On the early morning of the twelfth day of the first lunar month, the fourth day after Sun Ce and Zhou Yu brought the main force of the Wu army from Jiangling to the east, and it was also a day and a half after they passed through the mouth of Dongting Lake.

(Note: The mouth of Dongting Lake passed through the evening of the 10th, after ten days and eleventh day and night, a total of one day and two nights, so it was one and a half days)

Because I had just passed the night march and I was going to pass through a narrower section of the river like Shaxian last night, so in order to prevent collisions, the Wu army's fleet was relatively long.

Although there are only four nights left before the full moon night, the brightness of the moonlight at night should be OK. But the problem is that the crescent moon is only hanging in the air in the first half of the night, and falls in the second half of the night.

On the seventh day of the lunar month and the eighth day of the lunar month are the standard crescent moon, and the moon will fall on time at midnight. From the tenth day to twelveth day, it is the transition from the crescent moon to the full moon, which will delay to the end of the Chou or the beginning of the Yin hour, and the moon will fall at about the fourth hour.

It took more than an hour and a half before dawn last night. There was no natural light on the river. It was all up to ships to light torches and tell friendly troops where they were.

In a large fleet of 60,000 people, there are thirty or forty tower ships, over a hundred fighting ships, hundreds of ships, and thousands of boats, which can be said to have dozens of miles of land and flags covering the sky.

The fleet pioneer has passed Shaxian's water surface for more than 40 miles, and is only more than 50 miles away from the next narrow Chibi (the distance from Shaxian to Chibi waterway is 90 miles). The troops behind the rear are still queuing slowly in Shaxian's narrow entrance, just like cars lined up at the elevated ramps in later generations.

At this moment, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu received a piece of news that made them uneasy.

At the end of the fleet, the rear fleet, which was still lined up at Shaxian's narrow entrance, issued an alarm for the wolf smoke to send out a message under the command of the rear captain Dong Xi.

When fighting in the fleet, it also uses beacon and wolf smoke communication methods similar to the Great Wall to defend against enemies. Especially when the fleet is too large, dozens or even hundreds of miles away, burning wolf smoke can quickly spread the information to the central army.

After just a cup of tea, several wolf smoke relays and signal confirmation, Sun Ce had clearly known the situation behind: Li Su came to Baqiu and the Han army fleet to chase him!

Moreover, Li Su's navigation speed should be faster than Dong Xi. Dong Xi has already judged that he can't escape from war and accelerate his navigation, otherwise he would not send such signals (he can escape or cannot escape, two sets of different smoke signals were agreed before the war).

Song Qian, a general of the central army guard beside Sun Ce, immediately came to ask for instructions: "Lord, governor, are you fighting or leaving? If you fight, the front army cannot be at full speed anymore. You must re-establish the formation, otherwise you will be defeated by each one. If you leave, let Captain Dong stop and block Sha Xian's narrow mouth, fight with Li Su's pursuit alone, and the front army continues to sail at full speed!"

Sun Ce patted the wooden slats that went down the stairs and ordered: "How could he give up Dong Xi and let him cut off the rear for us! Li Su's men are not as many as us, at least not even half of us! We Jiangdong children have never been afraid of water wars.

In the past two months, they have relied on the strong battles in the plains and fields of northerners, or relying on the strong cities and villages to defend themselves, and Li Su finally has the courage to fight the decisive battle with our Yangtze River. We must not miss the opportunity!

Dong Xi should have just looked out and discovered Li Su's pursuit. In this way, both sides still have at least a dozen miles away, which is enough for our front army to slow down and re-arrange the formation."

Sun Ce's decision was certainly because he felt that he was still the superior side of water combat power. On the other hand, he knew that even if Li Suzhen had an unknown trick that he could not yet expect, and could reverse the comparison of the combat power between the two sides, he had no choice.

If he gave up Dong's attack when passing Sha Xian, he would lose some of the rear army. Considering that since Li Su could catch up, it would mean that Li Su's fleet speed was slightly faster than the Wu army fleet. Then, the narrow mouth of Chibi ninety miles downstream of Sha Xian would be caught up again, and he would be forced to cut off his tail to survive.

How could Sun Ce accept such a bad thing by splitting troops twice in a row? The advantage is still there, so of course I will fight to the end!

Just take advantage of the wide area of ​​the river between Sha Xian and Chibi, and the battlefield is generally four or five miles wide, and set up a formation in this spacious place to fight a decisive battle.

Zhou Yu made up his mind when he was righteous, but he didn't say much. This time he was highly unified with Sun Ce in strategic decision-making.

However, Zhou Yu is a genius in water warfare after all, and has other talents in the deployment of troops. So he quickly made Sun Ce's vague and general orders order more orderly and easier to execute.

He knew that his fleet was huge, and the open river between Shaxian and Chibi was not clamped by mountain walls on both sides, so the water depth near the shore was very shallow.

In this way, it seems so wide, but in fact the width of the main channel that allows the building ship to sail is not much wider than that of Chibi, and at most three miles away.

Zhou Yu immediately greeted the flag and gathered all the building ships to the Central Army. More than 30 building ships were arranged in two floors. The horizontal distance between each building ship was fifty meters, and the vertical direction was almost fifty meters.

A row of bucket ships lined up in front of the tower ship, and then the river surface of the two banks, one mile to one hundred feet from the shore, was also filled with bucket ships. Going to the shallow water less than a hundred feet from the shore, all of them were scattered and boats to cross the river, while ensuring sufficient detour maneuver space.

Dong Xi's troops, which were originally cut off, had already sailed out of Shaxian Gorge after Zhou Yu set up a formation for the central army and entered the open river. Zhou Yu commanded with the drum and corner flag, and asked Dong Xi to turn around immediately. The rear army turned into a front army and acted as the vanguard to fight Li Su.

After all this, it took half an hour to complete it, and it was impossible to get off the anchorage in advance to fix the position, so the Wu army fleet could not help but walk downstream for more than ten miles.

The final state of war was that the Wu army's ship formation was five miles northwest to southeast, and twenty miles southwest to northeast. The vanguard Dong Xi was thirty miles away from the entrance of Shaxian Gorge to the southwest, and Chen Wu (originally the vanguard, who turned around and became the leader after fighting) was forty miles away from the entrance of Chibi Gorge to the northeast.

The Han army fleet led by Li Su had already been forced up. It seemed that the number of Han warships was less than one-third of that of the Wu army, but the ships were relatively slender. Among the warships of the same level, the Han army was also longer and heavier.

Especially the largest five-tooth warship in the Han army, in terms of tonnage, it was based on the tonnage of 3,000 people when the Sui Dynasty destroyed the Chen Dynasty. It was several feet wider and more than three meters long than the largest tower ship of the Wu army. In terms of modern tonnage, it had a displacement of about 600 to 800 tons, while the heaviest tower ship in Sun Ce's side was only 400 tons.

When Sun Ce and Zhou Yu saw the Five-Tooth Warship appearing from afar, they were slightly shocked, but they were shocked, and their confidence made them not afraid of it.

"Is this what Li Su dared to fight against the masses with a small number of people? No wonder he dared to chase us like this. Seeing this ship, I felt relieved."

The shocking gaze in Sun Ce's eyes was mixed with greedy desire to try.

Zhou Yu's situation was more cautious than him, but he couldn't help but be eager to try. Especially when he saw the vanguard position of the Han army fleet, a five-tooth warship of about 600 tons, the banner of "Taishi" was inserted into the Han army. His psychological advantage was even better.

"Don't worry, Li Su is suffering but not remembering the hardships. Two and a half months ago, I defeated Taishici's fleet led by three tower ships. This time their tower ships were bigger and faster, but we also had tower ships.

Our troops are two or three times that of theirs. As long as we are flexible and good at fighting, Taishici's new building ship will be my flagship by then. Not to mention, Li Su and his disciple Zhuge Liang are deceitful and despicable.

But the first military equipment they built were all good things. If they were captured and copied, our Yangtze River defense line would be invincible in the future. Even if the battle for the world is temporarily unfavorable, it would be able to cut the river and control it."

Sun Ce also praised: "How can Taishici be worthy of you, Gongjin? If you want to see me, Li Su, the rear army, personally took charge of the boat and gave it to your brother."

It turned out that in today's battle, Li Su personally took over a flagship, dragging it to the middle and rear of the entire fleet to supervise the battle. The ship Li Su himself was on was of course the largest tonnage, the strongest combat power, the most solid and the best anti-sinking ability in the entire fleet.

It can even be said that it is the largest ship on the earth today. It has no equal tonnage from the Han Dynasty in the east and the Roman Empire in the west.

Taishici's ship is only about 600 tonnes, while Li Su's ship is the only huge existence on earth with a displacement of more than 800 tons.

Zhou Yu was reminded by Sun Ce and followed the situation through the array of shadows and flags to observe, and finally locked the hazy giant ship twenty miles away. Zhou Yu's blood, as the commander of the genius naval army, instantly boiled, and he was eager to grab it.

"Isn't it great if I can capture this ship across the Yangtze River in this life!"

Unfortunately, just when Sun Ce and Zhou Yu were both nervous and excited, Chen Wu, who had just changed from the front to the rear, also heard some enemy situations through the beacon fire and wolf smoke.

There are naturally enough lookouts on Sun Ce's flagship, so even though Sun Ce and Zhou Yu himself focused on the enemy troops that were about to break out in the southwest, other lookouts still noticed the changes behind and came to report them immediately.

"Lord, the military information from the rear of the Captain Chen, seemed to have vaguely appeared outside the mouth of Chibi Gorge downstream. It was still too far away to see the size of it.

Zhou Yu was the first to react and immediately turned around and ran to the northeast side of the boat building, looking into the distance. Unfortunately, he was more than ten miles away from the enemy than Chen Wu and could not see anything clearly.

However, based on the prediction of the enemy situation, Zhou Yu had a little calculation and knew what was going on:

"Li Su has decided in advance and wants to fight us here! He is afraid that if he intercepts us in the police before, he will bear the disadvantage of going against the current and going against the wind.

So, he let us pass Baqiu and fight here, and he can occupy the hydrological and geographical advantage that rushes downstream from the upstream, and the northwest wind in the middle of winter also becomes a fair crosswind for both sides.

But he was afraid that we would be chased by our heads and ran away, so he asked Zhou Tai's main force to leave the city last night to take a boat to Chibi to block our army. He wanted to encircle us between the two gorges from Shaxian to Chibi!

His appetite is big enough, it depends on how much he has. Haha, even if Zhou Tai disregards the defense of Hanyang City and tries his best to reinforce, the two enemy troops will only have more than 30,000 people, and 30,000 people still want to surround and annihilate all 60,000 of us!"

After hearing Yidi's analysis, Sun Ce also decisively ordered: "Although Zhou Tai has few people, don't worry about him. If we change the formation and continue to rush down, we will deal with Zhou Tai first, and we will easily be chased and collapsed by Li Su from behind.

Let's defeat Li Su, who has a large number of people and ships, chew this hard bone, and then turn around and annihilate Zhou Tai. Li Su, Li Su, he claims to be a crafty man, and he will give us the opportunity to concentrate superior forces to defeat each of them.

This time, we will destroy all the two powerful enemies in one day. By then, Baqiu, Changsha and Hanyang will be empty and at your fingertips. The southeast of Xiangyang will be all my Jiangdong territory from now on!”

With Sun Ce and Zhou Yu's fighting spirit burst into full force and the morale of the Jiangdong soldiers was high, Li Su's fleet finally rushed down the current, and the pioneer Taishici and Dong Wu's Dong Shi were in a group.
Chapter completed!