the soldiers hope and will not cause the morale of the army to fluctuate due to lack of food.
If we set off at that time, there won't be any problems.
(End of chapter)
