Since Li Su has set up a prepared attitude and keeps the troops nervous at all times, he can attack at any time once the time is right. Then, it is inevitable that he will wait for the right weather.

In history, there was no Zhuge Liang's prayer for wind, and Zhou Yu had the chance to succeed by chance in rare weather such as southeastern wind in the middle of winter.

What's more, Li Su just needs to wait for a period of rainy and not too hot weather in the middle and late May of the lunar calendar. The plum rainy season in the Jiangnan region will inevitably come every year, which is a high probability event.

(Note: Book friends in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Anhui should have all experienced it. It was raining a while ago at the end of June and in recent days, and it was not hot. It was converted to mid-to-late May in the lunar calendar. Tomorrow (7/10) is the first day of the sixth lunar calendar. I am typing now, and it is windy and rainy in Hangzhou.)

As expected, Gu Yong arrived with the last few types of supplies Li Su needed, less than two or three days later. On May 18, heavy rain fell, and the temperature in southern Jiangsu and eastern Anhui dropped sharply, making it cooler and pleasant.

On days when the rain is too heavy, it is still not suitable for fighting, but it is suitable for marching. Li Su is surrounded by Jiangdong and has enough scouts. He has long known the annual climate of the Jiangnan region.

I know that every wave of precipitation in the plum rain season starts with heavy rain, and then turns into light and medium rain, which lasts for more than ten days, and at most, it is cloudy for a few days in the middle.

On May 18th, Li Su conducted a pre-war mobilization in Xiakou to rectify his troops and let his main fleet flow downstream. In the midsummer, the Yangtze River was already large in water and the flow rate was faster. The river surface was wide and it was not afraid of boat collisions at night. It was very easy to spend hundreds of miles a day.

It is estimated that we will be able to arrive in Chaisang on the 20th day and arrive in Ankou on the 21st. It happened to be the first wave of heavy rain that became lighter and the weather was cooler.

The reason why Li Su did not station the troops directly on the front line at the beginning, but was stationed near Xiakou was that the picture was a secret whereabouts, and Zhou Yu and Cao Cao were not alert in advance, and they could not thoroughly and clearly find out the military information and know the true scale of the troops in Li Su's hands.

Because only in Xiakou, the three banks of Jianghan were controlled by Li Su's army. They sailed less than a hundred miles downstream. As the Jushui River in the Daba Mountains merged from the north bank into the Yangtze River, and further east, the north bank was the territory of Cao's army.

That place, the south bank is E County and the north bank is Qichun. It is the location where Daba Mountain directly cuts to the north bank of the Yangtze River. The northern border of Cao and Liu is naturally ruled through Daba Mountain.

Therefore, from the map, the Sun-Cao coalition forces are 400 miles deeper than the south side of the occupied area in Jiangbei. Qichun, 150 miles upstream of Chaisang, is Cao Cao's controlled area, but the south side of the south side is Hulin, 250 miles downstream of Chaisang, is the controlled area of ​​Sun Quan.

Who made Li Su weaker? He could only fight Jiangnan but not Jiangbei before. But now the situation has reversed.

Speaking of this, I have to mention that in order to destroy Sun Quan in the east and reject Cao Cao in the north, Li Su raised a total of many soldiers and horses.

As we all know, before the war with Sun Ce last year, Liu Bei assigned 120,000 elite troops to Li Su to guard the four southern prefectures, mainly Jingzhou, which borders the enemy.

These 120,000 soldiers and horses had annihilated 80,000 Sun Ce's army in several months of bloody battles with Sun Ce. They died in battle, drowned 7,000 or 8,000, and seriously injured, and the battle losses reached about 14,000, and the minor wounded people were not counted.

The serious injuries here are not all disabled, but at least even if the soldiers with severe fractures are seriously injured and severely fractured, they can only recover their combat effectiveness if they have to recover until autumn. The previous bloody battle has only been three months, and seriously injured people above the broken bone level are indeed unable to join the battle again.

So, in this way, the size of all veteran troops controlled by Li Su is only 100,050,000. Among them, the troops that Gao Shun stayed in Wancheng and Xiangyang to fight against the pressure in the north must be deducted, and the necessary mobile troops to prevent Linyi people and even the rear in Jiaozhou. In April, Li Su gathered between 50,000 and 60,000 on the southern line.

However, now Gao Shun has achieved success in training troops, and has successively brought 40,000 people from Wancheng and Xiangyang. There are not many new recruits among these 40,000 people, because Gao Shun basically left 40,000 new recruits in Wancheng and trained while taking on defensive tasks.

Gao Shun's 40,000 people were replaced by 20,000 elite troops who had been freed from the city defense mission, and 20,000 were Yuan Shao's surrendered troops who had just been trained to adapt to the southern climate.

Finally, Li Su also had a new reinforcement, which Gu Yong helped him raise when he came this time. There were about 10,000 people, mainly the soldiers from the South Zhongshan area from Dianzhou, and even some of the Wuling barbarians of Shamoke. These troops were hired by the court for money, food, materials, and even the Han areas where the South Barbarians were in short supply.

After all these were counted, Li Su's total force used for offensive battles and local defenses in Xiakou and Chaisang was expanded to 110,000. Compared with the previous 60,000 people, I don't know how confident the offensive was enough.

As for why Li Su did not recommend expanding the army with Liu Bei before, the Southern Barbarians and Wuling Barbarians were not recommended, but now he has to temporarily ask Gu Yong to hire these barbarians, mainly because these barbarians are indeed not suitable for the combat climate in the north, so there is no need to form institutional recruitment again.

This battle in Jiangnan should be their final contribution to the unification of the civil war between the Han Dynasty. The heat of summer in Jiangnan and the wetness of plum rain should be easy for these soldiers in the South Central region. In the future, we will expect them to attack Linyi Kingdom or unify other barbarians who are dissatisfied in the South Yang region.

And what are the specific uses of these mountain soldiers? Li Su actually thought about it before the war started, mainly for two purposes.

In the first stage, this group of Nanman mountain soldiers can be used to intersperse in the Dabie Mountains, pretending to cross the Dabie Mountains from Jiangxia County and sneak attack Runan County, and even other Huainan areas controlled by Cao Cao. It caused chaos on Cao Cao's flanks, thinking that the soldiers were suspicious, and that Cao Cao did not know the truth and did not dare to make a desperate attempt to support Sun Quan after the war started.

Moreover, doing so could make Yuan Shao even more confused, wondering why Liu Bei's camp suddenly had so many reserve forces on the southern line? Is it because Guan Yu on the northern line had a stalemate with Ju Su for too long, so Guan Yu also reduced his troops and increased his stoves. In fact, he withdrew more troops and transferred them to the southern line?

In this way, maybe it can be linked to Zhuge Liang's scams, which made Yuan Shao take the opportunity to force Ju Su to take the initiative to fight, mistakenly thinking that Guan Yu's troops were relatively empty.

In order to perform this scene better and make Yuan Shao's wrong information more certain, Li Su also paid great attention to acting skills. When Shamoke and Meng Xin led their troops to intersperse suspicious soldiers in the Dabie Mountains, don't use their own banners. They quietly slandered Wang Ping's banners. Even the equipment and clothing of the troops were temporarily upgraded, just like the "Wu Dang Feijun" equipment of Wang Ping's subordinates

The Banyan Man and even the Qing Qiang soldiers under Wang Ping all belonged to the northern mountain troops. Moreover, Wang Ping was already a strong subordinate of Guan Yu and a direct subordinate in the Pingliangzhou battle two years ago. He had not returned to the south for many years, nor did he follow Li Su's direct command.

Therefore, as long as Wang Ping's troops' combat form and equipment and clothing appear in the Daba Mountains in Jiangbei, Wang Ping, under Guan Yu, has been strictly obeying the command in the past few months and has not appeared in the Taihang Mountains on the edge of Bingzhou, and not discovered by Zhang Liao's scouts. Then Yuan Shaofang would not be able to do so without doubt.

For Shamoke and Meng Xin, they were happy to see that the court was willing to upgrade their soldiers' weapons and equipment. The leather armor they used in the Southern Barbarians and Wuling Barbarians were both worn out and sewn by themselves.

Now they only need to produce leather, and the court sends tailors to make new leather armor for them, and they can also keep the old ones and reserve them for later use in their own tribes. Of course, these barbarian chiefs were willing to accept it.

And weapons such as swords, hammers, and axes do not need to produce materials by themselves. Anyway, the metallurgy of the Southern Barbarian tribes is relatively backward. The court directly issued materials to replace them with good goods made by infused steel, which is much better than the familiar iron weapons of their own tribe.

As for the future after these Nanman mountain soldiers completed the restraining mission in the Dabie Mountains, Li Su estimated that the first phase of the Jiangdong Battle would be almost over, and by then, the winner and the Hulin line in Ankou and Hulin would have decided.

If Li Su's main battlefield goes smoothly, he needs to pursue and harvest the remaining enemies. These Nanman mountain soldiers just enter the control area of ​​the Shanyue tribe to attack the remaining Sun Shanyue tribes, and harass Kuaiji, Shangyu, Juzhang and other places in Kuaiji County from the southern line to share Sun Quan's resistance forces.

...

The plan is perfect, and the rest depends on the execution.

The troops were hiding well in the previous two days. They sailed at night when they passed by the section of the road to Chaisang in E County. The evening before passed through Qichun in Jiangbei the next evening, and entered Poyang Lake in the early morning of the next day. They stayed in Poyang Lake for another day, and then drove out of the lake again in the evening and headed downstream.

So it was not until the morning of May 21 that the Cao-Sun coalition army discovered Li Su's fleet from the north bank and suddenly formed an attack. The first person to discover the enemy situation was Zhu Zhi. He immediately communicated with Cao Ren who was assisting with him in military affairs. Cao Ren was righteous and sent the fastest messenger to change horses and run wildly to Wankou to report the message, so that the downstream troops could defend themselves.

The messenger only took more than an hour to run over, and then crossed the river to inform Zhou Yu's water village on Hulin Port on the south bank. In the end, it was only two hours earlier than Li Su's army. He sent the news, which shocked Zhou Yu almost didn't react.

After all, it was more than 400 miles from Qichun to Wankou. Li Su's 110,000 troops, at least 70,000 to 80,000 were from the fleet this time. After walking 400 miles, the defense only discovered that it was a very exaggerated surprise attack after walking 400 miles.

The route planning for the daytime and night is still second, the key is that the troops' attack time is too sudden. Li Su did a good job of hiding reinforcements. Zhou Yu neither knew in advance that Li Su had added 40,000 to 50,000 new forces, nor could he figure out that Li Su would take advantage of this time in early May.

How long can plum rain last? Does Li Su feel that the battle can end in ten days and half a month? He is not afraid that soldiers will get infected on a large scale and spread in heavy rain, and the formation of plagues in the army? He is not afraid that the troops will not be able to withstand the heat after the hot summer in June?
Chapter completed!