Li Qiu stayed in Jingnan all year round and misjudged the changes in the combat power of the Soochow Army.
Yes, the Soochow Army's land warfare level, even now, is still the worst among the Three Kingdoms, but it is not at the same level as in the early years.
After more than ten years of Zhou Yu's persistence and efforts, coupled with Sun Quan's full support, although the current land warfare level of the Soochow Army cannot be compared with that of the Han and Wei Dynasties, at least the gap is not as big as before.
In the great victory at Chibi that year, the Jiangdong navy achieved a complete victory and destroyed most of the Wei army's warships, forcing Cao Cao to go ashore and flee in embarrassment. However, under such circumstances, the Jiangdong army failed to intercept Cao Cao.
Not to mention intercepting Cao Cao, they didn't even capture any of the generals and counselors around Cao Cao.
Not to mention people like Xu Huang and Zhang Liao, they are actually not near the Chibi battlefield, and there is no place to catch them if they want to.
But Yu Jin, Mao Jie, Cheng Yu, Jia Xu and other people who were following Cao Cao, they still didn't catch any of them, which shows how far the crotch was stretched.
But now, after more than ten years of adjustment and development, the Soochow Army led by Lu Xun can now compete head-on with the Runan Wei Army led by Cao Xiu with superior strength.
Although it can still only exert its combat power when it has a superior force, its combat power is completely different from what it was more than ten years ago.
But Li Qiu really didn't know much about these things. He only heard about it and had no actual contact with the current combat power of the Soochow Army. Therefore, he still subconsciously used the old thinking to measure the combat power of the Soochow Army.
But this cannot be blamed on Li Qiu.
Li Qiu has been staying in Jingnan, and since the demarcation of the Xiang River, the four counties of Jingnan have been separated in two. Although there have been occasional frictions, there have been no large-scale military encounters. Li Qiu really does not understand the battles of the Changsha County soldiers these years. Strength improvement situation.
Another thing is that Li Qiu also had too many dealings with Wuxi Barbarians in Wuling County. The Wuxi Barbarians' combat power was only the same even if they were pressed hard. In most cases, they were basically no different from the mob.
Li Qiu was also somewhat affected by this aspect.
Therefore, Li Qiu's idea was right, and there was no problem with his tactical arrangement. However, when he really retreated and led his troops to rescue Zhou Tai, and joined forces with Zhou Tai, he was shocked to find that he seemed to be a little unable to defeat the opponent. The Soochow Army.
There are many factors that are superimposed here. It is not simply that 15,000 Han troops cannot defeat 17,000 Wu troops.
First of all, although Zhoutai still has 7,000 men in his hands, these 7,000 men have been defeated for a while. The morale of the army has been greatly affected, and the ordnance is not particularly sufficient.
After Li Qiu reunited with Zhou Tai, although he replenished the weapons of Zhou Tai's army, he had no time to adjust the morale of his soldiers and had to go into battle immediately.
Otherwise, if the Soochow Army retreats from the battlefield directly, the people brought by Li Qiu alone may not be able to stop it.
Secondly, Li Qiu and Lu Dai in front of Zhoutai left a coalition force. Although there were only 13,000 troops, Lu Kai in the public security city still had about 4,000 troops.
When Li Qiu withdrew the police, Lu Kai immediately realized that the battlefield had changed dramatically.
When the reconnaissance cavalry sent by Lu Kai learned that Lu Dai had brought troops to help, Lu Kai hesitated a little and made a risky decision - he led 4,000 public security guards and abandoned the city to attack. They came directly from behind and killed the Han army.
This is equivalent to having an advantage in attacking the Han army from both front and rear. Although Lu Kai's troops are small, the threat posed by 4,000 men is not small. Li Qiu and Zhou Tai must fortify themselves on both sides.
Third, although Li Qiu and Zhou Tai claim to be no worse than Deng Ai and Shi Bao, in fact, the command level of these two people is still not as good as that of Deng Ai and Shi Bao. Even the opposite commander Lu Dai, Both have higher command levels and more experience than these two.
Under the constraints of various unfavorable conditions, although the personal combat power of the Han army was slightly stronger than that of the Soochow army, the battlefield situation began to develop in a direction favorable to the Soochow army.
If the fight continues like this, regardless of the issue of victory or defeat, if the Soochow Army is determined to break through and enter the Gongan City, Li Qiu and Zhou Tai will not be able to stop them.
In fact, Lu Dai is also considering this issue now.
Should they continue to fight fiercely in the wild and strive for a big victory, or should they attack from both front and back, join Lu Kai, and retreat to the police together?
The former is a great achievement, but it may trigger a strong backlash from the Shu Han. Once Jiangling increases its troops again, the scale of the public security battle will become larger and larger, and a big war may really break out between the two countries.
The latter has little merit, but it is conservative and can at least ensure the deadlock. At the same time, it can also relieve the threats to the four counties in Jingnan and complete the existing strategic goals.
Lu Dai is still a very clear-headed person. He knows that no one is ready for a full-scale war, so Lu Dai decides that it is better to adopt the latter.
But the problem is that Zhou Tai and Li Qiu are not useless. If Lu Dai wants to attack back and forth with Lu Kai to break through the defense, he won't be able to do it for a while.
In a battle involving 30,000 people, if the battle situation was not completely one-sided, it would be impossible to determine the winner in one or two days, and it would have to be done slowly.
At this time, variables appeared on the battlefield again.
Don't forget that there is also a Shibao in Lingyang County.
When Shi Bao noticed that the ten thousand troops led by Liu Lue had bypassed Lingyang and headed towards the police, he immediately knew that something was wrong.
If all these fifteen thousand people went to reinforce the police, then there would be no point in Shi Bao's continued stay in Lingyang.
Therefore, Shi Bao once again led 8,000 troops out of the city, leaving 2,000 soldiers to continue to garrison Lingyang, still using the same old false flag to scare the enemy.
Shi Bao led his troops and marched carefully, not daring to disturb the remaining troops in front too much. But at the same time, Shi Bao was also thinking about how to break the situation and intercept this Soochow army.
Then, for some unknown reason, the battle situation suddenly turned into Li Qiu and Zhou Tai choosing to fight in the field and face off against the large forces of the Soochow Army.
Shi Bao didn't have to think anymore. Seeing that his own people were in danger of being passively beaten, Shi Bao quickly increased his speed and launched an attack from the rear of the Soochow Army.
Now, both armies had the advantage of being flanked on both sides, and with Shi Bao's reinforcements, the Han army once again took advantage of the total strength.
With both sides flanking each other and fighting, this encounter in the wild was turned into a melee by the commanders of the two armies. By the end of the fight, it was hard to tell whether the people around me were friendly forces or enemies. military.
Both Shi Bao and Lu Dai were a little unable to control the situation.
After five days of melee, the Han army's superiority in strength and combat power was finally reflected. Shi Bao and Li Qiu finally took the lead in breaking through the Soochow army's defense line and achieved a rendezvous.
After the two armies merged and had unified command, they immediately launched an encirclement and suppression campaign against the nearby Soochow Army.
Seeing that his situation was about to collapse, Lu Dai made a decisive decision at this time - gathering the troops around him as much as possible, and then the whole army broke out and broke out in the direction of Wuling County.
Yes, Lu Dai can no longer complete his goal of reinforcing the public security, even if the public security is now just an empty city that no one has occupied.
But Lu Dai didn't know this. He couldn't put all his hopes on unknown things. What if the Public Security City at this time had been occupied by Zhang Xi sending people across the river? !
Then go to the police to break out, isn't that just asking for death?
Therefore, the only way to break out of the encirclement is in the direction of Wuling County or even Lingyang County, and Lu Dai will not go there.
Yes, with Shi Bao appearing on the battlefield and bringing seven or eight thousand soldiers, Lu Dai must know that there will not be too many defenders in Lingyang now.
But again, it is not certain how many troops Lu Dai will have after breaking through. Once he encounters fierce resistance when he counterattacks Lingyang County, and the Shu thieves behind him follow the trend and pursue Wuling County, it will be really dangerous.
To be on the safe side, it is better to bypass Lingyang County directly and return the entire army to Wuling County to preserve Wuling County.
In this way, after five days of melee, the Han army captured the public security area in the south of the Yangtze River. At the same time, Shi Bao also led his troops back to support Lingyang.
As for Soochow, Lu Dai led eight thousand remaining soldiers to retreat to Wuling County and re-established a defense line near Wuling County to prevent the Han army from advancing further into other counties in Wuling County.
The war ended with the victory of the Han army.
But things can only go so far.
With the police taking over, Zhang Xi's strategic goal has been achieved. He has put enough pressure on Soochow, and because Shi Bao has stationed in Lingyang, he can threaten Wuling County at any time. This result is much better than Zhang Xi expected.
At the same time, the envoy sent by Chengdu to negotiate with Soochow finally arrived in Jiangling and met with Zhang Xi.
It was none other than Deng Zhi and Deng Bomiao, still old acquaintances.
In order to ensure the smooth progress of the negotiations, Zhang Xi ordered Shi Bao to defend on the front line and suspend the war for the time being, waiting for the next order.
(End of chapter)
