The victory and defeat were decided on the day of the Taihu Battle, but it was not over. The main reason was that the scale of the battle was too large. It was just that the garbage time was to sweep the tail and chase the remaining enemies, and there was no suspense.

There are armys of 90,000 people on both sides, with a total of 180,000 people. Including the boats, the total number of ships is nearly 3,000. It is normal that there are so many people and so many ships stuck on the Taihu Lake and fighting for several days.

After all, unless the enemy surrenders in an established manner under the leadership of the commander, the battle can end quickly. Otherwise, even if it is a defeated battle, 90,000 pigs scattered and fled on the surface of Taihu Lake, you will not be able to catch up.

The whole day of fighting lasted until it was dark, and all Chen Wu's troops were destroyed, and those who could not escape surrendered. Han Dang's troops had the last five or six thousand people to join Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu's central army had less than 15,000 people left, and they fought and retreated with Han Dang's troops. Han Dang's troops were still unconscious.

Because Li Su's direction is close to Jianye, Zhou Yu could not go to Jianye. The main road back to Wu County was under Huang Zhong's focus. After defeating the enemy, the Han army fleet sent the main fleet to directly lead to Wu County and blocked the waterway.

So the final result was that Zhou Yu could only take Han Dang with him, a total of less than 20,000 people, and retreated to Wucheng (Huzhou) on the southeast bank of Taihu Lake.

The rear army and the flank He Qi and Yu Jin's troops suffered a lot of losses, but they still retained the system. After all, they broke through in the opposite direction after the defeat.

He Qi's soldiers were killed and injured, and more than 10,000 surrendered, all of which were the result of Li Su's meticulous cry that shook the morale of the army.

There were only a few thousand people left by He Qi, who fled until late at night, and abandoned the boat in the dark, walked through the jungle along the edge of Tianmu Mountain by Taihu Lake, hoping to rely on the complex terrain to avoid the cavalry troops searching along the lake, and finally retreated through the Maoshan Mountain area of ​​Jurong County to Jinling Mountain outside Jianye City, and finally returned to the city.

In this era, the development efforts of the mountainous areas in Jiangnan were still very weak. Even in later generations, it was a prosperous place in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. Now, as long as it is in mountainous areas, the Han people's farming power is relatively weak, and the Shanyue people are everywhere.

The Danyang soldiers, who were famous for their bravery and bravery, lived in this part of the mountainous areas in Danyang County.

Although He Qi has been with the Sun family in the past few years, he has never fought many other battles, but after all, he has been conserving mountains for many years and has had military achievements and experience in dealing with those barbarians. During his years in Poyang, Yuzhang, he beat the barbarians of Shanyue in Jiangxi to the ground for their teeth.

So even though he was defeated by Li Su now, He Qi still has the confidence to flee back to Jianye by relying on his familiarity with the mountains and crossing mountains and ridges.

In contrast, Yu Jin brought all the northern troops, and he was not good at traversing mountains and detours.

So when the army was defeated, He Qi went the other way and walked around the south bank a little. However, Yu Jin did not observe the terrain at all, but only wanted to focus on the north.

He tried to retreat straight to Jingkou (Zhenjiang), and then searched for a boat to cross the river at Jinshan Ferry and Guazhou Ferry, and retreated to Cao Cao's territory in Jiangbei.

Unfortunately, Yu Jinxuan's road was close but too flat, and it was easy to be caught up by large-scale cavalry troops.

The journey from the north bank of Taihu Lake through Piling County to Jingkou is over 150 miles in total, and it is definitely not possible to get there in one night.

So a few hours after Yu Jin came ashore, he was discovered by scouts searching along the lake by the Han army. Yu Jin was also a famous general. He knew that it was important to keep confidential at this time. He tried his best to concentrate the only officers in the army with horses and acted as ordinary cavalry to chase and kill the scouts to prevent leaks from revealing their whereabouts.

The army team of officers led by Yu Jin himself killed dozens of reconnaissance cavalry, but they could not completely silence them in the dark. As long as the scouts escaped a small amount and brought the information to the place, the strategic goal would be achieved.

After one night, Yu Jin had only walked dozens of miles, more than eighty miles away from the riverside, but he heard the sound of hooves behind him. It was Zhao Yun who hurriedly brought five thousand cavalry to chase him.

There were more than 20,000 people around Yu Jin. In fact, it was the largest and most intact part of the remnants of the Sun Cao coalition after the end of the Battle of Taihu.

The northern troops were not so short of war horses, but Yu Jin's troops were sent by Cao Cao to Zhou Yu as a navy army, so there were less than a thousand cavalry, and only officers above the garrison commander were given horses, and a small number of generals and guards had horses.

The land in the south of the Yangtze River was originally divided into hills and water networks, and there was no battlefield environment for cavalry to rush up. However, between Piling and Jingkou, there was a rare spacious alluvial plain with dozens of miles of rivers, and they were all fertile military farm areas.

In early August, it was the time when the first crop of rice was harvested in a single season. The fields were very dry and the rice straw was still left, which did not affect the cavalry charge.

Yu Jin knew very well that if he insisted on running, he would have been seventy or eighty miles before reaching the Yangtze River. He had more than 20,000 people in his hands. If he lined up and walked slowly, the five thousand cavalry of Zhao Yun on the opposite side might not be able to annihilate him.

But if the entire army was negligent in preventing the situation and only ran north, Zhao Yun seized the opportunity. Five thousand cavalry charges with one back sprint and defeated more than 20,000 infantry soldiers. I heard that a year ago, Zhao Yun did this on the Jianghan Plain in Dangyang. Thousands of cavalry wiped out more than 20,000 Cheng Pu's men and captured Cheng Pu alive.

Yu Jin thought that he was a famous general, and his ability should be far above Cheng Pu, but whether he could withstand Zhao Yun's five thousand iron cavalry bit you like a shadow, and he would take the opportunity and slash him hard. Yu Jin was not sure.

However, maintaining the formation and taking strict vigilance and moving slowly have no future.

Zhao Yun’s five thousand people were just Li Su’s rapid response troops. After Zhao Yun came, at most one day, Li Su would split his troops from the rear army, and followed Yu Jin’s route last night, landed on the north shore of Taihu Lake, and then caught up.

What's even more terrifying is that if Li Su still had the strength to end the battle on Taihu Lake, let the rear army withdraw from Zhongjiang and return to the Yangtze River channel, and then block the Yangtze River all the way to Jingkou, then Yu Jin would still be dead even if he retreated to Jingkou.

Moreover, Li Su has too many choices, and he has a third way to deal with Yu Jin's remains, that is, to inform Yu Jin, who doesn't know where Gan Ning is now, to intercept him.

Yu Jin's troops had also been mixed in with many detailed works to combat the morale of the coalition forces, and those detailed works had spread news such as "Li Su had sent Gan Ning to break the road from behind, cutting off other waterways such as Songjiang, Jiangnan River and other evacuated from Taihu Lake."

If it weren't for the northern section of the Jiangnan Canal, the river channel from Taihu Lake to the Yangtze River was blocked by Ganning, Yu Jin would not have sneaked away from the ship to Jingkou, and searched for other civilian boats to cross the river.

Although Yu Jin didn't know where Gan Ning was now, he was very convinced that if he delayed for more than two or three days, after Gan Ning knew his actions, he would definitely go around Jingkou and wait in advance for him to catch the turtle in the jar.

At that time, there was absolutely no way to heaven and no way to enter the earth.

Yu Jinyu issued a strict order under his head:

"The whole army is in line! Stay outside with a long spear, beware of Zhao Yun's rushing! The whole army slowly retreats to Jingkou! Abandon all the supplies, be sure to walk the last seventy miles in one day, and to arrive at Jingkou at night to ask Sun Jing to find a boat to cross the river!"

Yu Jin didn't know that He Qi had already taken another road to retreat towards Jianye, and they had no contact after they were broken up. But Yu Jin knew that the Sun family had handed over the city defense of Jianye City to Sun Jian's younger brother, Sun Ce and Sun Quan's uncle Sun Jing.

The port cities near Jianye Jingkou, Jurong and other places are also Sun Jing's defense zone. Although the main warships were concentrated by Zhou Yu, Jiangnan is a land of fish and rice and a place where water nets are crisscrossed. Sun Jing was too anxious to take out a lot of civilian ships.

I am afraid that Sun Jing will force Yu Jin to stay with him to guard Jianye City, and will not let Yu Jin cross the river alone to break through the siege. However, if Yu Jin really reaches that point, even if he has internal conflicts, he will directly use troops to snatch the ship from Sun Jing's hands and have to leave.

He was Cao Cao's general, how could he be buried with the Sun family? At this point in the war, the value of the alliance was gone.

Seeing that Yu Jin was ready for a while, Zhao Yun was not too anxious, but just bit Yu Jin and followed him to find an opportunity.

After the scout discovered Yu Jin's whereabouts last night, he not only notified Zhao Yun, but also immediately ordered them to go to Piling to inform Gan Ning, who was blocking the north entrance of the Jiangnan Canal, so Zhao Yun was very sure that Gan Ning could help.

Piling is Changzhou in later generations, and Jingkou is Zhenjiang in later generations. These two places are adjacent prefecture-level cities.

Even if Ganning is flying against the trend, it is still very easy to drive the boat from Changzhou to the Yangzhou area of ​​Zhenjiang due to the smooth wind and can take advantage of the strong southeast wind after the typhoon.

...

While Yu Jin was waiting for chronic death on the way to evacuate Jurong County to Jingkou County without knowing it,

Zhou Yu, with the unconscious Han Dang and more than 18,000 soldiers after joining the army, finally retreated to Wucheng.

After arriving in Wucheng, Zhou Yu did not dare to stop. Seeing that the road to Wuxian was blocked, he gritted his teeth and continued southward from the southern section of the Jiangnan Canal east of Wucheng to Yuhang.

As mentioned earlier, the Jiangnan Canal was not built only when Emperor Yang Guang of Sui. In fact, it was found during the Warring States Period. The Jiangnan canal was already connected by water, and it could be carried out by connecting the original small river. The cost of repair is not too high.

The river channel in the southern half of the Jiangnan Canal starts at the northern end between Wucheng County and Wujiang (now Wujiang, Suzhou) in Wuxian. It is forked south along the Jiangnan water network, and some lead to Yuhang County and Jiaxing County.

However, the large ships of the building-level ship cannot be used, so Zhou Yu could only give up in Wucheng. Later generations, Yang Guang only re-drifted and dug deep and widened the river channel. After the transformation, it was so large that even Yang Guang's dragon boat could pass.

After retreating to Yuhang County, it was impossible to directly cross the Qiantang River to Shanyin County, Kuaiji County. The main reason is that the ancient canal has not opened up the last few miles connecting the Qiantang River.

There was no ship lock technology in ancient times, and it was impossible to fight against the natural water level gap between different water systems, so the canal was actually divided into sections. When the gap was large, it was deliberately cut off the canal and not be repaired. It required manpower and chariots to unload the materials from the high and low river sections again.

For example, during the Ming Dynasty, Linqing, Shandong, many times, a big city with two million people was built by the city of Linqing, which was built by the docks to solve the problem of too much gap between the Haihe River in the capital and the Yellow River in the south.

Similarly, in the south of the ancient Jiangnan River, because the tides in Zhejiang were relatively large, they were afraid that Qiantang tides would pour into the canal when it was rising and drain the canal when it was low, so as early as the time of Goujian, Yue, he did not dare to let the canal directly open to Zhejiang. It was broken a few miles away from the bank of Zhejiang in Yuhang County.

Boats from the canal in the north must be unloaded at the wharf at the end of the Yuhang Canal, and the carriages and horses will be transferred to the dock on the north bank of Zhejiang several miles away to the south, and then loaded with the boats from Kuaiji County.

The canal opening was not until the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China that the lock technology was popularized, and the lock was built in Sanbao, Hangzhou in later generations, allowing the ship to drive directly from the Jiangnan Canal into the Qiantang River.

Both the enemy and the enemy knew this geographical feature, so when Li Su arranged for Ganning to block the mouth, he only warned that after Zhou Yu was defeated, he went to the northern section of the Jiangnan Canal from Piling to the Yangtze River, or to the Songjiang to the East China Sea, but he did not guard against Zhou Yu going to the Jiangnan Henan section to Yuhang.

Because Gan Ning knew that Yuhang could not connect to Zhejiang, Zhou Yu would have to abandon the ship if he wanted to go south. If Zhou Yu lost all the elite warships, what other storms could he cause just to bring 20,000 people?

After the capture of Jianye City and Wujun was persuaded to surrender, there was no need to be beaten in Kuaiji. Li Su could issue an edict to let the local tribes in Kuaiji tie Zhou Yu and send him there. Otherwise, Li Su could also take the opportunity to clean up the great clans in Jiangnan.

Zhou Yu also knew this, so after retreating to Yuhang, he was really reluctant to abandon his last warship. He knew that if he found another civilian ship in Yuhang County, he would die if he went to Kuaiji.

Then why not wait and see in Yuhang County.

Because he had not had a rest for two days and a night, Zhou Yu couldn't stand it anymore and his spirit was almost broken. Some of his soldiers slept on the boat in batches during the day, and at least they were more energetic than his coach.

In the battle the day before yesterday, many generals were killed and injured. Chen Wu was killed and Han Dang was seriously injured. Other small fish and shrimps were also killed and injured by Song Qian and Sun Ben. Zhou Yu was surrounded by Jia Hua and Sun He who had no sense of existence before.

As well as some civil advisers of low rank, or local officials from Yuhang, Wucheng and other places, including Quanrou, the commander of Danyang County who had been with him as an army, and Yu Fan, the governor of Kuaiji County stationed in Yuhang, no one discussed it.

Zhou Yu was depressed and asked Yu Fan to provide some small wine to the army, summoned the civil and military personnel to drink a little, and discussed the plan.

Zhou Yu was so worried that he discussed: "The warships cannot enter Zhejiang. If Li Su's army chased him, you will take the soldiers and the civilian boats to Kuaiji. If they are really invincible, they will surrender.

My life-and-death friendship with Bo Fu has been invincible for many years. After struggling these few times, tens of thousands of people died, and I felt ashamed of the people. I would not run away. If Yuhang County fell, I would die here and die with my fleet.

Maybe the world belongs to Liu Bei. We are all under the banner of the Han Dynasty, and we are just fighting for the truth. In today's world, it is so similar to Emperor Guangwu and Emperor Gengshi. No one will remember the death after death, and in the end he became a villain.
Chapter completed!