The conversation was divided into two parts. Since Yuan Shao's army began to switch from defense to offense in June this year, it seems that all the attention of the princes in the world has been pulled to the Hebei War Zone.

Within about a month after that, Zhou Yu and Cao Cao gradually came back to the point and realized that they were really being used by Li Su and deceived Yuan Shao—

Li Su's performance was so realistic before, as if he was pressing against Niuzhu, and Dangtu's front line of the navy were all composed of elite troops from the south, and there was no problem of being unacceptable to the local environment and poor water quality.

But what happened? In Hebei, Yuan Shao had just attacked the Yewang, Qinshui, and Li Su, and completely turned to stalemate, avoiding the scorching heat in June and the first half of July.

At first, Zhou Yu felt that Li Su might not be able to withstand the hottest period of the Dog Day and the Dog Day, and he would resume his attack after the Dog Day. But the truth is that Li Su had not taken action until after the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and the Dog Day and

Moreover, Li Su's deception and weakness of Zhou Yu and Cao Cao was not only in the Jiangnan battlefield. On the Jiangbei and Huainan battlefield, Li Su's deception became increasingly fierce.

Since early June, after "Wang Ping" and "Wudang Feijun" attacked the counties in Huainan and Lujiang in the Dabie Mountains, Cao Cao sent Xiahou Yuan to lead 40,000 elite troops to Runan County to help Yuan Shao defend the northern foothills of the Dabie Mountains. Xiahou Yuan's subordinates also had generals and staff such as Le Jin and Xu Yan.

But what happened? Xiahou Yuan had just arrived in Runan and fell into a state of nothing to do. The 40,000 army was idle and silent at such a critical moment, and did not exert the value of supporting other battlefields at all.

In the first half month, Xiahou Yuan felt that the weather was hot and he was too lazy to go into the mountains to search. However, as July came, Xiahou Yuan was a little unable to sit still and tried to counterattack Anfeng County and other places in the depths of the Dabie Mountains.

However, because the terrain is not suitable for the large army to deploy, Xiahou Yuankong had three or four times the enemy's strength and was unable to make progress. Instead, he was attacked by Shamoke and the Meng army of Kunming so that he could not take care of each other and had to withdraw from the mountains.

It’s not that General Xiahou Yuan is not capable of combat effectiveness, but that Cao Cao’s troops have indeed lacked experience in mountain warfare so far.

However, Xiahou Yuan's attempt was not completely unrealized, because both sides were inevitably killed and injured and captured during the war. Although Xiahou Yuan did not seize the mountainous city, he also captured at least a few hundred prisoners of war.

After a little interrogation, even if the prisoners tried not to tell the truth, Xiahou Yuan still found that most of these people were Wuling Man and Nanzhong Barbarians, not Banyan Man and Qing Qiangsou. Xiahou Yuan also suspected that the so-called Wang Ping was probably not there, and Wudang Feijun might not be the real one.

...

Xiahou Yuan was confused. The more he fought, the more he was getting worse, and Zhou Yu from the Jiangnan battlefield did not expect to ask for a certificate.

At the end of June, Zhou Yu also thought, "Is it possible that Li Su is really spreading the epidemic and fever in the army and has lost its combat effectiveness." Seeing that Li Su did not take the initiative to attack, Zhou Yu took advantage of the seemingly relaxed and organized one or two small-scale night attacks and arson operations, hoping to turn the tables and make some money back.

However, Zhou Yu's arson attempts were obviously strictly guarded by Li Su. After all, his boats were divided relatively scattered, and there were no chain ships, so it was meaningless to attack the fire and attack the storm battleship.

Although the Five-Tooth Warship is huge, burning one is enough, Li Su has already wrapped all the waterline armor of all the Five-Tooth Warships in iron sheets. Huang Gai suffered a loss at the beginning and could not burn it at all.

Zhou Yu improved the fire attack troops this time, and was equipped with the Flying Fire God Crow and simple flammable bombs made of a catapult cart and a sesame oil clay pot. Only then did he dare to try again. What he thought was to directly bypass the waterline armor and throw it onto the deck of the Five-Tooth Battleship.

Unfortunately, the fire attack troops were not large enough and combat power, so Zhou Yu did not dare to gamble the entire army. The fire attack ship was either intercepted by the outer brigade of the Han Navy halfway, or was hit and sunk after approaching. There were too few opportunities to throw sesame oil fire cups and flying fire god crows densely, and the density was too low.

So it was still destroyed by the damage pipe operation and fire deployment of Li Su's daily mud on the deck.

In these two fire attack attempts, Zhou Yu really did not expect Li Su to be so bold, and directly let the siege hit and fight against the sidelines to intercept the fire attack ship. Moreover, the Han sailors were so busy that they implemented Li Su's order without any doubt.

Because Zhou Yu felt that under normal circumstances, the entire ship set fire directly upwards. The ones used sesame oil fire pots and the flying fire god crows were actually a minority, and the vehicles launched could not carry much ignition fuel.

The Han army's siege directly hit the fire-attacking ship, aren't you afraid of ignition in advance and die together? How could those Han army sailors be so brave?

But Li Su knew too well that Zhou Yu's "unprepared battles" were characterized by Zhou Yu. Li Su knew how Huang Gai was done, and Zhou Yu could not learn from Huang Gai's lesson.

When he knew that the Han army's five-tooth warship had waterline armored iron sheets, Zhou Yu would definitely not spend his energy on the "direct impact type full-ship fuel fire ship". He would definitely have other long-range arson projection methods when he dared to attack.

Therefore, Li Su clearly implemented this point in the army, so that every officer in the commando team who performed peripheral patrol missions would unify his thoughts and realize this.

Before the battle, we should explain to the soldiers, so that the soldiers should not be afraid of "igniting the enemy ship with us and dying together", so that the soldiers know that this situation does not exist.

Although the soldiers did not like to take risks with their lives, Li Su had too high prestige in the army and had too good historical credit.

As Li Sikong can go from one victory to another, from officers to soldiers, they are used to Li Sikong's guess of the enemy as gods, so even if they have to take the risk of giving their lives to Li Sikong a gamble, they can still have confidence.

With the same desire as the whole person, everyone dared to block Zhou Yu's arson ship, these arson attempts ended in failure, and Zhou Yu also lost an additional suicide squad of thousands of people in the month from mid-June to mid-July.

...

Zhou Yu and Xiahou Yuan were both unable to make progress, but they felt that the more the battle was getting worse and wrong. Even if they still couldn't do anything to Li Su, it was definitely true that Li Su deceived him.

This suspicion was finally completely revealed in late July, and it was a foregone conclusion - because in mid-July, Wang Pinghe Wudang Feijun, who should have been on the Dabie Mountains in Huainan, finally appeared in Shangdang, Hebei in public.

That is, Guan Yu took Wang Ping to circle the Houguang Lang Valley, attacked Guanglang City, and killed Wen Chou and cut off Zhang Liao's retreat.

The incident happened on July 12th, but the news reached Yuan Shao's ears on July 15th. Yuan Shao must have sent envoys to scold Cao Cao and Sun Quan, and asked them to be responsible for their previous deceptions in military intelligence.

Although Yuan Shao had only experienced his verbal pleasure, he could not actually hold his allies responsible for this kind of thing. But no matter what, the news was about July 18th, and then to Zhou Yu, and it was completely July 20th.

The evidence is as strong as a mountain, and Zhou Yu and Xiahou Yuan can only admit that they were shook by Li Su this summer.

Not to mention whether Li Su has the ability to take them down, at least Li Su was really pretending to be at least half stronger than his real strength at the beginning (in fact, only 120,000 troops were still there, and a considerable proportion of new recruits, but pretending to have 160,000 troops). He also used this to drag the northern army to the hottest period of the southern summer.

Now, the scorching heat has finally ended, and the soldiers have become more and more adapted to the weather and water in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Li Su finally launched a general attack on Zhou Yu and Yu Jinshui Army in Dangtu and Niuzhu areas at the end of July.

If you have no idea about this time node, you can compare it. Zhang Liao was besieged in mid-July, and then the food route was cut off for 49 days. It was not until the second day of September that Guan Yu wiped out his 70,000 troops.

Therefore, the time when Li Su started the attack was about Zhang Liao who was surrounded for more than ten days, and there was still one month and a few days before.

During this period, it may not have been completely pacified by the Wu and Yue territory, and they could not take over those strong city fortresses, but it was still very easy to make a major breakthrough in the field battle, which caused severe damage to Zhou Yu and Yu Jin's final vitality.

This is why when Yuan Shao retreated, when Guan Yu opened the Henan Yin land channel, he was surprised to find that Li Su had made significant progress in the Jiangnan War Zone.

The only progress made by Zhou Yu's army this summer was that the Linyi Kingdom, which they colluded in the south, launched an attack in the scorching heat and captured Jiuzhen County before the end of June. Now even Jiaozhi County can be broken, and the county's Longbian County is probably not able to hold on in the end.

It’s not that the Han army is not good at combat effectiveness, but that the Han army’s soldiers are not tolerant of heat. In summer, wars can only allow local local people from Jiaozhou to join the army. The elite troops who have fought for a long time can’t go.

However, the progress of Linyi Kingdom did not interfere with Li Su's layout and rhythm. He knew that it would be useless to worry about some things, so he must keep calm.

How rampant are those monkeys in the South Vietnamese in summer? When winter gets cooler and the elite northern troops can free up their hands to the Indochina Peninsula, it is when the Linyi people cry.

...

July 24th (corresponding to the Gregorian calendar is around the end of August and the beginning of September, and the weather is no longer too hot). It was rare to have moderate rain two days ago, and the scorching heat finally subsided completely.

Later, although there is still the familiar "Autumn Tiger" among Jiangnan people, which can last for about half a month, as long as you choose the day when it rains, you don't have to worry about the heat at all.

Li Suwei has been repairing this day for nearly forty days. When he prepares for his troops again and is unsheathed with the sharp blade, he is of course ready and will not miss any good opportunities.

Early that morning, most of his main warships set sail from Wuhu Port where he was stationed during the "summer vacation", and pushed downstream with all his might, heading straight to Niuzhu and Dangtu two water camps to carry out a full-scale attack.

Wuhu is only sixty or seventy miles away from Dangtu, and the 80-mile Yangtze River waterway (the direction of the Yangtze River will twist, so it is farther than the straight line distance), and can be reached in half a day when flowing downstream.

During the previous stalemate, the reason why Li Su chose to station in Wuhu instead of forcing Zhou Yu to be too close was to more buffering and preparation time, making it more difficult for Zhou Yu's sneak attack to counterattack.

With eighty miles of waterways, there is enough warning time for the scouts and patrol fleets in front, so that the main force behind can respond in a timely manner.

When Li Su finally attacked, Zhou Yu certainly didn't want to fight in the weather chosen by Li Su.
Chapter completed!