Chapter 226 - Zhou Yu Defeated (3) (1/2)
Chapter 226 Zhou Yu Defeated (3)
“Raise the sails!” Zhou Yu is angry. Now, whoever that questions him would only face death. As a result, all the wars.h.i.+ps raised their sails without question. The sails were raised and the s.h.i.+p also accelerated with the power of the peddlers.
“Raising the sails? Haha, did you want to surrender?” The sails were basically cloth that is white which looks the same as the surrender flag. Besides that, raising the sails also increased the area the s.h.i.+p could get damaged.
Kuai Liang sneered. Perhaps Zhou Yu panicked? It is a normal reaction after seeing the fearsome power of this weapon!
“Even though I understand that, I have no choice but to send you into the river! The only good Duke of Zhou is a dead Handsome Zhou.”
Kuai Liang raised his hands to order another volley onto Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p. After Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p is destroyed, the whole of the Yangtze River would belong to the Jingzhou Navy. Liu Mang sold all their wars.h.i.+ps as a message that the Lu Bu’s Army does not want to fight for the Yangtze River. They want to obtain the Huai He River and take revenge on Cao Cao at the Central Plains. If there are three parties, they would need to balance out their strength but if there were only two parties, the two parties can exhaust all their strength to kill each other. The winner would become the overlord for the Yangtze River.
Naturally, Kuai Liang also considered the fact that it was a ruse by the Lu Bu’s Army to make the Jingzhou Navy and the Jiangdong Navy fight. However, their cover was too convincing and the cake was too big. The Lu Bu’s Army sold 23 wars.h.i.+ps loaded with ballistae to Kuai Liang. It allows the Jingzhou Army to test its powers and to defeat Zhou Yu. After they manage to equip the rest of their wars.h.i.+ps with ballistae, would the Jiangdong Navy still be able to defeat them? After defeating Sun Ce and the JIangdong Army, they would be able to afford spending on more fleets. Kuai Liang did not believe that the Lu Bu’s Army could match them in production.
“Go die!” Kuai Liang’s eyes flashed. In his eyes, Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p was crushed and Zhou Yu would then drown in the river.
Unfortunately, nothing happened. Giant arrows did not appear to destroy Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p
“What happened!” Kuai Liang shouted in anger.
Kuai Liang fumed. Initially, he was so happy that when Zhou Yu is defeated, he would write a brilliant poem on top of the Yangtze River. But now he felt like he just ate a swarm of large flies. It was an extremely uncomfortable feeling made his heart ache.
“Master Zi Rou! We have run out of arrows!” Deng Long felt a little awkward. Similar to Kuai Liang, he would very much like to see Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p sinking. Unfortunately, that did not happen because the ballistae has ran out of arrows.
“It can only shoot five arrows!” Deng Long said to Kuai Liang. In fact, both Kuai Liang and Deng Long knew that the ballistae could only shoot 5 arrows. However, they became too excited when they saw the Jiangdong’s Navy getting defeated.
“Reload quickly!” Kuai Liang knew that the Lu Bu’s Army must have taught them how to reload the ballistae. Kuai Liang calmed down but was still not pleased. Just a little more! It is because of this that they were unable to destroy Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p and become heroes and saviors of Jingzhou.
“Why, did Master Zi Rou not know that it could only shoot 5 times?” Although Zhou Yu could not hear Kuai Liang’s conversation, he could see Kuai Liang’s gloomy face. The overpowering Kuai Liang is no longer there and was replaced by ruined Kuai Liang.
Ever since Jiang Qin’s navy was destroyed, Zhou Yu started to study about Lu Bu’s Army’s new weapon. This is because no matter what happens, Jiangdong would need to deal with this new weapon. Zhou Yu had never expected to obtain the blueprint of Lu Bu’s ballistae. At first, Zhou Yu had the idle thought of how to fight the ballistae using the current fleet. He put down the idea when Sun Ce mentioned about obtaining the blueprint. Unexpectedly, Zhou Yu’s chance to utilize his plans came out.
The ballistae was a weapon that can shoot 300 paces away and could shoot 5 times rapidly. 1 volley was enough to take down a small fleet. 5 volleys would make that fleet disappear completely. As expected, that happened to Han Dang. Gan Ning would have ridiculed the Jingzhou Navy for their terrible ballistae operating skills. To use it properly, only 2 wars.h.i.+ps were needed to aim at 1 target. This would ensure its destruction and at the same time, maximizing the amount of destruction it could cause. It would allow them to destroy 3 times as many enemies with 5 volleys. It would be able to destroy a majority of Zhou Yu’s Army.
However, Kuai Liang and Deng Long made the same mistakes. They a.s.sumed that concentrating their firepower would cause more terror and strike fear into their enemies. They would not be wrong if they were fighting someone else but their opponents were Zhou Yu’s Ace Army. Their stratagem was completely ineffective. The five volleys only managed to destroy Han Dang’s s.h.i.+ps.
The ballistae can only shoot five times! It was their weakpoint. After shooting 5 times, they would need t to prepare a new bowstring. Zhou Yu has already counted the number of arrows were shot and he counted 5 times. Now was the time for Zhou Yu to fight back.
“Quickly reload!” Kuai Liang was gloomy. Although Gan Ning’s navy had taught them how to reload the ballistae, it was a very time-consuming process. They needed to place the giant arrows on the ballistae and then a lot of people would need to pull the bowstring. In times of peace, the time taken would not be a problem but it would be terrible to do this in the middle of combat. Even now, Zhou Yu’s wars.h.i.+ps were approaching.
“Master Zi Rou, we should also raise the sails!” Deng Long suggested. According to Gan Ning’s navy, they would need to keep their distance especially if they needed to reload the ballistae. Otherwise, they would end up engaging in close combat.
“We can only do this! Raise the sails, all units, fall back!” Kuai Liang felt frustrated. Initially, the battle was going well but suddenly this had to happen. It was as if they were being made fun of. Luckily, Kuai Liang’s heart was in a good condition. If it happened to someone with a bad heart, he would already be sent to the next life.
“Trying to increase the distance?” Zhou Yu could see the Jingzhou Navy struggling to reload the ballista. He knew that Kuai Liang is increasing the distance to buy time. Zhou Yu will not give him this opportunity. He has also learned from Jiang Qin’s soldiers about what happened during the fight with Gan Ning.
If they did not chase Gan Ning’s navy, Gan Ning would chase them and shoot them down. When they decided to chase Gan Ning, Gan Ning would fall back and prevent them from catching him. It was this annoying strategy that destroyed Jiang Qin’s navy.
The current battlefield was different. Although the wars.h.i.+ps were the same as Gan Ning’s and the Jingzhou Navy were stronger than Gan Ning’s Navy, the biggest difference was that this battle has Zhou Yu, the number 2 figure in the whole of Jiangdong.
“Not the same wind, not the same water, not the same river! Master Zi Rou, your death would not be worthwhile!” Zhou Yu muttered to himself. Sure enough, Kuai Liang found something wrong. Their speed was slower than the Jiangdong Army. At the rate they were going, they would be caught before they could reload the ballistae!
The critical point was that they were both going downstream right now and could turn into Jiangdong. Kuai Liang had chased Zhou Yu’s flags.h.i.+p so that the ballistae was aiming Zhou Yu’s s.h.i.+p when he needed to fall back. As a result, they needed to turn the s.h.i.+p around but s.h.i.+ps during that era could not execute U-turns. As a result, the Jingzhou Navy’s wars.h.i.+ps experience more resistance compared to the Zhou Yu’s Navy. Once they were caught, they would be torn apart by Zhou Yu’s Navy as most of the navy were not harmed. Kuai Liang did not believe that his less than 7,000 soldiers could win Jiangdong’s 20,000 soldiers. In that case, Sanjiangkou would be Kuai Liang’s grave.