Chapter 219 Water War
At this time, the navy led by General Lu Qin of the Tower Ship had encountered the navy of Shen Shangfa on the river north of Jiangxinzhou.

The two sides attacked from far to near, first using strong bows and crossbows, as well as the crossbows on the ships, to shoot at each other and carry out long-range attacks.

Then they began to board the enemy's warships and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

At this time, Lu Qin's tower ship showed a strong advantage. Using the paddling pole, he sank the warships of Shen Shangfa's navy one after another with great force.

Lu Qin's ship was in the front, and the warships behind him followed the commander's flag in front and moved forward.

They took advantage of the downstream flow and directly destroyed the naval fleet of Shen Shangfa in two pieces.

Shen Shangfa's troops, which were originally the Poyang Lake navy under the jurisdiction of the Yangzhou Military Governor's Office of Dayan, were lagging behind the Chaohu navy led by Lu Qin in terms of the number of warships and the skills and tactics of the naval soldiers.

In fact, the two sides were at a similar level two or three years ago. However, after Li Yuanhui took charge of Jianghuai, he attached great importance to the navy. He repaired all the abandoned warships that could be repaired and added a lot of them.

The Chaohu navy also expanded year by year.

As for Shen Shangfa's troops, their previous situation was actually similar to that of the Chaohu Navy. They were both neglected. After all, after the unification of the world, the navy was rarely used in foreign wars. Only the Qingzhou Navy participated in the Eastern Expedition to Goguryeo, and they thought that Gao Huang was the commander-in-chief, so they obtained a lot of resources.

The rest of the navies in the Yangtze River Basin were basically responsible for escorting the canal ships, and at most suppressing the pirates. So the situations of these navies were similar.

The difference is that after Jiangdong was occupied by Cao Yuanjing, Shen Shangfa, a prominent family from Wujun, chose to join the new regime of Eastern Wei.

The Eastern Wei Dynasty gave Shen Shangfa a high position and generous salary, and also allowed him to continue to stay in Poyang Lake. Naturally, he was very satisfied with this arrangement.

But the problem is that apart from high positions and generous salaries, the Eastern Wei never supported him in expanding the navy, building ships, and recruiting naval forces.

The navy is a special type of military force that requires a large amount of resources, and it is not enough to just recruit a few people.

Without resources, it would be impossible to build more warships. Fortunately, his old friend Yuzhang Taishou Murong Jing provided some money and food, which allowed him to expand the size of his navy to about 10,000 people.

However, he did not have the resources to build a water-dominant warship like the Wuya Ship.

Resources are one thing, and in terms of tactics, Shen Shangfa and Lu Qin were both Yingyang Langjiang, in charge of the navy. But their experience in naval warfare is worlds apart.

Lu Qin participated in the large-scale naval battle that destroyed the Southern Wei more than ten years ago. He had experience in participating in and commanding large-scale fleets as well as small-scale land and water battles.

Under such circumstances, it was completely reasonable that Lu Qin's Chaohu Navy defeated Shen Shangxing's Poyang Lake Navy.

Cao Yuanjing was also a little angry when he saw Shen Shangxing's troops being broken out of formation.

He didn't expect that General Shen's navy was so weak.

The original plan was that Han Ling would lead his men to attack Jiangxinzhou, and Shen Shangxing would lead the navy to attack and cut off the Yan army's way to rescue Jiangxinzhou. In this case, the Yan army would definitely send out the navy to fight against Shen's troops.

Shen’s army’s mission was not actually to defeat the Yan army’s navy, but to hold back the enemy’s navy on the river north of Jiangxinzhou.

On the other hand, the right general Zhu Jun had led a part of the Wei navy to sail quickly upstream from the south of Jiangxinzhou, and then quickly went down the river to surround the Yan navy on the river north of Jiangxinzhou.

The plan of encircling and attacking from both sides is a good one.

But there were problems in implementation.

The Shen's navy downstream was directly hit. The fish were fine, but the net was broken.

When Cao Yuanjing saw this scene, he naturally knew that his plan to defeat the Yan army’s navy in a naval battle today had failed again.

Shen Shangxing was shocked and angry when he saw his fleet's formation was broken.

This was his first battle in front of Emperor Cao Yuanjing since he joined the Eastern Wei, and he ended up in such a miserable state.

They could only send out flag signals continuously, gather the fleet, and reorganize the navy to launch an attack.

However, the Poyang Lake Navy was not as strong as the Chao Lake Navy, and the fleet was divided into two. Before Zhu Jun's troops arrived from upstream, the fleet near Jiangxin Island was smashed to pieces by the Wuya ship. Many navy soldiers abandoned their ships and jumped into the water to swim to Jiangxin Island to escape.

At this time, the battle on Jiangxin Island also began.

Han Ling led three thousand warriors to the Jiangxin Island, assembled his troops at the edge of the island, and then launched an attack on the Yan army camp.

Three thousand Wei soldiers, with swords, shields and spears in the front and archers in the back, stood in front of Xu Xingzhi's Yan army camp. After both sides came into shooting range, they immediately started shooting at each other with bows and crossbows.

Both sides began shooting arrows across the fortifications, causing certain casualties on each other.

The Yan army built a complete camp on the island in the middle of the river. Because there were not many people on the island, there was no fence. The Yan army first dug deep trenches around the camp, then used the soil dug to build a wall, and transported antler chevaux de frise from the north bank of the river to set up at the camp gate.

Although such a camp has no fence, it is very solid because of its earthen walls.

After Han Ling rushed to the front of the camp, he immediately realized that the only way to capture the camp was to enter through the main gate.

Otherwise, just filling the trenches would cost a huge amount of money.

Because this is basically a small city, if you want to climb over the wall, you first have to fill up the moat and then set up a ladder to climb up.

The reality was that they were unable to organize a large number of auxiliary soldiers and farmers to go to the island in the middle of the river to carry soil to fill the trenches.

After all, Jiangxinzhou is not on land, and it is not realistic to deploy tens of thousands of people to go back and forth to collect soil.

On the other hand, time does not allow it.

They must capture Jiangxinzhou as soon as possible, otherwise when the reinforcements of the Yan army arrive, they will be defeated and driven into the river.

So Han Ling spent a large sum of money to recruit 300 brave warriors, and asked them to use only shields and withstand the arrows of the Yan army to remove the antlers in front of the Yan army camp.

As long as these three hundred people can clear the deer horns and roadblocks, no matter they live or die, each of them will receive a reward of ten strings of money and twenty pieces of silk. Those who die will also receive a pension, and those who live will be promoted three levels.

The reason for offering such a huge reward is that only after these deer horns and roadblocks are removed can the Wei army launch an attack.

The 300 brave warriors had accomplished their mission. They braved pits, caltrops, deer horns, and arrows from the Yan army on the earthen platform. It took them two hours and cost them more than two hundred lives before they managed to carve out a path for the attack.

Afterwards, Han Ling personally led the attack on the camp, and the two sides began to engage in close combat.

At this time, the naval battle between the Yan army navy and the Wei army navy also entered a white-hot state.

The troops of Zhu Jun, the right general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, were unable to get around Lü Qin's navy because a detachment of the Yan army's navy, led by Lü Qin's deputy, Liang Yun, the Eagle General, came from Xinchun and intercepted Zhu Jun's troops upstream of Jiangxin Island. The two sides engaged in a fierce battle upstream of Jiangxin Island.

Liang Yun's naval forces consisted of about 5,000 men and 200 large and small ships. Originally, they were not as strong as Zhu Jun's forces in terms of military strength.

However, Liang Yun's troops were moving straight down the river, with the advantage of downstream. The navy's technical and tactical level was relatively professional, significantly higher than that of Zhu Jun's navy, which was composed of powerful troops and fishermen.

Therefore, although the military strength was inferior, they were not at a disadvantage on the battlefield.

At this time, the battle between Lü Qin and Shen Shangfa had already been decided. Shen Shangfa led dozens of large and small warships of the remaining troops to evacuate in a hurry, and the main force of the Chaohu Navy led by Lü Qin won the victory.

Afterwards, Lu Qin ordered his nephew Lu Jinmian to lead the navy to clean up the battlefield, rescue the sailors who fell into the water, and salvage the available supplies. He personally led the main force of his own army up the river to support Liang Yun's troops.

Under the attack from both sides, Zhu Jun's troops were quickly defeated. If Cao Yuanjing had not ordered former general Li Xiong to lead the navy to support them, Zhu Jun's troops, as a surprise force, would have been in great danger.

Although Lu Qin had just experienced a great victory, he did not get carried away. After seeing the flag Li Yuanhui sent out in the camp by the river, he did not continue to pursue, but formed a battle formation and waited for battle.

The infantry of Yu Zhongheng and Wang Shiyan were about to land on Jiangxin Island.

(End of this chapter)